All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16)

As of my birthday this year, I had lived 14,975 days. That's about half the number of days the average American can expect to live. We normally measure our age by the number of years we have lived, but maybe David was onto something when he wrote the words of this psalm verse and described his life in terms of days.

We generally take for granted each day that the sun will come up, we will go about our routine and then go to bed that night. Unless we have something exciting planned, we don't expect one day to be much different from the next. But life has a way of changing our plans all too unexpectedly, doesn't it? We don't start off a day expecting to have a car accident, to lose a job, to hear an ominous diagnosis from the doctor or to go to the hospital. When you stop to think of it that way, isn't it foolish of us to assume that one day will be like the next as if we can control what happens? The book of James even tells us: "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow...Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil" (James 4:14-16). It is the height of sinful human arrogance for us to live our lives as if we can count on what will happen on any given day.

But through David, the LORD invites us to look at our days God's way. David had some tough days. One day he had to fight the giant, Goliath. For many days he hid in caves, running from King Saul who wanted to kill him. And those were just some of the bad days David had. David even knew how miserable sin and guilt can make each day when for about a year he refused to confess his sin of committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband. Yet we don't find David complaining about how lousy those days were. Instead he calmly acknowledges to the LORD, "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Even before the day when David was conceived or the day he came from his mother's womb, David was on the LORD's schedule. The LORD knew everything that would happen on every day of David's life. And as we read Bible history and see David's life unfold, we see the LORD working on those days in such a way that in both good and bad times he guided David like a shepherd to bring him to heaven.

The same Good Shepherd knows every one of our days too even before we do--even before those days come to be. Even before the sun rises he knows the joys and sorrows that will fill those days. Perhaps today will be your last day on earth. Perhaps today you'll get tragic news. Those things might surprise us, but they won't surprise the God before whom all of our days are crystal clear. Remember, the LORD is our God who made this universe from nothing in six days and who raised our Savior from death on the third day. He is the gracious, forgiving God who has appointed a final day on which he will judge the world and take his believers to heaven. Though we are less powerful to control the events of our days than we think, the things that happen on any given day are not beyond the control of our almighty, all-knowing God. No matter how many days on earth he gives you, he has them already recorded in his book and he will use those days to guide you with his word to the endless day of heaven.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. (Psalm 139:13-15)

If you see a stunt often enough, it no longer looks too special or out of the ordinary. If we saw a miracle every day, we'd get used to it and it wouldn't look very remarkable either. No wonder that David wrote the verses of our text to remind us of the miracle that we see every time we look into the mirror.

Every human being is a miracle, for we didn't just pop into existence on our own or by the chance process of evolution. We are nothing less than the carefully and deliberately planned creations of God. God created our first parents, Adam and Eve, when he was finishing his creation on the sixth day. Each of us has descended from Adam and Eve through the natural reproductive process, but nevertheless each of us is nothing short of a miracle in which God had a hand.

"You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb," David says. None of us are here just because our parents chose to have children. God is responsible for shaping and forming us in the womb. There may be unwanted children and unplanned pregnancies--but not to God! He is the one who gets the credit for fertilizing an egg cell and causing that cell to multiply and grow into a complete human being. Though you may feel like you don't belong and may struggle for identity in this world, the fact is that God put you together, knitting you together much as a grandmother carefully and lovingly knits a woolen sweater. Regardless of the circumstances of your birth, you are no accident! God was responsible for putting you together, so you can rest assured that you do have a reason for being here.

And God put you together with amazing forethought. David had to confess that he was fearfully and wonderfully made. Because we live with the wonders of our bodies every day, we so often fail to appreciate these marvels of God's creation until something malfunctions. But stop to think about some of the systems and functions God has given you: A heart that beats without you even thinking about it as it pumps life-sustaining blood through your circulatory system--a system which could stretch around the earth twice if its parts were joined end-to-end. Eyes that blink an average of 13 times per minute and automatically adjust to let in the right amount of light for you to see. (The eye is such a wondrous creation that it stumped even Darwin.) Arms and legs that move in just about any direction. How can anyone who has studied medicine fail to notice the wisdom and power of a Creator in the wonders of the human body?

Even sin has not totally tarnished the beauty of this creation of God. Though we suffer illness, organ failure and death, we still remain the crowning achievement of God's creation. We are, after all, the only living creatures whom God took the time to form from the dust of the ground and breathe life into. More than that, we are the only creatures with a soul, designed to have a loving and perfect relationship with God as our heavenly Father. And to fix that relationship once sin had broken it, God sent his Son into the world as a human being also created in the womb of his virgin mother. Though he lives in a body totally unaffected by sin, Jesus Christ felt in his flesh the pain and suffering that our sins earned us. He went through the most traumatic bodily experience of all--death--in order to give us the blessed eternal joy of heaven. But this holy Savior suffered death on a cross and rose to life again to take our sins away and to restore the broken relationship with our Maker.

We are amazing creatures--not just because we are created in our Maker's image but also because as God's baptized people we are clothed in our Redeemer's righteousness. The next time you look into the mirror, take a moment to notice God's handiwork, and join David in praising the LORD who has fearfully and wonderfully made you.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:11-12)

According to some studies, more crime takes place at night than in the daytime. There are probably a few reasons for that. Nighttime might be the ideal time to catch a crime victim sleeping. At night there will likely be fewer witnesses to report a crime in progress or speak to investigators afterward. But nighttime is also a preferred time for a crime because some criminals feel that the dark of night is deal for hiding a crime.

It shouldn't surprise us that people are more willing to commit crimes under the cover of darkness. St. Paul wrote, "Those who get drunk, get drunk at night" (1 Thessalonians 5:7). Jesus once said, "Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed" (John 3:20). Sinful human beings live under the delusion that doing something in the dark makes it harder for God to notice. Or at least we feel like we can overlook the things that our sinful nature wants to do if we're not so brazen as to do them in broad daylight.

David the psalmist knew differently. In our consideration of Psalm 139, we have seen that God knows our every thought and every word and that he is everywhere, unlimited by physical space as we are. In the verses 11 and 12, David pokes a hole in the absurd notion that darkness can hide a person from God.

"If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,' even the darkness will not be dark to you," David says. Here David sounds like the sinner who hopes to get away with some sin by hiding it from God's sight. At one point in his life, David would have liked to hide his sins under the cover of darkness. The night he committed adultery with Bathsheba, David somewhere in his heart probably hoped God wasn't paying attention. It's equally absurd for us to hope the same thing. Whether the sin is some form of adultery, drunkenness or theft, doing it at night in no way hinders God from seeing exactly what we are doing. Pitch darkness is just as bright to God as the sun on a cloudless day. No matter how much we wish for a way to hide our sins from God, he sees them all. For God, night shines just as brightly as the day and does just as little to keep our sins from him. If we think there is any way to hide our sins from God and so to escape his punishment, we're only kidding ourselves.

But when we confess our sins to God and realize that he is gracious and merciful and wants to forgive us, the fact that darkness does not hide us from him is such a relief. He who created light at the very first moment of creation is also the light of the world, who entered this sin-darkened world in human flesh in order bring light to us spiritually blind sinners. God the Son came to earth not only to expose the sins we commit in the darkness but also to lift the veil of hell's darkness by doing away with it at the cross. In Christ we have true light--spiritual light. In him we have the clearly-lighted path to heaven because he washed away our sins and has risen from death for us. His word lights the way to heaven and it also lights our way through this life as it shows us how to live our lives of thanks to him.

It's also a relief to know that darkness is as light to God because then we know he won't fail to notice us when we need him. It's not unusual for people to feel more alone at night. Darkness wraps us up like a blanket and makes us feel isolated from the outside world. People who live alone feel more secluded and lonely at night. But darkness is as light to the LORD. When you wake up at night and there's no human contact, God still sees you just as if it were noon. And as he has assured us repeatedly in his word, he is with us always. As David says, darkness will not be dark to God. Our gracious and ever-present God is with us always and won't fail to see us when we need him and call on him for help.

Praise God that even darkness is as light to him!

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. Psalm 139:7-10

One of the fundamental laws of physics is that nothing can be in two different places at the same time. It is also a fundamental law of physics that no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. Those truths are so obvious that we just take them for granted.

But how mind-boggling it is to consider those physical laws and think about what David says in these verses from Psalm 139. Although you and I and every other living thing can only be in one place at a time, the LORD himself who created this universe in which we live is not bound by the physical laws he created. At this very moment, God is with you. At the same time he is with some believer on the other side of the world. He is up there on the planet Mars. He is miles beneath the surface of the ocean where the sun never shines. There is no place in all of creation where God himself is not.

We could try to fathom this mystery, but we would fail because it goes beyond our scientific reasoning. It is more important that we see what it means for us to have a God who is present everywhere.

If at any moment God is present at any given place, that means he was there the last time I sinned. Even though I can't see God, he was there and saw exactly what I did. No matter where I go today or what I do, God is already there. He will be an eyewitness of and a firsthand listener to everything I say and do. That's kind of a scary thought, isn't it? What if a parent or a police officer stood beside us 24 hours a day? We'd watch our steps and chose our words a little more closely and we'd be terrified of stepping out of line for fear that we'd get a slap on the wrist--or something more serious--right away. Isn't it even more terrifying to hear that God is everywhere and that I can't escape him, even though my sinful heart would like to get away from him so that I can sin without fear? That's impossible though. We're only kidding ourselves if we think can sin without the LORD being right there to witness the whole thing.

On the other hand, what a relief and a joy it is to know that our God who loves us and gave up his Son to save us is everywhere. Our Savior Jesus who was crucified as punishment for our sins and was raised to life because God forgives our sins is everywhere. That means no matter where I go, my gracious Father loves me and is watching over me. Even up in the highest heavens, David says, God is there. When you're up in the airplane looking down on God's earth, he is there too. If you're crawling through a cave or swimming underwater, God is there. Up or down, north or south, east or west, there is no place and no direction you can go where God is not. He's there to watch over you, to protect you and to see exactly what you're going through. He's there as your gracious, forgiving God who pardons your sins for the sake of our Savior Jesus. No matter where we are or how alone we feel, we are never truly alone. In the LORD we have a God is already everywhere we will ever go.

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. (Psalm 139:1-6)

How well do you know your best friend? Or your spouse? Or your children? Even if you do have an excellent relationship with the person to whom you are the closest, there are still things you don't know about him or her. While you might know each other well enough to finish each other's sentences, you can't always be sure what words are about to come out of that person's mouth or what that person is thinking--especially when he or she isn't with you.

But our God does know us that well. He's like a mind-reader. He knows us without limits, as David the psalmist declares in these verses from Psalm 139. Because the LORD knows us completely, the LORD knows even the most minute details about us. He knows when we sit down, when we get out of bed in the morning, where we go and what we do. He knows our thoughts from afar, David tells us. Though we can't see the LORD and he may therefore seem far away, he knows the thoughts going through our minds and hearts and he knows the words which are about to form from those thoughts.

How does it feel to know that God knows your every thought and word even before those thoughts and words have crystallized in the mind and on the tongue?

For us sinners, that's a shameful, even terrifying, concept. If God knows what I'm about to think before I think it, he knows the evil that I'm planning in my heart. He knows if I'm going to think up a way to strike back at someone who hurt me. He knows if I'm going to think indecent thoughts about the lusty images I see on television. He knows that I think there are things I'd love to do more than spend with him in his word. He knows the words I'm about to hurl in anger at my spouse or behind the back of my coworker. God knows all of our thoughts and words before they come into being, and he's not pleased with all of them. Since those thoughts and words are so often laced with evil intent, the LORD as a just God cannot put up with them. Those hidden thoughts and secret words of which we ought to be ashamed will not remain hidden from him because he knows us without limit. And he knows how to give us the unending torment we deserve for such sins.

But for repentant sinners who struggle with sin and guilty consciences, the fact that God knows us so thoroughly is great news! He knows the agony in our hearts as we look back on the sins of our past with regret and remorse. He knows when we wish we had not disobeyed him and when we long for him to have mercy on us. He knows how we want nothing more than to be cleansed of our sins in the blood of Jesus Christ so that we can stand before the LORD and joyfully call him our God.

And what a joy it is to know that our God knows every other thought in our troubled hearts as well! He knows when I lie awake at night, frustrated over the mess that sins have made in my life. He knows my fears about the report I'm going to get from the doctor or about my job which is on the line. He knows how dim the future looks to me as I get older. Not one of my problems or concerns goes unnoticed to my heavenly Father, who knows how to respond to all of them in love and for my eternal good.

The God who reads our minds knew exactly how to deal with our greatest fear--the fear of spending eternity separated from him in hell. God knew what it would take in order to save us from that punishment. And he was willing to pay that price. He punished his Son Jesus for us and took his sinless life as the payment for our sins at the cross of Calvary. Our risen Lord Jesus is now ruling over all things and does everything for our good. In Christ we are holy and blameless before our maker. And now we rejoice to call ourselves children of a heavenly Father who knows everything about us and knows to help us in our troubles.

Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32

Quick--What was the birth date of the Lutheran Church? If you said, "October 31, 1517," that would be a logical guess. Most of us have learned to think of that date as the birthday of the Lutheran Church because on that date Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, marking the beginning of the Reformation.

But another date is coming up on the calendar which would be more fitting to mark as the birth date of the Lutheran Church. That date is June 25. On that date in the year 1530, the Lutheran princes of Germany presented the Augsburg Confession before Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. That event was significant because it was the first time in history when the Lutheran Church had an officially-endorsed statement of teaching for all the world to see.

The Augsburg Confession outlines the teachings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as drawn from the Bible. This document and the other confessions of the Lutheran Church still stand today as statements of what Lutherans teach. We expect our pastors to pledge at ordination to teach according to these confessions. Our congregations make clear in their constitutions that no teaching that conflicts with those confessions will be tolerated.

The Presentation of the Augsburg Confession is a date worth celebrating because confessionalism has fallen out of favor today. Throughout most of the Christian Church today, people are more interested in being ecumenical than confessional. That is, people want to see churches get along and cooperate in social work rather than worry about teaching what God's word says.

What does Jesus think about confessionalism? Is it important for us to hold to a written statement of faith? Look again at the Bible verse above. "If you hold to my teaching," Jesus said, "you are really my disciples." In order to hold to Jesus' teaching, we need to know what that teaching is. We find his teaching in the Scriptures. That teaching needs to be presented and explained clearly. Therefore, a written confession of faith is valuable because it puts into plain words what Jesus wants us to know. It makes clear to all what we teach. Those who wish to study our teaching can compare our confessions with the Scriptures to see if we are in line with the Savior's teaching.

But shouldn't churches put aside denominational differences and work together for the good of society? Isn't that more loving than holding stubbornly to a document that is nearly 500 years old? Look again at Jesus' words. If we hold to his teaching, he says, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." The truth about God's love for sinners is found in his word. We don't hang on to the truth about the Savior when we ignore those teachings of churches that disagree with the Bible. Only the truth that Jesus Christ is our Savior sets us free from a life of slavery to sin and from an eternity in hell. Overlooking teachings that conflict with God's word doesn't proclaim the truth; it endangers the truth. If we allow false teaching to stand on the same level as the truth, eventually we will lose the blessed, saving truth of God's word.

Out of love for the great salvation that we have through Jesus, we want to hold to his teaching. We want to hold to his teaching without compromising or changing one letter of it, no matter how unpopular that teaching is and no matter what we may suffer for it. The eternal life of redeemed souls is on the line! The Son of God gave his life on the cross to wash away our sins and to win this blessing for us. Isn't that worth standing for? The Lutheran princes who presented the Augsburg Confession on June 25, 1530, put their lives and the safety of their territories at risk by standing up to Emperor Charles and the Roman Catholic Church. They took that risk because they valued Christ and his heavenly blessings more than they valued their earthly lives and kingdoms.

May the Holy Spirit lead us to appreciate our Savior's truth ever more deeply so that we too are willing to continue in that truth!

"Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering." Hebrews 13:3

Last Monday our country observed Memorial Day, a day set aside each year to remember those who gave their lives in military service to protect the rest of us. If you pay attention to history, you may have noticed that this Sunday will be the anniversary of the Allied forces landing in Europe during World War II on June 6, 1944. It's another appropriate day to remember. This is a week when we take time to remember those who have fought and died in the struggle to preserve our nation.

While we remember soldiers who fought for our country this week, it's always an appropriate time for Christians to remember other kinds of soldiers--those who are suffering in the spiritual war in which every Christian is a soldier. The writer of our Bible verse tells us to remember those who are in prison. He's talking about our fellow Christians who are wrongly imprisoned because of their faith.

Don't think that this Bible verse is outdated and that Christians don't go to prison for their faith anymore. Even as you read this, Pastor Yang Xuan and his wife Yang Caizhen have been in a Chinese prison for over eight months. Last September the Chinese government destroyed their church building and arrested them along with other church leaders. In Uzbekistan since 2007 Pastor Dmitry Shestakov has been held in a prison 12 hours away from his family where his wife and daughters are allowed to visit him for two days every three months. The stories of these Christians are by no means unique. We don't hear much about such things in our news media, and given our freedom of religion in this country, we probably don't think much about Christians going to prison for their faith. But in fact there are 52 countries in the world where it is illegal or at least dangerous to be a Christian.

Some Christians do go to prison for their faith even today. But those of us who are fortunate enough to avoid such persecution can't afford to just put the thought out of our minds. The writer of Hebrews encourages us to remember our fellow Christians in prison as if we ourselves were suffering.

This Memorial Day and D-Day, have you remembered or will you remember those soldiers who died to preserve our freedoms--including our religious freedom? At the same time will you remember your fellow Christians who have been suffering for their faith? There may be little you can do for Pastor Shestakov or Pastor Yang and his wife, but you can pray for them. You can find websites which tell you how to write to fellow Christians in prison and encourage them to stand strong in the faith. And as a citizen of a country where you enjoy the freedom to practice your faith without official interference, you can do your part as a concerned citizen to defend the freedom we have in our country to worship.

Why would we be concerned about some Christians in prison we've never met? Because we have something in common with those Christians. We share a faith in the Son of God who freed us from the prison of hell and its sentence of eternal death. By his death on the cross, Jesus paid the fine we owed to God for our crimes against his law. Jesus even fulfilled our duty to keep God's laws as he lived his life on earth without sin. Whether we live in a free country or in a country where Christians are persecuted, we believers in Christ are free from the most painful and miserable kind of imprisonment. Since Jesus has set us free from sin and has made us slaves to righteousness, we can thank God for the freedom we have, we can live as faithful stewards of the free country God has given us and we can work and pray for fellow believers around the world who are suffering for their faith. Remember those who are in prison just as God's Son remembered us and set us free from our spiritual chains.

"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." 1 Corinthians 10:12-13

On the first day of Latin class in high school, my teacher pointed to a poster on wall which bore the caption: "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." The point was that when learning Latin--or doing anything else in life--a sure way to fail is to become comfortable with where you are. When we get comfortable in the classroom, on the job or in life, we don't put forth our hardest effort. High grades slip to average grades. Quality work becomes mediocre. And it's not long before we fall behind as others continue to do work hard.

That happens to people in the spiritual race of faith more often than we care to think too. It seems to happen especially to a large number of our young people who finish their confirmation training in 8th grade. One study has shown that of those who get confirmed, two thirds leave the church within five years---and never return!

What are we to make of such a troubling statistic--which is timely because this is the time of year when many congregations have confirmation? (Our own confirmation Sunday will be this weekend.)

"Confirmation" means "strengthening." During the time in which our young people prepare for confirmation day, the Holy Spirit strengthens their faith through a thorough study of the teachings of God's word. While our training prepares us for confirmation day and equips us with the truths we will need for life, our training cannot stop on confirmation day. If it does, we will be like the bicyclist who slows down in the middle of the racetrack. He may know where he's going and may be headed in the right direction, but unless he keeps moving forward, straining toward the finish line, he will come up short of the prize.

That's the warning we need to take from Paul's words for today. If we think we are standing firm--that is, if we think we are strong enough in our Christian faith that we don't need to worry about temptations--we need to watch out so that we don't fall. So many other believers thought they could not lose their faith in the Savior, but they did. King Solomon's many wives turned his heart from the LORD. The Apostles Peter and Judas fell into sin even though Jesus had warned them. Members of previous confirmation classes no longer walk with the Lord.

How can we avoid becoming one of those tragic statistics and missing out on the heavenly prize? First, we need to realize that this warning is for every Christian. None of us dare think that we are strong enough or that we have been Christians long enough that we cannot lose our faith in Christ. Once we admit that we are targets of the devil, we then can take comfort in the promise God makes us in those words of St. Paul: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

The temptations we face are not temptations that cannot be overcome. The problem is that we try to stand up to them on our own. But we have a faithful God and Father. He showed us how faithful he is when he kept his centuries-long promise to send the world a Savior from sin. His Son Jesus Christ became the innocent victim of our sins in his dreadful death on the cross, where he suffered the pain of hell for us. God even raised Jesus from the dead as a sign that our sins are gone and that he credits his Son's holiness to us. The God who promised to do all this kept his word; he is faithful.

He is also faithful to all of his other promises, including the promise that nothing can snatch us out of the hands of our good shepherd. The LORD will hold onto each us just as a loving shepherd takes an injured sheep in his arms and carries it to safety. He will do as he promises and use his word and sacraments to keep our hearts trusting in our Savior. He will also help us to grow in our faith and knowledge of Christ so that we don't just sit there on the racetrack of the Christian faith but actually grow and move forward. But he only promises to do this through his gospel--the same message of forgiveness in Christ that brought us to faith and set us on the road to heaven in the first place.

Are you being confirmed--that is, is your faith being strengthened and is your relationship with the Savior deepening as you listen to his word? He has made you a promise to confirm you and keep you in the faith until the end. Listen as he speaks to you through that word, and watch as he keeps his promise.

"And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets...Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 11:32-12:2

We have reached the end of our tour of the Bible's great Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. Throughout these exhibits we have seen some familiar figures such as Noah, Abraham and Moses. We have seen a few less familiar heroes of faith such as Enoch and Rahab. As we come to the end of our tour, we note two important things about this spiritual museum we have been walking through.

The first is that the writer as our tour guide suddenly announces there is not enough time to finish the tour. In fact, he stops the tour before showing us any of the heroes of faith in the final 1,400 years of Old Testament history. But he doesn't to; he has made his point. The history of God's people clearly documents that through faith in the promises of God, believers have accomplished great things.

The second item to note is that there is still room in the Hall of Faith for more exhibits to be added. And the writer has in mind who should fill the new exhibit in the hall too--you!

We have witnessed all these heroes of faith and we have been inspired by their examples. Now that we have witnessed them, it is as though these now-dead believers whose faith is memorialized in this Hall of Faith are witnessing us who still run the race of faith on earth. Which reminds us why we went on this tour in the first place.

We are still running the race of faith. We are in a spiritual athletic contest with heaven waiting at the finish line. But with all the sins we fall into and with all the temptations hidden along the way, we may easily fail to reach the finish line without God's help. So this tour has been the writer's way to encourage us to keep on running the race.

To run any race, we need to keep our eyes on the finish line. In this race, the finish line is marked with the blood-stained cross of Christ. With our eyes of faith fixed on Jesus, who loved us enough to endure the humiliation of the cross, we continue to run the race of faith. We look to Jesus by looking into his word and being constantly reminded of the history of his sufferings and death--the work he did to wash away our sins and reconcile us to God. We look to Jesus as did the witnesses who surround us in the Hall of Faith.

By remembering Jesus, we find the strength to endure the hard race and to let our faith shine when we have the chance. Do you work in a place where you are surrounded by those who don't like your Christian faith? Look to Jesus, who endured pain and death at the hands of those who hated him. Do you face temptations that you just can't overcome? Look to Jesus, who destroyed the power of the devil and stood up to every temptation for you. Look to Jesus who endured death and hell in his death on the cross and rose to life again in victory.

Then, by the grace of God, you and all who trust in Christ will be entered into the Hall of Faith too. We Christians will join them in heavenly glory and will rise from death to live with our God and with all of his people forever.

May God through his word and sacraments give us the strength to finish the race of faith with our eyes fixed on Jesus.

"By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient." Hebrews 11:31

We come at last to the final exhibit in the Bible's great Hall of Faith in chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews. But what a strange sight for our tour to end on! The last hero in the Hall of Faith is the heroine Rahab--the prostitute in the city of Jericho who gave shelter and safe haven to Israel's when they sneaked into the city to spy it out.

When Joshua became leader of Israel and was about to lead the people in the attack on Jericho (detailed in the previous exhibit), he sent two spies into the city. They stayed in the home of Rahab, who hid the spies when the men of Jericho came looking for them. This was an amazing thing for two reasons: Rahab was not an Israelite and her profession made her disreputable to others. Yet this heathen prostitute set a fine example of faith when the spies came to her home. She said to them, "I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you...Please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death" (Joshua 2:9-13).

Even though Rahab was a non-Israelite and a publicly-recognized sinner, she had heard of the God of Israel and wanted him to be her God. By a miracle of the Holy Spirit, this woman trusted in this God and therefore has a place in the Bible's Hall of Faith. By helping the spies, Rahab showed proper fear of God by receiving the spies. God blessed her by sparing her life and the lives of her family when Israel destroyed Jericho. The fact that someone outside Israel--a prostitute no less--is mentioned here is a great testimony to God’s grace. Rahab is even listed in the New Testament as part of Jesus’ ancestry (Matthew 1:5). God showed such grace to this sinful woman that he integrated her into His plan of salvation history.

None of this is to suggest that Rahab's sins were not serious. Her adulterous lifestyle was just as evil in the eyes of God as our sins. But God was no less gracious to Rahab than he is to us. One great thing about God's grace is that it runs deeper than our deepest sin. Nothing that Rahab did--and nothing that we do--could be greater than the sacrifice that Rahab's descendant Jesus would make at Calvary's cross. His blood purifies us from all sin. It doesn't matter how gravely we have sinned or how hard we try to live decent lives. The full payment for sin is found in the blood of God's Son, Jesus Christ.

Isn't it comforting to know that our sins and our futile attempts to deal with our sins can't compare to the work of our Savior which truly takes away sin? That pardon for sin is complete. It was so complete that through it the LORD gave Rahab a place in the Savior's line. It is so complete that we who trust in the work of Christ find a place in the family of God. What amazing grace God shows to us sinners!

What an amazing Savior in whom to put our faith!