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[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolfmuller. And this is the Sunday Drive to church podcast for August 31, 2025, the 12th Sunday after Pentecost.
[00:00:13] This is the. It's a triple text in the gospel. It's Luke 14, 1:14. And there's three things that happen. Bam, bam, bam. But the overarching theme for the Sunday, which we'll hear in the collect, I believe, especially the psalm, the hymn, the beginning of the gospel text, et cetera, or I'm sorry, the middle of the gospel text where Jesus talks about taking the right seat and the parallel in the Old Testament. It's really a Sunday about believing humility or putting our trust in the Lord's word and not exalting ourselves, but letting him exalt us. This is the basic idea. Let's see if we can find it running through all this stuff. Let's pray.
[00:00:56] Lord of grace and mercy, teach us by your Holy Spirit to follow the example of your Son in true humility that we may withstand the temptations of the devil and with pure hearts and minds avoid ungodly pride through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
[00:01:17] Amen.
[00:01:18] Last week we had St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24th. And so I was just looking to see. I'm on page, well, preface of the hymnal, page 19 or XIX.
[00:01:32] And it's where we have the three year lectionary series C listed. And I'm just confirming that if we wouldn't have gone off track for St. Bartholomew's Day, we would have had Hebrews for four days in a row. We're working through this middle section in Luke, Luke 11, 12, 13, next week, 14, 14, then 15, 16, 16. And we're working our way all the way towards the end of Luke in these, oh, for the next three months or so until we get to the new church here. We're going to finish our four weeks in Hebrews next week, have Philemon and then into 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy for a few months, which will be really great and bouncing around in the Old Testament. It's sometimes good to go, especially I think, when you're trying to get the context week to week to week to look at these lectionary pages and see where we've been and see where we're going and get those connections. Our Psalm is Psalm 131. It's a very short Psalm, three verses. Oh Lord, I'll read them all to you, O Lord, My heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me, but I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.
[00:02:51] Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
[00:02:55] O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.
[00:03:00] This psalm, if you remember that from so Psalm 119, the big Torah psalm, and then starting right after that. So from Psalm 120 to Psalm 134, we have the Psalms of Ascent. It doesn't say that in our hymnals, but if you look in your Bible, it'll just say right above all these psalms, Psalms of Ascent. And these were pilgrim psalms. These were the collection of psalms that the people would pray as they're on their way up to Jerusalem for the various feasts. And this, right in the middle of these songs of ascent is this beautiful Psalm 131.
[00:03:36] I looked up the this is Leupold's exposition of the Psalms, which I'll sometimes go to to get a sense of it. Listen to how he how he gives us the introduction to this Psalm 131. This Psalm, modest and reserved in character, is one of the great gems of the Psalter.
[00:03:56] Because of its very unpretentiousness, it may easily be overlooked. Yet it throws light upon one of the cardinal Christian virtues, which is always intimately linked with trust, the virtue of humility.
[00:04:11] Though it sings the praises of humility, it does not make the mistake of having the writer pride himself on his humility, a mistake that's made only too easily. It avoids doing this by its very simplicity, brevity, and deep insight. In fact, it just says, I'm not too haughty. I'm not trying to do what's beyond my reach. I'm not occupying myself with things that are too marvelous. My soul. And it repeats the picture twice in the verse that we'll all sing together. Verse 2. My soul is like a weaned child.
[00:04:46] Now the idea here is that when you go from nursing to being weaned, that nursing child is always sort of clamoring, hungry, sleeping, and then waking up and wanting something else. But once the child is weaned, there's a contentment. It sits with mom, it sits with dad.
[00:05:05] It's eating food, so it's full for longer.
[00:05:08] It's the picture of peace, not of adult peace like I've managed to take care of myself, but of a child at peace.
[00:05:18] That's the picture of humility.
[00:05:20] That's put forth here. And it's a beautiful picture. And I think that picture is going to run throughout all of the texts that are given to us. First with the Proverbs text. Proverbs 25, 2, 10, especially verse 6 and 7 are probably the verses in Jesus minds when he's giving his instructions for where to sit when you come to a feast. Solomon writes, this is Proverbs, Proverbs 25, 6. Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great. For it's better to be told, come up here than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.
[00:06:01] What your eyes have seen, don't hastily bring into court. For what will you do in the end when your neighbor puts you to shame? This is kind of general proverb stuff, but it's all pushing us towards patience and humility.
[00:06:14] It's the glory of God to conceal things. The glory of kings is to search them out.
[00:06:19] This is amazing. So that the Lord can hide stuff. And we go looking to see what the Lord has revealed and what the Lord has taught us. But we don't go past.
[00:06:27] We don't go past his words or past his wisdom. We're happy to receive from him what he gives.
[00:06:34] It's great.
[00:06:37] Here's the Argue your case with your neighbor himself. Don't reveal another secret, lest he who hears you bring shame upon you. Your ill repute has no end. That's eighth commandment instructions.
[00:06:48] And it's like what Jesus says in Matthew 18. We go one on one to people and so forth.
[00:06:53] There's a patience here. Okay, Hebrews 13. That's our last little stretch in Hebrews. We've been in the last few chapters of Hebrews. This is really Paul or whoever's preaching this sermon.
[00:07:04] Final admonitions.
[00:07:07] And he's just running through a various commandments and giving instruction.
[00:07:13] I thought about preaching on this text, but I think I'll preach in the Gospel.
[00:07:18] But so maybe just to kind of put your attention on it now, because we don't want to miss it. There's a lot of verses that are famous or that we think of that are part of this text. Let brotherly love continue. This is the whole second table of the Law. Love your neighbor as yourself. Don't neglect to show hospitality to strangers.
[00:07:38] Thereby some have entertained angels unaware. This is amazing thing. Sermon says that like Abraham received the three men, and two of them were angels and one was Jesus.
[00:07:48] And that when we're. When we are hospitable, the Sermon says, we don't know if we've been kind or generous to a person or to an angel.
[00:07:58] Pretty cool.
[00:07:59] So it's an encouragement to hospitality. This is.
[00:08:04] I was writing a bunch of notes about hospitality yesterday morning. It's one of the marks of our congregation, and I'm so happy about it. I was visiting with a couple this week, and they said, we came to your church and so many people turned around and met us, introduced themselves to us.
[00:08:20] This is so good for you, St. Paul Lutheran Church, to be encouraged in your hospitality, that we're so happy to meet people, to have people with us. Okay. Verse 3. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you are also in the body. Fifth commandment. We care for people's bodily needs and specifically those in prison. We got to probably think about that. Prison ministry is something that the church has always done, and we've been slacking on that lately.
[00:08:52] Not St. Paul. I'm talking about as a church body, and we need to probably revisit that. What can we do?
[00:08:58] Verse 4. Let the marriage bed be held in honor among all. Sorry. Let marriage be held in honor among all. And let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterous. This is where I think probably where it seems to the world like the church is most out of step. There's two different ideas about what's good and right.
[00:09:24] And when the Scriptures, front to back, set before us a purity in regards to husband and wife and marriage and intimacy, the world just goes crazy.
[00:09:37] That's repressive. That's. I don't know all the bad things you can think of, but the Lord has given this gift of marriage, husband and wife, to one another, and he wants to protect it. I think this is one of the best texts for that because it puts it in a positive light. It's not just abstinence, it's chastity. It's a virtue to be pursued. And so it says that we, as individuals and as Christians are holding marriage in honor and preserving the marriage bed undefiled, knowing that the sexually immoral and the adulterous will be judged by God.
[00:10:15] We notice that Paul makes this point explicitly in 1 Corinthians when he says that all other sins a person commits outside the body, but sexual immorality is committed inside the body, and it is in breaking the sixth commandment. It's probably the third commandment and the sixth commandment. So we're not Remembering the Sabbath day and committing adultery, sexual immorality, that the door is opened to the demons. There's access to the conscience that's provided there. That's very destructive.
[00:10:46] Verse 5. Keep your life free from the love of money.
[00:10:50] So Paul goes from the fourth commandment to the fifth commandment, to the sixth commandment. Now to the seventh commandment, you shall not steal, which prohibits both greed and laziness, and puts before us the virtues of hard work and generosity. Here the danger is the love of money.
[00:11:07] And he says, free your life from the love of money and be content with what you have.
[00:11:12] For he has said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me?
[00:11:23] So the verse here is replacing the anxiety that comes from having an affection for money with the contentment that comes from knowing that God will take care of us.
[00:11:33] This is actually a really important text and gets into that idolatry of where do you put your trust?
[00:11:40] Verse 7. Remember your leaders. This is the only time in the.
[00:11:45] The only time probably that the word leader should be used in the Bible. It comes up in a couple of translations, but I think this is the only legitimate use of it.
[00:11:53] Remember your leaders here. It's especially speaking of leaders in the church. So pastors, those who spoke the word of God to you, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.
[00:12:03] So don't imitate their life, imitate their faith. We are all confessing and trusting together.
[00:12:10] Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I think that's put in contrast to the leaders because it's good for us to remember that pastors come and go. It's good for me to remember that. It's good for me to remember when I stand up there in the pulpit that I'm just the next guy and that when the Lord takes me home, there'll be another guy that follows. There's, you know, there's a.
[00:12:33] It goes both ways that we pastors come and go, but that Jesus is the same and he's the Lord of the church and that he continues to come and bless us.
[00:12:44] It's good. This is. I'll tell you, this is. Well, this may be a little personal, but I've been thinking about this a lot, just reflecting on what it means that. That my own dad is gone with the Lord in heaven. And this. This is how this goes. You know, you have. You have your parents for a while, you have your grandparents For a while, you have your friends. For a while, you have your pastor. For a while. If the Lord takes a spouse, that you're a widow or a widower, you have your spouse for a while. That these come and go, but that the Lord Jesus is the one who's the same. He never leaves us. He never forsakes us. He's with us all the way through. He's the same yesterday, today, forever.
[00:13:23] And so our. Our hearts are established in Him.
[00:13:27] He is the thing that doesn't move.
[00:13:31] Don't be led away by diverse and strange teachings. That's third commandment. Remember the Sabbath day. Holding on to God's word and Orthodoxy. It's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them.
[00:13:45] So it's fine to worry about what you're eating, but it's your heart cannot be established by your diet plan.
[00:13:52] Your heart is established. The Christian heart is established by grace.
[00:13:57] Now, verse 10 is a very interesting one. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. This is closed communion.
[00:14:05] But it's interesting.
[00:14:08] Look at what it says in verse 11. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.
[00:14:18] So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come through Him. Then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Don't neglect to do good and share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
[00:14:47] The picture here is of the Old Testament. They would take the blood into the tabernacle, but they would take the body outside the tent, outside the camp, and they would burn the body of the offerings outside the camp.
[00:15:01] And the sermon here makes a connection between the death of Jesus outside the city walls and those old sacrifices outside the camp. And we're eating that body which was sacrificed outside the camp. And that sets us apart from the meal of the synagogue, from the meal of the temple.
[00:15:19] So that we have an altar that it's not a Jewish altar, it's a Christian altar. It's separate. It's separated by its humility. And part of the interesting thing here is that there's a kind of play on words happening.
[00:15:33] Those who are eating in the synagogue would never come outside the city to eat with us.
[00:15:38] But this is the picture.
[00:15:44] It's close communion, but it's like reversed in the way that we think about it.
[00:15:50] It's not like we normally think about close communion in terms of worthiness, which it is. And we remember that what it means to be worthy to go to the supper, it means to be repentant. It means to know that we're sinners who need the Lord's mercy and kindness and great love for us.
[00:16:08] So it's not like we achieve worthiness by our own efforts.
[00:16:12] We're worthy because the Holy Spirit has shown us how unworthy we are, basically.
[00:16:18] And that's the problem with the synagogue, is that they would never be able to know that they're unworthy.
[00:16:28] It's not that the.
[00:16:30] The supper is not like some sort of fine, exquisite meal, some sort of, I don't know, caviar, kind of crusted, gold plated thing that only the very fancy would eat. No, the supper is desperate medicine for those who are dying.
[00:16:49] And so you have to admit that you're dying before you are now worthy of this great gift.
[00:16:57] So there's almost a disgust that happens with the Lord's Supper, which is why those who eat in the synagogue would never want to eat of it. You're doing what the body and blood, well, you can't have it anyway. But they would say, I don't want it. It's a good thing. I can't have it. I don't want it.
[00:17:14] Last verse here. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they're keeping watch over your souls as those who have to give an account.
[00:17:21] No one put this on the seminary brochure.
[00:17:23] Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
[00:17:28] This is where Paul is preaching here to the church, and he said, hey, remember that your pastors on Judgment Day have to not only be judged for their sins, but also for yours. So give them a break.
[00:17:45] There's a harsher judgment. Pastor Journander and I were talking about this a couple weeks ago. No, not Pastor Journey.
[00:17:52] Oh, who was this, Carl? Pastor Bohm from South Africa and I were chatting about this.
[00:18:00] That while we confess as Christians that we've passed from death to life, so there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
[00:18:10] There is a special judgment that is appointed for those who are given the ministry of the Word for pastors, preachers, and they'll come under stricter judgment. That's what it says in James and here, the same thing.
[00:18:24] They keep watch over your souls. That's my calling, as those who have to give an account, who have to give an account of my watching and have to give an account of your souls.
[00:18:34] Poof. So the preacher here says, remember that and so do things so that they can be happy about it and not groan about it.
[00:18:44] All right, you can do with that what you will. Okay, now, Luke 14. I'm going to do a quick overview because I think we'll lean into this in the sermon. One Sabbath, Jesus wants to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. They're watching him carefully so he heals a man. And then he says, which of you, having a son or an ox that falls into the well on the Sabbath day, won't immediately pull him out?
[00:19:03] So he goes after the Sabbath, part one. Then he's noticing how they're sitting at all the best spots.
[00:19:10] They chose the place of honor. So Jesus says, when you're invited by someone to a wedding feast, don't sit in the place of honor. Someone more distinguished will be invited.
[00:19:18] And then he who invited you both will come to you and say, give your place to this person instead. Start at the lowest place. And then they'll say, friend, come up higher.
[00:19:27] This is good advice. Just in general good advice.
[00:19:34] It's killing the sense of what we deserve.
[00:19:37] I should get the best spot.
[00:19:40] No, that's put to death and it has to come to you from the outside.
[00:19:45] But it's also really profound spiritual advice. Jesus says, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
[00:19:53] Then, third part, he noticed how they're giving these feasts for their friends. And he says, he criticized that. He says, when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you'll be blessed because they cannot repay you.
[00:20:07] You will be paid in the resurrection of the just.
[00:20:09] So there's probably three pieces of wisdom right there in that text. But number one is we're not doing works for our own earthly benefit.
[00:20:19] We are, number two, doing works for the benefits of others, with no expectation of receiving something back. And third, that all of this life has its eye on the resurrection.
[00:20:34] We are in this life investing not in this life, but in eternal life.
[00:20:38] Using this is the follow up parable that's coming in a couple of chapters. The unjust steward who uses his unrighteous mammon to make eternal friends, so that this life is lived with an eye towards the life to come.
[00:20:55] Okay. The hymn Is this.
[00:20:57] It's a newer hymn. You can tell it too. When you're singing, you're like, ah, this sounds kind of new. It has some, some really profound theological points in it.
[00:21:06] It's geared towards.
[00:21:08] Well, back in the. When Was this written? 1890 or something like that.
[00:21:16] It was a huge ecumenical time in the church. So you get this sense from these hymns from the 1890s. There's nothing wrong with it. It's really great.
[00:21:24] But you have the sense that the main problem is all the divisions in the church.
[00:21:29] We should probably be more sensitive to that. All these divisions in the church are not so good, but it means that it comes from different concerns. But it brings to bear some really amazing biblical theology.
[00:21:43] Son of God, eternal Savior, source of life and truth and grace, Word made flesh, whose birth among us hallows all our human race.
[00:21:53] So this talking about how the incarnation makes humanity holy when God joins himself to something, something.
[00:22:03] This is a really profound theological point and fun for us to think about. It shows up in a few different places, like when Jesus is baptized, he hallowed all waters to be a lavish flood.
[00:22:14] Or we have it at the beginning of the wedding feast, the wedding service. When Jesus goes to the wedding at Cana, he blesses all weddings.
[00:22:23] Or we even have it in the prayer for the consecration of the grave of a Christian.
[00:22:29] And it says to Jesus, by your three day rest in the tomb, you hallowed the graves of all people, of all your people.
[00:22:41] So that this is the idea. When Jesus touches something, he makes it holy. It's not the Midas touch. He would touch something and make it gold. Jesus would touch something and make it pure. It's interesting, isn't it?
[00:22:53] It's like the inverse of the laws of uncleanness in the Old Testament. If you touch to something, uncle made you unclean. But because Jesus is God, when he touches something, he cleanses it.
[00:23:06] And here he says, by your incarnation you hallowed all our human race.
[00:23:11] You're our head who throned in glory from your own will ever plead. Fill us with your love and pity, Heal our wrongs, help our need. As you Lord, have lived for others, so may we live for others live. I didn't read that right, but you get it freely. You have gifts freely. Have your gifts been granted freely. May your servants give yours the gold yours the silver yours the wealth, the land and sea. We, the stewards of your bounty, held in solemn trust, will be so we're the Lord has given us whatever we have for the sake of serving and blessing others.
[00:23:47] Come and reign among us Prince of Peace Hush the storm. Here's where you get this. Hush the storm of strife and passion Bids its cruel discord cease by your patient years of toiling, by your silent hours of pain Quench our fevered thirst of pleasure Stem our selfish greed of gain.
[00:24:05] I wonder.
[00:24:06] It'll be interesting to hear what people say, oh, I don't know, 150 years from now, if the Lord tarries and they look at the hymns that we're writing and they see whatever quirkiness that we have, it's probably.
[00:24:24] If I could point to. The problem goes from inside to outside, inside to outside. And here, while this hymn is recognizing some of the internal problems, my own greed and my own concupiscence, my wanting the wrong thing. The main thing is the discord and strife that exists in the world.
[00:24:48] I think our hymns are much more centered on the discord and strife that exists in our own hearts.
[00:24:55] It's more personal.
[00:24:57] But anyway, that's how I feel it. Anyway, the last stanza, it's interesting. It starts the same as the first stanza.
[00:25:05] Son of God, eternal Savior, Source of life and truth and grace.
[00:25:10] Word made flesh, whose birth among us hallows all our human race. And then it. It goes off course or it veers to a different idea. Here's the end. By your praying, by your willing, that your people should be one, grant our hopes fruition here on earth. Your will be done.
[00:25:29] So it ends with a thy will be done petition.
[00:25:32] Rejoicing in the Lord's incarnation, Son of God, eternal Savior. Pretty nice.
[00:25:37] All right, we are. In fact, that'll be our topic in Bible class, too. We're working through the Augsburg Confession. One article at a time. Will be in Article 3, the son of God. If you want to check those notes, if you go to Wolfmuller Co notes, there's links to some of the study notes that are up there. That's the easiest way to get to it. And I'm putting together notes for the Augsburg Confession. So except for you're driving to church, listening to the podcast. So you can't do. You can't do that now.
[00:26:06] But if you want to do that, that's where those notes will be. You can. You can check that out. We had a lot of homework from last week, Article two on original sin. So hopefully you got a chance to look over that as well. It's a nice survey on our Christian basics.
[00:26:19] So that's there as well. All right. Drive safe. God's peace be with you. May his angels protect you. And we'll see you soon.