Murderous Treachery of Concupiscence

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins in salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 21st chapter.

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Jesus said, Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower, and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.

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And when the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and then stoned another.

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Again, he sent other servants more than the first, and they did the same to them.

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Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, They will respect my son. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves,

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This is the heir. Come let us kill him and have his inheritance. And they took him, and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

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When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to him,

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He will put those wretches to a miserable end, and let out the vineyard, to other tenants, who will give him the fruits in their season.

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Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

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This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit.

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And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.

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When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard this parable, they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. Our gospel text today is, the context is actually last week's gospel text.

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Remember, Jesus is teaching in the temple, and the Pharisees and scribes are losing their mind and they come up, By what authority are you doing these things?

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You mean teaching in the temple? What do you mean by what authority, right? And so that's the context here.

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And you're going to note that in that context, Jesus tells a very thinly veiled parable, which the

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Pharisees and the scribes figured out, wait a second, that's about us, right?

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And what do they want to do? They want to arrest Jesus. So here's the important part that I want to start out at the beginning of our sermon today.

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And that is, is that we must never, and I mean never, lose sight of just how murderously treacherous human beings are after their fall into sin.

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And that includes us. And so this is what we need to repent of, murderously treacherous.

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Yesterday in our women's Bible study, one of the ladies asked a question, can you define concupiscence for me?

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She had heard the word concupiscence, if you ever read the Lutheran confessions, concupiscence shows up in regards to, well, a lot of things, but most importantly, as it relates to original sin.

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And so this is a big highfalutin, $5 Latin term, concupiscence, right?

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And so how do you define it? Well, I define it the way I was taught it by the men who instructed me in the

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Lutheran faith, that concupiscence is this idea that now after the fall into sin, that human beings are bent in on themselves.

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It's this horrible mangling of human nature to where, if you think of Gollum from the

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Lord of the Rings, you know, Gollum, just completely tortured character, I mean, just absolutely wretched to look at.

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And the thing he's constantly obsessed about is his precious, right? He's like, oh, my precious, my precious, right?

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Okay. But here's the thing, when it comes to concupiscence, the thing that is precious is you.

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You are precious to you. It's kind of really narcissistic. It's self love.

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And you'll note that there's a religion that goes with that self love, being bent in on yourself.

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And the religion that goes with self love is self -righteousness. And believe me when

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I tell you, human beings bear a grudge against anybody who would dare contradict their self -righteous, self -made self religion.

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It's a terrible thing. This goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, if you think about it. In the Garden of Eden, in Genesis chapter four, we have an account that's actually quite terrible.

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Y 'all heard of the word Philadelphia, right? Philadelphia. Right now, they're playing in the playoffs.

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I'm not referring to them. I'm not referring to the baseball team. But Philadelphia, the term, what does it mean?

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Brotherly love. I would note that we human beings, we oftentimes have these weird, abstract standards or things that we look to, but we look to it like romantically rather than realistically.

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Because here's the truth, is that brothers don't really always love each other. I mean, my brother and I, we really don't get along.

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But then again, I think back to our childhood, I teased him mercilessly. And I enjoyed every minute,

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I savored every moment of psychological anxiety that I was able to create in my brother.

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But then he grew taller than me, and he started beating me up. And so you get the idea.

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And then of course, today, Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, be careful which neighborhoods you're hanging out in.

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Have you seen the looting that's been taking place? Brotherly love, my foot. That's just not really what's happening.

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So think back with me to the first two brothers, Cain and Abel. And in the account in Genesis 4, it says,

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When Adam knew Eve his wife, she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man, now

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I know the ESV says, with the help of the Lord. However, the Hebrew reads, I have gotten a man, the

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Lord. That's just literally how the Hebrew reads. And many theologians over the millennia have basically said, you know, it looks here like Eve believes she's given birth to the promised one who would crush the head of the serpent.

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She's given birth to the Messiah. It's Cain. Now, can you imagine how horribly you're going to mess your children up if you teach your child, if you teach him he's the

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Messiah? A Messiah complex in a kid who's born dead in trespasses and sins and bent in on himself?

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Oof -da, right? That's not a good thing. And then, of course, she bore another child named Abel. Abel was a keeper of the sheep.

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He did all the dirty jobs. Cain was a worker of the ground. And in the course of time, Cain brought to Yahweh an offering of the fruit of the ground.

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And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. Now, if you've ever heard bad preaching on this that ignores what

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Hebrews 11 says, people sit there and go, well, the reason why God didn't accept Cain's offering is because it was a salad.

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Wrong. Okay? Wrong. It's totally wrong. It's totally fine to give God a salad as long as it doesn't have kale in it.

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I'm just saying, okay? That would be an abomination to the Lord, thus saith

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Chris Roseborough, right? But the point is, is that in the Old Testament, there are grain offerings.

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There are fruit offerings. There are even drink offerings. There's nothing wrong with an offering of the first fruits of your produce because there's a whole first fruits offering in the scripture.

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What's the issue here? Well, we read in Hebrews 11 that Abel had faith.

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Cain did not. And note here, murderously, treacherous, bent in on yourself, my precious, kind of distorted humanities what we all are by nature.

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And so the text goes on to say that Cain was angry and his face fell.

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I've seen this happen to my kids when their face falls. And Yahweh said to Cain, why are you angry?

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Why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.

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Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. And then Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and Abel had no clue what was coming next.

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And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

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And then Yahweh said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother? He said, I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?

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What a fascinating response if you think about it. Because you know, you look at humanity, right?

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And somebody has just been beaten up and left for dead on the street and they're, well, I've got to get to work.

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It's no business of mine, you know. People in need, we just said, well, you know, I've got to look out for number one here.

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And that's the problem with all of us. Notice he's just murdered his neighbor. And by the way, this then goes from individuals to clans to nations.

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Need I remind you of the evil that's taking place in Israel today, right? Oh, and by the way, the thing that's going on in Israel has nothing to do with the last time, the rapture isn't next week.

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You don't have to worry about that, okay? That's not one of the signs that Christ is imminently returning,

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I just have to say that. But all that being said, you'll note treacherous, murderous, concupiscence within humanity when you contradict, well, everything that goes along with that type of self -love that oftentimes people will find themselves in trouble.

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Is it any wonder that Christianity is persecuted throughout the world? Is it any wonder?

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Because Christians, they proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins. And say that you cannot save yourself by your good works.

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It doesn't matter that you pay your taxes, that you love your wife or your husband, that you clothe your kids and work hard at work, and you get a good glowing review from your employers every year that you're doing a good job.

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That can't save you. And people sit there and go, well, what do you mean that can't save me?

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And notice the anger, well, the problem is you're a sinner. Are you saying I'm a sinner? I just said it. And notice the escalation of hostilities at this point.

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Nobody wants to hear that. And then you say something like this, and there's salvation in no one else except for Jesus Christ.

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Well, who are you to say that? How can you be so arrogant? How can you know that there's salvation only in Jesus?

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And now we're off to the races, and this is what happens when people bring up religion during their

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Thanksgiving meals. So we've all experienced this. We know full well.

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And the thing is, is that in some cases it leads to flat -out murder.

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In the case of Abel, he was slain by his brother. So the

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Lord then said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? So Yahweh said to him, what have you done?

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The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

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When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.

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And Cain said to Yahweh, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face

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I shall be hidden. Now all of a sudden, you know, the chickens have come to roost. He recognizes the grave seriousness of his sin, and the worst bit is that he's no longer going to see the face of God.

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But God has mercy on him. God has literal mercy on him. Cain worries that being a fugitive, that somebody, if they find him, will want to kill him.

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And Yahweh said to him, not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And so the

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Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. That's mercy in the face of undeserved mercy.

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He deserved God's greatest punishment. Now granted, he was punished, but even in his punishment,

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God was showing him grace and mercy, even to Cain. So when we take a look at our gospel text today, note there's kind of similar themes going on here, and consider just the oddity of what's going on.

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So Jesus tells another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it to tenants, and then went into another country.

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And here, except for that last part, everything is invoking a story that all of these

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Jews would have known and had heard from Isaiah chapter 5. But now Christ adds kind of his own spin to it, okay?

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Let me sing the love song of my beloved's vineyard, but here now we have tenants who are supposed to be managing this wonderful vineyard.

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And I would note here, I don't know much about farming, but one of the things I've noticed about the farming up here is that there are some people who own land that's being farmed by other people.

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And so the people who are farming the land for somebody else, I would tell you, it would make the front page of the

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Grand Forks Herald if there was a group of guys who were doing farming for other people who decided they were going to keep the crop for themselves and not give to the owner his part of the share of the profits, right?

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That would make a good movie, right? Just one of those things, if you kind of think about it, it would scandalize everybody.

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People would take sides. They'd be talking about it in the cafes and in the restaurants around town here, and it would be all the buzz of Oslo, wouldn't it not?

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So same thing going on here. And you're going to note that this owner of the vineyard did what is exactly what they agreed to.

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When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.

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And the tenants took his servants, beat one, killed another, stoned another.

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Well, that's no way to treat the servants of the guy who owns the property that you're farming.

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What's going on here? And then again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them.

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Now who's Christ referring to here? The prophets. And you'll note that here, this is an appeal to them to basically wake up and see what's really going on here.

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And when it says that God is looking for fruit, what exactly does that mean?

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Is he looking for fruit? Is he looking for apples and oranges and sugar beets and things like that? No, it's the fruit of the

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Spirit, right? That's the thing he's looking for. And we know this from our Isaiah text, because at the very end of our

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Isaiah text, it says this, the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting.

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He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed.

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He looked for righteousness, but behold, an outcry. And so Christ here is preaching a parable against the religious leaders of Israel at the time, and we already know from the punchline that after telling this parable, they wanted to arrest him.

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Obviously, these were the days before freedom of speech and freedom of religion, right? You can get in trouble if you run afoul of the authorities.

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So Christ here, these prophets of old that are being referred to in this parable, they're looking for the fruit of the

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Spirit. They're looking for a people who hear the word of God, recognize their sin, cry out to God for forgiveness and mercy, and then bear fruit in keeping with repentance by walking in God's commands.

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Now granted, not a single one of us walks in God's commands perfectly, and in fact, the Scriptures make it clear that there isn't a single human being on planet

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Earth at this time or even back in the ancient world that can do such a thing. And I like one of my favorite theologians,

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Pieper, he's the one who wrote the Christian dogmatics that is used by the Missouri Synod, and I read it when

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I was in seminary. He says that as Christians, we should strive to do this. When we wake up in the morning, we say the prayer that Luther has given us in our catechism, that God would help us that we not fall into sin this day, and that we intend to live perfectly on any given morning when we wake up, then knowing full well that when we get to bed and it's time for our evening prayers, we pray the

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Lord's prayer and we say, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, right?

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And of course, the Wesleyans go, no, you're supposed to achieve sinless perfection. Anybody who says that they're doing that is lying.

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How do I know? Scripture says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

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And there was a heresy in the ancient church called the Pelagian heresy. Pelagius was a rogue monk from, of all places, the

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United Kingdom, at least it wasn't called the United Kingdom, but Botania at the time, right? And he came teaching this idea of sinless perfection and that children, when they were born, they were born tabula rasa, you know, with a blank slate, completely sinless and just perfectly pure, right?

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Of course, I've had three kids and none of them came out that way. They came out screaming and demanding and all this kind of stuff, right?

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There's nothing worse than teaching an infant child, it's time for you to now sleep through the night, okay?

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Have you ever done this, right? So there's my 11 -month -old infant and it's time for my infant to learn how to sleep through the night.

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And of course, they can stand and stuff like this. So when it comes time for their normal feeding, they're ready to do this.

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The doctor has assured us they will not die by morning because they've hit the weight where it's safe to do this.

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So what do they do? They stand up in their crib and they go, ah, right?

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And you and your spouse do this, right?

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And the child is upset, ah, right?

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And then they're in a panic, wait, they're not obeying my scream. And they hit this pitch that I can't even hit.

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It's like almost like so high that only dogs can hear it, right? And this goes on for minutes that feel like hours, right?

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By the way, those of you looking to get married, this is what you get to look forward to. All the more reason why seek pre -marriage counseling.

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You need to have some realistic expectations put into about what you're going to experience. But all that being said, we are by nature sinners, treacherously so, and we need to hear

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God's real words confronting us with our real sin and diagnosing the sin, not giving us this, well, you know, you've got a little bit of sin here.

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Just take some Pepsi and you'll be fine in the morning, right? That's not how this works.

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And there are many people who delusionally think in their self -righteousness that they don't really need much of God's forgiveness.

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In fact, those under the Pelagian heresy, the way the church were able to flesh them out, ask them one simple question.

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One, when we pray the prayer that Christ taught us to pray daily, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

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Why did Christ teach us to pray these words every day? That was the question. And if you were under the delusion of the self -righteousness of the

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Pelagian heresy, you would say something like this, well, I'm not praying it because I need any sins forgiven, because I rarely need, that rarely ever happens.

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Instead, the reason why I pray that as Christ taught me is so that it keeps me humble. I am not making this up.

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And they would go, Pelagian heretic, that's the sign, right? Because we delusionally think that we can somehow pull it off.

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So Christ sends his prophets to us to call us to repent, to see the magnitude of our sin, to cry out to God for mercy, and he promises to forgive us our sins.

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But when these people tell us to repent, we don't like that, and so we bear them a grudge.

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And so Christ goes on to say that, but when the tenants saw, finally the owner said,

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I'm going to send my son to them, and they will respect my son. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ah, this is the heir, come let us kill him and have his inheritance.

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What a bunch of wicked tenants. And here's kind of the weird gospel irony in all of this, and I love the fact that it was one of the women in the

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Women's Bible Study who pointed this out yesterday. They did kill the son, and by killing the son, we have received the inheritance.

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Isn't that the irony of this, is that that's just how merciful and kind Christ is and God is.

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As we sung in our opening hymn, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, legitimately gave, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

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And although we are all guilty of participating in this murderous plot against the owner of the earth, right, think of it that way,

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I love the fact that in the Hebrew when it talks about the land, ha -eretz, right, that can actually refer to Israel, or it can refer to the earth itself.

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Are we not tenants here on God's good green earth? Does he not have a right to come and take a look at our fruit?

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He does. But you're going to note that daily, weekly, we take a look at the yield of the fruit of the

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Spirit in our lives, and daily we confess to God that we are by nature sinful and unclean.

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We've sinned against God and thought, word, deed, by what we've done and by what we've left undone.

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And it is through the death of Christ that we do receive the inheritance, all as a gift, that was

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God's plan in the first place. And so the text goes on to say Jesus said, and they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and they killed him.

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When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? Now here's kind of a trick question, since we're all culpable when it comes to the death of Christ.

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Note that what we deserve is what the crowd then speaks. Well, they said he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season.

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And here then, this is then talking about Israel specifically. And I would note something, this is something we have to keep in mind, that being a genetic descendant of Abraham through his son

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Isaac does not give you an inside track with God. We are children of Abraham because Isaac was the child of the promise, and we also are children of the promise by grace through faith.

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So today that nation that exists in the Mediterranean between Egypt and Lebanon and Syria, and with Jordan on the other side, that's not the kingdom of God.

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It's not. It's just one of the nations of the earth, and granted it's a nation in turmoil, and we should pray that God would restore peace to that region indeed.

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But that's not the kingdom of God. God has taken the kingdom of God away from those who refuse to bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and he's given it to those who will actually give him his share of the fruit.

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And so the kingdom of God today is found in places like Oslo, Minnesota, in a small little church like Kongsvinger.

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It's found at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Radium, Minnesota, and other faithful congregations throughout the world where Christ is preached, crucified for our sins, risen from the grave for our justification, where God's law is preached to confront us and show us how deep the sin is, and show us that we, like Gollum, are bent in on ourselves, and we are wretched and miserable and in need of forgiveness, mercy, and grace.

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And so we now have the words of God. We can join our voices to the prophets of old who were stoned for preaching such a gospel, and we can proclaim

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Christ and him crucified for our sins so that others can hear of the mercy that exists in Christ.

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So, yes, it's true, he will put those wretches to a miserable death, that's what we all deserve, but God, rather than giving us that death, allows

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Christ's death instead to be done in our place so that we can be forgiven. And now we are doing the work in Christ's vineyard of sharing the gospel and spreading the good news to our brothers and sisters and neighbors and friends that Christ has died for them too.

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Christ goes on to say, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

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This was the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes. This scripture that Christ is referring to, the stone the builders has rejected, we all recognize that it's referring to Christ.

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He is the stone that the builders have rejected. And you'll note that the world in its self -righteous religion, in its self -righteousness and philosophy and the way the world thinks, looks at Jesus and goes,

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I don't need that, get me a real cornerstone, would ya?

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But you'll note, the stone the builders have rejected has become the cornerstone,

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Christ is the center. This is God's doing. And for us who've been brought to penitence and faith in Christ, this is marvelous in our eyes.

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And so he says, therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from them and given to a people who will produce its fruits.

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And the one who falls on the stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone it will crush him.

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Two different outcomes here, this is kind of an enigmatic statement on the part of Christ, a little hard to interpret.

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But some of the best ways I've seen this text worked kind of goes with this idea, there are two different outcomes, if you would.

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The one who falls on Christ is broken to pieces, in fact that's every one of us, right?

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But the one who will not fall on Christ and be broken to pieces, Christ will fall on him and crush him.

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A good way to think about it, there's no way around it, there's only one of two outcomes when it comes to Christ, you either trust in him and call on him for forgiveness and mercy which he will gladly and richly give to you.

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And in so doing you are broken to pieces because a primary component of repentance is that undoing of yourself.

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It is that taking of yourself and recognizing that all of that bent in on your selfness that we all have, that concupiscence, makes you wretched and evil and it causes you to lament, to cry out to God in true sorrow and contrition because of just how much evil you are guilty of.

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But if you refuse to repent and be broken to pieces by God's law and then comforted by the gospel, then

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Christ indeed will crush you and that's the case. So do not for a second, and I mean this, do not for a second underestimate just how murderously treacherous you are.

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I'm not talking about people out there, I'm talking about you, I'm talking about me. And note how far

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Christ has brought us. And it's still true that our sinful nature, like Gollum, loves to look in the mirror and go, oh my precious, right?

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This is true. But note then that by the power of the Holy Spirit, through his word, through the sacraments, through the good news that Christ has bled and died for your sins, that he has set us free from slavery to our own self and our own love for ourselves and set us free from our self -righteousness, that God the

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Holy Spirit is now doing a work in us where he's taking human beings who are bent in on themselves and finally straightening them out so they can see something other than themselves, so they can see their

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Savior, so they can see their neighbor and recognize that, yeah, I am my brother's keeper.

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This is the fruit that Christ is looking for. This is the fruit the Father is looking for. And God the

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Holy Spirit works that in us through his means. And for this we are thankful because in our sinful state we are as wretched and miserable and treacherous and murderous as Cain.

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That's you. That's you and I. And you'll note then that in our epistle text, kind of a little bit of a side note here, in our epistle text the

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Apostle Paul takes on the false religion of the self -righteous. And you'll note the part that the lectionary took out, put it back in.

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Put it back in because it provides the context. Let me just read a portion of it. Paul warning about the self -righteous.

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And that's exactly who the Judaizers were. Remember, the self -righteous, those who are bent in on themselves are murderously treacherous and they're not satisfied with merely killing your body.

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They desire to destroy your soul as well and put you under bondage to them.

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So Paul in the missing context of our epistle says, look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, and look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

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And of course in the 21st century where everybody's politically correct, we all sit there and go, oh, did

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Paul just call the Judaizers dogs and evildoers and just say that their circumcision was a mere mutilation of the flesh?

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Yes, he did. Oh, toxic patriarchy, toxic patriarchy, down with the patriarchy.

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Get over it, grow up, right? He's speaking words of truth under the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit. Let that sink in. Look out, he says, we are the ones who are the circumcision.

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We are the ones who worship by the Spirit of God and we glory in Christ Jesus and we put no confidence in the flesh, none.

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Brothers and sisters, if you still think that somehow it's up to you to save yourself by your good works, by your really wise decisions, by your impressive, well, growth in your sanctification, you're still like Cain.

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You don't have faith. Put it away, put it to death. Salvation is a gift.

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So we as Christians, we put no confidence in the flesh. I can look in the mirror and go, there ain't nothing there.

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What does Christ say in the opening statements of the Sermon on the Mount? Blessed are the poor in spirit, poverty stricken in the spirit.

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They got nothing to offer God. Not a single euro, not a penny, nothing. They got nothing to offer to God.

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And I look in the mirror and go, yep, that's me. I sit there and go, well, what are you going to do about it? Nothing.

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I'm not going to do a darn thing about it because there's not a darn thing I can do. So we put no confidence in the flesh.

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Now Paul goes on and gives his pedigree here. He says, listen, I myself, I have reason for confidence in the flesh.

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If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, listen, I have more. And then he gives this wonderful list.

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Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, a tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews as to the law, a Pharisee as to zeal, a persecutor of the church as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

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That's a pretty good list. It's way more impressive than the list that I had when I was in Nazarene. I don't drink, dance, smoke, or chew, which by the way, it wasn't true.

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That's the worst bit about it. The creed that tells me I'm truly a Christian. I don't dance, drink, smoke, or do, or chew.

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I did dance. I even went to an illegal dance that was put on by parents at Maranatha because we weren't allowed to have a dance.

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We weren't allowed to have a prom. So the parents got together. They rented some hotel venue down in Huntington Beach, far away from where we lived so that we could have our own prom.

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And you know what? I went. And we danced. It's true.

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It's true. And it's also true that on several occasions while I was in Nazarene, people offered me cigarettes.

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And you know what I did? I smoked them. And unlike Bill Clinton, I inhaled.

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It's true. This is gas. This is scandalous. Did I drink?

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Oh yeah. Okay, my parents would offer me sips of their wine and their whiskey and things like this and I would drink too.

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So a whole time knowing this about myself, I still put on that stupid facade,

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I don't dance, drink, smoke, or chew. You know what they call that? Hypocrite.

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I didn't even, the standard that I was judging everybody else by, I was breaking left and right.

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The only thing I didn't do was chew because that's just gross. Okay, this is nasty. But if it weren't so nasty,

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I probably would have given that a try too, right? So Paul's list is way more impressive than mine.

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And in his case, he legitimately followed through on all of this stuff. But listen to what he says, whatever gain

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I had thinking about all of his works that he did, I count that as a loss for the sake of Christ.

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Indeed, I count everything as a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and for His sake,

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I've suffered the loss of all things and I count them as, again, the Greek word is excrement.

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I count them as excrement. All of the things that I did that I thought were to my benefit, I count them as excrement so that I might gain

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Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

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You see, brothers and sisters, you don't have enough righteousness to get into heaven. Good news, Christ does, and He gives it to you as a gift.

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I don't have enough righteousness to get into heaven, far from it, and if any of you have spent any time in my house, this just takes five minutes to go, you know,

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Pastor Roseborough's a sinner. No kidding, right? I confess my sins along with you.

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But here's the thing, being bent in on yourselves blinds you to the truth, and you'll note that in our parable today, our gospel text, that after the chief priests and the

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Pharisees heard Jesus' parable, rather than repent and say, you know what, Jesus is right, they instead perceived that He was speaking about them and were seeking to arrest

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Him. How dare you? How dare you make me out to be a sinner in front of all these people that you're preaching in front of?

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We're going to arrest you, Jesus, and we're going to kill you. And they did.

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They legitimately did. And it's marvelous in our sight, because it's by Christ's death, the very thing that they did that was evil, that then is the means by which you and I are forgiven of all of our transgressions.

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And it's that very act of murdering the Son of God that shows just how wicked we are, for real, and that's all of us.

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And at the same time, just how bent in on ourselves we truly are, and that indeed we are. But it's also one of those sobering moments when we realize, oh my goodness, what have we done, where we can finally hear the gospel, and that what we intended to destroy the

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Son of God so that we can seize the inheritance resulted in our forgiveness so that the inheritance is given to us by grace, through faith.

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Hmm. So rather than arresting Jesus and silencing Him, we need to arrest our sinful natures and silence

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Him with the good news that He will never be good enough. He is not smart enough.

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He is not strong enough. There's not a thing He can do to save Himself. And if He doesn't like being called a sinner, well, that's just tough turkey, because that's what

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He is. But Christ speaks a different word to us from the cross, that we are forgiven and pardoned, and through His blood, we have our sins and iniquities washed away, so that rather than hear the word that we are sinner,

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Christ speaks words of grace, so much that He says of us, you are saints, you are made holy by my blood.

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What a great Jesus we have. Let us repent yet again of our golemness, of our self -righteous, murderous treachery, and humbly come to Jesus, who will richly forgive us.

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He does so today as we take the Lord's Supper, pardoning us of all of our transgressions and assuring us that His flesh and blood was given in shed for the forgiveness of all of our sins, and indeed it was.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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