Luther reminds us in his explanation to the second article of the Apostles' Creed that Jesus redeemed us "not with gold or silver but with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death." Our life is changed before Him because he gave everything to take the consequences of our sin and to give us His righteousness. We can claim to be perfect IN HIM by faith.

When standing before God, money and health and good behavior mean nothing. The triune God equips us, with His Godly mercy, to love people with His forgiveness. The Holy Spirit, from within us, urges us on, to love and care for others and to announce the Good News. We "hand out freely" the story about His precious blood shed for all.

I am a very slow-paced jogger so I notice what is along my path. On a recent jog-walk, for example, I found three dimes and nine pennies. All of the money I find gets added into a fund for Lutheran Bible Translators. But some coins are so beat up that they are not even worth a penny. The machine at the bank kicks them out as worthless. Two of those nine pennies that I found are not even worth a penny anymore.

Those beat-up pennies reminded me of a children's sermon that I gave at Bethlehem on the east side of St. Paul some years ago. Most of our children at Emmaus are too young for me to use it here (coins into the mouth!). One time I brought about fifteen or twenty "worthless" pennies to church, to give one to each of the children. I reminded them that none of us are worthless to God. He "paid" the ultimate price to give us eternal value and to restore us.

One of the older members, a good friend of mine who had been a baker and had become a shut-in, always wondered about his usefulness in life. I sent one of those pennies home with his daughter, who said he would have enjoyed that children's sermon. Imagine my surprise some time later when I went to visit at the funeral home after he died. His wife and daughter placed that penny between his thumb and first finger as he lay in the casket. They told many people who came to pay their respects the story about his worth in Christ who asked about that penny.

We are all given our worth by our Lord, not by our own merits. I write this the morning after we celebrated the Lord's resurrection. I spoke about "our" ideas of worthiness dying. We have been reshaped as "brand new" people by the grace of God in Christ: worthless alone, but worth that much to God! Do not put down anyone for whom Christ died, including yourself! "Gospel" yourself each day! Worship and read the Scriptures so that His love will fill your heart and enable you to love the world as much as He does. He desires that all be saved, since he has made everyone worthy of His grace.

In Christ our Lord and Savior,
Pastor Thomas Trapp