Brokenness Undone

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:10

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

00:18

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

00:25

Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew the ninth chapter. And getting into a boat Jesus crossed over and came to his own city.

00:33

And behold some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. And when

00:38

Jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic take heart my son your sins are forgiven.

00:45

And behold some of the scribes said to themselves this man is blaspheming. But Jesus knowing their thoughts said why do you think evil in your hearts for which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say rise and walk.

01:02

But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He then said to the paralytic rise pick up your bed and go home.

01:12

And he rose and went home. And the crowd saw it they were afraid and they glorified

01:18

God who had given such authority to men. This is the gospel of the Lord.

01:25

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text for this morning's sermon will primarily be our gospel reading.

01:33

Jesus knowing the thoughts of the scribes said why do you think evil in your hearts which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say rise and walk.

01:43

But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Let's pray.

01:50

God our Father we live in this life desiring to walk in your ways. Desiring to walk unencumbered by sin and yet we are so often paralyzed like this paralytic that Jesus healed in our text today.

02:04

The only means by which we might walk in newness of life is to be sanctified with your truth.

02:10

And so we pray as we hear your word you would sanctify us with your truth. Your word is truth. Amen. Well if you cast your mind back throughout your life you'll soon come to realize that your life has been a stumbling thing.

02:27

Even when things are going perfectly well there is always the reality behind the good times, the good memories, the times of great joy or the times of great success where the reality of your stumbling fleeting body and mind or even your conscience or your or your heart certainly has failed you throughout the years.

02:55

You might cast your mind right back to your very earliest days. Perhaps you were the apple of your mother's eye.

03:03

Perhaps you were the greatest singer ever putting on a concert in your own lounge room. Perhaps you were the greatest reader of books and were able to learn lots of information.

03:14

And well very quickly you found yourself in preschool or in early primary school and there you find that you didn't really know as much as you thought you knew.

03:26

And we all remember the frustration of trying to rapidly learn new things and the expectation that we do so in our early lives.

03:35

It's quite apparent whenever we think that we're doing so very well even right back at our youngest ages we are over and again encumbered by our own weakness in a sense paralyzed where we thought we might be doing really quite well.

03:54

Perhaps your earliest memory is not of childhood but perhaps you might cast your mind back to your first love or your your first romantic engagement whether that be at 12 or 13 years of age as a as a young teenager and those soaring feelings of of joy and euphoria at knowing that there is someone so very special that might just care for you as their one and only even at that young age.

04:23

Perhaps that very memory and I remember my one very very well and I remember the girl's name but it was on summer holidays we met at the beach with both families or holiday and I remember the euphoria but I also remember the end of it so very well.

04:40

Those feelings pass away so very quickly and we realize that for all that momentary euphoria for all that momentary feeling of invincibility there is always a fall whether it be the other person in our lives that we broken relationships in that kind of way from such a very young age we are aware that our lives will always be a stumbling thing.

05:09

It's not it's enough then to even consider the the loss of loved ones over the years the reality of things like strokes that can so readily debilitate such strong and able people.

05:24

I remember my very first week in the public ministry going and mashing up a little bit of bread and a little bit of wine to serve the sacrament to a very dear lady who could only take such a small amount from the side of her mouth where just weeks before she had been hale and hearty and a strong member of the congregation

05:45

I was told. These are realities ever before us that our lives are fleeting our bodies are weak and in so many ways we become paralyzed with the with the ramifications of sin and death that surround us all the time whether we be physically and literally paralyzed whether it be emotionally or spiritually or whether it be literally paralyzed by injury in any of these ways.

06:18

The reality is ever before us that we ourselves are insufficient and our bodies are fleeting things and that what strength we do have will not endure very long.

06:31

In fact so very often that what great strength we might have in and of ourselves such a fleeting thing that it is gone within moments let alone weeks days or years.

06:45

So we have some sense of what this paralytic might have been facing in his life and yet we will not ever have the full sense of it in our own period of history.

06:58

This man brought before Jesus is not like a person in a nursing home or a paralytic we might see these days and we can think that we've just seen the

07:09

Paralympics of course we've seen people with missing limbs and disabilities of the eye and so on and so forth being able to participate in sporting endeavors.

07:20

This was certainly beyond all reason for a paralytic of Jesus time. There was no no occupational therapist or physiotherapist to help this man to somehow find mobility in his other limbs.

07:35

If his legs were not sufficient for the task there were no no wheelchairs let alone electric wheelchairs like the one that the professor

07:46

Hawking used to have that where he was even able to speak through a machine.

07:52

None of this was available to this man. This man was completely paralyzed completely without means completely dependent on others and entirely without hope for himself for his future and without hope to have a family or to have any kind of of life beyond being being fed hand to mouth and depending on other people even to clean his own soiled clothing.

08:26

This kind of reality is really so often beyond our understanding.

08:33

We do well to contemplate what it would be like to be so completely dependent and we do well to contemplate this in light of our text because of those things that we had brought to our attention right at the very beginning of this sermon.

08:50

Those momentary afflictions that we face we so often get caught up in these momentary afflictions and seek to order our lives and even order our faith after these momentary afflictions and so find not the fullness of Jesus Christ for us not the fullness of God's gift for us but just as our fleeting bodies let us down so with a focus on our momentary needs we so order our faith so that our trust in Jesus is fleeting and we find when we look at him when we look to God and his gifts for us with the lens of our immediate need our immediate need of body that being whether it be prayer for healing or whether it be the provision for food for our bellies those things to get us immediately mobile again forgetting to remember that we are like this paralytic then in light of those momentary needs not being fulfilled to our perfect requirement or our perfect desire so our

10:02

Jesus becomes only an immediate and fleeting helper in our time of need this is precisely why we must consider ourselves in the same way that this paralytic is presented before Jesus we must understand the true heart of our problem our true need and the depth of our need and see how

10:28

Jesus in our text today has so ordered for us the gift of healing through the forgiveness of sins and finally those gifts that are needful for body and home and and life in in this fleeting moment while we are on this mortal coil and having been so ordered according to Jesus work for this paralytic we might find ourselves with true and eternal hope and an understanding of the glory of Jesus and the greatness of his gift toward us so first then rather than considering the immediate need of of of food for the belly or the healing of broken knees or fading eyesight consider our status as one with this paralytic one who is completely bound broken and beset upon because of sin not the sin necessarily that you've committed day to day we will certainly address that later on in this sermon but the reason why our bodies fail at all the reason why there is any weakness in God's creation the reason why the creation is slowly falling apart and degenerating over time is precisely because of sin this paralytic is indeed paralyzed because all humanity was broken from the time of Adam's sin right through until our very time now and what and our lives are marked by this brokenness spiritually underlying the brokenness of our bodies then our natural state is before the father complete paralysis we are unable to walk in his way we are unable to serve our neighbor we are unable to run the race given for us as Saint Paul says we in our natural state according to our human nature according to the fall and the sin that encompasses us from the day of our birth to the day of our death we are in our natural state completely and utterly paralyzed and so just as the paralytic was reliant on others to clean his soiled clothes and to provide his food for us so as as those who are reliant on Jesus we find ourselves completely unable to provide for our own needs whether it be body or soul or whether it be the forgiveness of sins or right standing before the father in any of our ways in all of the the the overarching realities of our lives we are bound and completely hopeless paralyzed from the very dawn of our days and so we need then to have

13:42

Jesus come to us we need others to bring us to Jesus and so we see how

13:48

Jesus orders our lives as he orders this forgiveness for the paralytic and the scribes are onto it the scribes realize really what is going on here they understand the underlying problem and it is not that this man cannot walk but it is what

14:07

Jesus does not just proclaims not just says to this man but what

14:13

Jesus does to this man before he takes his mat and gets up and walk what does

14:20

Jesus do before you are able to take up the new life that you are given in Jesus when you are yet paralyzed and sin and death what does

14:30

Jesus do to you the fallen human being or just like this paralytic he comes to you he comes to you by means when you are first brought of course to hear

14:46

God's word perhaps it was only as an infant before even your fleeting memories that we talked of earlier you are brought by others to where Jesus word might be heard you are placed in his path where he comes then by his word and the gift of his church throughout all the ages to speak to you and what is the first thing that Jesus says it's certainly not what we might expect it's certainly not what the scribes and the

15:19

Pharisees showed themselves to expect of course the rule of law is what they would expect from Jesus it might be something along the lines of well if you had more faith you might be able to walk if you weren't such a sinner if you hadn't looked lustfully if you hadn't desired to have something of somebody else's if you hadn't have coveted if you hadn't have misused the

15:45

Lord's name if you had of in all your ways put God before everything of your own heart's desire then perhaps

15:54

God might have mercy perhaps then Jesus might say perhaps then I might have mercy and relent if you prove yourself worthy of my grace this is precisely what all our hard work and effort would demand

16:09

Jesus to say this is what we would have a God do to us knowing that we deserve only condemnation knowing that indeed the truth is that it is our own it is our own fault that we have no place before the father it is our own fault that we are paralyzed but what does

16:33

Jesus do he doesn't come to us and bring another rod he doesn't come to you and and somehow remind you that you ought to pull yourself up and make yourself worthy before him he doesn't demand anything of you a payment in kind for what he or he might do to to transform you to forgive and to in fact restore your brokenness but just as he did to the paralytic he comes to you in the first instance and says take heart take heart he says recognizing the hopelessness of your reality and my reality recognizing and knowing himself intimately having born in having been born in human flesh humbling himself to become just like us

17:28

Jesus comes into our midst where his word is found and the first thing he says is take heart it is not hopeless then what is the next thing that he says the next way in which he orders this work for this paralytic even as he works this work in you and amongst his body throughout all of history what does he do before you have any means to confess the faith before you you even have a thought to go to catechism class and learn the 10 commandments what does

18:06

Jesus do to us who are born paralyzed by sin broken in body and separated from the father first brings hope and then by his word and spirit names you a child of God my son he says and it is on the basis then of the hope that he brings with him by his word that he works in us by those simple words take heart or you might think your sins are forgiven you are absolved you might consider all of these words in which

18:47

Jesus says to you there is hope it's on the basis of his hope that he brings that he names you as child and on the basis of your status as a child says your sins are forgiven sins are forgiven just as any child dependent on a good and gracious parent knowing their failure knowing their weakness knowing their insufficiency

19:14

Jesus names us a child and then forgives our sins though we do not even know the depth of them as he does so this is how we ought to see our

19:29

Jesus this is how he has ordered our life of faith not on the basis of the works that are to come not on the newness of life that we would walk first and so then earn the good favor of our brother

19:47

Jesus and our father who is in heaven his father who he has made our own through his own binding of us to himself no it is on the basis of being made children that we are ordered and on the base on the basis of the forgiveness of sins that Jesus brings before we are even truly aware of the depth of them this is the true healing the right ordering that Jesus brings first we must be made whole before the father first our eternal condition our original condition must be sorted we must be made right before the father and know that our security is now founded not on not on a sound body and the work of our hands that we are able to do not even in the service to our neighbor which is a good and gracious thing before the father no our security is founded on knowing that before the father our true full self our body mind and spirit has been restored by Jesus even now while it is still weak in on this mortal coil while we still stumble about and the weakness of our body our true status our true healing has already taken place in time and toward eternity this is the eschatological healing of our paralysis that Jesus works through the removal of our original sin so that we might then now be founded on a righteousness given to us by him that is an absence of sin the forgiveness that we have received now so grounds our life that we now like this paralytic might be ordered in the second part of our text that we find before us the scribes know that the jig is up just as the devil knows the jig is up when our hope is founded on that reality the eternal reality the jig is most certainly up no matter how confounding the reality of the of a life with sin surrounding us the weakness of our fallen flesh and the the reality of paralyzing fear of of the world around us where we are surrounded with wars and rumors of wars various diseases heart attack broken brokenness of body violence and all the rest of it that we see with our eyes none of this can harm the one whose life is so ordered according to the eternal hope that is in the forgiveness and the justifying work of Jesus for us it is then so set free from the concerns of this life these momentary concerns that so often bind us that we are able to now walk to take up our mat as it was as it were and walk in newness of life no longer hamstrung by that original sin that breeds only hope hopelessness condemnation and destruction now knowing that we are surely set free from the paralysis of sin the over arching the symptoms of our own condemnation through Adam's fall now now we have been set free now knowing that our hope is in Jesus who even now walks perfectly before his father having ascended to the right hand now walking with him we are able to stride forward not falling not depending our lives upon those the healing of momentary afflictions not being confused with notions that Jesus proves himself faithful to us when he he heals our bad knees or our failing eyesight not seeing

24:13

Jesus as a failed kind of God a failed provider when our roof leaks and we we think that he's somehow not provided a sufficient roof over our head or when our food is only meager perhaps a we have times of lack not finding in the in the the lack of the sufficiency that we might desire of Jesus provision no when our lives are ordered according to our momentary needs we do not see our glorious Lord when our lives are ordered according to the order in which

24:51

Jesus proves in these forgive in this forgiveness of this paralytic we realize that everything has been sorted and then whatever else we might gain in this life becomes an even greater source of our praise towards God and our glorifying of Jesus becomes even more for us a comfort and source of joy for that which

25:21

God has provided for us as meager as his provision may be compared to others around us might see him in his in the forgiveness of sins to be even more merciful to us as undeserving as we are even in the provision for our needs in this life this is how we must not only order our individual lives but this is fundamental to how we ought to order our lives together as the greater body of Christ when we are individually so ordered according to the eternal hope that is within us then we might also speak of this hope to one another and so bring forth the gospel according to our own teaching that is the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren bringing

26:14

Jesus words take heart to one another having already taken heart in the forgiveness of our sins you might then joyfully serve one another even in the most meager ways whether it be a kind word a gift or a prayer for another or a simple thought that you provide to another reminding them that you care for them in all of these small ways not necessarily the grandiose ways in which we think we might earn favor before God and man or even prove our love for one another

26:51

I mean all the in the most meager ways that we are able to love and serve our neighbor that is to walk in this eunice of life having been set free having been restored in body and soul so our walk is joyful and free according to the gifts that Jesus has given us one to another and his own body which is without spot or blemish having been purified by his blood further then not only are we able to serve and walk with joy in this eunice of life loving our neighbor and striving to uphold

27:34

God's law and word and command for the good of our own consciences and for the good of our neighbor so then we are able to receive

27:45

Jesus himself we are able to hear his words of hope not poopooing them and seeking to make him a bread king with the fleeting cold heartedness of the of what was witnessed in his own ministry on earth where the the great multitude having seen the miracles so very rapidly turned aside to cry crucify him when he wasn't the king of power that they hoped to have no rather now being so ordered and walking in this new faith we might hear our king of glory who comes to us constantly and consistently through the authority he has given to men through that is through his church and we then having been set free from sin and death might find ourselves not only being being able to walk restored now before the father to walk in this new life and no longer paralyzed by sin and death but we might also now hear

28:56

Jesus all the more clearly as we come together as we his church come his church is in fact nothing more than that place where the word of God is rightly divided and the sacraments are administered according to the scripture these sacraments mean nothing to those who have not been set free this means nothing to those who would depend on themselves but to those who were once paralyzed now set free from sin and death the words of Jesus the gift of absolution and the gift of his own body which was not broken his unbroken body that was pierced on the cross given for you his own blood that poured from his unbroken body now continues to restore you in body and soul and so it is now as those who walk according to Christ who is our head in his body which is the church of which he is the head so then we are able to receive his gifts and find in them not condemnation not unworthiness but the gift of his unbroken body that binds up our wounds and continues to sustain us though our bodies fail though our eyes grow weak as long as our ears hear we who have been set free we who have had our sins forgiven now receive according to the authority that Jesus has given the greatness of his gifts to us his very own presence through his word his absolution waters of baptism by through which we are bound to him by which we are made no longer dead to sin but alive in Christ having died and risen again through those waters and through his own body and blood given and shed for us and ordered in this way then what we will hear in our most penitent moments when we are so very aware of our sin when we recognize our paralysis we are able to walk to our own

31:25

Lord we are able to stand with Jesus before the father and say forgive us and so then we are able to hear not only the words of a loving father that says take heart dear child my own son as he says to his own son

31:43

Jesus but through Jesus through the forgiveness of sins won by him and being bound to his perfect body we are able to hear over and again your sins are forgiven and then with great joy with reverent fear we are able to rightly glorify

32:07

God not because of momentary satisfaction as he gives but for such great gifts of the forgiveness of sins of mercy into eternity and a continued sustaining though we stumble by our own means through this life is by this truth this reality this unbroken body to which we are bound which will finally be our own individually when we pass from this mortal coil this promise that is now and always ours we might glorify

32:42

God with a good conscience and a firm hope that endures beyond our momentary afflictions beyond our momentary paralysis and we might then with that crowd gathered that day give glory to God and say thanks be to God for these great gifts that we are so undeserving of by his own desire for us.

33:06

Thanks be to God. 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

33:26

Avenue Northwest Oslo Minnesota 56744. And again that address is

33:33

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

33:40

Avenue Northwest Oslo Minnesota 56744. We thank you for your support.

33:47

All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.