The Apostle's Creed

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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John, chapter 1, verses 1 -17. In the beginning was the

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Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

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He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made. Without Him nothing was made that has been made.

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In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

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There came a man who was sent from God. His name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through Him all men might believe.

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He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

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He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was

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His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believe in His name,

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He gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of a human decision, nor a husband's will, but born of God.

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The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the

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Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning Him. He cries out, saying,

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This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me, He has surpassed me, because He was before me. From the fullness of His grace, we have received one blessing after another.

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For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

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In the name of Jesus. So our texts this evening,

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Genesis 1, John 1, and 1 Timothy, in a real way work all together, if we're going to be talking about the, well, the

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Apostles' Creed. The Apostles' Creed, in a very real way, compresses all of Christian doctrine down into something very squished up that you can unpack.

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In fact, if I wanted to preach on the Apostles' Creed and really try to do it justice, it would take a lot more than one sermon.

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It would take a lot more than one sermon. And so, let me read from the Catechism, and then we'll take a look at our text, and I'll point out a couple of things that highlight all of this.

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The Catechism reads, the first article of the Creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker, or Creator of Heaven and Earth.

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Creator of Heaven and Earth. And so, the question, what is this? Answer, I believe that God has created me together with all that exists.

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God has given me and still preserves my body, soul, eyes, ears, all limbs and senses, reason, all mental faculties, although I feel like I'm losing some of those.

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Yeah. In addition, God daily and abundantly provides shoes and clothing, food and drink, house and farm, spouse, children, fields, livestock, and all property, along with all the necessities and nourishment for this body and life.

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Now, it seems kind of a crazy thing, kind of pausing here in the Catechism, but isn't that not what we read in the

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Genesis account? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then it goes on in great detail about how

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God created animals, plants, food -giving plants and trees and little critters and things like that, right?

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So, when we confess in the Creed, I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, you have to, in your mind, squish all of Genesis that we just read into that sentence.

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Now, the metaphor I've used before in the past, we all remember the days when we had to, if we wanted to get on the internet, we had to use a modem, right?

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You dial up, doo -doo -doo, and you go, whoosh, whoosh, right? It was a horrible sound.

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I mean, it sounded like something was electronically being murdered. But in those days, it took forever for files to upload or download.

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We were doing this over a telephone line. And in order to kind of speed things up, they would come up with these compressed files.

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Remember, they had like stuff it or zip it or things like that, so you'd get a zip file, and you had to unzip it, or you'd get a stuff it file, and you had to unstuff it.

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Well, that's what's going on here in the creed. The creed has got all of this theology just squished all into it, you know, so that it can go across the line pretty quick, so that you can confess it.

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But the idea then is that when you understand how all of it hooks in together, when you say the words of the creed,

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I believe in God, the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, your mind can uncompress that sentence, and you can get all of that Genesis that we just read.

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And he said, that's what it refers to. That's why Luther, when he says, what does this mean? He's talking about food and house, farm, spouse, children, livestock, property.

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All of these things were created by God, so when we confess that he's creator, we are confessing that we receive all of these good things from God.

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That he made them. He sustains us. Everything that we have, everything that we are, is because of him.

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Right? Now, let me, before I unpack the rest of this, let me read again from our epistle text, because this is where it gets very important.

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Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says this, The Spirit clearly says, in later times some will abandon the faith, follow deceiving spirits, and things taught by demons.

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Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

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Now, why did I put that in the middle of all of this? Very simple. Because when you look at what we confess here, that I believe in God the

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Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, there are Christian churches today that deny this doctrine.

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Or they have to put an asterisk next to it. I believe in God the

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Father Almighty, yeah, maybe. Maybe Mother. You know, God the unisex, ambiguous being.

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And I don't believe that he created or she created the heavens and the earth. I believe that we are a result of the

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Big Bang and that, you know, there was an explosion and then there was evolution, and now we are all here.

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And our great -great -grandparents were amoebas. Right? And they sang this in the church.

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That's not what Scripture says, and that's not what Jesus taught. And so when we confess on Sunday mornings or we'll confess this evening the words of the

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Apostles' Creed, we're confessing that we believe that none of this is an accident. All of this has its origin in the mind and the power of God who spoke all of these things into existence, you included.

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You're not outside of this thing that God has created, you're an integral part of it. In fact, he knew you before the creation was made and before the foundations of the earth were laid.

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He knew every one of the good works that you would do. He prepared in advance for you to do. He knew all your days.

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He knows how many days you have left, and you don't even know that. And he knows the number of hairs you have on your head, which is kind of a weird number if you think about that.

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Why would anybody want to know this? Right? So, when we confess,

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I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, we're confessing a lot. So I'm trying to unpack what's packed into there.

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So Luther then says this, God protects me against all danger and shields and preserves me from all evil.

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And all this is done, listen to what he says, out of pure fatherly and divine goodness and mercy.

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Not because of anything you've done to earn God's favor. You couldn't, right? For all of this, for all of these things,

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I owe it to God to thank and praise, serve and obey him.

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This is most certainly true. Great, great stuff. Now, you saw the contrast.

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Let me see if I can highlight it. In Genesis, we have the account of creation. God made all these things. This is good.

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This is good. This is good. At the end of it, very good, right? But when we read in 1

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John, let me read a sentence for you. It starts off with,

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

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The Word, by the way, is Jesus, the Logos. He was with God in the beginning. The beginnings we're referring to here is the beginning of the creation.

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He was there already when the beginning began. And it says this,

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In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

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When you compare the two texts, both of them referring to Genesis, John 1 literally being the

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Genesis of the New Testament. But the way it tells the story, it kind of omits

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Genesis 3, but assumes it. Because here the light that shines in the darkness has come, and the darkness has not understood it.

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Where did the darkness come from? Well, the darkness came as a result of our rebellion against God and our fall into sin.

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Hence, the second article of the Creed, which reads, And I believe in Jesus Christ, his only

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Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

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He descended into hell, and on the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the

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Father Almighty, from where he will come to judge the living and the dead. So what does this mean? It means that I believe that Jesus Christ, true

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God, begotten of the Father in eternity and also true man, being born of the

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Virgin Mary, is my Lord. And here's the best part. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being.

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That is the good news, and it's right there in our Creed. So when you confess the

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Creed about all of these things that Jesus has done, remember that he has done them for you.

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Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, and buried. All of this was for my redemption and yours.

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So he, Jesus, has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. And that's why there's darkness talked about in John 1, where there was no darkness in that sense talked about in Genesis.

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So he, Jesus, he's purchased and he's freed me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil.

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And he didn't do this with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.

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He has done all of this in order that I may belong to him, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in eternal righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

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Just as he is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally, this is most certainly true.

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Now understand this. The person who is attacking the creation account in Genesis doesn't really have the creation as their target.

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Think of it as collateral damage, if you would. Because the thing they're really going after, the thing they really want to put the stake into the heart, if you would, is the story of Christ bleeding and dying for our sins.

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If man really isn't God's creation and Adam really wasn't a human being, and we really did come from apes, well, then, what was

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Jesus on the cross for? To die for our sins and to propitiate the wrath of God because man had fallen into sin under Adam?

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Well, if there is no Adam and there was no creation, well, then that's just silly mythology. We can rework what

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Jesus was doing on the cross. Maybe Jesus was showing us how evil empire was.

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That was his way of sticking it to them, sticking it to the Caesar man. You can come up with any kind of weird concoction you want, but when you deny the creation and that God the

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Father is the one who's created us and that Adam and Eve were historical people, that's just the first domino to fall.

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The one you're really after is the one that says that Jesus purchased and redeemed you, a lost and sinful creature.

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The one leads to the other. They're intricately linked. But the good news, it's right there in the

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Creed. So when you recite the Creed and you get to that part, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died, buried, say to yourself, for me, for me, a poor, sinful being, what love

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God has for us. And we weren't purchased with gold or any earthly treasure, but with something so precious there's no way to put a price tag on it.

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The very blood of the innocent, spotless Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. That's the price to purchase you and me out of slavery to sin, death, and the devil.

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It's a precious and terrible cost to pay. But Jesus knew what

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He was doing and He wouldn't be dissuaded from it. He came on a mission to rescue us and He was determined to do so.

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So much so that He scorned the shame of the cross and He did it because He loves you.

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And that's what He wants you to recall every time you confess this Creed of the amazing love that God has for sinners like me and like you.

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The article continues. The Creed continues. I believe in the Holy Spirit. One holy Christian church.

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Oh, we Lutherans have got to get over this. Little side note. In our hymnal, in Fog, when we recite the

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Nicene Creed, it uses a better word than Christian. It uses universal. Because the

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Creed itself says it's one holy Catholic church. But every time we hear the word

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Catholic, we go... You know, right? All of a sudden we can smell incense and we see rosaries and candles and people praying to saints.

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And we... Okay. We've so got to get over this.

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Okay. Let me help. Okay. Catholic. Small c. It has a meaning prior to the bishop of Rome taking power that he never was given by Christ.

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It has meaning. And the meaning is universal. And so here's the idea. Back in the day, remember in the ancient world, if you would go from one region to another, gods were kind of territorial.

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Think of them like mascots, if you would, for high school football teams. And so when you read in the paper that the tigers beat the wolves or something like that, right?

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We all know that the tigers, they're over there and the wolves are over there. I'm just making up mascots here.

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But I'm a Dodger fan. But we can talk about that later. But the idea then is that they're kind of regional.

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They're tied to an area. Well, that's how it was in the ancient world. The Egyptian gods were kind of tied to the region of Egypt.

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The Greco -Roman gods were kind of, you know, Greece, Rome, and that area. And then you got Baal up in Phoenicia and things like that.

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And so then you got Ahu Mazda over in Babylon. So the idea was that you cross a river or a border and you're leaving the land of one god and going to the land of another god.

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That's the way the ancient world thought. So when the ancient Christian church confessed one holy

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Catholic church, they were saying, Jesus has no borders.

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Christ is the God of Jews and Gentiles. Free and slave.

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Rich and poor. Male and female. Every one of us.

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That's what it's saying. But, you know, of course, we Lutherans, we hear Catholic and we go, right? So we need to get over that.

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So, I believe in one holy Catholic church. The community or the communion of saints.

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The forgiveness of sins. The resurrection of the body. And the life everlasting.

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Ah. So what does this mean? I believe that by my own understanding or strength,

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I cannot believe in Jesus, my Lord, or come to Him. And that's an important thing. See, the work of the

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Holy Spirit is the one, He's the one who redeems us, not in the sense of purchasing, but He's the one who regenerates us so that we are made alive.

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Remember, Scripture says we're all born dead in trespasses and sins. And you know what dead means? Dead. Yeah.

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It's dead in Greek, dead in Hebrew, dead in Latin. It's just dead. Okay. And we don't expect dead people to do anything because dead people are, for the most part,

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I don't know if you notice this, they're pretty inactive. And I know there's a lot of zombie movies and stuff like that on television right now, but that's never happened.

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Okay. So despite zombies, okay, dead is actually dead.

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Dead, dead, dead. Like your body's decomposing. Like there's nothing left of you. Like dead. And so when it says we're born dead in trespasses and sins, that's what it means.

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And so the Holy Spirit, when we hear the Gospel, or we are brought to the font as infants, and we hear the good news that Christ died for our sins, or water in the

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Word, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is attached to the preaching and to the water.

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And the Holy Spirit does something to you. He takes a person who is dead in trespasses and sins, and He resurrects them.

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Brings them to life. He regenerates them. This is what Titus says. We're not saved by works done by us in righteousness, but by washing of regeneration.

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Now, the word in Titus for regeneration, okay, that word appears only two times in the

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Testament. Only two times. And the other time that it appears, it's talking about God creating the new earth.

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There will be a time when the earth is regenerated. Why? Because even the earth itself is going to pass away.

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We're saved through death and resurrection. And the planet that we're on right now, the universe that we're in, this whole thing is going to die.

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God's gonna kill it. And He's gonna make it alive again. Bring it all back from the dead.

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But this time without sin. No death, disease, the devil, or any of those things.

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So when we confess that I believe in the Holy Spirit, you're saying that I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ because I was dead.

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Instead, the Holy Spirit, He has called me. And that's you. He's called you through the gospel.

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He's enlightened you with His gifts. And He's made you holy. And He keeps you.

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Get this. He keeps you in the true faith. So God the

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Father, Maker, Christ the Redeemer, the Holy Spirit sustains you in the faith.

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The one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He has it out for you.

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But He doesn't desire you to spend eternity in hell. Look at the lengths that He's gone to save you.

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Create you, redeem you, and sustain you. And so when you're here tonight, or you're here on Sunday, or you're here any other

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Sunday, we're here to feast on God's words. Because they're not my words.

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They're God's. And the Holy Spirit is working in and with those words. And our faith clings on to them.

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And He strengthens us. And He preserves us. And He's got us. He's gonna bring you through the valley of the shadow of death.

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He's the one guiding. He's the one sustaining. He's the one strengthening.

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And all we have to do is be like children and understand He's holding our hands.

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We're not really holding His. Right? So He's made us holy.

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He keeps us in the true faith. Just as He calls, gathers, and enlightens and makes holy the whole

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Christian church. And that's the fun part. We're just a tiny little congregation in a very big one.

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Of all the people on this planet, people you'll never meet in this lifetime and will have a difficult time getting to know even in eternity, although you have a bazillion years to do it.

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This great multitude that Christ has called out of every nation of men.

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Every nation. When you look at the end of the book in the book of Revelation, this huge multitude that cannot be counted from all of the tribes of the earth.

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They're worshiping the true God and singing the praises of our great

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God and King. We here tonight, we are just a tiny little congregation in the midst of that great multitude whom

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He's called. And He is sustained. And He has raised from the dead. And He has redeemed because He has created them and He cares for them and loves them.

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We're just a small part of it. So we confess the communion of the saints. Think of the big multitude before the throne of the

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Lamb. So daily, this Christian church, the

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Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins. Mine and those of all believers.

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And on the last day, the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life.

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This is most certainly true. And see, that's the thing. Christianity is not a religion for the living.

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It's a religion for the dying. Luther in the

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Heidelberg's Disputation talks about what it's like to be a theologian of the cross. A theologian of the cross calls a thing what it is.

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A theologian of glory never does. Theologian of the cross calls a thing what it is.

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Let's face it. I've been with you all for almost a year and you all look a year older. You're all one step away, one step closer to the pastor of Kongsvinger presiding over your funeral.

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It's true. And I know that sounds horrible. But see, the thing is that what's most certainly true is that on the last day, the

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Holy Spirit's gonna raise you up. And because you are in Christ and you are forgiven and redeemed, purchased, blood -bought, regenerated, and the

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Holy Spirit sustains you, you will not rise to condemnation.

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And you will not hear from Christ, apart from me, I never knew you. Instead, you are gonna hear him say, well done, good and faithful servant.

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And believe me, when you hear that, you're gonna go, I cannot believe he said that to me. But see, the thing is, is that remember that sermon

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I preached a couple weeks ago about the bridal dress? Right? Because you're in Christ, you're clothed with his righteousness.

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All of this is a gift, not because you earned it or deserve it. No, you couldn't possibly earn it or deserve it.

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All of this purely out of his love and mercy for you. And so, he clothes you, he washes you, he sustains you.

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What a great and amazing God we have. And for all of this, we owe him so much.

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So much. But it's not a debt that we owe in order to earn or pay it back.

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It's a debt of undying gratitude that God is so rich in mercy to sinners as awful as me and you.

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In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, And again, that address is

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