5.12.24 Sunday Drive to Church

[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolf Mueller and you're driving to church. This is the Sunday Drive to church podcast. God be praised. Another day filled with his goodness and mercy, and that he gathers us together to feed us his own body and blood and promise us the forgiveness of our sins and press into our hearts and minds his great love and kindness for us and give us his heavenly wisdom and his word. The prophets and the apostles. It's amazing. It's just amazing. Today's exotic. The Sunday after the ascension, the 6th Sunday in the season of Easter, this beautiful Sunday, it's the Sunday of the choosing of Matthias the apostle. That's who's on the bulletin cover. You'll notice him with a hatchet because I think he was beheaded. So all the apostles are almost always pictured with the way that they were martyred for the Lord. We'll hear some of Jesus prayer. Beautiful text today. I'll get you ready for it in the Sunday drive to church. [00:00:58] It's a wonderful thing. By the way, thank you for listening to this and for taking the time to get ready for all of these gifts, and I hope it helps activate your attention and your curiosity for the service. [00:01:13] That's what it's supposed to do. So thanks for being part of this. If you have suggestions or thoughts about it, please do let me know. And also, just in case you're thinking about missing Sunday school, don't. Because we're going to keep talking about the conscience today. We've done it. For the last couple of weeks, we've been talking about the conscience, and the feedback has been really, really good. So we're gonna continue to look at these things that inform the conscience. The ways the conscience is polluted and the way the conscience is cleansed. [00:01:43] The two ways to a good conscience. All this stuff that'll be in Bible class. [00:01:48] Let's get into it. For the service, though, the collect of the day is a prayer that the Lord would send the Holy Spirit. So it's a really between ascension and Pentecost prayer. We're in this season here now. So when Jesus was crucified and raised, he appeared to his disciples for 40 days. I think we can track 16 or 17 appearances in those 40 days of Jesus and his disciples and individuals, and 500 at one time. And then on 40 days after the resurrection, after the resurrection, that would have been last Thursday, Jesus ascended into heaven. And then ten days later, that'll be next Sunday, Pentecost, the Holy Spirit arrived. And so we're between the ascension and Pentecost it's kind of. I don't know. It's a ten day holding pattern for the apostles as they're waiting in the upper room for the Lord to keep his promises. And as soon as the holy spirit comes, they spill out of that upper room and begin preaching. But they're still doing some theological work, and we'll hear about that as well. So we have a prayer that the Lord would send us his Holy Spirit. So let's pray. O king of glory, Lord of hosts, uplifted in triumph, far above all heavens. Leave us not without consolation, but send us the spirit of truth, whom you have promised from the Father. For you live and reign with him and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. [00:03:18] Our psalmody today is psalm one man. There's so much to talk about today. I gotta be a little bit quick because there's a lot going on for me today, but I don't know how to be quick with these texts. So psalm one, which is probably the preface for the psalms. It's probably, if you know how, now books have a. They have a chapter one, but before you have chapter one, you have like a foreword or a preface. Psalm one is probably the preface psalm. It's setting the stage for all of the, the whole entire book of psalms. And in that way, chapter one of the psalms is psalm two. But chapter, psalm one is getting us ready. And the contrast is between the man who has communion with the wicked versus the man who has communion with the Lord's word. And the picture is the difference between the chaff that's blown by the wind and the tree that's planted by the streams of water. Now, here's a good reminder, because the psalms are hard for me. I don't know if they are for you. Some of you who are very poetic or artistic probably love the psalms. It's natural for you to read the psalms. But for me, when I look at the psalms, it's a struggle to know what's going on. So I've come up with a set of rules that I use to look at the psalms. Maybe the three most important rules are, what's the structure? So I like to look over the whole psalm and see. Look, we've got six verses, and there's no repeating verses, et cetera, et cetera. The second question is, who's talking to whom? And it's a sermon, I think the sermon the whole way through. So the person is talking to everybody. David or whoever writes the psalmist. Maybe Solomon is talking to everybody. He says, blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the paths of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers. His delights in the law of the Lord. So it's not talking to the Lord, but about the Lord and preaching about somebody else, preaching about the man and what he does, what he meditates on, what his friendship is. So that's the. And to note that the who's talking to whom in the psalms can change. Like psalm 23 starts as a sermon, the Lord is my shepherd. It's a confession of faith. And then it turns to a prayer. Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. So the who's talking to whom can change in the psalms. And sometimes we're talking to God. Prayer. Sometimes God's talking to us. Prophecy. Sometimes the preacher's talking to the world sermon. Sometimes the believers talking to the, to the fellow believer. Encouragement. Sometimes we're talking to ourselves. Why so downcast, my soul? Sometimes we're talking to the angels. [00:06:00] Bless him, you heavenly hosts. So who's talking to who? That's an important question. So what's the structure? Who's talking to whom? And then the third question I asked of the psalm is, what's the picture? And the picture here in psalm one is this beautiful contrast of a, of a tree, of a fruit tree planted right next to a stream of water. Now think, especially if you live in the Middle east, if you live in Jerusalem, where there's no streams. How beautiful this picture is of this fruit tree. Now contrast that to the chaff. That's like the film on the outside of the wheat that just floats away. When you're threshing the wheat, you're knocking that chaff, that outer husk off, and then you throw it in the air, and the wind takes the chaff and just blows it away, and only the grain comes down. And it's saying, you can either be like the chaff, the flighty, swept away chaff, or you can be like the tree. What's the difference? Well, here it says, blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf doesn't wither. And whatever he does, he will prosper. [00:07:25] The wicked are not so they are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment or sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. There's a beautiful structural thing that happens in the psalm here. One of the ways that hebrew poetry does its work is by parallel. So whenever you see something, you'll see something else. [00:07:52] The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters, he restores my in these parallels. And so what you would expect in this is that when it's putting forth these two pictures, you should have parallel descriptions. So it should be like this. The one who meditates on the Lord's law, he's like a tree, one firmly planted by streams of water. Two yield its fruit in due season. Three leaf doesn't wither. Four, whatever he does, he prospers. So you have these four attributes of the man who meditates on the word like the tree. The wicked are not. So they are like chaff, one which the wind drives away, two, and it's carried into the far ends of the earth, three, and is set on fire, four and is remembered no more. But that's not what it does. It just says, the wicked are not. So they're like the chaff which the wind drives away. [00:08:53] Done. [00:08:54] The wind, it's just, it's almost like the wind, like the, the words of the description of those who stand with the wicked are blown off the page, like the chaff is blown away by the wind. [00:09:11] So great, psalm one. We're going to chant psalm one. So fantastic. [00:09:16] The other thing we have, oh, and baptism, by the way, too. God be praised. That'll be in the early service. [00:09:22] That'll be right there with the psalm. The readings are three. We're still season of Easter reading acts for the first lesson. So we're going back in acts to that same period of time between the ascension and Pentecost. So the disciples are on the mount of olives where Jesus ascends into heaven, kind of on the, on the east side of the Mount of Olives, down on the slope, that's towards Bethany Jesus, and maybe towards the top and down there, that's where Jesus ascends. A couple different churches and places of the ascension that are on there. [00:09:56] Not 100% sure where it happened, but then they go back over the Mount of Olives, down through the Kidron valley, back in Jerusalem. They're back in the upper room. Now they're trying to figure out what to do, and they're like, well, Judas hung himself, and now there's only eleven of us, and it seems like Jesus wanted twelve. And Peter is thinking about the scriptures, and he's quoting the scriptures. His camp become desolate. There's no one to fill it. Let another take his office. [00:10:21] So Peter's putting together the scriptures and they're determining that we should appoint another apostle. [00:10:29] What are the requirements? [00:10:31] Peter says so one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that our Lord Jesus went in out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. And they put forward two. Now, this is an amazing thing to realize that there would have been more than just the twelve hanging around. [00:10:50] And we don't have any indication of that in the gospel. But here it's indicated that there was at least two and maybe more men who were in the circle of Jesus and the activity that he was doing. Very interesting. And so there's Justus and Matthias, and they prayed and they cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. So St. Matthias then becomes one of the appointed apostles. His picture is on the COVID there. We don't know anything else about him, at least from the book of acts. And one of the questions that that is just interesting to think about is this what they were supposed to do, because we know that the Lord himself will choose Paul, and we get a lot of Paul in the book of acts and nothing of Matthias. And we wonder, should the church have done this or not? Was it right for Peter to do this and the other disciples to do it, or should they just have waited for the Lord to appoint someone? [00:11:45] There's no indication one way or another in the scripture. So I don't think we can be too dogmatic about it. But it is seemingly the Lord's intent to call another apostle. As Paul himself will describe, he's one untimely born. [00:12:05] He wasn't going in and out with the disciples when Jesus was there amongst them. The only thing that he saw was at the very end. [00:12:15] Interesting. I don't know the answer to that, but I think it's great for us to think about and talk about. I do think it's also interesting, and I don't want to make too much of this, but I do think it's interesting to see how Peter is working with the scriptures before Pentecost versus after Pentecost. I mean, here before Pentecost, they're kind of looking at themselves. They're in the upper room. They're trying to figure out who should fill the space. [00:12:41] After Pentecost, they're out. They're in the open. They're preaching Christ and the crucifixion and the resurrection and calling all to repentance. There's kind of an institutional interest here in this chapter, and it seems like that's very minimal afterwards. Again, I don't want to make too much of it because it's not like the Bible says. Peter doesn't know what he was talking about, and they made a huge mistake. But it is interesting just to consider this first sermon of Peter Brothers, the scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas versus the preaching that he does on Pentecost. So that's for your own study and contemplation. The epistle is continuing in one john, some beautiful texts. And I don't know if it's because I've been having a lot of conversations lately about the sufficiency of scripture with Catholics and Orthodox and some of those folks. I just finished doing a podcast this morning. I'm recording. It's like just before lunch on Saturday, and I just finished doing a podcast with a two young ladies. One's an evangelical and the other's Catholic. And we were talking about the difference between the lutheran view and their view of the Lord's supper. But it seems like in these conversations, especially with Catholics and orthodox, that what's the importance of the word versus the tradition of the church? [00:14:00] This came up also in this conversation. So this really sticks out when John says, if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. [00:14:11] And what's the testimony John says in verse eleven? This is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his son. Now we say, John, that's the testimony of man, because you're a man and you're writing this. But he says, no, this is God's testimony. This writing this epistle is what God says, not what man says. [00:14:31] And then he goes on to say, this is, whoever has the son has life. [00:14:38] Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life. If we have life, it's because we have Jesus and Jesus has us. But this is the testimony that we're called to believe. [00:14:49] Ah, so great. So that's the epistle lesson the third, the gospel lesson is from John, chapter 17. This is part of the great high priestly discourse of Jesus, which starts back in John 14, really, maybe even parts in 13, and goes all the way through chapter 17. So 14, 1516, four chapters of red Luke letters, this long sermon that's between the institution of the Lord's supper and the prayer at the garden of Gethsemane. And this chapter 17 is almost entirely a prayer in two parts. First a prayer of Jesus for his disciples, and then a prayer of all those who would believe because of the apostolic preaching. And this is so beautiful in some ways. It is the holy of holies, of the book of John, where we go into the, into the council and see how it is that the son speaks to the Father. We get to overhear this prayer of Jesus, and it's beautiful and stunning and so theological. [00:15:52] Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one. [00:15:59] While I was with them, I kept them in your name. [00:16:02] Verse 14. I have given them your word. [00:16:06] The world hated them because they're not of the world, just as I'm not of the world. I don't ask you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. [00:16:17] So we are in the world, not of the world. We don't belong to the world. We're pilgrims and strangers in the world, but we are living here in the world so that we could bless the world and so that the world could bless us through suffering and persecution. [00:16:31] Jesus doesn't ask to remove us from the world. I mean, he does eventually. He says, okay, it's time. Bring them here to heaven, but in the meantime, leave them there, but keep them from the evil one. Protect them from the devil. They are not of this world, just as I am not of this world. And then back to the word. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. [00:16:51] So that the oneness of the church, with each other and with Christ and with the Father is a oneness in the word. [00:17:01] This is, by the way, why we're so persnickety. Is that the right word? Persnickety about doctrine and about getting the doctrine right. And all this sort of stuff is because Jesus says that he wills us to be one with himself, with the father, with each other, and that oneness comes through the word. I remember a story. Can I tell you guys a story? How are we doing on time here? Let me check how long they were. [00:17:23] What are we, 17 minutes? Last, I got a couple complaints last week was only 17 minutes. [00:17:28] Let me just make a quick announcement and then I'll tell you guys, a story. So today we're going to try to change some of our habits at church. The elders have discussed this for a while, and they want to try to capture that five minutes before the service as a time of quiet reflection. So about five minutes before the service, me, or I think I'll do it this week, come up and say a prayer that the Lord would bless our worship and service and ask everyone to, to speak quietly if they need to speak before that time, while we listen to the music, before the service starts. So just be ready for that, that that's gonna happen there. [00:18:06] And if you can help people who come in to notice that as well, we put it in the bulletin, it says, pre service music. Please spend a few minutes in quiet reflection. Next week, the word quiet will probably be in bold, and then the next week, the word quiet will probably be in red. But we'll get it sorted out. Okay, so here's a story. Back when I was in seminary, they had, they would have a symposium every year to still do. And most of the professors would give, there would be papers given, and most would be by professors. And they'd invite some guest lecturers in to come and give, to give a paper. And this, and this particular year, it was a paper by, by Newhouse that he was a lutheran pastor who had become a catholic priest, and he was the founder of first things public theology. [00:18:59] I think it was a journal to start, and then it became a whole organization with a website and a foundation and everything like this. He went to seminary with a number of my professors, Doctor Scherr, Doctor Marquardt. [00:19:10] Kind of titan theological titans. Pretty amazing. And so he was there talking, giving a paper on the unity of the church and talking about this. So he was talking with Doctor Marquardt after the lecture, and I went up and I wanted to ask him a question, both of them, a question, actually. And so they invited me into the conversation, and I said, how do we know? [00:19:36] How does the church, how is the church one? I think that was my question. How is the church one? [00:19:44] And Father Neuhause gave this answer that was this long, kind of meandering answer about, the church has an organic unity. The church finds herself as one, that God unites the church in one, etcetera, etcetera. [00:20:00] It was a long and somewhat convoluted answer. [00:20:05] And Doctor Marquardt kind of is looking at him exasperatedly, and when he's done, he says, that's nonsense. [00:20:14] Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. The church's unity is in doctrine. It's in the word of God. I'll always remember that. This is a simple, plain, clean answer. We're one because the Lord sanctifies us through the word. [00:20:31] That's an amazing thing. [00:20:34] Well, one more note, by the way. So this is on the hymn of the day. This is Christ is the world's Redeemer. It's attributed to Columba, the irish saint. I believe if you look at the dates in the hymnal, it says 521 to 597. You think, oh, they're missing a 115 21. No, 521. This hymn is 1503 ish years old. Well, I guess that's when Columba was born. [00:21:00] This hymn is old. [00:21:02] It's a hymn of Christ, the praise of Christ. It's in the Redeemer section and it's beautiful. It talks about how Christ descended to the cross. [00:21:13] He ascended. Second stanza. Then the cross ascended. So he ascends up to the cross, suffering for the sinful redemption. Then he goes down to hell, down to the realms of darkness. He strode in victory, and then the resurrection. At the hour appointed, he rose triumphantly. And now here's the ascension part. And now to heaven, ascended. He sits, sit upon the throne. And here, this line Pastor Davis pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago. I never noticed it until he pointed it out. It's an amazing thing. So it says. And now to heaven, ascended. He sits upon the throne whence he had ne'er departed, his father's and his own. [00:21:56] So that when Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, he sits on the throne that he never left. [00:22:02] Now, can we say that theologically that Jesus never left the throne? This is from John, chapter one, where we read, no one at any time has seen God, but the only begotten God who dwells in the bosom of the Father has made him known. And that dwells is present tense, so that Jesus is always on the throne. But at the ascension, he sits on the throne in a different way. [00:22:27] So he sits upon the throne once he had ne'er departed. That's an easy one to miss when you're singing it. So this is a Sunday drive to church podcast bonus right there. And then we'll stand. Glory to the Father, the unbegotten one. Honor to Jesus, his only begotten son, sole begotten son, and to the holy spirit, the perfect trinity. Let all the world give answer. Amen. So let it be. That's a beautiful rousing, rousing him. So God be praised. All right, that's probably enough for today Sunday drive home. By the way, if you clicked on the on the see a Sunday email to get this, you can know that this podcast has its own webpage. I'm going to put that link there as well, so you can always find it. Or you can subscribe to this podcast on your like Apple itunes or whatever. So it just shows up whenever it gets published on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning or whatever. And you can just listen to it as well. So hopefully that helps you guys to find it. And God be praised for the resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. See you soon.