Keep This Up And Someone Will Get Hurt

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 Minnesota.

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

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 11th chapter.

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was

ill.

So the sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, he whom you love is ill.

But when Jesus heard it, he said, This illness does not lead to death.

It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

So when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

And after this, he said to the disciples, Let us go to Judea again.

The disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and you are going there

again?

Jesus answered, Aren't there not twelve hours in the day?

If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.

But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.

After saying these things, he said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.

The disciples said to him, Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.

Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest and sleep.

Then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so

that you may believe.

But let us go to him.

So Thomas called the twins and said to his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off.

And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.

So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him.

But Mary remained seated in the house.

Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.

Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again.

And Martha said, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.

And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this?

She said to him, Yes, Lord.

I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.

And when she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, The teacher is here and he is calling for you.

And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him.

Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.

And when the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly to go out, they followed her, supposing

that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

Now when Mary had come to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother

would not have died.

And when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and

greatly troubled.

And he said, Where have you laid him?

They said to him, Lord, come and see.

Jesus wept.

So the Jews said, See how he loved him?

But some of them said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb.

It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.

Jesus said, Take away the stone.

Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead for four

days.

Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?

So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes, and he said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.

When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out!

And the man who had died came out, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips, his face wrapped in a

cloth, and Jesus said to them, Unbind him and let him go.

Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

In the name of Jesus.

When I was a kid, I had a kid brother, so I had a younger brother, and you'll note things about brothers.

Brothers have a tendency to roughhouse.

Have you ever heard of that?

Yeah, it happens, they roughhouse.

Now, my mom, she was a nurse.

My stepdad was an emergency room doctor, so blood was never anything that would upset them.

They would just handle it professionally.

It was very keen, kind of cool.

My wife, on the other hand, if there was blood in the house, by the way, we were on a first -name basis with the nurses and the doctors at the

Lake Elsinore Urgent Care when we were raising our kids, but if there was blood on the scene, my wife would be like,

Okay, my mother was cool as a cucumber, but my mom, she would always kind of warn us if we were

roughhousing and things were escalating.

If things were escalating, my mom would chime in and she would say these words, if you keep this up, somebody's

going to get hurt.

You keep this up, and someone's going to get hurt.

Now, that was our one and only warning, and here's how it would generally go down.

One of us would end up hurting the other, and I may have been punished a few times, but the one who

wasn't injured would then get punished.

This is how justice was meted out in our house.

Now, all of that being said, in our gospel text today, you'll note that there is an undercurrent to

this thing, especially at the end of it, in the parts I haven't read, which we'll get to, and the undercurrent is this,

is that Jesus is legitimately, by his miracles at this point,

escalating things, escalating things to the point where if something doesn't

change, somebody's going to get hurt, and the person who's going to get hurt is Jesus.

And so you'll note, as our gospel unfolds today, Jesus gets word that one whom he

loves has taken ill, and then Jesus does this thing that I'm very familiar with.

He procrastinates.

Maybe I shouldn't call it procrastination, but hearing that his friend is ill, Jesus stays

put.

He does nothing.

It makes me wonder if he does what I like to do.

I like to read a book, and then I get lost in the footnotes.

Have you ever gotten lost in the footnotes?

It's a glorious thing, and what's the weirdest thing is that when I'll be reading a book, and then I'll see a great quote,

and then I go, oh, I haven't read that book.

Look at the footnotes, and next thing I know, I'm online, and next thing you know, I might have bought a Kindle book or two,

and then next thing you know, I'm reading three books at the same time, and it's just a mess, right?

So Jesus, you'll note the expectation.

Somebody's dying.

You're supposed to drop everything you're doing, put the red siren on your car, and head down the road

as fast as possible without getting a ticket.

Jesus doesn't do this, and as a result of it, well, Lazarus

dies.

That's what happened.

And so when Jesus gets into Bethany, he's met by Martha.

If you remember the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke, Martha was the lady who was banging the dishes

in the kitchen because her sister Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus doing nothing.

She was in there cutting carrots and stuff like that, putting out the queso and the tortilla chips, trying

to impress Jesus with her hors d 'oeuvres, and her sister Mary's just sitting there listening to Jesus teach,

and she gets all mad at Jesus.

Tell my sister to get in here and help me.

And you'll note that Jesus legitimately, politely, though, firmly rebukes her and says, nope, she's

chosen the better thing.

And so Martha's the first one to meet Jesus, and she meets him with these words, Lord, if you had been

here, my brother would not have died.

But even now, even now, you'll note she has faith.

Even now, I know that whatever you ask God, he'll give to you, right?

And so Jesus, I think, engages in a little bit of catechism work with her to see if she still remembers

what she learned, because this kind of hints at the fact that Martha, after clanging the dishes and then being rebuked by Jesus, said,

fine, I'll let the queso cool.

We'll just have to have cold cuts later.

And she sat down and she listened to Jesus.

So Jesus said, your brother will rise again.

And she says, well, I know that he will rise again on the last day, on the resurrection on the last

day.

And then Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this?

And she says, yes, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who's coming into the world.

Ah, she finally sat down and listened to a few things from Jesus.

Now, Mary, on the other hand, she's taken this really hard.

And when she shows up, she says practically the same words, but she doesn't have that same, but I know

that even now, whatever you ask God will give you kind of thing to her.

She just is in despair, deep in her mourning.

Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

And Jesus saw her weeping, and Jesus then himself weeps.

Again, showing his great compassion for humanity.

And as I pointed out in previous sermons on this exact text, when it says that Jesus was greatly troubled,

the Greek word is embermaomai, greatly troubled, could actually probably be better translated,

he was indignant in his spirit.

And thinking indignant, what is he indignant about?

Well, go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, when God made the heavens and the earth in six days, and

yes, it was six days, there was evening and there was morning the first day.

That's a day, are you familiar with this?

There was evening and there was morning the second day.

This wasn't 1 ,000 years, okay?

This was, you know, someone says, well, one day with the Lord is like 1 ,000 years.

No, it was evening and there was morning.

There was evening and, this is not hard to work out, and Jesus believes in this.

But when Jesus created humanity, and after he created everything, he said it was tov ma

'od, great Hebrew phrase, which means very good.

But you'll note, what has sin done to this very good creation?

Well, you'll note, each and every one of us, we know firsthand exactly what sin has done, because we

all firsthand experience both good and evil in this life, and the consequences of

our sin.

Have you noticed that sometimes when you wake up in the winter, your knees are creaking and they're kind of

aching and things like this?

Have you noticed that your hair is disappearing or that it's turning gray and things like this?

And have you noticed that despite how much you exercise, once you get past 50, losing

weight is like, well, trying to fight a land war in Asia.

Good luck with that, right?

What is all of that?

These are the precursors to the big thing that's coming, the consequences of our sin,

which is death.

And you'll note that death, don't let anyone try to convince you death is a friend.

It's not.

Death is not a friend.

We all know that death is unnatural.

It was never God's intent.

It was not his design that your parents would die and you'd be without your parents, that your grandparents would

die.

It was never God's intent that you would never face to face in this life meet

your great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents, right?

That was not how this was supposed to go down.

And so when death comes, you'll note that we who are left oftentimes

are thrown into deep mourning and anguish and real pain and suffering because of our

loss.

And I want to say something here.

This might not be polite, but I'm going to say it anyway, is that one of the things that humans do, and

you'll note this is kind of almost a universal practice, at least here in the States, and that is that when somebody

dies, it doesn't matter who that person is, whether they believe in Jesus or not,

everyone consoles themselves and they'll say, well, he's in a better place, right?

Let's be blunt here.

If the person who'd perished does not trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, they are

not in a better place.

They are far from resting.

They are experiencing firsthand the wrath and torment of God because of their sin

and their rebellion.

And this is what awaits all of us if we do not repent and trust in Jesus.

So Jesus knows full well what sin has done and the consequences of sin, the wages of sin is death.

Jesus weeps.

He's indignant in his spirit because this isn't how he made things to be.

And you can hear with very firm, stern resolve, Jesus asks the question, where have you laid

him?

It's as if Jesus, again, is rolling up his sleeves to basically go and snatch a sheep out of the mouth of the

lion known as death.

That's what he's about to do.

And so he heads off there.

He tells them, take away the stone.

They kind of protest a little bit.

They take away the stone.

And then Jesus prays and cries out, Lazarus, come out, and he comes out.

And Jesus says these words, and I can't hear it in any other way than with firm command and

resolve, unbind him, let him go.

Who's he talking to, right?

He's just rescued Lazarus from the jaws of death.

He's been dead for four days.

But the story continues.

And this is where it takes a very dark turn.

Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, they believed in Jesus.

Yeah, it's, well, holy smokes, he just raised somebody from the dead.

Makes sense to believe in Jesus, doesn't it, right?

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

And so I kind of like picture it like this.

There were some legitimate scoffers, people who were like looking for something on Jesus, some dirt on him.

And after seeing him raise Lazarus from the dead, Jerusalem's only two miles off.

And so even in Old World sandals, you can jog that or hike there.

You'll run that pretty quick.

So they get skedaddling.

They get to Jerusalem and they're, oh man, splint in my side.

I gotta exercise more.

I'm getting out of shape, right?

And so they're there huffing and puffing, trying to get their words out.

You're not gonna believe what we just saw Jesus do.

What, what, what did he do?

All right, we're in Bethany.

Yeah, Bethany.

Yeah, Lazarus, he had died just four days ago.

Yeah, we heard about that.

Yeah, well, you're not gonna believe this.

Jesus went to the tomb and he told the people to take the stone away from the tomb.

He did what?

Oh, we knew he was a crackpot.

What, what, holy smokes, who does something stupid like that, right?

And you can just see him, see them like interrupting the story as it's unfolding going, you know, there it is.

That's it.

Jesus has just endangered these people becoming ceremonially unclean because of his carelessness, his

recklessness.

I'm sure it stunk to high heaven, right?

You can just see it.

But no, no, wait, there's more, there's more.

What do you mean, what do you mean there's more?

Well, he prayed, yeah, and then he told Lazarus to come out of the grave

and, and he came out.

He what?

Okay, you can just hear the story unfolding, right?

I'm sure it went down almost exactly like that.

But here's the thing.

This is where we have to come back to a big category.

In the midweek service, I mentioned the fact that Jesus' half -brother kind of gives us three archetypes

for false teachers.

The first one is the way of Cain.

This is religious activity with zero faith.

You're just going through the motions.

Second is Balaam, profit for profit.

Third is Korah, the guy who rebels against the institutions, the offices that God has established in his

church.

And you're gonna note here, these Pharisees, these chief priests, these leaders of the religion of

Israel, they are of the religion of Cain.

They are going through all the motions, making sure they got their eyes dotted, their T's crossed,

and everything, they're just doing the thing, right?

They're doing the sacrifices, they're praying the prayer, they're lighting the candles, they're lighting the incense.

Zero faith at all.

Because you'll note that what should have happened at this point was that they should have fallen

to their knees in praise of God, that they had been visited by God, and that

the Messiah is on the scene.

That's what should have happened.

But here's where it goes.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees, they gathered the council.

We gotta call an emergency meeting, church council needs to meet right now, meet me in

the foyer, we gotta have a chat.

And so they report, well why are we here?

Jesus just raised Lazarus from the dead.

He what?

Okay, well we gotta put a stop to this.

So the question comes up, well what are we to do?

This man performs many signs, if we let him go on like this,

everyone will believe in him and the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation.

Everyone will believe in him.

How is this a bad thing?

He just raised Lazarus from the dead.

Now this speaks then at the hard heartedness of sin.

You'll note that scripture describes everyone who is conceived according to the natural way.

We are all descendants of Adam and Eve, we are born dead in trespasses and sin and scripture says that

we have a heart of stone.

This is as hard hearted as a heart as you can get.

Even the Grinch had something better than this, right?

There they are, they want to put an end to this.

We've gotta stop, if we let him go on like this, everyone's gonna believe in him and then that last bit kinda tells you where

their motivation is.

The Romans are gonna come and take away both our place and our nation.

We're gonna be without a job.

I'm not able to work hard out in the field, what am I supposed to do?

Who are they caring about?

Themselves.

So then one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all, nor do you

understand.

It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.

Wait, what?

Are you inferring that we should murder Jesus?

Well, I mean, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Isn't that what Spock said, right?

That's how this is going down.

So he did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he actually prophesied that Jesus would die for the

nation and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

So from that day on, they made plans to put Jesus to death.

Wow.

In other words, you raise somebody from the dead,.

I kill you. You die.

How dare you?

We gave no author.

You did not get a resurrection permit from us.

You forgot to apply.

You did not fill out the paperwork.

We didn't approve of this.

You die, okay?

Does any of this make any sense to you?

Remember, the scripture says, The fool says in his heart there is no God.

You want to be as stupid as stupid gets, just keep following your sinful desires.

Just keep listening to that old sinful Adam inside of you and go that route and you'll be

this dumb.

And dumb it is.

And the text goes on.

So Jesus, therefore, no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there

to the region near the wilderness to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with his

disciples.

Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to

purify themselves.

They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, What do you

think, that he will not come to the feast at all?

Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let

them know so that they might arrest him.

In the Talmuds, we actually have the arrest warrant for Jesus.

They literally issued an arrest warrant.

And here were the charges.

He's guilty of deceiving the people and practicing sorcery.

And I want you to keep this in mind because next week is Palm Sunday slash Passion Sunday.

When Jesus comes waltzing into Jerusalem on a donkey and everyone's laying

down palm branches and their cloaks and crying out Hosanna to the Son of

David, Jesus is doing this with full knowledge that there is an arrest warrant

and they are just waiting for the right time to execute it.

He knew full well what he was getting into.

And now to talk about just how stupid this gets, six days before the Passover, Jesus

came to Bethany where Lazarus was whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

So they gave a dinner for him there and Martha served and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table.

And there were a lot of people who basically came in order to see what was going on,.

To see Lazarus.

And it says this in verse 9, when a large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came not only

on account of him but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead.

The whole city was buzzing with his account.

So as a result of this, the chief priest made plans to put Lazarus to death as well

because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

How dare you rise from the dead when Jesus tells you to come out of the grave?

You should have stayed dead!

This is unhinged.

This is legitimately unhinged.

And the point of all of this then, when we kind of put it all together, is that we can see the

consequences of sin running its course.

Have you ever stopped to think that it is absolutely terrifying, and I mean that in the truest sense,

terrifying, that the demons know exactly who Jesus is and when their God is

standing right before them, the Jews, the Pharisees, the scribes, the chief priests, they are utterly

clueless.

And rather than recognize that that's the God that they claim that they worship, they

instead think that he's a threat, that he's a danger, he's a problem to be solved.

How do you solve a problem like Jesus?

Right?

Okay?

Sorry, that was a little odd.

Now, here's where it applies to us.

Scripture is very clear.

None of us is righteous.

And if it were not for the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit and the washing of regeneration,

each and every one of us would be this foolish.

And here's the thing.

I've said it before.

The reason why pagans do pagans things is because they're pagans.

Pagans are going to peg, man.

That's what they do.

And so, Romans chapter 3, which gives us the greater context for our epistle text, gives

this verdict for each and every one of us.

Paul writes in Romans 3, 9,.

What then?

Are we Jews any better off?

Well, not at all.

We've all already charged that.

All.

Everybody.

Both Jews and Greeks.

They're under sin as it is written.

None is righteous.

No, not one.

No one understands.

No one seeks for God.

Now, if you sit there and go, well, that sounds a little extreme, Pastor.

Don't you think that you might want to cool that a little bit and back it up just a little bit?

I didn't give you my opinion.

I'm quoting the Scriptures to you.

And if you're not sure about this, note that these words do not appear once in Scripture.

They don't appear twice in Scripture.

These exact words appear three times in Scripture.

Twice in the Psalms.

Once here in Romans.

None is righteous.

No, not one.

No one understands.

No one seeks for God.

All have turned aside, and together they have become worthless.

Well, that hurts my self -esteem, Pastor.

Good.

Your self -esteem is the problem.

You got that from the devil.

No one does good, not even one.

Their throat is an open grave.

They use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of asps is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood.

In their paths are ruin and misery.

Now, hold on for a second.

It's not all that bad.

No, just take a look behind you.

You see that?

Yeah, that's a wake of ruin and misery.

And that's the thing following you and following me.

Not because of somebody sinning against you,.

But because of your sin,.

How you have hurt others.

And let's not even talk about God at this point and what you've done to transgress the first table of the

law.

In their paths are ruin and misery, the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped, the whole

world may be held accountable to God.

For by works of the law, not one human being will be justified in God's sight since through the law comes

the knowledge of sin.

So if you think that you are better than the scribes, the Pharisees, and the chief priests, and the people who want

to put Jesus to death, you don't seem to quite get it yet.

You're in that group.

So am I.

That's what we were born into.

And you'll note then, the consequences of our sin are indeed severe, not only in

this life, in pain, ruin, and misery, and the falling apart of our bodies as we get closer and closer to

death, but each and every one of us have hell in our future if we do not repent and trust in Christ.

But this is where we'll note then, fast -forwarding a little bit, Jesus, next week, you're gonna

hear the passion narrative of Christ from the Gospel of Matthew.

And this is where an important doctrine comes into place, and that doctrine is the doctrine known as substitution.

You'll note that we deserve hell, but God, in his mercy and his grace, has seen

fit to not give us what we deserve.

Instead, Christ is the one who suffers in our place.

There's a couple of names for the doctrine, penal substitutionary atonement, and you can also call it

vicarious satisfaction.

The vicarious satisfaction sounds a little less specific, but I like the penal substitutionary atonement.

And here's the thing, that doctrine, which is taught very clearly in Scripture, like offends

liberals, which is all the more reason why we need to be screaming it from the steeple of this church just to

keep offending them more and more with this great news of substitution.

And you'll note, we are truly guilty, and so what is our hope?

We need a substitute.

And if you think then regarding our reading for next week, there's Jesus on trial.

For what?

He's done not a single thing wrong.

Does he defend himself?

Not even close.

Doesn't even speak a word in his own defense.

And so things get so bad that now Pilate has basically called a crowd together to make a

decision because he has this tradition that he does.

He releases a prisoner on the Passover, right?

And so they've decided that it's going to be either Jesus or Barabbas.

One of the two are gonna get to walk free.

By the way, don't let that name go by.

Barabbas, son of the father.

That's what his name means.

And these details are not coincidences.

So there's Pilate.

Who do you want released to you?

Jesus, who's called the Christ, or do you want Barabbas?

Of course, the Pharisees and the chief priests, they whipped up the crowd.

Give us Barabbas.

Give us Barabbas.

Well, what am I to do with Jesus?

Crucify him, right?

And Jesus, again, doesn't lift up a voice at all.

Doesn't protest even in the slightest because he knows that this is what it's going to take in

order for you and I to be saved.

He has become the sinner at this point.

God has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He is now in his full substitutionary work.

And Jesus goes to the cross, but whose cross is he nailed to?

Barabbas'.

Let me kind of put it in a different way.

The cross that Jesus was nailed to was yours.

It was mine.

That's how substitution works.

Focus in on that name, Barabbas, son of the father.

That being the case, Christ has all of your sin and iniquity was put onto him.

Your guilt, your shame, your punishment was placed on him and he drank to the

dregs the full cup of the wrath of God so that you and I can be pardoned and forgiven.

And so here's where our epistle text comes in and just comforts us like you wouldn't believe.

Romans 8,.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ

Jesus.

But I'm guilty, I know.

But Christ has stood in your place.

You are not condemned.

Instead of receiving condemnation and wrath and eternal punishment from God, there is no

condemnation.

For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus.

Note, the law of the spirit of life has done what to you?

It set you free,.

Just like Barabbas was set free.

Could you imagine Barabbas sitting there going, I can't believe I'm set free.

They opened the prison doors, they let me walk out, no one's chasing me.

This is crazy.

That's you.

You have been set free in Christ but from the law of sin and death.

God has done for you what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the

likeness of sinful flesh and for sin he condemns sin in the flesh in order that the righteous

requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.

Those who live according to the flesh, they set their minds on the things of the flesh.

Isn't that what we saw, the scribes and the chief priests and the Pharisees doing?

We're gonna lose our jobs.

We can't let people believe in Jesus.

They set their minds on the things of the flesh and the mind that is set on the flesh,

it's hostile to God.

It doesn't submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, y 'all in the Greek.

We need that second person plural back.

Y 'all, however, are not in the flesh but in the spirit if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you.

Well, does the spirit of God dwell in you or not?

Yeah, I think so.

Because there at the waters of baptism you were buried with Christ and raised with Christ and as Peter says,

repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So note here, this is invoking realities that are present for all of us baptismally.

You, however, you're not in the flesh but you're in the spirit if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you and he does and

anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ doesn't belong to him but you do but if Christ is in you and

he is although the body is dead because of sin and yep, my body is pretty much worn out and

dead anyway, yep.

The spirit of life, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you and he does, he who raised Christ

Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who

dwells in you.

And here's where we're gonna note something here.

We have a tendency to complain.

God, if you really care about me why are you letting my body fall apart?

Why do I have to die?

Why does my elbow hurt?

Why is it I can't get out of bed?

And what happened to my hair?

Right?

You'll note that Christ isn't really all that interested in fixing the little things.

Yeah, you're gonna fall apart but didn't you hear this?

He's going to give life to your mortal bodies.

He's going to raise you from the dead.

That's the whole point of the Ezekiel passage.

When I bring you out of your graves then you will know that I am Yahweh.

Right?

So you're falling apart now.

Yes, but trust me something way better is about to happen.

So then brothers, we are debtors but we're not debtors to the flesh in order to live according to the flesh.

If you live according to the flesh you're gonna die but if by the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit you put to death the deeds of the

body you will live.

All who are led by the Spirit of God are wait a second, listen to these words your sons of God.

Now I understand the patriarchy crowd is just gonna scream here.

They just need to get over it.

It's mankind and when God says you are all sons of God that includes daughters.

Yes, it can work that way.

Just let the patriarchy crowd screech all they want.

We'll just embrace what the text says.

Right?

So all who are led by the Spirit and that's you.

You are all now.

Barabbas.

Sons of the Father.

You see how the exchange takes place?

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you have received the spirit of adoption

as sons by whom we cry out Abba, Father.

So brothers and sisters things are taking a dark turn.

Jesus, you'll note that he's escalating things at this point.

And if things keep going this way somebody's gonna get hurt.

And indeed Jesus was.

And you'll note the details of his passion are horrific.

He was beaten.

He was punched in the face.

Spit on.

He was scourged.

Had a crown of thorns pushed deep into his skull.

He was bleeding and had to carry his own cross and then he was nailed to the

cross and suspended between heaven and earth.

That's the whole point.

In order that God may be glorified in him and ultimately in you.

Through the forgiveness of our sins without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

And Christ indeed shed his blood.

For us.

So let us praise God.

That it's true.

That things went on like this and somebody got hurt.

But he got hurt so that we can be healed.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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Amen.