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[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolf Mueller. And this is the Sunday drive to church for October 13, year of our Lord, 2024, the 21st Sunday after Pentecost and the first Sunday of the new liturgy. I'll give you a heads up about that in just a little bit. The collect of the day is beautiful.
[00:00:21] In fact, let's just go ahead and get started with the prayer and then we'll dig into the text and the liturgy and everything that's about to happen. It's beautiful. Let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, whose grace always precedes and follows us, help us to forsake all trust in earthly gain and to find in you our heavenly treasure. For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. This text reminds us of. Remember when the Lord said to Abraham, I am your exceedingly great reward?
[00:00:57] Sometimes the English says, and your reward will be exceedingly great. But it's in Hebrew, it's better. I am your. The Lord is our reward. Like the psalm says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. In other words, if you want the Lord, then you've got everything you want because he gives himself to you.
[00:01:16] God be praised. I'm a little late in the day here, so if some of you cheat and don't listen to this on Sunday morning, but rather on Saturday afternoon. Sorry it's coming so late, but we had all day today at church, our young adult conference, so fantastic. And then we had 100, 105 young adults from all over the country joining us, talking about a really old faith. You'll meet a bunch of them in Sunday school class when we're going through Hebrews eleven. That'll be really good. Okay, a lot to say about the texts, but first about the liturgy. We have the custom now.
[00:01:49] And last three years, I bet you we've done it the last three years of having divine service setting five in October. We didn't do it last week because I can't remember exactly why Jonathan was out of town. He wants to be involved in this and you can't. You don't want to do too much because divine service setting five is a little bit tricky. You'll notice that the liturgy will begin on page 213. But here's the deal with divine five. It's the. It's really a modification of Luther's german mass. So when you go all the way back to the reformation, there was this push to try to get the Sunday service from Latin into German. And Luther himself was really dragging his feet, and it kind of went by stages, this and this and this. But finally, at last, Luther put together what's called the german mass. And what he did was instead of translating all of the canticles, the sanctus, the agnus dei, the glorious Celsius, instead of translating the latin canticles into german, he wrote german hymns, or picked german hymns for those parts of the liturgy. What that means is, as we're going through the service, you're going to be all over the place. For example, we have the invocation, then baptism, one early, one late, God be praised, hosanna and haze, and then psalm 90, the last half of psalm 90. Then the Curie. You're going over to him, 942, and then for the Gloria, over to him, 948. Then salutation, Old Testament gradual. That's all normal. And then the creed, 945. We all behaving one true God. In other words, the canticles are. Are hymns themselves. So as Jonathan says, you're going to need all the ribbons plus some to get ready for the service. Now, it's great, but remember how it is coming into the liturgy. The first time, it's like, where in the world are we? Second time, you find yourself half the time. Then the third time, you're a pro. And so that's our plan, is by reformation day, we're going to be pros. It's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Okay, so it's an interesting theological thing that Luther did. Bye.
[00:04:14] By making these canticles into german hymns, and that was the way that they were able to move the service into the german language and give all of the people full access to the service itself. Before that, they would have some latin parts and then some german hymns interspersed. German preaching, german readings. But it was with divine service five that really, the whole deal went into german, and that's pretty good. Okay, if you're ready for that, then let's talk about the readings. The psalm is psalm 90, verses twelve to 17. You'll remember we had the first part of psalm 90 last week. Wait a minute. No, we had psalm 91. Aha. We had psalm 91 last week. We're going backwards. Psalm 90 is the oldest of all of the psalms. It's the one and only psalm of Moses.
[00:05:16] It starts out with this.
[00:05:19] Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
[00:05:23] You return man to the dust and say, return, o children of man. A thousand years, verse four. A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it's past a watch in the night, we pray psalm 90, when we close the casket, when we have a viewing in the back of the narthex, and when it's time to gather up the family and close the casket. I'll read psalm 90 when that's happening. So teach us to. Some of you have been there for that. Here's our verses. Start like this. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
[00:06:00] Return, o Lord, how long have pity on your servants. That little line, by the way, how long? That's what Moses teaches us to pray. And all the other psalmists pray it. David prays it. Asaph, the sons of Korah, they all have their how long sermons.
[00:06:19] So also Moses return, o Lord, how long have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
[00:06:33] Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us. Establish the work of our hands. Upon us. Yes, establish the work of our hands.
[00:06:44] So it's a psalm of wisdom, a psalm of old age, a psalm of death, and the lord's care for us.
[00:06:53] A psalm of mercy and quiet joy.
[00:06:58] Really wonderful. Psalm 9012 to 17.
[00:07:05] The Old Testament lesson is from Amos. Amos. Chapter five. Various verses starting at verse six.
[00:07:16] It's a good place for us to read, but the problem is it kind of ruins the punchline of the book of Amos. I'll give it to you. It would be impossible to kind of see it from the reading. So you remember Amos. He was a contemporary of Isaiah, 750 BC. We have. He's in that time of the north, is being assaulted by the Assyrians. They're not yet destroyed.
[00:07:42] The lord sends Amos up to Bethel from Jerusalem. Well, from Tekoa, which was right outside Jerusalem. And poor Amos, he was like a. He was a sheep breeder and a fig farmer, and he was. And the lord sends him up there to Bethel, right into the heart of the idolatry of the northern kingdom, to preach against him.
[00:08:04] And he goes up to Bethel and he starts to preach. And here's the crazy thing.
[00:08:09] He starts to preach against all the other people, and he starts to talk about how the Lord's going to send fire on all the nations around Israel.
[00:08:21] So I'm just looking at the beginning of Amos in chapter one, verse three. Thus does the Lord for three transgressions of Damascus. And four, I will send fire into the house of Hazael.
[00:08:34] And then a little bit later, he says, verse six for three transgressions of Gaza. And four, I will send fire where's he sending fire upon the wall of Gaza? And then over to Tyre. For three transgressions of tyre. And for four, I will not turn away its punishment. I will send fire upon the wall of tyre. Verse ten. And then Edom. For three transgressions of Edom. And four, I will send fire upon Teman. The lord's just starting these fires everywhere. And you're in Israel. You're like, well, at least we're not on fire yet. For three transgressions of the people of Ammon. And four, I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah. That's all. Chapter one. Chapter two. For three transgressions of Moab. And for four, I will send fire upon Moab. And then Judah, even Judah, remember the kingdom of the south. He's up, and he's from Judah. He goes up to Israel in the north. And he's preaching there in Bethel. For three transgressions of Judah. And for four, I will not turn away its punishment. I will send fire upon Judah. So everyone's getting set on fire. I mean, it's crazy. And so we're waiting to hear, what about Israel? So it starts in verse. Let's see, the Amorites. And the Lord, he goes through all these other things. And you're thinking to yourself, if you're Israel, you're thinking, wow, we're getting off easy.
[00:10:00] The Lord isn't blasting away at us until verse, chapter two, verse six. For three transgressions in Israel. And for four, I will not turn away its punishment.
[00:10:12] And then we are ready for it. The Lord is going to put a fire in Israel, a fire in Samaria, a fire that is there. And we read all the way through chapter two, all the way through chapter three, all the way through chapter four. Nothing. No mention of it. And we are thinking, are we going to escape the fire until we get all the way to chapter five, verse six, which is the first line of our Old Testament reading. And it says, seek the Lord and live. Lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph. And devour it with no one to quench it in Bethel. So that it's almost. It's like the. You know that trick when you're in a play or something and you put a cup right on the edge of the table. And everybody's waiting for the cup to fall. And they're not paying attention to anything else. That's almost how Amos is. Everyone is waiting for the fire. When's the fire going to come? Always. It's like fire, fire, fire, fire. And we're waiting for four chapters until this verse, lest the Lord. And then there it is, Lord, break out like fire in the house of Joseph. So that. So that while the Lord has promised this destruction for everyone else, he's saying to Israel, hey, repent and you can avoid this. It doesn't look good. Woe to you. You're in trouble, but you can avoid it. Verses six and seven verses. It skips a few verses and then to ten. It's talking bad about Israel. They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. The gate, by the way, is like the courthouse in the ancient world. It's because the cities had walls around them and you had these gates to go in and out of the city. And so they became the places where everyone would gather, not in the center of the city, but on the edges at the gates. And they would have court trials at the gate. So the one who reproves in the gate is the judge. Notice in verses eleven, by the way, in Amos, it's reversing or threatening to reverse the promises that the Lord had given in deuteronomy. You've built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell on them. You've planted pleasant vineyards, you shall not drink the wine all the time. Moses says, you didn't build the house, but you'll live in them. You didn't plant the vineyard, but you'll drink the wine. But now the opposite is happening. You did build, you did plant, but you're not going to get what you have. Set up the key verses, verse 14.
[00:12:42] Seek good and not evil, that you may live. And so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you. Hate evil, love good, establish justice in the gate. It may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. That remnant language is Amos picking up on the preaching of Isaiah. Isaiah is always preaching about that little tiny, faithful remnant.
[00:13:08] And that remnant, the little church, is who the Lord has grace upon, who the Lord looks to with mercy. Hebrews three is our epistle lesson. It quotes psalm 95 today. If you hear his voice. I think that's what it quotes. I better check.
[00:13:26] I never had any question about it. Psalm 95 for sure. Today. If you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts at the rebellion.
[00:13:34] It's interesting that psalm 95 is our venete, our oh come, let us worship the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation, our matins psalm but we stop.
[00:13:47] We are the sheep of his hand. Halfway through verse seven, Hebrews then picks up where we stop today. This is what follows today.
[00:13:57] If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion that 40 years of wandering in the wilderness is called by King David here, the rebellion. And we were talking about this in Vickers Wednesday afternoon, Joshua class, this last week, because when the people went into Israel, when they crossed over the Jordan river and they were on the plains outside of Jericho, all the men had to be circumcised, which you say, well, how come they weren't circumcised already? And the answer is, because they were part of the rebellion. Their parents were those that died in the wilderness. And that whole 40 years of wandering is called the rebellion. In fact, it goes on to say, who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not those with whom sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
[00:14:59] So that Hebrews is pointing out this phenomenal truth is that all of those Israelites who saw the ten plagues and walked through the Red Sea and were of military age, none of them got into the promised land. That's why the Lord said, all right, you got to wander for 40 years. It doesn't take 40 years to walk from Egypt up into Jerusalem to Jericho. It takes like, maybe a couple of weeks, like ten days walking or something. It's not that far. Like, I don't know. It's like a seven hour car ride or something. From Egypt to Israel. I don't know. It's pretty close. It's certainly not 40 years of walking. But the Lord had them wandering around for 40 years. Why? Because all of them that came out of Egypt didn't believe in the strength of God to bring them into the promised land. They heard the report of the ten spies that came back, who said, the land is full of giants. And they were afraid, and they didn't want to go in there. They saw the Lord bring them out of Egypt. They did not think that the Lord could bring them into the promised land. And so the Lord said, fine, you can die in the wilderness. And that 40 years of wandering was like a 40 year funeral march, over a million graves in the desert there between Egypt and Israel, because they didn't have faith. But now all that generation has passed, and now the new generation is going in. And this is psalm 95. If you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts. Listen to what the Lord says, and hold on to him. If we share in Christ, if we hold our original confidence firm to the end, hold on to Christ. Don't let go.
[00:16:42] Okay, that takes us to the gospel. Mark, chapter ten again this week.
[00:16:46] And Jesus. Oh, this is great. Mark starting in verse 17, Jesus setting out on his journey, a man ran and knelt before him and asked, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, this is, why do you call me good? No one is good except for God alone.
[00:17:02] You know the commandments. Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't bear false witness, don't defraud, honor your father and mother.
[00:17:10] And he said to him, teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.
[00:17:17] And Jesus looking at him, loved him, and said to him, you lack one thing.
[00:17:26] Go sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come follow me.
[00:17:34] Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
[00:17:41] This is an amazing text.
[00:17:46] CS Lewis no. CFW Walther when describing how there's two doctrines in the Bible, the doctrine of the law and the doctrine of the gospel points to this text as the doctrine of the law and how it works and how none can be made righteous by obedience. Here's this guy who thinks he has, he thinks he's kept the law. He thinks he's been good enough. I mean, he asked Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And then Jesus lists the commandments and he says, I've done it.
[00:18:19] I've kept all these commandments since I was young.
[00:18:22] And then in love, Jesus looks at him and demolishes him.
[00:18:28] Sell everything. Give it to the poor. Follow me. And he can't do it. The money has a hold of his heart.
[00:18:36] We'll preach about that. Think about what it means for us.
[00:18:40] Not only do we have, by the way, just looking at the bulletin, not only do we have a baptism in both services tomorrow, but we're also going to bring forward this band of travelers who are headed to Puerto Rico on Tuesday for a mission trip and say a prayer to bless them on their way as they go down there. That's going to be, that's going to be really awesome as well. The hymn of the day, thee will I love my strength, my power. Is that how it goes? How come I forgot it? The first line, my tower. That's what it was. Thee will I love my strength, my tower. Thee will I love my hope, my joy. Thee will I love with all my power there's the power with ardour time shall ne'er destroy thee will I love, o light divine so long as life is mine Jonathan and I were doing a presentation for the young adults today, yesterday for you, Saturday morning, on the hymns of the church, and we realized that so many of our hymns are hymns of praise directly sung to the Lord Jesus.
[00:19:50] And this is one of those hymns that just calls, that gives Jesus these most beautiful titles.
[00:20:00] Thee will I love my life, my savior, my best and truest friend my praise forever thee will I love my crown of gladness.
[00:20:13] Thee will I love my God and Lord so beautiful. These are some of the ways that we should not only think about the Lord Jesus, but when we sing these hymns, I need to do this, too. We can work on this together. We need to try to grab ahold of these for our prayers.
[00:20:35] I thank thee, Jesus son from heaven, whose radiance has brought life light to me so that we could call upon Jesus as our crown of gladness, as our. As the radiance of heaven, as our love and our praise and our strength and our tower.
[00:20:56] We would speak to him in this way. That's really great.
[00:21:03] God be praised. All right, let's see. What else do we need to note about? We have. I'm looking here. Oh, yeah. Puerto Rico trip. That's happening this week. That's great.
[00:21:12] We're going to start a new book club. Scott Ray is going to host that. That'll be great. We're gonna do once a month kind of potluck and book discussion. The first book will be Luther man between God and the devil. This biography of Luther by Heiker Obermann, which is a. Which is a nice book to read, especially at reformation time. So that's scheduled for November 10. Kerry and I got our theological adventure planned for next year. St. Paul's, Greece. We're gonna go to Greece and have a little cruise. I think we have 19 spots open still, so that's filling up pretty quick. We might be full by the end of the week, so let us know if you want to come to that as well. And everything else is good. Can't wait to see you in a few minutes. God's peace be with.