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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] It's good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. Pastor Wolf Mueller here. This is the Sunday drive to church for the third. Wait a minute. Fourth Sunday in Lent.
[00:00:09] Oh, there's a typo on the bulletin. It's the fourth Sunday in Lent, march the 10th.
[00:00:15] I'm making a correction right here. March the 10th, the year of our Lord 2024.
[00:00:21] We've got a good one today. It's beautiful. First, though, sorry for not having a Sunday drive to church last week. I recorded one for you. It was a little shorter in the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, as we were on our way to Denmark. And I thought I got it posted and apparently I didn't. So I hope you had a nice conversation on the way. In the fourth Sunday of Lent, though, march the 10th. That's today on the bulletin.
[00:00:47] The artwork that Jonathan picked is a ceiling from a church. He put the notes here. In fact, Jonathan found a blog post on the Internet that had dozens and dozens of pictures of the serpent being lifted up on the pole. That's our Old Testament text. And he put the link to that website in the bulletin.
[00:01:13] He was showing me this. It was really amazing, all these old images, the different ideas that people had. You might want to check that out. But this is a picture at the evangelical hospital church in Dinklsbule, Germany. It's the ceiling painted. And you'll notice that on one side is Moses lifting up the serpent and on the other side is Jesus being lifted up. And you can see his cross is crushing the serpent under the world. And to see those two in parallel, that's really what this Sunday is about, because we're going to read in numbers about how Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. And then we're going to read the gospel lesson. Jesus'conversation, with Nicodemus when he says, just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up. So that's the central theme of the texts today. And I think that the two most memorized Bible passages by Lutherans are both going to be read in the service today. John 316. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. And Ephesians two eight, by grace you're saved through faith. And that's not your own doing. It's the gift of God, not of works. So that no. 1 may boast, I think those are the two most memorized verses, and we're going to hear them both.
[00:02:45] This is a rich, rich Sunday. But back to the beginning. The collect is also a beautiful one. I don't know where it comes from. It sounds new to me. Maybe we should look at the history of this collect. I wonder if I can track that down somewhere. But it's a prayer that's connected to the Lord's gifts. How? Instead of giving us what we deserve, which is punishment, he gives all that we need for this body and life and the life to come. And so we ask that the Lord would help us to acknowledge his mercy, to give thanks for his gifts, and to serve him in willing obedience. Here's that prayer. We can pray it together, or I can pray it and you could listen. You're probably driving, so don't. Eyes on the road. But I'll pray for all of us. Listening. Almighty God, our heavenly Father, your mercies are new every morning. And though we deserve only punishment, you receive us as your children and provide for all our needs of body and soul. Grant that we may heartily acknowledge your merciful goodness, give thanks for all your benefits, and serve you in willing obedience through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. All right, we're into it. We have divine source one. We're in Lent, so we drop the Glorian at Celsius. We noticed that omission. We have psalm 19 again this week. This is the.
[00:04:13] Remember that there's three psalms that are called Torah psalms that are about the scriptures, and they are conveniently numbered. Psalms one, nine and 119. So you only need to remember 119. And you've remembered all three of them, except for someone will say, well, what about eleven? And what about nine? That doesn't. Okay, one, nine and 119. Those are our three Torah psalms. The first psalm, one blesses the man who doesn't walk in the way of the wicked. He delights in the law of the Lord. On his law, he meditates day and night. He's like a tree. By the still water, he bears his fruit. That's the beautiful psalm. One kind of preface to the psalms. And psalm 119, we'll remember, is the longest chapter in the Bible, and it's what's called the golden acrostic. A lot of times in Hebrews, they'll do this poetic move where they'll start each line with the letter of the hebrew Alphabet. That's a lot of the 22 verse psalms are acrostics because there's 22 letters in Hebrew.
[00:05:14] Psalm 119 has eight verses for each letter. So eight olive verses eight, beth versus eight, giml, eight, dalit, et cetera, et cetera. So sometimes when I was learning Hebrew and I needed to remember the Alphabet, I'd open my English Bible to psalm 119 and look at the subtitles. They would have the hebrew letters there for those things. It's huge. And almost every verse in psalm 119 uses a word for the word of God. Instruction, wisdom, law, word.
[00:05:48] It's beautiful.
[00:05:49] So that's psalm one, psalm 119, and then psalm 19. Now, psalm 19 is an interesting one of these three because it starts, the first seven verses are not about the word of God at all, but rather about the revelation of God in nature. It talks about the sky. The heavens declare the glory of God. The sky proclaims his handiwork. Day to day, pours out speech night to night reveals knowledge.
[00:06:19] So the natural knowledge of God is revealed in creation all the way through the first six verses, halfway through talking about the sun and so forth, how we can know something of God from nature. Now, the classic articulation of this is, what do we know from God in nature? And that is that God is big and good and mad. We know he's big because we look at the immensity of creation, both earth and heavens, and we say, wow, if God has created this, he must be bigger than this, more powerful than all this, so he must be big. And then we know that there's an order to the world that gives us the indication that God is good, that he's created a moral order, that we don't just see natural order, but we know that things are not only good and bad, but right and wrong. And we know that because we have a conscience that's also part of the natural knowledge of God. And because we have a conscience, we can recognize that we don't fit, that we do things that don't match what ought to be done.
[00:07:31] And we know that because God is big and good, that he must also then be mad at us. So those are the three things that we can know about God from nature, that he's big, good, and mad. But we need the revelation of God to know anything else, especially to know his grace. Remember, the gospel is only revealed by the word of God.
[00:07:50] The prophets and apostles make known his love, his person, his kindness to us. And that's really what kicks in at verse seven in the psalm. So when you're looking at the psalm, and I think maybe of all the things to look over in the service before the service, it's nice to mark the psalm and to take a look at the psalm. You're singing it so fast, trying to figure out who's going to sing. We'll go back and forth between the men and the women and, oh, you guys are getting really good at that, by the way, and I love it. I don't know if you do, but, boy, I love to hear that men chant together and then the women chant together. Anyhow, verse seven.
[00:08:35] So it's nice to look this over and you can notice this, that halfway through it switches and it says, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. And we notice that it says there, Lord. Before it says, the heavens declare the glory of God. But here the law of the Lord is perfect. And it's Lord with all capital letters. That means that underneath that word is the divine name Yahweh. And so the Lord reveals himself as a person to us. He reveals his name to us in his word. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever, et cetera, even to be more desired are they than gold, much fine gold, sweeter than honey.
[00:09:26] It's marvelous.
[00:09:29] So that this second half of the psalm is a reflection of not only how good the word of the Lord is, but what it does for us. End this prayer. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, o Lord, my rock and redeemer. That's a prayer that a lot of pastors will pray before they preach. I will pray it oftentimes also that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart is acceptable in God's sight.
[00:09:59] That's the last verse of that beautiful psalm. So psalm 19, that's a real treasure. And then after the psalm, we get to the Old Testament lesson. Now we're numbers. Chapter 21. Remember that most of the books of Moses, I mean, Exodus, Leviticus, deep into numbers were at Mount Sinai the first year after coming out of Egypt. But then the people of Israel preemptively try to go to Cana, and the spies come back and say, oh, boy, it's full of giants. And so the Lord says, now you're going to have to wander for 40 years. And that happens fast. So we have a couple of chapters in numbers, probably. I don't know. It's like chapter 13, numbers 13 to 19 to 20, maybe. We have the 40 years of wandering so very little time. It just sort of highlights of those events. And then when we get to numbers 20, we're at the end. Numbers 20 has the death of Miriam and then the death of Aaron. Both Moses brother and sister Aaron dies and is buried. In fact, the Lord gives instructions for the death of Aaron, that Moses takes off Aaron's clothes and puts them on Eliezer, his son, to show this transition from father to son of the high priest. And then Moses dies, and he's buried on top of Mount Hor, which is down on the Jordan side of the wilderness, south of the dead Sea. The grave of Aaron is there on top of the mountain. You can see it from. I think you can go and visit it. It's just this little building on top of this mountain that's there. I've seen it from a distance. It's kind of amazing that happened. We know the day that it happened from numbers 23, numbers 33. I wrote it down here in my notes that it happened 40 years after they left Egypt on the first day of the fifth month, the month of Aziz, when Aaron was 123 years old. So this is just what's happened before the text that we have here. So when our text starts from Mount Hor, they set out by way of the Red Sea. Well, they're leaving Mount horses are still dripping with tears. It said they were mourning and weeping for Aaron for three days.
[00:12:21] And they go down the Red Sea. And so Moses takes them, in fact, kind of south and east, the opposite way that they're going to get into the land. So he takes them the other way because he wants to go around Edom. And the people are like, why are we taking the long way? And they get impatient. And that's why they complain.
[00:12:47] And the Lord, to punish their complaining, sends fiery serpents in among the people. So not only this is right, it says in your bulletin that it was written by Moses in 14 six. These events are probably happening in 14 seven. So it's after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, just before Moses is going to give his last sermon and also die, and Joshua takes the people in. So this is at the very end of the 40 years, and the people are still complaining and about leaving Egypt 40 years later.
[00:13:22] And so the Lord sends serpents, and then they go to Moses, and they say, oh, boy, pray for us. Take these serpents away. So Moses prayed for the people, and the Lord says to Moses, make a fiery serpent. Set it on a pole. Everyone who's bitten when he sees it, he'll live. So Moses makes a bronze serpent. And I always know the people sitting there getting eaten by snakes, saying, moses, look, pray for us. We need some help. And Moses says, got it. I got it covered. And they hear him banging away in his tent like a blacksmith. Moses, what are you doing? He says, I'm making a bronze serpent. The Lord told me, I'm making a bronze serpent. We got enough serpents hanging around out here. We don't need another one. We need antidote or whatever.
[00:14:10] Moses says, this is what the Lord has appointed. And he holds up the bronze serpent and all who look at it live.
[00:14:19] That bronze serpent is given a name by the people, Nehushtan, which means piece of bronze. And it became a stumbling block for the people. They maybe even kept it in the ark and they treasured it. Hezekiah, the king, Hezekiah had to destroy it, which was about 700 years later. So this bronze serpent hung around for 700 years, but then the people were offering incense to it, and Hezekiah, I don't know, around the year 700 or something, BC has to destroy that serpent. That's in two kings, 18, if you want to track that down. So this is amazing. Now Jesus is going to refer to this in the gospel text.
[00:14:59] So skipping the epistle. I'll come back to it. Jesus. This is John, chapter three. So it's early in the ministry of Jesus. It's in the early judean ministry. And Jesus is down in Jerusalem, and he's visited by Nicodemus, who's one of the two members of the SanhedrIn who are interested in who Jesus is and open to conversation with Jesus. The other one is Joseph of Arimathea. Remember the Sanhedrin? So when we were talking about Old Testament. Sorry, time of Jesus, Jerusalem. We have the Pharisees, we have the Sadducees, we have the Essenes, which are not really spoken of in the New Testament. The zealots, then we have the Sanhedrin. I used to confuse all the time, the Sanhedrin with the Sadducees. No. Okay, so let's just make sure we have all the vocab. Right? So the Sadducees were really the Levites, the descendants of Levi, who had priestly duties. Descendants, then of Aaron. Aaron was a Levite, Moses was a Levite. They were particularly invested in the life of the tEmple. They were trying to follow the law that Moses put forward. The SADDucees were. So they were the ordained priesthood. And some of the theological things that distinguished the PharIsees from the Sadducees were that the Sadducees really held the authority of the books of Moses, the first five books, and not the rest of the prophets. They were much lesser of an authority. They thought that the life of Israel centered around the temple. They didn't believe in the Resurrection, and they had a very weak doctrine of angels. The Pharisees, on the other hand, are not priests. They're not ordained. They're laypeople. They're lay theologians.
[00:16:54] But they had grown into something of a cult. It was kind of an academic thing. You studied to become a Pharisee, and you became a Bible teacher. The Pharisees were not. They were not centered in the temple, in Jerusalem. In fact, there was Pharisees and teachers, rabbis all over the world in the synagogues. So if you think of the synagogues, the churches scattered all over the world, there weren't sacrifices in those synagogues, like in Babylon or Alexandria or Rome or whatever. They didn't have animal sacrifices. That all happened in connection with the temple in Jerusalem. But the Pharisees would teach the BIble. They taught the authority also of all the prophets. They believed in the Resurrection. They believed in the angels. They were more conservative morally. They thought that the sacrifices were the life rightly lived. And so they had all these laws. They were legalists, really, all these laws for being perfect.
[00:17:52] The SAnhedrin was 70 men made up of Levites, of sadducees, and of Pharisees and maybe even other people who were the supreme court in JeRusalem.
[00:18:08] The Sanhedrin was what moses set up under the instruction of JEthro in the wilderness. Remember when he was all worn out because people were coming to him to try to figure out what was right or wrong? And he was up all night trying to sort this stuff out. And Jethro said, appoint 70 men to help you, like a lower court. And if they can't sort it out, then it can come to you. Well, the Sanhedrin was that court that Moses had established, and they were still around. So it was made up of pharisees and of sadducees. And the members of that group were.
[00:18:44] That was the group that tried Jesus. So Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were both Pharisees, and they were both on the Sanhedrin, this governing council of Jerusalem at the time. And Nicodemus especially seems like he took an interest in Jesus. And so he comes to him. He comes in secret at night, and he kind of flatters him. We know you're a teacher, come from God. And Jesus says, look, guess you believe me. You can't see the kingdom of God. And he goes back and forth, and Jesus says, you must be born again. How can one enter his mother's womb a second time? Nicodemus says, you have to be born of water in the spirit. Jesus says, teaching him about baptism and so forth and so on. And this is the context of what Jesus is about to say to Nicodemus. He already told him, look, if you don't understand earthly things, how can I tell you heavenly things?
[00:19:34] And then he's going to really say, okay, let me make it plain. So Jesus says to him, just like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned. Whoever does not believe is condemned already.
[00:20:11] Now, that condemned already is pretty important, actually, I might try to hone in on that a little bit in the sermon, because it's a helpful apologetic when people can't understand God's wrath and hell and so forth. But Jesus is saying, remember how it was in the wilderness? Remember that story? Remember how the people were complaining and God had sent snakes to punish them? And then God gave them this relief by the bronze serpent on the pole, and if they looked to it, they would live. They would not die. They wouldn't die of snake poisoning or whatever.
[00:20:42] They would be brought back to life. Well, that's a picture of what the Lord is accomplishing with me.
[00:20:48] So that the cross of Jesus is the staff, and Jesus is that fiery serpent that's lifted up, carrying the sins of the world. And all who look to him, that is, all who trust in him, who believe in him, that he was sent from God to redeem and deliver us, they will live forever. Beautiful picture.
[00:21:09] Well, more on that on the sermon. Ephesians.
[00:21:12] The text from ephesians two really captures it. This Ephesians two text is worth taking home and studying pretty closely, getting your pencil out, circling a few keywords, because it's theologically very rich. It has the contrasts of, just like the gospel has the contrasts of saved and condemned, light and dark, life and death, eternal life and death, just like those are contrasted. So the epistle lesson has the contrast of death and life and works and grace.
[00:21:50] It's really wonderful. So it starts out with the death that we have. This is one of the clearest passages about our own free will and capacity to believe. Before we're Christians, you were dead in trespasses and sins of in which you once walked, following the course of the world and the prince of the power of the air, the world, the flesh and the devil. Right there, by the way, in that first verse, you were dead in trespasses. That's flesh. Following the course of the world. That's the world following the prince of the power of the air. That's the devil. The spirits that now at work in the sons of disobedience, whom we all once lived in the passion of our flesh. There's the flesh. So you can circle in the first two verses, the world, the flesh and the devil. And that's the definition of our life before Christ. In fact, it says here we were by nature children of wrath. Again, one of the clearest statements of the doctrine of original sin, that we are born deserving of condemnation, that after the fall we inherit a nature that's bent against God.
[00:22:55] And it's not. Not only is it impossible for us to do what's right, we're dead in trespasses, we can only and always do what's wrong, deserving God's wrath by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, who's rich in mercy because of the love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you've been saved. And raised us up with him. Listen to this. And seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that you've already been made alive, you've already been raised up, you've already been seated with God, so that the things that happened with Jesus, crucifixion, then resurrection and ascension, and sitting down at the right end of the father, that the Lord has given those things to us by faith, waiting to show us the immeasurable riches of the world to come. For by grace you've been saved through faith. And that's not your own doing. It's the gift of God. It's not the result of works that no. 1 may boast.
[00:23:52] So that God has done all of this freely, so good, and then not only just so that we could sit around and think about how cool it is to be saved by grace, but so that we could rejoice in God and serve one another. For we're his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them, so that the new birth is a new creation. And that new creation has both meaning and purpose, that we would rejoice in God, love God, serve God and serve our neighbor. That's what we prayed for. In the collect we acknowledge that we would acknowledge God's goodness, give thanks for his benefits, and serve him in willing obedience. Now the connection is the giving. So in John 316, God gave his only begotten son. Here it says in the Ephesians two, four, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.
[00:24:51] Even when we were dead, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved.
[00:24:58] So good. What text? I mean, we're going to sing, by the way, to match all of this, the great old hymn, God loved the world so that he gave, which is really a paraphrase of the John 316 text, but it captures also the trinitarian nature of the text. How about this first stanza three. God would not have the sinner die. His son with saving grace is nigh. His spirit in the word declares how we in Christ are heaven's heirs. The whole thing is so trinitarian and it's important for us to remember this, that the father sends the Son, the Son dies. For us, the spirit comes with the good news of the Son brings that all to us. So wonderful, so great. Well, that'll do it. For getting ready for the church. Here are some announcements if you're still on your way. We have a Bible class. We're going to talk about Melchizedek in Hebrews, chapter seven.
[00:25:58] It's been two weeks off, so we'll be back at it. And I think two weeks ago when I was talking about it, I thought it was real clear in my mind and I was looking at you guys and that was apparently not the case. So we're going to try to bring some clarity to the question of Melchizedek. That'll be really great. If you come for the late service, God be praised. The baptism of Henry fitting will be at the beginning of that service. So that'll be really fantastic. We have two more midweek Lenten services and oh, this will be important. These last two Wednesdays are kind of, everybody who can, can bring soup. I heard the word that we have just two people signed up so far, so there's a link in the bulletin to sign up and bring soup if you can on Wednesday.
[00:26:45] That would be really great. So if a few more of you could sign up for that, I think it'll tell how many are signed up and if we're full, it'll stop you.
[00:26:57] That link is available for you as well. A bunch of other things coming up, including holy week is on the way. We'll have Monday Thursday communion service. On good Friday. We're going to have a trey ore service noon to three with seven little meditations on the seven words of Jesus on the cross. That'll be amazing to hear from all the preachers. Well, almost all the preachers at St. Paul have one of those words. And so you'll get to hear from all of the pastors and preachers hanging around meditations on the seven words of Jesus. A good Friday, chief service is at 07:00, Easter Vigil at 07:00 on Saturday, and then our resurrection service is on Sunday as well. So that's all coming up, but that's a couple of weeks to keep getting ready for that. We're still in the fast, so that's great. All right, that's Sunday drive to church. God's peace be with you, and we'll see you in a few minutes.
[00:27:53] Bye.