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[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. Pastor Wolf Mueller here. This is the Sunday drive to church for the first Sunday in Lent, February 18, year of our Lord 2024. We, we start lent with the temptation of Jesus. That's a wonderful text to have on the first Sunday of Lent, and I think we have it no matter what. If we're in year ABC, we have the temptation of Jesus. That's the Sunday of the temptation is also in the one year lectionary because we have these 40 days of lent built on the 40 days of fasting of Jesus in the wilderness. Well, remember, it's not 40 days until Easter. You have to subtract the Sundays in the season of Lent to get to the 40 days, but that'll get us there. So 40 days of fasting. The Sundays are not included in the fasting day because Sunday is always the day of the resurrection, but all the other days are. So we have the fasting and preparation, and that gets us to the feasting. In fact, that rhythm of fasting and feasting we see in our whole life. And the church here reminds us of that. We fast to get ready for holy week and Easter, and then we feast in the joy of the resurrection. We fast to get ready for Christmas, so that's advent. And then we feast afterwards in Christmas and epiphany. So just like life, so in the church we have these seasons of fasting and seasons of feasting. So we start to fast. The picture that Jonathan picked for the front of the bulletin, he has the link, if you want to look into it, the temptation of Jesus, if you just look at it. So maybe when you get to church and you're sitting down and starting to settle in, you look at the art on the beginning and pray, the collect, you notice that it's Jesus being tempted by the devil with a creepy webbed feet. He's got the rock loaf of bread. But don't miss that. All three temptations are included. So if you look up on the top left of the mountain, there's the devil up there with Jesus. And then you look to the right, you see the tower in Jerusalem, and Jesus is on top of that with the devil. So all three temptations presented in that picture, and that's more than what's in the gospel. It's interesting that the gospel of Mark, which is what we're reading a lot from in year c, is, sorry, year b, Matthew, Mark, Luke. So b is Mark year. The temptation of Jesus in Mark doesn't really mention anything about the three temptations, about how Jesus resisted the devil. But we'll pull in the info from the other gospels to inform us. The collect is a beautiful one. It talks about being brought through the wilderness into the promised land. And you would think that if because it's the story of Jesus in the wilderness that it would have something to do with him in the wilderness. But it doesn't. It's the people of God in the wilderness led into the promised land and us in the wilderness being led into the promised land of eternal life. So we'll pray that collect together now.
[00:03:04] O Lord God, you led your ancient people through the wilderness and brought them into the promised land. Guide the people of your church that following our savior, we may walk through the wilderness of this world toward the glory of the world to come. Through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:03:27] We have beautiful texts today with psalm 25, which shows up a lot actually in the intro. I wonder someone can figure this out. I wonder if psalm 25 is the most often used psalm in the introits and in the church services. There's a season where it's used over and over again. In the old one year lectionary, we're going to use the first ten verses of this 22 verse hymn. You know, when the psalms have 22 verses, it often means that they are acrostics, that there's 22 letters in the Hebrew Alphabet. And so a lot of times the acrostic means that each verse starts with that different letter. So a lot of times when you see 22 verses in a psalm, it's an acrostic poem. And I don't know if that's true for psalm 20. I'm going to look, hold on. That is not true for psalm 25. It's not an acrostic, but it's a beautiful hymn. I mean, it just piles in the goodness. Maybe I could just read these verses, a few of them at least, and comment it to you. O Lord, I lift up my soul, o my God, in you I trust. Let me not be put to shame. Let not my enemies exalt over me. Indeed, no one who wait for you shall be put to shame. They shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. Make me to know your ways, o lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth. Teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. For you I wait all the day long. What a beautiful prayer. Remember your mercy, o lord. That's that, Hesseb. That steadfast, loving, everlasting promised kindness. Your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions according to your steadfast love. There it is again. Remember me for the sake of your goodness, O Lord. Good and upright is the Lord. What a prayer. It's just all these that everything depends on the Lord. Our life, our hope, our salvation, the forgiveness of our sins, our protection, our lasting from this life into the last life to come. All of it, all of it depends on the Lord. It's just great.
[00:05:40] The old testament lesson is from Genesis 22. This is the story of Abraham called to sacrifice Isaac.
[00:05:49] If you're noting things, this is the first time the word love shows up in the Bible. The first time the word prophet shows up was just a few chapters before when Abraham was described as a prophet. Now here's the first time we have the word love and it's in the mouth of God. But listen to what he says. The Lord says to Abraham, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
[00:06:25] And Isaac gets up early the next day and does it. Now this is an amazing thing that first of all, the Lord commanded Abraham to do this and second, that Abraham does it. And it's often presented to us as an example of obedience.
[00:06:45] The Lord commands and his people do. Now that's true, the Lord does command and we do.
[00:06:52] But this is put before us in the Bible. Especially think of Hebrews eleven, not as an example of obedience, but as an example of faith.
[00:07:03] And Hebrews eleven tells us that Abraham offered Isaac expecting that God would raise him from the dead. Now we have to understand that, to understand the text because the Lord had promised that through Isaiah. Sorry, do I keep saying Isaiah? Have I been saying Isaiah the whole time?
[00:07:24] Through Isaac?
[00:07:26] Maybe this is getting, the Holy Spirit is getting back at me from when I almost renamed Isaiah in his baptism into Isaac.
[00:07:36] Anyhow, sorry if I've been saying Isaiah.
[00:07:41] So the Lord had promised Abraham that through Isaac, the child of laughter, the child of promise, all the blessings would come. And so Abraham looks at Isaac and we don't know how old he is now at this point in the text, he's not, certainly not married, doesn't have any children. Maybe he's twelve years old, 20 years old. He's a young boy, man, a lad.
[00:08:04] And Abraham knows that Isaac is going to have children. And that included in the children of Isaac will be one who will be the father, grandfather, great grandfather of the messiah, and that all the world is going to be filled from the children of Isaac.
[00:08:19] And so Isaac knows that the Lord still has things to do.
[00:08:26] Abraham knows that the Lord still has things to do with Isaac. See if I can get this right.
[00:08:33] And so when he goes to offer Isaac, he knows that Isaac will not stay dead. He can't stay dead because God keeps his promises. And God had promised that Isaac would have children, you see?
[00:08:47] So when Abraham goes to offer Isaac, it says in Hebrews eleven, he expected to receive him back from the dead.
[00:08:54] His logic was this, well, Isaac has to have children. He doesn't have any children. Now. You can't have any children when you're dead. So that the Lord will raise him from the dead. It must be the case.
[00:09:05] And so he was willing to offer the sacrifice of Isaac because, precisely because he knew that the Lord would raise Isaac and he wouldn't stay dead.
[00:09:16] That's an amazing thing.
[00:09:19] That's Genesis 22. And instead of raising him from the dead, in fact, the Lord prevents Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. He stops. His hand calls to him. The angel says, stop. And then he gives him the ram. And that's a picture of Jesus, the one who dies in the place of the children.
[00:09:38] The offering that the Lord accepts in our place. That's the picture there. It's beautiful.
[00:09:43] The epistle lesson. Oh, this is packed. It's like the anatomy of temptation.
[00:09:50] There's a bunch of verses to underline and memorize whenever anyone's tempted. Don't say, I'm being tempted by God. James, chapter one, verse 13. God can't be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. God tests us. He doesn't tempt us. And what's the difference between testing and temptation?
[00:10:08] Testing? Well, they come from different places. Testing comes from God. Temptation comes from the devil. They come with different purposes. Testing comes to strengthen our faith. Temptation comes to destroy our faith and love and hope and peace, life.
[00:10:22] So they come from different sources and they have different goals. But in the middle of it, it's often very difficult. Am I being tempted or am I being tested?
[00:10:30] It's difficult to tell the difference.
[00:10:33] It has this anatomy of temptation in verse 14. Each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. And then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death.
[00:10:48] So desire is conceived to sin, and sin, when it grows up is death. That's the continuity. That's the natural path of things.
[00:10:59] And that doesn't come from God. God comes to give us life. That's the point there.
[00:11:05] The gospel lesson, mark, chapter one, verse nine to 15, gives us the temptation of Jesus, but it's only two verses. The spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild animals. Only Mark tells us that, by the way, and the angels were ministering to him.
[00:11:25] So there's Jesus in the wilderness with the devil and the angels and with the animals, with no food for 40 days. It's almost so short that they added the baptism of Jesus beforehand and the beginning of Jesus preaching afterwards as well. So we have the baptism of Jesus, the temptation of Jesus, and the first sermon of Jesus, all in the gospel lesson. And I think I'll kind of lean into those three in the service tomorrow, and we'll think about it there. The gradual which. That's the verse that goes between the Old Testament and the epistle. Jonathan has composed this. It's really beautiful. Oh, come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 212, verse two. That we're looking to Jesus in the midst of all of our trouble. We're looking to him for our hope and peace and life and salvation. It's really, really great.
[00:12:32] Maybe one more thing to comment on, and that is the hymn of the day is a mighty fortress. What a hymn. This hymn is sometimes called the battle hymn of the Reformation. It's Luther's psalm 46 hymn. When Luther was writing all of these hymns, in fact, this one comes a little bit later than all the other ones.
[00:12:53] It's maybe a couple of years after Luther's major hymn output, but he composes psalm 46, a mighty fortress. And he would say to Philip Malankton, Philip, let's go sing psalm 46. And they'd go over to the chapel, St. Mary's or whatever, and they would sing a mighty fortress.
[00:13:15] It's such a popular hymn that even in. I love to check this. Even when you go visit the catholic church, you'll find it in their pews. But I think we sometimes miss the picture that Luther is painting in this hymn. A mighty fortress is our God. So God is a castle and a soldier a trusty shield and weapon he helps us free from every need that hathletsow are taken and it goes immediately into spiritual warfare. This hymn is a hymn of spiritual warfare. It's a hymn of doing battle with the devil and the demons. Whenever I'm in the midst of any sort of spiritual warfare, either just myself or with someone else, I'm always pulling out a mighty fortress. In fact, I remember one time. Have I told you this story? We were in the mountains at catechism retreat up in Colorado, and we were doing our campfire vespers. So we're on this knoll, this kind of hill in the middle of the forest. We had a campfire, and all the kids were around the campfire, and we were singing a mighty fortress. And I said, do you guys realize what we just sang, though? Devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us. I said, can you imagine that? This forest all around us is filled with demons, and they're creeping through the darkness, crawling up the side of this hill because they want to devour us and eat us and destroy us. Can you imagine that? And all the other pastors were looking at me like, Brian, no one's going to sleep. Are you nuts? None of these kids are going to be able to go to bed. But that's the picture of the danger that we're in, though devils all the world should fill. In fact, that's how the first stanza ends. The old evil foe now means deadly woe. Deep guile and great might are his dread arms, and fight on earth is not his equal. That's why you can't ever stop singing a mighty fortress. After the first stanza, it ends talking about how there's no equal to the devil on earth. And it goes on in the second stanza with might of ours cannot be done soon. Were our loss affected? If we were standing on our own trying to fight the devil, we'd be cooked. But for us fights the valiant one whom God himself elected. Ask you, who's this Jesus Christ? It is of Sabbath, lord. That means lord of hosts, lord of angel armies. There's none other God. He holds the field forever. And unlike most hymns about going out to war, onward christian soldier, et cetera, et cetera, the one that's going out to battle is not the Christian, but Christ Jesus, who goes out to fight for us, and he goes alone. That's the picture of psalm 46. We're on the city wall. We're safe because God is with us. And we see that our hero has gone out from the gates and he's going around to all of our enemies, and he's breaking the bow and shattering the spear. And crushing the enemies. And while he's doing the fighting, he turns back and looks at us watching him and says, be still. You just stay right there.
[00:16:17] Know that I am God. I'll be exalted in the earth. I'm doing all of this. He holds the field forever, though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us. We tremble not.
[00:16:29] It's not a scary thing for us.
[00:16:32] We fear no ill, they shall not overpower us. This world's prince still scowls, fierce as he will. He can harm us none. He's judged. The deed is done. One little word can fail him. And here we get into this, oh, great old seminary debate. What is that little word? It's like I remember at seminary, the idea was, there's one word that fells the devil, and you got to figure it out, because Luther knew what the word is, and he sang about it, but he didn't tell you. So what's that one little word? And some say, oh, jesus.
[00:17:04] And then, if you're smart, second year seminary, and you say, well, it's the word is. Because Luther was thinking about his argument with the Zwinglians. This is my body, or whatever. It's a different word.
[00:17:15] There's not one secret word that overthrows the devil. Any word of God will do it. This is the point that Luther's making it. You have one little word of God, and that's enough.
[00:17:25] I mean, Jesus uses three words from deuteronomy to overthrow the devil, and that's it. One little word shall fail him.
[00:17:34] We cannot, with all of our strength and all of our might and all of our ingenuity and all of our whatever. We cannot overthrow the devil. But one little word from God can and does overthrow him, the word they still shall let remain. They can't help it, or any thanks have for it. I mean, that's the devil. Thanks a lot. It's the word that overthrows he. Jesus is by our side upon the plain with his good gifts and spirit, and take they our life, goods, fame, child and wife.
[00:18:09] Though these all be gone, our victory's been won, the kingdom ours remaineth. That's the hope that we have in that word.
[00:18:17] We have the kingdom, and the kingdom has us, and Jesus has us, and we have him, and life remains ours no matter what happens.
[00:18:25] That is phenomenal. All right, we're going to sing it in a few minutes.
[00:18:32] Don't run into the marathoners while you're driving to church, and don't skip Sunday school today, either. Oh, it is going to be so good. Hebrews chapter six, verse 19. It's one of my absolute favorite passages. It says, we have this hope, like an anchor inside the veil. Back at hope, where I served before in Colorado, they had an anchor on the altar, because that hope is symbolized often by anchor. But the picture here, it's two marvelous images that are joined together in Hebrews of an anchor and the tabernacle and how they're connected, and it's just beautiful. I can't think of a more perfect picture of hope than that one in the scriptures. So I can't tell you more, because then you'll say, oh, I don't need to go to Sunday school, but hopefully that's just enough to wet your appetite. Thank you guys for listening to this hope. It's a lot of fun. See you in a few minutes. God's peace be with.
