Getting Ready for Sunday: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 The Epistle Reading for Sunday, November 18th

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Epistle reading for Sunday, November 19, is from First Thessalonians chapter five. Now concerning the times and seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying there is peace and security, then suddenly destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day, we are not of the night or of the darkness. So let us not sleep as others do. But let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation to our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with Him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. Here is the reading. So last week, we took a look at First Thessalonians chapter four where St. Paul reminds them not to grieve as others do, who have no hope. But that Jesus will return, raise the dead in Christ first, and then catch all of us up in our perfect bodies to be with Christ forever. Now, he goes on to talk about this again, about the coming of Christ. And he says that there is no need to write to them about the times or seasons of it. He says the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Now many people look at the Bible and they say there are all sorts of seasons and signs and all sorts of things that can tell us when Jesus is coming, like Jesus Himself gives us predictions the sun will darkness and wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and floods and all sorts of things like that, and the gospel preached to all nations. Now, we who read that part of the Bible know that all of those signs have been fulfilled since the beginning of the since the early years of the church, when the apostles went out, they preach to all nations, there have been wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and floods and all those things ever since the day Jesus ascended. And so we know he could come any moment. Perhaps before I finished recording this podcast would not be great, I certainly would love it, he would come at any moment, like a thief in the night says while people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. The idea is that there's something that's going to happen and nobody knows when. And when you don't know when something is going to happen, you know, you need to be prepared at all times. Here in California, the government tells us that we need to have an earthquake kit, because you never know when the big ones going to come. And the earthquake kit is supposed to have all sorts of things in it too. So you can survive for a few days or a week or so without any need for outside assistance. That's not something that you can get after the earthquake happens. It needs to be ready before and it might not seem like you need it. In fact, it can seem like a waste of time until the day the quake happens. And then all of a sudden you really, really need it. So it is when Jesus comes we it may seem silly to wait for something that may is so far in the future or may not you know who knows. But when He returns, you will either have faith or not. And there'll be no no more time to go back and get it when he's there in the sky. So he says, But you are not in darkness brothers for that day to surprise you like a thief. He uses the image of people who belong to the light and people who long belong to the darkness. The darkness are the ones who are sleeping and not ready for Jesus's return, who are drinking too much and so are no longer sober. who belong to the acts and evils of this world. And the ones who are in the light are the ones who stay awake, who are sober, who are dressed and ready for action, when the day that Jesus comes, we belong to the day, Christians who believe in Jesus Christ. And so we put on the breastplate of faith and love and the helmet of the hope of salvation. We know that God has not destined us for wrath, because we trust in Jesus Christ. And He comes to us to give us His grace and His mercy to fill us and make us ready through His Word and Sacraments. And so we we continue to gather together as a church to make ourselves ready for that day. And that's what St. Paul closes with. He says, Therefore, encourage one another, and build one another up just as you are doing. I think this is especially wonderful to to point to the Thessalonians, who experienced persecution So very quickly, so very early in their life as Christians, St. Paul was only there for three Sabbath's before the persecutors drove him out. And this very young, very early church experienced persecution immediately when they couldn't find Paul. They ended up going after Jason and others. And so this is especially important for them as they are early in their faith journey, facing persecution and saying, stay firm, be ready, be sober, God is coming. You can do it is the same for us. While we don't have that level of persecution, we do still need to remind ourselves to be ready. Jesus is coming. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 128 The Psalm for Sunday, November 18th

Psalm 128

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
    who walks in his ways!
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
    you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
    within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
    around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
    who fears the Lord.

The Lord bless you from Zion!
    May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
    all the days of your life!
May you see your children's children!
    Peace be upon Israel!

WWelcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The psalm for Sunday, November 19, is Psalm 128. A song of a sense, blesses everyone who fears the Lord who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruits of the labor of your hands, you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children will be like all of shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion, may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life, may you see your children's children, peace be upon Israel, Here ends the reading. The song begins with the superscription a song of a sense, the songs of a sense are these songs that you would sing or repeat or say, as you're heading up to Jerusalem, the idea is that you are going up to the temple of the Lord, and you would reflect on his promises. Similarly is my eyes lift up to the hills from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. So you're looking up as you're ascending to go worship at the temple. And this one talks about the gifts that God promises His people. Bless it as everyone who fears the Lord who walks in his ways, you shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands, you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. So God is promising blessing for us. Now for ancient Israel, the promises of God for those who followed him included material blessings. When Moses was preaching to the people in Deuteronomy, he laid out the blessings and the curses on the blessings of following God included all sorts of material goods and wealth and such. And the curses included material curses and poverty and death and sickness and all sorts of terrible things. And so, as they went up to the hills, they would say, yes, we know Moses promised us these good things like a wife as a fruitful vine, children like olive shoots around the table, and blessing from some someone who fears the Lord. And while often when you live a good and quiet life, in humble service, good things do happen to you. That's not always the case for Christians. What we look forward to, it's a blessing that comes from God that is, is perfect and eternal, that on the day of Jesus's resurrection, all things will be made new. And we will have all the labor of our hands being blessed, because everything will be perfect and wonderful. This is not always the thing that happens for Christians. In fact, we are promised as Christians that what we get is what Jesus got when he went up a hill to the top and was nailed to a cross outside the city of Jerusalem. That is our fate often in this world. As much as we would pray for the joy of having a fruitful vine in our house and children like olive shoots around a table, and all of those blessings. We know that sometimes that's not what happens for those of us who are in Christ. But we also know that we will see prosperity from Jerusalem in the light, it closes up with the Lord bless you from Zion, may you see prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you see your children's children Peace be upon Israel. In this passage, we're seeing a blessing that does come to us from Jerusalem, a blessing that comes to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that happened on a hill just outside of Jerusalem, and a tomb near where he died on a cross. The prosperity of Jerusalem then points us to the new heavens and the new earth, where John in Revelation sees Jerusalem descending from heaven, like a bride dressed for the groom. And we look forward to when we see the new heavens and the new earth and the new city that God will create for us, where we will live forever and see our children's children and all the children of of Jesus Christ, the children of the Father gathered together in perfection. We're looking forward to that. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Zephaniah 1:7-16 The Old Testament Reading for Sunday, November 18th

Zephaniah 1:7-16

Be silent before the Lord God!
    For the day of the Lord is near;
the Lord has prepared a sacrifice
    and consecrated his guests.
And on the day of the Lord's sacrifice—
“I will punish the officials and the king's sons
    and all who array themselves in foreign attire.
On that day I will punish
    everyone who leaps over the threshold,
and those who fill their master's house
    with violence and fraud.

“On that day,” declares the Lord,
    “a cry will be heard from the Fish Gate,
a wail from the Second Quarter,
    a loud crash from the hills.
Wail, O inhabitants of the Mortar!
    For all the traders are no more;
    all who weigh out silver are cut off.
At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps,
    and I will punish the men
who are complacent,
    those who say in their hearts,
‘The Lord will not do good,
    nor will he do ill.’
Their goods shall be plundered,
    and their houses laid waste.
Though they build houses,
    they shall not inhabit them;
though they plant vineyards,
    they shall not drink wine from them.”

The great day of the Lord is near,
    near and hastening fast;
the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter;
    the mighty man cries aloud there.
A day of wrath is that day,
    a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
    a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
    a day of trumpet blast and battle cry
against the fortified cities
    and against the lofty battlements.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Old Testament reading for Sunday, November 19, is from Zephaniah chapter one, verses seven through 16. Be silent before the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is near, the Lord is prepared to sacrifice and consecrated his guests. And on the day of the Lord sacrifice, I will punish the officials and the king sons and all who array themselves in foreign attire. On that day I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold, and those who feel their Masters House with violence and fraud. On that day, declares the Lord, a cry will be heard from the fish gate. A whale from the second quarter allowed crash from the hills, whale, oh inhabitants of the mortar, for all the traders are no more. All who weigh out silver are cut off. At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and I will punish the men who are complacent. Those who say in their hearts. The Lord will not do good nor will He do ill. Their goods shall be plundered, and their houses laid waste. Though they build houses they shall not inhabit them. Though they plant vineyards they shall not drink wine from them. The Great Day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast. The sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day of Day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. Here ends the reading. This reading from Zephaniah continues the Old Testament theme we had last week with Amos, talking about the coming day of the Lord as a day of judgment. You remember, you may remember Amos saying that it's a day of darkness and not light. And that's repeated again at the end of this reading. The book of Zephaniah is difficult to date, we're not exactly sure. It's supposed to be during the time of Josiah the king who would reform but we don't know whether it happened before the book of the law was discovered. And King Josiah reinstituted temple worship, and got rid of all the false gods and all of that, or after that, and we don't know exactly who the destruction refers to. Now, there aren't any clear illusions, but we can interpret some general things. So let's begin with it. It goes be silent before the Lord God for the day of the Lord is near. The Lord is prepared to sacrifice and consecrated his guests. So it's been silent before the Lord God is near his power and his might are coming. What's interesting here is that the Lord is preparing a sacrifice. This is not people are preparing a sacrifice for the Lord, He has prepared a sacrifice. So there's something that is going to get killed and then burned. And he's consecrated the guests who are coming with him to share in that feast. So on that day, I will punish the officials and the king sons, and all who arranged themselves in foreign attire. On that day, I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold, and those who fill their Masters House with violence and fraud. So the sacrifice now seems like it's all of these people that it names, kings, officials, everyone who wears foreign attire, people who leap over the household, and commit violence and fraud. Now, these things might be a little confusing, array themselves in foreign attire, and can you not wear clothes from far away? Like my clothes? Or some of my clothes were made in China or Thailand? Is that the problem? Of course not. This is likely referring to some sort of false worship that's associated with the clothing of foreign gods. And so you're, you're trying to fit in with the gods of faraway places by wearing these clothings. And leaping over the threshold would have a similar idea is that it was a practice of some false god or something like that. And so the day of the Lord is coming and he's going to punish all those people who were supposed to be worshipping Him, but are instead worshiping all of the false gods. It continues on that day, declares the LORD will cry will be heard from the fish gate, a whale from the second quarter allowed crash from the hills, and then continues on like that. There is all sorts of wailing and sadness. I think we Christians and many people often think that about God's coming. If we think of it at all, we're not altogether too worried about it. But these passages that show the day of the Lord is judgment, and not just grace. And so there is there is a healthy fear of God's coming, that when He comes, He will judge the living and the dead. That judgment will be grace and eternal life for the people who believe in Him. But for those who are false Christians or non believers, there's a whale and a crying. This for Zephaniah's day was focused specifically on the people in in Jerusalem, where they are complacent or where they are worshipping false gods. I'd like to move into this. This piece though it says, At that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps and I will punish the men who are complacent those who say in their hearts, the Lord will not do good, nor will He do ill. So he's focusing in on this section on the people who think God just will do nothing. He doesn't have any power, he doesn't have any control. In fact, the foreign gods are likely the ones who had power and control in their mind. Back in the ancient world. The when people conquered, or when they had power in mind, it was often attributed to a God. And so every group of people had their own patron god. And when they went to war, it was the god with the most power that brought victory. And so what they're saying is, is that the Lord can't do good and he can't do ill, which means he has zero power, he's unable to do anything. And I think many people, especially those who don't understand the Bible, think similarly about God, that he's just some happy old man up in heaven, just kind of looking down and smiling like a, like an uncle who just sort of loves his children from afar. There's no judgment, there's no problem. He says, What will he do those guys? Zephaniah says their goods shall be plundered in their houses laid waste. Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit it, though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink wine from them. This is kind of the reverse of what Moses said when they would go into the Promised Land. He told the people of Israel that they would have houses that they did not build in vineyards that they did not plant. And they would know that God is the one who gave it to them. Now they are building houses and they're not dwelling in them. They're planting vineyards and they are not drinking wine from them, because God is going to send judgment. Finally, he ends up with more talk about the great day of the Lord. It says the day of wrath is that day a day of distress and anguish a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty embattlement. Here, it seems like Zephaniah is looking forward to the day when God brings judgment on Judah by bringing in the armies of Babylon, to bring Israel into exile. For us, we look forward and we see a day of judgment that is darkness and gloom as the day of judgment that God put out on Jesus Christ. The day of the Lord well are the sun turned dark and the moon turned to blood, and judgment came down on our Savior Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. We look forward to because that judgment was spent on Jesus. When the day of the Lord comes and he returns, He will raise us from the dead and give us life. There's a judgment that is coming as well. For all those who are outside the church, it will be a day of gloom and darkness and battle cry, and a day of judgment and sadness for them as they're cast into eternal torment. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

What Will Jesus' Return Be Like? Sermon for Sunday, November 12th, 2023

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I talked a little bit in our opening about the themes and ideas that are coming up in our readings for the church here. We are heading towards the end of the Church year. And those readings always point us to the end of time, the return of Jesus Christ. And we saw them in the readings that we see today. The prophet Amos talks about the judgment coming on the day of the Lord, though on that day, he was pointing to the danger of the Assyrians coming into Israel, a judgment and not a gift from God. And Jesus points us also to the return of well of Jesus, when He comes like a groom to a wedding. Not at the time you expect. The question is, what's going to happen on that day? What will it be like, on the day that Jesus returned? And that's the question we're going to explore through the reading that I did from First Thessalonians. Now, this question is rather controversial, because there are two main theories about what will happen on that day. I'm gonna give you a big theological word today, maybe you've heard it, maybe you haven't. Actually, it's It's hard enough that I screwed it up in the first service. Hopefully, I'll get it right this time. It is free millennial dispensationalism. Say that, again, re millennial dispensationalism. Now you can go out knowing that you've got your theological education for the day. Now, this idea is idea about the end of the world and what will happen when Jesus returns. The other competing theory is much easier. It's a millennialism. Free dispensational millennialism teaches that God has worked throughout time in history in different dispensations, different ways of working through his promises. And it teaches that God's promises in the Old Testament to Israel are now still active on the nation of Israel, and the Jews today. This is the claim I dealt with back in August when he talked about how St. Paul says that all of the promises of God come through to Jesus, and that everyone who is in Christ is through Israel. And then everything that God promised to in the Old Testament comes through and today, we're going to deal with a passage that Freeman millennial dispensationalists use to refer to the Rapture. What that's what they say is, when the end times come, Jesus will secretly return and take all Christians, and all the dead, and they will all in Christ and they will disappear. Then, seven years of Tribulation will happen. After that, Jesus will return again and establish an earthly government for the millennium, 1000 years. Then at the end of the 1000 years, a rebellion will happen. It will be defeated. And eternity, we'll call a millennium teaches. We are currently in the tribulation. The 1000 years of Revelation are happening now. Where Jesus rules on earth through his church, and he will come back visibly on the last day and raise everyone from the dead and we will live eternally with him all who believed in Trump. The passage we looked at from First Thessalonians chapter four is the proof tax for the idea of the rapture. That is, the Jesus will appear secretly take all living Christians and all dead Christians and leave the rest of the earth for the seven years of the tribulation. to point that out, They look at what we read, they save. For this, we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive are left until the coming of the Lord, we will not proceed those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, under the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. They focus on the idea that Christians will be caught up with price and be with him. You may have been a seen this, I sometimes do that when we're driving along, and you'll see a bumper sticker that says, in case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned. That's what they're talking about. The Jesus will secretly return and snap, people will be gone, airplanes will crash. Cars will swerve, everything will be missed. They also say that this tribulation begins. And the reason why Christians aren't here for that is because we are not part of this great tribulation, God is going to pull us away. There's another passage they point to this is Matthew chapter 24, where Jesus says this. But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Whereas in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark. And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So it will be at the coming of the Son of men, then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one lap. Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay away. For you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. Here they focus on the idea that one person will be taken up to heaven and one lap. They also talk about this happening right before this great tribulation, sometimes at rest of Revelation talks about because they believe that Christians will be spared the wrath of God. One of the ways they do that is by pointing to First Thessalonians chapter five, as it says, For God is not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. In doing this, I also looked up some of the things that David Jeremiah says at Shadow Mountain. And he mentioned that Christians can't be a part of this great tribulation, because of what it says in Romans chapter eight. There is now no condemnation through Jesus Christ. And if Christians have no condemnation, it means that we can't be part of this wrath, or this tribulation. I've done my best to represent this as best as I can. But I think the rapture is mistaken. This is not what will happen on the day that Jesus returned. And we can do that by looking at exactly the passages that they use to support this verse. Let's take a look at Matthew chapter 24. It says, whereas in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark. They were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So it will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill one will be taken and one last year the image is of Noah and the flood. And Noah was saying he was the one who was left the flood swept people away in judgment. So if Jesus is consistent using his this imagery, the people who remain are the one who are saved The people who are taken away are swept away in judgment,

like the flow, which means this image is actually opposite of what the people in the rafters said. You can also look at our passes for the day. First Thessalonians chapter four, where it says, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Now, this is pretty impressive, right? It says that Jesus will come from heaven, with the cry of an archangel, and the sound of the trumpet of God. That doesn't sound like a secret to me, does it? Of course not. That's a trumpet. That is the cry of command the voice of an archangel, it's going to be pretty clear what happens on that day. Jesus himself says that we will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and might. No one's going to miss. It's not going to be a secret. There is no wondering whether you will be ready for the wrath of God, Jesus will descend from heaven. On the last day, there will be no secrets, there will be it will not be hidden, it will be clear. And he gives us this promise, so that we can know he is coming. Coming to rescue is coming to save us to give us life that lasts forever by his own death and resurrection. And his voice will cry out and call us up from our graves and give us perfect bodies, and we will go to meet him in the air while his judgment comes down. And then we will live forever with Him. One thing I haven't dealt with is that tribulation. They say Christians cannot be a part of this great tribulation, because we do not receive this wrath. He say because there is no condemnation. That's misunderstanding what's going on. Jesus himself says that we are part of a tribulation. He says in John, In this world, you will have trouble will take heart, I have overcome the world. That's the same Greek word as the Great Tribulation. The John himself writes in Rebbi revelation. So we know now the tribulation has been going on. Since the day Jesus ascended into heaven. The church has always been suffering. The church has always been persecuted. St. Paul gives us these words, so that we can look forward to the day when he comes to power and might and clearly reveals Himself to us, and gives us eternal life. Up until now, this has been a pretty doctrinal sermon. I'm giving you Bible passages and analyzing them and you know, all of this stuff. And you may be asking yourself, well, so what Pastor? Why is this actually important for me now? I mean, we're all find out eventually, anyway, either he's gonna come and rapture us or he's just gonna come and show up and raise the dead. And it'll be just like you said, there's a good reason why we need to know this. First, and the people who teach about the Rapture end up focusing too much on the news of the day. They stress each other out about the signs and the seasons and everything that is going on, especially when we have things going on in Israel. Every time there's war or violence or battle, everybody in dispensationalism thinks knows the end, he gotta get worried. And they point us to think about things that are so far away that we can't do anything about and all we do is dress up. And that is not why St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians. He says, I want you not to grieve like those who have no hope. The point here is just to come I'm not to point us to this world and say, watch the news. Think about the signs come up with charts that show us exactly where in the rapture timeline we are. They do. There's even a website that has a rapture countdown clock, as if they can figure out when this might happen. What Jesus gives us is something very simple. He promises to return, and he'll raise you from the dead. That's easily appoints us comfort that points us piece that we're not stressing out, we're trusting in Him. The other thing that this teaching about the Rapture does is it points us away from our duties now. So think about those things that are far away. Because the Jesus really wants us to think about our neighbors, and our families, the people around us, the things that we can control. When he says Love your neighbor as yourself, he isn't thinking about or worrying about things that are half a world away. He wants us to simply do our job serving others. So the Rapture points us to thinking and worrying and feeling about things that we have no control. Over, that don't matter to us. What God really wants us to do, to serve the people who are nearer love the people who are in you. To be the people God created us to be around. And when we think about something that is that far away, and we're always worrying about what's happening in the news. It means we turn our attention away from the people God has sent us to law. This passage from First Thessalonians is there to guide us into a hopeful expectation of the day that Jesus returns and raises us from the dead. It's not here to make us worry about some secret rapture in a complicated system about the end. It's just there to give us hope. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Matthew 25:1-13 The Gospel Reading for November 12th, 2023

Matthew 25:1-13

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lampsand went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Gospel reading for Sunday, November 12, is from Matthew chapter 25, verses one through 13.

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins, who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them. But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight, there was a cry here is the bridegroom come out to meet him.

Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, since there will not be enough for us and for you go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves. And while they were going to buy the Bridegroom King, and those who are ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shot. Afterward the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered, Truly I say to you, I do not know you. Watch therefore, for you know, neither the day nor the hour.

This is part of Jesus's parables about the end of the world. He is predicting his return when he comes to raise the living and the dead into eternal life. And He does it through a series of parables in Matthew chapter 25. This parable is about 10 virgins. So the groom is coming to come to the wedding feast. And there are 10 virgins who are supposed to be waiting with lamps ready for him when he gets there. This is all part of the great celebration they're supposed to attend to him and, and join in in the great marriage feast. Jesus uses this image, frequently throughout the Gospels, the groom, is Jesus, the Savior. The wedding feast is the celebration at the end of time when Christ returns and raises us from the dead. And the attendants in this case would be Christians who are there, ready and waiting.

And so he says, some of the virgins some of the attendants will be ready with oil. And some will have no oil. I mean to kind of crazy to think that if you're a an attendant at a wedding, and your job is to have a lamp that is burning, you would show up with no oil. Of course, as a pastor, I had brides show up to the wedding with the dress over their shoulders an hour and a half after it was supposed to start. So who knows what people do at weddings, right? But in this case, being ready when the bridegroom comes is important. Because once you once he's there, you have to be ready. Now, the groom was delayed in this instance, until midnight.

So the wise virgins, they have oil for the lamps. They get them ready. They light it, and they're ready for the celebration. But the foolish virgins, they have no oil. Of course they can't get oil from the wise one because the wise ones need their oil.

And they say something really weird. Go and buy it yourself. Now, this is midnight. And I don't know about where you live. But where I live. There are not many stores open at midnight. And this is America when stores are open late all the time and on weekends and all that stuff. Not at midnight. Can you imagine what the foolish virgins would have to do to go out and find someone who would sell them oil at midnight? In ancient Israel? Yikes. So of course it takes a long time. And when they finally get back, the door is shut.

The groom says I do not know you

and Jesus finishes with Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Now much ink has been spilled about interpreting this this parable

for especially when you're talking about what is the oil for us, like people have talked about the oil being faith. They've talked about the oil that is good works for the poor. That's what John Chrysostom says,

honestly, for me, I really don't see a need to figure out what the oil means. This is simply be ready. And that's what Jesus says. He says, Watch therefore, for you know, neither, you know, neither the day nor the hour.

And that is what Christians are to do is we who have faith in Jesus need to always be watchful for the day that the bridegroom comes for the day that Jesus comes and begins the celebration at the end of the age, as he raises us from the dead and gives life. How are we ready? We're ready by the Word and the sacraments and the faith that that gives us. And so, Christians ought to always be focused on the chief aim of our lives, hearing God's word, receiving the sacraments and serving each other with love.

That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 The Epistle Reading for November 12th, 2023

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Epistle reading for Sunday, November 12, is First Thessalonians chapter four, verses 13 through 18. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this, we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord will not proceed those who have fallen asleep, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, and with a voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words urines the reading this passage from First Thessalonians is a teaching that St. Paul gives to the Thessalonians. Whenever you read Thessalonians, you should remember that St. Paul had a very short time with them before he was driven away. I think it was about one week. And so you can imagine it's very short time he goes in he preaches a whole bunch of people are converted by the miracles in the work that he does. And then the persecutors chase him out. Can you imagine being a brand new baby Christian, and you've only had a teacher for a week? What kinds of things might you believe and not know about? And so Thessalonians is all all about correcting some misunderstandings and encouraging them to remain faithful and their baby Christian state. And this one is all about informing them about what happens when Jesus returned. This was also the passage that I'm going to preach on. And this Sunday, I'll talk a little bit about the rapture and why this is not consistent with Lutheran theology. But we won't dive into that so much today. Instead, we're just going to take a look at what St. Paul says specifically, he says, We do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope. St. Paul's using a fingering figure of speech, when he uses the word asleep. What he means is dead. But they're asleep in Christ, because Christ will come back and wake them up. Pretty great, right? So he says you don't grieve, like others do because they have no hope. We Christians, we still grieve, but not as people without hope. We have the hope knowing that Christ will come again and raise them from the dead. He continues, for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with Him, those who have fallen asleep. So the pattern for resurrection is the same pattern that Jesus had. Because Jesus died and rose again, all who are in Christ will who die will rise again as well. Jesus will wake up the sleepers. Paul continues. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord will not proceed those who have fallen asleep. So St. Paul is saying that when Jesus returns, the dead will rise first, as it continues, For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. So, St. Paul is giving us a clear image of what will happen on the day Jesus returns, He will descend from heaven with a cry of command, a voice of an archangel, and the sound of a trumpet. You're not going to miss that. Jesus coming down from heaven, his voice crying out calling up the dead, with a voice of an archangel in the sound of a trumpet, this is going to be a big deal. Then the dead rise first. Ball continues, then we who are alive who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. So the dead will rise first. And then God will gather all who are alive who are with the Lord. up with him in the cloud. St. Paul also reminds us in First Corinthians chapter 15. What happens with us who are alive is that our bodies will change, that the perishable body will put on the imperishable, and the mortal body would put on immortality, and death will be swallowed up in victory. So the Thessalonians were worried about this and St. Paul gives them a clear teaching, that when Jesus returns, you're not going to miss it is not going to be a secret. He will raise the dead, we will all be caught up with him and be with Him forever. And he finished his out saying, Therefore encourage one another with these words. And that's what we've been doing the Christian church ever since then, we encourage one another with the promise of Christ that on the day he returns, we will be with Him forever. That's it for today. See you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 70 The Psalm for November 12th, 2023

Psalm 70

Make haste, O God, to deliver me!
    O Lord, make haste to help me!
Let them be put to shame and confusion
    who seek my life!
Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor
    who delight in my hurt!
Let them turn back because of their shame
    who say, “Aha, Aha!”

May all who seek you
    rejoice and be glad in you!
May those who love your salvation
    say evermore, “God is great!”
But I am poor and needy;
    hasten to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
    O Lord, do not delay!

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The psalm for Sunday, November 12, is Psalm 70. Make haste, oh god to Deliver me, O Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. Let them turn back because of their shame who say, aha, aha. May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say evermore, God is great. But I am poor and needy. Hasten to me, Oh, God, you are my help and my deliverer. Oh, Lord, do not delay. Here ends the reading. This psalm begins with a passage that is part of our evening and morning prayer services in in mountains, the the song at the beginning goes, make haste, oh, God to deliver me. And the congregation responds, make haste to help me Oh, lord. It's a part of the chanting responses for that. The idea is that we call on God to come to us and save us. And isn't that part of the church's cry all the time? Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly make haste to save us. The Psalmist goes on, and says, Let them be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt, let them turn back because of their shame, who say, aha, aha. David, the author of this is calling on God, to turn away the people who are his enemies. Back in the old testament, David as the anointed king of Israel, the Chosen One of God, his real life, human enemies were also the enemies of God because they were fighting against God's kingdom and God's King. We in the New Testament don't typically think about our enemies, as human beings, they are more like sin, death, and the devil. Even those human beings who fight against the church can be turned into friends, by the power of the Holy Spirit's, they hear the gospel and turn to faith in Jesus Christ. And so here, as we look at this, we say, maybe we're not supposed to put to shame people. But this is turning away the forces of sin, death and the devil. And Colossians talks about putting the sin and the demons to open mockery, when Jesus was nailed to the cross, destroying the power of death forever. And so we look at that. And we see we see that here. I think the passage where it says, let them turn back because of their shame, who say, aha, aha, it's a little confusing, like, what? What is a Ha ha, mean, right? This is kind of the mockery part again, a Ha ha, is we discover someone in their in their vulnerability, and we laugh. And that's what David is talking about. In this next piece, there's a transition. David goes from calling on God to defend him from the people who seek his life, to now turning towards the people who love God. May all who seek who rejoice and be glad, and you may those who love your salvation say evermore God is great. So it's a desire for all of God's people to turn to God and rejoice in Him in all circumstances. To say, God is great. And we know why God is great is because of his salvation. Because He sent Jesus Christ to die for us to give us life that lasts forever. Another transition happens where David says, have have everybody rejoice in you, oh, God, but me. I'm poor and needy. Come to me, Oh, God, hasten to me. You are my help and deliver, oh, Lord, do not delay. And isn't that the cry of the Christian? We who are poor and needy in our sin, who look at a world filled with brokenness and our hearts filled with disaster and guilt, and we say, Oh, God, please, come and save me. The burden of this world is so great in the pain that we face so difficult. And even when we have moments of joy and respite, we know all of that will pass away. A Tomorrow will be another difficult day and it will always come. This is why we pray for Jesus to come in return to descend from the heavens with power in mind, and to cleanse this world from all sin from death and the power of the devil. And give us joy forever. That's all we have today. See you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Amos 5:18-24 Old Testament Reading for November 12th, 2023

Amos 5:18-24

Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
    Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,
    as if a man fled from a lion,
    and a bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,
    and a serpent bit him.
Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,
    and gloom with no brightness in it?

“I hate, I despise your feasts,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
    I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Old Testament reading for Sunday, November 12, is Amos, chapter five, verses 18 through 24. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord, why would you have the day of the Lord. It is darkness and not light, as if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him or went into a house and leaned his hand against the wall. And a serpent bit him is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it. I hate I despise your feast, and I take no delight in your solemn assembly. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs to the melody of your hearts, I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Here ends the reading. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord says the prophet Amos. It is darkness and not light. To understand this, we have to look back and see this phrase, The Day of the Lord. The day of the Lord was the idea of God coming down to visit his people. And usually the idea was that it would save them. And so ancient Israel believed that God was their local God, the God of their people, a lot like the pagan gods around them is like every town had a god and every people had a God that would protect them. And they sort of fit God in with all the other pagan gods in the pantheon. Which is why often they would end up worshipping ball and Ashra and the true God, and sort of fit all of this together as if he was just one of the many. And so the day of the Lord was supposed to be a day when God would come and save his people and protect them. But when he is just one of the many gods that's not how God works. God, sometimes his visitation is judgment. Sometimes his visitation is destruction. And we would see that many, many years after Amos prophesize when the Babylonians would come in and tear down the walls of Jerusalem and destroy the temple. That's the day of the Lord coming with his judgment, that darkness and not light. And so Amos gives us this idea of the day of the Lord the day visiting his people, which for Israel would have been a day of destruction because they were being unfaithful. And that's the image that he says, it's as if you fled from a lion and ran into a bear, as if you get into the safety of your house and under the wall bytes a serpent. It is darkness, judgment. When God comes to a sinful people, he brings destruction. Later, he goes, I hate I despise your feasts. And I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. It continues to go on and talk about the burnt offerings and grain offerings and peace offerings and all the sacrifices and the songs and the harps. Why Does God hate these things? He hates them not because those things are bad in particular, but because they do not come from people who are worshipping God correctly. In the Old Testament, throughout all this time, every time that the Bible would talk about bringing in false gods into the temple courts, or even into the holy place, and the Holy of Holies itself. It's not saying that the people left the true God to go worship false gods, saying they incorporated false worship into the worship of the true God. And so they were trying to act as if God was just like any one of the pagan gods. And in that system, the way you got a God to be on your side was that you offered sacrifices, the sacrifices were almost like bribes, that you would send up to God so that he would protect you. And this pagan system lasted not just through ancient Israel, but it was also the system for Rome, is that if you worship to God, that God would protect your city and your people. If you worship to God that God would provide fertility for the land and crops and such. And so it was an exchange. The idea was you bribe God to protect you, and take care of you. And that is not how the true God works. God had commanded these feasts, the feasts of the Old Testament and the solemn assemblies, he commanded burnt offerings and grain offerings, but he commanded them not as a thing that was designed to get him good things and make him happy. But the feasts, the sacrifices were for the people in their true worship of Him. And so what they were doing was they were simply worshiping God falsely, as if he were a, a, one of the many false pagan gods. It sort of was an exchange, like their works, their offerings, their all their things were given to God in exchange for his gifts. We often think about God that way. I think we think about our worship, our prayers, our devotion, sometimes is all about, if I do these things for God, he does good things for me. Sometimes it's not that explicit, sometimes it's just, well, I'm a good person, God must love me. All good people go to heaven when they die, right? If I know the name of Jesus, I may not receive His gifts in worship, I may not trust in Him. But you know, I've got these Inklings about Jesus, and I've got good feelings about him. All that's just showing our works before God, and saying to God, look how great I am. Perhaps God's judgment, the day he returns will be darkness and not light. For those because the day of Christ's return, is also a day of judgment, and not just resurrection and joy. For those who do not follow Jesus, who are not receiving His grace and filled with the Holy Spirit, it is a day of judgment and destruction. And Amos tells that same thing, not just for Jerusalem, but also for all of us Christians, many 1000 years later, that when the Lord comes, it is not just joy, there will also be destruction and judgment. And we need to be prepared for that. And we do this by worshiping the true God and serving him only and receiving his grace through His Word and Sacraments. And Amos points us to the the severity, and the seriousness of our need to receive these things in the divine service. That's all I have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

When He Appears: Sermon on 1 John 3:1-3 for Sunday, November 5th

1 John 3:1-3

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Today we're celebrating All Saints Day and our readings throughout throughout the day have pointed to all sorts of things that point to the the beauty of God's salvation, and the the eternity of what he has done for us. All Saints Day has a long history. It begins with the very first Christian martyrs. The when the church was gathering together and beginning to worship, very quickly, Christians were killed for the faith. And so what they started to do was they would celebrate and remember the anniversary of that debt day. So they would remember each saint in local places, in honor of their sacrifice of being called a murderer or a witness for the faith. Eventually, congregations started to exchange remembrance dates. And it wasn't very long before there were far more than 365 murders. You can imagine that having a new worship service every single day for every single murder would pile up very quickly. So the church decided that they were going to celebrate a calendar of martyrs and saints, and then pile up all the rest on a single day. Today, well, actually November 1, we're celebrating it today on Sunday. Now, this was just the saints, the murders, and those who were canonized in the church, they quickly moved to having another celebration for all the Christians who have gone on in the faith called All Souls Day, which is November 2. Now we in the Lutheran church, we don't really recognize a distinction between the saints that are on our calendar, and the saints that are not, since we are all holy and perfect in Christ, there is no extra special merit to those who we call, add that little title saint in the front of. And so today on No, well, November 5, as we remember, November 1, we remember all those Christians who have died in the faith, who've passed on into into Heaven, to be with their Savior, and await the day that he returns. And our readings point us to all of those things, point us to the reality of the promise of Christ, that those who have gone before us in the faith are with him, and the hope that we have as Christians while we to wait for that day. Today, I am looking at the Epistle reading from First John chapter three. And what it teaches is an important concept in the Christian Church, which theologians call the now. And the not yet. The now and the not yet. What we mean by that is that God has given us a gift in Jesus Christ, eternal life through our Savior. And we have it both now. And also not yet. Which is fun, right? How can you have something now and also not yet? Like if I have a book, I can read it now. And if I don't have it, I haven't not yet. But I can't do both. Right. Even if I order something on Amazon, and I technically own it, it still takes at least two days to get here. And so it's just not yet. But God has delivered us a promise that is both now. And not yet. We have the gift of God through our Savior, Jesus Christ of eternal life. He came he died for us. And he has given us His Holy Spirit, so that we can believe in him and receive that salvation by faith. And yet at the same time, it has not yet been fully fulfilled. We're still waiting for something. The promise is not yet as well. So we can say yes, we have eternal life now. And yet, also, not now. We are waiting for something more. And that's what I'd like to explore as we look at this passage from First John, chapter three. Let's dig in. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And so We are. This is part of the now piece of the promise that we are called children of God, not just called children of God, we are actually children of God. And we know this because everyone who is baptized has been adopted by God, through Jesus Christ. It begins with the story of Jesus's baptism. When he goes into the Jordan River, the father looks down on him and says, This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. And then it goes to the words that St. Paul gives us about our baptism. When he says, Do you not know that all who are baptized into Christ Jesus are baptized into his death. We were buried with them. Therefore, by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. What that means is that in our baptisms, we joined with Christ, to die with him and to rise with him. Only a few chapters later, St. Paul tells us that we have this spirit of adoption as sons where he says, But you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him, in order that we may be glorified with Him. Similarily he says something like that in Galatians, chapter three, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ, at put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. God has made you, his children, by baptism, by being adopted into the family through Jesus Christ. And this is the great love of God, that he came down to come to you. And that you don't have to wonder how Jesus's death and resurrection applies to you. It was put on you with water, and the word. You are children of God. And you have that right now. By the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, the next passage that John writes, gives us a reasonable question. He says, The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. He anticipates the question we might have. And it's pretty clear that question is, wait a second, if I am a son of God, adopted into his family, and God is all powerful, almighty, creator of heaven and earth, if he can speak reality into existence, if his son can walk on water and calm waves and create bread out of nothing. Why does life sometimes bad? Shouldn't we be on top of the world? Shouldn't the children of the Almighty king of creation have everything we want? Well, this is what he says. The reason why the world does not know us, it is that it did not know Him. That is it did not know Jesus. It's very simple. By being adopted into the family of God, we are adopted to be like Christ. And we have to remember what that story is like. Jesus took up across. He carried it as far as he could until his broken body could no longer lifted anymore, and someone else had to do it. And he went to the top of the hill. He was nailed there. And then he died. That was the ultimate rejection of the Son of God, all powerful, almighty Jesus Christ. That's what we're adopted into. we're adopted into a life of following our Savior. And it looks just like Jesus's

We are fortunate that we are unlikely to face that kind of suffering and death. We're unlikely to face the whippings and the beatings and the nailing to a tree. But still, the world does not know us. That's actually something to rejoice in. It's something to rejoice in when we're counted worthy to be rejected by others, just like our Savior was because it means we're in good company, right? When the apostles in the beginning of Acts were first arrested and beaten and released, they rejoice for being counted worthy of suffering for the name of Jesus. And so we too, can rejoice in that. Because our suffering is not just random pain. But following in the footsteps of our Savior. John continues, Beloved, we are God's children now. And what we will be, has not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. Now, John gives us hope. And knowing that the story of Jesus didn't end on the cross, you know, he went to the cross, and he was nailed there, and he died. And then they took him down, and they put him in the tomb. And by his own almighty power, he came back from the dead. Death could not hold him. And he came up. And all of his glory was revealed. This Jesus who was once hungry, who once got tired, who, who was broken and beaten and dead could now do amazing things that he never did while he was alive. While he was in his humble part of his ministry, he would disappear and reappear in places. He would walk through doors and appear to His disciples. Jesus appeared in all his glory at that moment. And what John is reminding us is that he is coming to appear again. He says, We are God's children now, just like Jesus rejected by the world, fit in a world filled with suffering. And on the day that he appears, we will be like Him. John is helping us imagine that there are two realities stacked on top of each other. In this fallen world, we have the reality that we see. It's the reality of sin and death and sadness, a reality where there's sometimes suffering and sometimes joy. And then we have another reality, the resurrected reality, the promise that God has given us through the sun Jesus Christ, this is our true identity. This is who God has made us by the power of the Spirit in our baptism, and both of them are layered on top of each other, existing simultaneously in the same space. And what happens when Jesus appears, the old will just go away. And all that will remain is who God has made us in our baptism. We will appear as he appears, we will rejoice in his salvation and fully received the gift that is promised. We have this now. And yet, the old is still on top of it. When the not yet comes when Jesus returns that will be gone. And everything will be perfect. As it says in our reading from Revelation, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. That is the vision of the hope that we have. That under the day Jesus returns. He will give us fully this promise. But what it also means is that we have that now. We are not waiting for eternal life. Eternal life is here with us just in a hidden way. On that day when he returns everything will be be revealed. Everything will be perfect. And even better. It will be revealed not just for the US who are here today, but also for all the Christians who have gone before us, all of the people who are up in heaven around the throne of the Lamb, waiting for the day of the return, they will rise from the dead, and they will appear as he is, and be like him just as we will. Whether it is tomorrow, or 1000 years from now, all Christians will return and rise from the dead, all Christians who are baptized into the sonship, to be children of God.

John continues, and everyone who thus hopes in him, purifies himself, as he is pure. So if we are children of God, if we have this eternal life and salvation Now, John says, well, let's live in it. Right? If you have been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, just as Christ was, if you are united with Christ in His death, and resurrection, and made pure as children of God, let's live it just as Jesus did. were empowered to do that through the Word and the sacraments. And yet, it's difficult under the weight of this fallen world. That's why we're here to encourage one another to live in the purity that God has made us to live in the good works that God has created for us. As we leave this place, and go out into the world, to love and serve, and care, and the purity and perfection that God has given us, until we pass into the church that waits in heaven for Christ's return. This is the doctrine that we have heard the now and the not yet that we are God's children now and yet, the fullness of that promise has not yet been revealed. And our challenge is to live as God's children now, while we wait for the not yet when the perfection will come. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Guest Podcast: Christian Combatives with Paladin Actual and Pater Veritas

Pastor Huenink was a guest on Christian Combatives with two other LCMS pastors who go by Paladin Actual and Pater Veritas. They talk about Jesus’ parable of the wedding feast from Matthew 22. Check out the Christian Combatives podcast on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Getting Ready for Sunday: Matthew 4:1-12, the Gospel for All Saints Day

Matthew 5:1-12

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Gospel reading for All Saints Day which we are celebrating on November 5, comes from Matthew chapter five, verses one through 12. It reads, seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Bless there are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Bless it, are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil falsely against you on my account? Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Here ends the reading. This passage is sometimes called the Beatitudes, because in Latin blessed it is beatitude. And so it's all about the blessings that God is giving. The funny thing about Jesus's blessings that he's saying here is that blessings are all about being in a place that is not always seemed so bless it. Alright, he says, Blessed are the poor in spirit. And we go, wow, the people who are lonely and crushed who who don't have that, like spiritual joy and exuberance. He's saying the people who are crushed in their spirit are blessed. Same for those who mourn. We don't usually think about being blessed. When we mourn, or the meek. Now Meek is often seemed as someone who's like humble, but humble and attitude. This really isn't humble in attitude. It's a condition of being lowly. And so bless it or the lowliest of society. And bless it are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. You know, it's kind of good to hunger and thirst for righteousness. But if you hunger and thirst for something that means you are not filled with it. Right? Bless it are those who are lacking righteousness? We don't usually think of those as a blessing estate. We also often those who are high and mighty, those who are rich and powerful, aren't always the ones who are merciful or pure in heart or peacemakers. There's often don't seem like blessing estates. But it's especially true for those who are persecuted. Right? Bless it, are you those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. And then finally, Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely, on my account? Rejoice and be glad Jesus says. The interesting thing about Matthew chapter five and these Beatitudes is that he gives a blessing state, for people who are lowly in this life. Because when Christ comes when he returns, in the future state, we will be raised up. There's a turning of God's people, to say that the blessing of God is not found in the way the world sees power, and joy, enriches and happiness and love and all of these things. Blessing is found in Christ. And so in Christ, those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn those who are meek, we will have the great joy on the day he returns. And what I love about placing Matthew chapter five, in with Revelation Chapter Seven, in our readings for All Saints Day, is they give us the both sides of this image is on earth. The Christian Church is lowly. We're sinners in a broken world, and we're meek, we mourn or poor in spirit. In Heaven, or on the day when Christ returns, we will be gathered around Jesus Christ. The revelation gives us the image around the lamb on the throne. We are robes we be washed in the blood of the Lamb and we will rejoice with him. Math gives us the hope for now. Revelation gives us the image of the future, the joy in Christ. And so pairing these two together you get to see the burden that we carry now, and the hope that we have for the future. The pain of life now, that we can rejoice and in even rejoice when when people revile us and are angry at us, because of Christ. We can rejoice because what we have is an eternity with Christ. Wash our robes washed in the blood of the lamb to live forever with Him. That's it for our readings today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: 1 John 3:1-3, the Epistle for All Saints Day

1 John 3:1-3

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Epistle reading for All Saints Day which we are celebrating on Sunday, November 5, is from First John chapter three, verses one through three. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are, the reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in him, purifies himself as he is pure. Here hence the reading. This passage from First John chapter three is really dense in wonderful theology. So we're going to take a look at it verse by verse, let's begin with the first one. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are. This passage tells us about the great love that we have through our, our Savior, Jesus Christ, that we have been adopted as children of God in our baptisms, that when God shows us he does said the same words that he said to his son, Jesus Christ, you are my beloved son with you, I am well pleased. And John reminds us that this, this choosing that God has done making us children of God is not something that happens in the future in eternal life in heaven or anything like that. It happens now, God has already given us this love in Jesus, the next verse, the reason why the world does not know us, is that it did not know Him. So John makes a transition here, he says, We are God's children. Why are we treated so poorly? Sometimes? Why are God's people not on top in everything? Why don't we always have great lives full of riches and happiness and wealth? It's very simple. The world does not know us. And he said, Well, wait a second, the world doesn't know us. How could it not know us? We are children of the God of all creation. Well, the world did not know Jesus. Right? The world rejected Jesus. He came preaching God's word, healing the people casting out demons doing everything right. And yet, the world rejected him and sent him to a cross to die there. The world doesn't know us, because it didn't know Jesus. John continues, Beloved, we are God's children now. And what we will be, has not yet appeared. So while we are God's children now, we also have a promise that we are something more than what we see in our flesh and blood. What we will be, has not yet appeared. This gives us the idea of well, sometimes what theologians call the now and the not yet. We are God's children now. And yet it's in a hidden way. Underneath the sinful flesh and blood that we have right now. There is a child of God in all its perfection, and yet it has not been fully manifest. It has not fully made known. We are waiting for the not yet of God's promises. And so he continues, but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. So the not yet is when he that is Jesus when Jesus appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. St. Paul calls Jesus's resurrection, the first fruits of those who come from the dead. And what that means is, is that Jesus is the beginning of the resurrection, so that he can be one of many brothers. So when Jesus returns we'll see him coming on the clouds with power and glory. We know that we who are God's people, will change and be like Him. Jesus will call the people out of their graves and their their lowly bodies that have have died and decayed will be transformed to be like his perfect body. And those of us who are alive our our living bodies that are lowly in a different way not decayed, but you know, injured and hurt and it will be transformed to be like his perfect body. On that day, the not yet will be now. And we hope in that promise, we hope that when we see Jesus, He will change us like that. And that is our sure and certain hope. And yet we live now, in the not yet God's promises is given to us. We have this this, we're children of God in a hidden way. And we hold on to the the gift that Jesus gives us. And so Jesus says, and everyone who thus hopes in him, purifies himself as he is pure. So all of us who have this hope, who look forward to the day of the resurrection, the day when Jesus returns, and reveals us as the perfect and pure children of God, we are purified, as He is pure. And God has given us certain and true means to do this through his means of grace. And he gives us baptism, Holy Communion, the proclamation of the Word, and confession and absolution. And I think John, In First John, he talks a lot about sending and receiving forgiveness. We say these words in church every Sunday, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then we do the confession and absolution. And that is how God purifies us through his means of grace. When we say when the pastor says, I forgive your sins in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. This is how we maintain our hope, through the means of grace that God has given us. Well, that's it for this passage. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 149, the Psalm for All Saints Day

Psalm 149

Praise the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a new song,
    his praise in the assembly of the godly!
Let Israel be glad in his Maker;
    let the children of Zion rejoice in their King!
Let them praise his name with dancing,
    making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!
For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
    he adorns the humble with salvation.
Let the godly exult in glory;
    let them sing for joy on their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their throats
    and two-edged swords in their hands,
to execute vengeance on the nations
    and punishments on the peoples,
to bind their kings with chains
    and their nobles with fetters of iron,
to execute on them the judgment written!
    This is honor for all his godly ones.
Praise the Lord!

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Psalm For All Saints Day is Psalm 149.

Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly. Let Israel be glad in his maker. Let the children of Zion rejoice in their king. Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre, for the Lord takes pleasure in his people, He adorns the humble with salvation. Let the godly exalt in glory, Let them sing for joy on their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute on them the judgment written. This is honor for all his godly ones. Praise the Lord.

This Psalm is a little bit of a challenge for us in the American church. It begins with things that we're fine with. Praise the Lord, Sing to the Lord, a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly. The new song is something that happens a lot in the Psalms talking about praising God for something new that he has done. Now many people when they say that they sing, sing to the Lord, a new song, they think, contemporary worship versus traditional worship. What it's really talking about is singing about the new thing that God has done, the new salvation he has brought to his people.

It continues, let Israel be glad in his maker, let the children of Zion rejoice in their king, Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and liar. For the Lord takes pleasure in his people. He adorns the humble with salvation.

This is us saying let's praise God, praise God with all our instruments with all our singing, because God takes pleasure in his people. And we know he does that because he has sent His Son Jesus to die for us. And all who are baptized into him, have received the robe of Christ's righteousness, and he has pleasure in us. Because he said to his son, you are my beloved son with you, I am well pleased.

The psalm continues, and it moves into a different sort of a different kind of idea. Let the godly exalted glory, Let them sing for joy on their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two edged swords in their hands. What, wait a second God, swords. Now you have to look back at the history of ancient Israel. Back when the Psalms were written, The kingdom of God had borders, and it had armies. And God punished the people of his kingdom with invasion. And he protected them with soldiers. And so defending the kingdom of God was not a metaphorical thing. It is sometimes the thing that you did with swords look at the story of Gideon, how they destroyed all of the Moabites when, when battle happened that was defending God's kingdom, or how King David conquered all of these areas from the Philistines. This is God's work defending his kingdom. It's a little different today. But this image gives us a question right, especially as it goes on, where it says to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron to execute on them the judgment written. This is honor for all his godly ones.

This continues the idea of of God's people having a military in the Old Testament to defend themselves and go after the nations that oppressed them.

We have to ask ourselves in the church, who is our enemy?

Who are the ones that God fights against? Now?

On a spiritual level, we definitely say that this is not human beings. The Christian Church is not called to go out with two edged swords in their hands to execute vengeance on the nations.

God has already fought for us and he's defeated our true enemy, sin, death and the devil. And he did it when he went to the cross Jesus Christ to die for us, as Colossians tells us that he nailed the our sins the cross and made a mockery

of the devil, as we consider that though, we also have to consider that many Christians find that there are human beings working on the side of Satan to oppress the church. It's a big challenge to separate these two. The Christians in facing a hostile Rome, like it describes in the book of Revelation sees a challenge right there. As Christians are dragged into the arena, and the Romans are shouting kill the atheists, which is what they called us.

Often the Christians would respond, you're judging us now. You will be judged on the last day. And we see that judgment in the Psalm as well. Not a two edged swords in our hand, but a calling on God to come and judge the whole world and give justice to his people and take out all the forces of sin, death and the devil. And on All Saints Day, what we do is we celebrate the communion of saints that we have and look forward with joy and hope for the day that God returns to bring his judgment to Earth. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Revelation 7:2-17 The First Reading for All Saints Day

Revelation 7:2-17

Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:

12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed,
12,000 from the tribe of Reuben,
12,000 from the tribe of Gad,
12,000 from the tribe of Asher,
12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali,
12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,
12,000 from the tribe of Simeon,
12,000 from the tribe of Levi,
12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,
12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun,
12,000 from the tribe of Joseph,
12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

“Therefore they are before the throne of God,
    and serve him day and night in his temple;
    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The first reading for All Saints Day comes from Revelation chapter seven, verses two through 17. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God. And he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, Do not harm the earth, or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of the sealed 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben 12,000, from the tribe of Gad, 12,000 from the tribe of Asher 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Isa car 12,000. From the tribe of Zebulun 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph 12,000, from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed. After this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell on their faces before the throne and worship God saying, Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. Then one of the elders addressed me saying, Who are these clothed in white robes? And from where have they come? I said to him, Sir, you know, and he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the Great Tribulation, they have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence, They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore, The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat, for the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Here ends the reading. This first reading is from Revelation, and it's for the readings for All Saints Day, All Saints Day is a day when we remember all the Christians who have gone before us all those who have died and the faith, which is why we have this reading about all nations gathered around the throne. I think the first thing that is interesting and possibly confusing, is the number of people who are sealed. And being from the tribes of Israel, we see this number of 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. And then it goes on to say 12,000 from each tribe Judah Rubin, gab, Asher, Naphtali, Manasa, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. We have to remember that in the book of Revelation, it's something called apocalyptic literature. And so the numbers and ideas and images and visions we see all represent other things. In the Bible, the number 12 is the number of wholeness or fullness. And so we get this 12,000, which is the number 12 times 1000 from each tribe, which means we get 12 times 12,000, or 144,000. And so it's not just it's not a number, that is to say, only 144,000 are saved, but something very simple and wonderful. The whole fullness of God's people. It's the full number 12 times 12,000, which is the full number times 1000 To make the full number, a massive, complete everything number of all of God's people who've been gathered together around the throne. And we see again that they come from every nation as it were beads. After this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, and from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands. And so on All Saints Day, we celebrate that God gathers all his glorious people together around the lamb, from every nation, that these are all people in history, every nation, tribe, language and people. And to reminds us that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about the your ethnic origin, or skin color or anything like that. It is all about the gospel. And it breaks through all of these barriers to gather us around the throne of the Lamb, and addresses us in white robes of Christ's righteousness. And everybody sings and shouts, they say Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Later on, we see one of the elders go up to the author, John, and it asked him a question, Who are these clothed in white robes? And from where have they come? I said to him, Sir, you know. And he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the Great Tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The Great Tribulation, well, that's life. These are the ones who come out of the Great Tribulation, we are all facing the Great Tribulation, the challenges and difficulties of facing a world filled with sin, death, and the devil. And all of us who have been baptized into Christ had been baptized into our Savior, which means that we have washed our robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white. Jesus has come to save us. And so all of our loved ones who have died in the faith that we remember on this All Saints Day, all of them go on before us and have made it out of the Great Tribulation, they stand around the throne of God, and they wait for the day that Jesus will return. And that is what this final song ends up pointing us to. It says, Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will shelter them in his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore, The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat, for the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd. And he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Now, many of you know that I came from northern Wisconsin, and I didn't really understand the biblical allusions to the sun being scorching until I moved to California. Out there we get we get clouds, it must be like 300 300 days a year, it feels like sometimes. And so when the sun comes out, we love it and we go out and we bask in it, we enjoy it. And if, if you're going to be out there all day, you start to put on sunscreen, but here in California, the sun is out to kill you. Like I put on sunscreen every single day. And I think that's what I'm thinking of when we we see this, this look forward to the day that Christ returns. And it's not just the sun, but there's no hunger, no thirst, no scorching heat. And God will lead us to springs of living water and wipe away every tear from every eye. Both those who are in heaven around the throne of the lamb right now and we who's who are waiting for his return. Know that that is what's coming when Jesus returns on the last day. That's it for this reading. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Just and the One Who Justifies. A Sermon for October 29th, 2023

Romans 3:19-31

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Today we're celebrating Reformation Day. It's the celebration not of nailing a particular bullet thing on a bulletin board. It's not really the celebration of a man, Martin Luther, or even all of the historical events that happened during those days. Reformation celebration is a celebration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that from Martin Luther and the work that he did, a church grew, that is so focused on being saved by grace through faith on account of Christ, that that is the center of our work, that God's great gift of salvation through Jesus is the very center of all of our theology and practice. And the readings today are chosen to reflect that. Today, we're going to take a look at what St. Paul writes in Romans chapter three, about God and His justice, I think is very interesting about this passage is the passage where he writes, so that he God might be just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. We may be used to hearing that phrase, but I think it's, it's interesting, because how does one be both just and a justifier? It's an important question, because in many times, times in places this, these things are opposites. So let's ask, what does it mean to be just? What does it mean to uphold justice? Now we have a justice system that includes the idea of being just right. We have officers, police officers who go out into the world who are charged with enforcing the law. In a perfect world, a police officer is there to help the victims of crimes and to arrest or punish the guilty, right? They are there to protect the innocent, and get the bad guy that is justice. The innocent are safe, the guilty or imprisoned. our court system is also charged with being just and the outcome should be the same. The guilty punished, the innocent, protected. I think that is what justice means. And God is just for God to be the perfect, almighty Holy God that he is he must also have perfect justice so that the guilty are punished, and the innocent freed. And St. Paul reminds us of what that means for human beings. He says. Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. This is God's justice. When we look at what God demands of every human being, he demands innocence, total and perfect innocence. When we look at his law, and all the things He commands us to do, we can only say that we have failed at that. Because God demands perfection. And we have a very simple phrase that reminds us. Nobody's Perfect, right? And we all know it. Because each and every one of us feels guilt for the things that we have done. And God's perfect justice is very simple. Each and every one of us must be perfect, as he is perfect. And if we are not, then we are guilty. We deserve nothing but wrath and punishment, Death and Hell. And it goes all the way back to the very beginning when God gave a single command to Adam and Eve, do not eat of this tree and the first thing they did was eat it, of course, kind of reminds a parent of having a young child, doesn't it? First thing you do is say, Don't do that, and they do it immediately. Except in that case, the parents are much nicer than a truly just God would be a truly just God just gives us the punishment, Death, and Hell. And that is what we deserve. That is why St. Paul says every mouth may be stopped. Because when we are presented with our sin, we simply have nothing to say, No excuse counts. No justification gets in the way. We are sinners, and we deserve punishment. Now God also wants to be the one who justifies the justifier. That means someone who gives excuses for the guilty, right? We justify ourselves all day long. Don't wait. We know that we do bad behavior that there are times when we do things, we make mistakes. And all the time, we have excuses. I come up with excuses why I didn't clean up after myself after I cook. I'm tired. I didn't want to. Yeah, that's a really good one, right? That just grunting. It doesn't mean that I get to get rid of my mistakes. Because I just give an excuse. I'm just trying to get out of what I'm supposed to do. That's justifying. Now sometimes in our world, when we justify ourselves, we have a good excuse. If you are on the road, going 90 miles an hour, and a police officer pulls you over. And it's because the baby is coming out. That might be a good excuse. Right? If you are going 90 miles down the road, and the police officer pulls you and pulls you over and you say I was a little late. Not so good excuse. God wants to be the one who justifies who gives an excuse, who allows the guilty to go free as it says, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift. What that means, then is sinners are given righteousness as a gift. The guilty are freed, the guilty or not punished. Not only that, the unrighteous are called righteous as if they are innocent, as if they are perfect. The real question is, how can God then be just as we confess that he is a perfect judge who has the holy standard that Nan can live up to? And also someone who justifies the sinner as a gift? How can God give that to someone without work? Without making up for it without doing anything? These things would seem impossible, in fact, but God does it through his son Jesus Christ, by sending His Son to die on the cross for us, he gives grace to the guilty. This is what it says. through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

There are a couple of words in that that are really important for understanding how this works. The first one is a one we might know pretty well. Redemption. This is an economic term. Sometimes you would redeem some thing with a coupon, right? You, you redeem a coupon by turning it in and you get 25 cents off a can of whatever, right? Redemption is also a word that we would use in ransom. you redeem someone when you buy them out of a condition. One of the ways they would use this in ancient Rome is if someone is in slavery, and you bought them, to free them, you would say they are redeemed from slavery. And here, Paul says that this gift of grace is through the redemption of Jesus Christ. Jesus buys us out of our guilty condition, by the amazing sacrifice of His blood on the cross. He spends the most precious thing that has ever been made the perfect blood of the Son of God sacrificed on the cross for you and me, to give in exchange for us. So that we can be freed so we can be treated as innocent. We are redeemed by Jesus Christ. The other word is propitiation. Now, this one is one that we don't normally hear. In fact, when we get to it in the Bible, I always have to pause and say, Have you heard this one before? Everybody says, No. It propitiation is a sacrifice that pleases a God. Now, if you use this term in in the pagan gods around the area, they would offer these things as a sacrifice, and the smells of it would please the gods up in heaven, and it would feed them and their worship. And it's a similar idea, not the smell, but a similar idea that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ appeases God's wrath. And it does, because the perfect justice of God requires that someone be punished for guilt, that when the guilty sin, there must be consequences. And what happens is that that wrath was poured out on Jesus Christ who took on himself the sin of the whole world. So that with that sacrifice, God's wrath could be vented on Jesus in our place. And his sacrifice becomes the propitiation for us. So that God no longer punishes us, no longer condemns us, but gives us His grace. In this way, God's justice can be expended it can be fulfilled, God can be truly just because he punishes the guilty in the form of Jesus Christ, who took on our guilt. And God can also be gracious and loving, and be the one who justifies all of those who believe. Because Jesus spent his blood for you, to save you from your guilty condition. And the amazing sacrifice of Jesus Christ, with the just God and the justifying God helps us to see exactly what our position is. What it means to be a Christian who believes we are saved by grace. St. Paul says, then what becomes of our boasting, it is excluded by what kind of law by law of works, no, but by the law of faith, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the law. This is an important piece of what it means to be saved by grace through faith on account of Christ, that we can never boast in who we are. We Christians, we can never say that we are good, because we are Christians. We can never say that we are better than anyone else. Or look at what we do and say, Look how amazing I am. Because we're all in the same position. We all stand before God and we hear what the law says and our mouths are stopped because we're sinners, and nothing we can do could change that. Our prayers don't make us holy. Our habits don't make us holy. Our offerings don't make us better. The times we give to charity don't make us more more wonderful. Because none of these things could ever outweigh the sin that we have. And so there is no boasting. We simply say, over and over. I am a poor, miserable sinner. But then we can know that with confidence, we are still saved, because we're not justified by our actions, or by our prayers or our giving or our volunteering or anything else that we do. We're justified by Jesus who delivers us salvation through faith. In his name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: John 8:31-36

John 8:31-36

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Gospel reading for reformation Sunday, October 29 2023, comes from John chapter eight, verses 31 through 36. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are the offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, you will become free? Jesus answered them. Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever, the sun remains forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. Here ends the reading. Jesus begins with a plain statement. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. So if we listen to Jesus, and we study and hear and remain abide, dwell in His Word, we will be His disciples. And then that leads to a result. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. So if we abide in Christ's word, Christ's word fills us and we live in it. And if we dwell in it, then we will know the truth about the world. And the truth will set us free. What is that truth about the world, that we live in a dark world that can only be saved by the light of Christ, that the forces of sin are always calling towards us, calling us away from God, all we have to do remain with him, we will be His disciples and we will be saved. Now this brings about a response in the Jews who believed in him because that's who Jesus is talking to, not not strangers. But the Jews who were following him. They say, We are the offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you can say you will become free? I can imagine American saying something similar, where the freest country in the whole world, how can you say you will become free, we don't have tyrants, we don't have anybody who's in charge, we are ruled by the people. Both of them are making a claim. They say, Abraham is our Father, and we've always been free with him. We've never been slaved by Romans or anybody else. We're not owned by anyone. We can't become more free than we are. And Americans might reply, we have political freedom. We can make decisions and do things without asking for a tyrant to rule over us. How can we become free? What they're missing is the spiritual freedom that Jesus offers them. And he goes on to say, Jesus answered them, Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who practices sin, is a slave to sin. Yikes. Sometimes the idea of freedom that we have in our hearts is actually the freedom to sin. Like, we don't want to be oppressed by the desire to do good. We want to be free to do evil. Ah, the oppression of wanting to do good, right? When we practice in when we practice evil, we're a slave to it. And so much of our hearts and our desires, it's like that. And Jesus says something about what happens when you're a slave. He says, The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free. Indeed. A slave is not a member of the household. But the Sun is. And if the sun sets us free and welcomes us into the house, we're part of God's household. We who are who were once slaves to sin, if you have faith in Jesus Christ, if you receive Him through His Word and Sacraments, He sets us free. And we will be truly free free not just like in a political sense in America or free like the children of Abraham sense that the Jews are talking about, but truly free from the most enslaving thing of all our slavery to sin. And Jesus sets us free from that. What a great passage. That's it for day. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Romans 3:19-28

Romans 3:19-28

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Epistle reading for reformation Sunday, October 29 2023, comes from Romans chapter three, verses 19 through 28. It reads, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins, it was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, then what becomes of our boasting, it is excluded by what kind of law by a law of works, no, but by the law of faith, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. here since the reading. This is all about the law and the gospel of fantastic division about the way God speaks to us that Lutherans are at the heart of the way we speak about God's work among us is dividing what the law can do, and what the gospel can do. And St. Paul begins with something about the law. He says, Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So here we see what God's law is. God's law is the demand that he makes on all human beings to be obedient to His Well, now is this isn't so much demand that is like, tyrant, up in Heavens shouting, you will obey me. It's more about being the people that God created us to be like, he has a purpose for each of us, for all of us, for all of humanity, and we're all to live up to it. And when we fall short, we are falling short of his law. And so when we see the law, then this thing that God calls us to be he says, We must be to be perfect, to be holy to be His people. The only thing it does is point out our sin, as St. Paul says, Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So when we look at the 10 commandments, we say to ourselves, whoa, I am not a good person. Because when God says You shall not murder, he also says to me, murder is not just killing someone, but God calls me to love to love with my whole heart, that makes me a sinner. And so when the law speaks, it's perfect demands on our obedience, it means that every mouth is stopped. That is, before the law, no one can boast about our holiness. Everyone is a sinner, and everyone is held accountable to God. Now, if this were the only thing that God said, we'd all be lost and condemned to hell. But God has a righteousness that is apart from the law. He says that the law and prophets bear witness to it. It is the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. So what he's saying there is that the Old Testament has a witness of a righteousness that does not come from God's demands, but comes through Jesus Christ. For all who believe Paul writes, For there is no distinction, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So everyone is a sinner. Everyone falls short. No one does anything that is good. And this is a thing Christians must always remember. And as we look at the world, and we say, Whoa, the world is so crazy, they do so much bad stuff. We must always say to ourselves We are sinners, we cannot boast. We cannot stand and look at the world and say, You sinners, we're sinners to. The only difference between them and us is that we have received this gift of grace through Jesus Christ, through the redemption that he offers us as a gift. While continues, it is in Jesus Christ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. We got to know what that propitiation is, propitiation is a word that talks about a sacrifice that pleases God. And so this propitiation is an offering made to God, so that that he would be pleased for with us because of it. And we receive this this good pleasure that had God has this God's grace, by faith. Paul continues, this was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins, it was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. One of the questions we think about with with this grace that God gives, is that it actually sounds really unjust. I mean, people will think you've been a horrible human, your whole life, you your murderer, drug dealer, all sorts of terrible things, you do the worst of the worst, awful, awful, awful person. And then on your deathbed, you turn and you say, I repent, you receive baptism, and all of a sudden you're in and people go, how is that even remotely fair, that is just terrible. Like people follow God their whole lives, and then turn away at the end. And there. You can do whatever you want your whole life, and then repent at the end and you're in. Well, here's the thing. The The idea here is that God is both just, and the justifier, which means that God actually has to punish sin. And he also wants to justify sinners. And so what we do is we say, the punishment that goes out for sin that was put on Jesus, as this propitiation, the sacrifice to be received by faith, which means that what God does in Jesus Christ is not offer or just a, like a free out for anyone, just so all you have to do is this easy flip of the switch, what it is, the divine Son of God sacrificed himself, for human beings, the infinite God of creation, died, so that every human being could be offered the gift of salvation. That means that it is not a little thing, to turn and receive Christ by faith. What it means is that when we receive this gift of faith, we are all of a sudden given the infinite sacrifice of Jesus. So God can be both just and the justifier just in that he punishes sin on Christ, and justifier for the one who has faith in Jesus. Paul finishes up, then what becomes more boasting is excluded. That means we can't boast. Christian Christians are not good, because we are good. Christians are good because we have Jesus. We're just as bad sinners as anyone else. Everything that is good in us is Christ. What a great way to end the our chapter today. That's it. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 46

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
    God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

Come, behold the works of the Lord,
    how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the chariots with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!”
The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The psalm for reformation Sunday is Psalm 46. It reads, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way. though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river who streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High, God is in the midst of her she shall not be moved. God will help her win morning Dawn's the nation's rage, the kingdoms totter, he utters His voice, the earth melts, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth, He makes or cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the chariots with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress here ends the reading. Psalm 46, is a famous one for the Reformation, because it's the foundation for that him a mighty fortress is our God, you know how it goes. My tea for trust is our God, our trusty shield. And when Luther freely writes a summary of this psalm, in that him it's a wonderful hymn about God's strength. And this Psalm is a wonderful psalm about the strength of God and how He protects his people. Let's dive into it. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way though the mountains be wrought moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, the mountains tremble added swelling. So this begins with an image of God being a refuge, a help in times of difficulty. And it then moves into the cataclysm of being thrown into the sea. For the ancient people with the sea was one of the most dangerous places you could be. I mean, it's still pretty dangerous, even with all our technology, far more dangerous than the land could ever be. But the sea for ancient people being out it was the very definition of chaos. And so God is a refuge and strength in the midst of the worst kind of chaos, chaos that is unbridled and raging, that can tear down mountains that can move away the shore that can make terrible things happen. And yet God is a refuge and strength, even if the mountains tremble at the chaos of the world around us. God is our refuge and strength, even when chaos is all around us, not just because God is powerful, but because he sent Jesus Christ to die for us. That's how we know he's a refuge. That's how we know he is a strength. Let's move on to the next section. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God the holy habitation of the Most High, God is in the midst of her she shall not be moved, God will help her win morning, Don's the river that makes GLAAD the City of God. The idea here is that ancient ancient fortresses cities needed a water supply in case of attack. And you needed a water supply if you were besieged so that you could live right if you had no water, you'd have to store it, and eventually you will die off. One of the great stories is Hezekiah tunnel for Jerusalem, where there was a siege coming. So Hezekiah digs a tunnel to move the river and a reservoir into the city of Jerusalem so they can have water rather than make it available for the enemy to block off. When we consider our own city of God the church, there is a river that makes us glad to its holy baptism. St. John actually in Revelation talks about our river being at the heart of New Jerusalem and how it it makes the city overjoyed. And that river is at the heart of every Christian. When we were baptized in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. God fills us with Christ. Psalm 40 Six continues. The nation's raged the kingdoms totter. he utters His voice, the earth melts, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. We return to this idea of chaos, nation's rage kingdoms totter, and then Goddard utters His voice and the earth mouths. What a powerful God that we have, that he can use his voice to bring about chaos and end it. And then it says, the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress, the Lord of hosts, god of armies. God is powerful and protects us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Now you have to consider who that God of Jacob is, why would they use that phrase, the God of Jacob? Well, Jacob was part of that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And they weren't great people. I mean, you look at the history of that news is Jacob. He begins his life by stealing his brother's birthright and tricking his father into blessing him. And then he runs off, and he ends up working to marry this girl, and he marries the wrong girl. And then he has to work more to marry another girl. And then he ends up doing this weird thing with Esau, and he parades, his whole family ahead of them, and then falls down before Esau. And then right before that he wrestles with God, until the God finally blesses him and he won't let him go. And we get this idea of Israel. He wrestles with God being the name of the children of Israel, the nation of Israel, throughout the Old Testament. And it's the God of that guy, the guy who was weird and stole a blessing. He's the God of Jacob, which I think is great, because we're a people who often wrestles with God, we certainly don't line up behind him and do everything correctly. And yet, that God is our fortress through Jesus Christ. The last passages, talks about all the desolations that God brings, he makes war, see, see breaks the bow and shatters the spear. God is powerful. He destroys the weapons of war. And he says to us, be still and know that I'm I am God. Now, so many people use that phrase to say, here's what you're supposed to do is you're just supposed to wait and listen for God's voice. Be still and know that I am God and you'll hear it. That's not what that means. Be still and know that I am God. When wars are going on around you. When the sea is inter is erupting, and foam and the chaos of the world is shattering. We have one defense, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations I will be exalted in the earth. What does that mean? God will be make himself famous by protecting his people. All we have to do is wait. God is in charge. He is our fortress. He is with us. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Revelation 14:6-7

Revelation 14:6-7

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week, I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The first reading for reformation Sunday is from Revelation Chapter 14, verses six through seven, it reads, Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea, and the springs of water. Here ends the reading. This reading is the reading for reformation Sunday, and it takes place of the Old Testament reading, you'll notice that revelation is not in the Old Testament, but it's one of the traditional readings that we use during rebel during the Reformation text. It begins with an angel flying overhead and it says with an eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth. I'm sure this reading is chosen because of that eternal Gospel passage that Martin Luther out of the Reformation, renewed the idea of the gospel that we are saved by grace through faith on account of Christ without works, and that it was a message for every nation and tribe and language and people. The idea is, of course, is that this gospel is for all people, a free gift of grace through Jesus Christ. This comes in the middle of a passage where the 144,000 are gathered together before the living creatures, and everyone is gathering together the fullness of God's people, and what are they gathered around Christ and His gospel, the message of salvation. And that's what we are celebrating on Reformation Day. And it says with a loud voice, Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come and worship Him who made heaven, earth, the sea and the springs of water. And we say, how do we worship that God? How do we truly do what he wants us to do is to hear the gospel, receive His sacraments and believe in Him, so that when he comes we will be counted among his people. That's it for our reading today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

What Is God's? Sermon for October 22nd, 2023

Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

Matthew 22 is our text. And it starts with a fascinating, ironic seeing Pharisees and Herodians working together. How did that happen? Guys from political parties in opposite spectrums, theological enemies are joining forces, the Herodians word the supporters of the Roman Empire, the Pharisees were a strong opposition to Rome. Then these guys hate each other. They see pretty much everything in religion and society from different perspectives. But here, there's theming. Together, what is making them to do that? They want to put an end in Jesus, they came up with a meal trap. Jesus enemies, they have been trying through other questions before and they will try again, in the sequence. But now, the trap is about politics. They wanted to know what side is Jesus? And what's your favorite political position? Jesus? What's your ideology? I don't even need to say to you how controversial this conversation was.

And still is today?

How much this subject leaves people on the edge? In preaching about it is not easy. I wish I had a different text. I really do. I will proceed cautious than trying to explain what's going on here. There are two main points, if you will, there is a question. And there is an answer. Let's work through this structure. The question, it is right, to pay taxes to Caesar. Have you ever thought about it? What's behind this? What kind of question is this? What they really wanted to know? What is the trap behind the question? Now, one thing that helps us to understand is to see what kind of taxes they are talking about here. Because there were a lot of taxes back then. And the question is about one in a specific, the Imperial tax in the amount of money wasn't too high. But it was symbolic. It was the text paid to Rome, to have the benefit of being a colony. He was the text Rome charge every year to the places that they control. It was like we conquer you. But we will not kill you. We will not destroy everything in everyone. But that's gonna cost you IR B. We know from the history that when this tax was imposed by Rome, to Judea into that area, there was a big insurrection led by a guy called Judas Galilean. You and he did three things. He called everyone not to pay the tax. Second, He cleansed the temple of traders. And three, he said, From now on, we will only obey elap God to be our king will begin the kingdom of God. What happened to him? He was captured. It executed 25 years earlier than this story. And now what's happening? Here comes a guy Jesus. And he comes speaking about the Kingdom of God. Teaching throughout the country that the kingdom of God has arrived second, he cleans the temple. He expels the merchants and he caught the attention. People are intriguing what's happening here. We will have a new insurrection. A lot of people thought so. But there was one thing missing. He talks about the kingdom. He cleaned the temple. What was missing to characterize the revolution of 25 years ago? Yep. Call for a tax boycott. You see, the question goes deeper than just caught in Jesus to one side or the other. It's not just about attacking Jesus popularity. The question behind it is right to pay taxes to Caesars is Jesus? Are you a new revolutionary? In here's the trap. If Jesus says, No, don't pay tax, he will be calling for a revolt just like Judas did 25 years ago, he would be given the green light to the Jews to begin an armed revolution. And the Herodians would immediately report him to the authorities with a supposedly legitimate accusation. And the rebellion will be a nickel plated. And perhaps Jesus would be killed or arrested, before fulfilling his mission in Jesus would become none as only a political martyr, a second Judas Galilean, his work would have been this one more who rose again, the Empire. Now, if Jesus says yes, just go and pay the tax, then everyone who heard him teaching about the Kingdom of God wouldn't conclude his talk was just baloney. Why? Because Jesus could not talk in the first century about a kingdom of God, from a purely spiritual point of view, like something private, avoiding any social or political implication. Why is that? It is kind of difficult for us to understand, because in a way, we're all fruit of the Enlightenment. John Locke and Immanuel Kant, people who a few centuries ago, began to defend the thesis that religion and spirituality are matters of private life. That we should read the Bible, pray, come to church, thinking that Christ only wants to live inside here. He just wants to forgive us and take us to the heaven someday, that our faith in Jesus only serves to calm our consciences or to deal with feelings in has nothing to do with our everyday life, our social and relational life, our professional and political life and public life. When, when that's the case, we don't understand the trap Jesus was in for some today, it kind of would be completely okay for Jesus to say just, you know, I brought the kingdom of God to you come to church on Sunday, in whatever you do with the rest of your week, with your ethical decisions, with your priorities, with your relationships, with your multiple colleagues in your vocations with your money, none of that matters to God, keep God only in your heart, pray from time to time in whatever you do with the rest of your life is up to you. I am not sure if you are tempted to feel that way to think like that. The problem is that if Jesus said in the first century to that people who clung to promises and callings of a kingdom of God, they were much more real and concrete than just God in my heart. If Jesus said that to them, they would see the disconnection between him in the Old Testament and between him and himself in his words, because when he showed up and preached his first sermon, he said, I am the one who Isaiah has announced it. I am the one who came down from heaven to preach the good Gospel to the poor, to bring freedom to the captives, to give food to the, to the hungry, to be the God of the widows and the orphans to heal the sick. Do we understand? If Jesus who have been announcing the kingdom of God, if He now just says it is, it is right to pay taxes to says it? Oh, yeah, sure. Oh, stop doing, keep your heads down. Just pay the tax without any questioning. Keep God in your heart and be satisfied to be a law abiding citizen, enjoying your inner peace. If Jesus said that His followers wouldn't live him. Because this preaching don't match the kingdom of God. The God promise, he would lose credibility. And if he says Don't, don't pay it, don't pay a Texas QB hunt by Rome, and becomes a political prisoner, just like that. That is the drama behind the question. Are you? Or are you not the Messiah? Who will bring the to kingdom of God? That was the question. Let's work on the answer. Now. This is the situation in which Christ finds himself in his response is incredible. Interesting. When politics

when politicians in general, when they hear a controversial question, a question for which there was no prior narrative construction, no rehearsal with the team of advisors. What do they do? They avoid, right? They don't respond. They change focus, and we are disappointed, because we're expecting an answer. But Jesus, trappers were not disappointed. On the contrary, after Jesus entered, they marveled because not only Jesus did not avoid answering, but he said something that was so profound in the wreck in clear at the same time, render to Caesars the things that are Caesar's, and to God, the things there are gods in this answer, just like the question has more elements than we might notice, at first glance, and the best way to analyze is to think about this answer. And notice what Jesus is rejecting, with that answer. What is he benign? With those words, Jesus was cornered. He heard a question in now, in response, he will refuse a couple of things. First, with his answers, Jesus rejects a simplistic point of view, about politics and culture in our life in the world. The question is quite obvious. They wanted a simple answer, yes or no. To pay, you're not to pay one side or the other. Which party? Are you in? Are you going to join the Herodians, supporting Rome? Or the Pharisees against Rome? And in that sense, Jesus answer is disappointing. Because the answer give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God that things are God's to that question about our relationship to the state, our relationship to the Empire, our relationship to the politics, our relationship to the Texas was not a yes or no answer. But yes, no. It's not this or that. But this, in that both M. Jesus gives notice a balanced answer of nuances. On the one hand, he resisted what is on the court. On the other hand, he accepted. They wanted to know which side Jesus is, whether he's right or left in he refuses to see the situation in those terms.

He resists simplistic politics Next,

he resists polarized politics, we could say, the Gospel may not fit 100% into this, for that agenda, an implication

for us about this,

we should today, be careful to co opt Jesus into the agenda of one side, we can surely say, this value. This proposal seems to be in tune with the principles and values of God and Jesus in the gospel. But we should be cautious on saying, Jesus is on my side. I stand on the platform of Jesus. Anyone who does not vote like I do. I don't consider a Christian. I don't know. Jesus is inviting us with his answer to see the complexity of some things, to resist the temptation of oversimplify social and cultural and political matters. That's the first point of Jesus, he's refusing that simplistic answer to every question. Some questions. Sure. There is a yes or no. But not every question. Remember, brothers and sisters, the gift of the Holy Spirit, which one pastor, the gift of moderation, exercise moderation, on conversations about stuff happening in the world? Because sometimes they are not simple. Because maybe sometimes our brothers or our friends or our family members, maybe the little ones in faith, we're starting to walk with Jesus. Maybe they need patient, maybe they need a fraternal conversation, maybe because they don't know a lot of things yet, maybe because we may be wrong in this question, that's why Jesus is teaching first of all, humility, and moderation in these things. Don't be a mother zealot, how the zealot resolves their questions, they count, they cancel. They explore things. We don't need to be on the fence. We don't need to be always in a central position. Not necessarily. We can have our strong opinions about things. But whatever you find yourself, find yourself using moderation. Second thing on Jesus response, he resists both political admission and political idolatry. How so? I explained the details on the text, don't lose that. Jesus begin his answer asking for something. You see it. He asked for what a particularly coin to pay that specific Imperial text. It was a denarius. We know that currency. There are some examples in museums around the world. They are silver, and they have an icon printed in them. And Jesus then asks, Who is imaging is on the denarius? You have the emoji. And the scription, Jesus asked for the inscription to Tiberius Caesar, Son of God, Augustus, maximum pontiff, high priest. Jesus takes out a coin that says that the Roman Emperor is king, Son of God, in high priest. Jesus asks for this coin, and he's asked about the image and says, Give it to him. What's his pay him taxes? Not necessarily. It's not what he's saying. He said, Give to him. What his kids and to God, what is God's? Well, what is or what was Caesar's, so to speak. That which has his image, which is coins. There he is. They were minted from his wealth. Give Caesar whatever has his image printed on it. And we're talking about coins. We're talking about money. Now, give to God Whatever has his

image printed in it,and what has God's image printed in it? You

to Caesar the coin to God, all of it yourself entirely. It's Jesus way of saying, pay the tax, okay? Now, total commitment, total Alliance, your entire life, no way that belongs to God and only God. Until that time, Jesus in one way or the other by force, or rhetorically all human governments had asserted that they were representing God on earth, that they have divine authority to be unquestionable, God chose us we are Gods every empire said that. And therefore we have the authority. No one can speak against us. No one can stand against us. Jesus is saying No way. Don't you dare to give to Caesar or any other ruler, this kind of covenant, give him the things with his image imprinted on it, give him the coin. But don't give you your wedding ring. Don't idolize

your ruler.

Another detail the verb Jesus used. They asked if they should pay. Caesar, the verb to pay is to give a gift. Jesus respond with another verb, a slightly different meaning. Jesus talks about not giving a gift but giving something back, giving back what whatever he gives to you. It's giving good government, give it back. If the government is unfair, resist, go to the streets, go to the polls, open your mouth vote reported in the proper way, of course, but call out the government when they are doing something wrong. Make no mistake, there is something you can and should give to Caesar. That scenarios there is political involvement, participation, contribution, but we cannot give him the same things if he exceeds his limit and becomes a beast of the revelation. If he ultimately is demands towards our total Alliance. Are uncritical support, there are situations we have the responsibility to stand against it. become a citizen of the kingdom of God has this political social involvement in the sense, as sinners, we're all part of the problem. But as Christians, we are all part of the solution. We don't want to be an zealot who is revolting. But we don't want to be an s sin. Don't run to the desert running away from the problem and leaving everything behind. Let's not become a lineated or distracted by things. But find out where is our place, our vocation, that God has placed us with our gifts and responsibilities and experiences in society. So we cannot say that Jesus was a political agitator. If he was one, he would have taken the advantage of that opportunity and call for rebellion. But we cannot say that Jesus advocates for a completely spiritual kingdom without any political social engagement without any participation or criticism, because by publicly declaring that no one should give Caesar His covenant. In his idolatry. Jesus is declaring that the government it's not supposed to be our God in so we can question if the government needs to be questioned, but we can and should support if the government needs our support. With this answer gives to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's Jesus was saying, on the one hand, I am not a politician. On the other hand, I'm credible, engaged in the life of the world. On the one hand, I don't have a government platform, at least not a detailed one. On the other hand, I do have a kingdom platform, because I am a king, not a king, like all of the other kings. Because my kingdom is dealing with the real poverty, with the real suffering, with the real injustice and the real disease with real conflict with real evil. I will bring peace and reconciliation with God, with others and with yourself. Life, abundant life, real, eternal life. There were two kings in this story, a king without a coin. In on the coin, another king. One had all the coins in the world, both claimed to be the Son of God, the high priest, the savior of humanity. But look how different they are. One King Caesar is doing his thing through conquest and colonization, and killing and by force. The other King, Jesus, do not conquer, do not colonize. He converts by love. And this one, Jesus, thy kingdom doesn't come to replace Caesar. He says, I am better than Caesar. I am different. My work is to solve yours and the world's problems, one by one, each in their own time. And I'm going to start by solving the biggest problem of all, the monster that lives inside all of you. Your sin. And I will do that. Not with a sword, nor with power, nor with the crease. I will do it with a sacrifice with a donation. My life, my blood in ransom from all of you. I will die for you. Without any coin, without any penny. Without a political party supporting me. Without a legion of fans supporting me. I will die empty, naked, totally offered to you. A king without a coin. A king who came to give, to serve to wash feet to die for us. That's your king.

That's our King. Give to him. What is yes, he deserves it.

It's not a coin. Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai