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[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. This is the Sunday drive to church for August 18, the year of our Lord 2024, the 13th Sunday after the feast of Pentecost. We've been celebrating the 10th Sunday after the feast of Pentecost for three weeks now. We kind of got stuck in that loop on the bulletin, but anyway, we got it straightened out. 13th Sunday after Pentecost. Today, continuing to hear from John, chapter six. We're actually at the end of John chapter six now. So we've had about a month considering this great bread of life discourse from the lips of our Lord Jesus. Jesus preaching there at Capernaum about how he is the bread that comes down from heaven, and his bread is his flesh is given for the life of the world. So we'll continue to hear about that and some other beautiful verses. In fact, a lot of continuous readings today. We continue, in fact, to get the last half of psalm 34. We had the first half last week. We continue in Ephesians, chapter five. We had just turned the corner in Ephesians five last week. Continue in John, chapter six. So a lot of wonderful stuff. But before that we have the colleague for the day, which is a riff on John chapter 17, where Jesus says, this is eternal life. This is from the prayer of Jesus, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent to know God is to live.
[00:01:25] It's pretty amazing that this is why we go to church, so that we would know God and be known by him according to his kindness. And the collect is based on that, remembering this form for the collect, that there's the address, the rationale, the petition, the conclusion, the amen.
[00:01:44] That rationale is here. It says, whom to know is everlasting life.
[00:01:51] And that's again that text. So we'll pray this prayer.
[00:01:55] Almighty God, whom to know is everlasting life, grant us to know your son Jesus to be the way, the truth, and the life that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:02:18] I'm just looking at the front of the bulletin, by the way, Jonathan's continuing to give us some beautiful pictures of our stained glass windows, and this is a great game to play with the kids. Can you find that window that we have? The ecce agnus dei. Behold the lamb of God. And it's an interesting thing to look at. That's Latin. It's to look at our windows and say how many languages are in these stained glass windows? I think we have Latin, Greek, Hebrew, maybe German. Yeah, there's German in there, and there's got to be English. All these different languages. Okay, our intro to psalm 34. Starting halfway through the psalm.
[00:02:58] This psalm has 22 verses. A lot of times when a psalm has 22 verses, it's an indication that it's an acrostic psalm, and I wouldn't be surprised. Let me look here. Uh huh. Yep. This is one of those psalms every. Wow. How about this? It's amazing.
[00:03:15] So there's 22 letters in the hebrew Alphabet, just like, you know, there's 26 letters in the english Alphabet. And one of the forms of Hebrew poetry is to take the, to take the letters and to build a verse. Olaf beth gimel daleth hay zion het tet yod kaf lamda munu. So I'm just looking down here. So this is exactly what David is doing in psalm 34. He takes each of the letters in turn, and then he builds out a verse based on that hebrew letter. So each of the verses in psalm 32 begin with a different hebrew letter, and that's an even more. So there's a couple of things about that one. It's one of the forms of Hebrew poetry which is very structural. Hebrew poetry is in the structure of the poem, in its parallels, in its chiastic structure, in this acrostic structure, the ABC structure. That's where the beauty of the Hebrew poetry is. It shows how it's a very orderly form of poetry. And in fact, the beautiful irony of this is that here we have psalm 34, which is when KIng DaVid was crazy, when he went down to the Philistine city and he was scratching at the gate and drooling in his beard. So that the king says, this is my problem. I don't have enough crazy people around here. I need one more. Send them away. And David escapes from his hands by acting insane. And he, and he composes this beautiful poem about wisdom, about seeing the Lord's, about the radiant face of the Lord, and seeing the Lord's face. And he does it in this incredibly orderly way. It's pretty amazing to think about. And this psalm, in fact, the first, this is one of the most important psalms. These 1st 123455 verses are quoted by Peter one. Peter 310 quotes psalm 34, verse twelve and following. So the very first words that we'll sing, what man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking. Deceit turn away from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
[00:05:47] So this is a poem of wisdom. The Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
[00:06:01] In fact, verse 20 is quoted in John 19. He keeps all his bones. Not one of them is broken. That's what John quotes as a promise that was fulfilled when Jesus remember, the soldiers were going around breaking the legs of the people crucified on his right and his left so that they, they would die, so they could take their bodies off of the cross on the Sabbath. But they come to Jesus and find that he's died already. So they pierce his side, and the blood and water flow out.
[00:06:29] And John says, this was to fulfill the promise. John 34 20. So this section that we're going to be singing on Sunday comes up a lot in the New Testament, and it has a real wisdom feel to it, which matches up with our reading from proverbs.
[00:06:46] Proverbs is proverbs, chapter nine, verses one to ten is our Old Testament lesson. There's a couple of things to notice here.
[00:06:55] The first is proverbs eight is talking, really is wisdom personified, and it's really talking about Jesus, about how he was with the Lord in the beginning, before the creation, so forth and so on. That proverbs eight is really key. And then it switches now proverbs nine back to talking about wisdom as a woman. And here's the contrast that you might miss. Since we haven't been studying all of proverbs, but that there's really two women, we'll remember that proverbs is probably the textbook that Solomon had written not only for his sons, who would be kings and princes, but also in this university that Solomon's established that all the kings of the world are sending their sons to, to learn his wisdom.
[00:07:44] And he's. And Solomon is setting up this contrast. There's two women who are calling for you young men. The one is the immoral woman who's trying to seduce you into chasing after your own desires. And the other is Lady Wisdom, who's inviting you into her home, where there's a wisdom and peace and order.
[00:08:12] And so here we get the, the calling of lady wisdom to come and eat her bread and drink the wine that I have mixed. Leave your simple ways. This is verse six. Leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight.
[00:08:31] Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse. But whoever reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Don't reprove a scoffer or hate you, but reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
[00:08:46] I have to. Dear Saints, I have to tell you that this is one of my favorite themes in the whole book of proverbs, is that part of what it means to be a wise man is to be good at being rebuked. And it's a deep comfort for me for two reasons. But number one is that I always think that to be wise is to be right. But that's not. If the wise man was right, he wouldn't need to be reproved and corrected and rebuked. So this is the real comfort, too, is that to be wise is just to be good at being wrong.
[00:09:22] It's to be good at listening to other people who are telling you when you've made mistakes, to be quick to repent.
[00:09:29] It's hard, but it's at least hopeful. We're not shooting for being right. We're shooting at being really good at being wrong. That's the idea of wisdom. And it, in fact, gets to the theme of the proverbs, to the whole book of proverbs, verse nine, and then the last verse ten. Give instruction to the wise man. He'll be still wiser. Teach a righteous man, and he'll increase in learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy one is insight.
[00:10:03] So that wisdom begins with fearing God, knowing that, well, we're not authorized to be afraid of anything else but that the Lord is judge. And on the last day, he will judge the living and the dead, and we will stand before that judgment. And the awareness of his judgment is where our wisdom starts. I, by the way, think so. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
[00:10:27] Faith in the Lord is the heart of wisdom and love. For the Lord is the end of wisdom. That's me filling it out. So we fear is the beginning. What's the middle and the end? I think it's love and trust, but that's my own. That's my own idea. You can disagree with me there. The epistle lesson is Ephesians, chapter five. So we're continuing to hear Paul in Ephesians. And in this text, he's really going to contrast what it means to be in darkness versus in light. So, remember last week he was talking about the flesh and the spirit and how the two are at war with one another. Now he's going to continue that theme under the imagery of darkness and light and remembering also. This is important. I think it was Doctor Kleinig told me some years ago, he said, brian, you can't get St. Paul until you see that he writes and he thinks in pictures.
[00:11:18] And so the picture. So you gotta, when you're reading St. Paul, just like the psalms and anything else, you gotta say, what's the picture? And the picture is the difference between night and day, between darkness and light.
[00:11:34] He says in verse eight, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
[00:11:44] In fact, this would be a good exercise for the kids, too, to circle the darkness and circle the light in the text and track it through. Try to discern what's pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it's shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it also becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says, awake, o sleeper, arise from the dead. Christ will shine on you. Awake from sleep, that's going from darkness to light.
[00:12:17] It's the business of waking up in the morning, and Paul sees this, waking up in the morning, going from sleeping to being awake, from laying down to standing up, from the stars to the sun, as the picture of conversion and rebirth. And we are the enlightened ones, the awakened ones, the ones that have risen from the dead, as the Lord has given the gift of the resurrection. It's beautiful, beautiful text. In fact, at the end here, there's a couple of themes that come up that are so important. Don't be drunk with wine, which is debauchery, reminding us the Christian is always pursuing sober, soberness. Be filled with the spirit. Address one another. Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. And then verse 20, giving thanks always for everything to the Lord. This came up again a few times in conversation this week, that the primacy of thanksgiving in our christian life, that when you wake up in the morning and you're saying your prayers, the first thing to think after, maybe after you pray the Lord's prayer, the creed, what am I thankful for? I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, my lord, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger and to be, and to be thankful people.
[00:13:40] I pray that for me and for all of us, that when people would think of us, they would say, oh, they were so grateful. They were so thankful.
[00:13:49] That church there, St. Paul Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas, it's full of a bunch of thankful people.
[00:13:56] And then verse 21, this is interesting, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
[00:14:04] That is the setup verse for what comes next, because Paul's going to talk about marriage, husband and wife. And the very next verse is going to be, wives, submit to your husbands. But you know, that word isn't even in the verse 22. It doesn't say, wives, submit to your husbands. It says, wives to your husbands as to the Lord. And this is, it's just picking up the verb from verse 21, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives to your husbands as to the Lord. So that the christian life, the basic christian life, is one of submission.
[00:14:41] If you wanted to say, what's a word that defines what it means to live like a Christian? The word you're looking for is submissive. The Greek is hupotaso, which means I. Hoopo means under. Taso means order. So we're under God's ordering of things. And it starts when we're children, because we're born, every one of us has that vocation that we were born to a father and a mother, and that start of our life as under the order of our parents is the basic idea. And that goes whenever we're in all these other orders in the world, and we're citizens of a government, we're members of a church, members of a family.
[00:15:27] There's husband and wife, there's children and parents, and there's an order.
[00:15:31] And most of us are in the office of submission now. Just like love has different shapes, submission has different shapes.
[00:15:42] Like I submit to my mom and dad in a different way than I submit to the government, to my county commissioner, or to the policeman.
[00:15:55] And I submit to the policeman in a different way than I submit to my pastor. I probably have like five pastors. So I have to figure out how to submit to each of them different ways because it looks very, very different. So when Paul says, husbands or wives submit to your husbands, that's like, well, okay, yeah, I know that. But how? What's the shape of submission? How is the wife supposed to be submissive to her husband? It's not in the same way that a child is submissive to her parents. Right? And Paul says right as to the Lord.
[00:16:27] So that the submissiveness of wife to husband is very, very different than the submissiveness of children to parent, which is also very, very different than the submissiveness of people to pastor, the way, you know, Paul says, obey those who rule over you in the Lord. So that there's a submissiveness of the, of people to pastor, which is kind of funny to think about. But I'll tell you that that submissiveness in one way is much narrower than any other submissiveness that you are required to do by the Lord. And yet in another way, it's very, it has a depth that it claims on us, because the Lord has given to me as your pastor the authority to publicly forgive your sins and to bring his word to you.
[00:17:21] So your submission to me as your pastor goes only so far as the Lord's word.
[00:17:29] I'm not authorized to give you any instructions. That is one syllable past what the Bible says.
[00:17:39] If I were, for example, starting to say, hey, everybody who lives in an even numbered house, you got to paint your roof pink or something, you'd be like, what are you talking about? You have no authority over anything unless the Lord speaks.
[00:17:51] So the submissiveness to your pastor is a very, very narrow submissiveness. It only goes so far as the Lord's word.
[00:18:01] But the Lord has sent me to preach the word and to bring the Lord's word to you. And so that's where that is. So it should be a joyful sort of thing, and it's probably helpful for us. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I think I am naturally rebellious. Maybe some of you are, too. And some of you, I think some people are naturally submissive. I think most of us are naturally rebellious.
[00:18:25] And it's hard to think that the Lord is calling us to a life of submission. But that's what the fourth commandment does. So that we are, most of us, both under authority and over authority. But that being under authority is the baseline shape of the christian life.
[00:18:43] I hope this all makes sense. So, especially in the christian church, this is what Paul's talking about, that we submit to one another, especially as the common vocation of christian friend, so that we are also bringing blessings to one another by the Lord's word and we're able to receive those from each other.
[00:19:03] This came up, I've been thinking about it also because I did a little video this week about women pastors.
[00:19:11] Maybe I'll put a link to it in the See a Sunday email.
[00:19:15] Because both the church in Germany and the church in Australia are really on the edge of, they're having so much trouble with this, and they're on the edge of approving women pastors and boy, I hope and pray that they don't do that. But in that I was talking about the different kinds of obedience, the different kinds of submission, just like the different kinds of love.
[00:19:35] And someone asked a question about that. It's an important theological topic that we need to think about.
[00:19:43] Sorry, I keep continuing to get further and further off topic, but the different shape of love is in there, too.
[00:19:50] The way that you love your neighbor is different than the way that you love your kids and your grandkids. And the way that you love your grandkids is different than the way that you love your parents. And the way you love your parents is different than the way you love the people in government. And the way you love them is different than the way you love your husband or your wife. And so love has different shapes, just like submission has different shapes, because these different orders that God has put us in have different purposes. And the purpose of the family and the ordering of the home is to bring forth life and joy in this life. And the order of the church is to bring forth eternal life in the hearing of the word of God and the eating and the drinking of the body and blood of Jesus, and the hearing of his promises and the order of the world. The order of the state, ironically, is to bring forth death to avoid everybody dying.
[00:20:48] That's the power of the sword, is to cut off that which is murderous so that the rest of us can live in peace. So there's different purposes of God's ordering of the world. And so our lives in each of these different estates looks differently. Love is shaped differently, submission is shaped differently, etcetera. All right, enough of that. The gospel is John chapter. If you guys have questions about that, let me know. Hopefully that's helpful. John chapter six, verses 51 to 59, is the end of the bread of life discourse. We pick up with the verse we ended on last week. I'm the living bread that came down from heaven, says Jesus. If anyone eats of this bread, I'll live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. This is in contrast to the manna that the people ate and died here. Jesus says, my flesh is true food. My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. And he says this in the synagogue in Capernaum, and the disciples, all the people who are listening, this is a hard saying.
[00:21:52] Who can listen to it?
[00:21:54] And Jesus says, do you take offense of this? What if you see the Son of man ascending to where he was before?
[00:22:00] It's the spirit that gives life. The flesh is of no avail. Here's this is again another little key. That what Jesus is talking about here is not the Lord's supper, but rather the incarnation.
[00:22:12] He talks about his origin in heaven. That's the point. I came down from heaven. I'm going back to heaven. If you're scandalized at my coming down from heaven, you'll be scandalized at my returning to heaven. I am the Son of God, the eternal son of goddess. And they leave.
[00:22:29] So the crowd turns back and doesn't walk with him.
[00:22:35] So, Jesus, this is so beautiful. Verse 67. Jesus says to the twelve, do you want to go away as well? And Simon answers him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
[00:22:47] You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.
[00:22:57] Yeah. Beautiful. Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? This is so fantastic that Jesus words bring life and joy and hope and peace and comfort and love.
[00:23:11] His kindness is our hope.
[00:23:17] We'll sing this also when we sing our hymn. The hymn of the day is O God, my faithful God. Hymn 696. It's by this Johann Hermann. And I knew he was a familiar hymn writer. I looked it up. We have six of his hymns in the hymnal. You can do this. Just. I looked it up. In the index, there's an index of hymn authors. So if you're ever curious if the man who wrote or woman who wrote the hymn that we're singing wrote other hymns, you can find it. Johann Heermann is on page 999. He lived from 1585 to 1647. So that second or probably second and third generation of Lutherans. And he wrote 6421. Jesus granted balm and healing. You'll recognize most of these. 439. Oh, dearest Jesus, what law have you broken? Two beautiful lenten hymns. 568. A redeemer hymn. If your beloved son. O God, this one. O God, my faithful God. 774. Feed thy children, God most holy.
[00:24:19] And 839. O Christ, our true and only light.
[00:24:24] This hymn, we have six stanzas. O God, my faithful God. And it's really a what? It's like a ballad of our christian life.
[00:24:38] It starts at the beginning.
[00:24:40] O God, my faithful true fountain ever flowing without whom nothing is all perfect gifts bestowing give me a healthy frame may I have within a conscience free from blame soul unstained by sin so creation redemption grant me strength to do with heart ready heart and willing whatever you command so keep me in this christian life keep me from saying words that later need recalling sanctify our speech. Lord, let me win my foes with kindly words and action to fight against our enemies.
[00:25:12] And by your spirit's might to live in peace with all. Then stanza five talks about our death. Let me depart this life confiding in my savior by grace. Receive my soul that it may live forever. And let my body have a quiet resting place within a christian grave. And let it sleep in peace. And you think, well, that's where it's going to end, there. But this beautifully, the hymn doesn't end there. Because it looks all the way to the last day in the resurrection of the body and last tense. And on that final day when all the dead are waking. Stretch out your mighty hand, my deathly slumber breaking. Then let me hear your voice. Redeem this earthly frame. And bid me to rejoice with those who love your name.
[00:25:57] So that the Lord will call us up out of the grave to the joys of eternal life.
[00:26:02] God be praised.
[00:26:04] We're thinking about that, especially this week. I think many of you have heard the news about our brother, Hayden Abler, who died suddenly, probably last Sunday.
[00:26:17] We don't have any idea what happened.
[00:26:21] But he was found in his apartment on Monday. No evidence of violence or self harm or sickness or medicine or anything.
[00:26:31] Just death. So the Lord gave our brother Hayden 27 years, nine months and 23 days.
[00:26:41] We're praying, please, for his parents, Lisa and Jeff. And his brother and sister Jensen and Alison. That the Lord would comfort them with his comfort and peace. Announce us again today in church. But we're planning his funeral service for next Saturday, August 24, at 02:00.
[00:27:00] And visitation Friday night at seven at the church as well. So I hope you can make it. And what we pray here in these hymns is striking, thinking about how short life can be.
[00:27:15] But in the Lord we have life eternal. And we have this great comfort that. Well, whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
[00:27:24] It's so wonderful. Can you imagine this?
[00:27:27] That we have this comfort for ourselves.
[00:27:33] But we have this comfort also for our brother Hayden. And we rejoice in that.
[00:27:39] The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. But the Lord is always in his kindness. Giving us the sure hope of everlasting life.
[00:27:50] We rejoice in that today. And we'll see you soon. God's peace be with.
