“Abide in My Word”
John 8:31-32
140th Anniversary—Holton Lutheran Church
30 August 2009
In Jesus’ Name
It is a privilege to be here today. It is a privilege to be asked to preach for your 140th anniversary Sunday.
It is a joy to be here today and, once again, to stand in this pulpit; and it feels good!
It is good to see the old faces; it’s just that a few of your faces have gotten older while neither Teresa or I think that we have gotten any older.
But today is not just about reminiscing (although reminiscing is good). Why have we gathered today and what do we recall? Our Lord Jesus answers that for us in our text for this anniversary morning:
John 8:31-32: Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (ESV)
One hundred-forty years ago this congregation was organized. To put this into historical perspective: that was four years after the end of the Civil War; Ulysses S. Grant was president of the United States; and the community of Holton wouldn’t yet be organized as a village until two years later.
In 1869, Pastor Johannes Bergh walked the eighteen miles from the Norwegian Synod parsonage in Muskegon. The first settlers of Norwegian and Danish descent had settled here five years earlier. If they received any ministerial services prior to this, it was necessary for them to walk to Muskegon or Claybank. What a joyous day it must now have been to have a minister in their midst! He preached the gospel to weary souls! No doubt, he administered the Lord’s Supper to the hungry communicants! Possibly, on that day he also administered Baptism to children! What a joyous day that must have been! And the Norwegian “prest” returned three more times that year.
Hopefully, this account helps us put into perspective what’s important today and just what we are observing. It is not important that this congregation was established as the third-oldest Norwegian congregation in the state of Michigan. It’s not important that four different names have been associated with the congregation—Cedar Creek, Scandinavian, Immanuel, Holton. It is not important that there have been three church buildings or nineteen different pastors. If those things are all that are important, then we are no different than any other lodge, club or organization in Muskegon or Newaygo Counties.
I.
So, what’s important about this anniversary? Jesus tells us in our text this morning. There He says, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.
He speaks about being disciples and remaining as disciples. In the Great Commission, our Redeemer says, Make disciples of all nations [by] baptizing them (Matthew 28:19). In preparing for today, I have discovered that throughout the 140 years of this congregation, there have been 960 baptisms. 960 times when the Lord’s command was carried out and water was sprinkled with the words I baptize you into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). It doesn’t matter if those words were spoken in Norwegian or English; if they were spoken in a cabin, at one of the two churches which were built at the cemetery, or right here at this font. The Lord’s command was being fulfilled. His sacrament was being administered and disciples were being made. 960 times faith was begun.
That’s what’s important!
II.
There’s another important number: the number of confirmations. In these 140 years, there have been 566 confirmations; when individuals confirmed their faith in the Triune God as it is taught in the Holy Bible and as they learned it from Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.
Jesus says in our text, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth. Just having a name on a church membership list is not enough—there must be a personal faith which knows the truth of what God has done. That is what has occurred in all these confirmations. The absolute “truth” of God’s word of the Bible has been taught and learned (John 17:17):
–The truth that God is our heavenly Father, who not only has created us with a body and a soul, but who preserves us and cares for us day-by-day.
–The truth that God is our Savior who took on our flesh-and-blood when He was born in Bethlehem, that He suffered for our transgressions, that He died as the penalty for our sins, that He rose again in triumph to announce that all our sins have been forgiven.
–And the truth that this faith is imparted to us today through the working of God the Holy Spirit in the Means of Grace.
As all these individuals have confessed their faith in the one true God through the rite of confirmation, they also have demonstrated that they were ready to receive the Savior’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. We can’t begin to know how many services of the Sacrament of the Altar have been conducted; in church, around the kitchen table, at sick-beds in hospital rooms. But we do know that in each one was the comfort of the truth of the gospel of forgiveness of sins through the body and blood of Jesus Christ who sacrificed His body and blood upon the cross to gain the forgiveness of our sins.
That’s what’s important!
III.
Next, in our text, Jesus says, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. The faith which knows that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6) gives us the freedom from the guilt, the punishment and the power of sin (Catechism, Q152). We are forgiven. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him (Isaiah 53:5).
So there is yet a third number which is important today. Throughout these 140 years, there have been 260 funerals. With each of those funerals, the Lord’s words through St. Peter have come true: you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:9). As our Savior says, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free—free from the consequences of sin and free to rejoice in the presence of the Lord, with all His saints and angels, throughout all eternity in heaven.
That’s what’s important!
+ + +
So what about today? What about our anniversary observance? What’s important? Not the details of the history and definitely not the church buildings.
What is important is the 960 souls who were baptized.
What is important is the 566 souls who were confirmed.
What is important is the 260 souls who have gone to heaven.*
* Through the 140 years, there also have been 254 weddings.
What is important is the 300 members who confess their faith here, and who yet await the day of our Savior’s return.
What is important today is that we still heed Jesus’ declaration of our text, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. If you fail to abide in Jesus’ word, then your anniversary observation is in vain. There are other Lutheran church bodies who have chosen, by vote, to deviate from what the Bible teaches. But to abide with Jesus means that we must hold-to His word of the Holy Bible. Think back to New Testament times. Jesus had power to still storms. He fed hungry crowds and healed illnesses. They all had an impact and drew people to listen to Him. But how did He make disciples? He taught them about Himself. How did He keep disciples? He held them by His word.
“We still have Jesus’ word today. His word leads us to him and keeps us with him. The mark of true followers of Jesus is that they remain true to his word, where they learn the truth, and the truth makes them free” [Gary Baumler, John, page 129].
We must abide in that saving word today; not deviating to the right or to the left. The Holy Spirit works to produce and preserve faith only where the inspired word of the Bible is taught in its truth and purity, where it is practiced in life, and where the sacraments are rightly administered.
Someone once said that this Holton congregation is known for training the leaders in the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and then sending them on: Pastor Unseth, Raymond Branstad, George Orvick, Jim Olsen. And we thank you!
Pastor U.V.Koren one of the founding fathers of our synod (who was alive and preaching 140 years ago) wrote:
It follows … that those who will hear God’s Word rightly must not tolerate false doctrine, because it tells either that God has said something which He has not said or it denies that God has said something which He has said. We can also … in everything which concerns our salvation judge the doctrine according to the Word of God which we have in our Small Catechsim, so that it is not alone the business of the [pastors].
If God has given us His Word, then we have no right to hear one part and let the other part lie; neither will we hear only the Gospel, or only the Law; nor will we change them and mix Law and Gospel, for then it will no longer be God’s Word.
Further, if God has given us His Word, then it follows that it is not different for different times. God does not say something new to us which He did not say to our forefathers. We need it the same now as they needed it in the apostles’ time. The Holy Spirit is not a wavering spirit.
If God has given us His Word, then He does so in order that we shall hear it and learn it … [U.V. Koren, Truth Unchanged, Unchanging, pp. 114-15].
What is important is that, through God’s working, there have been 140 years of preaching and God’s word. 140 years of God’s sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in our midst.
What is important is that, through God’s grace in Jesus Christ, we shall someday be gathered to our Father’s bosom. And after we are gone that we will have left to the next generation the true Christian heritage which was conferred to us.
… our thankful children will seek our resting places and sigh with tears in their eyes: Rest in peace, you dear, pious parents in the bosom of the earth from all your labors! You yourselves were poor and in need, and had to battle with many a hardship, yet you nevertheless thought about us and for us have secured the best treasure, the saving Word of our God. –Then they will shed tears of gratitude after us, and finally follow us in a blessed death into the kingdom of heaven. There they will rejoice in unspeakable joy with us and with the entire triumphant church forever. [C.F.W.Walther, The Word of His Grace, page 127].
What we yet do here is nothing different that that which was done 140 years ago. We gather—to hear God’s Word, to administer His sacrament of Baptism, and to receive His sacrament of the Altar. That’s what we celebrate. That is where we find the evidence of the grace of the triune God in our midst!
That is what is important!
Rev. Craig A. Ferkenstad
To God Alone
Be The Glory