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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's the Sunday drive to church for 15th Sunday after prenatal. September 1. Wow. September 1, the year of our Lord, 2024. Let's start with a colic for the day it starts, O God. And that could be a prayer addressed to the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit. So we have to look to figure out if we're praying to Father or son or Holy Spirit. To the end. We see the, the nice thing about the colics end always with a trinitarian said, so through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord. So that way we know that this prayer is a prayer to God, our Father, who's in heaven. We pray, o God, the source of all that is just and good, nourish in us every virtue and bring to completion every good intent, that we may grow in grace and bring forth the fruit of good works through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:01:01] It's thinking of good works as our fruits that keep them in the proper place. The fruit of faith, the fruit of repentance. That's good works. I want you to Jonathan's back onto the old art, by the way, for the bulletin cover. And so when you get to church, I want you to look at the old. It looks like an illuminated manuscript, and it's got Moses holding the Ten Commandments, and he has horns coming out of his head. It's a funny thing, but it's all over the old christian art. And the reason is because that the word that was translated raise, when it says that Moses came out of the temple and he had the rays of glory shining off of his face, that hebrew word of array was translated into the Latin as horn. That's at least what I remember. I think that's the way it went. And so if you see anybody with horns in ancient art, it's almost always Moses there because of that funny translation going into the Vulgate. So you take a look at that. All right. Into the Bible passages, some beautiful texts today. Oh, boy. The first is to notice that we'll be singing from psalm 119. Psalm 119 is the longest of all of the psalms in the Bible.
[00:02:24] It has eight verses for each of the 22 letters of the hebrew Alphabet. So, in fact, some Bibles will have them kind of divided out. We have them in the hymnal as well. Instead of having the hebrew letters, it tells you the name. So psalm 100, 119, 129, it says pe. So you can see Samak I and Pe. So you know that that's the stanza that you're in. If you were reading it in the Hebrew. The beginning of each of these eight verses that we'll sing are begin with that hebrew letter. So if you were looking at it, it's an acrostic poem. If you were looking at the Hebrew, you'd see the first eight verses start with Aleph. The next eight verses start with Beth. The next eight verses start with gimel, and so forth and so on. So it's what's called the golden acrostic. And the other thing to notice about psalm 119 is that it is sometimes called the great or the golden Torah Psalm.
[00:03:31] It's one of the three great psalms and Old Testament hymns and prayers. About the scripture, psalm one, psalm 19, and psalm 119 are the three great scripture psalms. And in psalm 119, almost every single verse. I think the exception is maybe two verses. The 186 verses, all of them mention the word of God using different words. So, for example, verse 129. Your testimonies are wonderful, therefore my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your word gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. That's the clarity of the perspicuity of the scripture. I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments.
[00:04:24] Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name, the way in the name.
[00:04:33] Keep steady my steps according to your promise. Let no iniquity get dominion over me. Redeem me from man's oppression, that I may keep your precepts.
[00:04:43] Make your face shine upon your servant. Teach me your statutes.
[00:04:47] My eyes shed streams of tears, because people who do not keep your law so you can. This is one of the. If you bring your own hymnal, which you should do, it's great.
[00:04:58] It's great to circle the words for the word of God that appear in the psalm. Now, the psalm has a really similar theme to our first lesson, Deuteronomy. Four, the first two verses and then verses six, seven, eight and nine. Wherever Moses is preaching, remember that Deuteronomy is the fifth book of Moses. Deuteronomy is a greek word. It means. Which is. It's funny, isn't it, that all these hebrew books have greek names. Genesis is a greek name for beginnings, and Deuteronomy is a greek name for second law. And the context is, it's really what this big sermon is, that the people of Israel have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and all of those original people who came through the Red Sea have died in the wilderness. It's a big funeral march. And now the next generation is ready to be led into the promised land by Joshua and Caleb, the only two who are going to go in there. Even Moses is going to die in the wilderness. He's not going to cross over into the promised land.
[00:06:11] And so Moses is re preaching the commandments and the institutions that the Lord has been establishing all through the wilderness. And especially he goes back to the event at Sinai and the giving of the instruction for divine service and worship. And he's repeating now to the next generation all these things that the Lord has put in place.
[00:06:37] And we have this. Basically the basic idea of the sermon from deuteronomy four is, you got to keep the law for what nation?
[00:06:47] What great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there that has statutes and just decrees so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
[00:07:05] Keep them. All that I've commanded you keep them and do them. Now, I want to just put this out there as we reflect on the psalm and this old Testament lesson is that there are two ways to keep the law of God. And we normally think only of the second way. And that is that you keep the law by obeying the law, you keep the law by following the law, you keep the law by living according to the law, by doing the law. And that is certainly keeping the law. But the problem is none of us, if that's the standard of keeping the law, none of us keep it that way. But there's all these Bible passages that talk about how we are the ones who keep the Lord's law. So there's another way that we keep the law, even it's a primary way that we keep the law. And that is that we acknowledge and agree to the law.
[00:07:57] So that we are those who say that we should have no other gods and that we should not misuse the name of the Lord your God, and that we should remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy and honor our father and mother, and not murder, and not commit adultery, and not steal, and not bear false witness and not covet.
[00:08:18] We are those who keep the law by agreeing to the law and knowing that the law is a standard even when we break it.
[00:08:25] So that there's a way that we keep the law and break the law at the same time. We keep it because we know, in fact, that it is the law that we should keep and do, but we don't.
[00:08:36] Now, this is a it's a. I think it's a worldview question. It's kind of a political question. It's an interesting thing to think about, is that there are those people who don't keep the law in the sense that they don't recognize that what God says is right is right and what God says is wrong is wrong.
[00:08:54] So there are the wicked, and they are wicked not because they break the law of God, but because they don't even have the law of God. They have a completely different standard of what's right or wrong, or even that there is a right or a wrong.
[00:09:11] So that we keep the law first by acknowledging, yes, this is in fact God's law, and then secondly, that we are to be held accountable to it and try to do it.
[00:09:23] Okay.
[00:09:25] I think this is connected in a pretty interesting way to mark chapter seven, because we're reading. We're back to mark now. We've kind of finished a long section of John six. We're back to Mark, and we're back to Jesus talking about, well, the Sabbath. Come to me, all you who are weary, heavy have you laden. This is his idea. He's talking about what it means to rest and what it means to eat food with unwashed hands.
[00:09:52] All this kind of stuff Jesus is going to do, he's going to make this pretty simple but really profound point, especially for the Pharisees. It's not what goes into a person that defiles them, but what goes out of a person that defiles them.
[00:10:10] So the Pharisees wanted to, by the kosher laws that the Lord had set in place, they wanted to say, if you eat the wrong thing or you eat something in the wrong way, you are defiled. And Jesus says, no, no, no. You guys need to be much more interested into what comes out of a person's mouth than what goes into a person's mouth. Now, I think this is interesting on a number of different levels, but we want to highlight the verse that it's a little parenthetical statement. At the end of verse 19, Jesus says, do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside can't defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled? And in this parenthetical statement, thus, he declared all foods clean.
[00:10:57] So Jesus, with this statement, declares that the purpose of the kosher laws and all of the dietary laws that God gave to Moses has come to its complete fulfillment and is no longer necessary.
[00:11:13] All foods are clean and there's nothing that can defile a person if he eats it.
[00:11:18] Jesus says. Goes on to say, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of Mandev come evil thoughts.
[00:11:29] Fifth commandment. Sexual immorality. 6th commandment. Theft. 7th commandment. Murder. Fifth commandment. Adultery. 6th commandment. Coveting. 9th and 10th commandment. Wickedness. All commandments. Deceit. Third and 8th commandment. Sensuality. 6th commandment. Envy. Eight and nine, slander. Sorry. Envy is nine and ten, slanders. Eight. Pride. One and all. Foolishness. All the commandments, all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
[00:11:55] Now, maybe two things.
[00:11:59] One is while we have a tendency to sort of laugh at the old food laws of the Old Testament, we recognize that we live in an age of even more strict food laws in the sense that everyone has their particular diet or thing that they've got sorted out and that everybody judges everybody else on what they eat.
[00:12:23] We need to be refocused by the Lord Jesus here, that all foods are clean.
[00:12:30] That's not the big deal. I mean, not all foods might be good for you, but none of the foods are going to give you a bad conscience. There's no sinful food, but there's a lot of sinful things that we say. So we live in a culture that.
[00:12:47] And you see the crassening of our own kind of language in our culture, where even now political speech is filled with curse words and swear words and filthy words, and it's becoming more and more acceptable to use foul language. It's everywhere that people are much more concerned about what goes into their mouth than what comes out of their mouth. And Jesus, he simply won't permit it. This also goes completely against this cultural idea of, you just have to follow your heart. That's the theme of every single Disney movie, follow your heart. Jesus says, bad idea. Out of the heart comes evil thoughts. Sexual morality, theft, murder, adultery, everything bad. The heart of man is a cesspool, and out of it emanates all of this wickedness. Our problem is our heart. Follow your heart.
[00:13:43] The epistle lesson is Ephesians six. This is the armor of God, and it's beautiful. I think I'm gonna preach on this. I'm still working on this, but I'm recording this on Friday, by the way, so don't think that I'm recording on Sunday morning and still trying to figure it. By the time you're listening, I'll have figured it out. But this text is a really important text. Paul has talked about the table of duties, husbands and wives and the way that we live in this world. So he says. Finally, he's concluding this life in the world. Be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God so that every Christian is a soldier and is equipped for battle by God's army, that we can stand against the schemes of the devil. If you want to give the kids an assignment for this text, have them circle the word stand.
[00:14:34] For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Those are technical terms referring to the ranks of the demon armies. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand firm. Stand, therefore. And then Paul is going to give an inventory of the armor of God. There's a blank spot on your bulletin to the right where you can draw a picture of the soldier wearing God's armor.
[00:15:06] You have the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes for your feet, the readiness of the gospel of peace, shield of faith, the sword, helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Praying at all times.
[00:15:21] And we might note maybe two things, is that the place where the Lord puts us is our vocation. That's what leads up to ephesians six. And the work that the Lord has given us to do spiritually is to pray to be one ear on the things that we are to care for in this life. Parents are caring for their children in their lives, husbands and wives for one another. At your work and your neighborhood, at church, the people next to you, you're listening for the troubles of this life. And then with the other ear, you're listening to the word of God, and you're bringing those two things together in prayer. And this is our spiritual warfare.
[00:15:58] It's really great. The hymn of the week. We'll finish with this is by grace, I'm saved.
[00:16:05] Grace free and boundless, my soul believe and doubt it not. This is based on ephesians two, eight and nine. We had that for the funeral sermonous last week for Hayden. By grace, I'm saved, and not of works, lest anyone would boast.
[00:16:27] Originally, I pulled, since I'm at church recording this, which is kind of nice, I pulled down this huge, massive lutheran service book companion, which has a commentary on each one of these hymns. It's pretty nice. You guys should sneak into my office and borrow this book and. And check it out. It says that this book came into English, and we've been singing it since 1889.
[00:16:50] The translation that we have was new in TLH, which had seven of the original ten stanzas. Lutheran worship had five. LSB has added one back, so we have six.
[00:17:01] And the commentary says this is a pedagogical hymn reflecting Ephesians two. By grace you've been saved through faith. It's not your own doing. It's a gift of God, not a result of works that no. 1 may boast. With each stanza. Beginning by grace, the hymn describes the grace of God in contrast to the way of human merit and works of the law.
[00:17:20] In our version, the word grace occurs 16 times in six stanzas.
[00:17:25] In the first stanza, the apostle Paul's words are nearly duplicated. By grace, you've been saved. This grace is described as free and boundless, neither earned or limited. It's the word of promise. The gospel, the fundamental truth that grace opposes merit and works of the law in obtaining salvation is stated in stanza two, reflecting Romans 323, two Timothy, one, nine, Titus, three, four, seven.
[00:17:50] It is by the grace of God that he sent his son, whose death atoned for our sins and brought our justification by faith. Galatians 216.
[00:17:57] Stanza three seems to repeat the account of God sending the son to bear our sin, but it does so to emphasize the love and grace of God as the cause, as opposed to any merit in ourselves. Deuteronomy nine, five.
[00:18:11] Stanza four is a confession of faith in what God has done for us, in grace, which speaks comfort to all who suffered tribulations, fear, and trouble. Stanza five.
[00:18:21] The hymn concludes with an expression of certain hope for the last day, recalling Jesus promise in John ten. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
[00:18:36] That's really, really great. So we have a beautiful hymn to sing by grace. I'm saved. Grace free and boundless in Sunday school. Oh, here's an interesting thing. This is our Sunday school rally day, which I'm not 100% sure what that, but it means. It's going to mean this. We're all going to be together in the sanctuary for this. We're going to sing the hymn that the kids are learning, which is a mighty fortress. And we're going to think about that hymn and what it means.
[00:19:05] We're going to introduce the teachers and the classes that they'll teach. That'll be really good. We're going to hear a report from Vicar Kruger and he'll be assisting me with the liturgy tomorrow for the first time, so that'll be great from the conference. He and Pastor Davis and Pastor Leblanc are over in Brennan today and tomorrow or, sorry, Friday. Saturday. This last Friday. Saturday. You're listening. On Sunday, yesterday and the day before, they were in Brenham at this conference on Simonex. So the vicar's gonna give us a report on that, and we'll do a few other kind of family events for Sunday school as well, so that'll be a lot of fun.
[00:19:44] I can't wait to see you. And we will see you very soon. God's peace be with you. That's Sunday drive to church.
