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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, St. Paul Lutheran Church. Pastor Wolfram here with the Sunday Drive to church. It is Sunday, August 30th, the 13th Sunday after Trinity. This is a short airport edition of the Sunday Drive to Church podcast, but beautiful texts today. First is from 2nd Chronicles 28, 8, 15. This is not a very well known passage, but it's a passage where it's during the time of the divided kingdom. And you'll remember, the north is Israel, the Judah, that's Jerusalem. And Israel has basically abandoned the true worship of God. The south has maintained it, just barely.
[00:00:42] And so Israel attacks Judah and takes captive 200,000 captives, men, women and children.
[00:00:54] And the Lord sends the prophet Oded and he goes out before the army. You gotta imagine him standing there before the army and all of these captives and he says, what are you guys doing? Are you not sinners that you don't need to be careful? You just do whatever you want. You can take all these people captive. And so they actually stop.
[00:01:17] They just leave all the people there. And then there's four heroes, Azariah, Berechiah, Jeziciah and Amasa. And they stand up with all those who are captives. In fact, what did they say? You shall not bring the captives here. We already have offended the Lord. You intend to add to our sins and to our guilt. Our guilt is great. And there's fierce wrath against Israel. So they just leave the captives there, and then they rise up and they took the captives, and from the spoil of war, they clothed the naked, and they give them sandals and food and drink, and they take care of them, and they let the feeble ones ride on the donkey. And already just hearing that story, we're like, wait a minute, I bet you I know what gospel lesson goes with this. And you're right. Luke, chapter 10. The Good Samaritan. But I'd like you to pay attention to this, that the parable of the Good Samaritan starts in verse 25, but our reading starts before that in verse 20, in verse 17.
[00:02:26] And here it says, the 70 returned. The context here is that Jesus sends out 70 of his disciples to go before him to preach and to bless the people, to announce the coming of the kingdom, to rescue them from the demons. And they come back rejoicing, lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.
[00:02:48] And Jesus responds, this is a really important text. Luke 10:18, 20. I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I've given you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, nothing by any means shall hurt you.
[00:03:04] This is the Lord's protection, the Lord's promised protection from all evil powers, all demonic plots.
[00:03:14] But then he says this, and this has to take priority. He says, but don't rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.
[00:03:29] In other words, Jesus says that our great benefit and joy and peace is not that he's giving us promised protection, but rather that he's called us to be his own. He's given us the promise of everlasting life.
[00:03:43] And then look at verse 21.
[00:03:46] It's one of these verses that I don't know how many years I read this passage, and I didn't pay attention to this. But I think it's really important in that hour, in that hour. So in the hour that the 70 return, and in the hour that they're amazed that they had authority over demons, and in the hour that Jesus says, this is good, I've given it to you. But even better, your names are in heaven.
[00:04:08] Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit.
[00:04:13] The Holy Spirit is bringing to Jesus an extra measure of joy in all the things that are happening. And he bursts out in joy in this prayer.
[00:04:24] I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these things from the wise and prudent, but you've revealed them to babes.
[00:04:34] So that Jesus is rejoicing, that Jesus is rejoicing in the Spirit, that the Lord has hidden the truth of him from the wise, from the prudent, from the rulers.
[00:04:55] But he has instead given that knowledge to the babies, to the humble, to the lowly.
[00:05:02] That's a spiritual joy, is that those who don't expect to be part of the kingdom of heaven are part of the kingdom of heaven. And those who think they are, they're excluded.
[00:05:15] You've revealed these things. You've hidden them from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to the babes. Even so, Father, it seemed good in your sight. And then he says to the disciples, all things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and. And the one whom the Son wills to reveal him.
[00:05:35] So Jesus says, no one knows the Father but me. No one knows me but the Father. But we choose to reveal.
[00:05:40] I choose to reveal the Father to you, and the Father chooses to reveal me to you.
[00:05:47] Then to the disciples. And Luke notes that he says this privately, you're blessed.
[00:05:53] Blessed are the eyes that you see. I tell you that many prophets and kings desire to see what you see. Haven't seen it, and hear what you hear and haven't heard it. This is kind of throne room stuff. This is Jesus bringing the disciples in.
[00:06:06] And then in the midst of this kind of wonderful, marvelous rejoicing in the Spirit, a lawyer comes up and interrupts.
[00:06:17] Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?
[00:06:23] And Jesus says, all right, all right, now I'll deal with you.
[00:06:26] What's in the law? So he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength and your mind and your neighbors yourself. And Jesus says, okay, do that and you'll live. But then he. And here's the point. He wants to justify himself, and he wants to do it by excluding people from his neighbor. So he says, who's my neighbor? And then Jesus gives us the Good Samaritan text, and he takes this incident from second Chronicles and he turns it into a beautiful parable, says, all right, what are you going to do with that?
[00:06:52] Stunning. Okay, one more thing to look at. And that is the Epistle lesson, which is a beautiful text from Galatians. And I got to do this one a little bit fast because I think they're boarding my flight.
[00:07:05] It's Galatians 3, starting with verse 15.
[00:07:08] But here's the main verse. Let me skip down to verse 21 and 22.
[00:07:14] Paul's talking about the law and the promises.
[00:07:17] And remember this, the law, the commands are kept by doing.
[00:07:22] The promises are kept by believing. It's very, very different. So if I give you a command, you don't say, well, Pastor, I believe you because I didn't give you something to believe. I gave you something to do.
[00:07:32] But if I give you a promise, there's nothing to do.
[00:07:36] You can only believe it.
[00:07:38] So the gospel comes as a promise. Now, Paul says, look, is the law against the promises? No. No. If there had been a law given which could have given life, then righteousness would have been given by the law. But that's not what the law does.
[00:07:54] But the Scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
[00:08:04] So that the law doesn't promise righteousness. There is no law which brings about righteousness that comes by the promise. And if we. And here's the theological point, at least one of them that Paul's making, that if we try to be made righteous by the doing of the law, by the keeping of the command, then we make the promise of no effect. That's the result of the whole deal.
[00:08:28] So this is a beautiful. Paul's kind of continued example of unfolding this proper distinction between the law and the gospel.
[00:08:39] All right, that's a short one, but I probably really better get going.
[00:08:43] If you're curious. I'm in Dallas. I came from Champaign, Illinois this morning. A beautiful conference there. And I'm flying to Phoenix to meet Daniel tonight to help him move into college. So say a prayer for that as well, and for safe travel. And Lord willing, we'll see you soon.
[00:08:59] May the Lord bless and keep you.