Last Sunday of the Church Year Service

The Last Sunday of the Church Year and the Opening Liturgy

Would like to welcome you all to Kongsvinger Lutheran Church. Today is the last Sunday of the church year. This is also the last Sunday we'll be in divine service setting three. Next week, I think we go back to one, I could be wrong, it could be two, I'll figure it out.

But sometime between now and next week. The psalm tone today is psalm tone B, as in Barcelona, satyagatai, if you know it, you know it. So Barcelona, psalm tone B for our intro today. You're physically present here at Kongsvinger and you're able, please rise for the opening hymn.

In the name of the Father and of the Son.

And of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Beloved in the Lord, let us draw near with a true heart and confess our sins unto God our Father, beseeching him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to grant us forgiveness. Our help is in the name of the Lord.

Who made heaven and earth.

I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. Almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended you and justly deserve your temporal and eternal punishment.

But I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them and pray you of your boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.

Upon this, your confession, I, by virtue of my office as a called and ordained servant of the word, I announce the grace of God unto all of you and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Amen.

Psalm Tone B.

The ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days.

Let me know how fleeting I am.

Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths and my life is as nothing before you. And kind stands as a mere bread. And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions.

Do not make me the scorn of the fool. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.

Amen.

The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Lord, absolve your people from their offenses, that from the bonds of our sins, by reason of our frailty, we have brought upon ourselves. We may be delivered by your bountiful goodness through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

Y 'all may be seated. The Old Testament reading for this, the last Sunday of the church year, is taken from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 65. For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create.

For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

No more shall there be an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fill out his days. For the young man shall die 100 years old and the sinner 100 years old shall be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them.

They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord and their descendants with them. Before they call, I will answer and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox and the dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all of my holy mountains, says the Lord.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Speak the gradual together. In many colored robes, the king's daughter is led to the king. With joy and gladness, they are led along. Our epistle is taken from 1st Thessalonians chapter five. Now concerning the times and seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

And while people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.

For you are children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness, so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober for those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunk at night.

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him.

Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up as you are doing. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

The Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew, the 25th chapter.

Glory.

Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

And as the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight, there was a cry, here is the bridegroom, come out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered saying, since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.

And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast and the door was shut. Afterwards, the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered, truly I say to you, I do not know you, watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise be to the Lord

We confess our faith together in the words of the Apostles' Creed. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of Jesus our Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church,.

The communion of saints,.

The forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, amen. You may be seated.

Name of Jesus.

Amen.

The Parable of the Ten Virgins and the Need for Oil

You'll note that when we get to the end of the church here and we get to the eschaton, it is not the annual beat down that you would get if you were getting an eschatological sermon in a different church.

Always and again, people will sit there and go, are you ready for the Lord's return? And what they mean by that, have you given up drinking, dancing, smoking, and chewing? Things like this. Somehow as if that's what prepares you.

I would note that y 'all are prepared. And all you need to be prepared is oil. It's kind of just that simple. You're thinking, what kind of oil do I need? Do I need the 1030 weight oil? Do I need olive oil?

What kind of oil do I need? That's kind of the point of this sermon, by the way. It's all about the oil. Do you have it? I'm going to assume that you all are here because you have oil in your lamps. Let's talk about our gospel text first.

The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. I would note that the word for foolish is a little stronger than we translate it.

You could legitimately translate it as morons. It's a little spicier than that. Five were morons and five were, maybe a different word, prudent. That's also an alternate translation for the word wise here, prudent.

When you think of somebody who's prudent, they think ahead, right? They plan, they kind of sort things out. Somebody who is not prudent, who is a moron, would sit there and go, you know, I'm going to plan a family vacation.

Really, where are you going to go? Well, we're going to drive about 500 miles from here and we're going to camp in some state over there. Oh, that sounds great. And so, as they get closer to their trip, they load their car up with their luggage and their camping gear, and then they don't fill up their car with gas and forget to bring their wallet.

How far do you think they're going to get, right? Now, I've never done that, okay? I have stretched out how far you can go on a tank of gas. I've found that it's very useful when going on a camping trip if you haven't put enough gas into the car.

You can just draft behind a semi truck and you can get a little bit better gas mileage. Just saying, you know, if you're ever looking for practical things here. My family is now having a PTSD moment. That's a whole other story, all right?

So five of them were morons, five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. By the way, I mean, back in the day, these little oil lamps, they didn't work without oil.

Why would anyone bring an oil lamp without oil? That doesn't make any sense, which then begs the question, what does the oil here represent? Now, there is an exegetical group who will sit there and go, the oil represents works.

Do you have good works? And I'm sitting there going, well, if that's the dividing line between the foolish and the wise, we've got a problem because now you're teaching salvation by works. If you are truly a Christian, do you have good works?

Of course you do. There's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't do good works. So that's not the dividing line because you're gonna note here that these foolish ones, the morons, they end up in hell.

They end up outside of the kingdom of heaven. So we are saved by grace through faith apart from works, okay? So these foolish ones, they didn't bring any oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

And as the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. Now, there's two different kinds of sleep in our text today. This is the sleep of death. And I would note here, fascinating thing here, verse 13 in our gospel text says, "'Watch therefore you know neither the day nor the hour.'".

Now, oftentimes people sit there and go, well, this is referring, you don't know the day or the hour of Christ's return. True, we do not know the day or the hour of Christ's return. But because all of these virgins fell asleep, let me ask you this.

Do y 'all know on what day you're gonna die? I don't know. I don't have it in my calendar. I'm just kind of assuming I'm just gonna keep on going and then all of a sudden just stop going. It's just my assumption.

But I don't know on what day I'm gonna stop going. And death visits us all, young and middle-aged and old alike. So there's no guarantee that any of y 'all are gonna be here next week or that I'm even gonna be here next week.

We don't know what the week holds for us. And so you don't know the day or the hour of your death either. And you'll note another thing. When I was younger, I could stay up late. I was really good at staying up late.

I remember, because some of you might remember this, I would stay up so late that I would watch Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. At least, I would stay awake, watch the 11 o 'clock news, then at least see Johnny Carson's monologue and then decide whether or not I wanna see the interviews that he did when he had guests.

And if they were interesting interviews, I'd keep going. So oftentimes, I was going to bed midnight, 12 .30. And now that I'm 56 years old, you know, eight o 'clock seems like a really good bedtime. Just really, we don't have any kids in the house.

So it's like, we don't have to worry about story time and baths and making sure that everybody's got their PJs on and that the brother isn't beating up on the sisters. Things like this, okay? We don't have to worry about that.

So we're able to, you know, eight o 'clock rolls around, it's like, you know, what do you say we turn in? Barb's like, yeah, and she's gone, right? So here's the thing. If I set my alarm for six o 'clock in the morning and you set your alarm for six o 'clock in the morning, does it matter if I go to bed at eight o 'clock and you go to bed at 11?

Doesn't matter, we're all gonna wake up at six o 'clock. We're gonna experience 6 a .m. at the same time. Same thing regarding the Day of Judgment, Christ's return. You're gonna note that there are gonna be billions of Christians who've died in the faith and are long gone from the memory of humanity except for a little stone that has their name and the dates when they were born and the date that they died, things like this.

And so you'll note, watch therefore for you know neither the day or the hour. And you'll note that there are people in our own age, I've met people who think like this. They'll sit there and go, you know, right now I'm not interested in religion, but I think as I get closer to the end of my life, I might think about it, right?

Maybe when it gets time for me to go to the nursing home, maybe I'll start praying and maybe I'll start thinking about the things of God. There are people who think this way. You know, they wanna kind of sow their wild oats and do their own thing, but they recognize that maybe before they die, they need to get serious about God.

If anybody has an attitude like that, is there any guarantee they're gonna make it to old age? None whatsoever, that's foolishness. To die without faith is foolishness. It's, as Jesus says, it's moronic.

It's just not a wise thing to do. So at midnight, there was a cry. Here's the bridegroom, come out to meet him. This is the day that Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. All those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. I can't help it. When I read it this year, the only thing that kept coming to my mind was Napoleon Dynamite. Napoleon Dynamite at the lunch in the cafeteria, grabbing some of them tater tots and sticking them inside of his pocket, bring him into class, and he's secretly eating tater tots in class.

And the guy next to him goes, hey, Napoleon, give me some of your tots.

No, you know, get your own, right?

It's, I kind of read this the same way. The foolish said, hey, give us some of your oil. And the wise said, no, get your own. Okay, right? That's the idea here. And they were actually kind of polite about it.

Said, well, perhaps there will not be enough for us and for you, so go, rather, to the dealers and buy for yourselves. How many oil dealers are selling at midnight? None, which kind of compounds the foolishness of these fools here.

And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him into the marriage feast and the door was shut. And afterwards, the virgins came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

And he answered, truly, I say to you, I don't know you. So watch, therefore. You know neither the day nor the hour. And in fact, we don't. But here's the thing, y 'all have faith. I'm just kind of assuming that you have better things to do on a Sunday morning than come to Kongsvinger Lutheran Church out in the middle of nowhere, Oslo, Minnesota.

I know it says rural Oslo on, you know, but this is like nowhere, right? And especially with the snow on the ground and things like that. I'm assuming that the reason why you're here is because y 'all are Christians already.

Y 'all have oil. That being the case, I would note, a beat down is not required. Instead, encouragement, in fact, here's kind of the fun bit. Our epistle text ends with these words, therefore encourage one another and build up one another just as you are doing.

And this is in the context of a text that talks about the return of Christ. So we Christians, we have nothing to fear from Jesus on the day of judgment. Like nothing to fear at all. All the things we heard about last week, about the terrible things that will be happening on planet Earth as the contractions, the birth canes get more and more intense.

All of that is behind us now. We're focusing on what's coming, right? Now, this last Sunday of the church year, we don't need to talk about the mark of the beast, the antichrist, the dragon, and all the other tribulation that he's gonna set on planet Earth.

No, no, no, we're gonna focus on one thing. Here's what 1 Thessalonians says. Concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

And while people are saying there's peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come on a pregnant woman and they will not escape. Are you catching the pronouns here?

Come upon them and they will not escape. You are not part of the they. Your pronouns are not they, them in this text, right? Your pronouns in this text are y 'all and we. So he goes on. But you, y 'all, are not in the darkness.

Brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. And that's kind of the point, okay? Everybody else, Jesus' return is gonna be like the last thing on their mind, okay? You just project out a little bit.

Think about what's coming in the future. You're gonna have all of these followers of the Antichrist and their blue hair and their woke agenda and their hatred of Christianity, all this kind of stuff. And they're gonna finally think that they've succeeded in stamping out Christ and belief in him and they're going to build the world that they want with safe spaces for everybody so that nobody has to be offended, right?

Offended by people who will say that's sin. And when they have built this edifice of this world thing that they're building, all of a sudden Jesus shows up and they're gonna go, reee, is that Jesus?

How could he be here? No, no, no, no, he's going to ruin everything.

And he will, okay? And those of us who are left,.

We're gonna sit there and go, ah, right?

The hallelujah chorus will be singing, will be coming through our head, right? So you're not in darkness, brothers,.

For that day to surprise you like a thief.

For y 'all are children of the light, now already. Y 'all are children of the day, now already. We are not of the night or of the darkness. In fact, the scriptures are clear. God has transferred us from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son.

He has done this all for us by grace because of his mercy and his love for us. And we who've been gifted with faith in these promises have nothing to fear from God. And so Paul here is not trying to scare you, to startle you, to shock you into obedience or anything like that, or manipulate you to give more money in the plate.

No, he's saying, y 'all are already of the light. You are not of the darkness. You are children of the light, children of the day. And he goes on, so then let us not sleep. Now here's a different kind of sleep.

This is the kind of sleep that has to do with sin. Jesus warns about this at the end of Matthew 25, when somebody sits there and goes, my master's delayed in coming. It'll be a long time before he comes around, so I'm gonna go ahead and just do what my sinful flesh wants to do.

I'm gonna get drunk, I'm gonna beat people up, I'm gonna abuse them, and I'm gonna mistreat them and all for my own advantage and things like this. And Jesus says that things will not go well for that guy.

He'll be sorted out and numbered with the hypocrites. So the idea here is that sleep here is going back to the sleep of sinful death. Those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk, drunk at night.

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love for a helmet, the hope of salvation. And here Paul is doing something that we need to pay attention to what he's saying.

He's invoking the armor of God. If you would like an entire list of all the different kit that goes with the armor of God, see please Ephesians chapter six. But here's kind of the rule for us.

Are you ready?

Stay sober, stay awake, continue to believe. Oh, and I know this is not gonna be fun, armor up. You want me to put on the armor of God again? Yeah, you're gonna need to armor up tomorrow too. And the day after that, as long as you're still breathing, you gotta keep armoring up.

So the idea here is this, that the end isn't quite yet. So we stay in the faith, we continue to wear the armor of God, fight the battles that are brought to us, not the ones that we start, and continue in the faith.

And then listen to verse nine. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him.

Again, God has not destined us for wrath. That's all y 'all. Well, if God hasn't destined us for wrath, maybe we should have a party after church or something like that. You know, last Sunday at the church here.

You get the point here. I've got nothing terrible to tell you. God hasn't destined us for wrath, so we don't have to fear the wrath of God. We don't have to fear his judgment. Christ has bled and died for all of our sins.

In fact, think of it this way. Go back to the Garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, thinking that they would be like God, right? Oh, we're gonna be like God after we eat this fruit. So they ate the fruit, and the only thing they recognized is that they were naked.

And that's kind of a metaphor, if you would. It's true, they saw themselves as naked, but there's a deeper spiritual reality, naked for sure, in sin. And so what did they try to do? Cover up their sin with what?

Fig leaves. How good do you think that's gonna do at covering things up, right?

Fig leaves.

And it's gonna be scratchy and itchy. You better hope that you're not allergic to it. Okay, could you imagine the rash? Holy smokes. And you better make sure that's fig leaves, not poison ivy. But the point is this, is that this is what they try to do to cover their sin, foolishness.

So this is what people think. You know, I don't need to worry about the end of the world and stuff like that or Jesus coming, because I've got it already worked out. So what are you gonna do when Jesus says, why should I let you into my kingdom?

They're gonna go, well, you know, there was that one Thanksgiving that I worked at the soup kitchen downtown and I served soup to the homeless people. Oh, way to go. There's a little fig leaf right there.

That ain't covering much. Okay, that ain't covering much at all. Well, I paid my taxes. That's an even smaller fig leaf. Okay, everybody's supposed to do that. All right, what else have you done? Well, I fed the dog and, okay, yeah, this isn't gonna work, okay.

You show up with that attitude, you're covering yourself in fig leaves. But here's the thing, brothers and sisters, we're not destined for wrath. And the reason why is because all of our sin, all of our nakedness, all of our shame, all of our foolishness is covered by the blood of Christ.

And we are clothed in his righteousness. Is it any wonder then that we are assured here that God has not destined us for wrath? Christ was naked for us on the cross. By the way, he was naked. I understand that every depiction of a crucifix with Christ on the cross has that little modesty thing covering the important bits.

But when it happened historically, no. Christ was absolutely naked for us so that we can be clothed in his righteousness. That's the point. And so that's the theme that works out there. And we recognize this.

God has not destined us for wrath. Christ has bled and died for our sins. He suffered in our place. All of the wrath of God has been extinguished by what Christ did for us by standing in our place and taking God's wrath upon himself.

So we then can confidently say that this text that says God has not destined us for wrath, that means us. And I don't think you'd be here listening to this if it weren't, y 'all, that this was referring to, right?

God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, that's dead or alive, that we might live with him. Encourage one another, build one another up just as you are doing.

The New Heavens, New Earth, and the Marriage Feast of the Lamb

And then our last text, and we're gonna throw in a little bit of a cross-reference here. Our last text is like a sample, okay? Have you ever been somewhere where a vendor gives you a sample of the food that they are selling?

Recently, when Barb and I went to Germany on the Germany trip, we also went to London and also to Liverpool, but when we got to London, we flew into Heathrow and I had booked a hotel for us near Paddington Station because the reason why is because when you fly into London Heathrow, there is a train that goes straight from London Heathrow to the Paddington Station, so might as well get a hotel there because all you have to do is walk a couple of blocks and then you're able to get a hotel, so we got in kind of at seven, eight-ish o 'clock, we hadn't had dinner yet, so we got into our hotel and then we went back to Paddington Station and I saw something I'd only heard of but had never had.

There was a vendor at Paddington Station and when I looked behind the glass, there were these cubes that had sugar on them and these cubes were like all the different colors of the rainbow, there were reds and oranges and greens and yellows and blues and it just looked glorious and so I thought I knew what it was, but I had to make sure, so I asked the guy behind the glass, I said, what is this?

And he said, it's Turkish Delight. And I said, I've heard of this, I've never had it. He says, would you like a sample? Yes, yes, and so he took a toothpick and he picked one for me, you know, put the toothpick in, gave me the Turkish Delight and I, oh, oh, it was a religious experience,.

I'm telling you, okay.

The flavor, the texture, the, oh, it was awesome. Okay, and then 30 quid later, I had my own, I had a whole box of it, right? Just saying, you know, oh, it was glorious. But here's the thing, knowing that we are not destined for wrath, we have to ask the question, then what are we destined for?

Well, here, scripture is very, very secretive, if you would. We are only given little samples, but man, does this taste good, okay? Hear this sample of what it is that we are destined for. In fact, no eye has seen, no mind has comprehended, no ear has heard what it is that's coming for us.

We just get Christ sitting there going, all right, you wanna know what's coming? Let me give you a sample. Let this roll on your palate, it's gonna taste amazing. Here we go, Isaiah 65. For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.

The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people and no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fill out his days. You see, what's coming in the new earth, there is no sickness, there is no death, none of those things.

There is no pain, no suffering. There is no saying goodbye. This is a picture of the world that God intended at the very beginning, right? And what we squandered and lost by our sin, Christ restores and then some, right?

They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain or bear children for a calamity for they shall all be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord and their descendants with them. Before they call, I will answer. And while they are yet speaking, I will hear.