Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 118:19-29 The Psalm for Sunday, March 24th, 2024

Psalm 118:19-29

Open to me the gates of righteousness,
    that I may enter through them
    and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
    the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
    and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing;
    it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
    let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Save us, we pray, O Lord!
    O Lord, we pray, give us success!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
    We bless you from the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God,
    and he has made his light to shine upon us.
Bind the festal sacrifice with cords,
    up to the horns of the altar!

You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
    you are my God; I will extol you.
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    for his steadfast love endures forever!

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 March 24, comes from Psalm 118, verses 19 through 29. Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them, and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us we pray, Oh Lord, oh Lord, we pray, give us success. Bless. It is he who comes in the name of the Lord, we bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God and He has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the facile festal sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will give thanks to you, you are my God, I will extol you. Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Here ends the reading. This Psalm is a Psalm of thanksgiving. Generally, Luther loved this psalm in the introduction to Psalm 118. From Luthers. Reading the Psalms, he writes, The 1/18 Psalm is a Psalm of thanks and my dearest most beloved conflict in meany which is the Latin title for the Psalm. It gives thanks and also prophesies of the Christian and of the Christ, the rejected cornerstone. The Psalm is a general statement of thanksgiving for all the kindnesses God daily and unceasingly showers and all men, both good and evil. The psalm praises God, especially for the greatest benefit, his He bestowed on the world, namely, for Christ and His Kingdom of grace, first promised, and now revealed. What a joy to have for this poem, Sunday reading as we talk about entering into the city of Jerusalem. And that's where it starts, open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them, and give thanks to the Lord. You know, as we see Jesus entering into Jerusalem, that's kind of what they say, Right? He's we're opening the gates of righteousness, to give thanks to the Lord Jesus is coming in for the Passover sacrifice, except he's not going to participate in offering a sacrifice, he is going to be the sacrifice. Well, he offers himself as a sacrifice, as the Passover Lamb, who finally takes away the sin of the world forever. And he enters in through this gate to give thanks. It continues, this is the gate of the Lord, the righteous shall enter through it. Now, of course, no one is truly righteous, except for Christ alone. So it only he could be the one who would actually enter through the gate of righteousness. 21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. This is a cry of the Christian and of the ancient Jew to say, God has become our salvation, we thank him. And of course, in Christ, it is the righteous one who enters through the gate, who offers Himself as a sacrifice that becomes our salvation. And then we get this classic passage, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. We see the builders as the authorities and the chief priests, the scribes and the elders of Jerusalem who rejected Jesus, who then becomes the cornerstone for the foundation of a new church of a new building Christ's Church, the new Israel built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ as the cornerstone 23 This is the Lord's doing it is marvelous in our eyes. Now, I'm sure it wasn't marvelous for the disciples to look upon the death of Christ on the cross, or to see him buried in the tomb but for us, after his resurrection, celebrating the story, as we do every year, looking at the Christ as he enters into Jerusalem knowing he is about to be crowned with thorns and put on the throne of a cross in his glory. It is is marvelous in our eyes. And we can see that it's truly God's doing to make what would seem so terrible, the joy and salvation for all of humanity. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. How Good Friday is coming up. And it's hard sometimes I think, to think of joy, as we consider the death of Jesus Christ. And sometimes, that Good Friday service is seen almost like a funeral for Jesus. Like we're all supposed to get together and mourn and be sad. And that's actually the opposite of it. We call it Good Friday. Because even though Jesus Christ death was so terrible, it is also his glory and our joy. It continues, save us we pray, Oh, Lord, oh Lord, we pray, give us success. How can you add to that? Bless it as he who comes in the name of the Lord. This is the thing that they said, as Jesus entered into Jerusalem, the crowds Hosanna in the highest, bless it as he who comes in the name of the Lord Hosanna to the Son of David, we bless you from the house of the Lord, it continues. 27 The Lord is God. And he has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the festival sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar. So it says The Lord has made us he shines his light. And in response, God's people take the festival Festival, the festival sacrifice and they bring it to the altar, they tie it up, bring it up the horns were actually the the corners of the altar with had literal horns. And so he would kill it, sacrifice it. And that's what it is. And the psalm ends you are my God and I will give thanks to you. You are my God, I will extol you. Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good for his steadfast love endures forever. Now this reading begins with verse 19. Psalm 118 begins with repeating, give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His steadfast love endures forever. And they say let Israel say his steadfast love endures forever. Let the house of Aaron say his steadfast love endures forever. Let all who fear the Lord say his steadfast love endures forever. And then it finally ends the Psalm the same way. It says, Oh, give thanks to the Lord for His good for his steadfast love endures forever. What a way to end the psalm. That's where we're going to stop today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Zechariah 9:9-12 The Old Testament Reading for Sunday, March 24th, 2024

Zechariah 9:9-12

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
    righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
    and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
    and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.
As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
    today I declare that I will restore to you double.

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, March 24. Palm Sunday is from Zechariah chapter nine, verses nine through 12. Rejoice greatly, Oh daughter of Zion, shout aloud, Oh daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the fall of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Efrem and the war horse from Jerusalem, the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, oh prisoners of hope. Today I declare that I will restore to you double. Here ends the reading. This is a famous reading that has to do a lot with Jesus's entry into Jerusalem, which is what we celebrate on Palm Sunday. It's the prediction of the King coming on a donkey, which we see as Jesus enters into the city of Jerusalem to shouts of Hosannas riding on a donkey. Right? So starts Rejoice greatly oh daughter, Zion, shout aloud, oh, daughter of Jerusalem, Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he. So, Zion, that is Jerusalem, the city of God and Jerusalem, they are both told to shout and sing for joy, right? Rejoice greatly because the king is coming. And this would be a great idea for rejoicing, especially after the Babylonian captivity is the king would come to protect his people again, because that was the Kings job in ancient Israel, to come and bring justice and righteousness, justice being making sure everybody's rights are protected under the law of God, and righteousness, being that he promotes the worship of God and only in the temple. So the king is coming, and everyone should shout for joy, especially those people who lost their king when the exile happened. And then it goes righteous and having salvation is he so he's not like the kings of the Old Testament, who are constantly turning away to false gods trusting after the bad guys, and seeking to make alliances with the wrong people. He is the right and good king. But here's the weird part. It says, humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Now, what kind of king is that? I mean, nobody really wants a king who rides around on a donkey. Nobody wants a king who is humble, and lowly. What we want is a king that can protect us. I mean, that's what Israel asked for when they went to when they when they went to Samuel and said, We need a king. We need someone strong, who will write out in front of us and protect us against our enemies. And here, you've got this guy on a donkey, humble, lowly. The king was supposed to be the kind of guy who would inspire fear in the enemy. One who would fight the bad guys keep everyone under control. But this is a different kind of king. And that's what God says next, he says, I will cut off the chariot from Ephrem and the war horse from Jerusalem, the battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. So not only is this a lowly King, it's a king who does not rule with force, the chariot, the war horse or the bow. He doesn't fight to rule. Instead he brings peace to the nations and He rules from seed See, without conquering and attacking. You know lots of people have tried to take over the world. We see empires growing throughout all of history from the Mongols and the Chinese and the Romans and the Babylonians and the Assyrians and the Egyptians. And you know, just about everybody who ever had a great civilization wanted to take over the world. And they always did it with swords, or spears, or guns, or whatever. And now, Zachariah is predicting someone who's going to conquer the world without firing a shot. But bringing peace. So the real question is, then how does Jesus conquer the world without firing a shot without using the battle bow or the war horse of the chariot? He does it by his word. He rules from C to C by the power of the word, and especially amongst his church, which is why the church doesn't use force in making our decisions. We don't focus on bylaws, though we have them, we don't focus on who's in charge or who's in control. Because at the heart of it, Christ rules over his church, not with guns, spears, or bows, but with the word, and it's the word that God uses to change our hearts and cause us to follow him. So verse 11, and as for you also, because of my blood covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. So now he's turning to Israel, he sang I will set you free from the dungeons waterless Pit and the people of Israel will get to return to their strongholds and be restored double. But even better than that, actually, because in Christ, God's people, the people of Israel, who are now in Jesus Christ, we don't get the ancient strongholds and double the land of Israel. What a tiny piece of Earth. What we get is a rule from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth by the power of the word, and especially on the day of the resurrection. What a joy to have this. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Old and New Covenants. Sermon for Sunday, March 17th 2024

Jeremiah 31:31-34

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. We are moving along in the season of Lent, as we follow Jesus on his journey to the cross. Ever since he climbed up to the top of the mountain and was transfigured there, he, we have been seeing the stories of him traveling every day, every week, on to Jerusalem, where we will finally get the story of his death, and then his resurrection. It's leading up to the moment that we remember and celebrate as Christ's sacrifice for our forgiveness, to establish a new covenant with all of God's people. That was different from the old one, a new covenant that we actually get to read about, in our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah. Jeremiah talks about the two covenants, the two great covenants of the old, and the New Testaments, the one that would come after him, and the one that was established many years before him. And what he says is that God is going to make a new covenant. Here are the words to behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and the house of Judah. It's not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. What we see here is a reference to God's covenant with Israel, during the time of Moses, Jeremiah gives us a hint of the story we all know, where Moses brought the people out of the land of Egypt, and then to the mountain of Sinai, where Moses received the 10 commandments, and all of the rules and the laws and the benefits and the blessings and the curses that were part of the Old Covenant, Moses's covenant. And it included a whole lot of stuff, more than just the commandments that we know. This covenant was established then at Mount Sinai for God's people. And it was a covenant that Israel broke. Jeremiah is also referencing a New Covenant, a covenant that he did not see very clearly yet, because it would have to wait until the days of Jesus. This covenant was established at a table with bread and wine. When Jesus said, this is the blood of the new covenant, shed for you for the forgiveness of sin. You may recognize that because we say it every Sunday, as we remember this meal, and eat and drink of it ourselves, to bring this new covenant to us, a covenant in Jesus's Body and Blood, which was initiated by His sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, to deliver all of the blessings of the New Covenant to you. The question question we have for ourselves today is, what is the difference between this Old Covenant and a new covenant? What is Jeremiah trying to tell us about this great new covenant that God is giving his people? Fortunately, Jeremiah tells us, isn't that nice? And he gives us three things that are about the new covenant that God will make, and we have received through Jesus Christ. Here they are. The first one is I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. Number two, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Number three, I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. What I'd like to do today is take a look at each of these and compare it with what the old covenant was like to help us understand how amazing God's gift is for us. Let's take a look at the first one, we'll add this one, I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. Now, as we look at this, we see, first there is a word in there that might be confusing for us Lutherans, we're used to the word law, referring to God's law, which are His commands, the demands that God puts on all of us. But that's because there is a frequent mis translation of this the word that was originally written, it is probably better as teachings, or instruction, or perhaps the Word of God. More generally, it's the same word that we use for the first five books of Moses, the Torah. And so it's the whole thing, the whole counsel of God, everything that God has ever spoken, all of his word. So it's not I will put that my law on their hearts, as in, I will demand everything and write that on their hearts. It is, I will put my word on their hearts, I will write it within them. This is different from the old covenant. Because under the Old Covenant, we didn't get the Holy Spirit working on all of the people for whom the covenant applies. That's because the old covenant wasn't just a covenant with believers. It was a covenant with unbelievers, too. It was a covenant with a nation, a nation with borders, and armies, people who believed and didn't. Israel was filled with a whole big group of people. And not everyone was filled with the Spirit, and believed in God. And we see this because over and over and over again, from the moment they leave Mount Sinai. And those unbelievers just kept turning away. They grumbled against God and against Moses, they built a golden calf, they got to the promised land and said, No, thank you. Once they got in the Promised Land, they turned to all the different gods and they did all sorts of things. And it was a covenant with a group of people that included believers and unbelievers alike. I want you to think about what it might be like to think whether the God's promises would come true for you. If it included everybody in America, where God said, I will keep my promise to you if everyone in America is faithful. Ah, spirit shoo in right? Perhaps not. Because there wasn't a covenant with individuals. It was a covenant with the whole nation. Which meant that it was a covenant that depended on the entire nation, following God's law, which was a problem for them because this covenant contained this warning from Exodus chapter 20. I, the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to 1000s of those who love Me and keep My commandments. And so many in Israel turned away, did not keep his commandments, and hated God, which meant their iniquity was on the whole nation. Isn't it wonderful? God's promises don't depend on an entire nation following him. But today in the New Covenant, it is not a covenant between God and every person, in a geographical area are genetically related to Abraham, but with all who believe in Him,

God gathers the new Israel, out of every nation on earth, every identity every people, and he gives the Holy Spirit by the word of Jesus Christ, which means He writes this word on your hearts, by the power of the Spirit. When you receive the Holy Spirit, he writes this teaching this gospel, this grace on you. So you can know the Lord and hear him and understand Him and believe and understanding God's Word and His will. The the instruction of God is only available to those who have this Spirit. Without faith in Christ, it just doesn't make sense the way it does, when you believe in the resurrection of Jesus, and know where you are going. Because if you believe that you're just going to die, and be worm food, why would you give up the things that Christians give up so that we can rise from the dead and live forever? Why would you waste a couple of hours on Sunday morning, when you could be out living it up, because tomorrow you die. But we know that's not true. We know that Christ is coming. And this simple idea written on our hearts by the power of the Spirit changes everything. Sometimes, when we Christians go out into the world, and we try to share the gospel with people, we forget that the message has to be written on the hearts of people before they realize that they have to change. Right? It doesn't make sense if you go out and say, discipline yourself, and they don't have Jesus right? It doesn't make sense. If you say live like us, I don't know why. The change, the beginning of holiness must come by the power of the Spirit, first, through faith in Christ. Only then will it actually make sense. The second piece of this new covenant that Jeremiah predicts is this, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. He explains this when he says, and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. I will be their God, and they will be my people. The old covenant is a little different. So here are the words that Moses says in Exodus 19. Report reporting God to the people. He says, Now therefore, if you will, indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. There's some nice promises in there a kingdom of priests to treasured possession a holy nation, but it is preceded by the most important words in the Bible. If it's a big word, right, if if you do this, then you get this. If you don't do this, then you don't get this. And that's the heart of the Old Covenant right? Now. Therefore, if you indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you get the promise. Worked out great. If God asks us to do something that we can do, it's not so much if it's something we can't. And Israel never did it. And Jeremiah says that he would make a new covenant that was not like the Covenant, the covenant that they broke and they broke it a lot. The Bible is filled with stories of God's people saying no thank you, God, we would pray refer other gods. Baal Ashra Moloch, the gods of Assyria and Babylon, every god under the sun except for the one true God. And the prophets their whole story is calling people back, saying, no the Lord turns to him return to the covenant. And what's fun when you when you look at the prophets, sometimes they play a really interesting trick. When they speak the word of God, to people that's been failing the covenant. What they do is they report God saying, instead of my people, they say, this, people it's a very subtle change, when you read the prophets, but look for it. Because God doesn't say, My People. Instead, he says, Those people, this people, anyone but my people, in fact. We get that, from Isaiah, where he says, because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me from their lips, while their hearts are far from me. And their fear of me is a commandment taught by men. When they break the covenant and turn away, God calls them this people, not my people, because they didn't get the promises when they broke it. That's not how the New Covenant works. Because Jesus fulfilled the old, he is the one who does the if, if you indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall be My treasured possession, that is Christ. And all who are in in him to receive this amazing blessing, which is why the New Covenant does not have an if it says, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And then for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. That is because all who are in Christ receive this covenant. It is not a covenant with believers and unbelievers, it is just those who are called out of the world, brought into Christ and gathered around his his body and his blood and his word. All who are in Christ become God's people. There is no ifs. There is no if you obey my voice, there are no commandments. It is just you are my people. Because of Christ's perfect obedience, and fulfilling this covenant, you get these promises. And that leads to the final point where I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. This is not the promise that was given to Old Testament Israel. Remember, they had an IF covenant, not, I will covenant. God didn't give them away to have their sins forgiven when they committed them. It was to be faithful to him and offer the right sacrifices and believe in Him and do all the things they were supposed to do, but they didn't do. And that is why they were eventually sent into exile, after being punished over and over and over again. But because of Christ, this is not you. God does not make that kind of covenant with His Church and his believers. A covenant that says if you do it right, you will be forgiven. God simply says, I will forgive their sins, I will remember their sin no more.

Which means that for all who turned to Jesus Christ looking for mercy, it is always there. There is no sin that will cast you out. There is no doubt that will push you away. There is nothing that you can do that will make Christ turn away from you. His grace is always there. Which is why a pastor can stand up in front of all of you and say, very casually. I forgive your sins in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and actually mean it. And not look out and say it well. Except for you. Everybody, when you write, which is sometimes what we think, in our hearts, we think oh, yeah, that's your doesn't know what I did. And I'm the worst. And we're maybe even more perniciously pastor doesn't know what he did. He's the worst, right? That's not how it works. All who turned to Christ. All who come to Him, knowing they need grace. All who asked for it, who confessed their sins, receive forgiveness. And we do this because God has written His instruction on your hearts, and he has made you his people which causes us to turn to Him for relief when we have that guilt, because we are brought into this new covenant through Jesus Christ. What a great gift he has given us. In Jesus name, Amen.

Getting Ready for Sunday: Mark 10:32-45 The Gospel Reading for Sunday, March 17th, 2024

Mark 10:32-45

And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

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, March 17, comes from Mark chapter 10, verses 32 through 45. And they were going on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed. And those who followed were afraid. And taking the 12 again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him saying, See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes. And they will condemn Him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. And after three days, he will rise. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, Teacher, we want you to do for us, whatever we ask of you. And He said to them, what do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory. Jesus said to them, you do not know what you are asking, are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you will drink and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand, or my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. And when the 10 hurted, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called to them them to him and said, you know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles, lord it over them, and they're great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all, For even the Son of Man came not to serve, to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Here ends the reading. Wow, there is a whole lot going on. So this begins with a a statement of place, it says, And they were going on the road going up to Jerusalem. So Jesus is on his final trip heading towards Jerusalem where He will be crucified. And so the people who are amazed, they're like, Oh, why would Jesus would you go into this place where the authorities hate you. So he tells them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes. And they will condemn Him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. And after three days, he will rise. I have to say, sometimes we give the disciples some crap about not understanding Jesus. I read this and I go, I imagined myself in that situation. And I think to myself, would I have gotten anything out of this? Would I really have understood it? As Jesus is saying, Hey, we're going to Jerusalem, and they're gonna beat me up and kill me. Isn't that great? And you know what? Now, that's gotta be a metaphor. Maybe he's telling us a parable. Maybe it'll be close to death or something like that. I can totally understand why the apostles wouldn't, wouldn't get it. Or maybe, maybe rise from the dead is a figment of speech, I don't know. But what they didn't get. And what is hard, even now for Christians to get is that Jesus is laying out a pattern of glory. For the church. The glory does not come from power and might, but sacrifice and service. And that's why it's right next to the story that comes next. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee came up to him and said to him, Teacher We want you to do for us, whatever we asked of you. And He said to them, what do you want me to do for you? Now, every once in a while, someone will walk up to me and say, Hey, will you do me a favor? And I always respond With what favor do you want with a little apprehension in my voice? Because as soon as you say yes to a request that you don't know the answer to, then you're committed, right? So that's kind of what's going on here. We want you to do whatever we ask. And almost sounds as if they know that their their request is not the coolest, not the best. So Jesus asked for clarification. And they say, grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory. I'm imagining that they are excited about being the two guys on the thrones next to the king on his Mighty Throne. They want to be the heads of all the feasts and leading the armies and being in front and all the best stuff. Jesus said to them, you do not know what you are asking, are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able. Now they didn't know what was coming. But I'm willing to bet that they did know that there was going to be some hard days ahead. Jesus says the cup I am to drink are the baptism with which I am baptized. Now, if you're following Jesus, and you expect him to kind of be like a hero, a king who would get rid of the Romans, you'd expect there to be some battles and some difficulties and some trouble. That happened to David, the people who follow David, they were in caves. They were on the run. I mean, it was it was really bad. And so I'm imagining that they're thinking, yeah, yeah, it's gonna be hard, but we can do it, Jesus. They're not thinking it's death. Right? They're not thinking, we're gonna watch our Savior die. That just didn't get it. And so Jesus is saying, are you able to do this, and they're not imagining that what's actually going to happen. That's why he says, You don't know what you're asking. They say we are able, even though they don't know what they're asking for. And he says, You will do it. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you will drink. And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. What that refers to is that, James, that the apostles are going to be persecuted just like Jesus, that they will end up facing a lifetime of persecution at the hands of their enemies, who will try to kill them and hurt them. Now, John doesn't die at the hands of the enemies, he ends up as, according to tradition, dying of old age, but it's not for lack of trying, and he's persecuted and he's sent into exile. It's all sorts of terrible stuff. But James certainly, and all the rest of the apostles died a martyr's death. So he says, but to set in my right hand, or at my left is not mine to grant. But it is for those for whom it has been prepared. So Jesus is saying, you don't get to choose for those who have been prepared. Now much of my life, I had imagined that this would be when Jesus returns in his glory, that somebody from all the Christians, and usually the person that you'd the least think of like the, the mom, who just day in and day out, served and loved and didn't get all the glory, they would be the ones to sit at Jesus's left and his right when he comes into his kingdom. But I want you to read something. Here's something from Mark chapter 15. And the script inscription of the charge against him read the King of the Jews. And with him, they crucified two robbers, one on his right, and one on his left. So they didn't get the baptism that Jesus would be baptized with. They didn't understand the cup that he was going to drink because they did not understand what it meant when the Christ would come into his glory. It's not on the last day when the angels come and everything is beautiful and powerful, and we'll see all of us rise from the dead and live forever with Christ. The glory of Christ is the cross. When Jesus comes into his glory, and he has crowned king, with the charge above his head and a throne made out of wood and nails, who sits at his right and his left,

two robbers. And so the people the James and John, they didn't understand what they were asking for, because they didn't know Jesus would die. The glory of Christ is his death on the cross and the power of that sacrifice for us. The reading continues, and when the 10 heard it, they began to be indignant, and James and John, and Jesus called to him and said, you know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and they're great ones, exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all, For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. He mentioned the Gentiles, the rulers of the Gentiles, and they have authority. That is exactly how the the world runs their authorities. Violence is how you convince people to do stuff. There's the threat of law, there's taxation, there's laws, there's all these things. And that's how you get people to obey. That is not how it works in the church. God's word is how we rule in the church, by the proclamation of the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit, the servants and speakers of God's word, offer it up freely as a gift in Christ. And they serve, like pastors are there to serve and deliver the message and they want nothing more than for people to hear, listen and respond. And it's done this way, because even Jesus came to serve and not be served. And he gave his life as a ransom for many. And it's the pattern of Christ that all Christians not just pastors, all Christians follow. We come to serve, and not to be served we come to not to exercise authority, but offer offer servanthood and work for the good of others, following our Savior. That's all I have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Hebrews 5:1-10 The Epistle Reading for Sunday, March 17th, 2024

Ephesians 2:1-10

For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,

“You are my Son,

today I have begotten you”;

as he says also in another place,

“You are a priest forever,

after the order of Melchizedek.”

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

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 March 17, comes from Hebrews chapter five verses one through 10. For every high priest chosen from among men, is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, You are my son, today I have begotten you. As he says, also, in another place, you are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save from death. And he was heard because of his reference, although he was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. And being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, being designated by God, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Here ends the reading. Hebrews focuses a whole lot on the ancient practices of the temple and the tabernacle, the priests in the sacrificial system. So we're looking at something about that. Now, let's dive in. For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. So this is an important piece of the priesthood in ancient Israel, is you couldn't sign up to become a priest, you were always appointed by birth. And so it was the Levites, who were the priest. And so it's not just high priests. But all priests were born into that if you were a Levite, then you were a part of this priesthood. Now, that meant that by ancient Israel's times, when Jesus was around, there were a whole bunch of them. And so they had to take turns, only a few were full time and permanent. But the high priest, he was also appointed, you didn't get to sign up or choose, he was chosen by descent through the the line, the family line of Aaron. And that's why it says every high priest is chosen from among men, and is appointed to act on behalf of men to offer these gifts and sacrifices. pretty similarly, we, within the Lutheran church believe that pastors don't get to stand up and say, I want to be a pastor, we have to be called by God through His church, it's a regular call is what we call it. And so when someone decides to enter the seminary, that doesn't make them a pastor, when they graduate from the seminary doesn't make them a pastor, what makes them a pastor, when they are called by a congregation ordained and installed and then they are, they're appointed. It's a little bit of an aside, but an important thing for us to understand. So the reading continues, he can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those that the people. Now this was one of the problems with the high priests of the ancient days is that they were sinners. And so they couldn't offer up perfect sacrifices without also offering up a sacrifice for themselves. So in ceremonies like the Day of Atonement, the high priest would offer up a sacrifice for himself and for his family, and then offer up a sacrifice for the people. He had to purify himself before he could present himself to the mercy seat to go into the tabernacle, and and see the Ark of the Covenant and then offer the sacrifices for the rest of the people. And so, this points out that the high priests of before Jesus, were all saying enters. And on one hand, they could Gee deal gently, because they understood, I'm a sinner, you're a sinner, we're not going to, we're not going to get all high and mighty. But it also meant that they couldn't offer a perfection the way Jesus would. And so it goes continues to talk about being appointed. It says that no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him, who said to him, You are my son, today I have begotten you. As he says, also, in another place, you are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. So Jesus did not stand up and say, I'm a high priest. And this is important to recognize, somewhere in the background, the author of Hebrews is likely thinking, well, if Jesus is a high priest, how is that even possible? He wasn't a son of Aaron, he wasn't even of the tribe of Levi, come on, guys. He can't be a priest. I mean, he's the savior and all but he's still there's no way you can, you can connect him to these high priestly rituals. So the author of Hebrews has to say, well, priests are appointed. And if you're appointed by God, you don't have to run through the family line of Aaron. And so Jesus didn't stand up and say, Now I'm a priest. What he was is from the Psalms, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And then later, another soul. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now the order of Melchizedek is interesting. You have to go back to Genesis chapter 14, where Abraham ends up winning a battle, and there are spoils. And there comes this king of Salem Melchizedek, who's also a priest of God Most High, the Abraham gives the priest a 10th, of everything he has, and the Melchizedek blesses him from God most high to weird story in the Bible, because this is like a random priest out of the middle of nowhere. And you say, this is a positive depiction of a priest in Canaan, must been the God Most High is the true God. And that Melchizedek is a priest of God Most High, outside of Aaron's line. And that's the key here, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek is a priest, Jesus, who is not because he is descended from Aaron, are the Levites. But because he is appointed by God in a special way outside the normal order, because he is the Son of God. So then, it moves on to Jesus's duties as high priest. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears to him, who is able to save him from death. So the high priest is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God. And Jesus offered up prayers and supplications. And when he went to death, he cried out to him who was able to save him from his death. And it says, And he was heard because of his reverence. Jesus Christ was the perfect high priest, who cried out in trust and hope when he died on a cross, knowing that his father would raise him from the debt. It continues, although he was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. No, Jesus didn't need to learn to obey God, he did it all on his own. What this is showing us is this perfect perfection of Christ, who enters into our space becomes weak, like us, and then is is perfect. He follows God's law perfectly, offers Himself as a sacrifice so that we can have eternal life. And it says, And being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, being designated by God, a High Priest, after the order of Melchizedek. And so Jesus becomes the source of our eternal salvation to all who follow him. He uses the word obey, not in a rules, like you got to follow all the rules or else you're out, but those who follow Christ, hear His word and respond with faith. That's what it means to obey. And so Christ then becomes the source of eternal salvation as the high priest after the order of Melchizedek. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 119:9-16 The Psalm for Sunday, March 17th, 2024

Psalm 119:9-16

How can a young man keep his way pure?
    By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
    let me not wander from your commandments!
I have stored up your word in my heart,
    that I might not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O Lord;
    teach me your statutes!
With my lips I declare
    all the rules of your mouth.
In the way of your testimonies I delight
    as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts
    and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
    I will not forget your word.

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 March 17, is from Psalm 119, verses nine through 16.

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word? with my whole heart, I seek you let me not wander from your commandment, I have stored up your word in my heart, that I may not sin against You. Bless it, are you Oh, Lord, teach me Your statutes. With my lips, I declare all the rules of your mouth in the way of your testimonies. I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts, and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Here ends the reading. Psalm 119 is a lengthy Psalm all about God's word. Psalm 119 is also the one where it says Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. It's divided into sections. Each section is based on the letter from the Hebrew alphabet. So we call it an acrostic. This section is the second one or bathe. Let's dive in. How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. There is great wisdom in being able to learn from the wisdom of others. Lots of people have the kind of wisdom that you gather from a lifetime of making errors, and then learning from your mistakes. Anybody can do that. If you step on a rake and it smacks you in the face you learn maybe don't step on a rake. But when someone says, Don't step on that rake, it's even better to learn from that person by not stepping on the rake. And that's sort of the question going on here. When a young man without wisdom wants to follow God, to keep his way pure, to walk the right path. What do you do? The answer is by guarding it according to your word. The word of God is there to make foolish people wise to make the simple, wise and the people who need to know more understand. God's word is there for us to give us that a young man who has no wisdom of his own through experience, can learn the wisdom of God through the Word. And can't we all benefit from that. And so this almost responds with my whole heart I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandment. The desire of a Christian who seeks after God is to follow God's commandments. And we may not always do well at it, we may not always like wanting to do it. In fact, sometimes our sinful nature pulls us away. But in the end, we all want to serve God. And I think that is part of the heart of a Christian is that the new heart that God gives us in Christ prays out to him, let me not wander from your commandments. The next one continues. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Now, hearing God's word and having inside us especially I think memorizing God's word and understanding his doctrines and teachings is a great way to be reminded every day of our duty and our desire to follow God's commandments. But it is also a way to lead us to pray. Lead me away from temptation, oh, Lord. And that's what this is asking. This is not so much like look at what I've done. This is God use your word to guide me away from the sins that my body and my mind and my sinful flesh want me to do? It continues, Blessed are You, O Lord, teach me are statutes. There's a reason blessing for God also comes tied to the statutes. The rules of God is that God the psalmist knows that blessing comes from being with God and following his ways. It continues with my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth in the way of your testimonies. I delight as much as in all riches. So the psalmist here is saying I speak Your word with my mouth says all the rules here. This is one of the things that Christians and all the way back into the Old Testament have done is that we are constantly speaking God's word. Our divine service Sunday worship is filled with the Word of God, we speak it back and forth, we pray the Psalm we, we hear it read, the pastor preaches on the word. And then we respond with the Creed, the summary of what God's Word says, there is always God's word going all throughout the service. And we're constantly speaking it as a liturgy as a repetition of what God has done for us. And it teaches us to delight in God's testimonies as much as No, no, even more than all the riches of the world. The psalm continues, I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes, on your ways, I will delight in your statutes, I will not forget your word. This is truly the response of a Christian who loves God and loves his word, right? I will think about your teaching, I will fix my eyes on what you would have me do, I will have joy in your rules. And always remember your word. Now, this is sometimes aspirational for us, right? You know, the sinful flesh hangs on and sometimes we groan and struggle, but the delight, while we do have that delight in our inner being, as St. Paul says, even when the sinful flesh tries to pull us away, there is something within us given to us by the Holy Spirit that delights and enjoys God's wisdom that loves to serve Him and wants to do everything that he calls on us to do. And that's the hope and prayer of every Christian right to meditate on God's word and delight in what He has for us to do. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Jeremiah 31:31-34 The Old Testament Reading for Sunday, March 17th, 2024

Jeremiah 31:31-34

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

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, March 17, comes from Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 through 34. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord, I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor, each his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the greatest of them to the least declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. He runs the reading. Jeremiah is giving this oracle of God, as the people are considering the terrible destruction of the Babylonian captivity. God has seen fit to take God's people, Israel out of the promised land. And the best and brightest of them are going off into Babylon to become whatever it is that they're doing. Jeremiah has, in earlier chapters sent a letter out to the survivors who are in Babylon, and he is comforting people. And now he's looking forward to after this exile is over. And God is establishing something new. So he says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day, I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. So God is saying he's going to do a new covenant that is different from the covenant that he did with ancient Israel coming out of Egypt. And so this covenant, the old whole Old Testament is pointing back to that first covenant. Well, partially that and through that covenant to Abraham, of course. And so it looks back to as almost the founding of Israel as being the Exodus story coming out of the Promised Land, going to Mount Sinai, receiving the 10 commandments. God says, I will be your God, you will be my people. Follow my voice, you'll be a special possession, all of that stuff. And this covenant is a covenant that the Israel promised to do, and it had blessings and curses, blessings, if you followed it curses, if you did not. God says he's going to make a new covenant that is different. Now we'll take a look at what that new covenant means. But the next phrase is my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. So the covenant had blessings and curses. And one of the curses was that they would be thrown out of the land, the land would spit them out. And that's what happened, right? They turned away from God. They turned away from the covenant and the promises that he had given them. And the threats became, what the curses became what God delivered. And so that's what happened. And he says it, though I was their husband. This is a common way of speaking about the relationship between God and His people. Throughout the Old Testament, He says, He was caring for them like a husband cares for a life he was protecting them, keeping them safe watching over them, and they chased after other gods they had mistresses of their own, or I guess maybe misters of their own, not mistresses that they will go after instead of worshipping Him. So now what is this new covenant? There's an old covenant that is follow me and you get blessings. And don't follow me and you get curses. Here's a new covenant. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. So that first part of this is he says, I will put By law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. Now when we see the word law in Hebrew, sometimes we have to say that it is not the same as the word law that we think of when we hear the word law. Law is often rules, maybe even the just the 10 commandments. But we often translate the the law, a word for instruction, which would include God's law, but also his promises. And so when you use that word law, when it's I think it's referring to is not just God is giving the rules to his people. What it is, is it's his whole testimony, like the law of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, they are not all about rules. It's the promises to write. And so God is writing his his instruction on the hearts of his people. And we see that in Christ, when He gives us the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit changes our hearts to be like Christ. And so this New Covenant is amazing in that is not just that God has written down on tablets of stone, the commandments for his people, but now he writes his instruction on our hearts. And the next thing it says, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Now, this is a, something that God said with the previous covenant to, but the previous covenant had conditions, if you obey my voice, this covenant doesn't have a condition, it just says, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Period. There is no obedience, there was no condition, there was just God loved the world, and sent his son, and his son gathers people, gives them the gift of faith, and makes them his, it continues, and no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. So this is an interesting way of talking about it. And honestly, when I first read it, I was like, I don't I don't even know what that means. So I'm giving you a little bit of an off the cuff answer here where it's, it says, I think what it is, is that all of God's people have the Holy Spirit in them, which means that they don't need to, to go to the covenant to the testimony to know God, because God is within them, He dwells in them. And to be part of this new Israel, is to be to know God by faith. And so we've already have the Holy Spirit, which means we all know God, we don't have to talk to each other and say, Do you know Jesus, because we all know Jesus. And that's what it means to be in the faith. I don't think it means that, that we don't have to talk to people about Jesus. Because to be part of this covenant means to be in Christ. So non Christians, they need to be gathered in. But for us, when you have the Holy Spirit in you, you know God. And then it continues, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Now, there was a great deal of forgiveness in the Old Covenant. But in the end, when the sin of Israel built up, and they turned away as a nation, it meant that God punished them as a nation. And that included the faithful ones, the people who kept his covenant who did not turn and bend the knee to Baal or Ashura, or the gods of Babylon or wherever. But here, he says, I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. And we see, the central point of that is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and His sacrifice, repaid the penalty for all sin, a sacrifice that that is the culmination of all the Old Testament sacrifices, so there would need to be no more. Now there is forgiveness for all all who turned to Christ. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Bronze Serpent: Sermon for Sunday, March 10th, 2024

Numbers 21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

From the great white north of snow and wilderness to California was the rattlesnakes. We don't have those up there. Just in case you are wondering where winter is there's no rattling no snakes, the worst we got our the garter snakes, they're like about that long, you've probably got them here, that long, maybe that big around. Almost cute. So when we came here, I was a little worried. In fact, I was kinda like, are they hiding under every log? Gonna jump out of every great in the street, a little worried. Two and a half years later, I haven't seen a one, which is kind of nice. But today, we are talking about serpents like that. Fiery, or what we would call venomous serpents that go and bite God's people as part of their punishment. And so let's take a look at this story. Before we dive into what's actually happening, we should know what's happened in the past, for God's people. We're in the book of Numbers and Numbers begins at the base of Mount Sinai. God has already pulled them out of slavery in Egypt, they have gathered around the base, they've received the covenant from God, Moses and all that stuff. Moses has then received a whole mess of laws that are part of this covenant, that deal with things like worship, and, and food and just about everything that you can think of. In Numbers, we get some of those laws in addition, and then they finally leave the base of Mount Sinai and start heading towards the promised land. And they start to complain. They have no food. So God gives them manna for their breakfast appears right outside their front door, every single day. And then, after a little bit of time they go, we're sick of this man, oh, we need meat. So God gives them quail. It just lands in the camp. They don't have to worry about it. No hunting, no shooting, just to meet. Okay. So then they get to the promised land. They look inside, and they say, oh, no, the people there are super scary. God could never defeat them. Almost forgetting what he did with Pharaoh and Egypt, the mightiest army of the time. And so God turns them away, and tells them that they will be wandering in the wilderness until that generation dies off 40 years. And then after that, we get to this story. They complain again. And here's what happens. They are in the wilderness. And they say, and the people spoke against God and against Moses, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Now, first of all, that sentence does not make a lot of sense, right? There is no food and no water, but the food is terrible. Right? They're not saying there's no food, no water, they're saying, We're bored to God. The food that you've been giving us every single day is now boring. And we were better off as slaves in Egypt and not your people. That's a pattern that they had to talk about over and over again, in their complaining. Why did you bring us out here? And now all we have to eat is this food that you give us for free every single day. I think one thing that this can highlight is human nature is a bit like that. We get used to good things. When something really good happens in our life. We get to a point where it makes us happy for a little bit and then it just sort of fades into the background. It becomes a part of what we expect. So you can almost see God's people being like, oh, yeah, I mean, God gives us food every day. But what else is new? It helps us to see that this is part of human nature, both for you and for me, right? We get used to the amazing things that God gives us. Sometimes even bored with the amazing blessings that we have, whether it's blessings of body or blessings of soul, we get tired of our congregation grumble about losing an hour of sleep and having to get to church on time. We get tired of the shelters we live in the families we have, and we go, Ah, it's just so much work. That's because human beings aren't like that. We forget about the good things, and we focus on the bad. We find ourselves not being thankful for everything that we get out. And focus only on the places where life is not living up to our expectations. And this is why we have to continually remind ourselves of the blessings God has given us. When we read in the Lord's Prayer, about giving thanks for the daily bread that we have, give us this day, our daily bread. This is a reminder, as much as anything else, that God is the source of all the good things that we have, that he gives it to us out of His fatherly divine goodness and mercy without any merit or worthiness in me. The prayer is there to say, God gives this because he wants us to and we know that we know we should be grateful. And We gather here for the same reason. To remind ourselves that the gift of Jesus Christ is amazing. It is not a background thing that fades into our lives. But we need to talk about it all the time to remember how powerful Christ is to remember how joyous His sacrifice for us is. That we shouldn't take it for granted. But rejoice in it every single day, every single week, all our lives. Because if we don't, it might just fade into the background. Or we might just lose the joy that we need to have. Because it is the gift of life. What an amazing thing. Now God's people, ancient Israel, they have a problem they are complaining. And so what does God do? punishes them. It says, The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many of the people of Israel die. We would call fiery serpents, venomous serpents, snakes, like the Rattlesnakes I worried about what's going on here is God had given Israel a covenant. What he told them was, if you follow my covenant, things will be great. You will be safe, you will win all your battles, your enemies will stay away, your vineyards will grow, your fields will prosper. And you'll have everything you could ever want. And if you do not, if you turn away, the opposite will happen. Your vineyards will not grow, your fields will not prosper, enemies will attack you, and you will be punished. And so that's what's happening. God sends the serpents amongst the people and they bite them. And then it goes. And the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned. We have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that He will take away the serpents from us.

So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone He would look at the bronze serpent, and live. There's an interesting detail in this, the people say, take away the snakes. But God doesn't. He doesn't remove the suffering for their sin, instead instructs Moses to snake on a pole. And then everyone who is bitten, poisoned by these snakes could turn and then be healed. This is a very different thing than take away the snakes. The snakes kept on biting. And the people of God kept getting sick, which meant they had to continually turn to this bronze serpent that Moses had set up and receive healing every time it happened. This is a way God reminded them that they constantly needed him that in their daily life, they would have to turn and look for healing. Because if he just took the snakes away, well, they'd go back to forgetting about him. But every time they got bit, one more time, they would turn to Him and look for healing. Now, this story has a number of lessons for us regarding our life in Christ. But it's important to point out the differences as well. The covenant that we have, is a covenant that is different from ancient Israel. For them, it was a community and national covenant, when the whole community sinned, the whole community was punished. When God's people turned away from God, God sent a direct punishment because of that. And that is what those fiery serpents were all about. We do not have a promise like that. The covenant is not, if you sin, God will punish you directly for that sin. You see, for us, Jesus Christ fulfilled the law of Moses, the law that the ancient people broke. And so that kind of promise is lifted from our shoulders and placed on his, which means that there is no covenant that says, if you sin, you will be punished. But very simply, in Christ, there is no punishment. In Christ, we are all saved. Which means that we cannot turn to the bad things of this world, and say, we know why they happened. And in Israel had Moses who could go out to the people and say, Hey, guys, God told me that you're getting these snakes because you did this. We don't have anyone like that. Despite what you might see, on the television, every time a hurricane comes, or a major earthquake happens, some guy will stand up and say, I know why this is happening. It's because my favorite political thing happened. Or my favorite spiritual hobbyhorse was broken. And they have no idea. There is no Moses or prophet who can come down and say that they act like they have some kind of spiritual insight that the rest of us do not have, and they are wrong. And sometimes we do that for ourselves. We say when something bad happens, I bet God is punishing me for whatever it is that I did. We don't know that either. We don't know why. Bad things happen or the suffering is brought into our life, other than the very simple fact that the world is filled with sin. We are broken, and all of us will one day die. That's it. That's the message. We have suffering. But what we have is a gift from Christ that gives us healing in the midst of it. And that I think is where we can understand the pattern from the book of Numbers is that when we cry out to God, forgive us for our sins. He does not take away death from the world. What he does, is he lifts up his son Jesus Christ on a cross to give us healing With a promise of resurrection. This is what Jesus tells us. In John chapter three. He says, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. Jesus Christ is the escape from death and sin and suffering in our world. He is the one who gives us healing, so that everyone who turns to him and believes on this crucified man will be saved. Doesn't take away the pain of the things we face, the challenges of this life or the hurt that we run into. But he does give us a promise that He will be with us even into death, and raise us on the last day. What this does, is it actually turns our suffering into something that can drive us to Jesus Christ. Because every time something really bad happens, you can say to yourself, I have healing. I have an escape. Someone went to a cross and died for me and experienced death so that I can follow him through the grave into everlasting life. It doesn't have to turn into a moment for despair, or a time to wonder what God is doing and why he is sending this to me. It can be a way to point us to our Savior. That's what the snakes were for. After the bronze serpent was lifted up the snakes brought people back to God, turn and be healed. And our Savior Jesus Christ does the same. When we face the inevitable results of a sinful world, when we get sick or hurt, or whatever happens to us, these things ought to turn us to our Savior. Because everyone who believes on Him has life. Everyone who turns to him is saved. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: John 3:14-21 The Gospel Reading for Sunday, March 10th, 2024

John 3:14-21

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

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, March 10, comes from John chapter three, verses 14 through 21. Jesus said, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. But in order that the world might be saved through Him, whoever believes in Him is not condemned. But whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the Son of God. And this is the judgment, the light has come into the world. And people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things, hates the light, and does not come into the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true, comes into the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. He rents the reading. This passage begins with a reference to our Old Testament reading for the week from Numbers chapter 21. With the bronze serpent, Jesus says, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. We read this on Tuesday. And so what we see is that in that story, the people grumble against God and God said serpents, poison, venomous serpents to bite the people. When they pray for relief, Moses takes a bronze serpent, and instead of taking the venomous snakes away, the serpent becomes a way to escape death. So when they're bitten, they look on the serpent, believe and live. And so Jesus Christ becomes something similar. He says, that he will be lifted up, the Son of Man will be lifted up, the whatever looks on him and believes will have eternal life. So he's like that bronze serpent, except it's not just the venom of snakes that he is freeing us from, but death itself, that we have eternal life. Then we get the classic passage that everybody knows, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. This is sometimes called the gospel in the nutshell, a God sent His only Son, so that all who believe in Him can have eternal life. Now it continues, For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. So this shows the heart of God, God is not here to do not send Jesus as a judge, to condemn, but with the aim of salvation, that whoever believes in Him is not condemned. That is, he wants the whole world to be saved. But that doesn't mean there is no condemnation out there. It says, whoever believes in Him is not condemned. But whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And so, what we see here is that there is a division in the world, between those who believe and those who do not. When God sends a rescuer, out to rescue people from danger, the people who cling to the rescuer are going to be saved and the people who avoid the rescuer are not going to be saved, they will simply perish under the danger that they're facing. So if you've got somebody out there who's in a in a sea, thrashing around getting hypothermia about to go under, and you throw my life raft, and you say, Come on in, I'll save you and they say, No, no, no, I can swim. That's what's going on, when they don't cling to Jesus Christ, that they're already lost, already condemned with the world. So continues, and this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and the people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. And so That's what life is like, right? So many people, they see the light of Christ. And they say, You know what, I kind of like evil. Now, nobody actually, like in their head says, Yeah, you know, evil evils for me, I want to be a bad guy. But we've got all of these things that we say, well, I shouldn't have to give up this favorite sin that I love. Or I shouldn't have to give up this thing that I like to be a Christian, I should be able to do whatever I want. And God should just love me because I'm awesome. And you know, that's not how it works. People love evil, and they love sin. And it's true. And many times, we'll just cling to that. He says, For everyone who does wicked things, hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. And that's one of those things that makes it hard to be a Christian, is that we have to admit that we are sinners, and not just sinners but evil. Right. We have rebelled against God, and we love our sin, we actually want to be we we love the things that we're we're clinging to from our old self, and that sinful flesh inside us just says, oh, isn't that nice to be able to do whatever we want. And when we become a Christian, we are our hearts are exposed. And we have to present that before God and say, Yeah, I'm a broken person who can't do anything right without you, God, I need you know, that says, but whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. And so those who have faith, we come to the light, we're not afraid of having this our sin being exposed, and we live in the light. Now, what's really interesting about this passage is that we often just quote for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. And then forget about the rest. And often the what that HYAH does is it leads us leaves a sense to have the idea that this believing in Him is almost notional, right? What I mean by notional is that believing in Jesus simply means knowing his name and having positive feelings about him. But when Jesus goes on to explain what that means is there's much more complicated, there's some faithfulness in there. Right? Our we have to be willing to let our sin be exposed and live in the light, confess our sins, hear the word, receive forgiveness, and do the works that he has sent us for. And so it's not just like this idea. Like I know Jesus's name, and it makes me smile that doesn't save. Faith is something more than that, that causes a gift of the Holy Spirit that causes us to cling to God's Word and His promises, to confess our sins, to receive forgiveness and desire to do the work that God has sent us to do. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Ephesians 2:1-10 The Epistle Reading for Sunday, March 10th, 2024

Ephesians 2:1-10

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in 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 Epistle reading for Sunday, March 10, comes from Ephesians chapter two, verses one through 10. And you are dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. And we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace, you have been saved, and raised us up with Him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of His grace, in kindness toward us, in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Here ends the reading, oh, what a classic verse. This is a classic reading Ephesians chapter two, so much good stuff in here. I hope I can get it without doing a 20 minute podcast. Okay, let's dig in. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, fall in the course of this world, following the prints of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Okay, so this begins by addressing the Ephesians. Remember, Paul is talking to Christians. And he's saying, You were you used to be at one time, you were dead in your sins. And so he says, they were dead in the sins, they followed the course of this world, they followed the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Now, there's a lot there. So first, the metaphor is, you were dead in your trespasses and sins, and then you followed the course of the world. So you're doing the same thing as the rest of the world. And then you err on the side of the prints of the power of the air, or Satan, the spirit that is now working the sons of disobedience. So there's, there's a lot to say about what it is like to be without Christ, even for Christians before they heard this. They were dead. They were following the course of the world, on the side of Satan. And he continues after that, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind. And we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Yikes. Paul, don't you know that this is going to scare people away? So we lived in the passions of our flesh, we consider it up the desires of our body and mind and we were by nature, children of wrath. Yikes. Paul is not painting, a beautiful picture of our capacity apart from Christ, he saying we are dead on the side of Satan, by nature, children of wrath. Whoa. Now this is one of the passages that I use when I talk about the non Christians capacity to love and serve God. That there is no way for us to decide to follow God to reach out to Him and serve Him because we are dead. We are by nature, children of wrath, and there is nothing good in us. And then Paul says, what God does in response to that, he writes, but God being rich and mercy because of the great love with which He loved us Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. God's amazing mercy is that he reaches out to people who are dead, dead bodies and makes them alive. Now you have to ask, what kind of capacity? Does a body a dead one have to do? To do good works? Can a dead thing get up? Can it cry out to God? Can a dead thing, love and serve? Nope, it's dead. God must first reach out to us by the power of the Holy Spirit to make us alive in Christ by His grace. This requires God's action on us. And the only way to be saved is for God to work on us first to choose us to call us to gather us. And this is why when we explained the work of the Holy Spirit, in the third article, the Apostles Creed, Lutherans repeat what Martin Luther wrote when he said, I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, and lightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. Only God can reach out and make dead things alive. Only God can take a sinner and make him a saint in Christ. And that's what it means when he gets to this, this next phrase, by grace, you have been saved. And if it's grace, it's not a work. It's not a choice. It's not a decision. It's not a thing that I do to please God, it is simply God does it. And if there is anything that I can do, that are a part of me, reaching out to God, then it is no longer grace. And it continues and raised us up with Him and seeded us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of His grace, in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. So what's amazing about us being made alive together with Christ is that our life, who we are everything that we have is placed in Christ. And so we're raised with Him, we ascended into Heaven with Him. And we are now seated at the right hand of the Father waiting for Christ to return, to show off the power and glory that Christ already has, by giving us new life by taking our bodies, which at that time might be dead, and giving them a new life, making them alive again, so that we can walk on this earth, and have physical bodies one more time, what a great grace that our God has for us. And then St. Paul says, For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. So God, he repeats again, Grace, you have been saved through faith. Now, what we have to be careful about is when we look at this, sometimes people want to turn faith into a work. And so the idea is, there's nothing that you can do to be saved, except to drum up some belief in your heart. And if you believe and trust hard enough, then God saves you. Which is then again, not grace. Even faith is a gift, a gift of the Holy Spirit, who calls us and grants us faith so that we can trust in God. And if it's not the Holy Spirit's work, you can't say this phrase, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. So even the faith that trusts in God is a gift from the spirit. It's Grace is not a result of works. So no one can boast when they say, I have decided to follow Jesus. No, you didn't. The Holy Spirit came to you and gave you that gift even that even our faith in Christ is a gift, so that we can't say look at how much faith I have, we can only boast in the Lord. Then it continues, For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in. And St. Paul often, he comes up with the answer to the question that Lutherans often gift when we get when we emphasize grace so much. We emphasize everything thing as a free gift, there's nothing you can do. You don't have to, to work to be saved, and you don't have to work to stay saved. And then people say, well, people are just going to respond to that by taking advantage going out, they'll sin and do whatever and then come back and say, Oh, I'm sorry. And we'll have to forgive them. And that'll be fine.

But St. Paul says, No, that's not how it works. If you are made alive in Christ, then you are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. And so if you're made alive in Christ, you have a new heart or a new creation, and then you want to do good works. And this is one of the things that has changed in my preaching, is that I realized that God's people don't need to be cajoled or threatened or like have their pastors fingers shaken at them, to tell them to do good works. They already want to love and serve their church. They already want to love and serve their neighbor. The Holy Spirit does that. We just need to know which direction to go and be excited and motivated to do it. God has made us new God makes us want to do these things. And we are His workmanship. Wow, so much to say about this passage, but we got to keep it short. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 107:1-9 The Psalm for Sunday, March 10th, 2024

Psalm 107:1-9

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever!
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
    whom he has redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands,
    from the east and from the west,
    from the north and from the south.

Some wandered in desert wastes,
    finding no way to a city to dwell in;
hungry and thirsty,
    their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way
    till they reached a city to dwell in.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wondrous works to the children of man!
For he satisfies the longing soul,
    and the hungry soul he fills with good things.

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, March 10, comes from Psalm 107, verses one through nine. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom He has redeemed from trouble, and gathered in from the lands from the east and from the west, from the north, and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble. And he delivered them from their distress, he led them by a straightway till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love for his wondrous works to the children of man, for he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul, he fills with good things. Here ends the reading Psalm 107, verses one through nine as part of a much longer Psalm. The song goes on for some way after this, and it actually helps us understand what's going on here. But let's take a look at this first section. Oh, give thanks to Lord for He is good for his steadfast love endures forever. This is a passage that my family would pray. When we did our meal prayers, we would say what is sometimes called the Lutheran common table prayer. Come, Lord Jesus be our guest. And then we would finish it up with, Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. And this is perhaps one of the great confessions of faith from the Old Testament, that his steadfast love endures forever, right. And so the psalm leads God's people in reflecting on this, it says, Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom He has redeemed from trouble, and gathered in from the lands from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. So the redeemed of the Lord, redeemed is economic language, bought out of the hand of someone else. In fact, you would use that language, if you bought someone from slavery and then freed them, they would be redeemed from slavery. And here, it's redeemed from trouble. They were in the hands of trouble, and God bought them and pulled them out. And that would apply to all of the people of God from all sorts of areas right the in Egypt, God redeemed them from Pharaoh when he spent the blood of the lamb in other places He has redeemed as well gathered people together from all over into Israel to find place. Now the next thing that we see is an example of one of those that has gathered in this is part of a series of different groups that Psalm 107 talks about. So the first is it says some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Now there are a number of different groups that the Psalm talks about, not just this one in the reading. The next set of groups was some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the Council of the Most High. The next one is, some were fools through their sinful ways and because of their iniquity, suffered affliction, they lowered any kind of food, and they drew near the gates of death. The next group is some went down to the sea and ships doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord his wondrous work in the deep, for he commanded and raised a stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. And then finally moves on to describing the great power of God. And so what's interesting about this psalm is that it goes through a number of different scenarios where people are in need, and God rescues them. Now, this one, the first one, some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. This is one that people are trapped in through no fault of their own. They cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straightway till they reached a city to dwell in. Now, this one I think is chosen because of the reading from numbers, where you have a number of people who are, they are in the wilderness wandering, and God leads them after 40 years wandering in the wilderness back to Israel to give them a city and a place to dwell in. And so you've got wandering in desert wastes is that parallel to what you have in the reading from numbers, but they were only wandering because of the other things that have been going on. So it was they are more likely the one that goes, some were fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction. They loathe any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death, that sounds a whole lot more like the numbers reading, where they're complaining about God taking them out of Egypt and giving them worthless food, the manner that he had promised them. So we returned to the reading, though, their soul fainted within them. And then it says, Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. So they were lost, they were in the desert, they had no way to find a place and God delivers them. And we're thinking here, probably not like an individual person, but like a tribe, a group, God's people, perhaps, he led them by a straightway till they reached a city to dwell in. So once they call out for God's direction, He guides them and leads them into the land of Israel, where he can provide for them and have a city to live in. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love for his wondrous works to the children of man, for he satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul, he fills with good things. So the Psalm was talking about the person who wanders, finding direction, into a place where God can provide for them. Now, we shouldn't take this as as a metaphor for the Christian life. Like where it's not, it's not about like people who have no direction in life, and are just looking for God to show them the way to go. Though, you know, God's guidance and wisdom does do this. This is talking about people who are literally in the desert, and God provides them a land, this would be easily a reference to the wanderings of Israel, and God providing them a place to stay. Now, for Christians, we are we, before Christ, before were brought into the church, are wandering in a waste of a spiritual waste. And it's Christ who brings us together into the land of His Church where he can feed us and fill us with his body and blood to provide for us. Now, this is this group is the one that is of no fault of their own. The other some of the other groups are God rescuing them from their own foolishness. The one goes somewhere fools through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities suffered affliction. And then it says, Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distress. What, oh, great gift, our God gives us that when we are fools, and we suffer because of our sin. God sent His Son Jesus Christ. Another one is some sat in darkness in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction, for they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the Council of the Most High, so we bowed their hearts down with hard labor. These are people who are rebels against God, imprisoned, justly forced into hard labor. And it says, Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. Can you believe God delivers us the prisoners, great criminals, horrible people who do in violence on the world, God hears them. And if he hears them, he can hear you. And then the last one is someone down to the sea in ships, and they saw the works of the Lord how he called a stormy wind. And so here again, this is not people who are are sinners, and they're getting the consequences of their action. They're just fishermen out in the water, and God calls up a storm and they cry out to heaven. And he delivered them from their distress. This is what God does.

He is a God who saves he saves us when we are facing in things that are not of our own making, when we face the consequences of actions that are not ours, whether we're lost, we're on the sea or just human beings in search of a savior. But even more importantly, he saves us when we sin. When we are actually facing the consequences of our actions, and we need a Savior from ourselves. He sends us His Son, Jesus Christ. And we all we can do is rejoice in the goodness of God, how he redeems us from trouble. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Numbers 21:4-9 The Old Testament Reading for Sunday, March 10th, 2024

Numbers 21:4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

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, March 10, comes from Numbers chapter 21, verses four through nine. From Mount Hor, they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people be became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water and we load this worthless food. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against you. Pray to the Lord, that He take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole. And everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent, and live events, the reading this story from Numbers comes in the middle of Israel's wilderness wandering. Now you remember the story goes, God's people came out of Egypt, they went to Mount Sinai, and then from Mount Sinai, they came to the promised land, they get to the promised land, and they say, Nah, it's a little too scary. So what does God do? God says that He will put them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. So that generation dies off. Now, while they're wandering through this wilderness, God is feeding them every single day with mana, it appears outside their tents, and they, they get food all the time. So the people get impatient. They go from Mount Hor, they go on the way to the Red Sea, around the land of Edom, and they're upset. So they say, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we load this worthless food. Now, you may have noticed, there's a bit of a contradiction there. They say there's no food and no water and we load this worthless food wait. If there's no food, how can you loathe it? What they're saying, actually, is that there's no food that they can gather, that is different from the manna God is giving them. And so they're like a manna. Again, I can go out my tent in the morning every day and just find food on the ground, this socks so they grumble. And you know, people who eat the same thing every day, and they get bored, and that's what's going on. The Lord responds by sending fiery serpents, we would say, probably venomous serpents and they bite the people and many die. When God's people sinned, God responded with physical punishments for them. And this is the history of Israel is that when they they turn against him, he sends serpents or an army or earthquakes or whatever, to come and afflict the people. So they realize they did something wrong and they say, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. So here we get repentance. They go, we know we did something wrong. We were grumbling about the the good things that God has given us. We wanted something else, but we weren't thankful. Ask God to take them away. So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. Now this is a key moment. The people asked, take the serpents away. God responds, put a serpent on a pole, and everyone who sees it will live. God doesn't take the serpents away. What God does is He offers a healing moment. So that if they are bitten by the serpent, they can look on the pole, and they will live. He doesn't take the punishment away, he doesn't take the pain or the suffering away. He just offers a way of escape. And so I think a lot of the Christian life is like this. We Christians can sometimes feel like the things of God are lowly, maybe not important enough. But what God provides us with just isn't exciting or interesting. Or we might consider in our congregations and mourn that some of them are shrinking. And that the, the word of God, even though it proclaimed to the faithful is still just, maybe God isn't gathering together the people like he did back in the 60s, or the 80s, or the 2000s, or whatever it was the heyday of your congregation, and was just like, Ah, this just doesn't seem to be working. And then we can feel ungrateful, or maybe God's provision just isn't enough for us. Whatever it is, when we ask God to take away the suffering and death that comes into our lives as a result of sin, he doesn't write. He doesn't take away the pain and the suffering that all human beings experience. What he does, is he gives us a way to live through it through Jesus Christ. And the provision that God provides is not a bronze snake that was lifted up on a pole but a Savior, who was lifted up on a cross that all who follow Him, even though we die, we will live. And so we get something very similar to what Moses put up on the pole is that God doesn't take away the serpents from Israel, just as God does not take away the suffering from us. What he does is he provides an escape through Jesus Christ, so we can have resurrection. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The Ten Commandments: Sermon for Sunday, March 3rd, 2024

Exodus 20:1-17

And God spoke all these words, saying,

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Today we're taking a look at the 10 commandments. And you gotta wonder sometimes, when you're a pastor, what do you say? When you get to something like this? The 10 commandments? were reading the whole thing all 10 of them. Do you choose one? Or do you talk about them all, to talk about Israel and the ancient people and what God was doing here? mean, in our Small Catechism, Martin Luther spends a whole lot of time talking about the 10 commandments. And in the Large Catechism, it's page after page after page after page of explanation for each individual one. Good thing I have all day, right? Well, the 10 commandments actually give us a chance to ask a fundamental question. A fundamental question about Moses, his writing in the Old Testament, and what it has to do with us Christians, because we take a look at this, this whole set of the 10 commandments, and if you've memorized them from the Small Catechism, like many of us had to do when we were young, you'll notice there's a lot more text in there than what you memorized, right? So there's a lot going on. There stuff like carved images. And there's stuff about male servants and female servants not working on the Sabbath. You go, what are these doing here? I didn't have to memorize that. Why not? This gives us a chance to ask a fundamental question about the 10 commandments. What do they have to do with us, us Christians? What do the 10 commandments actually have to do with people on the other side of the cross? Instead of people who are there at the base of Mount Sinai? I have an answer for you. It's very simple. The 10 commandments do not apply to Christians. Now you're gonna say, wait a second pastor? Did you just join the ELCA? are you preaching against God's word? No. And I want you to hold on with me and see where I'm going with this. Before you walk out. Let me explain. The original context of the 10 commandments is a covenant between a nation brought out of Egypt, in slavery, freed and to go into the wilderness and God says to them, you follow my covenant, and you will live long in the land that I give you. Your nation and borders will do well, you will be defended from enemies, and you will be prosperous in this land. That's not the promise that God gives Christians isn't. That's not what we receive through Jesus Christ. The promise of these 10 commandments in its original context, was just for the Jews and their descendants. As long as the covenant the Old Covenant was active. And we know this on a fundamental level, because there is one commandment that we totally ignore, actively and willingly and you accept it without without knowing it. It's a very simple commandment. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy? Now you might think to yourself, Pastor, we're here on Sunday morning, we're in worship, we're keeping the Sabbath. Nope. Let's listen to what God says. Six days shall you labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God on it, you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. What that means is that God commanded his people from sundown on Friday night to sundown on Saturday night. Not to do any work. Zero. No yard work. No driving the kids to sports games. No volunteering for anything else. Friday to Saturday 24 hours, you could do no work. And when was the last time you tried that. Or you heard a sermon from your pastor saying you must rest on Friday nights. No starting fires, no driving your car, no taking walks, no going for a run. None of it. You have to read. We don't do that do we do. That's because deep down inside, we know the 10 commandments are not for us. They are for Israel, a covenant between God and a singular nation of people. That was fulfilled when Jesus Christ King. I'm not the only one who says this. Martin Luther himself said it. He writes, quote, the law of Moses, which henceforth is not binding on us, concerns the Jews, for the law is given only to the people of Israel. And Israel has accepted it for itself. And its descendants. We will not any longer have Moses for a rule and law giver. God Himself will not have it. Moses was a mediator and a law giver of the Jewish people only. To them he gave the Law. If I accept Moses, in one commandment, I must accept the entire Moses. From this would follow. If I were to accept Moses as a master and law giver, I would have to be circumcised to wash clothes, according to the Jewish custom to eat, drink and dress like them, and to observe all those customs which the law commanded them to observe. So if the 10 commandments in their original context are for us, then you got to do it all, every single one of the 613 commandments of the Old Testament, including the bacon you may have eaten this morning. Right. But Jesus Christ has fulfilled the Old Covenant. He obeyed it all perfectly. He did every ritual and every law and everything that God commanded, including loving God with his whole heart and loving his neighbor as himself and went to the cross, to take our sin and fulfill the covenant Israel could not sacrificed himself there to end the law. And its weight on our shoulders, to end the rule of Moses, and the guilt it assigns to us so that we could be free in Christ. Now, you may have heard it explained this way. But Pastor in the Old Testament laws, they're divided into three parts, right? There's the the Civil Code, the ceremonial code, and the moral code. Have you heard that before? Go through the Old Testament and point out which one is which? Moses doesn't mark civil, moral and religious. which pieces are which? And how do you know? There's no underlining or highlighting. We all come up with our own list and know the whole thing has been fulfilled. The whole thing has been taken care of. Jesus has done it all. Which means we are free from the law.

Just as St. Paul tells us, throughout the book of Romans and throughout the book of Galatians. And this is a joyous freedom that Christians have that we don't have to go and find every single commandment written in Have Old Testament law and check off the box when we walk out every morning. We don't have to be terrified that God might look down on us and say, Do you remember on page 372? I wrote this rule, and we are free in Christ. Okay, now you're gonna say But wait a second pastor Martin Luther wrote the 10 commandments for us to memorize. You spend weeks with our confirmation students telling them what every single commandment means, how it applies to your life? Why are you teaching a thing that doesn't apply? I'm so glad you asked What a great question. It's very simple. We use the 10 commandments as reinterpreted by Martin Luther King, because they reflect God's moral law. In the world. We call it natural law. You actually don't need a 10 commandments to say, don't kill, right? Or don't steal. These things are clear. Honor your father and mother is something we get from nature, as much as from Holy Scripture. And so since the early days, the Christian church has used these 10 commandments, because they reflect the natural law of the world, God's moral law, founded in creation. And they're a good guide for us. As Christians. They reflect the teachings of Jesus Christ in places like the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, where he took these laws and expanded them into full love. loving your neighbor as yourself. And these 10 commandments then have two important functions in the life of Christians. First, we use them to cut the old sinful flesh in us. Because no matter how many times we come and gather and hear Christ's word and receive forgiveness, there's still that little sinner inside you that tries to act up and take over. And he wants to tell you that you're just fine all on your own and that God loves you just the way you are. And isn't it great that you get to do the things that you love. And then we look at the 10 commandments, as explained by Luther and we realize this little center is wrong. That little voice in my heart, and in my head, is trying to lead me away from God, and it slices that guy up to our enemy inside us. And when we realize that we're still a sinner, the 10 commandments point us to Christ and His sacrifice again. Where we can cry out to Him, I have nothing good in me, only you are good savior, Jesus Christ. Forgive me, give me life. Because without you, I am nothing. And Luthers commandments, as he explains them, they point out that none of us can keep a single one of these commandments for a moment of our day. All we can do is look for forgiveness. The other thing they do is they help to guide us because salvation is not just being forgiven, but it's also being given new hearts. When we're baptized into Christ, we are made one with him. We're a new creation. And every single one of you I know you, do, you want to do what is right, and follow God's will. And the question is always, well, then what do I do? And the 10 Commandments can help us there. Help us to see what it means to love your neighbor as yourself and to put them first in your life to serve the people around you. So when Christ gives us this new heart that He has given you by the power of the Holy Spirit, these give us practical methods to say, what can I do to serve my neighbor and through my neighbor, serve God? Because we still need to be told the Holy Spirit does wasn't beamed into our hearts all of God's will. We still need to look at it and say, What should I do? And the 10 commandments are there to be handy dandy easily memorizable guide to go out and serve the people around you. So they're not there to be a list of rules that we have to follow and be burdened by. They're not there as a as a way to make God happy or a covenant that we must cling to. And they're there to drive us to the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and guide us as we serve Him. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Mark 9:2-9 The Gospel Reading for Sunday, February 11th (Copy)

John 2:13-25

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple,and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in 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, March 3, comes from John chapter two, verses 13 through 25. The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who are selling oxen, and sheep, and pigeons, and the money changers sitting there, and making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered what was written, zeal for your house will consume me. So the Jews said to him, What sign do you show us for doing these things? Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it has taken us 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days. But he was speaking about the Temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name, when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part, did not interest himself to them. Because he knew all people, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man, Here ends the reading. So Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for the Passover, as a faithful member of the people of God, Jesus followed all the rules and obligations that he was supposed to. So he goes to the city, and he goes into the temple. Now, we don't know exactly which part of the temple the oxen and sheep and pigeons and money changers would have been there. It doesn't say what particular courtyard or where it was. But what it does say is that there were oxen, sheep, pigeons, and money changers sitting there. Now, I'm willing to bet that they were not sitting there quietly. I would expect that the oxen and the sheep were making some noise move, man, the pigeons weren't exactly quiet. And you know, people who are selling stuff, they don't wait for clients to come to them. They just don't, they don't sit there quietly. And I just hope someone arrives. They reach out, they say, Hey, come over here, I've got the best oxygen. I want, you would imagine all of that happening in your church. Someone shouting, hey, my oxen are perfect for the sacrifice. Come on over by my pigeons over here. You can see why Jesus might be upset. He makes a whip of cards, and he drives them out of the temple. Now many people see Jesus doing this as an example of righteous anger. And we'll then point to it and say, well, we can also have righteous anger. But there's a big difference between Jesus's righteous anger and ours. Jesus is righteous, anger is righteous and ours is filled with sin. Right? Jesus can be angry and righteous, human beings, cannot. We, we always have sin. And so whenever we get angry, we cannot do it with the purity and the perfection that Jesus does. Our sin takes over and we do things that we're not, not supposed to when we hurt people in ways we shouldn't. And well, sometimes we love that anger too. So let's not not take that as the example. Perhaps we should take the example of offering up the space of worship as just for worship, and not for selling things. Of course, the Jews are not very happy about this. You know, maybe they got sponsorships for the best spots. Like the cattle guy. The oxen guy says, Can you put me right next to the door? I've got the booth right over there. That is a number one I'll pay you extra. Who knows? But what we do now is they got mad. What sign do you show us for doing these things? Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple. and in three days, I will raise it up. Now they think he's talking about the building. He's not. He is talking about his body. And it says, When therefore he was raised from the dead, the disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scriptures and the words that Jesus had spoken. Jesus tells them destroy my body, which the Pharisees and leaders will do. And I will raise it up in three days. And that's what we see happen. Jesus dies on a cross and rises after three days. And he provides for us that sign that shows that salvation belongs to our God. This final passage is interesting, it says, Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. So Jesus did not entrust himself to their care, did not open up what was going on, he did not give himself over to them, because he knows that people are filled with sin. He didn't need to have anybody say what's in other people's hearts, because, well, he's got and he knows all things. And God and man, he also knows what's in the heart of man. And so, this shows that Jesus is not like normal people who had when they develop a great big following, they get caught up in it, and then sometimes they let the crowds lead them in the direction that they want to go. No. Jesus followed the mission of his father. He did not entrust himself to anyone. He just kept on the straight and narrow course that God had sent him on. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 The Epistle Reading for Sunday, March 3rd, 2024

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in 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, song, epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation.

The Epistle reading for Sunday, March 3, is from First Corinthians chapter one, verses 18 through 31. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us we're being saved. It is the power of God, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I Will Forte whereas the one who is wise, Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age, is not God made foolish the wisdom of the world. For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleases God through the folly of what we preach, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men. And the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling brothers, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. So that, as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord, he runs the reading. This passage is one of the more famous passages from First Corinthians about the way the world looks at at everything, and the way that God and Christians do. It talks about the word of the cross being folly, it is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved it is the power of God. So he goes on to talk about how Greeks like the Corinthians, they were all about wisdom. You know, they had these wide sages, and they had philosophers and in the past, there are the 100 schools of philosophy. And they had all sorts of people who said all sorts of really interesting things. In the book of Acts, it talks about Paul going to Athens and he goes to the place, and he speaks. And it's says that there were people who sat around doing nothing but listening to something new. And so this idea of wisdom and debate and knowledge and understanding was really important for those people. And up against that the cross looks dumb, doesn't it? Like there's no powerful insight. There's no amazing anything. That's just a dead man, bleeding and broken and hanging on a cross. Like Plato doesn't write a dialogue about that. Socrates did not question anyone about that. Aristotle did not put together any treatises on a dead man hanging from across. But because of Christ, it is the power of God, the salvation for all it is everything, Christ's death, and resurrection, because hidden beneath the brokenness, of that poor man, hidden beneath his death, is the power of salvation for all. And all we need to do is be able to see it. And that's what this is, this passage is talking about, Has Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world. It says, And it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greek seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, for the foolishness of God is stronger is wiser than men, and the weakness of God Art is stronger than men. As we consider these words, I think it's wise to think about what are the things that our culture seeks after the Greeks wanted wisdom, Jews demanded signs. What do you think we hold high up? Is it achievement could be that it could be the you know, having, having a family that looks good, that achieves high that that accomplishes things. I certainly know a number of people who approach their family life like looking for preschools with an eye towards how does how will this preschool, get my kid into Harvard? That's a achievement oriented. And when you bump achievement up against the cross, you go, Whoa, that is not an achievement, a dead man on a cross. But again, it's the power of God, the salvation of God. Many of us see money. I think money is a thing that has been a part of every culture in every era. There is certainly no riches, no wealth, in a dead man on a cross with the crown of thorns jammed on his head. But it is treasure in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in or steal. There are a number of places we do have a kind of wisdom there sort of a tech guru, influencer kind of wisdom that we hold high up right now that's all about finding the right foods or blazing the right path. Or if you've ever watched a TED Talk and thought, Oh, this is just amazing. I need to see more of this. That's kind of the where we are with wisdom. And even that just when you bump the cross up against it, the cross looks like nothing. And yet it's the power of God. St. Paul ends this passage when he said talks about the people there. He says, For consider your calling brothers. Not many of you were wise. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. Now, he doesn't say none. He says not many. So some of them were wise. Some of them were powerful. Some did have noble birth. And yet none of that matters in the church, not power, not wealth, not nobility. It's just the cross of Christ, as it says, But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not pet is even things that don't exist. He chose those things, to bring to nothing the things that do exist, so that none of us no human being might boast in the presence of God. And that's the key is that the cross shows us exactly what we have to boast on. Nothing. Because on the cross is where our sin was paid for on the cross was where our punishment was doled out to Christ. And it reminds us of only one thing. We are nothing without the cross and the resurrection. And that is why we boast in Christ. Why this weak and broken thing is really what we celebrate. We don't celebrate the wealth and the power and the wisdom and the might in the the like tech guru guidance that so many people do. We just celebrate the cross of Jesus Christ because it's the salvation that God gives us. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Psalm 19 The Psalm for Sunday, March 3rd, 2024

Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
    and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
    whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
    which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
    and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
    and its circuit to the end of them,
    and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

The law of the Lord is perfect,
    reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
    making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
    rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
    enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
    enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
    and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
    even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
    and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
    in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can discern his errors?
    Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
    let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
    and innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
    be acceptable in your sight,
    O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

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 March 3, comes from Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night tonight reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber. Unlike a strong man runs its course with joy. It's rising is from the end of the heavens and it's circuit to the end of them. And there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true, and righteous all together. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern His errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Here ends the reading. This Psalm has four sections and they are in an interesting kind of movement. It begins with Heavens and the sky and all of creation, praising God and declaring his glory. The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaim His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech night tonight reveals knowledge. And we Christians we know that all of creation points us to God and His handiwork we see in the beauty of the natural world, in the goodness of creation, God's glory and his his wonderful handiwork. It continues to talk about his voice, their voice going out and their words to the end of the world. They proclaim God's goodness. In particular, he points out the Sun, who comes up like a bridegroom leaving his chamber strides across the sky and running its course with joy. And nothing is hidden from its heat. Now it moves from there to talk about the law of the Lord. And so we get the general revelation of all of creation, showing us the glory of God. And then next, the specific revelation of the law of the Lord. Now, remember that the law of the Lord doesn't just mean his rules. This isn't just 10 commandments, it's likely what's talking about is the torah, the whole of the first five books of Moses, the covenant between God and man, that not only includes God's rules, but also includes the story of salvation in Exodus, the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is key to understanding the beauty of the law is that it's not just a set of rules, but it's also God's gospel promises for the Old Testament. It says the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. So God's law revives us his not not just his his rules, but also his promises they revive us and give us life. His testimonies Take, take the people who don't know much and make them wise, just as the revelation of Jesus Christ opens the eyes of our heart to see the world the way it is. It makes us wise. The precepts this the ideas of the Lord are right and so beautiful, they rejoice in our heart. continues the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. God's word opens our eyes to creation. The fear of the Lord is clean and dooring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous all together. This is a wonderful summary of the beauty of God's Word. In particular, this is focusing on I think the Torah, first five books of the Bible, but it is reflected in all of God's word that we get beautiful testimony, preset precepts that make us open our eyes to creation and see the amazing wisdom of God in giving his gifts to us through Jesus Christ. And that's why it goes on to describe them as things to be desired. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward. It ends with a warning and a promise by by following God's word, a servant is warned against sin, and promised God's grace. So it begins with the the revelation of all of creation, and then a specific revelation through God's word. And then the author reflects having read God's word and understanding his law and and the promises and the rules. He says to himself, who can discern His errors, declare me innocent from hidden faults, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. So he reflects inward, having read God's law, understand who's understood his grace, our response is only we are great sinners. How can we discern our own errors, we don't even know how bad we are. And yet you can declare me innocent from hidden faults. You can you can protect me even from my own sin and make me blameless. And finally, it says, After these revelations of creation, the revelation of God's law, the inward reflection, it is now we speak. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Having gone through all the ways we see God's glory and reflecting on the salvation that God delivers. Each of us were called to speak, the meditations of are the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart. And we asked God, even their God, make them acceptable. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Getting Ready for Sunday: Exodus 20:1-17 The Old Testament Reading for Sunday, March 3rd, 2024

Exodus 20:1-17

And God spoke all these words, saying,

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”

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, March 3, comes from Exodus chapter 20, verses one through 17. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, You shall have no other gods before Me, you shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, you shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the LORD your God, Emma jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love to 1000s of those who love Me and keep My commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days, the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant or his female servant, or his ox or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. Here ends the reading. This passage from Exodus chapter 20, is the 10 commandments. God's people have just come out of slavery. Moses brought them through the Red Sea, they walked through the wilderness, they're at the base of Mount Sinai, and God is giving them the Covenant, the 10 commandments. So we begin with an important passage for understanding it in the context of ancient Israel. It starts with these words, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. Notice where the 10 commandments come in the story. First, God goes to his people, rescues them from slavery, brings them out, and gives them a promise gathers together and saves them. And then he gives them the 10 commandments. This is much like the Christian life where Christ comes to save us and then calls us to follow him in holiness. Not if you are holy, I will save you. And the 10 commandments are no different. First, God follows his promise to Abraham, and then he gives them the rules. The 10 commandments, then are not ways to earn God's favor or tips for a better life or anything like that. In their original context, they were simply now that you are my people, I've gathered you together, I've made you mine. What are you to do with this new life that I've given you? And it closely mirrors the way that we we talk about Christ working in our lives? He comes to us in baptism forgives our sins gives us life. And then new people as in our baptismal identity, we say, how should I live and we follow Christ. And these 10 commandments offer a good way of understanding God's morality and God's will for our lives. Now, as you look at the 10 commandments, you can see that they're divided kind of into two sections. There's the first section which is all about our relationship with God. And the second section, which is all about our relationship with each other. The first section begins with you shall have no other gods before me, and then continues to explain it talking about a carved image or an idol. This is directly for the ancient Israelites. This is a a look at the idols of the land so they would be moving into worshiping In the false gods that were actually statues that they would worship and take care of, don't do that. He says, The next commandment, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Don't misuse God's name. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. For Israel, this was about not working for six for the seventh day. For Christians, we approach it a little differently, because Christ is our Sabbath rest. And when Christ is our Sabbath rest there we find rest. So we set aside Sundays, not the Sabbath, Sabbath was Saturday. And we set aside Sundays to come and experience rest by being with Christ and hearing His Word. After that, we get to the section on our relationship with one another. Honor your father and your mother, you shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, and you shall not covet. All of these are about how God says we should be in relationship with one another. And you can summarize it with the biblical command. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Know all of these 10 commandments point us to, well, an understanding of righteousness that is a little too much for us. It is far beyond our ability to keep even just You shall have no other gods before me, doesn't just mean don't worship idols or don't follow false God's its don't put anything before God. Like nothing, none of God's creation should be ahead of him on our priority list. And as we consider these 10 commandments, we have to say to ourselves, none of us has lived up to them. If you break one, you break them all. If you fall short on one, you fall short of heaven and end up in hell. Which is why our Savior Jesus Christ came and fulfilled these commandments did them all perfectly, so that by His forgiveness, we can have life so that it's not do these commandments and you will live but it is I the LORD your God brought you out of the Land of Death of slavery to sin and Satan. Follow me. That's all we have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Father Abraham Had Many Sons: Sermon for February 25th, 2024

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.”Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you…

And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will giveyou a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. I grew up in a very musical family. And so songs and musical pieces come easily to my head. And every once in a while I read a bible passage and a song just leaps into my brain. Usually, it's preschool songs because I lead a preschool chapel once a week. And I get to sing a lot of these like short, quippy catchy songs. Their favorite is the hippo song. I don't know if you know Well, probably not because it's, it's just for preschoolers. It goes. In the beginning God made the seas and the forest filled with trees. He built the mountains up so high. On the top, he placed the sky gods finger prints are everywhere, just to show how much he cares. In the middle. He had loads of fun, made a hippo that weighed a ton. And this is the best part because it's a hippo, they go here, Pippo potamus. Here, pepper a God made all of us, and it is the cutest thing you have ever seen. But that's not the song for today. That's just a fun excuse to sing the hippo song. The song for today is father Abraham. Have you heard this song before? catchy little kids song. It goes, father, Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them. And so where are you? So let's praise the Lord for that one. And then of course, you sing it again. And every time you sing it, you have to you move a different part of your body. So you go right arm and I have to do this arms, because the left arm because I'm facing the kids, and they wouldn't figure it out. You go right arm, left arm, right foot and you do the whole thing. It's kind of a silly kid song. And by the end, they're laughing so much they don't get to sing. But it is deeper than many of us give it credit. Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them. And so are you. So let's all praise the Lord. And I think this song fits really well with what our reading from Genesis is trying to get across to us. God is making a covenant with Abraham. The promise is something that fits with this song. And it helps us to understand what is going on. So what I'd like to do is use the song as an outline for our sermon to see what it teaches us about father Abraham. So let's start. Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them. And so were you. So let's all praise the Lord. So the first words of this are father Abraham. In this reading, Abram becomes Abraham, right, God changes His name from one name to the other exalted father to a multitude of nations. But it's still kind of a weird name. Because father, Abraham, still did not have the son of the promise. When God came to him the first time and said I will make you into great nation. It was 24 years ago. Can you imagine waiting? Half of my lifetime for a promise to come through actually more than half just in case you're wondering. 24 years between when God said I will give you a son, and now and it still has not happened. Abraham was 99 and his wife Sarah was 90. Can you imagine having a baby at 90

God comes down and repeats the same promise that he has been repeating for the last 24 years. He calls him, Abraham, father of a multitude. Now we know that it happens. The very next chapter begins the fulfillment of this promise that Abraham is going to have a child, we see the three visitors come to Abraham and Sarah, and they make this promise. And then Sarah gets pregnant. And they have a baby. And they name him, Isaac, and God is calling him Abraham. And we call him, father. Because God does amazing things, impossible things. In this moment, this covenant that he makes with Abraham, a promise based only on God's grace and His will. And his promise to Abraham, means that the impossible will happen. When we see something like this, something impossible, like this happened throughout Scripture. God makes Sarah pregnant. He gives a baby to Hannah, who was called barren. And we see it happen over and over again in the New Testament to Elizabeth, who was also well beyond her childbearing years, and even greater miracle in the Virgin Mary has a baby named Jesus. And the New Testament tells us that God can raise up children for Abraham from even the stones. God can do the impossible, no matter what they thought, he even could raise a man from the dead. Because nothing is impossible for God. And we call Abraham father, because we have a sure and certain promise from the Father in heaven, that he can do the impossible for you. That on the last day, when his son Jesus Christ returns, He will call you from the grave. Father, Abraham. The next line is many sons. Father, Abraham had many sons. Now, in the actual history of the Bible, father, Abraham did have many actual biological children. The first one was Ishmael. And what we don't read in Genesis chapter 17, is coming right after this. God gives him the promise. And Abraham's like, well, can we just use Ishmael? I mean, he's, he's alive and pretty good. But God says, No, you're gonna get the son of my promise. Isaac. Later on. After Sarah dies, Abraham gets married again. And he has 123456 more sons. Their names are Zim, Ron, Jacque Shan meet on Midian ich, Bach and shuwa. There will be a test after the sermon.

But these aren't the sons the song is describing. The sons come through Isaac. Isaac is the son of the promise, not Ishmael. That was a something that Abraham tried to take into his own hands. But Isaac, the one who would be born of 90 year old Sarah, God says, and I will establish my covenant between you and your offspring after you throughout the generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you, and to your offspring after you do. This might as well be the summary of the entire story of the Old Testament, right? God says, I will be God to you and your offspring forever. And what we see is a God who is faithful to a people that grows out of this son, Isaac, overall history. He is faithful to them, even when they turn away when he brings them out of Egypt and they complain in the wilderness when they get to the promised land, and they say Are the other people in there kind of scary and let's not go in when they get into the promised land and they worship false gods over and over when the kings come up and they lead them astray. God is constantly faithful to them over and over and over. Again, because most faithful, when He sends His Son Jesus Christ, another son born in miraculous ways, a child of Abraham, throughout all the generations, who becomes this perfect son, who is righteous and blameless in God's sight, and fulfills God's perfect promise for all of history. The covenant with Abraham is now fulfilled, and that God would be a god to his people through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the whole world would be blessed, including you and me. And this covenant that we see, given to Abraham, always points to that savior, Jesus Christ. So that the sons of Abraham could be gathered together in Christ, and made God's people. Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them. And so are you. This is kind of the craziest part of the song, isn't it? I am a child of Abraham, and so are you. And I have to tell you, I have as far as I can tell no Jarrett, genetic relationship with Abraham. My people come from a different part of the world. But that's not that's actually the whole point. Right? Being a child of Abraham does not mean being biologically related to the man. The covenant with Abraham was that he would be a father of a multitude, father of the people. And through Christ, we realized that all people in Jesus Christ, are brought into that promise, and made children of Abraham. This is not a new thing in the New Testament either has, it always been this way, all the way back throughout the history of God's people, foreigners were brought into the family of God by faith, and by trusting in the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the rest. The best examples come from the line of Jesus's family Rahab the prostitute in Jericho is one of the people that they were supposed to wipe out and kill. When the spies come to the city of Jericho, and she saves them, and she expresses her faith in the God of Abraham. And she becomes a part of God's people as part of the family line of Jesus. Something similar is true for Ruth, Ruth, the mother of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of King David, Ruth is, is married into the family of Naomi. And when all of the husbands die off, she is brought into the family of God by traveling with her mother in law back to Bethlehem, and being faithful to her and to her God. God's people have always been made up of foreigners. The children of Abraham have always gathered together brothers and sisters from a different family line. And it goes all the way down through history, all the way down to you. You are a child of Abraham. You are a son of the promise and air along with Isaac, of eternal life, because you have been brought into Jesus Christ by your baptism. Because his baptism where you become adopted into this family, joined together with with all of the people of God as children of Abraham, to inherit all of the amazing promises that God gave him. So that just as Christ is raised from the dead, we too will rise on the last day Which means we are all one great big family, the family of God, in every church and every sanctuary all over the world, we are one, people are bound together by this covenant that God gave Abraham, all the way back in the book of Genesis. Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them, and so are you. So let's all praise the Lord, right? How could we do anything but praise God for this amazing gift of the covenant promise given to Abraham being given to you, through Jesus Christ, you're saved. We are given life, we are gathered together in God's family. So let's all praise the Lord. How do we do that? Of course, we can sing our songs of praise. And we can shout to the Lord, maybe raise our hands and say, God, you're awesome. But those aren't the praises that God really desires. Those are actually for us to teach us about who he is, and praises God desires, the works of love, the family does for one another, right? If we are truly children of Abraham bound together in Christ, the love of God works through us towards each other. We welcome each other. We work for each others, we love one another. We forgive one another, care for each other. And welcome each other into this family. And that's what praising God means. As we praise the Lord for His gifts. It means loving the people who are near us, our fellow members of this body of Christ, fellow children of Abraham, the father, Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them, and so are you. So let's all praise the Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Who Can Trust A God Like This? Sermon for February 18th, 2024

Genesis 22:1-14

After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.

When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The story from Our Old Testament reading today is, well, it's an odd one. Not just odd, though, but when we read a lot, actually, we read it today in Lent, we also will read it, or during our Easter Vigil. It's read on Christmas Eve as well. We get stories about this. Abraham offering the sacrifice of His son, Isaac. It's an important passage. But it's also super weird, right? You read it and you go what? God is saying, sacrifice your son. And then Abraham gets up the gumption to do it. And he's like, Nah, don't worry about it. It seems kind of weird, right? We know Abraham has gone through quite a bit leading up to this point. Abraham in Genesis 12, is contacted out of the blue by God and given an amazing promise. He says go to the land, I'll make a great a bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and all nations shall be blessed through you. And we see a promise that he and his wife would have a son. And it's through the sun that the nations would be blessed. And then, all of a sudden, Abraham is told to take his son, Isaac, His beloved Son, go to the mountain and kill him. And it's interesting. There's no bargaining. There's no questioning. We have that in other stories, where Abraham turns to God and says, No, right. When God wants to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham says, Wait a second. What if you find so many righteous people? And then you have a negotiation? Right? When Abraham has not had the promise of Isaac after more than a decade, he goes to God and says, Hey, God, what's with this promise. But all we got here is. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son, Isaac. That's it. God says sacrifice and the sacrifices. When we run into this story, I think we can ask a question. Who can trust a God like this? Right? Who can trust a God who would give you a promise, and then say, kill the promise? Right, because that's what it is the one and only son, his beloved son. The whole world will be blessed through him. And then God says, kill him. To understand how Abraham can do this, we have to understand Abraham's story a little bit better. Genesis 12, God comes to him and he gives them that amazing promise I already told you about. And then Abraham immediately forgets it. In the same chapter, there, it says that there's a famine in the land. An Abraham goes down to Egypt, and tries to fix the problem himself. He doesn't stay in the Promised Land and trust that God will provide. And then he gets to Egypt. And he looks around and he says, Well, they're gonna kill me. I know what I'll do. I'll marry off my wife to the Pharaoh. It's a great idea, right? He sees a problem. He does not trust that God will solve it tries to fix it himself. And well, it kind of goes badly, right? Except God uses that to enrich Abraham. It's so weird, right? He goes down to another her country married his wife to a ruler, God punishes that ruler for it. And then the ruler gives him stuff. That's not what I would do. If I were Pharaoh. God comes through. And he even uses Abraham's faithlessness his sin to enrich him. What about the next time? In Genesis chapter 16, Abraham and his wife, sarai decide to take God's promise into their own hands. And Abraham has a child with Hagar. They decide God is not coming through fast enough. So we're gonna have this baby with the servant, and everything's gonna work out great, right? Because when you introduce another woman into the marriage, everything is awesome. And of course, it's not. And there's problems in the family. But God protects them through it. In Genesis, chapter 17, Abraham goes to God and says, Wait a second, God, we've been doing this all this time, you gave me a promise, and it's not happening yet. And this servant of Mine is going to be my air, where is the sun you promised. And God makes a covenant cuts open the animals, and God Himself walks through them, to show that he has sworn by his own name that he will provide. The next chapter, three mysterious men come to Abraham. He feeds them under a tree. And they make a promise that went before the time they return, Sarah is going to have a child. And when they do, it happens. But in the meantime, Abraham does the same thing. He goes to a different place with a different King, and marries his wife off to her him. Again, can you believe it? And not only does this king not kill Abraham, he gives him stuff again. And then finally, they have a son. This little boy, Isaac, joy, and laughter. When Moses and Sarah are so old, that it should never be possible. years after when God made the promise. What we see during Abraham's life is Abraham's faithlessness not trusting when things are hard. And God's faithfulness is that even when Abraham has trusted in the promise, he says, Yes, I believe you. When the decision gets tough. He doesn't really. And he let sin get in the way. But God, not once turned from his promises. Even when Abraham sin, he was there, blessing him, enriching him, making him great. And giving him a son. Over and over, God proved faithful. And so when he comes to Abraham and says, kill the promise, Abraham has finally learned he's finally learned that no matter how bleak, how weird, how odd the situation God is putting him in. God will come through. Because God is always faithful. Who can trust a God like this? Well, Abraham could because God had proven himself over and over and over again. And so when they get up to the top of the mountain, and Isaac climbs up on the altar, Abraham knows that he's going to come down with his son, whether the angel is there or not. Hebrews tells us that Abraham had faith that God could raise even A dead

like Isaac, after a sacrifice. But God stops the sacrifice and provides a substitute for Isaac to be sacrificed there on the altar. Who can trust a God like this? Well, Abraham certainly could. Because he knew God keeps His promises. I think there's a similar experience. Many, many years later, as the people looked on, at another son, he was a son who was sent to earth and he did miracles. He preached, he had power, he could even stop the wind and the waves with his voice. And it looks like God had finally come through with the greatest promise of all, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. And he was going to take out the Romans and bring Israel to the top, and it's gonna be amazing. And there was this weird thing about, you know, he would say things like, be betrayed and suffer and die and then rise again. But it didn't worry about that. Right. And then the strangest thing happened. This guy who could do miracles, was arrested. And he didn't stop it. This one and only Son of God allowed the Jews to take him allowed Pontius Pilate to have Him whipped. And he carried another wood of sacrifice up a different mountain, outside the city of Jerusalem. And you can imagine what it would be like for the disciples, who looked at their Savior on the cross crown of thorns on his head, so beaten and bloody that he died from exhaustion only a few hours later. Who can trust a God who would do that to his son? Right? It looks like the end the end of the promised one the Savior, the Messiah, he was dead on across.

But God proves faithful with his promises, right? That thing that they may not have understood that they didn't really listen to, that it was necessary for the son to be betrayed, crucified. And then after three days rise from the dead. That thing that was the heart of it wasn't even when the one and only Son the son of the promise the Savior, Jesus Christ was dead on the cross, God proved faithful. He kept his promise. And after three days, he rose from the dead, our Savior, Jesus Christ. God was faithful. He kept his promises. Who can trust a God like this? What Jesus did and he trusted in a way that we cannot. Neither Abraham nor us can trust with that perfection of a Savior who climbs up on a sacrificial altar of a cross and offers himself for you. We have a faithful God. I think we can relate to pieces of Abraham's story. None of us have spoken to God and been told you have will have a son who will bless the whole world through you. And if you did, we might have some questions. But at the same time, we face problems that will make us doubt won't be part of the human condition. Looking ahead and seeing Well God's promises are there they're written in a book they're proclaim from the pastor but my life well sometimes God takes things away from me. Sometimes I get sick What about his promises? We learned from Abraham, that even when we doubt, and fear and worry, God is faithful. He keeps his promises even when you don't trust them. Even when you're worried about them and your heart turns away, and secretly you inside you say, I don't know about this. God still keeps his promise to you. He sent His Son Jesus to die for you, to rise for you. So that when you face your own grave, when you are lying there on your deathbed, wondering what is next, you know, like Christ, God will keep his promise to you and raise you on the last day. Who can trust a God like this? Well, we can because he proves Himself faithful over and over and over again. He did it with Abraham. He did it throughout the Old Testament. He did it with his son Jesus Christ when he offered him as a sacrifice. And he will do it for you every day. In Jesus name, Amen.

Our Father, Sermon for February 14th, 2024 Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-19

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
    and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
    and he relents over disaster.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
    and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering
    for the Lord your God?

Blow the trumpet in Zion;
    consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
    gather the people.
Consecrate the congregation;
    assemble the elders;
gather the children,
    even nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
    and the bride her chamber.

Between the vestibule and the altar
    let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep
and say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
    and make not your heritage a reproach,
    a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
    ‘Where is their God?’”

Then the Lord became jealous for his land
    and had pity on his people.
The Lord answered and said to his people,
“Behold, I am sending to you
    grain, wine, and oil,
    and you will be satisfied;
and I will no more make you
    a reproach among the nations.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Tonight, we're beginning our Lenten journey. Every Wednesday night, we'll have a worship service all the way up through holy week, when we'll have a whole bunch of extra services, in remembrance of the story of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. And each one of those nights, we are going to explore a different piece of the Lord's Prayer called a petition. And it just so happens to work out wonderfully that if we start on Ash Wednesday with our Father, who art in heaven, well, you get all the way to men at the Easter Vigil, which works out pretty well, right? That means I get all of my sermons planned out for me in one fell swoop. But it also means that we get to explore deeply the prayer Our Lord taught us to pray and say why this prayer is? What makes this special for the life of a Christian? And why these things? And what do they mean for us. And so we'll take a look at each piece. US Luthor to guide us in our exploration, and begin to understand it. And so tonight, we are looking at the very simple phrase, Our Father, who art in heaven. Now you might think about this and say, Well, isn't this just how you start a prayer? Right? You got to say who you're praying to our father, right? Sometimes we pray or pray to Our Lord Jesus Christ. On certain days, we pray to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to come into our hearts and guide us. What's so special about our Father, who art in heaven? Luther says this. With these words, God tenderly invites us to believe that he is our True Father, and that we are His true children. So that with all boldness and competence, we may ask him as dear children ask their dear father, I think the question behind that explanation is simple. How do we know that God is our Father? How do we know that He is father and not judge? condemn her cruel tyrant, indifferent God is somebody who just doesn't care. How do we know? He is our Father? Well, the easy way is to say Jesus says so right. Because He tells us to pray this way, our father. But I think Joel helps us understand it a little bit too. Our Father points us to a God who loves his children. Even when we sin, and we go astray. We are all today wearing marks on our foreheads that remind us of the curse of sin that we we all face. The curse of sin passed down from Adam and Eve. The curse that God proclaimed when he said, from dust, you have come to dust you shall return. And Joel says, Yeah Even now declares the Lord, returned to me with all your heart with fasting with weeping with mourning, and render your hearts and not your garments, returned to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. And he relents over disaster where he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and he relents from disaster. This was a message to an Israel that was turning away from God. Basically, that's the reason God called the prophets in all of those little prophetic books. Turn Back to Me. He said, I am your father. I want to love you. I want to save you. Return to the Lord your God. He is gracious and merciful. Same message for us. When we see our own sin, because we know we do it, we see our errors or mistakes, we feel our guilt. And we know that we have a father who is merciful, that when we face our sin, we don't tear our clothes like they did in ancient Israel. Not even put ashen crosses on our foreheads. We rent our hearts, not our garments, and we turn to God and ask for mercy. And he is a father, who is gracious and merciful and slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. And he sent his son Jesus Christ to enter into death, the death, we remind ourselves with these ashen crosses, enter into death on the cross to take away your sin, so that he can be your father. He is gracious and merciful. It's the same. When we think that our Christianity becomes something that we can brag about. I think that's a thing that all of us fall into, especially when we gave up Valentine's Day dinner to come to church, right? Everybody else is at a restaurant, and here we are with ash on our foreheads. God must love us, right, we're cool. And that's sort of what Israel would think about. They're fast, and they're feast. And if they just did the right sacrifices, it didn't matter what else they did. God would think they're amazing. Jesus warns against that too, when he says to beware of practicing your righteousness in others, in order to impress them. It's always, it's always a thing that rears up in us. If we're faithful, and come to church, and volunteer. We might think, Wow, that's pretty lucky to have me, led, you know, at least deep in our hearts. And now's the time to repent of that. Return to the Lord our God, because He is gracious, and merciful. We are all sinners, all the same. Whether you're here every Sunday, or you just walked in the door. And we need a Savior, who is a father, who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to give you grace and mercy and tell you, he is your father. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And he relents over disaster. We need to remind ourselves that God is our father too, when he sends disaster into our lives, as he often does been reflecting lately on what what it's like to be someone who is in their later years. We just had a funeral for Ellie day. She was 93 when she went by that time, all your friends are already gone. Right? If you've been to funeral after funeral, you've seen people around you pass away. And none of your generation are left to come when you finally can imagine how hard that is. How tough that must be. Or even when they end up seeing the next generation go before that. It's hard to think about a father who is loving when you face that, right. It's hard to think that there is a God who is gracious and merciful. But we know that he is there. And we know that he is there for us because he sent his own son Jesus, to go through it the same himself. Not to see all his friends go before him but to go first, through death into the grave and then rise from the dead. And so those people can be called behind him to rise into new life on the last day That's the kind of God our Father is

not one who will bat away every minor disaster, but takes care of the worst one. Death itself for you, and for me is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And he even relents over the curse of death itself. Because he will raise you from the dead and give you new life. And that kind of God is the kind of God who will listen, when you pray, who commands you to turn to him and say, Father, I need because he wants to love you. He wants to give you His mercy. He wants to give you his peace. And it's always there for you to return to the Lord your God. He is gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast law. In Jesus name, Amen.