Getting Ready for Sunday: Mark 1:14-20 The Gospel Reading for Sunday, January 21st

Mark 1:14-20

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.

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 Gospel reading for Sunday, January 21, comes from Mark chapter one, verses 14 through 20. Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel. Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in their boats, mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father's Ebody in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him. Here ends the reading. So this begins with a notice about what Jesus is doing. So it says, After John was arrested, that means that there's a gap of time between the baptism and the, and Jesus's time in the wilderness. And what is going on here, there's a gap somewhere. So Jesus comes into Galilee then, and he proclaims the kingdom of God, he's got this, this proclamation. The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel. So Jesus is doing this thing in an ongoing basis, he's got a proclamation that he does. And so there's there's sort of like, a pause almost in between what's going on here. And what happens next. It assumes almost that Jesus is out doing some of the preaching. And then while he's doing that, he ends up going alongside the Sea of Galilee. And he sees Simon Andrew and says, Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. The same thing happens with James and John. Immediately, they follow Him, there are a couple of things I think we need to note. First, it is amazing that Jesus comes up to these two men in the middle of their work. And he says, Follow me. And they do it. That's it, right? He walks up, follow me. And immediately they left their nets and followed Him. What a crazy thing. The power of Jesus to call people to follow him in this instance, is outstanding. Now, we do have to say that it is likely that Simon Andrew and James and John, all had heard Jesus preach, had been connected with Christ during this time, this gap, where he is preaching in Galilee, and the beginning of his calling to them. And so it's not like they didn't know who Jesus was like he's a stranger. In fact, the Gospel of John tells us that Andrew and Simon were disciples of John the Baptist. And John goes, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And then he does it again, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and Simon and Andrew, follow Jesus, and come to Him. And so there's this, they do know who he is, before this, this call is made, and yet, they don't say, Sure, Jesus, let us first fill in the blank. Immediately they're left their nuts and followed him. How wonderful life changes when Jesus calls. I think another thing we need to note about this, is that the saying follow me and I will make you become fishers of men. Now, I think many of us when we read this passage, we immediately jumped to And so Jesus makes us all into fishers of men. But I think it's important to note who he is calling. This is Simon or Peter, Andrew, James and John. They are apostles. The call of Jesus is different for them than for all Christians. They are called to be witnesses, one of the 12 witnesses that goes out into the world to proclaim the resurrection and begin the new family of Abraham in the 12 tribes of Israel, their calling is different from your calling. They were called to become fishers of men in a way that normal, regular Christians are not. Now, that does not mean that Christians aren't supposed to witness or even that Christians are supposed to let their pastors do all the work. But still, this is not a passage that lays a burden on every Christian to look into their metaphorical net and see how many Christians they've caught, to lay that burden on themselves and be like how I truly become a fisher of men. That is not what this passage is about. Mark is showing how Jesus came to call the very first apostles, Simon, Andrew, James, and John, and how they left their nets and followed. At best, what this can teach us is what it's like that when Jesus calls, we begin a new life. They began a new calling as apostles, like a seminary following Jesus around we when we are baptized when we come to faith, we also became a begin a new life, but it's certainly a different calling than the calling of one of the 12 apostles. That's all we have to say today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 The Epistle Reading for Sunday, January 21st

1 Corinthians 7:129-31

This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

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, January 21, is first Corinthians chapter seven, verses 29 through 31. This is what I mean brothers, the appointed time has grown very short, from now on, but those who have wives live as though they had none. And those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing. And those who buy as those they had no goods, and those who deal with the world, as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. He rents the reading. What a weird reading, right? This is the kind of thing that is super confusing for people. He's like, let those who have wives live like they had none. And if you're not, if you're mourning, as if you're not mourning, what is going on here? Well, it begins with the appointed time has grown very short, that's an important passage to put this in conflict context, is that God, he is talking about God coming, the end of the world is soon and we need to keep our eyes focused on that the appointed time has grown short, it is time to come. And so then we have so let those who have wives live as though as they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, those rejoices, they were not rejoicing, etc, and cetera. Now, you could take that to mean, St. Paul is saying, Get rid of all your worldly connections and focus just on God. But of course, that would be not not consistent with other parts of Paul's message, where he talks about loving and serving and husbands caring for their wives and serving each other. Another thing you could take this to mean, and sometimes people say this is that St. Paul here is saying, God is gonna come back anytime so we can abandon stuff. But then later on, he realized that, that God would come back, Jesus is coming back, but maybe in a little while. So we still have to do our work. But that is also not something that we can support. Because that would mean that Paul was wrong about something and something in the Bible is incorrect. And that just isn't doesn't work out with the way we approach this. What can this mean? Well, I think what St. Paul is saying is revealed in this what comes after this, he says I want you to be from free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrayed, woman is anxious about things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. So what I'd like to suggest is what St. Paul is saying here, is not abandon all things and focus only on prayer, or that he's expecting Jesus to come back any moment now. And you should just leave everything behind and just wait. What I think he's suggesting is that when we are in Christ, we ought to focus on God. Above all things. Jesus said something that is could seem just as crazy as what St. Paul is saying. He says, If anyone would come after, who does not I hate his father, and mother, and even his own life cannot be my disciples. And if it took that literally, you would have to say, Wait a second. Jesus wants us to hate people. But that's not what he means he's using a figure of speech. And I think St. Paul's doing something similar. We who are married, like I'm married, I need to please my wife. But what's more important than pleasing my wife, pleasing God, making sure my my efforts and my hope and my life are focused on Him, which includes taking care of my wife and the people around me. But when God is first, and when God is most important, sometimes those two things come in conflict. And I need to be focused solely and wholly on God and and His will for my life. So I think that's what's going on here. It's a tough reading. But you know, we got to try to work through it. That's all we have to say today we'll see you on Sunday bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 62 The Psalm for Sunday, January 21st, 2024

Psalm 62

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
    from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.

How long will all of you attack a man
    to batter him,
    like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
They only plan to thrust him down from his high position.
    They take pleasure in falsehood.
They bless with their mouths,
    but inwardly they curse. Selah

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
    for my hope is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my salvation and my glory;
    my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

Trust in him at all times, O people;
    pour out your heart before him;
    God is a refuge for us. Selah

Those of low estate are but a breath;
    those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
    they are together lighter than a breath.
Put no trust in extortion;
    set no vain hopes on robbery;
    if riches increase, set not your heart on them.

Once God has spoken;
    twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
    and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.
For you will render to a man
    according to his work.

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 psalm for Sunday January 21, is Psalm 62. For God alone, my soul waits in silence. From him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation my fortress, I shall not be greatly shaken. How long will all of you attack a man to batter him like a leaning wall, a tottering fence. They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehoods, they bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse for God alone, oh my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation my fortress, I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory. My mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, oh, people pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us. Those of lowest state are but a breath. Those of highest state are a delusion. In the balances they go up. They are together lighter than a breath. But no trust in extortion, set no vain hopes on robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart on them. Once God has spoken, twice, have I heard this, that power belongs to God, and that You oh Lord, belong steadfast love for you will render to a man according to his work. Here hence the reading. Psalm 62 is a Psalm of David. And he begins by saying confidence about God and His salvation. It goes for God alone, my soul waits in silence. From him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation my fortress, I shall not be greatly shaken. Now, this is an image of God that we use throughout the Bible, the idea of God being a rock, a foundation or a fortress, we have the hem A Mighty Fortress is my God right now, this is compared in the next statement to the trustworthiness of human beings and the threat that they take. How long will all of you attack a man to batter him like a leaning wall a tottering fence, they only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure and falsehood they bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. This is an expression of the human humanity that is all around us. How many of us know people who are are just always on the hunt for you? Like they're always looking to peck at you in some way. They they want to take you down somehow. Usually, it's not an aggressive thing like, like violent, like it might have been in David's day. But it's the people who are as he says, they blessed with the miles but in really they curse. They take pleasure and falsehood. They're just hoping for you to fall. What a contrast is that between humanity and God, who is a solid fortress, a rock and salvation. And that's what David says in the next section. For God alone, oh, my soul wait and silence from my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation my fortress, I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory, my mighty rock, my refuge is God. So he says this again, he repeats this image of salvation and the mighty Rock says For God alone, oh my soul wait and science from my hope is from him. This is a reminder that human beings we just can't trust each other. I mean, we there's trust that we can share, and it comes back and forth. But at a certain point, only God is the one that we can truly trust. People will always fail us. People will always hurt us. Even the people who love us most, there will come a point where they just can't live up to their promises. They their weakness means that they won't support us the way they said we should. And it's the same for us, right? Every one of us does that same thing to other people. Which is why David says For God alone, oh my soul, wait and silence from my hope is from him. And it's so funny that David has so much confidence in God that he can say I will just wait. I'll just wait in silence. God knows what I need and he'll give it to me. He is my rock and my salvation. and David makes it even more clear. He says, Trust in him at all times, oh, people pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us. So not only can we trust God, but we can also pour out our hearts everything that we are before God because we have so much trust in Him. And we don't have to worry about what we say. What a contrast is that between the people in high position who want to take you down, the people who take pleasure and falsehoods who blessed with their mouths, but in really they curse. They're always looking for an in, you can't trust them. You can't trust them with your confidence, you can trust them with their hope. And you definitely can't pour out your heart, because all they will do is use it against you. But not God. You pour out your heart to God, He returns with love only. Next, those have low estate or butter breath. Those of high estate are a delusion in the balances they go up they are together lighter than a breath. Put no trust and extortion set no vain hopes on robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart on them. So again, this is a contrast between humanity and God. People of lowest state. They're just a breath, people of highest state of delusion. It reminds me of what Solomon says when he says Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity, or emptiness, emptiness, everything is emptiness. It's nothing. He says that riches, power, wealth, humanity, pleasure, all that is nothing. And David goes, people are like that, too. They are worth nothing compared to God. Don't trust an extortion or robbery. Don't trust enriches. None of that will get you ahead only God. He finishes. Once God has spoken twice have I heard this? That power belongs to God, and that You oh Lord, belong steadfast love for you will render to a man according to his work. So this phrasing once God has spoken twice have I heard this is saying it's emphasizing in a lyrical way, what God says one that God has power and steadfast love. And that rendering according to his work means that God has judgment, but he also has grace for all those who follow him. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Jonah 3:1-5, 10 The Old Testament Reading for Sunday, January 21st, 2024

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

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, January 21, comes from Jonah chapter three, verses one through five and verse 10.

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.

So Jonah rose, and went to Nineveh, according to the Word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breath, Jonah began to go into the city going a day's journey, and he called out yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

And the people of Nineveh believed God, they called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them, to the least of them.

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them. He did not do it. Here, hence the reading.

The story of Jonah is rather famous, because it is pretty amazing. God comes to Jonah early in the book, and he says, go to Nineveh and tell them the message that they will be overthrown. And Jonah says, No, thank you. And he goes as far away from Nineveh as he can. He heads out of the city and goes to tries to get on a boat to go to Tarshish.

While he's on the boat, a great storm comes up, and they figure out that the storm is Jonah's fault. And he goes, Yes, it's me. And they throw him into the water and the storm stops.

While Jonah is in the water, giant fish comes up and eats him.

And then eventually, Jonah is spit out on land. And we get to this, this part where it says, The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time. That covers up a lot of plot, doesn't it? A lot of story is happening between, in those words, the second time.

So Jonah is back out, out of the fish alive and well. And the Word of God to him comes again. This time, he goes and goes to Nineveh, and says exactly what God would do. He says, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

The message is a message of judgment. God is going to punish Nineveh, an evil city, a city filled with violence and terrible things.

What's amazing, though, is in response to this judgment, the city reacts in repentance. It says, they called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them, to the least of them. Now our reading skips over the details of that story. What happens in between verses five and verse 10, is this. The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne removed his robe, covered himself in sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles. Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything, let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered in sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands, who knows, God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.

Now, this makes us realize that the proclamation that Jonah gave was not just simply those words, yet 40 days and none of us shall be overthrown, but a lot longer saying that is about what God would do and what he calls on them to do. There was a repent and believe kind of aspect of this. And so they all respond from the greatest to the least it goes all the way up to the king of the Nineveh who makes a law that everyone has to fast no food or water.

When God sees their repentance, he turns away from his disaster. he relented from the disaster that he said he would do to them, and he did not do.

The proclamation that Jonah had, is a proclamation

that leads towards God's grace. It doesn't look like it though right? You see, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. The funny thing is that looks just like judgment when the people heard it, though. They heard it as an offer for forgiveness, that if we turn and repent, we can receive it. And that's the funny thing about what Jonah says in Jonah chapter four. Now, when Jonah sees that the city is not destroyed, he gets kind of angry. He praised the Lord. He says, oh, Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country. That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.

Jonah knew that the proclamation of judgment from God was not a condemnation, but an invitation to repentance.

Jonah's mission wasn't go to Nineveh and tell them they're all about to die. Jonah's mission was go to Nineveh and tell them that there's judgment unless they repent, and the people turned.

That's an interesting way of looking at this preaching of repentance is that it's not just look how evil those people are. What it is, is, God wants to save you from yourself. Repent and turn and believe the gospel.

That's all I have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Do I Tell The Whole Story? Sermon for Sunday January 14th, 2024

1 Samuel 3:1-20

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.

Then the Lord called Samuel, and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down.

And the Lord called again, “Samuel!” and Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lordwas calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.” Then the Lord said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Samuel lay until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” And he said, “Here I am.” And Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.”

And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. This morning's Old Testament reading is a well known story for for many people. It's a popular one for kids. We often tell this is a big feature strongly in VBS curricula, or in Sunday school curricula, because it's got a kid in it. Right? We've we've heard this story over and over again. And you imagine Samuel is in the temple? Well, that would have been the tabernacle at the time. Usually in our imaginations. He's like an eight year old boy, about that tall. And he hears the Word of the Lord and responds with joy. Pretty great, right? This story is one of those stories. There are lots of them, where we forget about the details. And imagine the story in our heads. We have lots of stories that have the traditional way of learning them have covered up with the Bible actually says, I think the most important one is the Christmas story from Luke. Do you know that story, right? Mary and Joseph, go to Bethlehem. Mary is giant. She's like nine and a half months pregnant. She's riding on a donkey. And just as they see the city of Bethlehem she goes, Oh. And Joseph goes banging on every Motel Six in the town. Right. John, just about everything I told you in that story is not in the Bible. No donkey. No in no rush to the pregnancy. You're like, wait, wait, wait. The Bible says in their word hotels back in the day. They didn't exist. That word is just, there is no room in the upper room of the house. Just about everything that we imagine in that story comes from tradition. And the retelling. What the Bible says is they went to Bethlehem, and the child was born. And that's it. And they placed him in a manger, because the guest room was full of other stories like that. And this one that we read today, sent about Samuel is like that. Samuel was likely not an eight year old boy. He was a young man, having served Eli in the tabernacle for many, many years. After Hannah, his mother had dropped him off. And the history of Samuel goes like that. So Hannah comes to the tabernacle, she can't have a baby. And the other wife of her husband is teasing her because of it. Because that's what happens when you have two wives. They fight over that kind of stuff in the Old Testament. So she's depressed, she's upset. She goes to the temple and she prays give me a child and I will give him to you, Lord. She has a baby Samuel. After the baby is weaned. She brings him to Eli and says here to take the child. And I want you all to know that the Punic household is not taking children as offerings.

She brings the child to the temple and gives him to Eli and he serves in the tabernacle for the rest of his life. What happens before this reading is every year Hannah comes to the sacrifice and she brings a new piece of clothing for for Samuel to wear as he grows. And we get a sentence that says And Samuel grew and became strong and was filled with wisdom before God and man, which is that way of saying and the boy grew up. And so Samuel is now a young man, about the same age as David was when he went to fight Goliath. And, like a teenager, is likely the timeframe. He has been serving Eli basically Eli is his dad now. And now Eli is blind. And he has been serving Eli for many, many, many years basically his whole life. God comes to him and says Samuel and you get the drama. Samuel rushes over to Eli. And he says, I'm here you called me and he like goes, Why did you wake me up? It happens again. And finally Eli knows what's going on. He says, it's the Lord. When you hear the voice, say, speak, your servant hears me goes back and he lines down, he hears the voice, Samuel, Samuel. Speak, your servant hears. And that's where our lectionary says we should end the story. In our lectionary, there's a number of readings that have a suggested end. And then there's a parenthesis with optional readings afterwards. Right. And so what they say is pastors, if you really want to take a shorter reading, you can, if you want to take the longer reading, you can as well. And I think it's really fascinating the way the lectionary divides this up, I mean, take a look, the Lord came and stood and called at other times, Samuel, Samuel, and Samuel said, Speak for your servant hears. And if you end the reading there, it is a wonderful and beautiful moment. you've imagined that in your head when they told it to you in Sunday school, the boy, he looks up and he says, I am here for you, Lord. And that's it. And we tell them, you two children can be used for God, this wonderful, beautiful moment of calling. There's a reason people don't like what comes next. What's yours yourself, in the place of this young man? When you hear these words, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two years of everyone who hears it will tangle This is about to go viral. On that day, I will fill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I will declare to him that I am about to punish his house for ever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. And therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. And the next thing goes, Samuel lay until morning. I can imagine he lay until morning staring at the ceiling. Right. Speak Lord, Your servant here. Go tell your dad I'm about to punish him for what's been going on in the family of Eli? Well, a lot. Eli's sons, their names were Phineas and Hockney. They were also priests of God in their tabernacle is that office is passed down from father to son. And they have been bad guys. Samuel earlier, this book tells us that they did not know the Lord. And they were doing pretty awful things. On one part, they were stealing portions of the sacrifice that were not allotted to them. The order of God's sacrificial system allowed for the priests to take particular pieces of the sacrifices as the way that they would eat. But these guys thought they needed the better pieces, not the pieces that were assigned to them. That's only the beginning. They also were sleeping with the ladies who served at the front of the tent of the meeting. Also not so good. And in fact, then they were threatening people with violence if they came to God's temple and didn't listen to them. And Eli knew about it. How could he not since it would happen right in front of him. He even told them Hey, guys, you gotta stop this. But he didn't actually stop them. Not too long before this story. It says no, a man of God came to Eli and said to him, this is what the Lord says, Did not clearly reveal myself to your father's house when they were in Egypt under Pharaoh. I chose your fan Lay Out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense and to wear an ephod in my presence. I also gave your father's house all the offerings made with fire by the Israelites. Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do your you honor your son's more than me, by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering I made by my people, Israel. Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel declares, I promised that your house and your father's house would minister before me forever. But now the Lord declares, Far be it from me. Those who honor me, I will honor but those who despise me will be disdained. The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength of your father's house. Yikes. So God sent a prophet to Eli to say, What's your son's is doing is not cool. I'm going to cut off your house. And then he says the same thing to Samuel. This is what's going to happen, Samuel. So Eli comes to Samuel, who obviously doesn't want to say anything? I wouldn't, either. And he says, You better tell me all, May God punish you if you don't. And so Samuel will die. What a position to be in. How much pain must have caused Samuel to go from hearing the voice of God for the first time. And the message you get is this message?

What's the question? He would ask himself all night as he stares at the ceiling, when Eli comes to him and says, Tell me everything? And it's a very simple question and the title of my sermon, how do I tell the whole story? Do I tell everything? Or do I make something up? Samuel told Eli the whole story. He told him everything that God had said. And I think it's a good question for us when we're put in a position where we have to ask what do we tell? When we tell the story of God to people? We ask ourselves, do we tell the whole story? When God gives a word of judgment for the world? How do we speak it? When God has a message for sinners, how do we say it? That's a tough question isn't? Most of us can actually imagine being in the situation that Samuel is because we have relatives and friends weren't Christians, right? We have friends who are not in the salvation of Jesus Christ. We have family who have left the church and are looking forward only to judgment on the day Christ returns. Do we tell them the whole story? Or do we let them know what God says about our sin? That's a hard one, isn't it? Because we ask ourselves, I don't want to get them upset. I don't want them to turn away from the church. I don't want to hurt their feelings. But the story of God, the story of Jesus Christ doesn't make sense without a word of judgment, does it? Let's think about Jesus Himself. Right? We talk about Jesus is the Savior of the world. He came to show God's love for the world and to give his love for the people. But the cross doesn't make any sense without judgment on sin, right? Jesus the story of Jesus is he comes down he becomes a child he grows up and then he dies. You don't need to die on a cross. Just to love right Without God's judgment on sin, the cross makes zero sense. Jesus could have come down and hugged a whole bunch of people that would have been easy. Right? Pat everybody on the head and say God loves you just the way you are trophies for everyone. Then the cross wouldn't make any sense. Jesus wouldn't have had to die to take away the sin of the world. He wouldn't need the whips and the note the the nails through his wrists and feet, the crown of thorns on his head, he wouldn't have had to cry, Oh, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Only make sense. If God actually judges sin. If God threatens the sinner with eternal death, forever, we can look at the cross and we can say, that is what I deserve. And that is what was supposed to be for me. And he took it instead. How amazing. I am not judged like Christ because He was judged for me. I will not be cast into hell because he was judged for me. And now I have the life that he deserves. The cross only makes sense when you know about the judgment that was placed on Christ instead of on you. And the same thing is true when we look at our confession and absolution, right? Think about how that works in our lives. What happened if you took only one part of that story? Let's start with what has happened if we just had the love part, right? I forgive you. And everybody's like, Yay, everything's great. Jesus just loves me. You tell people that over and over and over long enough? And they just say, well, great, isn't this awesome? I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore. Jesus just loves me. And I can go and do whatever I feel like. What happens if you just have the confession? I am by nature, sinful and unclean. I've sinned against you thought, word and deed by what I have done, and by what I have left undone. I justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. And then you stop. That would be kind of depressing to right. And so if you just give them the grace, that doesn't work, and if you just give them the law, that doesn't work. But when you bring it together, I'm a sinner, I justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. And then the pastor says, I forgive your sins. What we get is the whole story. I'm a sinner. On my own, I'm going to hell. But Christ came to die for me to give me like, there's a reason that I gather around Christ in His Word, is because I need that salvation. I need the whole story to be saved. My sin, his grace. And it's the same for those who are not a part of the church. If we just tell them if God loves you, and Jesus came to give you His love, they will say that's awesome. Thanks a lot. I'm gonna go do my own thing. Because it's not the whole story. For those who are outside the church, those who are happy in their sin, they need to know that God threatens judgment for all who turn away from Him. That our sin places us outside of God's grace and threatens hell.

That's the only way to point them to the Gospel. And then when they go, oh, yeah, that's right. It's easy. And Jesus came to die for you. The story doesn't make sense without both pieces. What I think is fascinating about First Samuel, and this story is how Eli reacts to the word that Samuel gives him. This is really interesting for me. Samuel tells him everything it goes. So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from of from him. And then Eli said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.

Eli just heard that his sons are going to die, and so is he, and it's his family is going to be cut off, they will never be priest, all that terrible stuff is going to happen. He's like, Oh, yeah. Okay. God does what he wants. And I can accept that. Eli is still a faithful priest, even if he can't control his sons. When he hears the word of judgment, He accepts what God is going to do. And sometimes, when the word of of judgment is told, when we explain God's law to people, they go, Hmm, that makes sense. Maybe I do need Jesus. That's the way to gather them into the faith. We can tell the whole story because that is what is necessary to become a Christian. It's necessary in your life. Because you need to hear about your sin, to receive forgiveness. And it's necessary for those outside the church to we have to tell the whole story, or else Jesus doesn't make sense. In his name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: John 1:43-51 The Gospel Reading for Sunday, January 14th

John 1:43-51

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

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 Gospel reading for Sunday, January 14, is from the Gospel of John chapter one, verses 43 through 51. The next day, Jesus decided to go to Galilee, he found Phillip and said to him, Follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter, Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathaniel said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit. Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me? Jesus entered him. Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Nathaniel entered him, Rabbi, You are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel. Jesus answered him, because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe you will see greater things than these? And he said to him, Truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man, Here ends the reading. This passage takes place right after Jesus is identified by John as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And then we see Andrew and Peter following him. Then Jesus goes up, and he finds Philip and says, Follow me. Philip, then goes and finds Nathaniel and says, we found the Messiah, it's Jesus of Nazareth. Nathaniel has doubts. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Mean Nazareth is the podunk town out in the middle of nowhere, everybody's poor, nothing is good. It is the sticks. It is the hillbillies of Israel. Philip doesn't argue, and this is what I love about this passage. He doesn't argue with him. He doesn't try to debate him. He doesn't say, Oh, he does all these things. It's no evidence. It's just come and see. This is how we do it. Right? We we, we don't present evidence. We don't tell people like, here's a long list of why Jesus is awesome. We say come and see, experience Christ, experience His Word, experience His grace. It's not like being a Christian is good for your health. Being a Christian is good for the country, being a Christian will make Western culture great and wonderful. None of that it's experience Christ. Come and see. And so much of that is just like you invite someone to worship, you invite someone to hear the word of but God proclaimed to read the Bible, you, you gather together around Christ in His Word, and you just say, Come and see. And when Jesus sees Nathaniel, he shows Nathaniel right away, something is different about Jesus. He sees Nan Nathaniel says, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. And Nathaniel says, what? You don't know me from Adam. How do you know me? He says, before it filled, Philip called you. When you're under the fig tree, I saw you. We have no idea what this means. There are hints, legends about fig trees and studying God's Word. And people have tried to fill in the gaps and understand what what it means about the fig tree or whatever it is. But what really matters is that Jesus proved himself to Philip or to Nathaniel. And Nathaniel responds, Rabbi, You are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel, whatever it was about the fig tree, and the no deceit and whatever it is. It was enough for the Nathaniel to know something was going on. And Jesus says, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree do you believe you will see greater things Cindy's. So Jesus is predicting that Nathaniel and the rest of the disciples will see some pretty amazing things more amazing than Jesus knowing what was going on. And then he says, Truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. They will see greater things, they will see miracles, they will see Jesus feeding the 5000, they will see him die, and then they will see him alive. These are amazing and great and powerful things. But what soulmate, what also is amazing about Jesus is that the end of this gospel, he turns to another disciple, who saw and only believed, because he saw Thomas, he says, Do you believe because you see me, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And what we have is the witness, and of the apostles and the testimony of them, we get to hear their eyewitness versions of what Jesus did and said, and we get to believe, even though we weren't there, we get to believe their witness, and without seeing, and what a joy it is, we can hear what they saw, and understand what they did. Jesus ends this passage with truly, truly I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. This reminds me of the story of Jacob, Jacob after he had deceived his brother, he runs off on his way to his uncle Laban. And while he is in the wilderness, he sets his head down on a rock, and he has a dream. And the dream is that there is an a ladder, going up into heaven on the place where his head lies. And he sees angels ascending and descending on that place. And he when he wakes up, he's he says, surely this is the house of God, and I did not know it. What Jesus is doing is he's referencing this passage from the Old Testament about the God's house being in this place, this place called Beth l, a house of God. And we see Jesus now is God in this place. And many people would see him and not realize it, as the angels are ascending and descending. He is the Word made flesh, who who dwells among us, and we get to see the glory of God. And that's what this passage is referencing this Jacob's Ladder, and the location of God in this place is now Christ. And that is the most amazing thing. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 The Epistle Reading for Sunday, January 14th

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

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, January 14 comes from First Corinthians chapter six, verses 12, through 20. All things are lawful for me. But not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food. And God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord, and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never? Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her. For as it is written, the two will become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Here's the reading. This is a challenging passage, because it seems like St. Paul is reacting to some ideas that are coming out of Corinth. In the in the text, he repeats a couple of things that are in quotation marks. It begins with, quote, All things are lawful for me, and quote, but not all things are helpful. What St. Paul doing, it seems like is that he must have gotten some comments from Corinth. And he's using them to react to what what is going on. The idea that they would have said is that all things are lawful for me, I can do whatever I want in Christ, right? Because the law of God, the Old Testament law has now been fulfilled and no longer applies to the church. It applied to ancient Israel, but in Christ, the Gentiles and the Christian church, we do not have to follow it. So All things are lawful. But then he says, but not all things are helpful. Again, he goes, All things are lawful, but I will not be dominated by anything. And then here's another, quote, food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and quote, and he goes, and God will destroy both one and the other. What must be happening here is someone has taken the freedom that we have in Christ. And what they're doing is using it as an excuse for lawlessness for sin. Specifically, what we have going on is sexual immorality. Because that's what he says, the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord, for the body. This is a huge problem that people misunderstand about the gift of the gospel and the free gift of grace that we have in Jesus Christ. Because we hear Jesus forgives your sin. It is all by grace, there is nothing you can do. In fact, no act you can do can please God in any way. And we go, awesome. That's fantastic. I love that news. That means I can go do whatever I want. And all I have to do is come back on Sunday and say, Oh, forgive me for this thing I did. I love it. I'm going to do it again. Of course, that's not how it works. But that is a common misunderstanding about Christianity is that you just go out and sin and then you say you're sorry, and then you can do it again and just keep up keep at it. What Christian churches often do then is that we say, we, we think we have to threaten someone salvation, to be able to get them to obey. And so we say, Ah, if you're going to be a real Christian, you have to, but that's not how St. Paul goes about it. St. Paul does something different. He calls on the nature of God's salvation, to tell us how to behave. So he goes the body is not And for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, and God raised the Lord, and will also raise us up by His power. So our body is not meant for this evil thing. It's meant for God. And so what it means is this, this is not a salvation thing. Paul is saying that we have been saved, we have this promise, we've been raised from the dead with Christ. And he claims us, which means that there's there are implications for our behavior. And then he goes into that, in this particular issue about prostitution. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a prostitute? Never? Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her, for as it is written, the two will become one flesh. So what he says is that we who are in Christ, we've been saved by Him, we are members of His Body. But when we commit sexual immorality, we join ourselves with the other person. Now, this is true in that day, when it would have been a prostitute someone you pay to have sex with, or maybe even someone like a temple prostitute might have been the situation there, where sex is a part of the ritual of worshipping a false god. And they're just like, I can do whatever I want. And he's saying, when when we join together in this act, to become one, and then you take that and you bring that into your communion with Christ. Now, most of us don't have this challenge of paying someone for this kind of thing. But the sexual immorality is just as a big bigger deal today, as it always has been, because we have urges, and we'd like to act them out. And the same thing applies for us in in our sexual life, is that when we have partners outside of marriage, we are joining ourselves into this into this act that we should not. And we're making Christ a part of that since we are members of His Body. That's why we we live in holiness. Say St. Paul continues, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him, Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. So here he's talking about how this particular kind of sin is, is, is not outside of us, but inside of us, and it affects our bodies that God has chosen for us. And he uses the language of a temple of the Holy Spirit. And the idea behind this is that our bodies are like temples set aside for God, and they should be holy and sanctified. Which means that joining into into these acts our bodies, actually is a way of de sanctifying the temple. And so what we want is our bodies to be holy and righteous before God. Now, the my body is a temple is often something that people will talk about when they're talking about fitness. Right? My body is a temple. So I only put in, in organic food and I, I run and I work out so that I can have six pack abs because my body is a temple. That is not at all what St. Paul is talking about. That is totally wrong. He's saying your body is holy, because the Holy Spirit dwells within, keep it holy. Now, of course, this this passage is is his law, right? He's saying, we are we are saved, we are made holy, we should act that way we should glorify God in our body, and not by joining in in these difficult and sinful acts. But we know that we're sinners too. And so as we we we rest in the promise, the Holy Spirit is in us that God has saved us even as we fight against these these urges that sometimes we lose too. But we have to remember that the battle is worth fighting. The job is worth it. Glorifying God in our bodies is worth fighting against these urges, because we have the salvation of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit in us. We need to keep at it, even if it's tough.

And that means we just don't Give up, not to people who've just given up on this and acted as if you just can't stop it. Or even worse, a human being just isn't living a fulfilled life unless they have lots of partners and they go out and they sow their wild oats before they get married, and settle down. Now, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Glorify God with your body. That's all I have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 139:1-10 The Psalm for Sunday, January 14th

Psalm 139:1-10

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.

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 psalm for Sunday, January 14, is Psalm 139, verses one through 10. Oh, Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know, when I sit down and when I rise up, You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways, even before a word is on my tongue. Behold, oh, Lord, you know it all together, you have me in behind, and before you lay your hand upon me, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence. If I ascend to heaven, you were there. If I make my bed in shale, you were there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, even there, your hand shall lead me. And your right hand shall hold me. Here ends the reading. The psalm begins with the sure knowledge that God knows us, and is with us in all things. Oh, Lord, you have searched me and know me when, you know when I sit down. And when I rise up, You discern my thoughts from afar. So God knows us, not just by looking down upon us from up in heaven, but he actually understands our thoughts and our feelings and our paths. And that continues, you search out my path and my lying down, you are acquainted with all my ways. God knows everything that we do. He is with us in all things. And continues, even before a word is on my tongue. Behold, oh, Lord, you know it all together. So God doesn't just know like, watching what we do, he knows what we will do. So even before we speak, God knows what we will say. Even before we wake up, God knows what we will do. God knows all things, the future, the past and everything in between. And he is there with us in all of it. You have me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain it. Now, you might wonder what Wait, you him me in? Is that like a fence is the blocking? I think what is going on here? Is it saying that God hems the the person onto the right path. It's a little bit like bumpers in bumper bowling. Right? When you go to a bowling alley, and you've got a really young kid who's not very good at it, they'll bring the bumpers in, and then they bowl the ball and a bounces back and forth. But it doesn't go in the gutter. And it's going to hit something right. When God hems in David, it means he's keeping him on the right path. He's keeping him from falling off the path from one side to the other. And it's part of God's good and mighty power. Now, this can feel pretty bad when you really want to run off the path and jump into sin and do some terrible things. But in the end, it's pretty good because God's power to hem us in through his law through His Word through through his the actions that he does in the world. They help us because we want to be on the right path. We want to be heading towards God's salvation. We don't want to run off into shit into great sin and despair and vice and all those things that would would lead us away from God. We want him to hem us in. And so he goes Such knowledge is too wonderful me, for me, it is high, I cannot attain it. The idea of God's presence and his constant care for us is so amazing. It's just it's hard to understand. Because we look at a material world and we see people all around us we don't see God. It's not like he comes down and his. It's like there's this flash of fire and he says, Don't take this job. It's all in human things all through vocation, all through through life and experience and learning and lessons and the word of God that spoken through people. And so it's an amazing thing what God does, how He guides us and cares for us behind the scenes. And the next move is really interesting. He goes, where shall I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in che Oh, you are there. If I take Wings of the Morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there, your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. Now, this passage for Christian is just a wonderful and amazing promise, right? Can I can I get out of God's grasp? Is the question. If I'm up in heaven, God's there, if I'm in the grave, God is there. If I'm if I'm out in the morning, rising with the sun, God is there, if I'm down in the bottom of the ocean, God is there, we cannot be alone. How amazing is it that it's even true, when we are down in shale is that God loved us so much that Jesus Christ entered into the grave with us into shale oil with us, so that he could be there with us. But this isn't just joyful. Because if you are not in a great relationship with God, where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I free from the presence? If I ascend to heaven? You're there. If I go into my bed and shale you're there to if I'm making the wings of the morning and I dwell in the uttermost parts of the seat, even there, you are there to judge me. Because we can't escape God. The question is on this is, what is that presence of God for us? Is it justice and righteousness through Christ, joy and salvation? Or is it the judgment of God in His presence around us, seeing what we do? The only difference is by being in Christ, following him, hearing His Word, and following his path. That ends the reading for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: 1 Samuel The Old Testament Reading for Sunday, December 24th

1 Samuel 3:1-20

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.

Then the Lord called Samuel, and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down.

And the Lord called again, “Samuel!” and Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lordwas calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

And the Lord came and stood, calling as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant hears.” Then the Lord said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Samuel lay until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” And he said, “Here I am.” And Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, “It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.”

And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of 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 Old Testament reading for Sunday, January 14, is First Samuel chapter three, verses one through 20.

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Ely. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days, there was no frequent vision. At that time, Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim, so that he could not see was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, were the ark of God was

then the Lord called Samuel. And he said, Here I am, and ran to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call lie down again. So he went and lay down. And the Lord called again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call my son lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

And the Lord called Samuel again the third time, and he rose and went to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me. Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore, Eli said to Samuel, go, lie down. And if he calls you, you shall say, speak, Lord, for Your servant. Here's. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

And the Lord came and stood calling as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, Speak for your servant. Here's.

Then the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel, at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day, I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice, or offering forever.

Samuel Leigh until morning, then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel, my son, and he said, Here I am. And Eli said, what was it that he told you do not hide it from me? May God do so to you and more, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.

So Samuel told him everything, and he had nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.

And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord. He runs the reading.

This is a rather famous reading from the book of First Samuel, often called the call of Samuel. So the young man, Samuel, the lad, probably, you know, 13 ish, was ministering to the Lord. And it says that there was no frequent vision. So this would have been a time in the history of God's people when there wasn't a prophet or an ongoing revelation of God coming to the people. Something that happened occasionally throughout the history of Israel. Eli was the high priest who was taking care of the temple. Excuse me, not the temple, it was the tabernacle. And Samuel would have been given to him by his mother when he was old enough to be raised in the temple.

So Samuel, He lives down and goes to sleep. And he hears the voice of God. Three times he runs to Eli and says, Here I am for you called me. And Eli says, No, I didn't call you. I can imagine that the second time. Eli might have been a little grumpy, having been waked up woken up in the middle of the night. But the third time he realizes something is up. So he says,

Go lie down. And if he calls to you say, speak, Lord for your servant hears.

So Eli, no

What's going on? He realizes after the third time that the voice had called for Samuel that something was happening. Samuel was not hearing things. Nobody was playing a trick. It must be God.

So it happens. Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel says, Speak for your servant hears. And here are the words of the prophecy that Samuel gets for the very first time. Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I declared to him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.

Yikes.

This is not often where the reading ends. This is actually an optional part of the reading. Very often, the reading for this Sunday ends at verse 10. Where it goes, Samuel, Samuel, and Samuel says, Speak for your servant. Here's.

And that's much more fun, isn't it? You get you imagine the boy Samuel, he hears the Word of God, and He shall think, yes, I get to hear from God isn't this wonderful. And then we end the reading, and we can think it is wonderful and cute and be done.

But that's not where it ends, right? A prophet is not someone who hears from God. A prophet is someone who hears from God and speaks the message.

And Samuel gets one that will make everyone's ears tingle, their spines will shiver, when they hear about what happens to Eli, the high priest,

his house and his family will be destroyed, punished. That's because Eli, the bad father is allowing his sons, the priests, to use their offices for their own good to abuse the tabernacle to steal from the people. And he's not putting a stop to it. That is what it says when his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.

And God looks at his tabernacle, and his high priest, and he knows that something needs to be done.

And this poor boy, Samuel is the one who has to share this message.

Think about it. Samuel had been raised by Eli from right after he was able to be separated from his mother. He had lived in the tabernacle with Eli helped out all this time, worked with him taking care of him doted over him. And when Eli's became blind, he served him. And now he has this message.

And best of all, he can't hide it from Eli, because Eli wakes up Samuel, and he's like, tell me what the Lord said to you. And you better not hide a thing. He threatens him. He says, May God do so to you? And more. Also, if you hide anything from me of all he told you.

So Samuel told him everything, and hid nothing from him.

And here's something that I think we often overlook in this story, this little saying, and Eli said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.

There's a lot going on in this little passage. I think one is it shows that Eli is still a faithful follower of Israel. Yeah, he screwed up. He's a high priest, and he failed in his duties. But he still accepts God's judgment on him.

He still says it's the Lord. He knows what he's doing. He'll do what's right. And so he just takes it. And there's a there's a level of faith in there that just says, Okay.

And the other thing I think is Eli knows that God is right.

I'm sure that Eli has spent a lot of time like stressing out about his sons like wondering how did they fall so far from the tree? Why were they so evil and using their position as priests of God to extort from the people and do horrible things and blaspheme against God? He's like, didn't I raise them? Right?

Well,

he knows that God is punishing him justly. It's very simple. And I think that's going on here.

What's interesting, I think about this story, is that this one

What is halfway through the story, a very cute, loving, classic Christian story, the kind of story that you put in children's bibles to be like, yes, the children too can hear from God

flips into a judgement story, that being a prophet of God is not always fun and good news. Sometimes it's judgment. And so what we hear there, I think, is a

thing that we often have as Christians, as we sometimes leave out half the story of God's message to the world. We like to talk about Jesus's love. We locked it like to talk about his sacrifice. But we don't talk about his judgment. We don't talk about his law.

And what that means then, so often, we just get a whole bunch of saccharin sweetness. And everybody just miss it, that God is going to come and break judgment on the world, that all who are in Christ will be saved and all who are not will be condemned. The Gospel means nothing. Without without the law.

No one will flee from the coming judgment and turn to Christ for salvation. Unless they know the coming judgment is happening.

What we need to do is what Samuel did, tell, tell everything and hide nothing.

That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Word of God Over The Water: Sermon for January 7th, 2023

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Over the last couple of weeks, we have had a lot of holidays in the Christian church, beginning with Christmas Eve and Christmas day and then stretching through now there's a whole lot of things to celebrate. That happened. The day after Christmas is a big day. It is St. Stephen's day, the very first martyr in the Christian church. And, you know, you probably knew this already because of the song Good King once this law, right? Good Kingdom once this law worked out, when on the feast of Stephen, right, the day after Christmas, we also have other days of celebration. New Year's Day is a holy day in the church. It is eight days after Jesus was born, when he was circumcised, and first shed his blood in fulfilling the law for us. You might think, well, that's a little weird day to celebrate. But it's a big moment. In the Christian church. There's also the holy innocence. That is the day that Herod sent out his armies after the wise men left. And he went and killed all the young boys in Bethlehem, two years old, and under the first martyrs of Jesus's day. And yesterday, we celebrated the Epiphany, when the wise men came and saw Jesus for the first time and worshipped him, and gave him gold and frankincense and myrrh. Lots of holidays, in the last couple of weeks. And today, we finish out these series of holidays with the baptism of our Lord, Jesus being revealed for the first time as Son of God, to the people who would hear him speak, going out to the Jordan River and being baptized by John. Sometimes I think we forget how cool this moment is. It's only a few sentences. But I want you to imagine what it might be like, actually seeing it happen experiencing it, whether you're Jesus or someone, they're just watching. The heavens are torn open. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit comes down like a dove, and a voice cries out from heaven, you are my beloved son with you. I am well pleased. That's kind of a cool day. I think if that happened to me, it might make my day. Probably I'd be pretty happy after that. might even make my year or perhaps best day in my lifetime. Pretty cool stuff going on. And we read through it, just a few sentences, and it's gone. We don't always reflect on the amazing thing that happened. When Jesus is revealed as the Son of God in this baptism. The Spirit and the Word come together. And it's on this day that our lectionary pairs an odd reading. You know, I have chosen to preach on the Old Testament readings throughout this year. And they often pair readings with their gospels and the Old Testament along a theme, especially on holidays like today. And in Genesis one. We're talking about this creation story. In the beginning, God created the heavens in the earth. Now, we often read the creation story, Genesis one all the way through in our lectionary pops up at least once, usually. And when we do that, it's pretty clear that it's focusing in on the idea of God being all powerful, and over creation. God has made the world and everything and everything is underneath his control and power. And then he hands off managing his creation to the human beings He created, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion, he says. But here today, it's only got the first day. It's a little hard, right? Why is it that God or our lectionary has paired this story with the baptism of Jesus? And I think what it has to do is the Parents have the Holy Trinity in this creation story, because it says In the beginning God created the heavens in the earth. And then a little bit later, in the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. So what we get is, there is the father, a voice, the spirits hovering over some water, and the Son of God in the word, let there be light. It actually kind of sounds like Jesus's baptism, right? You've got the father of voice being spoken, the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove over the water, and the sun is there to hear it all. What an amazing day. And this Genesis Reading helps us to see the power of God's word. Because when God says something, it happens. God says, Let there be light. And then there was light, it came into being God's creation was just a voice spoken into the void. It did not say God got together and he bound up a whole bunch of hydrogen atoms. And he smashed it together with his hands until it's really tight, and then formed into a star. Let there be light. And there was light. God's voice did it. And it's the voice of God that is important, the word of God. That is important as we consider Jesus's baptism. So as we celebrate Jesus's baptism, we celebrate two things. First, this baptism is a revelation of Jesus is God's Son and the beginning of His ministry. From here, he goes out into the wilderness, and then he preaches the kingdom of God is here. Until we remember that Jesus is baptism sanctifies, the waters of baptism for us. That the experience of Jesus paves the way through his life, desert, death and resurrection, for us to be chosen as God's sons with Jesus, and be fellow heirs with Him. And to be filled with the Holy Spirit just as He is. By His life, death and resurrection, that he makes this happen for us. And Genesis, points us to the power of God's Word. And it makes me ask a bit of a question. What is it that makes a baptism, a baptism? When we splash water on someone, what makes it a baptism? Now, this question may seem weird to you, because you know, especially if you've been a Lutheran your whole life, you're just like, well, it's just is right. We know what it does. When someone comes forward. We say the words we pour the water on their head, and they're baptized, and then they're one of us, right? That's just how it works. And I do that with a lot of things in my life, right? I have a computer. I do not know how it works. It is a box. And it might as well be magic. I mash my fingers on the keyboard. Cool stuff happens on the screen. And it's great. I don't need to know how it works. Until it breaks, right. Kristen had a computer that stops charging not too long ago. And we're like, oh, no, what's going on? And I did my magic thing. You know, the magic thing that you do when your computer doesn't work? You turn it off and you turn it back on again. And it didn't fix it. I'm like, Oh, I'm out of things to do. We had to take it all the way down to the Apple Store. And they figured out that it was an IO board. Just wasn't working wasn't charging. Do you know what an IO board is? I know input output that doesn't fix anything. It just makes the name longer. Once that was fixed, it was back to being a perfectly good magic box again. Sometimes you have to take things apart. Sometimes times you got to know what's going on to be able to understand the thing you need to really look at it.

So what is it that makes baptism work? What is it that makes a baptism? A Baptism? You can go to a pool, splash people with water, that's not a baptism. My brother and I, we love the Super Soakers back in the day and we pump those things up and he spray each other down. And that's not a baptism. What makes it work? What makes it so that when the father looks down on the person who is being baptized, he says, You are my son, whom I love with you, I am well pleased. Well, Luther gives us some help. He asked the question, what is baptism in his Small Catechism, and he says, baptism is not just plain water, but it is the water included in God's command, and combined with God's word. Then he goes, which is that word of God? He writes this, Christ, our Lord says in the last chapter of Matthew, Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. There says something pretty simple. What is baptism? It is the water, included with God's command, and combined with God's word. So what you get is, Jesus says, do it. And then he gives us the words, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And it's the word that empowers the sacraments to do their thing, because it's the same word that said, let there be light, and there was light that sends us to baptize. See, there's nothing magic about the water. We, we take the water from the tap, pour it into the bowl, we bring it out, and we set it down. And then when we're done, we take it back out and we dump it. It's the same water that you drink. It's nothing magic about it. We don't order it from the Jordan River and have it shipped in so that the magical properties of Jesus's baptism can be given to you. That's not what makes the baptism work. It's the voice that said, let there be light. And there was light. That also says, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. It's not even the pastor who makes a baptism work. There is no indelible quality, no magical gift that the pastor receives that makes a baptism happen. Sometimes we think that I want you to imagine for a second, the wizard Gandalf probably have an image of him or maybe any other wizard there. There's a common image right? wizards in our mind, and in our imagination, they typically are wearing a well. A white robe, right? I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm wearing a white robe. They usually have a rope tied around their waist. You don't get to see it. But you know who's wearing a white rope when he's up here. The vicar. We call it a Cincture. They often also wear a really tall pointy hat. Do you know who wears really tall pointy hats? Bishops, right. Gandalf also walks around with a really big stick could dunk right? Everywhere he goes, who also walks around with a really big stick a bishop. They call it a Crozier. I bet you never really thought about why are our wizards in fantasy look just like pastors. Because some people think that pastors can do magic with the waters of baptism, or with Holy Communion. But it's not because I wave my hands over the cauldron of God's word and the baptism and say Ah, now it's a baptism. It's very simple. The same voice that said, let there be light sends me to say, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That's what does it. The command of God, and the voice of God. Luther says it this way. How can water do such great things? Certainly not just water. But the word of God in and with the water does these things along with the faith which trust this word of God, in the water, or without God's Word, the water is plain water, and no baptism. But with the Word of God is a baptism. That is a life giving water rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth of the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul says in Titus, chapter three, he saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit comi poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying. Jesus gives us this amazing thing when he sends us to be baptized. We have the word of God, the same word of God that spoke in creation that said, let their light be light and brought light into existence. That same voice said, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. And it's that word that makes a baptism into a baptism that saves you because it's the power of the Word of God at work behind it all. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

What God Has Done! Sermon for December 31st, 2023

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
    my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
    he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
    and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
    to sprout up before all the nations.

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
    and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet,
until her righteousness goes forth as brightness,
    and her salvation as a burning torch.
The nations shall see your righteousness,
    and all the kings your glory,
and you shall be called by a new name
    that the mouth of the Lord will give.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
    and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Merry Christmas. Every year we tell the story of Jesus birth. And then we get to see the stories of the times unfolding after that. I love the story of Simeon and Anna, and seeing the history of the people who get to get to see Jesus for the first time and recognize him. And their amazement at the salvation that God brings when he brings his son to the temple through Mary and Joseph. I love the stories of all of the things that we hear in the church. And the traditions that we carry on in every congregation, every place has a different way of celebrating Christmas of the different decorations, schemes, the different traditions that they hold. These things go on and on. And they tell the story of who a congregation is and what a people is. And one of the things that we in the church need to remind ourselves of it sometimes is our history, and the amazing ways that God has worked through the church over the years, and how he brings his grace forth, in times of difficulty, and in times of joy throughout the history of God's people. And one of the reasons we look back at the book of Isaiah, looking at chapter 61, and 62, is to see the pattern of God's grace at work over and over and over again through history. We look back at what God did with his people. And we can see examples of what he does for us in that as well. What I'd like to do is take a look at what God says. In this passage. He says, For as the Earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up. So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations. It continues for Zion sake, I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem sake, I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. The nation's cells shall see your righteousness and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name, that the mouth of the Lord will give you shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. What this says is that God is going to do something amazing for his people. God is going to bring about a change in their fortunes, that they would not have expected. To understand that of course, we have to remember that Isaiah is looking at a time of challenge for Israel. Israel is about to face Babylonian invasion, destruct destruction, horrible tragedy, perhaps the greatest tragedy in all of Israel's time up until when Rome comes in, and destroys Jerusalem again. They will come they will tear down the city, tear down the walls, and worst of all, destroy the temple and carry off all of the instruments of God from the sanctuary. Everything except for Well, we think the Ark of the Covenant, which has been lost ever since. Can you imagine the tragedy the thing that is the symbol of the presence of God, where God says it was his footstool, or maybe his throne. All of it is now gone. The city that was the sign of God's presence and love destroyed and people sent into exile last forever. Now, you could look at that. And you could say, Ah, yes, we see. God's people have been defeated. They've been destroyed. God was not strong enough to save them. And the Babylonians were too powerful for him. That's certainly what ancient people would have seen. Looking at a story like that. God wasn't strong enough. His promises weren't powerful enough. The gods of the Babylonians when but that's not what happened. What's amazing about what God did in the Old Testament story He is that he used tragedy and sadness, to bring about even greater righteousness amongst his people. They were hauled off out of Babylon, into Babylon. And there they rediscovered God's promises. They realized where they had gone wrong. And we get to see some amazing examples of God's showing his mind and his power, even in Babylon. We know the stories of Daniel. Now he's protected from lions, how he shows up the advisors of the people around him. We know the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and the fiery furnace and how God shows His power protecting them from that it's disaster. God led his people through this terrible time. And when the new King Cyrus of Persia comes in, he brings the people back. And they return from exile, dedicated to God. And for the next 300 years, the people of Israel are studying his promises. They are rebuilding the temple, bringing back the sacrifices, and they become the dedicated people of God that would produce Pharisees, as the leaders of God's religious people. But the people who hold strictest to the law are the ones that are high in the esteem of the nation. A total reversal of what had happened before that God used this tragedy, the Babylonian exile, to turn his people back to his promises. And the faithfulness of Israel grew out of that. And it was into that the gods sent His Son Jesus Christ. So that there would be people in a temple who would rejoice when the child came in, who would be looking for the promise, so that when John the Baptist went out into the wilderness, people knew what he was talking about, and we're excited and ready. When Jesus went preaching from town to town, they would know that a Savior was on his way. And they'd be able to see through His miracles and His sermons and his workings, that this was it. But then, tragedy struck again. That same Savior, who had come to free them, was arrested. He was killed, and laid in a tomb. But of course, this tragedy, it didn't stop God, either. He used this tragedy, the killing of the Son of God to save the world. In fact, this was his plan the whole time. To send the eternal Son in the form of a human being, to live and die for us. So that by His resurrection, he would bring out righteousness for the whole world, that it would sprout up out of this tragedy. And the message of this righteousness went out, all throughout the Roman Empire, out to the east and the west, into Africa and Persia, and everywhere else. And it began to spread. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ could have looked like a defeat to just about anybody. But God turned it into salvation for the world. This wasn't the only historical tragedy that God has used to bring righteousness to the world. We can look at the Roman Empire. The persecution under Diocletian, was a terrible and horrible persecution of the church. This was one of the biggest programmatic persecutions in the Roman Empire. Now, we often think about this history as the whole time, there was just like the emperor was out trying to kill Christians everywhere. But most of the time, that wasn't the case. Most of the time, Christianity was persecuted in pockets. Every once in a while some guy would get it in his head that he needed to impress the Caesar, and he would do something to the Christians in that place. It wasn't until Diocletian that we got that systematic programmatic persecution of all Christians in the empire. And what they would do is they would go to these churches, and they would go after the pastors, the bishops, the priests I tried to take their Bibles.

And the idea was you turn over your Bibles, you offer up a little sacrifice to the Caesar and for the good of Rome, and you are set free. And if you didn't, sometimes they would throw you to the lions. Sometimes they would do terrible things or crucify you or whatever. But the standard one was to hamstring the church, the bishops, what they would do is they would take on one leg, slice through the hamstring on the other leg through the Achilles tendon. pretty terrible, right? What a horrible thing. And now, when you're sitting around as a pagan, under Diocletian, you would look at this persecution, the destruction of churches and Bibles, and you would see, look at this, we're winning. That's not how it worked out, right. The persecution under Diocletian, actually became the the beginning of the growth of the church in the Roman Empire. You've heard it before that the blood of the martyrs is the seeds of the church. It was the dedication and faithfulness of God's people through this difficult time. That led to the explosion of Christianity through the Roman Empire. God took a tragedy, by the power of His grace, and turned it into righteousness and glory for the church. The people suffering under this horrible persecution. It led to expansion and growth and the message of the Gospel going forth into the whole world. Is it an amazing how God does that? We see tragedies happening like that, all the time. One of the great tragedies that happened after that was when the the Christian Center of of gospel and study Africa and the Middle East, fell to conquerors. We don't think of the places today as centers of Christian power and study places like Egypt, Arabia, Africa. That was where Christianity was strongest, where the great minds of the church were produced all the way up until they were conquered and forced to convert. Now, you might say, What a terrible tragedy. What a horrible thing God had had allowed this to happen. And people would look at that and say, Oh, what a defeat, Christianity must have lost in this region of the world forever. You know, it took a while. But that's not true. If you look at the places where we think that there aren't any Christians, places that are centers of Islam, where it's the only legal religion, these are the places where Christianity is growing fastest, where God's people meeting in secret, and underground are sharing the gospel, where the word of God is growing, and righteousness is springing forth out of the ground in amazing ways, and people are fleeing these places, and converting in droves, in Europe, in America, all over the world. It only took about 1000 years. But God is doing something amazing, isn't it? We see the growth and the power of Christianity and God's grace springing forth amongst the nations. What God does, very simply, as he uses the same things, the means of grace, His word and Sacraments, to spread the gospel and righteousness, to cause righteousness and praise to sprout up almost out of the ground before the nations you can see that in story after story in place, after place. You can see that in the United States. Now we have a story of America as being a place that was always extremely Christian. All right, way back in the day, we called ourselves a Christian nation. Some of that comes from the early settlers, who came specifically to establish a Christian utopia. You know, the pilgrims, they wanted to come here and everybody was gonna be amazing Christians, they're all gonna believe all be perfectly faithful. And it worked great for like 20 years. And their kids were not. As the colonies expanded, Christianity was actually pretty rare. I bet you don't know this, scholars estimate that in 1776, when we became a nation, only 17% of Americans belonged to a church. I bet you thought it was a lot more 6070 80% 17%. Kind of crazy. The greatest growth and expansion in the Christian church in America happened just prior to 1850 in this timeframe, where 35% of Americans were members of a Christian church, it doubled all the way up to 35%. This was what we call the Second Great Awakening. This is camp meetings out in the wilderness. This is hundreds of people gathering together, converting and joining the church and still only 35%. What an interesting thing as we look back at our history compared to what it would have been like, in the 50s and 60s, the great Christian America, that was the 1850s is nothing, right? So we are sitting around here with about 46% of Americans are members of a church or synagogue, according to Pew Research, which means that we are doing far better than any time in our history. And yet, compared to when many of you were young. It's horrible. A terrible tragedy. In fact, in the last, I don't know, 20 years, we've dropped 10 15%. In the United States. We can see that and say What a tragedy. Our churches are shrinking. The United States is becoming more and more secular, and people are getting crazier and crazier because of it. And you can say, Wow, maybe the church is losing. Maybe this tragedy shows that the power of the gospel just doesn't work the way it used to. The God's people have moved on. All we have to do is hunker down and hide and hope that something changes. But God has always caused his righteousness to spring up before the nation. He has used difficult times and tragedies, year after year after year, century after century to cause amazing things to happen. All you have to do is look at the history of the church. Look at places all around the globe, where God's people looked defeated, where they looked destroyed, where the power and promise of the gospel seemed not to do anything. And then a switch flips. Something happened. And out of nowhere, God causes righteousness to spring up almost as if it came out of the ground.

We can trust in this promise. We can look back at the history of the church and take a bigger picture, a picture bigger than our own youth or the history of first Lutheran Church. We can take a look at the way that God has always functioned. He has always delivered His grace and His promises through congregations going up and down in times of history. And he has always used times of decline and persecution for the good of his church. And as we consider our lives now we can say God doing something again? Is he taking this time in the United States of America, to prepare the church for something new? Are we taking a time of examining ourselves, dedicating ourselves to faithfulness, hearing the gospel and understanding who God is to prepare for another explosion? Maybe it might not be in the next 10 years, 20 years, 50 years who knows, could be tomorrow. God has always used these times, to prepare his church for more, to prepare the gospel to go out into the world and be heard and received by 1000s. Millions. We can trust that same promise that it will always be at work. That's what he did in Babylon. He brought about a rebirth of the people of Israel dedicated to the promises. What he did under Diocletian, when the new emperor Constantine came in, and Christianity became legal, it's spread across the whole empire. What he did under Islam, as he's doing it now. And I think it's what will happen with us. The grace and mercy of the gospel can go out into a world that so desperately needs. And people are aching for I can see it. I think God is doing something amazing. And that's the promise we have is that God's grace and his mercy is always at work through the power of His Word. This promise will always go out, sometimes to deaf ears and persecution. But sometimes, God is getting ready to produce amazing things. It's just our job, to wait for him to be faithful and have God come through on his promises. In his name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Your God Reigns! Sermon for Christmas Day, 2023

Isaiah 52:7-10

How beautiful upon the mountains
    are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
    who publishes salvation,
    who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;
    together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see
    the return of the Lord to Zion.
Break forth together into singing,
    you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people;
    he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord has bared his holy arm
    before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see
    the salvation of our God.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Merry Christmas. It is joyful to be able to wish you all a Merry Christmas, once again as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. I love Christmas movies. And we in our household have a stable of movies that we like to watch around this time of year. It's interesting to see what they say the meaning of Christmas really is. We watch things like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, either the old short version with the song, you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch to go to one right. Or the new one with Jim Carrey. What is the meaning of Christmas there? It's about community. Right? The whole point of that movie is it's not the President's it's about getting together and singing nonsense songs. Daboo Doris, right. Whatever that is. About It's A Wonderful Life. What's the meaning of that one? I have to admit, I haven't seen it in a long time because I think it's the most boring movie ever made. I know. I know, breaking your hearts. But there's something about the person being a place a cog in society, and that everything depends on all of us working together. Oh, yeah. And every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. The meaning of Christmas. What about Miracle on 34th Street? The importance of believing in Santa. Right? That's kind of what it's about. Nobody believes it's actually the Santa's Christmas story. It's one of my favorites. It's all about a family that smell kind of quirky, a little weird. But they're together. I had one for Christmas vacation National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I thought, coming into watching it last night. That the meaning of Christmas, there was a family that gets together. But having seen it, I realized that the meaning of Christmas is how great it is to get a bonus check. Which is really everything is terrible until he gets some money. And then they celebrate. Do you notice what's missing? In every single one of those Christmas movies? Absolutely. Jesus. Hidden behind all of the things that we watch on television, or the things in the celebrations in our culture hidden behind all of that is the actual reason we are gathered here today in the celebration of the incarnation of the Son of God, as Jesus Christ was born to poor parents in a faraway land who had to hustle off to Bethlehem so that they could register for attacks that was coming and living in a relative's house that was so full with the other relatives who came that day that they had to stay with the animals. A poor child who was the king. That's what our readings today are all about. About a hidden King, underneath the poverty of Mary and Joseph. It's not just a king, God himself who comes down to lie in a manger about that big. Right. Jesus is a king who is hidden. Are Old Testament reading for today. Talks about the reign of the king, God himself. It says how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness who publishes salvation who says to Zion, your god rain That's the message of Christmas, your God, rain. And Isaiah is day, this would have been a message of hope that someone would come and free the people from oppression. This time, oppression from an army of nations like a Syria, or Babylon or Persia or later the Romans would send armies into Israel and take over. And the people would expect a king, someone like King David, who rode around on a chariot who had a sword and a spear. And they wanted a king on a throne, full of power with a sword in his fist. And they look back at the mighty kings like David and say, Will there ever be a king like this again? Will someone come to save us?

But the mystery of today is that God reigns over all of creation, even without a king. What they missed at that time is publishing this message your God reigns with that God was actually the one behind Assyria and Babylon, sending the armies to punish and unfaithful Israel. And giving them a promise that He is the one behind everything. But even behind all this sadness that they were experiencing, he would not forget them. In Isaiah 10, God calls a Syria, the rod of His anger. And then he says because they took it too far, he would punish them as well. You see, God would reign over Israel, whether there was a king on the throne or not, God reigns. We can see that from 1000s of years later, as we look at the history of Israel, and we see them go from conquered by a Syria to conquered by Babylon off in exile. And then finally back and we see how God's plan was laid out over the years to lead us to the glorious day of Jesus Christ. That there would be a king who was born in Bethlehem, just as Isaiah predicted, that everything would happen exactly the way Isaiah said, throughout all of history. Your God reigns. That's the method and message of Christmas. For us, the story of Christmas is kind of similar to those expectations. Human beings always expect a king to come with power. Right? The Son of God, though, is born in that poor family. spends his first nights lying in a feed trough next to the animals. It's so strange, isn't it? For a king. Nobody expected that way. Nobody in Israel, nobody who was far away. And we know that because when the Weizmann hear about the King of the Jews, and they see the star, they don't go to the town of Bethlehem do they? Do they go to Jerusalem to Herod the king, where the palace is where the soldiers are, where the gold is in the mind and the power, they expected a king on a throne full of power with a sword in his fist. And they expected it to be a king like that. And they went, whereas this new baby King and the news shook Herod and rightly so. Because he wasn't in charge. God was you couldn't see it. If you only looked at the soldiers. You couldn't see it if you only looked at the gold and the parades and the power and the catapults and whatever they had. But if you knew the message of Isaiah, you would know your God reigns. And he is there in a manger in Bethlehem, hiding behind this tiny child ruling over all of creation. The King has come to God has become man. Your God reigns. That's the message that we have on Christmas Day, the message for all of us and the message of Jesus's ministry. When he was baptized, he went out and he said, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is here. And if you looked behind him, there were no soldiers, spears, no armor, no wagons, or Treasury or anything like that. It was service, and miracles. He didn't amass wealth or power. He didn't do it any way, any way that anyone would expect. They wanted a king on a throne will full of power with a sword in his fist. But that wasn't Jesus. Even Peter wanted that, right. When Jesus started to say what he would do, where he would be crowned by being lifted up on a cross, Peter said, No way. You're gonna fight and you're gonna win. And it was the opposite, that Jesus would go and die on a cross and lifted up to his throne, which wasn't made out of gold, but wood, and nails with a crown that wasn't made out of precious gems, with thorns. And then he would die and rise from the dead, and ascend into heaven, where now he sits at God's right hand reigning over all of creation. It's just not what you'd expect. If you thought that our God was the kind of king that everybody expects. You see, even today, we think that when we hear the message, your God reigns, that it should be powerful. It should be exciting. It should be big and loud. And it should win all the time. We don't have a message like a king anymore. We in America, we don't think kings are winning. What do we do? If the tech gurus, Steve Jobs is kind of the ultimate Epitome, which is why so many churches look like tech gurus speeches. Right? It's an empty stage, and a giant screen, and a guy in skinny jeans. And we look at those pastors and we say, look how successful they are. They're big and powerful and strong. They're exciting and amazing. But what are they missing? Jesus is the King. Your God reigns not in power, and might with a throne with a sword. rains in hidden ways, just as he always had, just in the same way he did when he came on earth. And yet, we still want something to be powerful. We want to worship experience that excites us and gets us moving. Even though Taylor Swift can do the same thing, can't she? Maybe it's more about those emotions than it is about the Holy Spirit. We want Christians who live the way we preach right? We preach the good news of Jesus Christ and it's all about love and service and then we don't do it. Right. And we get mad at the church because it's filled with sinners who aren't Jesus and yet, your god rains. He rains here in hidden way. He rains here through the Word and Sacraments. In the same way he lived the same way he died. He is hidden in the message of the gospel. The message is your God ray that he is coming back again. It's not that day, it will no longer be hidden by the King who is on the throne in heaven will finally come with the power and might we expect it He will make all things new. Until then he stays hidden behind the words of a faithful pastor in a congregation that may have five or 5000 people under the bread and the wine in our congregation, and every place where God's people gather. The message is your God reigns. In his name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Prince of Peace Sermon for Christmas Eve, 2023

Isaiah 11

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
    and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
    and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
    in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Merry Christmas to you all. It's a joy that we get to celebrate Christ's incarnation and birth every year. This is the night where we do that. We remember that God became a human being came down to earth to join us in our human existence, and live as one of us. The readings tonight tell the salvation story over the course of the history of Israel, looking at Genesis, the fall into sin at Abraham and his gift of His Son, the predictions of a Savior who would come and then the story of Jesus being born, that same savior that was promised. Today, I'd like to take a look at this, the passages from Isaiah, that help us to see who Jesus is to be. Isaiah chapter nine, says that he will be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The Prince of Peace. Peace sounds kind of nice, doesn't it? I bet just about every one of you has a piece of your life, where you would like to bring that Prince of peace into right? At least to bring just regular old, plain old normal peace because we all something the Prince of Peace. What's amazing about this Prince of Peace is what the other passage in Isaiah describes his reign will be like, and it's pretty outstanding. He has the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. You shall not judge by by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness, He shall judge the poor. Righteousness, wisdom, understanding. And what an amazing result happens. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them. Oh, amazing, is that? It's actually kind of crazy, isn't it? To put a wolf and a lamb together in a pen pretty soon you only have one. You know which one it is, right? You put the leopard. And the young goats in the same space, you get a very short chase. And just a leopard remains. Wolves and lambs they fight. Leopards eat goats. What kind of piece is that? It's a crazy kind of piece. Right? Outside of our experience, something so crazy that you could set down a toddler with a cobra, and be happy about it. Can you imagine? We won't even let our kids play outside these days. The Prince of Peace? We could all use that kind of peace. Couldn't we? Wouldn't it be great if we could have leaders who are like this Prince of Peace? Perhaps the craziest thing about this prediction is that there might be a leader out there who has wisdom and understanding. When it'd be great if they would just not fight. If politics wasn't about blasting the other person if all they did was trying to bring about peace, justice. Couldn't we use that kind of peace? Wouldn't it be great if the people in our own lives could disagree with one another in love? Like we have a disagreement, and it doesn't devolve down to name calling bashing the They're running off to someone else and complaining about them. But we could simply just talk it out. Wouldn't it be great to have that kind of peace? But it's so rare? Wouldn't it be great if you could get along with your neighbors that way? I don't know about you, but I have really great neighbors. But not all of us do. Sometimes we fight about where they put the garbage can. Right? Sometimes what we do is we ask a simple request, and they yell back at you. Maybe it's not your neighbor, maybe it's your co worker. person you see every day classmate? Wouldn't it be great if we could have peace? Wouldn't it be great if our families, even just our families, could have peace all the time? The people who are supposed to love each other the most sometimes we fight each other, the hardest? And then we don't talk about it. And it builds up until we all get together for Christmas. And there is an explosion. Right? Wouldn't it be great if we could even have peace in our families? Wouldn't it be great if we could just have peace one place in our own hearts? I don't know about you. I'm a pretty happy guy. And even I have struggles. Don't always find peace in my own heart. Wouldn't it be great if we could have peace? That is what Jesus is about. He is the prince of peace, who comes to end all conflict, make wars cease. And his reign even is so radically peaceful that the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the goat with the leopard. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. And we see the peace of Jesus in the way he came into this world. Not as a warrior king in Great King Herod's halls, but with the sheep and the donkey in a small house, in Bethlehem, lying in a manger, where it wasn't the mighty and the powerful, who heard the announcement of the Savior being born, but shepherds out in a field working hard all night long. who suddenly get to hear that a Pete a prince has come the Prince of Peace. And he comes to end all this conflict by taking care of the heart of conflict itself, our own sin. You see, conflict isn't just out in the world and other people's faults. It always starts in here with each one of us. That's what our opening reading from Genesis is all about. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the very first thing they do is blame each other. Right. Adam blames God for putting the woman there. Then he blames Eve. He blames the snake and no one takes responsibility. And they set the pattern for the rest of us. We don't have peace in our lives because we have sin in our hearts. And that peace causes conflict inside of us, in our families, and our neighborhoods, our workplaces and in the world. And what we need is the Prince of Peace, to come to us with his reign and rule to bring us peace. And that is Jesus. That's why He came to earth

to end the hostility between each other between us and God and to get rid of all All of our sin, the Prince of Peace came to bring that peace to you. And He does it by bringing his kingdom here. The Prince of Peace can come to you. Does that very simply, humbly and lowly. In a church, talk to the end of a parking lot, every Sunday morning. You've got normal human beings, none of whom who have true peace all on their own. With sin that brings about conflicts with problems in our families with hurts in our past with pain in our lives. And we come here because we need that Prince of Peace. Just like you, just like everyone, we need a Savior who came to earth to die for us, to rise for us, and who will make all things new. That Prince of Peace is wherever this ministry happened. So I encourage you, everyone who wants peace in your life, if you're seeking it in your own heart, in your communities, in your families, wherever it is, the only way to get it is to be where the Prince of Peace comes to fill you with His peace, to receive His Word, and Sacraments, to have him fill you with His peace. So that you can have it both now and when he returns to raise you from the dead. And so we come here tonight we celebrate a birth we sing the carols that we sing every year we think about the sheep and the shepherds and all of those cute and wonderful things. But at the heart of it all, is the Savior who wants to bring you peace wants to give that to you every single day of the year and calls you to come and receive it. In his name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

What Can I Do For God? Sermon for Sunday, December 24th

2 Samuel 7:1-16

Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” And Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.”

But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in?I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’ Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’” In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

One of the nice things about the strangeness of this schedule for the church here is that we get to have the the last prediction of Jesus Christ birth, which happens on the fourth Sunday in Advent. Almost immediately, right before we celebrate it actually happening. See, that's what's going on this morning. We're in the Advent season. And we get the reading of the angel Gabriel coming to Mary. And he announces the good news to her. And she goes, Great, that sounds awesome. Which is kind of funny, because if an angel came to me in that position, I'd have some questions. We have a similar prediction. That is the prediction of what would happen in there with the story of David. Our Old Testament reading has the beginning of the covenant with David God's promised to him that he would establish for him a house and a kingdom that lasts forever. But it's kind of a weird story. Because it begins with a strange thing. David has an idea. Let's see what that idea is. So goes. Now when the king lived in his house, and the Lord God had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, see, now I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the Lord of God dwells in a tent. And Nathan, Nathan said to the king, go, do all that in your heart for the Lord is with you. So this beginning verse helps us gives us some context. David, who had been made king of Israel prior to this had been fighting wars all the time, because that's what kings did in those days. He had to conquer cities, he had to defend Israel from their enemies. And in fact, the city he was living in now Jerusalem was a city that he himself had to take and make his own, make the capital city of the nation of Israel. So he had finally found rest, there was no war. And he had finally built himself a house in his capital city. And he looks around and he says, Wait a second. We've got to city, we're not wandering anymore. And I built myself a house. But God is living in a tent. This seems weird. Now, there are two reasons. God, David might have wanted to build a permanent temple for God in his city. One of those reasons was a good old political reason. David was a king. And he wanted the people to listen to him. Which meant if he built a temple for God that could not move. And he put it in his capital city, the city that he had newly conquered, it would mean that everybody in all the nation of Israel would have to come to his city to worship. And they would have to do that for all the required festivals. Because the tabernacle it moved around, it was wherever the priests decided to place it. So if they had to come to Jerusalem, they would be there for for the Passover, for Pentecost for the day of atonement for tabernacles, five times a year, everyone in Israel would travel to his city. And David thought, well, this is a good way to secure my power, and to show everyone that God had chosen him. But I think there's another important reason there to not just the political. David simply wanted to honor God. And I think that's what is, is hidden there. When he says, See, now I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent. David is saying, I've got this really cool house, and it's pretty amazing. But God's in this funky old tent. He deserves more than that. And it's a holy desire, a desire to do something for God, to say, God, I want to honor you, I want to serve you, I want to take care of you. And I think every Christian can have can associate themselves with that desire, right? When we think about our Savior, our God, we often think to ourselves, God, you've done so much for me, You sent Your Son to die for me, you you've chosen me forgiven my sins, I want to serve you. I want to do something for you. And anyone who has faith has that desire, I think it is simply springs from the power of the Holy Spirit. That's what we want. So the Nathan the prophet turns to David and says, What a great idea, go for it. Except God comes to Nathan in the middle of the night with a different word. Here's what he says, go and tell my servant David, Thus says the Lord, would you build me a house to dwell in? Have I not lived? I have. Have I not lived in a house since the day I brought my people up from Israel from Egypt to this day. But I have been moving about in a tense for my dwelling in all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar? God almost sounds offended here. At least that's how I read it. He goes, Well, wait a second. You I get that you want to serve me? But why this way? Did I ask anybody to build me a house? Did I tell you, you know, this tent, it's no good. I really need something super impressive. Really. When God chose to be with his people, he did command something. He said, Build me a tent. We'll call it the tabernacle. And this is where my presence will be. When the people of Israel move, I will move with them. When they walk, I will lead the way. When they go out to fight, the Ark of the Covenant will often go out in front. I will travel with my people. He set up a whole system where there would be the ark and the candelabras. And there's a table for bread and there's an incense for altar and a place to sacrifice and a place to burn the offerings. But he never commanded a place built out of wood, or stone, or anything that's permanent. Was David being presumptuous? Was David trying to tell God what he needed? Rather than simply listening to what God said? Perhaps his desire to do something for God was good. But the action was misplaced. Because God didn't need a temple. Maybe God didn't even want a temple at this point. David thought he was doing something for God, but God never asked him to do it. You see the timber tabernacle. And later when Solomon built the temple, was never designed to be a place that was for God. Did God need a place to live? Of course not. He dwells in all things. Did he need an ark of the covenant for himself? Of course not. The Ark of the Covenant was a sign of God's promise to his people. Not something that made him feel good. Did he need the gold and the offerings that people brought to the temple or to the tabernacle? No. This is Psalms say that the cattle on 1000 hills are his. All the earth is gone. Even the tabernacle wasn't there because God needed their worship and prayers. The tabernacle was so that God could serve His people

so that God could live amongst his covenant people and offer them His grace, it was a place where they could come and offer up their prayers and see a sign of His presence among a place where they could do their sacraments of sacrifice, and receive the forgiveness of sin. Where God could remind them that He is their God and he chose the tabernacle wasn't for God. It was for the people.

And David, well, his desire to honor God meant that he was making up something that maybe God didn't command. And I think sometimes, the Christians good and holy desire to serve God can turn us away from doing what God actually commands, and to create things that we do for God. Right? Because you ask yourself, when we put money in the offering plate, is it because God needs it? Does God say, Ah, if only I could buy a car. I need Christians to put that envelope in that offering. Of course, God doesn't need our money, or our stuff. Does God say, Ah, I just don't have the almighty power. unless everybody is praying to me. I need to build up my power battery by your prayers. No, of course not. He doesn't need anything from us. He doesn't need our money. He doesn't need our prayers. He doesn't need buildings for us to worship in. He doesn't need anything at all from us. What he wants is to give us His grace. This misunderstanding about serving God leads to all sorts of things. The clearest historical examples are things like the indulgences you could receive for doing devotional work back in the days of the Reformation, when they would come up with a whole long list of things that you could do, that might be good devotional practices. But the church said these things merit, some sort of gift of grace. Like if you do these things for God, God will return a gift to you. And today, we Christians, sometimes we create things like that ourselves. We say to ourselves, the only good work that a human being can do is volunteering in the church. Because that's where real service is. We say to ourselves, I have to go across the world to serve someone because I need to be doing mission work. Because that's what God demands. And we think to ourselves, I have to do something for God. But that's not how it worked with David. That's not how it works. Today. Christianity isn't about doing something for God. It's about God doing something for us. Let's take a look at the text. God says in verse eight. Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant, David, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be Prince over my people, Israel, and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and we'll plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people, Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies. And moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. So what God is doing here is he's saying, first of all, wait, wait, you're gonna build me a house? No. I'm gonna build you a house. He says to David, your response to serve is holy. But that's not how it works. I am the one who gives. I am the one who serves. I'm going to build you a house that will last forever. When Nathan, the Prophet gave this, this promise to King David, it might have seemed like a bit of an exaggeration, right? Who's going to be able to be on a throne forever? David certainly wasn't. Even his son Solomon didn't live forever. Now, his son had a son, and those sons were on the line of the house of Judah all the way as long as it was a nation. But none of them were on a throne forever. But we know that behind the words of Nathan, the Prophet was a promise even greater than what David could have imagined. That there actually wouldn't be a son, who would actually be on a throne for all time. And we heard about that promise, in our gospel reading, when an angel came to Mary and said, You're going to have a son, and he will be on the throne of his father, David and his kingdom will last forever. God made a promise to David, that there would be a king for his people for all time. And then he sent his son Jesus Christ, to die on a cross and rise from the dead, and ascend into heaven, where he is now seated on that very throne, at the right hand of God reigning over his church, and over all of creation for all time. God did it. He built David a house that lasts forever, and a kingdom that never ends. But not as a reward. He did it, because he chose David and his family, to serve. Listen to why David was chosen as king. He wasn't chosen because he would be awesome or because he thought David was super cool. He was chosen to be king to do something. He says, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be my be Prince over my people, Israel. And I have been wherever you cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make you a great name like the great ones of the earth. And I will point a place for my people Israel, and we'll plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly. God chose David, not because he wanted David to be happy. But because a king has a responsibility to protect his people. David, the king was supposed to protect them from violent men, use his armies to defend the nation of Israel. His service to God was not building a temple. But serving God's people. That's what God sends us to do. Our desire to serve God is good and holy. But it doesn't mean that we're actually doing anything for God. God doesn't need our offerings. God doesn't need our volunteer time. God doesn't need us to go to work, or feed children. Other people do, right? We offer our offerings here, because the ministry needs to happen. And without the ministry, you cannot hear the Word of God. You cannot hear the promises of Jesus Christ who died and rose for you. That's why we get we don't go to work because God commands it. We go to work because people need to eat. Right? Especially parents raising the young children, they go to work because there are hungry mouths at home. And without some job, well, they're gonna stay hungry. We take care of people, not because God commands it, but because people need it. And what that means is that we don't have to make up Our service to God. We don't have to, to create some sort of task that looks good and holy to God. All we have to do is look around us and see the need. And do it. I mean, there is no questioning, right? You don't have to wonder like, What does God need, I have to dive into the Bible to figure it out. Now, there is plenty of need around you.

Plenty of need in our congregation, plenty of need in your families, in our communities. Serving God means serving them. Because God is the one who serves us, so he doesn't come to extract from us worship and prayers and praises and offerings. God is God who served. That's why he sent the tabernacle. That's why he chose David to be king. And it's why he sent his son Jesus Christ to die for because God serves us. Our service to Him is simply to do the same for the people around us to see the need and to do it. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Luke 1:26-38 The Gospel Reading for Sunday, December 24th

John 1:6-8, 19-28

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be bornwill be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

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 Gospel reading for Sunday, December 24, comes from Luke chapter one, verses 26 through 38. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, oh, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the sang and tried to discern what sort of grieving this might been. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, For you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, He will be great. And we called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom, there will be no end. And Mary said to the angel, How will this be since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me, according to your word. And the angel departed from her appearance, the reading. This is the classic annunciation story. It is such a treasured piece of the gospel, where the angel Gabriel appears to marry. And so let's begin with what the angel says, says greetings, oh, favored one, the Lord is with you. Now, many of you may be familiar with an older version where it says hail Mary full of grace. One might ask, what's the difference between a translation that reads Oh favored one, and one that means full of grace, full of grace points us to a quality that Mary has. The angel comes down looks at Mary and says, Mary, look at you, aren't you wonderful? Oh, favorite one is different. It is, Mary. There's something that God favors God favors you. God is looking on you with favor. Now full of grace means that Mary is chosen because she's extra special. Oh, favorite one means Mary has chosen because she's chosen. And Luther likes to point this out when he talks about the magnificant. The song that Mary sings, is that Mary was really not all that different from any one of us, is that she rejoiced in God not because she was extra Grace filled or she was amazing as a human. But because God had decided to choose her for this amazing moment, to bear his one and only son. Now, the honor that we give to her is definitely an honor higher than any other human beings, a of Jesus Christ himself. But still, it is only God's grace and his choosing. That makes Mary this special. Now, Mary responds, the text says, but she was greatly troubled at the saying and trying to discern what sort of greeting this might be. I have to say if an angel appeared to me after freaking out, and if it said, Greetings, oh, favorite one, the Lord is with you. I would also be troubled. I wouldn't know what is going on. Because when an angel appears, you know something dramatic is going to happen. So the angel comfort Sir, do not be afraid, Mary For you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. So here again, the angel after calming her down, do not be afraid Mary says you have found favor with God. God has given you this favor. And behold, you will have a child and you will call His name Jesus. Now Jesus means he saves it or Yahweh Saves. It's actually the word for Joshua, which was used in the Old Testament that we transliterated as Jesus because of weirdness in history. The annual goes on, he will be great, and we call the Son of the Most High, I'd say, that's great, being the Son of the Most High, he wasn't just called Son of the Most High, he was actually the Son of the Most High. And he continues, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom, there will be no end. Now we know why the Old Testament reading for this week was chosen from the promise, the covenant given to David is because the Gospel reading is the fulfillment of that promise, the angel appears to Mary and says, King David, his child, his offspring, will come from you. And that offspring will reign over the house of Jacob forever. How is that possible? How can anyone reign over a house over a kingdom forever? Well, if you are the Son of God, perhaps you just might be able to do it then. Because when Jesus is both human and divine, his humanity can live forever, can be eternal. And so Jesus will be on that throne forever. Now, of course, Mary is puzzled, she says, How will this be since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. That's it. No big deal. Holy Spirit's gonna come, he'll handle it. Isn't that nuts? Like, oh, okay, that's fine. Now, the angel gives some evidence to support this, but just a little more than just evidence, and it says, And behold, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age has also conceived a son. And this is a six month for her who is called parent for nothing will be impossible with God. So I bet it's likely that Mary had heard that Elizabeth had had a child. And this would be a ping of evidence like, yep, you know, God has done this, God can do that. But there's also an interesting thing here is that not only is the angel saying, Yep, look at this, God has done something amazing with Elizabeth, who was called barren. But it's also look, you've got someone who you can go to for this. When I have to give this insight. I heard it from David Schmidt. At a podcast, he suggested that not God offered up this connection, so that Mary could go to Elizabeth and find someone who understands what's happening. Because she also had an angelic miracle with Gabrielle. And Elizabeth, receives Mary right after this. So Mary finds out she's pregnant, and she goes down to visit Elizabeth and Elizabeth Baby John, the Baptist leaps in her womb, because he's filled with the Holy Spirit. And then they sing the Magnificat. And it's amazing and wonderful. And Mary spends all this time with Elizabeth, probably because I don't know, being a virgin with a baby. At that time, nobody would really leave you. You know, if if someone got pregnant and said, Well, I didn't do anything. I just did just happen. I wouldn't believe them either. Be pretty isolating. But Elizabeth is there for her. But then comes the most amazing part. And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. Wow. Imagine hearing this news, your, your young girl 1614, whatever it is, that she would have been an angel appears and said, You're going to have a baby, he's going to be God. And it's going to be from the Holy Spirit. And she's like, yep, awesome. Let's do it. What a sign of faith. I you know, I said before that Mary was just like one of us and she was as like, just like a human. But at the same time, God had granted her such faith that she could simply accept what the angel said. Remember, Zachariah, he was in the temple, and the angel appeared to him and gave him a promise that Elizabeth would have a baby and he was like, No way. But Mary, simple girl. Yep. Let's do it. Wow. May we have that kind of faith? That's all I have for today. We'll see you On Sunday bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Romans 16:25-27 The Epistle Reading for Sunday, December 24th

Romans 16:25-27

Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.

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, December 24, is from Romans chapter 16, verses 25 through 27. Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel, in the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed, and through the prophetic writings, has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ, amen. This reading in Romans, chapter 16, comes near the very end, where St. Paul is doing all of his sort of random stuff at the end of the letter. Romans is almost an introductory letter that Paul writes to the church in Rome, with the hope that he will come and visit them and establish a missionary base, I think. And so, chapter 16 has a lot of greetings, he greets everybody and their brother, because he's trying to say that he knows a whole bunch of people there. And let them know that we've got all these connections, and you can trust me, I'm a good guy, you can you can welcome me and my theology is good. But this doxology at the end is really fascinating. It's only a few lines long, but there is so much going on. So it goes Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ. So it begins by offering up a description of God, and what he does through the gospel and through the preaching of Jesus Christ. And it's to strengthen people, certainly not in in physical strength, but in strength of their spirit, as they grow in their ability to trust in God, as they follow Him faithfully as they deal with persecutions as they struggle with doctrine. It's the gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ that strengthens them in their faith as they hear it, and the Holy Spirit works on them. And then he adds something, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed, and through the prophetic writings, has been made known to all nations. So there's a revelation and a mystery here. This mystery was kept secret for long ages. One of the great mysteries that St. Paul often highlights is the mystery that God has made the Gentiles, co heirs with the Jews. And a big piece of Romans is talking about this Jews and Gentiles thing that the Gentiles have now been brought into the promise given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And the crazy thing is that this seems like the opposite of what the Old Testament was saying. For so many Jews, it was about exclusivity, about being that God's chosen people against the Gentiles against the nation's always fighting them off the enemies, the bad guys coming to invade. And the great mystery of Jesus Christ is that he came, not to destroy the enemies, but to make them friends, to gather them together with the Jews into one, united people. What an amazing mystery. This could be, how crazy this might have sounded to the Jews of old, as they were thinking about the battles they would fight and the persecutions they would face as they're coming back from Babylon and exile. And they're dedicated towards being God's chosen people and following his law, and God sends a savior, to make them one with the dreaded Gentiles. And yet, it's so beautiful, and so wonderful, that you end the hostility not by destroying the enemy, but making them your friend. How amazing. And this has been made known through the prophetic writings. And we see that St. Paul highlights a number of things throughout the Old Testament. And if we look back, especially at books like Isaiah, and it talks about the servant of the Lord coming to be for the Gentiles, for the nations for the coastlands far away We can all of a sudden see the hints of what God had planned, even though it didn't make a ton of sense, when, when it was written. Now, when we see Jesus, when Paul sees Jesus, we can see, loud and clear, amazing. This is what God has planned all along. And now everyone knows through the prophetic writings, and the proclamation of Jesus Christ. The next phrase, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith. And so this mystery was not an accident. It is not like God came down and was like, Oh, those Jews, they just don't like me and they turned away my savior. Now I'm going to go to the Gentiles. It's not an accident. This was God's plan, right from the beginning. And it points back to the prophetic writings, again, two books like Isaiah, two, two books, where it would talk about God's law going out to all nations to, to the places that are far away. God was always about gathering together the people who are outside of his promise into the promise to make them part of it. And as part of that command that happens through Jesus Christ, and it goes to bring about the obedience of faith. Now that phrase, obedience of faith, it could be the obedience that leads to faith, or obedience that comes from faith for me. You know, I'm a Lutheran, we always translated that faith leads to obedience, or faithful obedience comes from the faith that God has already given us. And that's what this gospel and preaching of Jesus Christ does, because it's the gospel that actually brings about faith that leads to obedience. And without it, you've got nothing. There is no faith, there is no obedience. And at the end of this, it's the gospel that produces everything that gathers people together, that contains the mystery that is now revealed, that produces faith. And so St. Paul can only do one thing is praise God for His plan. And that's what he does to the only wise God be glory forever. Through Jesus Christ. Amen. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 89:1-5, 19-29 The Psalm for Sunday, December 24th

Psalm 89:1-5, 19-29

I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever;
    with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.
For I said, “Steadfast love will be built up forever;
    in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness.”
You have said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one;
    I have sworn to David my servant:
‘I will establish your offspring forever,
    and build your throne for all generations.’” Selah

Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord,
    your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones!

Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one, and said:
    “I have granted help to one who is mighty;
    I have exalted one chosen from the people.
I have found David, my servant;
    with my holy oil I have anointed him,
so that my hand shall be established with him;
    my arm also shall strengthen him.
The enemy shall not outwit him;
    the wicked shall not humble him.
I will crush his foes before him
    and strike down those who hate him.
My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him,
    and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
I will set his hand on the sea
    and his right hand on the rivers.
He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father,
    my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’
And I will make him the firstborn,
    the highest of the kings of the earth.
My steadfast love I will keep for him forever,
    and my covenant will stand firmfor him.
I will establish his offspring forever
    and his throne as the days of the heavens.

James Huenink 0:00

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 psalm for Sunday, December 24, is Psalm 89, verses one through five and 19 through 29. I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever. With my mouth, I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, steadfast love will be built up forever in the heavens, you will establish your faithfulness. You have said, I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant, I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations. Let the heavens praise your wonders, oh Lord, Your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones. Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one and said, I have granted help to one who is mighty, I have exalted one chosen from the people, I have found David, my servant, with my holy oil, I have anointed him, so that my hand shall be established with him, my arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him, I will crush his foes before him, and strike down those who hate him. My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him, and in my name, shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand on the sea, and his right hand on the rivers, he shall cry to me, You are my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. My steadfast love, I will keep for him forever. And my covenant will stand firm for him, I will establish His offspring forever, and his throne as the days of the heavens. Here ends the reading. This psalm ties in with our Old Testament reading, pointing out the steadfast love of the Lord for David, and the covenant that he gave David, that his offspring would be kings forever, on the throne of Judah. It starts with that celebration of that steadfast love. When he sings, I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever. And it moves on, you have said, I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David, my servant, I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations. Now, this psalm isn't a Psalm of David, David isn't singing this with joy, saying, God has made a great promise to me. It's interesting that this is a Psalm that says that God's promised to David is a great promise for Israel, or for the nation of Judah, is that God will establish a king for them to defend them. And that's a very important aspect of the promise that God gave to David is that God would give Israel a king, a king, who would protect them from their enemies, who would fight for them, who would save them. And so this covenant with David is not just a promise for him and his family, but for all of the people of God throughout the Old Testament. And now, this promise goes on in verses 19, through 29. And it talks a lot about the things that God will do for the servant, David. And so it says, I have granted help to one who is mighty, I have exalted one chosen from the people, I have found David, my servant with my holy oil, I have anointed him. Now, this reminds us of the anointing that Samuel did when he found David and pulled him from the sheep and chose him to be king. And it reminds us of the anointing that happened with Jesus when he was baptized, or even later, when his feet were anointed by the woman who washed his feet and anointed them with expensive oil. It continues, so that my hand shall be established in him, my arm also shall strengthen him, the enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him, I will crush his foes before him, and strike down those who hate him. Now for the faithful kings of Israel, that would happen in a pretty literal way. The enemies wouldn't, wouldn't defeat them, the armies that would come against them would be destroyed. We see faithful kings, trusting in God and God saves them in battle after battle, including David himself. But it looks a little different when we understand that Jesus is the final one, the one who is a part of this throne of David. When David goes up again, when excuse me, not David, when Jesus goes up against his enemies. He looks like he's the one who's outwitted. It looks like he's the one who is defeated. The Pharisees they nail Him to across the Romans, they put him there. He looks defeated. But of course, Jesus's enemies aren't actually human beings. It wasn't the Pharisees of the Romans that Jesus came to defeat, but sin and death itself. And Jesus entered into death, to destroy that. He took on our sin, to destroy sin. And so the psalm continues, it says, my faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him, and in my name, shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand on the sea, in his right hand on the rivers, he shall cry to me, You are my father, my God and the rock of my salvation. That is, of course, what what happens. Now, again, in the Old Testament, the power of the king, his right hand on the sea, and on the rivers, was somewhat metaphorical, that God would be with him and exalt him and protect him, but he wouldn't give him power over the sea or the rivers. But with Jesus, he called the storm, he walked on water. Pretty amazing, right? He called out to the father and said, You are my God, and the rock of my salvation. And the next promise goes, is pretty amazing as well. It says, I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. My steadfast love, I will keep for him forever. And my covenant will stand firm for him, I will establish His offspring forever, and his throne as the days of the heavens. This was certainly hyperbole for the human kings of ancient Israel. I don't think there could be any point in Israel's history, where he was the highest of the kings of the earth. Perhaps the closest we got was Solomon, who was wise and powerful and rich, but he never had a an empire, or the beauty of like Nebuchadnezzar or Babylon, or Cyrus the Great with Persia. He was still just kind of a local power. He was not established forever, because he grew old and died. But with Jesus, He is definitely the highest King. His throne is in heaven. He rules over all of the earth. And he will be on the throne of David his father forever and ever and ever, even past the day when he returns and makes a new heaven and a new earth and gives us eternal life. What an amazing promise that God gave to David and seen in Jesus. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 The Old Testament Reading for Sunday, December 24th

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” And Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.”

But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in?I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’ Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.

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, December 24, comes from Second Samuel chapter seven, verses one through 11 and verse 16. Now when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him restroom, all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, see now, I dwell in the house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent. And Nathan said to the king, go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you. But that same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan, go and tell my servant David, Thus says the Lord, would you build me a house to dwelling? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel, Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar? Now, therefore, thus, you shall say to my servant, David, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be Prince over my people, Israel, and I had been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies, but from before you, and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them. So they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more has formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people, Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever. Here ends the reading. So the beginning of this reading marks the end of time of warfare for David, David had built himself a home in Jerusalem, the enemies that he had been fighting constantly, his whole life, the Philistines, and all the others, were finally done. And the king looks around and he says, Now is the time to build God a temple. So David says to Nathan, see, now I dwell on a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent. So David is seemingly with with good intention, and with good heart, he wants to build God a temple. Now, some of this could have been to honor God and offer him, you know, the beauty and worthy building that he deserves. But another part might simply be that David is trying to establish in his city, the presence of God, Jerusalem was almost a neutral city for David because no Israelites had it. So he conquers it, he makes it his capital, and then he wants to plant God there firmly and squarely so that he will not move. So this could be a way for David to say, I am establishing my kingdom in my capital city, and God is here to he's not going to move away. So I think there's probably a mix of those two things. So Nathan thinks it's a great idea. Go for it, you can do it. But while he's sleeping, God comes to him and gives him a different word. He says, would you build me a house to dwelling? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day. But I had been moving about in a tent from my dwelling. So God is pointing back to what happened with Moses, they came out of Egypt, God instructed Moses to build the tabernacle. This tabernacle had been the place where the Ark of the Covenant dwelt, for all of those years, they wandered through the wilderness, they carried the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle, through the conquest through the judges through all of this time, all the way up through Samuel, Saul, and now, David. And nowhere did God say, Hey, why have you not built me a house? Why have you not built me a permanent temple? God kind of liked the idea of having a tabernacle. It moved with the people. Now this was especially important when the people were moving themselves wandering through the wilderness, but it all Also it was kind of cool that God would move around in Israel that he could be in any place that there or he could go to the north or to the south, even though it doesn't sound like he was often moving around. It's kind of God is in the midst of his people. So he cites some of the things that he did not tell the judges to build him a house, and he did not tell anyone to do it. And so God turns around, and says this to David, instead, he says, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep, that you should be Prince over my people. And I have been with you that you should be Prince over my people of Israel, and I have been with you, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make your you a great name like the great ones of the earth. So he says, this is sort of a, a piece of the political puzzle here, like David might have wanted to establish this temple in his capital city, to establish his name and his house and his people. And God says, no, no, no, no, you don't have to do that. You don't have to build me a house to establish your name. I have already done it, look at this, I took you from the sheep, I made you a great warrior, I made you king. And now you are the shepherd over all of my people, and I will take care of you. And even better that through you, I will take care of all of Israel. He says, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more as formally. And then he goes, for an the last, moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house and your house in your kingdom shall be sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever. So some of this is David saying, I'm going to do something for you, God, some of this is I want to establish my position in Israel by setting up the temple in my capital city, and God goes, and he knocks down both of them. First is God is the one who establishes David. And he does it not by building a temple, but by protecting him and being with him. And the second is, he goes, Wait a second, you think that you're going to do something for me? Oh, no, no, you won't build a house for me, I will build a house for you. And that's really the heart of who God is, is that God doesn't really need anything from us. He doesn't need David to build them a house of theater, he doesn't care about having a temple or a palace or a giant church, or whatever. He isn't into those things like we are. Our buildings are for us. Like we build nice churches to remind us about God, not because God cares whether we He has nice churches or not. What God cares about is what he gives to us. And so he turns to David and says, I will establish a house for you. And your throne in your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever. This promise goes to David, that one of his children will be on the throne of the kingdom of Israel forever. Now, this seems like exaggeration. How could it be possible that someone would be on there forever, it just might means a really long time or in perpetuity. And that was true. All the way up until we get to Jesus, who is of the house of David, and is actually now on the throne of God's kingdom forever. He rules over all of us. And so David thought he was gonna build this neat little house made out of cedar, it's gonna be really pretty, and do something for God. But instead what God does is He does something for David, and through David. He protects the whole world by sending His Son Jesus to give us eternal life and a king that is on the throne forever. That's it for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Good News! Sermon for Sunday, December 17th, 2023

Isaiah 61:1-4

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
They shall build up the ancient ruins;
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.

The good news. That's what we call the gospel, it is the good news that we are sent to proclaim. And it's the good news that the prophet Isaiah is talking about. He says, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God. What is this good news. To help us understand this, the gospel of Luke is pretty helpful. Jesus actually quotes it. In Luke chapter four, Jesus goes to his hometown of Nazareth, it's a Sabbath day. So he's in the synagogue. And they asked him to read, he opens up the scroll to the prophet Isaiah, and he says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. You may have noticed that there's a little bit of a difference there. Jesus talks about recovery of sight for the blind. That's not in Isaiah 61. That's the difference between the Septuagint, which is the Greek Old Testament that the Church used during its first centuries, and what we have as the Hebrew now today, they have different manuscript traditions. But what we see is that the prophet Isaiah was not thinking just about the good news for people coming out of exile. But the good news through Jesus Christ. And the good news of Jesus Christ is very different from good news that others might seek, especially if you are good news for the poor, for the blind, and for the capital. Because not all those who are poor, not all those who are rich, or wealthy, not all those who are free of liberty. And not all those who are sighted can see. Because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the thing that frees us. So let's start with that. He says to bring good news to the poor. What is that good news. A story from Mark chapter 12 helps us to see what good news for the poor is. Jesus is sitting near the temple and are watching people put in offerings. Many people come up and they put in large sums. And it goes, and a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny and he called his disciples to him and said to them, Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box, for they all contributed out of their abundance. But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had all she had to live on. What can cause a person to do this? I think if if someone looked at this situation, they see a widow with only two coins that add up to a penny and you go what are you doing? This is crazy. This is all the money you have to live on. And you put it in the offering box. What about your children? What about your future? Isn't that crazy? Is that the kind of thing that you would do? If you pulled out your bank statement? And you found one cent there. Give up everything that you have to live on. The question is, how could this widow do such an amazing thing? Because the gospel of Jesus Christ Some good news for the poor. She had something, riches that are greater than any amount of money could be. She had faith in a God, who would take care of her. The widow trusted that the true God would be there for her. And that he would offer her a future, he would offer her something that she could hold on to that he would take care of. The wealthy who trust in their wealth, they're not rich. They don't have any. They have far less than that poor widow did. Because Jesus Christ's riches, are greater than anything we could ever want. He promises a day when he comes and gives us the whole world. Whether you are rich or poor, now, doesn't matter. The good news for the poor is that Jesus is coming. He will take care of us. He gives us salvation. Not everyone who has lots of money has true riches.

What about the blind, that Jesus came to restore sight? There's a story in John chapter nine where Jesus comes up to a man born blind. He goes to the man, he makes mud, puts it on his eyes, and he tells the man to go wash in the pool. The man goes off and he washes his eyes off, and all of a sudden, he can see. But the story isn't about the man being able to see in the miracle that Jesus does does. The real story is about the reaction to it. After Jesus heals the man, the Pharisees call him and they get mad about this. They get upset. Can you imagine? A man comes he's been blind from his birth, and all of a sudden they can see and they're angry. Can you believe it? But they were angry because he did it on the Sabbath. So they call him in front of them they and it says, so for the second time they called the man who had been born blind and said to him, give glory to God, we know that this man is a sinner. That is Jesus. The blind man answered, whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know that though I was blind. Now I see. They said to him, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them. I told you already and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? And they reviled him. What a statement. This man, he was not well read in the Scriptures, obviously, because he had been blind his whole life. He did not have a complex theology of who Jesus was. He simply knew one thing. One thing I do know, he says, that though I was blind, now I see. Isn't that fake? Jesus had come to Him and given Him a miracle. But the miracle wasn't that his eyes were opened and that he could see. The true miracle was that Jesus revealed Himself to him as his Savior. That's what happens now. Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And having found him he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? The blind man answered? Who is he, sir, that I may believe in Him. Jesus said to him, you have seen him and it is he who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believe and he worshipped him. Then Jesus says to those who are around for judgment, I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees heard him near him heard these things and said to him, are we also blind? Jesus said to them, if you are blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say we see your guilt remains Not all who are sighted can see this blind man, you could see, because the true gifts is not the vision that comes from his eyes, or having the photons that bounce off particles hit your retinas. The true vision is understanding who Jesus is that he brings resurrection from the dead and eternal life and that he is the center of our life. He is the good news that gives us life. It's not just the poor. It's not just the blind. But it's also those who are in prison that Jesus has come to proclaim liberty. There's another story from the, from the Bible that talks about that, where Paul and Silas were in prison. Paul and Silas had been going out on their missionary journeys. And in Acts chapter 16, they get to a town of Philippi. In the town of Philippi, they are preaching and teaching, and a slave girl who is filled with a demon follows them around shouting, these are the servants of the Most High God, listen to them. Paul gets annoyed, like you would write someone walking around shouting all this time. And he says get out of her and the demon leaves. For me, I have to say, isn't that a weird reason to cast a demon out of someone? Like, lady, you are so annoying, I'm gonna cast this demon out. Yeah, I think it's weird. But it creates a problem. The owner of the girl was using her to tell fortunes. And this created quite a bit of income. And when the demon was gone, he could no longer sell those services. So he gets people excited, goes to the authorities and Paul and Silas are arrested. They're put in this inner part of the prison. And not only that, they are fastened their feet into stocks. This is an extra level of imprisonment. So not only are they locked behind bars, but they're also cuffed around their feet. Maybe even their hands too. I don't know about you. I think if that happened to me, I'd be pretty upset. If I were locked for no good reason inside a prison and then and then put together in chains. I might be a little depressed. I might be a little angry. I certainly wouldn't be happy. This is what the Bible says. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them singing hymns to God. Can you believe it? Paul and Silas, singing probably the Psalms, prayers, praises to God and that horrible situation. Because not all the people who are free have liberty. And not all those who are in prison or without freedom. You could stick Paul and Silas wherever you want it in the deepest, darkest dungeon. And they would always be free because they have Christ. Same is for us. The gospel of Jesus Christ is freedom in all our circumstances, because we have a Savior, who lived and died for us. And what's really cool about this story is that God comes and brings freedom to these men who are already free. An earthquake happens, the doors pop open, and their chains follow. Now I don't know about you. But I think the last time we had an earthquake, it did not open up handcuffs. But that's what happens here. And when Paul and Silas go free, what do they do with it? They use that opportunity to bring the Gospel to their jailer and that man is baptized along with the rest of his family. So that's the good news of Jesus Christ. It's not about giving money. It's not about getting people out of jail or helping people see With our eyes. The good news of Jesus Christ is a freedom that each one of us has, in all our circumstances. Because not all the people who are free, have liberty. Not all those who are sighted can actually see. Not all the rich are truly wealthy. The good news of Jesus Christ, it's only they who have that. It's only us who have the sight to be able to see God at work in our lives and the process, the promise of the resurrection, who have the riches of the kingdom to come and freedom in our Savior, despite all our circumstances. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: John 1:6-8, 19-28 The Gospel Reading for Sunday, December 17th

John 1:6-8, 19-28

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

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 Gospel reading for Sunday, December 17, comes from the Gospel of John chapter one, verses six through eight. And then 19, through 28. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John, He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you? He confessed and did not die, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the Prophet? And he answered, No. So they said to Him, who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. Now, they had been sent from the Pharisees, they asked him, Why then are you baptizing? If you are neither the Christ nor Elijah nor the Prophet? John answer them. I baptize with water, but among newstands one you do not know. Even he who comes after me, the strap of who sandal I am not worthy to untie. These things took place in Bethany, across the Jordan, where John was baptizing. He runs the reading. The Gospel of John has an interesting approach to telling the story of Jesus. And it has a different approach to telling the story of John as well. It doesn't introduce him using the standard formation, formulation, the guy who had the camel's hair and the belt around his waist, and then he's out eating locusts and wild honey, and then repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All that stuff that you see in Matthew, Mark. And Luke begins by telling us about John, who is a witness about the light, and is very emphatic that he is not the light. He is not the guy. He is a witness to the light. And it could be really easy for someone like John the Baptist, who got crowds to come out to see him who had baptizing people in the wilderness, and they were repenting and doing all this stuff to be well to make it about himself. But he doesn't. He came to point the way to Jesus. And the same thing happens when the Pharisees come to him, and ask him, Who are you? It's interesting, he says, it says he confessed and did not deny but confessed. John wants to make sure that you know that what John, that John the Baptist is saying is absolutely true. He is not claiming to be the guy. I am not the Christ. He said, he's not Elijah. He's not the Prophet. No, he's very simply a voice. He says, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said, I like how John is, is taking the light away from him, so to speak, like the spotlight is not on John the Baptist, saying, No, it's not me. I'm not the Christ. I'm not the Prophet. In fact, I am nothing. There is one thing that matters. The Lord is coming. Make his pads straight. May ask him again. Why are you baptizing? And again, John takes the spotlight off himself. He doesn't say, I baptized because I'm also more because I do these things. He says, don't think about me, someone is coming, who's greater than me, strap of who sandals I am not worthy to untie. So he even takes that moment to point away from himself to Jesus. And I think that's a great model for us to understand within the within the church, for pastors, for teachers, for congregations, is that our job is to point away from us towards Jesus, which and it's really hard to do that because anytime a congregation gathers a little success makes a name for themselves. We like to think yeah, look at me, I did this but just always, like, point to Jesus. He's the one. I'm not the man. I'm not the one gathering people. I'm not the one doing ministry. It's all about Jesus. It's his power. It's his word. It's his mind. It's not me. Everything is about Jesus. And I think it's amazing that the greatest of all the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, spends this moment when they come and they ask him, what's your testimony? It's Don't worry about me, guys. Jesus is coming. And that's what we should consider. Let's not worry about ourselves and always point to Jesus. That's all I have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai