Dear Christian friends:

Power is a very important item for us. A few months ago we read and saw what happened to New York City when the electric power failed. Nearer home this month two blizzards broke power lines to Duluth and southern Minnesota and people had no light and no heat for their homes.

We may have machines and ideas and plans, but without power, they are no good. So we need spiritual power, too. You may know how to serve God. You may have good plans and ideas and intentions, but without power you can't serve God.

Our text today tells us about the power we can have to serve God.


First, we need to understand our service to God. There is much misunderstanding. Paul speaks of "dead works." The dead works of the Jews, their various rituals and sacrifices. They thought their doing of these things pleased God and won salvation for them.

Even though they didn't want to do sacrifices of animals they were meant by God to be hints, or prophesies of the one great true and only sacrifice for sin Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

But they failed to see this and that their animals and deeds earned forgiveness of sins. Jesus needed their consciences cleansed from these dead works. What are the dead works of people today?

Obeying the Ten Commandments because of duty or force. There good when police are watching or other people can see. But sin in the dark.

Church members think our doing church duties and worship duties makes us good and wins salvation. Going to the Lord's Supper, confessing sins. Sorrow for sins. Many think these deeds win God's favor and earn forgiveness. These are all "dead works." They count for nothing. Judas was sorry, He confessed his sin but He was not saved. So with Cain. Masons do the same and many religious people. These are all dead works and not a service to God.

What is true service to God? Only what we do freely, gladly and with love for God. "Service the Lord with gladness" (Psalm 100:2) "Love is the fulfilling of the Law." (Romans 13:10) "But by love serve one another." (Galatians 5:13) This love is also the power by which we serve God.

"We love him, because he first loved us." (1 John 4:10) "I will write my laws into their minds so that they will always know my will, and I will put my laws in their hearts so that they will want to obey them." (Hebrews 10:16)

Our text, "How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!" (Hebrews 9:14)

Many Christian churches have a cross set at the peak of the steeple, but there is a church in a little village in Norway which is called the "Church of the Lamb", because it has a metal lamb on the steeple instead of a cross. The villagers all know the story and will tell visitors how it happened that a lamb was placed on the steeple instead of a cross.

When the church was being built, a workman high up on the steeple lost his footing and fell. It was a very high steeple and the fall would almost certainly have killed him. But just at the moment a little flock of sheep happened to be passing by the church, and the workman fell directly on one of them. The lamb was killed, but the workman was saved.

As that workman was thankful and grateful so much more should we feel great love and thanks to Jesus. Jesus is our Lamb. "The Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world." (John 1:29)

Here's how we receive power to serve God and please Him, by remembering His great love for us again and again. That's why God wants us to pray daily and come to church often. To remember how He loves us and forgives us. He doesn't want us to feel forced about this or think our deeds themselves earn forgiveness. No, Jesus once and for all finished that offering. What you do or fail to do can't change His perfect offering for our sin.

But we need to hear about it often, so we don't lose our faith and love in Him, so we will have the power to resist evil and temptation and serve Him freely and gladly.

A man was very crabby and didn't like to help people. One day the mail carrier who was a Christian asked him why he was so bitter all the time. He said he was bitter because he lost his only son in the war. The mail carrier said, "Well you know God, has only one Son too and God sacrificed Him on the cross to take away our sins." After that the man began to see how greatly God loved him and he was now a different man.

Of course we are still tempted and often forget, but God's love can change us too.

We hope it will change us more and more this Lent and Easter Season because at this time God's great love is made very plain to us.

Amen.