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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, saints of St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's the third Sunday in Lent, March 23rd, Year of our Lord 2025. And you are listening to the Sunday Drive to Church podcast, which I hope to make a little bit shorter this week. See how that goes. Some of you drive all the way from, like, Lake Buchanan are like, hey, longer, longer. Maybe we'll do an extended bonus edition for the.
[00:00:21] For the long commuters. But anyway, let's get. There's a bunch of cool stuff happening today. I want to give you the prep that you need to be ready for it, because like always, the service is coming at you fast, and today is no exception. Some pretty dense theological portions of scripture to consider, but let's start with the collect of the day. This prayer. O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy. Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith, to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your word through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:01:08] Our liturgy is Divine Service 3. We're sticking with Divine Service 3. Again, the challenge is there for you to see if you can do it without opening your hymnal, although you'll have to open it up for the hymns. We have the opening hymn. Oh, yeah, I wanted to talk about this opening hymn is hymn 760. What God ordains is always good. Even that first line is a pretty amazing thing to say. What God ordains is always good. And this hymn gives that to us six times in the six stanzas. This is how each stanza starts. What God ordains is always good. His will is just and holy. What God ordains is always good. He never will deceive me. What God ordains is always good. His loving thought attends me.
[00:01:57] In fact, that line, stanza three. No poison can be in the cup that my physician sends me. My God is true each morning new I trust his grace unending my life to him commending what God ordains is always good. He's my friend and father. What God ordains is always good. Though the cup I am drinking. Here, this is Stanza 5. How about this one? What God ordains is always good. Though the cup I am drinking which savors now of bitterness I take it without shrinking. For after grief God gives relief my heart with comfort filling and all my sorrow stilling. And then the last one I sing this song this is one of the probably top 25 songs for pastoral care. Because it's teaching our hearts not to fight against the will of God and even the difficulties that we face in this life, but to receive everything. Like Job says, should we receive good from the Lord and not evil and all these things he did in sin. That we receive good from the Lord's hands, we receive evil from the Lord's hands. Not that evil has its origin in God, but that the Lord uses it even to bless us, strengthen us, comfort us. So we receive everything, good and bad, all from the Lord's hands. Here's the sixth. What God ordains is always good. This truth remains unshaken. Though sorrow need or death be mine, I shall not be forsaken, I fear no harm, for with his arm he shall embrace and shield me. So to my God I yield me. That is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And that beauty continues with the psalm at Psalm 85. It's a famous psalm. I couldn't remember why. I think the most famous verse is verse 10. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet. Righteousness and peace kiss each other. Can you see it? Righteousness walks up, peace walks up. They embrace, they kiss. That's what happens in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus. In fact, this idea of the springing up from below and the coming down from above, like the rain and the trees, and meeting in the middle in this beauty that becomes a picture of the incarnation. In verse 11, faithfulness springs up from the ground and righteousness looks down from the sky.
[00:04:18] It's beautiful. Now the psalm begins with wow. This is a good prayer, a good pattern for prayer with reminding the Lord of all of the good that he's done and then praying for repentance and for the Lord to change his mind and to deliver us. Lord, you were favorable to our land. You restored the fortunes of Jacob, you forgave the iniquity of your people, you covered all their sins, you withdrew all your rest wrath you turned from your hot anger. In other words, it's recounting all the good and merciful things that the Lord did in the past. And then restore us again, O God, of our salvation and put away your indignation toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. Let me hear what God the Lord will speak.
[00:05:08] And here. And what will he speak? This is what verse 8 says. For he will speak peace to his people, to his saints, but let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him. That glory may dwell in our land, and then steadfast in love or meeting, and righteousness and peace are kissing. It's beautiful. So this is a hymn of praise, a hymn of repentance, a hymn of prayer for deliverance, a hymn that the Lord would turn his anger from us, restore us, renew us, give us his life and joy and peace. Really great. Really great. Now, the Old Testament is Ezekiel 33, a really important section in Ezekiel. The Lord has set Ezekiel as a watchman. His preaching is doing this guard duty. Verse 7.
[00:05:58] So you, son of man. That's by the way, that phrase son of man comes up in Ezekiel and Daniel, maybe other places in the Old Testament, but those are the places I know of. In Ezekiel, it's particularly talking about the humility of Ezekiel. In Daniel, it's talking about the second person of the Holy Trinity, the glory of the Son of God. And so that little phrase, son of man also has incarnational overtones. That sounds too fancy. It refers to the two natures of Christ, both his human nature, Ezekiel, and his divine nature, Daniel. But here it says, o son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel.
[00:06:38] Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning. If I say to the wicked, o wicked one, you shall surely die. And you don't speak to warn the wicked to turn from his ways. That wicked person shall die in his iniquity, and his blood I'll require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity. But you will have delivered your soul. Now this is an amazing thing, that the Lord does not require the preacher or the prophet to work repentance, but rather to preach repentance, because the Lord is the one who has to work repentance in the heart. And then this famous verse from the Old Testament, one that we should have in our minds, verse 11. As I live, declares the Lord God. I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back. Turn back from your evil ways. Why will you die, O house of Israel? So that the Lord does not desire the death of the wicked, but that they repent. And then again, he talks about how the righteous will not be saved by his righteousness, especially if he turns to sin. But the sinner will not be damned for sure if he turns to righteousness, this is the point, is that the door of repentance is always open. Verse 14. Though I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, yet if he turns from his sin and does what's right, what's just and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he's taken by robbery, if he walks in the statues of life and not doing injustice, he will live, he will not die. So the Lord is always calling us to repentance and to the fruits of repentance here. And so there's always hope.
[00:08:13] This is the point. There's always hope for the sinners. Sometimes the preaching is hard, but that hard preaching of repentance is so the Lord can give us life.
[00:08:22] Now, the epistle is 1 Corinthians 10, 1:13. Another longer reading. It's an interesting reading because it's talking about all the things that happened in the Old Testament and why they happened.
[00:08:35] I want you to know, brothers, our fathers were all under the cloud. They all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses. This is a wild phrase. In the cloud and the sea they ate the same spiritual food, they drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
[00:08:54] Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. So Paul describes the 40 years of wandering in New Testament Church sacramental terms, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Now, why did all these things happen? Verse 6. These things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. So they happened for the people's sake, but they were written down for us.
[00:09:21] Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
[00:09:27] We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. 23,000 fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.
[00:09:48] Now here's the famous verses of this text. Therefore let anyone think that he stands. Take heed lest he fall. We shouldn't be too proud. And no temptation has overtaken you that's not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation he will always provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
[00:10:11] We are not authorized to despair of a way out of suffering and temptation and trouble. The Lord won't permit it. He says our temptation that we have is common to all people and that the Lord knows the limits and he sets a limit.
[00:10:28] This is one of the biblical themes that we probably don't talk about enough. The Lord is the one who sets limits. He sets a limit. Here especially, he sets a limit for the.
[00:10:39] For the devil and for even for the world and even for your own sinful flesh. And he says this far, no farther, so that we can have confidence that we won't be how it says here, we won't be tempted beyond our capacity or our ability. That's a beautiful promise. In fact, it's confirmed by the verse of the day. We'll stand and sing or say together the verse 2 Peter 3, the Lord is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. That's Peter's paraphrase of the Ezekiel text, Ezekiel 33.
[00:11:15] The Gospel lesson is very interesting. It's two paragraphs which are loosely related to one another. The first is the story of the tragedies that were happening. By the way, it's Luke 13:1:9, the tragedies that had happened. Some there told Jesus about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with the sacrifices.
[00:11:36] So there's some Galileans in the temple, and they must have been murdered. And Pilate desecrated the sacrifice. And Jesus says, do you think they were worse sinners? And then he talks about the 18 who died in the collapse of the tower of Siloam. And then Jesus says, do you think they were worse than all the others in Jerusalem? And the answer is no, but we should also repent, or we will likewise perish.
[00:12:02] So Jesus is teaching us the wrong way to think about tragedy and the right way to think about tragedy, which is to think about it in terms of repentance. And then this parable. This is a really obscure parable. We don't talk about it enough. I'll probably have to preach about it. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on the fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down.
[00:12:27] Why should it use up the ground? And he answered him, sir, let it alone this year also till I dig around it and put on more manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good. But if not, you can cut it down.
[00:12:38] That's it. That's the parable. And it's Jesus saying.
[00:12:42] It's Jesus demonstrating his patience. And maybe even more than that.
[00:12:51] Our Christian life, our repentance, is not us fighting against God. It sometimes feels like that for us, but the Lord is fighting for us, and he's fighting for our repentance. He's fighting for our faith. He's fighting for our trust in his promises. He's fighting to save us.
[00:13:13] He's the one who's digging around and putting manure on it and waiting for it to bear fruit. And patiently, patiently waiting. He's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
[00:13:25] The hymn of the day, interesting. Is May God Bestow on us His Grace. It was hardly ever sung. It was hymn 500 in TLH and it had a tricky hymn. May God Bestow on us His Grace. It's a new tune now, at least. Yeah, new tune for it. May God Bestow on Us. Something like that. I can't get it, but It's Luther's Psalm 67 hymn.
[00:13:49] When you're singing, you're like, this is a tough hymn. You look down, oh, look, it's by Martin Luther. It's only three stanzas, but it's a beautiful hymn of how the Lord intends to have mercy on all people.
[00:14:00] Thine over all shall be the praise. This is the second stanza. And thanks of every nation and all the world with joy shall raise the voice of exaltation. For thou shalt judge the earth, O Lord, Nor suffer sin to flourish. Thy people's pasture is Thy word. That's a great line. Their souls to feed and nourish in righteous paths to keep them so that we are the lambs of the Lord's hands and we feast in the pasture of his word.
[00:14:31] O let the people praise Thy worth in all good works Increasing the land shall plenteous fruit bring forth. Thy word is rich in blessing. May God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit Bless us. Let all the world praise him alone. Let solemn all possess us now Let our hearts say Amen.
[00:14:51] What a hymn. Oh, God be praised. I don't know if you guys can hear that. I don't know if the microphone's picking it up, but the Young Adult Conference has started singing vespers in the sanctuary, so I better get in there. Let's see if I kept my promise of keeping it a little bit shorter. This? Yeah. Look at that 15 minutes. You're gonna have time to talk to each other for the rest of their drive, so drive safe. I think Vicar's got my class on the liturgy. I'm going to be in the last class with the new member class, with the adult instruction class. God be praised for that. So that next, not today for you today, but next Sunday we have adult confirmation class, and I think we have 16 joining by confirmation. Two baptisms. God be praised for the work that he does in calling us to repentance and keeping us in the faith. God's peace be with you. See you soon.