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[00:00:00] Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. It's the Sunday drive to church. Dear saints, St. Paul Lutheran Church for May 5, 2024, 6th Sunday after Easter, the Sunday before ascension. Oh, I wonder if pastor's gonna mention the ascension in the Sunday drive. You bet I am. That's this Thursday, the third most, so mark your calendars. By the way, we're just starting off with this whole thing because I'm. This is a thing of mine. There's a couple sort of pastoral things that I want to do. I have an agenda, and two of them are to build up ascension and to build up funerals. They're kind of connected to each other. But you guys hear me talking all the time about how funeral services are public services of the church. I think this is so wonderful when we, as a congregation rally at the heavenly birthday of our brothers and sisters in Christ. It's really wonderful to have these full churches during funeral services, even if we don't know the person because we're there. Remember to honor the Lord and to comfort the bereaved and even to think of our own death. That's one. And then the second sort of pastoral thing that I'm after is a robust celebration of the ascension of our Lord Jesus.
[00:01:18] It is, I think, the third most important feast of the church here, behind only the celebration of the crucifixion Holy Week and the celebration of Christmas, the incarnation, then that would be ascension. In fact, whenever you look at the preaching in the epistles and the book of acts, the resurrection is number one. But then, way before you get to the incarnation and the birth of Jesus, you have the ascension of Jesus. In fact, I think if you made a list of the times that Paul talks about the birth of Jesus versus the ascension of Jesus, you would probably have it 25 to one. The ascension would be leading that. Because it's at the ascension that Jesus takes up the full use of his divine power and authority. He sits at the right hand of the Father. All the divine attributes are now in full effect. Anyway, this Thursday we have the Ascension 07:00 service. We'll have communion. It'll be great. Okay, but we're not there yet because you're driving to church for the 6th Sunday of Easter, the Sunday before the ascension, and we're going to hear the continuation of Jesus teaching in John 15 from last week. I am the vine, you are the branches. He continues that to talk about love, what love means in this beautiful verse, that he doesn't call us servants. But let's get started. With the collect. It's a beautiful icon on the front of the bulletin of the disciples listening to Jesus as he teaches them on the upper room. It reminds us that this teaching is between the institution of the Lord's supper and his arrest in the garden. I mean, this is pretty intense. It's a pretty intense time when Jesus is teaching these things. Let's start with the collect of the day, which is asking that we would both think and accomplish those things that are godly. Let us pray. O God, the giver of all that is good, by your holy inspiration, grant that we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding, accomplish them through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:03:25] Turning into the texts we have again, we're in the season of Easter, so we're going to hear from acts for the first lesson. Acts, chapter ten.
[00:03:35] One John, chapter five. So we're continuing to read through one John as we have been for the last few weeks. We're at the end of one John now. One John, chapter five. We'll look at those verses and then John 15.
[00:03:52] The psalm is psalm 98, which is normally a. It's interesting. We have psalm 98, psalm 98, 96 and 98 are the traditional Christmas psalms. And that's noted by this refrain that shows up in both psalm 96 and 98. Sing a new song to the Lord. That new song has to do with the New Testament, the incarnation of Jesus, that the gospel has come. It's a beautiful thing. Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous hands. His right hand and his holy arms have given him the victory. It's great. By the way, in the Old Testament, when you see the arm of God, it's most often talking about the son of God. And when you see the finger of God, it's most often talking about the Holy spirit, which has to do with writing. And so we hear the Lord is his outstretched arm. Well, that's Jesus. That's, I think, a great way to think about it. Okay, I'm in acts, chapter ten. Now, you'll remember that the theme of the book of acts is given to us by Jesus, who says, I'll cause you to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. And really the story of the book of acts, the storyline is the gospel going out from Jerusalem to Judea. That's like the.
[00:05:09] It would be like Jerusalem is like Austin, and Judea is like Travis county, and then Samaria would be like, I don't know, Kerr county or maybe Texas, but in opposite. Yeah, that would work. Actually, Travis county and the rest of Texas are probably opposed to each other. That's probably a good analogy. And then to the end of the world. That's everywhere else. And so each of those is a hurdle to get out of Jerusalem and into Judea. To get out of Judea and into Samaria and then out of Samaria and into the totally gentile places. These are like hurdles that the Holy Spirit is dragging the church over. And acts chapter ten is one of those huge hurdles. Peter is down. He's called up to the. He's in Simon the tanner's house in Joppa, and he's called up to Caesarea, to the.
[00:05:59] To the house of the centurion, and he finds there, in this pagan house, believers. And he's astonished at it. And he's kind of the text when you hear, well, this is what peter opened his mouth and said. This is Acts 1034.
[00:06:19] Truly, I understand that God chose no partiality. But in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. And the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he's lord of all. You yourselves know what happened through all Judea, beginning from Galilee, etcetera. But we should hear that. We should hear Peter say that like this. Truly, I understand now that God shows partiality. I mean, he's looking at these gentiles who believe in Jesus, and he's. And it. And the Holy Spirit is driving this home to Peter, that these also are christians, that these are followers of Jesus, that these are brothers and sisters.
[00:07:05] And he's processing it in real time. In fact, in acts chapter eleven, he's going to be back in Jerusalem explaining this.
[00:07:14] And at the end of his reflection here in the house, Peter says, this is verse 43, acts 1043 is one of those verses to underline. It's one of the key verses that we go to when we try to understand how the Old Testament is about Jesus, John five. Jesus says to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures, thinking that in them you have life not knowing. They testify of me. So Old Testament is about Jesus. Luke 24. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus says it was necessary for the son of man to suffer before he entered into glory. And he took him through all the law and the prophets, showing him these things. So that the Old Testament is not just about Jesus, John five. It's also about his suffering and entering into glory. Luke 24. But acts ten says that it's not only about that. It's also about the forgiveness of sins that we enjoy through his suffering and resurrection.
[00:08:05] So here it says in verse 43 to him, Jesus, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. So all the prophets bear witness to Jesus that whoever believes in his name will. Will have the forgiveness of sins. God be praised. And while Peter's saying these things. Watch this. The Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the gentiles. They were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. And Peter says, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who've received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So it seems like Peter was not even sure if he should baptize them. Cause after all, they're gentiles. And the Holy Spirit says, watch this. Oh.
[00:08:51] And some of them received the gift of tongues, speaking the gospel in languages they hadn't previously known. And Peter says, we better baptize them. We're trying to. It's the only time in the Bible where the gifts of the spirit come before baptism. And that's the point, really. This text is not.
[00:09:10] Remember, when we read the book of acts, we make the distinction between the texts that are prescriptive and the texts that are descriptive. The prescriptive texts tell us what to do. The descriptive texts tell us how it was done. This is not prescriptive. This is definitely descriptive. The point is that the Holy Spirit reversed the order of things to prove to Peter that these gentiles are christians. Look, they have the Holy Spirit. How can you stop them from being baptized? You should have baptized them already, Peter.
[00:09:39] And Peter goes up to Jerusalem in acts chapter eleven to tell the story. This is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Text key key moment in the early church. The epistle reading is John, chapter one. Sorry, one John five, one eight. And it talks about being born of God. It talks about overcoming the world. And it says, this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.
[00:10:02] Who's the one that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God? And then he came by water and blood. Jesus and the three testify. Well, the three that testify on earth, the water and the blood and the spirit. And there are three that testify. These three agree, the spirit and the water and the blood. So the chief witnesses that we have the spirit. The Holy Spirit and the water. Holy baptism and the blood. The Lord's supper.
[00:10:32] That's what you're doing in church, by the way. You who are washed with the water are coming with the spirit and the word and the blood. It's great. Now, the thing that's so wonderful, well, one of the things that's so wonderful about this portion of the scriptures, first, John, especially the last half of one John, chapters three, four, and five, it's all about faith and love.
[00:10:56] And Luther is reflecting on this, oh, I don't know, in a lot of places in his commentaries, and he says, look, this is really what our life is, faith toward God and love toward one another.
[00:11:10] And that is in his mind when he composes the post communion collect that we use every Sunday.
[00:11:19] We thank you that you have strengthened us through this salutary gift, and we pray that through it, you would strengthen us in faith toward you and in fervent love toward one another. It was Luther who wrote that, and it's. It's really from his study of one John. This is the commandment that we believe in him, who he sent, and that we love those that God has given to us.
[00:11:43] There's too many things to note in the gospel that'll give us room to preach. But a couple of things Jesus picks up where he left off last week. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you abide in my love. So that love does not look like breaking the commandments, but keeping them. If you want a one word summary of the commandments, it's the word love. And then Jesus says, what is this love? It's my commandment. You love one another as I've loved you. And then greater love has no one in this than someone lays down his life for his friends, so that love looks like death, which is not probably what we often think about when we go to see a movie or when we read a love story. It's a dying story. But that's what the gospel is. It's a love story because it's a dying story.
[00:12:31] And then Jesus, with wonder in our hearts, we hear these words. He says, there's no greater love than to lay down my life, than to lay down one's life for his friends.
[00:12:44] And you have to wonder if the apostles are looking around to see who Jesus is talking about.
[00:12:49] I mean, maybe he's going to lay down his life for who? Who are his friends? And then he says, you are my friends.
[00:12:59] You are my friends.
[00:13:02] Now there's a condition. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. In other words, you're not my friends in disobedience and rebellion, but in repentance, in faith and love, you're my friends. And then no longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I've called you friends.
[00:13:21] For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. You didn't choose me. I chose you. I appointed you. You should go bear fruit that your fruit would abide.
[00:13:31] So beautiful. Now, this friend.
[00:13:34] The word friend has a bigger meaning in the scriptures than we normally take. We think of friends as kind of a close associate, someone that we confide in or something. Well, friend had a technical term, especially in the Old Testament. Probably what we use to describe a cabinet, like the president has his cabinet, his appointed advisors, because they're in on the conversation. What do you think we should do about this? That's why the servant doesn't know. The servant just gets the command, and they have to obey it. But the friend is part of the mind of the person making the decision, and that's what Jesus invites us into.
[00:14:12] More on that in the sermon.
[00:14:15] I better not preach it all. Now, one more thing to talk about, the service, and that is, the hymn of the day, is this great lutheran ballad. Dear christians, one and all, rejoice. We've got ten stanzas. We're going to sing all ten, but we're going to split it up. So opening hymn one to five and hymn of the day, six to ten.
[00:14:36] It's a. It's one of the. They published a hymnal in Wittenberg in 1520, 415 25. They published the first lutheran hymnal. I think it had eight hymns in it. Two were by Sparratus, Paul Sparratus.
[00:14:53] Four were by Luther. One was by Elizabeth Kruger, the wife of one of the seminary students. And one was, I think, unknown. This one was one in there. And notice how it's a ballad. It goes through the story of redemption. It talks about my own good works were nothing. God saw my wretched state, he said, and then. And Luther loves to do this. There's this conversation between the father and the Son, back and forth about winning salvation. God said to his beloved son, it's time to have compassion. Go, bright jewel of my crown, and bring to all salvation from sin and sorrow. Set them free, slay bitter death for them that they may live with you forever. The Son obeyed his father's will, was born to virgin mother, and then Jesus the father. The conversation between the father and the Son is over. And now Jesus is talking to us, to me. He said, stay close to me. I'm your rock and castle. In fact, all the way through the end stanzas seven, eight, nine and ten, you have to imagine that Jesus is speaking directly to you and he says, what I on earth have done and taught, guide all your life and teaching. So shall the kingdom's work be wrought and honored in your preaching. But watch lest foes with base alloy the heavenly treasure should destroy this final word. I leave you so. It's a beautiful picture. Beautiful, beautiful picture of the kindness of God, how the father sends the Son. The Son obeys his father's will. He comes to rescue and deliver and save us, the risen and the ascended Lord Jesus Christ. That is what is about to happen. Now. We're also maybe one more quick announcement before you get to church, and that is in Sunday school. We're going to continue our topic of the conscience. So we're looking at the, we got to Hebrews, chapter nine, the first mention of conscience there. We're going to, we're just going to dive in. We honed in on the conscience last week. I think we're going to dive in even more. Last week we had three pictures of the conscience, the home plate umpire, the glass, the window and the courtroom. I think today we'll talk about the four things that the conscience knows, the four different things that inform the conscience, the four ways that the conscience can be wrong and how the conscience can be made right, how there's different kind of hardenings and softenings in the conscience, and how we are to be stewards of a good conscience, possessors of a good conscience. The difference between having a good conscience before God and having a good conscience before man. So we'll talk about, about all that in Bible class today. So please make plans to join us for that. All right, there's your Sunday drive to church. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.