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[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolf Mueller. It's the Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Sunday the 17th, Sunday after Pentecost, September 15, the year of our Lord 2024. And you're listening to the Sunday Drive to church podcast. God, I was, you know, preaching about this a little bit last week. How thankful Saint Paul is that anybody is there to read his letters. When he writes them, he thanks the Lord because he knows that this desire to hear and to believe the word of God is a miracle worked by the Holy Spirit through the word of God. And I am also so thankful for you that you're coming to church, that the Lord, the Holy Spirit is gathering you right now as you're listening to this. It's a miracle in action that the Holy Spirit is gathering you to his word so that he can serve you and bless you all together with this church. It's just really wonderful. It's the man says, I believe, help my unbelief because he's brought his son, who is demonized, to the disciples and they can't help. And then Jesus comes and helps. So the picture on the front of the bulletin, by the way, is an old woodcut and you can see the demon flying out of his head. It's pretty amazing. Well, let's pray the collect and then we'll look at the texts together.
[00:01:21] Well, look, you look at the road and I'll look at the text and explain them to you as we're driving along. Let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, our support and defense and every need, continue to preserve your church in safety. Govern her by your goodness and bless her with your peace, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:01:46] By the way, last week we had the trust not in princes Sunday, they are but mortal. We had that in the psalm and the hymn. And I was thinking about it on the Sunday drive home. I gave myself the idea that we should make a banner to put it across the tv. Well, you will find inside the bulletin this week a banner that says, trust not in princes, they are but mortal. That's there for you to cut out and tape to your tv. Too bad we couldn't have got it there in time for the debate last week, but it's there for the rest of the political season. Trust not in princes, they are but mortal. Okay, now we have beautiful text this morning, in fact, a couple of things that we want to pay pretty close attention to, starting with the psalm. The psalm is psalm 116, our entrance psalm. Psalm 116, verses one to nine. Did you know, I don't know if I ever told you all this, why we have, why we switched from the introit to the entrance psalm. I don't. We were working on coming out of. You guys, remember the in Covid times, we basically stopped using the hymnal because who knew what was spreading what. And so we were printing all the bulletin, all the liturgy, out week after week after week. Well, when it was time to go back to printing out the bulletin, the old way that we did it five, six years ago is we printed it with a little flap. That kind of. You could put it in the bulletin and the numbers would come out the side, but you'd have to turn pages to find the scriptures. And I was trying to get it all on one page for simplicity's sake, and so that pages weren't falling out, et cetera, et cetera. So Jonathan and I were working on this bulletin design, how to do it, and we kept running into space issues with the introit, because the introit was kind of selected from different verses. And I thought one. In fact, I think I was trying to lay in bed one night thinking how to fix this problem. And I thought, well, what if we had the entrance psalm, and we would use the psalms from the front of the hymnal also. But one of our ideas was we wanted to use the hymnal as much as possible. And this lets us do a couple of things. I think it's a lot better, actually, because it lets us get bigger chunks of the psalms. It lets us use the psalms in there kind of together, not chopped up and moved around. And it lets us use more of the hymnal. It's also really great. So we got to open up and find it, although it's a little more complicated on Sunday morning. But you got to find it. But it lets us see it. So this is really great to be able to see, for example, that this Sunday we're only using the first nine out of 19 verses in the psalm. And the last ten verses of the psalm are really the famous ones. I said in my alarm, all men are liars. That's verse eleven.
[00:04:29] What shall I render to the Lord for his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of his people in the courts of the house of the Lord in your midst of Jerusalem. We use that for an offertory in one of the liturgies that's famous. And the most famous verse of psalm 116 is verse 15. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of its saints, all beautiful verses that were not singing. Now, I was thinking about that, like, I wonder if we should have sung the second half of the psalm. And I'm sure I bet we have it coming up, maybe even next week. Who knows? We'll have it pretty soon. But it made me pay more careful attention to the first half of the psalm. And here's what I noticed. If you have a moment when you get into church before we get started and you're praying through psalm 116, which I would encourage you to do, look at this.
[00:05:22] In this psalm, verse four announces the prayer.
[00:05:28] Verse four says, then I called on the name of the Lord. Why? Well, because of verse three, there's all these troubles. The snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of sheol laid hold of me. I suffered distress and anguished. So I called in the name of the Lord. And here's the prayer. O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul. Verse four.
[00:05:48] And that prayer is answered in verse eight.
[00:05:53] For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. Now, here's the amazing thing about the psalm. The prayer goes up in verse four. O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul. And then it's answered in verse eight. You have delivered my soul. But there's three long verses between four and eight, verse five, six and seven.
[00:06:22] And that's the three verses between the prayer offered and the prayer answered.
[00:06:29] And listen to the faith confessed in these three verses.
[00:06:33] Gracious is the Lord, and righteous. Our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple. When I was brought low, he saved me. Return, o my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you, delivered my soul from death. In other words, the three verses that verse five, six and seven would be verses that you would expect to come after the prayer is answered. But they are prayed here before the prayer is answered, after the prayers prayed, in other words, this is the point, and it's just wonderful is that as soon as we pray, we trust that the Lord has heard our prayer and we walk in the joy of the answered prayer even when it's not yet answered. That's what's going on there in psalm 116, verses four to eight. I hope you'll take a look at that before the service. It's really great. And that's the stuff that's kind of hard to see when you're right in the middle of the service. Right. So it's good to look at it beforehand. Okay, so psalm 116. Then we're on to the Old Testament, which is Isaiah 54 to ten. Now, the end of Isaiah, starting with Isaiah, chapter 42 is really New Testament. In fact, the first part of Isaiah is kind of the Christmas part. Virgin birth and wonderful counselor. And the root from the stem, that's Isaiah seven and nine and twelve. That's all the Christmas prophecies. By time we get to the end of Isaiah, we're looking at the crucifixion, resurrection, and new heaven and new earth prophecies. In fact, that last section of Isaiah has four very important parts that are sometimes called the servant songs. Isaiah 42, Isaiah 49, Isaiah 50, and Isaiah 52 and three. That last one, Isaiah 53.
[00:08:17] We considered him stricken by God and smitten. That's the Good Friday passage that describes the crucifixion. That's the fourth of these four servant songs that mark the end of Isaiah. Our text, Isaiah 50 is the third. The first is chapter 42. The second is chapter 49. But this is the third servant song of Isaiah. And so it's that me that's in the text is the servant of the Lord, also known as Jesus. So the Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning, he awakens. He awakens my ear to hear those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear. And I was not rebellious. I turned not backwards. I gave my back to those who strike my cheeks, to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. That's Jesus.
[00:09:13] But the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I have not been disgraced. I have set my face like flint. That's from. That's Luke nine. He sets his face towards Jerusalem. Jesus is looking at the cross. He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me. Let us stand together. Who's my adversary? Let him come near. The Lord God helps me, who will declare me guilty.
[00:09:34] This is so great. So this is Jesus praying here. And it's a beautiful, absolutely beautiful, tremendous prayer. I'd like you to notice in the text, by the way, this is a thing that might pass pretty quickly, is that, you know, normally in the Old Testament, we'll see Lord with all capital letters. You'll notice that that never happens in the New Testament. And because Lord with all capital letters is an indication that the divine name is underneath there, that four letter tetragrammaton the four holy letters that are the Lord's name, sometimes pronounced Yahweh. And you see it in verse ten.
[00:10:08] No, twice in verse ten. Who among you fears the Lord? All capital letters. Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. But if you look carefully, you will notice in verse four and five and seven that it has Lord. God, all capital letters. The Lord is capital l, lowercase ord. And then God is all capital letters. And you're like, oh, boy, they made a mistake. There's a typo in the bulletin. It should be Lord, all capital letters. And they put God, all capital. No, no, that's not a typo. That's actually a convention. Because there's three hebrew words that we only use two words to translate. There's the hebrew word adonai, which we translate, lord. There's the hebrew word God. Sorry, Elohim, which we translate, God. But then there's the divine name Yahweh, which we use, all capital letters. And normally it's all capital, lord. But it normally works out. For example, if you have Elohim Yahweh, you would say the Lord, all caps, God. Or if it said Elohim Adonaide, you would say God, the Lord.
[00:11:20] Lower cap. But what happens if it says Adonai, yahweh?
[00:11:27] You would translate it, lord. Lower caps, lord. Upper caps. The Lord, lord. That would be weird. So they actually use the word God, all upper caps. When that's the case. Adonai, yahweh, and that's what's happening in verse four, verse five. Verse seven, verse nine. Adonai, yahweh has given me the tongue of those who are taught Adonai, Yahweh has opened my ear Adonai, yahweh, helps me. Behold. Adonai, yahweh, helps me. Verse nine. So that's what's going on. That's why it has all cap. So whenever you see all caps, if it's lord or if it's God, you know, the divine name is underneath there. Okay, now, James, chapter three. We continue our reading through James. We're moving pretty fast through James. And this whole section, verses one to twelve, is about the tongue, or speaking or saying. And the. And the theme of it is that the tongue is a restless evil. In fact, it says, if. If a man can.
[00:12:21] If a man does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body. And it goes on to compare. We put bits in the mouth of the horses, so they obey us. We guide whole bodies as well. Look at the ships. They're guided by a little rudder.
[00:12:38] So the tongue is a small member, yet boasts of great things. And then goes on to the picture of the campfire of the stream. And no human, verse eight. No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord, our Lord and father. With it we curse the people who are made in the likeness of God. Important verse.
[00:13:01] From the same mouth come blessings and cursings, my brother. These things ought not to be so. And he has these two examples. Can a spring put forth fresh and salt water? No. Can a fig tree bear olives or grapevine produce figs? No. Can a salt pond yield fresh water? No. But here the christian tongue also has curses. It's an amazing thing. It should not be so.
[00:13:21] So part of our big sanctification, a massive part of our sanctification is that we are to be careful how we speak.
[00:13:31] That we speak words that edify, that build up, that lead to the maturity of the truth.
[00:13:41] This has been coming up in a lot of the treasury of daily prayer lessons this week is that there is a maturity, the full stature of Christ that the Lord is building us up into. And he uses his word to do that. I think that is one of the reasons why the word is so important is because the Lord himself uses words to create, not only to create the world, which is amazing. Let there be light and there was light. He uses words to create everything that's around us. But he uses words to recreate us. Your sins are forgiven, he says, and we're born again.
[00:14:19] Faith is from the word. Faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 1017.
[00:14:27] So that the Lord is doing all things through his words. And so we want to be very, very, very careful about the words that we speak and confess when we speak poorly. And pray that the Lord would teach us to say the right things. O Lord, we pray. Open now my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.
[00:14:47] The gospel lesson is Mark chapter nine. Now you say mark, chapter nine. Pastor, last week we were in Mark chapter seven. How did we get all the way to Mark chapter nine? Skipping Mark chapter eight feeding the 5000 and a number of other miracles and the beginning of Mark chapter nine, which is a transfiguration. We have those readings in other places. So it kind of jumps over a few major things. And this text is after the transfiguration when they came to the disciples and the they there is Jesus and Peter, James and John. Who are Peter, James, John and Andrew? Right. Peter, James and John.
[00:15:21] Was there three or four on the mount of transfiguration? All right, hold on. Let me check.
[00:15:27] Peter, James and John, like I was saying, I'm sure.
[00:15:31] So hard to remember all these things. So Jesus with Peter, James and John is up at the transfiguration, and they come down off the mountain and they see a great crowd all around, the disciples. And the scribes, you know, these scribes. These are these jewish lawyers who were trained to copy the scriptures, study them. And they're arguing with the disciples, and everyone sees Jesus. So they run over to Jesus and Jesus says, what are you guys fighting about? And here someone comes from the crowd and he says, teacher, I brought my son to you. For he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.
[00:16:19] So they are fighting about the fact that the disciples, who previously had been able to rescue people from demons, could not rescue this young boy from this particular demon. And then Jesus, o faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, Jesus immediately convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And jesus asked his father, how long has this been happening? And he said, from childhood. It's often cast him into fire and water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us. Help us, Jesus said to him, if you can, all things are possible for one who believes. And immediately the father, the child, cried out and said these words which are so precious to all of us, are they not? I believe, help my unbelief.
[00:17:14] How marvelous a description of the christian life is that prayer, I believe, help my unbelief. We're always fighting. In fact, you remember this definition of worship from Philip melanchthon. It's just tucked away in his little essay on the power and primacy of the pope, or his essay against the power and primacy of the pope.
[00:17:37] And he talks about what true worship is, and he defines worship this way. Worship is faith fighting despair.
[00:17:45] I think that's what the sermon will be about that you're about to hear. Faith fighting despair, I believe, help my unbelief.
[00:17:54] We trust the Lord, and yet there's so many things that are bombarding our faith and tempting our mind and our hearts and our souls and our bodies away from the Lord and his kindness.
[00:18:06] So when jesus saw that the crowd came running together, he rebuked this unclean spirit and said, you, mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him. Never enter him again. And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out. And the boy was like a corpse. Most of them said, he's dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up. And he arose. And when he entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. In fact, the old manuscript said, prayer and fasting. And that's not a bad reading. Prayer and fasting, so that the demons themselves are all different and their attachment to people is all different. And there's no magic formula. Jesus teaches here to rescue someone from the trouble of demons.
[00:18:52] But here we look at this. Father, I believe, help my unbelief. And in that, we see the faith to which the Lord calls us. Faith that's fighting unfaith, faith that's fighting unbelief. Faith that's fighting despair.
[00:19:09] We have in the sermon. Sorry. In the hymn of the day, this hymn. Praise the one who broke the darkness with a liberating light. It's a pretty new hymn. The guy who wrote it. I wonder if he's still alive. His name's Rusty. He can't be that old. He's born in 1955. Praise the one who breaks the darkness with a liberating light. Praise the one who frees the prisoners, turning blindness into sight. Praise the one who preached the gospel, healing every dread disease, calming storms, feeding thousands with the very bread of peace. That's Jesus. We worship Jesus. That's what we do when we come to church and receive from him grace upon grace, truth and joy, peace, delight, life and life eternal. That's the text that we have Sunday school. We're going to continue in Hebrews, chapter eleven. We finished. You guys are going to love this. We finished Enoch. Last week, we were looking at Luther's commentary on Enoch. And remember what Luther said about Enoch? Oh, that I had a poet who could express this sorrow and joy on the search for Enoch. Remember? They don't know where he is. They think he's been murdered by the Cainites. And then the angel tells him, well, we found that poem, Josiah, saying, USdA handed me a poem called the search for Enoch on Wednesday. I want to read that to you. You guys, it's amazing, actually. It's great. And then Hebrews eleven six gives us a beautiful commentary. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. And then in verse seven, we're on to Noah by faith. Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world, and because became an heir to the righteousness which is according to faith. So we'll talk about the faith of Noah in Bible class as well. Oh, and I think, yes, two other quick announcements. We're going to have the public reception of new members, all those who have been transferred into the church as part of the service. So we just haven't done that in a couple of years. So if you've transferred into the church in a couple of years, there'll be a point in the service where I'll ask you to stand up and have the public recognition of transfers. That'll be great. And then we're also going to hear from the director of the Westfield House in Cambridge, England, about that program for the first ten minutes of Sunday school. So that'll be really great as well. So can't wait to see you. God's peace be with you. Drive safely. See you soon. Christ is risen. Alleluia.
