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[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolfmuller. This is the Sunday drive to church for October 20, year of our Lord, 2024, the 22nd Sunday after the feast of Pentecost. Deep into the Pentecost season, you never get to 30, so you know you're getting close. And in fact, we're in this October transitional season, working towards reformation all Saints and headed pretty quickly to Thanksgiving and then already the beginning of advent and the Christmas season. So it's getting more and more festive, but we're still working our way in these Pentecost Sundays through the gospel of Mark. And today we have really the last, the second half of the reading we had last week with Mark, chapter ten, where Jesus is talking about the dangers, specifically of wealth. In fact, we got a lot of themes to think about. Old Testament, the vanity of wealth, New Testament, the danger of wealth. Hebrews four, the work to rest and the wisdom of God's word from psalm 119. It's a beautiful Sunday.
[00:01:01] Let's start with the collect of the day.
[00:01:03] O God, your divine wisdom sets in order all things in heaven and on earth. Put away from us all things hurtful and give us those things that are beneficial for us. Through Jesus Christ your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. We'll start with the old test, with the psalm reading. We have psalm 119 tomorrow and you say, wow, we're going to be there for a while. Well, psalm 119, this longest of all the psalms, is divided up into 22 sections, each section for each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. I remember learning that Hebrew had 22 letters and I thought, that's weird. It seems like all alphabets should have the same number of letters, but anyway it doesn't. But you'll notice in your hymnal oliph one to eight Beth nine to 16 gimel 1724. In fact, if you ever need to quick check what are the letters of the hebrew Alphabet, you can just open your, your bible or your hymnal to psalm 119 and you see those letters there. In fact, all of the eight verses that we'll look at between nine and 16 all begin with that second hebrew letter Beth, and then all the next ones begin with the 17 to 24 begin with the letter gimel. So it's acrostic. It's in fact sometimes called the golden acrostic because it's such a huge. Normally it's just one verse per letter, but this has eight verses for each letter. The other thing you'll notice about psalm 119, it's the greatest Torah, psalm. So there's three Torah or Bible psalms, psalm, psalm one, psalm 19, and psalm 119. Those are the three word psalms, and psalm 119, the great word psalm. And almost every verse of psalm 119 has a synonym for the word of God in it.
[00:03:00] So, for example, looking at our eight verses, 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. Blessed are you, o Lord, teach me your statutes.
[00:03:17] I declare all the just decrees of your mouth, the way of your testimonies. In it, I delight, etcetera, etcetera. So we look for each of those.
[00:03:28] We look for the synonyms of the word of the Lord showing up. And I think there's actually some, some movement in this psalm, because the way this, not just the whole psalm, but in fact, this little section, it's moving us from one thing to another. I'd like you to notice that in two of the last three verses, it talks about our delight. And one of the things that we need to be thoughtful about as christians is what do we delight in?
[00:04:02] The Bible talks a lot about this, so our heart takes joy in certain things. And part of our sanctification is cultivating that, delighting in the right thing and cultivating a despising for the wrong things. So do I want the right things? Do I not want the wrong things? Etcetera. That's part of our sanctification. So listen to how verse 14 and 16 say it in the way of your testimonies. I delight as much as in all riches. That's probably why this section is in today's reading, because it has so much to do with riches and wealth and money and so forth. Verse 16. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. Now, how do we get to that delighting? Can we just, like, turn on the delight switch in our heart? I mean, I wish it was that easy. It's like, oh, there's that thing that I shouldn't want. I just turn off the delight switch and there's that thing that I should want. I'll just turn on the, the delight switch. But it's not so easy. We have to work on these things, meditate on these things, and if we come to this, we're like, how do I get there? How do I turn on my delight for God's word? I'm tempted to be bored with the word of God. I'm tempted to be exasperated with the word of God or whatever, how do I turn on that delight? Well, I think the beginning of this section actually gives us a key. It says, how can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. And then this verse eleven, 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. So that by storing up the Lord's word in our hearts, that means reading the Lord's word, understanding the Lord's word, thinking about the Lord's word, discussing the Lord's word, meditating on the Lord's word. That means chewing it over and over again and even memorizing the Lord's word. And when we do that, when we treasure it in our heart, now it starts to bring this delight out for us. It's, it's like, um, it's like spices. You gotta put it in the, in the mortal and grind it down with the pestle. You gotta to get out the savor of it. So with the scriptures, where we're memorizing the scriptures, holding to the scriptures, and as we do that, the, the sweet smelling aroma starts to work its way out for us. So we treasure the Lord's word in our heart, and then it begins to become our delight.
[00:06:37] More than all riches, more than everything else. Now that takes us to the theme which is going to run through the Old Testament. Ecclesiastes, chapter five, verses ten to 20. And the gospel mark 1023 to 31. Now, I think the Old Testament was probably chosen to match the gospel. So let's start at the gospel. We'll work our way backwards and then, and then stop off on the epistle before looking at the hymn of the day. That'll be our plan. You can gauge how fast you have to drive, depending on you. I never know how these, how long these things are going to be.
[00:07:12] Some of you, you know, it's a tricky thing because some of you live 15 minutes away and like, oh, pastor, I had to sit, you know, wait for five minutes. Some of you live an hour and a half away.
[00:07:21] We have to listen. You know what you should do is you listen to it on super slow speed.
[00:07:27] Jesus look like that. And then you could stretch it out. That's a, that's my suggestion. Hot tip. Okay. Mark 1023 to 31.
[00:07:38] Jesus looked around and says to his disciples how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. Now, this is Jesus reaction to the story that we had last week. Remember, the rich young ruler came to Jesus and said, what do I have to do to be saved? Keep the commandments. I've kept these, give everything, sell everything to the poor. And he went away sad because he had great treasures. Jesus reaction, he says, how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples were amazed at his words. Jesus said to them again, children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. Now, notice there's two difficulties. The first difficulty is the particular difficulty of those who have wealth. The second difficulty is the general difficulty of anybody to enter the kingdom of God. And Jesus says, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. At which point we laugh. I mean, think of trying to cram a. I think Jesus was kind of horsing around a little bit, trying to cram a camel through the eye of a needle.
[00:08:45] And so the disciples are exceedingly astonished. How could it be so hard? Who can be saved? They say Jesus looked at them and said, and here's the theme with man. It is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God.
[00:09:01] Peter. And then so, so Jesus, this is. And this is the point that can't be missed. Jesus is saying, look, if it were up to you, nobody would be saved. If it were up to your own ability, nobody could get in there. Not the rich, the poor, the nobody, because we're all sinners. But there, this is nothing. What we don't want to do is make this so abstract that we miss the point, right?
[00:09:21] Because we know that apart from the Holy Spirit and the word of God, none of us have faith in Christ, none of us believe in Jesus. It is a miracle that any of us do. But Jesus is pointing out that there are temptations that stand in the way, and particularly wealth is a temptation. Wealth is an obstacle to faith. Having lots of money makes this difficult.
[00:09:47] So Peter begins to say to him, now, here's where the surprise really comes in the text for me. Peter begins to say to Jesus, see, we've left everything and followed you. At which point I expect Jesus to rebuke Peter. But he doesn't. Not at first and not completely. I expect Jesus to say, look, the last or first, the first or last, which he does say later. He says, don't even though you. I want Jesus to say something like, you've left behind house and job and wealth, but you haven't left behind your sinful flesh or something like this. But Jesus doesn't say that. He says, truly, I say to you, there is no one who's left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands of. With persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last and last first.
[00:10:45] There's a lot going on, and I think we'll probably preach about what Jesus says exactly here, because, excuse me, when a person does leave behind this world for Christ, you don't really lose anything. I mean, the things that you lose cannot be compared to the things that you gain.
[00:11:09] So that the Christian has a church, which means you have a house and brothers and sisters and mother and children and lands and persecution and eternal life, so that the Lord Jesus does not simply call us to be by ourselves in this world, but with him and therefore with his church.
[00:11:34] So there are people who are, for the sake of Christ, lose everything. They lose their family, they lose their job, they lose their bank account, they lose it all.
[00:11:47] And yet, because they belong to Jesus, they not only have the hope of eternal life and the afflictions that come in this world, but they also have everything else. We should, you know, we should all, we should all feel this way about being a member of Christ in this church, that we, you know, even if we have family that hates and despises us because we, we call ourselves Christians and we, and we go to church and praise God that most of us have families that are also christian. But even if we have nobody in our family that's Christian. You should look around when you get to church and you're sitting there in the pew and you're praying before the service, getting ready for everything to happen. You should look around at all the people there and thank the Lord that he has given you, all of these brothers and sisters, people for you to love and people who love you.
[00:12:45] It is quite, quite marvelous. And if you, I mean, amazing. If you could, like, even just with our little congregation, this is not counting the church universal with christians spread throughout the world, but you just take our, our little congregation and someone says, well, how many brothers and sisters do you have? Even if you're an only child, you can say, I don't know, probably about 700.
[00:13:07] 700.
[00:13:10] 700 brothers and sisters. That's the, that's what the Lord gives you in the church. That's marvelous.
[00:13:17] With man, it's impossible. With God, all things are possible. Okay, this takes us to the ecclesiastes text.
[00:13:24] Ecclesiastes, chapter five, verses, ten to 20. Ecclesiastes is the third work of King Solomon. First is proverbs, which is his textbook on wisdom, probably assembled for all the students that the kings around the world were sending to Solomon because he was so wise. So he writes a wisdom textbook, can you imagine? Gives us proverbs. The second one is this poem about the love of Christ and the church, the song of Solomon. And then the third one is this exercise in theological existentialism, probably, or reflection on the breathiness of this life. That's the word vanity.
[00:14:09] It means the emptiness of a breath. How a breath vanishes. It probably has something to do with speech, also with spirit. But you can think of it as, like, on a cold day. I don't know if you guys have ever experienced a cold day. Maybe like five or six years ago, there was a cold day around here. I can't remember ever being cold in my whole life anymore. Anyway, if you remember on a cold day and you breathe out and there's that fraud, that's that steam, that smoke that comes out, and then it just sort of disappears, that if you. If you could picture that breath like that, that's what the word vanity means. It doesn't last. So listen to how Solomon is going to give us this wisdom. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income. This also is vanity breath that just fades away when goods increase, they increase. Who eat them. And I don't know if this actually means that, you know, when you got, you actually get bigger and bigger or that you have more and more people showing up for dinner. What advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes? So you can't. In other words, at some point, you can't. You can't eat at all.
[00:15:29] Sweet is the sleep of a laborer. There's going to be actually a lot about sleep in this text. Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much. But the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.
[00:15:43] So he sees an evil under the sun, riches were kept by their owner to his hurt. So you get more and more and more, and we've all met people like this and know people like this, that as they gain more and more wealth, they become less and less likable, less and less good, less and less friendly or whatever. It's the problem. It's the problem of wealth, the problem of fame, because now you never know if the people who are around you are around you because they're really your friends or because you've just got a bunch of cash, like the people that win the lottery. I mean, this is one of these things to look at, one of these disaster cases. People win the lottery, and all of a sudden all their third cousins are hanging around. I didn't even know I had this much family.
[00:16:29] Part of the theme of ecclesiastes is actually captured in the last paragraph of our text. Behold.
[00:16:37] Let me just before that, verse 17. All his days he eats in darkness, in much vexation and sickness and anger. In other words, you're not even finished with your work. Before the sun goes down, you're eating dinner and dark, and there's much sickness, there's much anger, there's much vexation. Behold, he says, then what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun, so that the thing that you're enjoying is not the result of the work, the payment, but the work itself under the sun for the few days of life that God has given him. In the Hebrew, this is really interesting. I found this in the commentary. That, and that little phrase there, the few days of his life that God has given him, would be literally translated, the few days of life that the God has given him. And that was also in the beginning of chapter five. It's a definite article. So it's not just any God. Solomon wants to make the point that this is the true God who gives us life, everyone, also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil. This is the gift of God, for he will not much remember the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. So did you hear all that last paragraph? Find enjoyment in the toil. Enjoy the gifts of wealth, possession and powers. Rejoice in his toil, occupied with joy in his heart. So this is really, ecclesiastes is a meditation on the simple joys of this life. So that we don't love wealth, we don't love money, we start to love the work and service that the Lord has given us and to rejoice in that. And then the Lord starts to provide practically all the things that we need.
[00:18:36] We should do a study on ecclesiastes sometime. There's a lot more there that meets the eye. We'll get a little taste of it tomorrow. Oh, wait, not tomorrow. Tomorrow. When I'm recording today right now. We'll get a taste of it in just a few minutes when you walk into church. Okay.
[00:18:51] Epistle lesson is Hebrews four. We've, you know, studying Hebrews in Sunday school. I think we did Hebrews four two or three years ago. This is the section on rest. And it's this continued meditation on psalm 95. Now, remember psalm 95? Probably it started back in chapter three. It quotes this section in psalm 95 that says, today, if you hear his voice and do not harden your hearts like you did in the wilderness. And then, and I said to them, in my wrath, they will not enter my rest. So, so the sermon is meditating on that ending of psalm 95. So that comes up three times today in the text. And it's, and it's really keying on this little phrase, they shall not enter my rest.
[00:19:35] So it says in the beginning there, the promise of entering his rest still stands.
[00:19:40] Let us fear, lest any of us should seem to have failed to reach it. For the good news came to us just as to them. But the message they heard and did not benefit. Why? Because they were not united by faith with those who listened. In other words, why did the, in the 40 years in the wilderness, all of those who escaped from Egypt died in the wilderness. Why? Because they did not mix the promise of God with faith.
[00:20:05] They did not believe the words that the Lord was saying to them. And so then the Lord says, I swear in my wrath, they will not enter my rest. Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, God rested on the 7th day from his works. But in this passage, it says, they shall not enter my rest. And here's the conclusion, since, therefore, there remains some to enter it. And those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience. He appoints a certain day today, saying through David, long afterwards, words already quoted today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts, because if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of a day later on. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
[00:20:48] For whoever has entered God's rest has rested from his works, as God did from his. Therefore. And here's the ironic, mysterious kind of riddle of this portion of Hebrews, this central portion of Hebrews. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.
[00:21:08] Let us work to stop working.
[00:21:13] Let us, let us have an effort to stop having an effort.
[00:21:22] Strive to enter the rest. And how do you. So we say, well, what does that mean, strive to enter that rest?
[00:21:30] Well, the first thing that it means is we have to stop being convinced that there is no rest, that it's all work, that there's no gospel, that it's all law, that there's no peace, that it's all violence, that there's no gift, that it's all wage. We have to believe in the grace of God. That's the beginning. And then to trust that grace of God, the promise of God, is to enter into his rest. But the reason why we have to work at it is because we are so naturally geared to try to do, to earn God's favor, to try to work, to achieve God's good pleasure, to try to strive and exert ourself, to pry open heaven so we can be worthy to enter it. We have to, the Lord has to say, stop. Stop trying to save yourself.
[00:22:23] You are saved not in doing, but in resting.
[00:22:29] So we have to strive to put that part of ourself that's striving to death so that we can finally and at last rest in the Lord and his promises and trust what he says to be true and to receive from him all of these marvelous gifts. That's the idea there, and it is marvelous.
[00:22:54] Let us therefore strive to enter that rest. So we cease from all these works of trying to achieve our own righteousness and trust in what Christ says. With man, it's impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible. With Goddesse. God be praised. That's fantastic.
[00:23:14] All right, let's call it there. Sunday drive to church. We'll see in a few. Oh, let's see. Announcements. Hebrews class in Bible class? Yes, Hebrews in Bible class. We continued with divine service setting five. So the first, it's, it's hard, confusing and glorious. Remember that. It's hard at the beginning, confusing in the middle, glorious at the end. So last week was the beginning. It's hard. Where am I? This is week. It's confusing what's going on. I mean, hard last week, I don't like this. Second week, where are we? Third, glorious next week when we arrive at reformation day. So it's, everything worth doing is found full of difficulties, but divine service setting five will be, will be wonderful again today. And we'll end with this, the best of all hymns. Lord, keep us steadfast in your word. God be praised. All right, see you in a few minutes. God's peace be with.