Text:\u00a0\u00a0 Romans 1:15, 16 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saint Patrick\u2019s Day<\/p>\n
Credit goes to Pastor Armin Keibel for much of the research used.<\/b><\/p>\n
Today is the day when everyone seems to be Irish.\u00a0 We see lots of people wearing a bit of green.\u00a0 For green is the color of that beautiful land called Ireland.<\/p>\n
But there is of course another reason to celebrate this day.\u00a0 The calendar reads Saint Patrick\u2019s day.\u00a0 March 17th<\/sup>.\u00a0 It was on this day in 461 AD<\/b> that Patrick left this life.\u00a0 And I think it\u2019s safe to say, that most people, even many Christians, don\u2019t know the story of Patrick.<\/p>\n They might have heard the legend of him driving the snakes out of Ireland.\u00a0 Just a legend.\u00a0 We may have heard that Patrick used the shamrock, a three leafed clover, to teach the Trinity.\u00a0 Also perhaps just a legend.\u00a0 But for many, the real story is unknown.\u00a0 For many the real story of Patrick\u2019s efforts to bring Christ to that land is a mystery.<\/p>\n For some of us, it might seem strange for a Lutheran church to be celebrating this day.\u00a0 After all, the Roman Catholic church claims Patrick as one of their own.\u00a0 They call him one of their saints.<\/p>\n We call him a saint too, but for a different reason.\u00a0 And we certainly do not pray to him.\u00a0 We call him a saint just as Paul addressed these Christians in Rome and every other place.\u00a0 For Patrick and all those who trust in Jesus are covered.\u00a0 We are dressed in the perfect righteousness of Christ. We are called to be saints.<\/span><\/p>\n But Patrick knew what lay beneath that robe of righteousness we wear by faith.\u00a0 A sinner.\u00a0 That\u2019s what he calls himself in his confession of faith.\u00a0 Patrick the sinner.<\/i>\u00a0 Well as you read about Patrick it\u2019s hard not to compare him to the apostle Paul.\u00a0 Paul had the same view of himself.\u00a0 Maybe you remember his words to young pastor Timothy.\u00a0 This is a trustworthy saying which deserves full acceptance, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners- of whom I am the worst. <\/span>\u00a0Like Paul, like you and me, we meet Patrick the sinner in need of a Savior.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not the only thing these two men had in common.\u00a0 They also dedicated their lives to bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to others\u00a0 So it\u2019s not hard to listen to Paul\u2019s words and think of Patrick also.<\/p>\n \u201cPatrick the sinner\u2026I came to Ireland\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Patrick was born about 389 AD<\/b> somewhere in that part of Britain belonging to the Roman Empire.\u00a0 He came from a solid Christian family that nurtured him in God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 In those days, raiding parties would attack coastal villages.\u00a0 They would steal people\u2019s possessions and take some villagers to sell as slaves.\u00a0 At the age of 16, they captured Patrick and sold him as a slave in Ireland.\u00a0 He was there for six years until Patrick found a way to escape.<\/p>\n What then happened in the years that followed is unclear.\u00a0 But this is clear. His faith in Jesus grew.\u00a0 Then one day, he had a dream.\u00a0 In it, he heard the Irish people saying:\u00a0 We beg you, holy youth, to come and walk with us once more!<\/span><\/p>\n What a place to return to!\u00a0 Where Patrick had once been a slave!\u00a0 Yet Patrick considered this God\u2019s calling.\u00a0 He felt compelled to go and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the Irish people.\u00a0 More than that he was eager.\u00a0 Like Paul was eager to go to Rome, Patrick was eager to go back to that land that enslaved him.\u00a0 For he knew they suffered a worse kind of slavery- to sin and death and the power of the devil.\u00a0\u00a0 And so Patrick was eager to go and bring them the only thing that can set dying sinners free.\u00a0 The simple, but saving truth of our crucified and risen Savior.<\/p>\n Of course, like I said before, the Roman Catholic church claims Patrick as one of their own.\u00a0 The truth is:\u00a0 Patrick had no real connection with the pope or the Roman church.\u00a0 His message, his writings say nothing of praying to Mary or the saints.\u00a0 They say nothing of purgatory or being subject to a pope.\u00a0 They say nothing of doing good works to be saved.\u00a0 Rather his message centered in Jesus Christ and what he has done.\u00a0 Listen to him say it in his own words:\u00a0 Patrick the sinner\u2026I came to Ireland\u2026a slave to Christ to a foreign nation for the unspeakable glory of the eternal life which is in Christ Jesus ,our Lord<\/span>,\u00a0 So like Paul, Patrick went where God had called him.<\/p>\n And Patrick could also say with Paul, I am not ashamed of the gospel.<\/span>\u00a0 For think of the land to which he came.\u00a0 Druidism had the hearts and minds of the people.\u00a0 Druidism, a pagan religion that required human sacrifice.\u00a0 In Ireland, the Druid priests had great power over the tribal rulers.\u00a0 Patrick and his faith would be a threat to their power.\u00a0 You can get an idea of what Patrick faced by his words:\u00a0 Christ protect me today, against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wound<\/span>.<\/p>\n But Patrick would not back down.\u00a0 He would not allow himself to be silent and ashamed of the gospel. The story is told that in his second year, Patrick was summoned before a king and his princess.\u00a0 They were celebrating a Druid festival near where the city of Dublin is today.\u00a0 Fires were strictly forbidden during that celebration.\u00a0 But Patrick built a bonfire on a hill called Mount Tara for everyone to see.\u00a0 He built it to celebrate Easter, the resurrection of our Lord.\u00a0 Now before the king, his life was at stake.\u00a0 But this was his defense.\u00a0 He had come to bring light to a people living in darkness.\u00a0 He had come to bring Christ who is the Light of the World. The King was persuaded.\u00a0 He pardoned Patrick and gave him the freedom to go through Ireland with the gospel message.<\/p>\n That he did for 29 years. Patrick proclaimed his Savior to the Irish people.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t do it all himself so he trained many missionaries with this result.\u00a0 Thousands of Irish were brought to Christ.\u00a0 Thousands were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 And through his efforts and God\u2019s blessing, there arose the Celtic church.\u00a0 a great mission church that carried the gospel to Britain and much of Northern Europe.\u00a0 Maybe to your own ancestors.<\/p>\n But why did Patrick hang in there?\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t such dangerous opposition cause him to pack up and go somewhere else.\u00a0 Well first, he knew God wanted him there.\u00a0 But also think of Paul\u2019s inspired words.\u00a0 16 <\/sup>I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes:<\/span>\u00a0 Patrick stayed.\u00a0 Patrick faced grave danger.\u00a0 Patrick preached the gospel because he was confident.\u00a0 Like Paul, he was confident of it\u2019s power to save.<\/b><\/p>\n You see, when Patrick looked at the Irish people, he saw their true spiritual condition. \u00a0He saw a people who tragically resembled the unbelieving gentiles of Paul\u2019s day. He described them this way. \u00a0They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God.<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0(Ephesians 4:18)<\/p>\n We need to view people in that same way as Paul did, as Patrick did.\u00a0 We may be not surrounded by Druids but we are surrounded by people who are lost and perishing without Christ.\u00a0 How can we overlook them, maybe our own flesh and blood, when we have the same powerful message that Patrick did?<\/p>\n For that gospel message points us to a person.\u00a0 It points us to God\u2019s own Son who did for us and all people something we could not do for ourselves. For if we try to stand before God as we are, we have no hope.\u00a0 Our guilt will drag us down like an anchor around our neck.\u00a0 \u00a0 But Jesus, God\u2019s own Son took that guilt upon himself.\u00a0 He bore it on the cross and paid the awful price God\u2019s justice demands.\u00a0 He paid that price so that now there is forgiveness and peace.\u00a0 Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. <\/i><\/p>\n That\u2019s what makes the gospel so powerful.\u00a0 Not a Patrick or a Paul but what the gospel holds before a fallen world.\u00a0 What Jesus has done by living for us and dying for us and then rising from the dead.\u00a0\u00a0 The gospel declares to us dying sinners God\u2019s own promise that whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.<\/p>\n Patrick came to Ireland confident of the gospel\u2019s power to save<\/b>. For it is a message that can bring people out from under a sentence of death to life, life with God.\u00a0 So through all the centuries, we hear Patrick say: \u00a0I Patrick the sinner\u2026I came to Ireland\u2026for the unspeakable glory of the eternal life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.<\/span>\u00a0 How blessed we are to possess that life.\u00a0 How blessed we are to offer it to others in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text:\u00a0\u00a0 Romans 1:15, 16 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Saint Patrick\u2019s Day Credit goes to Pastor Armin Keibel for much of the research used. Today is the day when everyone seems to be Irish.\u00a0 We see lots of people wearing a bit of green.\u00a0 For green is the color of that beautiful land called Ireland. But there is of course another reason to celebrate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/b>Like Paul he came<\/i>
\nI.\u00a0 \u00a0Eager to go where God called him
\nII.\u00a0 Not ashamed of the gospel
\nIII.\u00a0 Confident of its power to save<\/b><\/p>\n