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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's September 21st and this is the Sunday Drive to Church podcast. Pastor Wolf Mueller here. And happy St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist Day.
[00:00:11] Let's pray. O Son of God, our blessed Savior Jesus Christ.
[00:00:16] You called Matthew the tax collector to be an apostle and evangelist through his faithful and inspired witness, grant that we also may follow you, that leaving behind all covetous desires and love of riches for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
[00:00:34] Amen.
[00:00:36] Recording from Athens. We're getting ready to head to the airport and fly home.
[00:00:40] Oh, sorry. So this is Saturday morning for me. This must be the middle of the nighter for on Friday for you all. But we should, Lord willing, see you on Sunday. God be praised for that. And remembering also, we have Bible class with vicar teaching and voters meeting after the church on Sunday.
[00:00:57] Today's the 21st of September. It's the feast of St. Matthew. We're in this year where there's all these extra feast days that are falling on, that are falling on Sundays.
[00:01:09] So we have it today, the 21st of September. No reason why, just as an old tradition to have it on this day.
[00:01:15] But I think it's good to think of these things because. And I was thinking about it, and I'll tell you that I've had a.
[00:01:22] It's been difficult the last couple of weeks to judge what's going on there in the United States. It's been, I think, a strange couple weeks to be away. We first, just as we were leaving, had this tragic news of Aryna Zaruthka, who was stabbed to death on the train in New York for no reason.
[00:01:43] And then the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
[00:01:48] I think this is a deal. At least it reminds me of when I was a baby pastor and I was teaching confirmation class maybe for the first time, and I had these kids in there, sixth, seventh grade, and we're going through the commandments and we got to the fifth commandment, you shall not murder.
[00:02:07] And I thought to myself, do we really need to teach this? I mean, doesn't everybody know this to be true, that you're not supposed to murder?
[00:02:19] But apparently that knowledge is not an inbred knowledge in our humanity.
[00:02:26] We are a violent people and sin is crouching at the door, like the Lord warns Cain, and it's ready to devour you. Either we're going to control it or we're going to be devoured by sin.
[00:02:43] And it seems like in the news more and more that this murderous, violent side of Humanity is being unleashed.
[00:02:58] It's a worrisome thing, I think for all of us. We wonder what this means.
[00:03:03] And then when there's an assassination, the thing that's.
[00:03:07] I don't know if it's interesting, but the thing that it requires is reflection. Because an assassination is different from a murder because it's meant to preach something, it carries a message with it.
[00:03:22] And so we have to consider this, the message of this violent sermon.
[00:03:27] But I think, and I was thinking about this as we were wandering around Greece this week, is that the death of Jesus first and then the martyrdom of his saints, it takes that message that the devil wants to send, that you should be afraid of him, that you should be intimidated by, by the benevolent forces that want to silence the speaking of the truth. And all this stuff.
[00:04:03] It takes it and it puts it back on its head.
[00:04:07] It reverses the flow. It's like spiritual jujitsu.
[00:04:12] Because the devil wanted to destroy Christ. And by tempting Judas to hand him over and by orchestrating all the events that led to his crucifixion, he orchestrated the salvation of the world.
[00:04:27] And through the martyrs, the devil was trying to silence the voice of the preaching of the gospel.
[00:04:38] And it didn't silence it, it rather amplified it.
[00:04:44] Tertullian, the old Christian church. Father Tertullian said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
[00:04:55] And Luther knew that quote. In fact, when I was looking for.
[00:05:01] I was looking for Luther's exposition of that quotation and found how much Luther loved to talk about the martyrs. And he'll say stuff like this, talking about, for example, the martyrdom of Brother Henry, which I put a. If you guys aren't on my Wednesday whatnot on the little sub stack.
[00:05:18] I put that up there this week because I think Luther's reflection on the murder of Brother Henry is really helpful for us now.
[00:05:26] But Luther says this astonishing thing. He says that in our day, the true form of the Christian life has re emerged.
[00:05:34] And he's talking about the martyrdom of Henry.
[00:05:37] So that to be martyred for the faith is really what it looks like to be a Christian. That's why we all promise at our confirmation that we'd rather.
[00:05:45] We'd rather die than fall from the faith.
[00:05:48] We confess this to death. We have something more important than our own lives.
[00:05:55] I wonder what that means in the context of this week and the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the intended message and the resultant way that the Lord works.
[00:06:06] We'll see. But we want to be ready to comfort one Another as the chaos of this world starts to reemerge. And remember that the project of civilization is not an easy one, that we have to work at this so that we can live peaceful and godly lives.
[00:06:29] And we want to get to work at it.
[00:06:31] When we see the chaos and the wolves trying to.
[00:06:37] Trying to set us at one another.
[00:06:39] And Matthew is a good reminder of that. I want to talk a little bit about the text.
[00:06:43] I'm a little pressed for time, so this might be a little shorter one today, but the readings are beautiful. We have first Psalm 119, verse 33, 40.
[00:06:53] We remember that Psalm 119 is the golden acrostic, that every eight verses start with the same Hebrew letter all the way through the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, and that every verse except for one.
[00:07:04] We'll talk about the Lord's Word, his law, his instruction, his precepts, his wisdom.
[00:07:12] And it's a prayer of praise to the Lord for the goodness of His Word.
[00:07:18] It's there because it reminds us that Matthew was one of the very, very few people that the Lord chose to write down His Word.
[00:07:26] It's marvelous.
[00:07:28] We have the prophet Ezekiel, chapter two.
[00:07:32] This is great. The eating of the scroll passage. This is the call of Ezekiel. In fact, the first three chapters of Ezekiel have this extended call of the prophet.
[00:07:43] He says, but you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like that rebellious house.
[00:07:49] Open your mouth and eat what I give you. And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me. And behold, a scroll of a book was in it. And he spread it before me. It was written on the front and the back, words of lamentation and mourning. And he said, son of man, eat what you find, eat the scroll and go to the house of Israel.
[00:08:07] This is.
[00:08:08] Sometimes I would think of seminary as exactly this picture. You're eating the scroll. You're trying to inwardly digest the word of God so that it's what comes out of you.
[00:08:20] And then he calls them to go to his own people and preach. He says, son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. You're not sent to a people of foreign speech and hard language, but to the house of Israel.
[00:08:32] This is connected to the tradition. While Matthew, who was an apostle first in Judea, and the old tradition was that he wrote his gospel first in Hebrew, Aramaic, and then he himself translated it into Greek.
[00:08:49] It's a beautiful tradition.
[00:08:51] When he left and traveled around, maybe to India, at least to North Africa, where he died down in Ethiopia.
[00:08:57] That's a tradition of Matthew.
[00:08:59] But that he was speaking to his own people, that's a great connection.
[00:09:03] Ephesians 4 is. Boy, this is a beautiful passage.
[00:09:09] This is one of those passages. Every time I read it, I sort of shake my head with awe and wonder.
[00:09:18] Grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gifts.
[00:09:22] Therefore he says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives. He gave gifts to men. That's Psalm 68, but adapted for Paul's purposes. It's so interesting if you go back to Psalm 68 and you'll see that it says he received gifts from men, and here it says he gave gifts to men. Well, here's the point. He did both.
[00:09:42] But Paul wants to emphasize the giving of the gifts. And then he says, in saying he ascended, what does it mean? That he also descended to the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is the one who ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. That verse is both about the descent into hell, Christ's triumph over the power of the demons, and this idea that he might fill all things is one of the verses that we use to determine the genus Myostaticum. Oh, boy, I probably shouldn't get into that.
[00:10:13] The majestic genus genus myostaticum says very quickly that because of the personal union divine and human natures united in the person of Christ, that the attributes of the divinity were not only communicated to the person of Christ, but also to the human nature of Christ.
[00:10:32] But in his humiliation, he didn't always exercise all those attributes that belonged to him. But now at his ascension, all of those divine attributes which are communicated to his human nature are fully exercised, so that the. The body of Jesus is omnipresent and omnipotent, the human mind of Christ is omniscient. That's the doctrine there. And this is one of those verses that says he ascended into heaven that he might fill all things. So he's everywhere according to both natures, divine and human.
[00:11:02] But that's not the point of the text. The point is the next verse. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, mature manhood, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, human cunning Craftiness and deceitful schemes, but speaking the truth in love. Wow. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint, when it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so it builds itself up in love.
[00:11:46] Absolutely beautiful. There's a big debate about this verse. He gave some to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
[00:11:53] And the whole church growth movement is kind of built on the idea that the pastor is supposed to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry and not do the work of the ministry himself. It's kind of silly.
[00:12:06] We all are working together to spread the Lord's word, but the pastor has that particular calling. Here's why this verse.
[00:12:15] It doesn't matter though. I mean, that whole debate is mute if you just keep reading the verse because the work of the ministry is to be built up in the doctrine.
[00:12:25] So we all are working on that.
[00:12:28] The reason why this verse is so stunning to me is that it lists apostles and prophets and evangelists and then pastors and teachers on the list. So it starts with the apostles, Matthew, Mark, sorry, Matthew and Peter and John and James and Bartholomew and Paul, Prophets, Isaiah and Ezekiel and Elijah and Noah and evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and then pastors and teachers.
[00:13:03] That is a list to be on. It's an intimidating list to be on. But how about Matthew, St. Matthew, who is both an apostle and an evangelist.
[00:13:13] It's pretty cool.
[00:13:14] He and John both have that title. It's really great.
[00:13:18] So the Lord called them and gave them this mandatum scribindi, the mandate to write.
[00:13:27] And we have the gospel so precious.
[00:13:31] The gospel has the calling of St. Matthew. It's only in the Gospel of Matthew.
[00:13:36] Remember that Matthew was also called Levi. How amazing is that?
[00:13:40] That he had a. That he had. He was not only Jewish, but he was from the Levites. You don't get a name Levi without being from the tribe of Levi. So he was. He was called. He should have been serving in the temple. Instead he was a tax collector, which meant that at some point, I mean, he went to school to do his math, but then he went to the dark side. I mean, he flipped over and he was serving the Romans and serving the Romans by collecting money from all of his fellow Israelites. It's an amazingly, the tax collectors were the worst. When Jesus wants to talk about sinners, he can say sinners and tax collectors.
[00:14:19] I mean, it's like the same thing.
[00:14:23] But Jesus goes and he finds Matthew sitting at the tax booth and says, follow me. And he rose and followed him.
[00:14:31] And Jesus went to his house and reclined at table with many tax collectors and sinners. They were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And the Pharisees saw it. They said to the disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? You can hear the disdain of the Pharisees. Blech.
[00:14:48] But when he heard it, they said, those who are well have no need of a physician. But those who are sick, go and learn what this means.
[00:14:54] Hosea. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
[00:15:00] Wow.
[00:15:02] So that the first act of the Holy Spirit is to show us our deep sin and our need for Christ. And then we're ready for the solution, which is the forgiveness of all of our sins by the death of Christ on the cross.
[00:15:15] Can you imagine?
[00:15:17] So that we don't come and present ourselves to the Lord as those who are righteous.
[00:15:23] Then what do you need a savior for? You managed to save yourself.
[00:15:27] But we come and present ourselves to the Lord as sinners who need his saving work, who rejoice in his saving work and who find him to be the friend of sinners. The one who eats with tax collectors.
[00:15:44] That's your Jesus and mine.
[00:15:47] God be praised for that.
[00:15:49] So blessed St. Matthew Day. We remember that the Lord calls us. And when he calls us, he calls all of us all the time. So that means that in life and in death we belong to him and we have nothing to be afraid of. And that is freedom. That freedom from the fear of death.
[00:16:04] The devil tries to make a mockery of that. I was thinking about this also. When he puts people into this kind of nihilistic despair, that there is no judgment. We know that there is a judgment that all people will face the Lord on the judgment day and that there will be justice in the world. But we trust to stand before that day, not standing on our own works or our own goodness or our own efforts, but standing on the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Cleansed by his blood, washed by his blood, forgiven from all of our sins, by his suffering and death on the cross. And that's our hope and that's our confidence. I hope the Lord grants it to you.
[00:16:44] And we'll see you soon. Drive safe. I'll try to fly. Safe. We'll see each other in a few minutes. God's peace be with you.