Be Righteous Like Abraham

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 and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter 9, verses 9 -13.

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Glory to you, O Lord. As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called

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Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me. And he rose and followed him.

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And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.

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And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

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But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

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Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our sermon this morning will wend its way through our three readings, but we'll take the particular saying of Jesus to be the cornerstone.

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Jesus said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

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Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

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Let's pray. God our Father, you have called us to be righteous, though we are sinners.

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And so we pray as we hear your word. You would sanctify us with your word. Your word is truth.

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Amen. I don't know about you, but I have a certain liking for the figures of history.

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I love those men who have gone before us. I love the great things that they have done.

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I love to contemplate the reality that we walk in shoes, well, in footsteps well trod.

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As scripture says in Ecclesiastes, there is indeed nothing new under the sun.

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I particularly have a strong liking for Winston Churchill, perhaps because he has a sharp wit and tongue, as I myself am sometimes admonished for.

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I also enjoy the teachings of Bonhoeffer, and I was pleased when

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I got up from my bed this evening. It's 1 a .m. here. So when I got up at about 11 .30,

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the classic radio station had some chanted prayers that Bonhoeffer wrote from his cell in Nazi Germany, and they were absolutely beautiful.

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I love these men of history who stood so tall, men and women, mind you, of course, who can forget those towering figures that have gone before us.

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Well, we can't, and we shouldn't forget them, because they provide for us a grand example, especially those in the faith, a grand example that we can follow, and it perhaps might not be in the common way that humanity thinks of it.

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You see, if we look to these figures of history to look for an example, well, constantly and consistently, especially in our

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Western culture, we look upon these folk with particularly rose -colored glasses.

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When we consider Winston Churchill, for example, we think of his wartime speeches, we think of his good standing across Europe and how he rallied the troops.

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At the same time, of course, C .S. Lewis was coming up, and we think of his many lectures over the radio. We think of the strong leadership that Churchill provided, and we perhaps might also think of some quips when he was challenged, some things that do not bear repeating in a

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Christian sermon, perhaps. But we see a man who was in fine form, in mind and in will and wit toward a good end for the people of England during the war, and Australia was in fact considered a part of the kingdom back at that time.

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But what we didn't see was a weak and faltering man. We didn't see his deep hours of dark depression, his sleepless nights, the endless hopelessness that witnesses say he fell into.

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We don't see his great fall when he was finally removed from office and the overarching despair that he fell into.

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We see a towering figure, but we don't see the man of weakness. In the same way, our reading begins, well, we really begin today with Abraham as the grand figure in our history.

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And as it so often happens throughout Scripture, we are not alone as we consider his legacy.

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In fact, when Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees, so often they would say, Abraham is our father, as though this towering figure was the perfect example of humanity that the

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Pharisees believed Jesus couldn't add up to. But like so many figures of history,

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Abraham's feet are of a particular soft brand of clay.

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Consider our text in Romans, and let's think about Abraham for a moment before we look at how he might be an example to us.

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So the Scripture says, God says, in fact, by the Holy Spirit, this faith that we have, this promise depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring.

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As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of God in whom he believed.

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We move into verse 18, we hear something confounding. In hope, Abraham believed against hope that he should be the father of many nations as he had been told, so shall your offspring be.

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And in verse 19, he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead.

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And in verse 20, no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

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That is why faith was counted to him as righteousness. Let's think about this for a moment.

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Abraham, really, no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God.

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Abraham believed against hope, even when he considered his old life and the apparently barren state of his wife.

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Is this the same Abraham that we read of in the Old Testament? Surely not.

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Surely not. Abraham was far more scandalous. Abraham was a man of deep flaw and weakness.

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He was yet the father of what would be the Christian faith, of course. This was the man, the focal point, the inception of God's word being bound to his people.

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This is where he began the culture and the practice of his word going into all the nations.

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Initially, of course, bound to the people of Israel that would come under the Mosaic covenant.

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And now we who have been grafted in have Abraham as his father, an important man, no doubt in history, but unwavering in faith, a towering figure of righteousness.

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This Abraham who passed off his wife as his sister so that he would not be beaten and have her stolen from him.

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This Abraham who trusted God so little that he would try and manipulate powers that be into giving him a good and safe ride through their lands.

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This Abraham who heard the promise of God while his wife mocked, mocked

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God in the tent next door. And he himself finally came to the notion that he might make

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God's promise come to pass, that he would be the one to do the work of God, that he would be the one to make it happen.

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And so he took in sin a woman that was not his wife and she bore a child that Abraham figured would be the promised one of God.

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Abraham, this towering faith and father of us all, we must not forget, was also the father of Ishmael.

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And the result of that sinful union was an evil legacy that is felt right down to this day.

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That's what happens when humanity assumes righteousness for itself. That's what happens when we think that we would be the arbiters of God's will, that we would somehow read our own mindset, our own understanding, our finite place in this longstanding history of God with his people and determine what his will for us is quite outside of what he has spoken and revealed it to be, evil always ensues.

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Ishmael, of course, and his people that came from that lineage harassed and harried

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Israel throughout all their history and Abraham himself would never see the promised land in its fullness in the same way that David with the entire same sin who, well, not only took a woman that was not his own but murdered his mate to do so.

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Well, these men stand as towering examples of faith and they're put forward for us here to, well, look to as examples.

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But in what way? In what way? These men who have perfect self -control, these men who never utter a word in anger, never stray from God's word, never fail in prayer, never deviate from the promise given, well, surely no.

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That is no example that they carried for us. We see so clearly that their existence, their best works on their best day is no example for us to follow.

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So God is rightly exacerbated when he considers his people as we turn to our text in Hosea.

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This is the purpose of the prophets. It's outlined in this text, in fact, that God's word would, well, hew us, would cut us, would tear us down of any notion of righteousness, that it would reveal to us, in fact,

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God's glory. We hear at the end of chapter 5 verse 15, I will return again to my place,

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God says, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face and in their distress earnestly seek me.

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Here is the key to all of this, and we will see it in summary in our gospel reading. But first, let's consider

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God's, well, his kind of despairing tone that he takes here. This is much like when you're raising a toddler.

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You have children, right? You've had a toddler who's no doubt has said to you, I'll never do it again,

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Daddy. And, of course, at 2 a .m., you step in a puddle of pee in the toilet and you realize that for the toddler's best efforts and desire to please you, well, they do mess it up.

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And these might be innocuous things, but, of course, these things are frustrating to us as parents.

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How much more so is God's frustration with his children? We hear it in these exacerbated tones written for us in Hosea.

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These poor prophets had to bear this to an ungrateful people that would not stand for correction, like so many toddlers beating their hands against the wall, screaming,

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I want it! God's despair is evident. Well, not his despair, but his wonder at his people is quite evident.

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What shall I do with you, Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.

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Truly, this is how we are. This is, well, God's exacerbation is warranted against all his people in all history.

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One moment, I will serve you, Lord. I will never fall into sin again.

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I will obey all your commandments. I will speak your name before nations. I will not fear those who will destroy with the sword.

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And, well, let's face it, by the time we get through this service, in some way we'll betray the confession we've already made.

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We've sinned against you in thought, word, and deed. Perhaps even now your mind's turning to the cold beer and football game that might be on the television after service.

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Let's face it, none of us can say that our steadfast love is turned always and inexorably toward God.

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This is certainly not the case. And so this, then, is no example that we might follow in any other man of history or of myth.

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God's exacerbation proves our weakness and points us ever toward, well, something greater, something greater than ourselves.

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We see what happens when we look to ourselves for sufficiency. We saw what happened with Abraham. We saw what happened with King David.

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He would not be able to fulfill the temple. And, my goodness, were his sons a merry mess.

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We saw it with Churchill as England fell into the Depression following the war.

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We've seen it with ourselves as we leave various relationships or as we argue with spouses or deal with teenagers or bosses or employees or any other situation that we face in this life, so constantly tainted by sin that hangs around our necks like a smelly odor, we can never say that we are steadfast in love toward God or that we have a righteousness that exceeds the prophets and the scribes.

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We can no more say we are sufficient than we can say we are the king of England because there's only one of those, and it's not you, and it's not me.

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Fortunately, I don't think that would be a blessed office these days. We are not righteous creatures deserving of God's favor.

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We are not righteous creatures throughout history deserving of the admiration of generations to come.

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What we are, though, are people who have a God. We are a creation made to be in relationship to this

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God. We were created to be without sin, to be righteous, to know

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God and to know him as Father, not in fear, which is actually warranted by our own sin.

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To be in the presence of God should be for us a contemplation of knees knocking and hearts faltering for the darkness of our own desires, but this is not

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God's desire for us. This is what we have deserved for our actions.

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Abraham, David, Bonhoeffer, and Churchill, and me, and everybody else throughout all history, if we contemplate our lives and our worthiness before God, should consider ourselves to be in a position warranting great fear.

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We have earned this, and it is way far outside of God's desire for us, way outside of God's intention for us from the very dawn of creation.

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And we hear this in the words of Hosea and also in the words of Christ in our gospel reading.

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God puts down his desire here, bookended by their guilt, bookended by his desire for them to acknowledge guilt and in distress seek his face.

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He desires steadfast love and not sacrifice. God desires for us a knowledge of him, not burnt offerings.

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This is such a fortunate affair for us. You see, wherever we have turned our mind towards what we think

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God's desire would be, well, it would be what? Faithful and enduring service.

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It would be many acts of good -natured giving to those around us, giving with the left so the right doesn't know what it's doing, right?

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To be unflappable in the face of persecution, perhaps. To be a perfect father, perfect mother.

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To be a schoolteacher loved by children and bold in confessing Christ, perhaps.

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To be a pastor who never wavers from the word of God and looks after his people without faltering and never finds any reason to be grumpy with those that God has charged him with.

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To be the organist that never misses a note. I've had a lovely lady organist who would get so upset after church she would weep in the vestry when she got a note wrong.

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In all of our lives there are ways that we know, and they're only known to us, inside us that we hide, that we know is just perfect weakness.

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Know that we are sick. Know that we are not worthy. We know that God's desire is for us to be worthy, to be righteous, to never know the paying of guilt, to never know what it is to shame or to be shamed, to never know hatred, to never know anger.

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This week for the Cleven family, to never know sorrow, as so many of us have known it over the years.

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To never know death, finally. To never know darkness. But the reality of our lives is that that is the focal point from which we come.

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We were born in darkness and sin. We were born with death enshrouding us with its final note of hopelessness.

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We were born with the devil desiring for us to be bound eternally in a place where there is only sorrow, only hatred, only darkness, only death.

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This is the foundation of all of our worldviews. Whether we like it or not, what comes from us comes from the fall.

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It can never be counted as righteousness before God. And so if God desired sacrifice, it wouldn't be your best efforts to help the poor that would make you worthy.

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It wouldn't be the best sermon I've ever preached that would make his word efficacious in your life.

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It wouldn't be your best moments with your children that they cherish forever that makes you worthy before God to be a father or mother.

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It wouldn't be the best words you ever said to your dad, I love you, that made you a worthy child.

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None of this would ever count for righteousness. But what counts is lack, unfortunately.

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What counts is sacrifice. And if we were to prove ourselves by sacrifice, it wouldn't be of works or offering, but it would be with our own lives.

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That is what righteousness demands of sin. It demands that sin be destroyed.

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It demands that this body of death be dealt with, be dealt with forever and for always and entirely so that not one speck of unrighteousness remains.

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This is the only way in which the righteous can stand. And for us, this must be done from without.

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If God desired sacrifice, it would be of our very lives for our sin, and that would be a hopelessness, too dark, too miserable to contemplate, though well -deserved.

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But this is not God's desire. This is not why he gave his law, in fact.

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His law was given that we would know his righteousness. It's inevitable that where we don't stand in it, we would bring upon ourselves darkness.

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Light will show you shadows well. But we were given his law so that we would know what light is, that we would know what it is to live in perfection, how to serve neighbor perfectly, to have no other gods, to love our

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God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and to do so without compulsion, to do so without guilt or shame, to love perfectly, to live perfectly, as Adam and Eve did, to walk in the garden unbridled by darkness in the perfect light of God's presence.

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This is God's desire for us in the giving of his law. Sadly, our fall and our shadow proves his light and stark relief.

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And yet, God desires for us not to be destroyed by it, not to consider ourselves the shadows that must be obliterated, but to know in ourselves that which is alien to God's creation, that which has come in unbidden by God's will and against his desire to seek, to kill, and to destroy, that is what needs to be dealt with once and for all.

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God desires mercy and not sacrifice, and so he has purposed for you a will and a way that the darkness of your sin that entangles would be dealt with, that you'll be called to follow him.

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You'll be called into his marvelous light and finally called to stand in a righteousness of your own, having passed through the veil of this mortal life.

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God's desire is for you to stand in stark relief against that alien thing that bounds you to humanity, the darkness of death, and to know the righteousness as your hope, to know the righteousness of Christ imparted to you as the light that brings life that the darkness cannot overcome.

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He has come to you, the sick, the bound with disease that no one can overcome by will, desire, or self -control.

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He has come into this world of darkness and sin, our great physician, to heal this, the sick.

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While God did not desire sacrifice, it was necessary to fulfill all righteousness, and so it was given then to you that his death would be sufficient, that his sacrifice would be once for all.

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The payment made in your name, writ large in blood in the Lamb's book of life, you are under a merciful

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God whose sacrifice has purchased righteousness for you, so you are called to live in this hope.

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To know your sin, as God rightly says in Hosea, to know your sin and acknowledge your guilt, and in distress for it seek his face, but not do so with knees knocking and a trembling heart, but doing so like Matthew, doing so like all the disciples who got up, who were terrible men like Abraham, David, a tax collector stealing from his own people.

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I bet he stole the money out of his mom's purse when he wanted a packet of smokes when he was young, if you get my drift.

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This was not a good man, Matthew, but God called him and said, follow me. You were not good people.

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I was not a good person. No one was righteous. No, not even one, the scripture says, and yet Jesus came to us.

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We didn't come to him. We would have nothing to come to him with. We'd have no righteousness, no gift, no desire, no will that God would think is pleasing or worthy of his presence.

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He came to us for and despite our afflictions to heal and to restore, to make righteous what was made sinful by humanity's desire to usurp

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God and place ourselves in the seat of power and authority, to be harried then as Ishmael has done to all

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Israel, to be harried by our sin, born out of our lust for power, riches, and whatever else binds humanity to the evil that so often entangles our hearts.

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Jesus comes to us in the midst of it, grabs us by the scruff of the neck, drags us kicking and screaming to his means of grace, to the marvelous light that burns out the unrighteousness of sin and replaces it with the only source of righteousness.

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Jesus, who is our light. Jesus, who is our life. Jesus, who is our hope.

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Thanks be to God. Amen. We thank you for your support.

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