2009 Theme: For you O Lord are my hope, my trust, from my youth ... O God do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come” --Psalm 71
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June 5 - Rummage Sale
June 5 - Sacramento Food Bank Distribution
June 21-25 - Vacation Bible School
Shalom Newsletter May 2010
Pastor's Desk June 2010
Focusing on both passive and active righteousness
Christian stewardship addresses all aspects of life. It is the free and joyous activity of the child of God and God's family the church in managing all of life and life's resources for God's purposes. Unfortunately, for many Christians, there is a disconnect between what they say they believe and what they do. This issue of StewardCAST will concentrate on the need for stewardship education in the congregation to focus on both passive and active righteousness.
In Faith as a Way of Life, Christian Scharen writes:
Christian faith cannot simply be summed up in the dying and rising that makes us Christ's own. Too often, such core Christian ideas are turned into beliefs thought to encapsulate the core of Christianity. Yet Christian faith is not merely a set of beliefs about God, Jesus, baptism, or new life. No, Christian faith is a gift of God that entails dying to one way of life and rising to another lived not for ourselves, but for God. To receive Christian faith is, in St. Paul's words, "to walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). Paul shows that Christian faith is not simply a state of mind or a belief that has no practical consequences for daily living. Rather, it is a way of life marked by the mysterious union with Christ described by Paul in these words: "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20)..Faith as a way of life is not given simply that we might be at one with God, assured of our special place in cosmic history. No, God's saving gift of faith shapes daily life lived in and for the sake of God's reconciling work in the world (page 4).
Concordia Seminary professors, Dr. Charles Arand and Dr. Joel Biermann, speak to the issue of faith as a way of life in an article entitled, "Why the Two Kinds of Righteousness?"
Righteousness has to do with meeting God's 'design specifications' for being a human creature and fulfilling the purpose for which God created us..On the one hand, human righteousness before God flows from God's activity toward us.In creation, God formed Adam from the dust and breathed into him the breath of life. In redemption, the human creature lay on a slab in the morgue until God's miracle of revivification. Thus, before God we are entirely passive, and so our righteousness is passive, not active.On the other hand, and at the same time, righteousness in the world with our fellow creatures depends on our carrying out our God-entrusted tasks-tasks spelled out with sufficient specificity in the Law both revealed and written on human hearts-within our walks of life for the good of creation.And so in the eyes of the world our righteousness is ever active, never passive.
Arand and Biermann, Concordia Journal, April 2007. Pages 118-119.
To properly understand the identity and the work of the steward, an understanding of both passive and active righteousness is necessary. The identity of the Christian steward (who the steward is in Christ) belongs in the area of passive righteousness. The activity of the Christian steward (what the steward does as a result of who he/she is in Christ) falls in the area of active righteousness.
The Christian steward understands that he/she is saved by grace alone. The Christian steward, in response to God's love in Christ, also acknowledges that he/she has responsibilities and obligations to others and to the creation God has given him/her to manage.
Christians do not seek and desire only the passive righteousness of Christ before God. They also seek active righteousness for the good of the human community.In both realms, God works to accomplish His will for creation: the passive righteousness of faith as well as the active righteousness of human creatures by which He preserves the world. In other words, the distinction between the two realms reveals the distinct works of God within human life: God's providential/sustaining work through the Law and God's redemptive/restorative work through the Gospel.
Arand and Biermann, Concordia Journal, April 2007. Pages 133-134.
The things we do in service to the neighbor flow out of our identity in Jesus which is given in faith. May God comfort and compel you with this gift of faith.
In Christ,
Pastor Ryan