12-31-21 Grace Lutheran Church All-Site New Year's Eve Sermon

Pastor Tim Patoka

New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2021

The Lord’s Help in Every Changing Time Hebrews 13:5-8,14 1) The Lord’s Help is Constant and Unchanging 2) Christians Remain Unafraid in Every Changing Time When I look back at 2021, I end up thinking the same as I do when I look back at most years – with the conclusion that there is a time for everything and everything will have its time. Hardship is replaced with relaxation until hardship comes again. Winter’s cold gives away to summer’s heat until winter comes again.

Even who we are as people and what we do to fill our free time tends to follow the same pattern. When we realize that there everything will have its time because there is a time for everything, we can perhaps feel a bit trapped. Like we’re stuck in a rut we can’t get out as we go through the same ever changing times over and over.

As we prepare to close out a calendar year and welcome in a new one, we can be certain that every changing times will continue. If you’ve ever felt trapped by this or resigned to it, then I have good news for you. Though we live in ever changing times, we have our Lord’s help in every one of them. For the Lord’s help is constant and unchanging and, because of that, we Christians can remain unafraid as we go through every changing time.

1) The Lord’s Help is Constant and Unchanging When change happens, so does our response to them. Thinking of some of the major changes we’ve witnessed this past year, we saw how governmental buildings got heightened security in light of the January 6’s storming of our nation’s Capitol. We’ve seen how Covid guidance has changed as the situation changed with the rollout of the vaccine, the happy days of June, and the rising loom of the Delta and Omicron variants. We’ve learned to be patient for supplies to arrive in light of container ships getting stuck in canals or waiting to be offloaded. And I know you’ve had your own examples in your own life from this past year. When things change, so does our response.

Yet our Lord’s response to our ever changing times is quite different. In fact, it is constant and unchanging! Part of this is due to who our Lord is. We heard about Jesus Christ who, “is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8 EHV) As God said in Malachi chapter 3(:6) how he is unchanging, so our Savior is also unchanging. From our unchanging Lord comes his constant promise, 1

Pastor Tim Patoka

New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2021

“I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:6 EHV quoting Deuteronomy 31:6 and Joshua 1:5) As God assured young Joshua taking over the reins from Moses, so he assures his children today that he is constantly with us in our ever-changing times.

When we compare the Lord’s constant and unchanging help with man’s typical pattern of changing the solution based on the specific problem, we can sometimes question our Lord’s help. Perhaps we doubt the Lord’s help because we think that he needs to update his help. It’s not enough to tell us that God is always with us and that he will never change. We need to be told how God will help us in our specific circumstances. And when the only thing we hear from God is what he has already said in his Word, doubt creeps into our hearts and our minds can think if God is perhaps a bit out of date or unloving to not give us what we want.

However, the Lord doesn’t need to update his promise to help. Because he will surely do so in his constant and unchanging way. Because our Savior is unchanging, so too are the blessings and promises he states in his Word. Because our Lord is always with us, we are never alone or forgotten by God. While it’s true that God doesn’t exactly tell us how he will fulfill his promises, we know he will.

Think back to this 2021 year and how the Lord constantly and unchangingly helped you in your every time. Remember how he worked through others to give you what you needed at the proper time. That all happened because of our Lord’s constant and unchanging help. And we know that he will continue to do this in the year to come and every year afterwards.

2) Christians Remain Unafraid in Every Changing Time With the assurance of the Lord’s constant and unchanging help, we then face every changing time unafraid. It is this assurance that brings us to say along with the writer of Hebrews, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6 EHV quoting Psalm 118:6) No matter what sinful man may throw our way or what sinful situations may arise, the Lord will be with his children along with his constant and unchanging help. There is truly nothing to be afraid of.

Such an unafraid mindset will then show itself as we go through our everchanging times. Our verses from Hebrews mention three things in particular. One is that our lives are free from the love of money because we are content with what God has already given to us. There is nothing in this world that can out value our Lord’s constant and unchanging help for us. As such, if we have God, what else 2

Pastor Tim Patoka

New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2021

could we want? Nothing! Rather, we can be content with what the Lord has already blessed us with.

Unafraid of our ever-changing times, we secondly imitate the faith of our religious leaders who have passed away. Remember the faith they taught you when they spoke God’s Word to you and showed you what is yours through faith in your unchanging Savior. Then look at the outcome of their faith – they’re free from life’s rut of constant change because they’re now in heaven above. While our verses from Hebrews only mentions our deceased religious leaders, you can also include our departed members of Grace that we’ll later remember in our worship service. If we imitate their same faith in Jesus as our Savior, then we will certainly share in their same outcome of freedom this life’s rut of constant change because we’ll finally be in heaven.

Unafraid of every changing time, we lastly look for the permanent city that we’ll call home in heaven. As Christians, our home is not where we come from but where we are going. As such, our perspective changes to what is now before us.

We do not find life’s fulfillment in what we can have and do on this side of heaven. Rather, we ultimately find it in what is promised to be ours in heaven. As such, we don’t get too attached to things here or up in arms when our every changing time messes up our plans.

Yet here again ever-changing times can make us afraid despite having the Lord’s constant and unchanging help. Change is always scary, even when it’s for our good! And thinking from this past year, we know how often change happens for less than desirable reasons. From this, fear can have ripple effects in our reaction to life’s every changing times.

For one, fear of our ever-changing times can make us lovers of money and not content with what the Lord has already blessed us. We know that one sure-fire way to deal with change is to have money set aside to weather the rainy days and adapt to the new normal. And so fear of what could happen has us lose sight of the Lord’s constant and unchanging help, fall in love with money, and want everything that this world can offer.

Secondly, fear of life’s ever-changing times discourages from imitating the faith of our deceased religious leaders. When we look back to their days through our rose-colored glasses, we can wrongly think of how much easier it was to be a Christian then. Why, if we only had their hardships to bear, we could easily imitate their faith! But because our hardships of a different quality are thought to be more 3

Pastor Tim Patoka

New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2021

difficult, we hear that siren’s call to leave the faith of those who have gone before us so we can veer off into sin and supposedly have it easier.

Such fear of every changing time finally tempts us to look for what is here before us instead of looking for that permanent city we’ll call home in heaven.

Perhaps it’s because of the problems that are currently on your mind. As you plan your 2022 budget, how hard will it be for you to continue thankfully giving in proportion to your income in light of rising inflation, market uncertainties, and the looming coronavirus? Or perhaps you find it hard to keep your focus on heaven instead of earth because of the ever-persuasive force that instant gratification is – to get what you want when you want it instead of holding out for the much better pleasure in heaven.

How can we be free from fear of life’s ever-changing times so that we don’t fall into any of these traps? We go to our Lord and his constant and unchanging help in our every changing time. While our times are in a constant state of flux, our Lord’s unique help will always be there and doing what he has said in ways we’ll often learn about afterwards. As such, we are unafraid of what will happen to us as we close out a calendar year filled with changing times and enter a new one that will have its own set of changing times.

With unafraid hearts and minds, we then listen to Hebrews’ suggested ways to respond to our ever-changing times. We keep our life free from the love of money by being content with what God has already blessed us. After all, if we God on our side, what else do we need? Nothing! We imitate the faith of our deceased brothers and sisters in Christ. They are now enjoying what they taught to us from God’s Word and so can we if we continue in their same trust in Jesus. We look forward to the permanent city that will be ours in heaven when we will finally feel at home. And whatever happens to us on our way there can’t change that fact.

Concluding Encouragements As we have seen in this past 2021 year, there is a time for everything because everything will have its time. But before we close it out once and for all, let us consider how our Lord has constantly and unchangingly helped us through all the changing times we went through this past year. So he will in the year to come and every changing time ahead of us because he is unchanging and he will never leave us. Clinging to this assurance, we therefore remain unafraid in every changing time as we live as children of God with an eye on what will be ours for all eternity. Amen.

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