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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolf Mueller. And this is the Sunday Drive to church podcast for July 13, 2025. This is the sixth Sunday I should know. Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Oh, yeah. Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Sixth Sunday after Trinity. It's Good Samaritan Sunday. Let's pray. Here's the colic for the day. Lord Jesus Christ, in your deep compassion, you rescue us from whatever may hurt us.
[00:00:27] Teach us to love you above all things and to love our neighbors as ourselves. For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
[00:00:37] Amen.
[00:00:39] That's a beautiful prayer, by the way. It starts with, remember how the collect has this five parts. It has the address, the rationale, the petition, the gloria, the Amen. So the rationale is it's a prayer to Jesus. In your deep compassion, you rescue us from whatever may hurt us. So step one is, the Lord is our rescue, our helper, our Savior. And then after that, teach us to love so that our love follows the Lord's love for us. And our love is twofold. Remember the command that Jesus gives.
[00:01:11] Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second commandment is, like it, love your neighbors yourself.
[00:01:17] That's the twofold command of love toward God and toward the neighbor that follows after the Lord's mercy. And that's actually a really wonderful summary of our lessons today. We'll walk through them in order. Psalm, Old Testament, epistle, gospel, hymn of the day. Then see how we're doing. The Psalm is the last psalm of book one of the Psalter. Remember the Psalter? The book of Psalms is 150 Psalms, but it's divided into five books. I can never remember the numbers. I just happens, I opened up the Bible and notice that Psalm 42, as a deer pants for water, is the beginning of book two of the Psalms.
[00:01:55] And so there's really. The Psalms is one.
[00:01:58] It's five different collections of 150 Psalms. So this is the last psalm of that first collection, Psalm 41 to the Chief musician, the Psalm of David.
[00:02:08] And you'll notice, I think, that when you look at the last verse, 13, Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel. From everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.
[00:02:19] It's the last verse of Psalm 41. But in a way, it's the last verse of the whole first book of Psalms. It's saying, hey, that we've finished this big book. It's kind of a final doxology. And you get that at the end of every one of these books of the Psalms. Now, what is Psalm 41 about? Remember, we're asking who's talking to whom? And what's the picture?
[00:02:41] It starts out with a blessing, blessed is he.
[00:02:45] That's how the Psalms start, Blessed is the man.
[00:02:49] And so it's kind of cool to note that the first psalm and the last psalm of book one of Psalms starts with that blessing, blessed is the man.
[00:02:57] In Psalm 1, it's the man who rejoices in the Lord's word.
[00:03:03] Here in Psalm 41. Blessed is he who considers the poor.
[00:03:08] The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive. He will be blessed on the earth. You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness.
[00:03:22] You will sustain him on a sickbed.
[00:03:25] Now that's an amazing thing. So this is the blessing on those who consider the poor. And then it lists all of the blessings that come on those who consider the poor, delivered in time of trouble, preserved and kept alive, blessed on the earth, not delivered to the will of his enemies and kept in time of sickness.
[00:03:48] Now it seems like those first three verses for the blessing for the one who considers the poor are now going to be called upon in the rest of the Psalm, the remaining nine verses, because look at what it says in verse 4. I said, Lord, be merciful to me. Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.
[00:04:06] My enemies speak evil of me.
[00:04:11] When will he die, and when will his name perish?
[00:04:14] And if he comes to see me, he speaks lies. His heart gathers iniquity when he goes out. He tells of it so that now it's like David is sick and surrounded by his enemies. And he knows that the Lord has promised for those who consider the poor, who care for those who need help.
[00:04:31] The Lord will look upon him with mercy in times of sickness and in times of distress when they're being attacked. So now David is saying, okay, I'm sick and I'm being attacked by my enemies. So, Lord, I'm ready for that blessing.
[00:04:45] And this is the basic pattern of prayer that the Bible teaches us. Remember, my friend Pastor Pols up in Idaho. He would always say that prayer is basically the Christian says, but, dad, you promised.
[00:04:59] But dad, you promised. So David reminds the Lord, remember, you promised to bless those who take care of the poor. Well, okay, now I need your help. Verse 7. All who hate me whisper together against me, against me they devise my hurt, an evil disease they say clings to him. And now that he lies down, he'll rise up no more. Even my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. So the friends are sitting around mocking David because of his sickness. Who knows what sickness it is? But this is what happens. And now they're piling on because of his sickness.
[00:05:35] So he says, lord, I need your help. This reminds me also that the Psalter, the book of Psalms, does not make sense unless you have enemies.
[00:05:44] In a profound way, the Gospel doesn't make sense unless you have enemies. And if we need to remember that we have enemies, we can remember that we have the world and our own sinful flesh, and especially the devil with his team of demons.
[00:05:58] But the Psalms are always praying against our enemies. And so you can't hardly pray the Psalms unless you know you have enemies.
[00:06:08] But you, O Lord, be merciful to me. That's twice that mercy is listed.
[00:06:12] It's there in verse four, be merciful to me. It's again in verse ten, be merciful to me.
[00:06:20] It's an amazing, amazing promise. For this is, lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy, etc. It's wonderful.
[00:06:30] You, O Lord, have be merciful to me. Raise me up that I may repay them by this. I know that you are well pleased with me because my enemy does not triumph over me. We've had this before, but this idea that vengeance is the opposite of justification.
[00:06:46] Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. From everlasting to everlasting. Amen. Beautiful psalm. Okay, then we go to the Old Testament, which is verses from 18 and 19. We will hear you in a few minutes from Leviticus 19 in church will hear the most often quoted verse from the Old Testament in the New Testament, in other words. So if you ever go on Jeopardy. And this verse is the verse in the Old Testament that's quoted most in the New Testament. You can ding, ding, ding. Say, what is Leviticus 19:18, which says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself? I am the Lord.
[00:07:24] That verse is the most often quoted. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:07:29] But all these passages in Leviticus are kind of leading up to that. And it's the Lord outlining his instructions for our lives. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God.
[00:07:42] That's what he says when he wants to get your attention. It's how he starts the Ten Commandments. I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they did in the land of Egypt where you lived. You shall not do as they do in the land of Cana to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. So the way of the Lord is different from the way of the world, and this is important for us to consider. The Christian life looks different from the normal human life.
[00:08:11] The Lord sets us in the world to be different. Now it's not like his laws are in conflict with natural law or wisdom, but that the flesh and the world have corrupted what's reasonable and good and take us in a way totally contrary to the Lord's wisdom and to what's right.
[00:08:31] So, for example, verse nine when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to the edge of the in other words, you leave some in the field for those who need it. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather fallen grapes in your vineyard. Leave them for the poor and the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. You shall not steal. You shall not deal falsely. You shall not lie to one another. 7th Commandment. 8th Commandment. You shall not swear by my name falsely. 2nd Commandment. You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. 7th Commandment. Wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night into the morning. 7th Commandment.
[00:09:05] You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind.
[00:09:09] You shall fear your God. I am the Lord. You shall do no injustice in court. 9th and 10th Commandments. 8th Commandment 2. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around and slander among your people. 8th Commandment. You shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor. Fifth commandment.
[00:09:29] You shall not hate your brother in your heart. Fifth commandment. But really, the whole second table of the Commandments. Reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.
[00:09:39] You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:09:45] So the Lord summarizes his law. This is how Paul says it. The law of God is summarized in this commandment. Shall love your neighbor as yourself, for love does no wrong to the neighbor. So love is the fulfilling of the law. If you took the Ten commandments and you put it in the dehydrator and you got it down to 2. Love God all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself, and then you all the way down to one love.
[00:10:10] Love is the commandments. Beautiful. And it's connected to the parable that we're going to hear of the Good Samaritan, because he's there loving.
[00:10:19] In fact, let's go over to the parable that's from Luke chapter 10. It's verses 25 to 37. And here's maybe the important part, because I think we're going to preach on this. So I don't want to say too much about. But we can't miss the setup because remember, we want to remember.
[00:10:36] If the Scripture gives us the context of the parables of Jesus, then we want to make sure that the parable is an answer to the question of the context.
[00:10:46] Like, for example, the three parables of the lost sheep, coined sons. In Luke 15.
[00:10:51] It's because the Pharisees were grumbling because Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners. And so those three parables are answering that grumbling of the Pharisee. Well, very explicit in this text, the parable of the prodigal son is answering this conversation from a lawyer.
[00:11:09] And this is unique. The scripture doesn't often do this. But Luke is going to even give us the motives of the question that this lawyer puts to Jesus. Behold, a lawyer stood up and put Jesus to the test, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
[00:11:28] And he said to him, what's written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.
[00:11:41] And he said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. Now, there's an interesting question here. I have not tracked this down. It would take a little bit of work. But when you go back to Deuteronomy and you read the original passage, it just has three things. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength.
[00:11:59] I think Those are the three that's. Let me check on that. Deuteronomy 6:5. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. One, two, three.
[00:12:12] Now, it's Jesus who expands that in Mark chapter 12, when he's asked by someone, what's the greatest commandment? And he answers and says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. That's the first commandment. Now what? I wonder.
[00:12:32] I don't. Well, so I don't understand 100% how Jesus. So Jesus could be just expanding it to four. It could be also an interpretation thing. It could be that Jesus needs to use two words to grab ahold of the one word in the Hebrew. So I don't want to make a ton out of it, but here's what I want to. Here's the impression that it leaves on me is that this lawyer, when Jesus says, what's the greatest commandment?
[00:12:58] He's not quoting Deuteronomy, he's quoting Jesus, that this lawyer was paying attention to the words of Jesus when he was teaching what the greatest commandment is.
[00:13:08] So that's something that's a key to the context here. But then Jesus, okay, so he says, how do you inherit eternal life? And Jesus answers, astonishingly, with the Ten Commandments.
[00:13:20] You would think he would answer with the Gospel, trust in the one sent by the Father, and you'll live forever.
[00:13:27] But he's got work to do on this man's heart, and we're going to see it.
[00:13:31] And so Jesus says to him, you've answered correctly. Do this and you will live.
[00:13:37] Which, okay, that's maybe not so easy.
[00:13:41] And maybe the lawyer realizes it, because the lawyer, and look at what it says in verse 29. He, desiring to justify himself, says to Jesus, and who's my neighbor?
[00:13:56] In other words, he says, I don't know if I can be righteous by loving my neighbor, because there's a lot of people that I don't love. And so I want to make sure that they're not on my neighbor list. And the people that I do love are my neighbors. And the people that I don't love don't count. I don't have to love them. So Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is an amazing thing. This man is going down to Jericho. He fell among robbers. He's half dead in the ditch. A priest walks by, a Levite walks by, but then a Samaritan, as he journeys, he has compassion. As far as I can tell, that word compassion is reserved for Jesus in the Gospels. The only two times it shows up is the Samaritan here who has compassion, not referring to Jesus and the Son.
[00:14:38] I believe the Father of the prodigal Son has compassion.
[00:14:43] And he went to him. He bound up his wounds, he pours on oil and wine, he puts them on his own animal, he brings them to an inn, he takes care of them. He gives money to the innkeeper. Take care of them. And if it costs more, I'll Give it to you when I get back. Then he says, which of these is a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? Now, notice this.
[00:15:02] The lawyer is asking, who is my neighbor? Who's the one who's going to love? And Jesus flips it around and says, who acted as a neighbor to this guy?
[00:15:12] Who was this guy's neighbor? The one who loved him. And he says, oh, the one who showed him mercy. Jesus says, yep, go do likewise. But here's the point. We not only are sent into this world to love and to serve our neighbor, but we also are in desperate need of love and compassion from another.
[00:15:37] And here's this Samaritan who's going to despise people, and not only is he despising the Samaritans.
[00:15:45] So this sermon is also part of our don't be racist doctrine of the Bible.
[00:15:51] But also, these lawyers were tempted to despise Jesus and to not want his help because he, after all, was unclean, eating with sinners.
[00:16:02] But he comes to us to save and rescue.
[00:16:05] Well, more on that, on the sermon. Okay. Colossians, chapter one, verses one to 14 is our epistle. And I think we'll probably get a few lessons from Colossians in the coming weeks.
[00:16:16] I can double check that.
[00:16:18] Yep, this is our first of four weeks of Colossians. So if you wanted to, this wouldn't be a bad thing for your personal devotions and for your family devotions.
[00:16:27] To read through Colossians for the next four weeks, just to get it in your mind, you could read the whole thing once a week. I mean, you can read the whole book of colossians in like, 12 minutes. It's not that long. But to read it a few times in the next month and really get a good sense for it, that'd be a really good thing. We have the opening of Colossians, and it's beautiful because it talks about Paul's prayer. First of all, his prayer of thanksgiving, and then secondly, his prayer for knowledge and spiritual wisdom.
[00:17:07] We did this study on prayer, and one of the weeks we looked at Paul's prayer, and it's so amazing to me how profoundly theological and the spiritual depth that Paul brings to his prayers. So first Thanksgiving and what does he thank God for? Is for God's gift of faith and hope. Sorry, Faith and love and hope. We always want to say faith, hope, and love, because that's 1 Corinthians 13. Faith, hope, and love. These three greatest is love. But every other time it comes up, it's not faith, hope, it's faith, love and hope. And so it is here. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Jesus Christ and of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.
[00:18:01] Faith, love and hope. And if you want, if you're thinking when you go to say your prayers in the morning or whenever, and you're thinking about people and saying, what do we pray for? Well, you can thank the Lord. You can always thank the Lord for their faith and their love and their hope. And then you can pray that the Lord would strengthen their faith and their love and their hope. That's what Paul does.
[00:18:24] We heard before in the word of the. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel which has come to you, indeed the whole world.
[00:18:31] That's one of these verses where we. Paul tells us the gospel has gone into all the world. So that promise of Jesus that he won't come back till the gospel goes into all the world is according to this text and others like it, fulfilled.
[00:18:44] And then he goes on. Verse nine, he says, and so from the day that we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
[00:19:11] So what does Paul pray for? It's an amazing prayer. He prays that the church, the Christian, would be filled with the knowledge of God's will.
[00:19:18] The result is all spiritual wisdom and all spiritual understanding. The result of that is that we walk in a manner that's worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him in our daily life and conduct, bearing fruit in every work and also increasing in the knowledge of God.
[00:19:34] To do this, he continues, Verse 11.
[00:19:37] May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
[00:19:52] And look at this kind of promise to wrap up this prayer. He, God the Father, has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins.
[00:20:09] Oh, boy, that's absolutely beautiful.
[00:20:13] Now we could. So here's a homework assignment if you want it, as you're studying Colossians and looking at this, is to try to take what Paul's praying here and to Pray it in your own words.
[00:20:26] And you could pray for our congregation. This would be a beautiful exercise this week. That.
[00:20:31] That for all the saints that the Lord has gathered to his altar at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas, that you could pray. And first you could thank God that He's given to us who he's called, that he's given to us faith in his word. He's given us love for God and for one another. He's given us hope that endures to the end.
[00:20:55] And also then you can pray that the Lord would fill us with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom, that we would all walk worthy of the Lord, that we would be fully pleasing to him, that we would bear fruit in every good work, that we would increase in the knowledge of God, that we would be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. And the result would be that we would be strengthened to endure and be patient and be joyful and always giving thanks to the Father. Why? Because he has qualified us. He's made us worthy by the gospel to share in the inheritance of the saints and light.
[00:21:33] That's a beautiful prayer.
[00:21:35] Let's pray that for our congregation this week. That's wonderful.
[00:21:40] All right. Hymn of the week is I Try. By the way, I've got a list of the prayers of St. Paul and Man. I need to be better because for a while there I was at least a couple times a week pulling out those prayers from St. Paul and praying them for all of us at St. Paul Lutheran. I need to work on that again because it's been a little while since I've done that.
[00:22:04] Good reminder. Our hymn of the week is where charity and love prevail. Which I thought I figured it was a brand spanking new hymn, I'm sure. I thought this hymn was written in the 50s.
[00:22:14] I don't know if it was written in the 50s, but it was written in the 9th century, so maybe it was written in 850.
[00:22:21] It's an old Latin hymn.
[00:22:23] Nobody even knows where it came from.
[00:22:25] It was translated by a guy who died in 97, so maybe it was translated in the 50s. The music comes from probably 1800. Where charity and love prevail. There God is ever found Brought here together by Christ's love By love are we thus bound. It's a hymn of how we love one another and serve one another and care for one another. Because God has loved and served and cared for us. Let strife among us be unknown Let all contention cease Be God's the glory that we seek Be ours his holy peace.
[00:23:00] Let us recall that in our midst dwells Christ, his only Son. As members of his body joined, we are in him made one. It's great.
[00:23:10] Really beautiful.
[00:23:12] All right. I know our hearts are all crying out for the Lord's mercy for those affected by these floods. Over in Hunt and Ingram and Kerrville and Centerpoint up the Guadalupe river, we're praying that the Lord would continue to have mercy on all the folks that are down there.
[00:23:30] We found that one of the girls who was at Camp mystic was a member at Memorial Lutheran Church, our sister congregation in Houston, Texas. And we're praying for those who mourn, for all who mourn, that the Lord would mix their tears with hope of the resurrection, the life of the world to come. We're praying for those who are still part of the recovery. I was talking to my brother today. Saturday, I'm recording this Saturday. I was talking to him. He's down there helping my cousin who's. Who's friends with the folks that own the Hunt store. They're trying to rebuild. They're trying to move a trailer over there to build a temporary store. So he's been driving around the destruction, says the devastation is pretty bad.
[00:24:09] But checking with the family over there and all the Kerrville people are saying, hey, we've got enough help. They've got warehouses full of stuff, so we're monitoring. I'm trying to keep as close an eye on it as I can to see how we might be helpful.
[00:24:24] The district is putting together some disaster relief collections, and so we'll be doing that at church. Probably start tomorrow, but we'll be doing that more officially to try to gather up some funds to help and hopefully when the search is finished, if it even. I mean, as the search winds down and people are now trying to rebuild, we'll hopefully be able to play a part in that. So we'll keep. Keep an eye out for that and keep praying for that also.
[00:24:54] This is the 13th today. It is next Sunday already is Vicar Krueger and Sarah and the family's last Sunday with us.
[00:25:02] So Vicar is going to teach Bible class this morning, get us started on the Augsburg Confession. And then his farewell Sunday is next Sunday already. So we're going to have a farewell luncheon for him after church on the 20th. So please make plans to stay for that. It's been a real blessing to have Vicar and his family here for this year. God be praised. There's a collection if you want to give a gift for him.
[00:25:25] Make cards available.
[00:25:27] A card for him.
[00:25:28] That's also there as well. Also next Saturday, we're having our continuing ed class, which we host the seminary professors. We've done this every year for the last four years or so. We took last year off to do the digital catacombs, but we've had two or three seminary professors come down. We're doing it again this year. So Dr. Peppercorn coming down to talk to the pastors on Thursday, Friday about preaching, how to preach a sermon, and then Saturday, how to listen to a sermon. Pastor Davis told me this morning we got a good group signed up for that. But if you'd like to jump in, you can send him a note, let him know that you'd like to join. It should be a really wonderful Saturday thinking about, really, I think, some practical things about, like how to listen. But also why.
[00:26:10] Why do we do this weird thing every week where we gather together in church to listen to a guy talk for, you know, 10 to 45 minutes?
[00:26:24] What are we doing?
[00:26:25] Why does the Lord set this up? What's the point of preaching?
[00:26:31] And what am I listening for?
[00:26:34] What do I expect to hear from the pulpit? And why do I expect to hear that? And what is the Holy Spirit doing through that?
[00:26:42] Paul wrote to the Corinthians. He says it pleased the Lord to save us through the foolishness of the word preached. Which is amazing to think about, that this is foolishness, that we do this, that we get together to listen to preaching. It's foolishness. And yet it's the foolishness that the Lord has chosen to use to save us.
[00:27:03] So we'll do that next Saturday, too. So that'll be great joy. So if you can join us for that. All right. That should be good. We'll see you soon. God's peace be with you.