God Performs His Word

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.

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Luke chapter 4 verses 31 through 44. Jesus went down to Capernaum, city of Galilee, and as he was teaching them on the

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Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching for his word possessed authority. And in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice,

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Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?

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I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm.

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And they were all amazed and said to one another, What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.

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And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region. And he arose and left the synagogue and entered

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Simon's house. Now Simon's mother -in -law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf.

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And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And immediately she rose and began to serve them.

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Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.

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And demons also came out of many, crying, You are the Son of God! But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the

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Christ. And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them.

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But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose.

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And as and he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. This is the gospel of the

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Lord. There we go. In the name of Jesus. Clearly I'm having many senior moments this morning.

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Bummer for me. All right, let me ask you a question. This is just for the husbands in the room.

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Husbands in the room, maybe it's just me, but have y 'all ever promised your wife something and then, you know, not followed through?

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You know, maybe it might be something on what we call the honey -do list. Is it me? I'm the only guy who has one of these things.

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The honey -do list. You know, it might be something, well, because of the fact that my wife isn't handy with power tools or things like that, something on the house or in the house needs fixing or addressing or, you know, things like that.

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A little repair job. And so she says to you, you know, that thing has been bothering me. When are you going to fix it?

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Right? And of course, you know, after a while you end up saying words to this effect.

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I'll fix it next weekend or this coming weekend. And of course this coming weekend comes up and of course the big football game's on and you don't want to miss the college stuff going.

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And so the whole thing slips your mind and there she is at the end of the weekend tapping her toes at you, arms crossed, laser beams coming out of her eyeballs.

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You're familiar with this concept, right? Maybe it's just me. But you'll note then that our wives may have a tendency to believe that, you know, talk is cheap.

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Words, you know, you can't put a lot of stock in words. And so wives may say something to the effect of,

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I'll believe it when I see it. Right? So think of it that way.

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We're going to frame our sermon today by taking a look at the fact that in our experience, words don't always have authority.

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You know, words can... they're kind of cheap. You know, you can...the cash value of them is, well, something akin to the

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Confederate dollars, you know, something like that from the Civil War. So what we're going to do today is we're going to note that our

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Old Testament text as well as our Gospel text are dealing with a doctrine that we

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Lutherans call the performative word of God. That God's word performs exactly what it was sent to do.

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When God speaks, things happen and God's words never fall to the ground, ever.

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And so we'll consider our Old Testament and our Gospel text together, but we're going to start in our Old Testament text and we're going to go just a little bit past verse 10.

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But here's how this text begins. Now, the word of Yahweh came to me.

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Jeremiah is writing this. Now, a little bit of a note. Have you ever sat there and wondered, what does it mean when the word of the

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Lord comes to a prophet? You know, because in the charismatic movement today, they claim that the word of God is coming to them.

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They kind of feel it the way Jedi feel the force or something like that. And that's not right.

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Or they claim that somehow you can go to a prophetic school and learn how to activate your prophetic gift.

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Usually, you can do that for about $495. That's usual activation fees for activating your prophetic gift.

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But see, the thing is that when the word of the Lord comes to prophets, this text itself in Jeremiah chapter 1 shows us that when the word of the

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Lord comes to one of the prophets, it's actually an appearance of the pre -incarnate

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Jesus. Now, I'll prove it from the text, but think of it this way.

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Think of it this way. Hebrews 4 .12 says, the word of God is living, active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing to the vision of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

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The Bible isn't like any other book. It's alive. And the reason it is alive is because it comes forth from God.

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It does the things that God sends it to do. But here's another concept. In the

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Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 1, we hear these very familiar words. In the beginning was the

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Word, the Logos, and the Word was with God, and the

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Word was God. The text goes on to explain that the

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Word became flesh. So the idea here is that if you really want to get super -de -duper technical,

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Jesus is the Word. He's the Word made flesh. And when the Word of God, the bar of God, comes to us or to a prophet, well, that's

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Jesus coming to us. So we'll note that. So looking then at what Jeremiah says next.

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God speaking to Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb.

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Totally off -topic, worth noting. Who is the one who forms human beings in the tummies of their mommies?

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It's the Lord. And what does this tell us then regarding things like abortion and when life begins and how precious these little ones are in God's sight, yet unborn.

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So God is the one who forms us in the womb. And God says to him, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

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And before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. I always like to point out that one of my pastors years ago would always like to joke about this fact that poor

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Jeremiah, when he was growing up, somebody would ask him, so Jeremiah, what do you want to be when you grow up?

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I don't have a choice. God chose me to be a prophet. No say in the matter, right?

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So then Jeremiah's response. He said, Lord, God, behold, I do not know how to speak.

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I am only a youth. That would be a valid concern. He probably hasn't had speech class yet in high school.

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But by saying that he's a youth here, we probably pin him down as being a teenager. He's pretty young still when the

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Lord commissions him. But the Lord said to me, don't say I am only a youth. For to all to whom

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I send you, you shall go. And whatever I command you to speak, you shall speak.

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Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. And then something very interesting happens.

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Something very interesting happens. The text says, just pass this, the

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Lord put out his hand and he touched my mouth. Huh?

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What? You see what I said earlier at the beginning. When the Word of the Lord comes to a prophet, this is an appearance of Christ.

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And you'll note that when the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, that the Lord put out his hand and he touched

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Jeremiah's mouth. And the said to me, behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

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His words. Now a little bit of a note. We know this when we read Genesis, that when

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God created the heavens and the earth, he created the heavens and the earth by speaking it into existence.

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God, you don't see Jesus with a hard hat on and a tool belt on and a measuring line.

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None of that happening, right? And so the way God creates, we learn in Genesis, it goes like this.

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God said, let there be light. There was light. God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters.

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And it was so. God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place. Guess what?

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It was so. God said, let the earth sprout vegetation. It was so. You see,

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God's Word performs the very thing that God sends his

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Word to do. All of the heavy lifting done by God that we have seen in our experience in Scripture is through his

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Word. And what does this tell you regarding the Scriptures? Alright, so now a little bit of a note there here.

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Now all of the Old Testament prophets then were given words by the Word of the

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Lord, the Debar, and they then went out and when they would proclaim that word to others, they would say something to this effect, thus saith the

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Lord, thus saith Yahweh. And when they were speaking, they were speaking not on their own authority, they were speaking on the authority of the

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Word of God which had come to them. That's an important distinction. So now we fast forward to our

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Gospel text. We're seeing how the Word of the Lord works, and we see now

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Jesus is getting his ministry up and running. He's called his disciples.

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Last week we noted that he was in Nazareth and declared the opening of the year of the

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Lord's favor. Of course they tried to kill him, but that's last week's sermon.

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So now Jesus heads to Capernaum. Capernaum is the place where Simon Peter lives.

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I always like to travel there using other people's vacation photos and Google Earth.

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It's very interesting. And the synagogue ruins that are there in Capernaum today were actually built on the synagogue that Christ taught in.

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So you can't actually see the structure where Christ taught. But no joke, I mean, Peter's house is a good, is a good really hucking stones throw away from the synagogue.

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Really close. So this is where we're going to see Peter and Peter's family and other things start to come into play within the

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Gospel text. Here's what it says. So he went down to Capernaum, the city of Galilee. He was teaching them on the

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Sabbath and they were astonished at his teaching for his word possessed authority.

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And here's how we know this. In the cross -references to this, the cross -references in the

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Gospel go something like this. Jesus would say, you have heard it said, but I say.

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You have heard it said, but I say. Now this is totally different than the way the rabbis of Jesus's day would teach.

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Because back in the day, the rabbis had to, well, demonstrate that they had a good pedigree.

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And so yeah, you know, Rabbi Shiva would say, well, I stuttered at Gamaliel and Gamaliel, he studied under Shlomo, Shlomo under Moses.

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And so he said, you got to get your pedigree back, you know, all the way back there. And so when they would do their midrash, when they would comment on any particular portion of the

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Torah or the Tanakh itself, they would always say, well, Rabbi Shiva says this,

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Rabbi Gamaliel says this, and I think that we can learn from what they have to say in these ways. And they would never dare to speak on their own authority.

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Jesus, on the other hand, he gives authoritative interpretations, he speaks with authority, he doesn't give any footnotes or cross -references, he just lays it out.

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The Word of God, preaching and exegeting the Word of God. So they note that.

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He speaks with one, his words, they possess authority. Now, of course, when the

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Word of God is going out in such ways, the demons are never really thrilled with that, and they're always trying to find a way to upset the biblical apple -carts.

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And so in this particular case, an unclean demon manifests itself in one of the people in the synagogue.

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I always find that disconcerting that there are demons in church, but we continue. And the demon manifests and says, ha, what have you to do with us,

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Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

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Now here's what happens next. Jesus rebuked him, saying, be silent and come out of him.

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So what do you think that demon needed to do? Well, it says the demon threw him down in their midst, came out of him, having done him no harm.

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Now, I do not recommend casting out a demon in this way. Here's the reason why.

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You and I are not given this type of authority, and so even today's exorcists—we're all familiar with this concept—even today's exorcists would say something to a demoniac akin to, in the name of Jesus Christ and by his authority,

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I tell you to come out of that person. Jesus just says, you come out, all right?

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You try it this way, and you're going to get a thrashing within an inch of your life by a demoniac, you know?

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That's just what I'm saying. So you know that Jesus's words have authority, authority where he doesn't invoke

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God at all, because he is God in human flesh. So it came out of him, having done him no harm.

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And they were all amazed, and they said, what another? Listen to the phrase. What is this word? For with authority and power, he commands unclean spirits, and they come out.

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Now reports about Jesus went out into every place in the surrounding region, and then just a few blocks away from the synagogue is this house of Simon Peter, and listen to what this says.

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So Jesus arose, left the synagogue, and entered Simon's house. Now Simon's mother -in -law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf, and he stood over her, and listen to what it says.

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He rebuked the fever with his words. He rebukes the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them.

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Now a little bit of a note here, if you really want to rile up your Roman Catholic friends, point out that the first Pope had a mother -in -law, which means he was married, but that's a whole other story, right?

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I just had to do that, sorry. All right, now the text continues. So when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases, they then brought them to Jesus.

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He laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them, and the demons also came out of many, crying, you are the

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Son of God. But he rebuked, used his words, and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the

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Christ. Isn't that fascinating? The demons have to be silent, because Jesus says, zip it. That's how powerful and authoritative his words are.

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And then the text continues. When it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him, came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them.

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But he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose.

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And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Now the last part of our pericope, then, really is the cash out on this concept.

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Now many people today who are really obsessed with signs, and wonders, and powers, and decreeing, and declaring, they sit there and they go, man,

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Jesus was really just licking it to the devil, gave him a really bad day, and man, wow,

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I want to be able to do that, I want to have that power too. They're missing the whole point. The emphasis is not on the signs and wonders, and Jesus makes a very clear point, and that is that the reason he was sent was to preach the good news.

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You see, that's where his words really hit the road for all of us.

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And here's the reason why. Because Jesus' demonstration of his authority over the demons is a signal to us, as well as to them, that their day is done.

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It's through. Yeah, you can just basically hear Jesus saying, hey listen, hey you demonic haters, it's all over for you man.

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I've come to take over. And he has the authority to conquer them, he has the authority to banish them, to rebuke them, and all of the ways in which they oppress us through possession, sicknesses, disease, keeping us in bondage to the dominion of darkness.

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Jesus comes in, and no jujitsu moves necessary, just with his words he conquers them and casts them out, and undoes the dominion of darkness.

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This is important for us, because that shows that his word has authority. But the good news that he has to preach of the kingdom of God is that he has come to set the captives free.

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He's come to pardon sinners. He's come to take dominion over the dominion of darkness.

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He's come to bleed and to die so that we can be reconciled to God, and so that we can have an inheritance with God.

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This is part and parcel of the good news, and that is good news for us.

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Because this same Jesus then who came to preach the good news becomes the entire subject and substance of that good news that is preached when he goes to the cross to bleed and to die so that we can be forgiven.

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When he takes our sin upon himself and suffers terribly on that Friday afternoon, so that we can be experiencing not only forgiveness, but also the favor of God.

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That we can be released from the oppression of the devil. All of this is part and parcel of the good news, and his word is still working today.

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Because the same Jesus who says, I was sent for the purpose of preaching the good news of the kingdom, then commissioned his disciples who became the apostles, and guess what they got to do?

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They got to preach the good news as well. And then God still sends pastors as well, and their job is to, well, preach the good news.

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To proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins. And you think, well that's boring. How can it be boring because that's the very words of God that set us free.

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Have you forgotten what Romans 10 says in this regard? Romans 10 says that the scripture says that everyone who believes in Jesus will not be put to shame.

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And the shame there being discussed is the shame that one will experience when they stand before Christ on the day of judgment and hear these terrible words from Jesus.

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Depart from me, I never knew you. That's the shame that Jesus is talking about.

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So everyone who believes in Christ will not be put to shame. And you're going to note, well these are just words.

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But are they? Are these not the very words of God? You see,

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Christ, Christ is not like we husbands who make promises and don't keep them at all.

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The bride of Christ never has to fear that when Jesus makes a promise that he will not deliver on it.

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And so the word of God says that everyone who believes in Jesus will not be put to shame.

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And that this promise from Christ is not just for those who are Jewish, but it's for everybody around the world.

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Jew and Greek, Norwegian or German or Polish, it doesn't matter. For the same

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Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. And here's the other promise.

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Everyone who then calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

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And these are not empty words. These are authoritative words. These words deliver what they promise.

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And then Paul then says this important question, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

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How then are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how then are they to hear without someone preaching?

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And how are they to preach unless they are sent? So as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

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But they have not all obeyed the gospel. Isaiah says, Lord who has believed what he has heard from us? And here's his parting shot.

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So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. God never says something and then lies, never promises and doesn't deliver.

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Consider then the implications for what we experience Sunday after Sunday here in this congregation.

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Sunday after Sunday you hear the pastor say these bizarre words. In the stead and by the command of Christ, I forgive you all of your sins.

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Where did the pastor get the idea he could do that? Well Jesus said, Jesus said the sins you forgive will have already been forgiven.

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The sins you retain will have already been retained. So Jesus never lies.

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So those who heard that your sins are forgiven today, you believe that because Jesus never speaks a word and doesn't follow through on his promise.

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Today you're gonna hear very strange words, really weird words. Words that will say this, take, eat.

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This is the true body of Christ given into death for the forgiveness of your sins.

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Oh really? Well yeah. Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to the disciples and said take eat.

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This is my body given for you for the forgiveness of your sins. This do as often as you eat it in remembrance of me.

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So today here at this altar we will feast on the body and blood of Jesus Christ broken and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins and it is exactly what

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Jesus says it is and it's for the reason that Jesus exactly says it's for because his word has that kind of authority, that kind of power.

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He never makes a promise and doesn't follow through. You see we get to continue now in the great tradition that Christ began of preaching the good news, of setting the captives free, of declaring the favor of God and declaring the forgiveness of sins and telling them that the promise of Jesus is that all who call on him will be saved.

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So today come to this altar, bring your heavy conscience because of your sin and leave this altar knowing that you are forgiven because the mighty words of Christ said that you today received the body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

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Know that when you were absolved of your sins by the pastor today that that absolution wasn't his, that it was

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Christ's. Know then that also because baptism is described in Scripture as a washing of water and the word, that when you were baptized your sins were washed away.

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You were united with Christ in his death and his resurrection. You had your heart circumcised by the very hand of Christ and that this is the thing that set you free from bondage to sin, death and the devil and that you have received the

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Holy Spirit. Why? Because Jesus said so. So think of it this way, when we were parents and our kids were little, some of you have smaller kids here so you'll know what

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I'm talking about, from time to time your child would sass you and say why, why, why, why.

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And at some point you're done playing the game and the game ends with these important words, because I said so.

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Right? But with Jesus it always is that.

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It is what it is and the promises are sure because he said so. His word possesses that authority, the very authority of God because that's who

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Jesus is. 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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