6.15.25 Sunday Drive to Church

[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Luther Church. It's Pastor Wolfraethler, and you're listening to the Sunday Drive to Church for Holy Trinity, Sunday, June 15, Year of our Lord 2025. [00:00:10] Most of the collects that we're going to talk about, the liturgy and the hymns. We got some special stuff today, especially the Athanasian Creed. This beautiful hymn is one of my favorites. Triune God Be Thou Our Stay. Some wonderful texts, Psalms, etc. We're going to talk about it all. We'll start with a collect which is addressed as some of the prayers on Trinity Sunday. And this is really one of the only times that you get this. But the prayer is addressed to all three persons of the Holy Trinity, to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's a prayer that the Lord would give us his Holy Spirit and the wisdom that comes down from above, so that we would rightly confess him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So let's pray. [00:00:51] Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us grace to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity by the confession of a true faith and to worship the unity in the power of the Divine Majesty. [00:01:03] Keep us steadfast in this faith and defend us from all adversities. [00:01:08] For you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit, live and reign one God, now and forever. [00:01:14] Amen. [00:01:17] Amen. That language of unity and Trinity. [00:01:21] We'll confess that also when we're saying the Athanasian Creed, that it comes up a couple of times in there. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll start with Psalm 8, which is this. The Lord has exalted his name and his glory above all else. This Psalm 8 comes up in Hebrews also. What is man, that you are mindful of him, and the Son of man, that you care for him. You've made him a little lower than the we say here heavenly beings, angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. That is understood to be. [00:01:54] Well, this is an anthropological psalm talking about humanity. But even more than that, it's a Christological psalm talking about Christ. [00:02:04] And that verse is quoted in Hebrews about the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus. [00:02:13] Absolutely stunning and wonderful text. A little lower than the angels crowned him with glory and honor. You've given him dominion over works of your hands. [00:02:23] And then, O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. In fact, this Psalm 8 is a hymn of praise to the name of God. That's how it starts and that's how it ends. O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the Earth. So you'll see it. The first verse and the last verse are exactly the same. Marvelous. And then we turn to Proverbs, chapter 8. [00:02:49] We read from the first four verses of Proverbs 8, and then we skip ahead to verse 22 and read all the way to 31. Proverbs is this collection of wisdom verses by King Solomon. Mostly. There are some other authors that get added on to the book of Proverbs. But I remember my professor taught me that Proverbs was the handbook that Solomon wrote, the textbook that Solomon put together for his university because he was so wise that all the kings from all over the world world, were sending their sons, the princes of the world, to Solomon so that he could teach them. So that Proverbs was his curriculum. And it's mostly speaking about wisdom. [00:03:30] And wisdom is. Well, how do we define wisdom? As applying the ten Commandments to our life? That's wisdom. At least earthly wisdom. [00:03:39] But here in Psalm, in Proverbs, chapter eight, excuse me, it switches to this really prophetic understanding of wisdom. In fact, wisdom becomes personified. [00:03:53] That means wisdom itself is speaking. We should say wisdom himself is speaking. [00:04:00] And we realize that, starting in verse 22, that something more is going on with wisdom than you would think. And it turns out that wisdom is Jesus, and Jesus is wisdom. [00:04:13] And he's talking about his eternal generation and his role of creation. [00:04:19] So listen to what it says in verse 22. The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old ages ago. I was set up at the beginning, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. That's the begottenness of the sun. When there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped before the hills, I was brought forth before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first cursed of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there. [00:04:50] When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limits so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth. And I was beside him like a master workman. And I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him, always rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. [00:05:15] This is this doctrine of the co. Eternal, co. Majestic, if it's an adjective, that Jesus is co. Eternal and co. Majestic with the Father. And the way we can Think about it is that if you just have a line that divides creator and creation, and we know that God is on the creator side and everything else is on the creation side, and this is the question is, what side of that line is Jesus on? And this psalm answers so gloriously for us. He's on the Creator side, not the creation. He's begotten, not made. [00:05:58] He is of the Father. [00:06:01] So marvelous. So this is one of the most wonderful confessions of the divinity of Christ in the Old Testament. It's interesting that that's really, in some ways, the theme of Trinity. These Bible passages that don't even really talk about the Trinity, they mostly talk about the divinity of Christ. [00:06:19] And that's the way we get to the doctrine of the Trinity. Here is Jesus, who is also God, and he's a man. And we have to say, okay, what does that mean of Jesus, and what does that mean of God? [00:06:32] Same thing is happening in Acts, chapter two. Well, look at the gradual. It's beautiful. From Romans 10. The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. The word of faith we proclaim. For with the heart one believes in is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. [00:06:48] It's great. [00:06:49] That's that text. [00:06:51] And then Paul goes on to say, well, how can you hear? Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. How can you hear unless someone's preached? And how can they preach unless they're sent? [00:07:00] How beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news. That whole thing is right there. It's wonderful, wonderful passage. Romans 10, Acts, chapter 2. We continue with the sermon of Peter. We got a little bit of it last week for Pentecost. We got the tongues of fire and all the different preaching. And then we got Peter beginning to stand up. We get the middle of his sermon. Now we see that he's preaching from the psalms. [00:07:25] He quotes two of the Psalms, Psalm 16 and Psalm 110. And he's contrasting in his sermon, David with Jesus. [00:07:33] We can't miss that, because that's probably the whole point. He's preaching from David, which is saying here, David is great and he's a prophet, but he is saying that Jesus is much more. In fact, Peter's going to point to the grave of King David and say, look, he's still there. His bones are there. Remember, he didn't ascend into heaven, but this one Jesus did. Men of Israel, hear the words, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by you, to you, by God, with mighty works and wonders and signs. That God did through him in your midst. And you yourselves know this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death. It was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad, my tongue rejoiced. My flesh will also dwell with hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption. [00:08:39] You have made known to me the paths of life. [00:08:42] You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Notice how Peter understands that Psalm 16 to be spoken by Jesus himself. And he's talking of himself as the Holy One of God. It says, you will not let me see corruption. [00:08:57] This is, by the way, why we say that when Jesus was in the grave, even though his soul was with the Lord in paradise, his body was there in the grave. His body was still united to his divine nature and therefore did not decay. [00:09:13] It didn't start to stink, it didn't see any corruption, because it was not even his body was not stained with sin. It's wonderful. Now then, Peter's going to lean into him here. He already said you crucified him. [00:09:27] He goes on to say this, brothers, may I say to you with confidence about the Patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day, right down the street from where he's preaching. [00:09:40] Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants his seat on the throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. [00:10:00] This Jesus God raised up and that we're all witnesses of being, therefore exalted the right hand of God. And having received from the Father the promise of the Spirit, he poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. [00:10:12] So how did we get here? Peter saying, how did we get right here with all of us able to preach in different languages that we didn't know? How do we get there? Well, we got there because God kept his promise to King David and set his seed on the throne. And that seed is Jesus, and his sitting on the throne is his resurrection and his ascension. [00:10:31] This, by the way, is a really important point when we're talking to our dispensational friends. Who are still waiting for this promise to be fulfilled and for Jesus to sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem. We say, look, Peter already preached that that promise is fulfilled. And he goes on to preach Psalm 110:1. [00:10:49] For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. [00:10:58] That's the text that Jesus taught his disciples when he confounded the Sadducees and Pharisees in the temple on Holy Tuesday. [00:11:08] The Lord said to my Lord, sit here in my right hand. How can David call his son his Lord? The answer is that he is both God and man. And his sitting at the right hand is his ascension, where he takes up all rule for us, so that Jesus, unlike David, does not stay dead, but is up out of the grave and ruling all things. [00:11:31] So Peter concludes at least this portion of the sermon. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord in Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. [00:11:42] And this making is by the fact that the Lord raised Jesus from the dead and ascended him, granted him this ascension into heaven and granted him to sit down at his right hand. That all of that is this gift from God the Father, to testify that Jesus is the one. [00:12:01] He is the true, eternal, only begotten God of God, light of light, etc. [00:12:10] Which brings us to the gospel. Now, I'll admit to you, this is a curious gospel. I think I know why they picked it, but it's the middle of a fight between Jesus and the Jews and it's getting pretty ugly. I don't know if this has ever happened to you when. [00:12:27] If you've walked up to a couple of people and you just thought they were chatting and you were going to see if you could join in the conversation. And you realize after a couple seconds that they're actually angry with each other and they're arguing with one another, and then you just sort of want to slowly back away. [00:12:42] What did I get myself into here? [00:12:45] That's kind of how John chapter 8 is. [00:12:50] If you sort of. Especially verse 48. I'll read it to you in a minute. And could you imagine, like, walking up and this is the first thing you hear. There's the Samaritans and there's Jesus, and they're talking with one another and you're like, hey, I wonder what they're talking about. And you walk up and the Jews answer Jesus and say, are we not right in saying that? You're a Samaritan and that you have a demon. [00:13:11] What? [00:13:12] That escalated quickly. I mean. [00:13:15] And Jesus does not back down. He says, I don't have a demon. I honor my Father. You dishonor me. I don't seek my own glory. There's one who seeks it. He's the judge. Truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never see death. [00:13:28] And then the Jews say, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died. The prophets died. [00:13:34] And you say, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never see death. [00:13:38] Are you greater than our father, Abraham who died and the prophets who died? Who do you make yourself out to be? The answer is yes, he is greater than them, right? He is greater than the prophets, he is greater than Abraham, but they can't abide by it. [00:13:53] Who do you make yourself out to be? Jesus said, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing, but it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, he is our God, but you haven't known him. If you knew him. [00:14:04] I know him. If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you. [00:14:09] But I do know him and I keep his word. [00:14:11] Your father, Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. [00:14:17] So the Jews said to him, you're not even 50 years old and you've seen Abraham. [00:14:22] Jesus was at this point, 32 or 33. [00:14:26] Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you. Before Abraham was I am, now that I am. [00:14:40] There are seven. When we talk about the I am statements of John, we normally are thinking of the seven statements that Jesus makes. I am the gate, I am the good shepherd. I am the water of life. I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the light of the world. [00:14:55] Those I am statements, but there are also seven sort of raw, straight up I am statements that John puts in there. And a lot of times we miss them because the English doesn't know quite what to do with them. Just this weird thing sitting there. I am like, when the soldiers come to find Jesus in the garden, they say, are you Jesus? And he says, I am. And they fall, over, here we have it, though also I am. [00:15:24] The reason why it is so profound is it's bound up to the divine name Yahweh. [00:15:31] It goes back to the burning bush. [00:15:33] When Moses, remember, he's watching the sheep and he sees this bush and it's on fire, but it's not being consumed. So he goes to look at It. And the Lord says, take off your shoes. You're on holy ground. And who are you, Lord? And he says, I am who I am. [00:15:48] And then he gives him his name, Yahweh, which is a derivative of I am. [00:15:53] And so when Jesus says these words to the Jews before Abraham was, I am. [00:16:02] He's saying. He's claiming that he is God, the eternal, uncreated, all majestic, creator and ruler of all things that he's got. [00:16:19] And they get it. I mean, they know what he's saying. [00:16:23] We know that because verse 59 says they picked up stones to throw at him. [00:16:28] Every time people pick up stones to throw at Jesus, you know that he's just claimed to be God. That's one of the. It's like a way that the Holy Spirit has underlined the fact, because that would be blasphemy. And they say, now we're going to stone you to death. And so they pick up stones. But he walks through the crowd. [00:16:46] He hid himself, and he left the temple. [00:16:49] So here, this is one of these beautiful places where Jesus claims to be God, because, in fact, he is God. And we see it. [00:16:57] We're going to confess after the gospel, before the sermon, and even before the sermon hymn, we're going to confess the Athanasian Creed. [00:17:04] I always think every Trinity Sunday, we got to do this more than just once a year. [00:17:09] But we'll say it all together because we don't say it that often. And so it's good for us all to confess all of the words. It's a longer creed, though. It's a couple of pages, and it's not from Athanasius. [00:17:20] It was named after him as an honorific because Athanasius was the great defender of the Trinitarian doctrine. [00:17:34] And so because this Trinitarian doctrine withstood all the assaults against it, it was honored. [00:17:43] Athanasius was honored. I think even after he died, they named this after him. It's certainly his doctrine. [00:17:49] There's really two big parts. Unlike the Nicene and the Apostles Creed, which have three major parts, this has two major parts. The first is the confession of the Trinity, and the second is the confession of the Incarnation. [00:18:02] And these are the two great mysteries of the Christian faith. [00:18:06] These are the delineators of Christianity. The confession of the Trinity and the confession of the Incarnation. And so these boundaries are. We want to have clear in our mind. [00:18:18] It's a difficult creed because it gets into a lot of the specifics of our Trinitarian doctrine. But it's good, and we should pay close attention to it and make sure that we conform our own confession to the words that are here. Now, there's a couple of difficult spots that I'll. I'll point out in just a minute. [00:18:38] One comes right at the beginning where it says, whoever must be saved above all must hold the Catholic faith. And we say, hey, wait a minute. Catholic? I thought we were Lutheran. [00:18:47] Remember that Catholic simply means everywhere and always. So it covers everything, so according to the whole. So when you see the Catholic faith, that means the faith that's confessed by all people of all time. [00:19:02] So it's not the Roman Catholic Church, capital R, capital C, it's the Catholic faith. The universal faith, the Catholic faith, is that we worship one God and Trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons or dividing the substance. The Father is one person, the sons another, the Holy Spirit another. But the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, the glory equal, the majesty co eternal. [00:19:28] So this confession, this is this beautiful confession of one God in three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, but always in only one God. And it gets into the attributes, and here's where it kind of breaks it down for us. And this is also really wonderful. [00:19:44] Such as the Father is. Such as the Son, such as the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Spirit uncreated, the Father infinite, the Son infinite, the Holy Spirit infinite, the Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they're not three eternals, but one eternal. They're not three uncreated or three infinites, but one uncreated and one infinite. The Father Almighty, but not three almighties, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit almighty. Sorry. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. But they're not three Gods. There's one God. [00:20:15] The Father is Lord, Son is Lord, Holy Spirit is Lord. But there's not three Lords, one Lord. [00:20:19] So that we are confessing the Trinity and unity and the unity and Trinity. In fact, that language is going to come up here in line 25. The whole three persons are CO eternal with each other and co equal. [00:20:33] Those are. If you want to. Well, I don't know if you should underline words in the hymnal in the pew. Ah, you could if you underline it lightly. But if you bring your own hymnal, which is what we should probably all do. [00:20:48] This line 25 is real, key, coeternal and co equal. [00:20:53] So that in all things, as has been stated above, the Trinity in unity and unity in Trinity is to be worshipped. [00:21:00] Then in 27 we switch to the Incarnation. [00:21:05] It is also necessary for everlasting salvation that one faithfully believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:21:11] He is God begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages, and he's man born from the substance of his mother in this age. That should remind us of the small catechism. I believe that Jesus Christ, true God begotten of the Father before all worlds, and also true man born of the Virgin Mary is my Lord. [00:21:29] Athanasian Creed continues. Perfect God, perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh. [00:21:34] So that's also. I mean, you see, there's a bunch of heresies that are in the back that are being rejected. This is an interesting one. Some. [00:21:42] Oh, this was apollinarianism, I think, or adoptionism, or some combination of the two. They said that Jesus had a human body, but his soul, the human soul was replaced by the spirit. [00:21:55] And another person came along and said, well, Jesus had a human body and a human soul, but his spirit was replaced by the Holy Spirit. [00:22:04] And the orthodox confessors of the faith, we say, no, no, no, no. Jesus has a human body and a human soul. [00:22:14] It's not like he lacks nothing of our humanity. [00:22:17] So perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh, equal to the Father with respect to his divinity, less than the Father with respect to his humanity. [00:22:28] And this is why the Bible, Jesus will say things like, the Father is greater than I, speaking in regards to his humanity. [00:22:35] But then he'll say, the Father and I are one in regards to his divinity. [00:22:40] He is God and man. He's not two, but one. One, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God. [00:22:51] And this is a very maybe subtle but important and distinguishing factor that we do not say that the divine nature was transformed into humanity, but rather that the humanity of Jesus was taken up into union with his divinity. [00:23:13] And this maintains the doctrine that the divine nature does not change, but that the divine nature was. [00:23:21] The divine nature in the Incarnation assumed the human nature of Christ. [00:23:27] This is the stuff that we're going to be meditating on forever in eternity. So great as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ. So it uses the example. There's probably three examples that come to us from the ancient church that explain how Jesus can be both divine and human at the same time. The one is the picture of fire and iron. [00:23:51] So you imagine taking a rod of iron and you heat it up in the fire, and the fire goes through the rod, it's glowing, and yet the rod still remains iron. That's the first analogy. The second analogy that the church likes to use is of a body and soul. So we have a body and a soul, and they're together, and they make one person. [00:24:13] The third is the burning bush, kind of like the fire and iron that the bush is there burning. So you have fire and the bush, but one doesn't destroy the other. They subsist there together. [00:24:28] It talks about the suffering of Jesus. He suffered for our salvation, descended to hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. At his coming, all people will rise again with their bodies and give an account concerning their own deeds. And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire. [00:24:56] That's the other part that causes a lot of problems. But it's almost a direct quote from John, chapter five. And also there's a very similar passage in Romans and in Corinthians that judgment will be based on works. Now, we understand that it's not our works that save us, but our works become proof or fruit of the faith that the Lord has given to us. And so those works show up. And I think this is my own suspicion, so take it or leave it. [00:25:28] But I think that the Lord, if he was to come back in glory and say, okay, line up everybody who believes in me coming over here to eternal life and the resurrection, and everyone who doesn't, over there. And the people over there say, well, that's not fair. For whatever reason, we didn't, you know, why should we try to be good to get into heaven? And now it's a different standard. [00:25:46] And so the Lord says, okay, fine, let's do it your way. Everyone who's good, line up over here. And everyone who's evil, line up over there. And it just so happens that it's the same, because Hebrews 11 tells us, apart from faith, it's impossible to please God. [00:26:01] I was looking at this great passage. In fact, I made a little YouTube video about it on Friday about this passage about good works in the Book of Concord. And Philip Melanchthon says, because we're still in the flesh, our good works are corrupted by sin. But because of faith, they are truly good, holy and perfect works and acceptable to God and delighting to him. [00:26:25] So that even our good works have to be purged by faith. And then they are acceptable to God. So that's what's going on there. The hymn of the day we'll finish with this hymn of the day is 5:05 triune God be thou our stay. This is. [00:26:39] I think Luther wrote this hymn for the first Sunday. So I have a. Here's another theory of mine. [00:26:48] You got my Judgment Day theory. Here's my Luther's triune God theory. [00:26:54] You know, it's an old custom that the church doesn't sing alleluia during Lent. And Luther was not. He did not like that. He would make fun of it. He thought it was goofy. I'm sure they didn't do it. [00:27:05] But Luther. I just. I think Luther probably rolled his eyes. So he wrote this hymn, and I think he wrote this hymn for the first Sunday of Lent and put in a big alleluia. [00:27:18] So sing we alleluia almost on purpose. So we always sing this as the hymn of the day on Lent 1. But the modern hymnal has this little Lent and adjustment. O Lord have mercy on us. [00:27:32] So I guess we've played the trick back on Luther trying to get us to sing alleluias. That's really something. But we'll sing all three stanzas. But it's a hymn to memorize. [00:27:42] It's a beautiful spiritual warfare hymn. The three stanzas are only different in the first line. God the Father be our stay. Jesus Christ be thou our stay. Holy Spirit be our stay. [00:27:53] But all the rest of the hymn is the same. So you can try to memorize it after we sing it three times. Oh, let us perish. Never cleanse us from our sins we pray and grant us life forever. It's a prayer for eternal life. [00:28:04] Keep us from the evil one. [00:28:06] Uphold our faith most holy. [00:28:09] Let us trust thee solely with humble hearts and lowly. Let us put God's armor on with all true Christians running our heavenly race and shunning the devil's wiles and cunning. [00:28:20] Amen. Amen. Let this be done. So sing we alleluia. So it's a prayer that we would be faithful, that we would wear God's armor, that we would trust in the Lord and that the Lord would keep us through all the troubles of this life to the joy of life eternal. It's a good one. God the Father be our stay holy. If you were, I think I would put this on my top five of hymns to memorize, actually, because it's so comprehensive and helpful for. For spiritual warfare. [00:28:48] That's There it is. All right, well, let's see what else we got in the bulletin here. We got the. [00:28:54] Ah, well, Pastor Davis and I are going to be taking our kids up to catechism camp and so say a prayer for us. We'll leave after church and we'll get there Monday afternoon. We'll be back Friday afternoon. [00:29:08] So say a prayer that the Lord would use that also and most especially to bless the kids and to press the word of God and the catechism deeper into their hearts. We're going to be studying the Ten Commandments this week, so that'll be good. I think we got 120 kids coming from 20 to 15 different churches, so that'll be really fantastic. We also have our continuing ed class coming up. I hope you guys have this on your calendar. Saturday, July 19, Dr. Peppercorn will be here. He's teaching Thursday, Friday how to preach. And you can come to that also. It might not be that useful, but it'd be fun if you just want to do some theology. [00:29:41] But on the Saturday the 19th, we're going to talk about how to listen to a sermon, which is hard, and talk about what that means. We also have the boat party coming up. That's June 21st. You can sign up for that. [00:29:56] That'll be really great. Go and float on Lake Travis. So that'll be super, super fun. [00:30:02] Summer Sloyd classes are there if you want to take one of those. That's really good. [00:30:07] I think that's what we've got. So drive safe. We'll see you in a few minutes. God's peace be.