God Cares For You

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. Matthew, the 6th chapter.

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Jesus said, No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

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You cannot serve God and money. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.

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Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air.

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They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you of not more value than they?

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And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing?

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Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even

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Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you,

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O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat?

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What shall we drink? What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that they need them all.

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But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

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Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. All right, I gotta warn you, it's a sermon about money, right? And I assure you that we will not be sowing a seed offering at the end of this so that you can enhance my personal bank account.

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That's not what this is about. In fact, you'll note that Jesus here is trying to get us to note that when it comes to money, there's kind of two ditches.

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Out here in the middle of nowhere, you'll note that it's completely flat. So flat, like I said before, you can watch your dog run away for two weeks out here.

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And yep, he's still going. But all that being said, you don't wanna end up in any of the ditches.

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You gotta stay on the road. I remember one time when I was coming to Arden Linn's funeral.

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Do you guys remember that? It was a December funeral. And right before his funeral, we had like one of those light dustings of like frost on the road, right?

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And so Barb and I were on our way to the funeral. We had just made the turn and we were heading down the highway and we hit that patch of like stuff.

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And I couldn't control the truck. I tried steering to the right, steering to the left.

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And the more I tried, the worse it got. And then we did like a whole 360 and then we ended up in one of the ditches.

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Ah, right? And it was miserable. But thankfully, you know, things had, you know, there wasn't a lot of water in there and we hadn't gotten into the water a bit.

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So we were able to kind of collect ourselves and then drive away. So when it comes to money in our gospel text here, if you really pay attention,

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Christ is talking really in two different directions. The danger of when you have money, which thankfully

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I don't have that problem. And then the danger of, well, when you don't quite have enough or you have to like everybody else, work really hard and toil so that you can pay your bills.

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And then the next month you got to work hard and toil so that you can pay your bills. And it just seems like you're just eking out your existence and never really quite getting ahead.

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In both of those cases, you are, well, in danger if you don't keep your eyes focused on Christ properly.

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So the first danger, Jesus says, no one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

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You cannot serve God and money. And so you'll note, those who have resources, you have to think of it as a tool.

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Like if you were a carpenter or a guy who was a day laborer and you had a tool belt, you don't worship your tape measure.

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You don't worship your hammer. No, you use these tools properly. But you'll note, always with money there is that temptation.

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And it's here where I would again point out, you can't take any of it with you. And this past week,

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I don't know if you guys watched the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II. I did. I have this really difficult time.

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Like if history is happening in real time, I have a hard time turning off the television. And so I woke up at 4 .30

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on Monday morning to watch the funeral. And I got to admit, I was quite impressed. It was spectacular.

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It was overtly Christian. It was kind of in your face with the gospel and the fact that the resurrection of the dead is the thing that we were all looking for.

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And what was really kind of funny, I'm digressing myself in my digression here, so we're like two levels down in bunny trail at this point.

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But one of the things I found very interesting is that how overt they preached Christ.

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And then the hope that Elizabeth had and has in the resurrection.

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And so afterwards, while her casket, her coffin was processing through the streets of London, one of the color commentators, they'd gathered a few people to kind of comment on things that were going on.

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One of the women, she said, I've never heard anything like that before.

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Did she sincerely believe that, that she was gonna rise from the dead? And one of the commentators said, yep.

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It was just so awesome. But you'll note that on her coffin, there were three symbols of her royal power.

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They had an orb, otherwise known as the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. They had a scepter and they had her crown.

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And those emblems stayed on her coffin through her funeral service.

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And as they processed her coffin all the way out and then transferred her into a hearse and drove her out to Windsor Castle, where St.

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George's Chapel is, where the final part of the service was her committal. And at the very, very, very end of this committal service, in a very solemn ceremony, they removed the orb from her coffin.

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They removed the scepter from her coffin. And they removed the crown from her coffin.

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And the commentator that I was listening to while I was watching this says, and thus Queen Elizabeth is no longer

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Queen Elizabeth. These symbols of her power are now taken from her and she returns to being

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Elizabeth Windsor. I thought it was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant. But you'll note that in her lifetime, she arguably was probably one of the wealthiest women on planet

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Earth, if not the wealthiest woman on planet Earth. And as far as powerful women go, she was the most powerful woman on planet

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Earth. And yet despite all of that, Elizabeth had a very Christian way in which she looked at the things that she was responsible to do.

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And when she became Queen Elizabeth, after her father died, she made a radio address where she said,

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I solemnly promise that I will use my time as queen to serve the people.

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And even the Archbishop of Canterbury noted that few people in human history have better fulfilled their promises than Queen Elizabeth.

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And so she understood money and power were not things to be sought after or worshiped or trusted in.

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And she used all of those things in order to serve the people she was called to as their sovereign, as their queen and royal.

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And so we have a good example of the right way of approaching it. In Psalm 62,

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King David, who was also a royal, he has an interesting, this is an interesting psalm that kind of gets at the heart of where Christ would take us with a proper understanding of the things of this

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Earth. And so David in Psalm 62 writes, for God alone my soul waits in silence.

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From him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation.

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He alone is my fortress and I shall not be greatly shaken. And this is the right attitude that we need to have as we journey through this life.

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Everything that you see, including your own body right now, is temporal. Nothing, nothing that you see, smell, taste, or touch is going to last, including you.

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And so you'll note that in the silence of the darkness of sin and the suffering that we find ourselves in, that we all are called to patiently endure, to wait in silence, and for our focus and our faith and our hope to be on Christ.

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He alone is our rock. He alone is our salvation. He is our fortress. I would note that I'm not really a royal, like not even close.

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I don't think there's any royal blood in me. If there were, it would probably blow up.

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But all of that being said, I don't have a castle either. I haven't named my house

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Castle Roseboro or anything like this. Castles are for kings and folks like that. But Jesus is our fortress.

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He is our castle. And because of that, we are not greatly shaken in this world, but that doesn't mean that we do not experience shakings.

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We do. So how long will all of you attack a man and batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?

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And you'll note that Christians oftentimes they're slandered and ridiculed and reviled and made to suffer.

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And that, well, this is the lot that we have because we are in Christ. So people will try to batter us and attack us and tear us down.

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They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths.

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Inwardly, they curse. But for God alone, oh my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.

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He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress, and I will not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory, my mighty rock, my refuge is

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God. So trust in him at all times, oh people. Pour out your heart before him.

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God is a refuge for us. Those of lowest state, verse nine of Psalm 62, those of lowest state are but a breath.

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And those of highest state, that's a delusion. In the balances they all go up.

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They are together lighter than a breath. So put no trust in extortion. Set no vain hopes on robbery.

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And if riches increase, set not your heart on them. Once God has spoken, twice have

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I heard this, that power belongs to God and that to you, oh

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Lord, belongs steadfast love. For you will render to man according to his work.

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So if riches increased, do not set your heart on them. They have a tendency to fly away like birds in different seasons.

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So note that. But then the other ditch. The other ditch. This is where probably the vast number of us all fit.

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The bigger percentage of humanity falls into this category. The people who have to toil.

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The people who, well, live from day to day. And you'll note that Christ taught us to pray and the

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Lord's Prayer give us this day, our daily bread. So have you gone a day without eating lately?

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Any of you? Not me. God still continues to give me daily bread, even though my wife usually buys a week worth of groceries.

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We're good, you know. But he daily gives us what we need. So Christ tells us, therefore

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I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, or about your body, what you will put on.

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Yeah? But you'll note, we all know this anxiety. The whole world knows this anxiety. This seems to be the entire focus of the entire worldly system.

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It's all about food, clothing, what you put on. In rich circles, oh man, they determine the worth of a human being based upon the car that they drive, the watch that they wear, the logo on their handbag.

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If you don't have the right logo or anything like this, you are considered to be less of a person. And everybody plays the game to try to make their lives so that they go from the bottom to having the best that this world has to offer.

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And they stress the entire time. Gotta get to that next level. Gotta climb, gotta climb, gotta get, yeah.

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Jesus now, in the midst of all of that anxiety, starts asking some pretty logical questions.

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Is not life more than food? And the body more than clothing? Hey Jesus, stop talking sense to me here.

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It's just, I'm having an anxiety attack right now. The fall fashion has just been released and I don't know how

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I'm gonna be able to afford getting that next thing. Oh, Apple just had their event and I've gotta get the new iPhone 14, 15,

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Max thingy. Right? Is not life more than food?

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And the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, Jesus says. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly

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Father feeds them. Have you ever had that experience where you've kind of looked at wildlife that lives in town or in the cities and thought, man, they got a good life.

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When I travel to large cities, I always take a look at the pigeons and go, man, they're fat. You go to New York City or you go to London, man, those pigeons, they look like you can probably take a shotgun and shoot it and then it'd make good eating.

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That's how big they are. Or have you ever seen how well the seagulls do in seaside towns?

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Don't go outside with your french fries when there's seagulls around. They will attack you and rob you blind.

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You'll note Christ says the heavenly Father feeds the birds. I always have to ask God after a seagull has stolen one of my meals, why did you have to feed him with my meal?

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Right? But here Jesus again is talking sense. We have a tendency to look and see that even some animals, they do better than human beings.

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But note here Jesus' point is that God is the one who feeds them.

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And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his life span? Yeah, anxiety doesn't lengthen your life, it shortens it.

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You'll note those with anxiety disorders often have major medical issues, including a high risk for cancer.

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And Jesus says, why are you anxious about your clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

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They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

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And I hate to say this, you can tell, summer's gone, the cool days are here. I'm expecting our first snow in about what, three weeks?

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Is that it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, but all that being said, when the warm weather arrived in May and the warm months through June and July, Barbara and I would go on walks and we were walking through town here.

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I noticed that some of my neighbors, they have an amazing ability to put together a gorgeous flower garden.

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We tried growing flowers a couple years ago. We even bought bulbs. They all died.

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Okay, they all died. But we vicariously enjoy a good flower garden.

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We love the smell, love the way it looks, and it's just so impressive. And Christ points out the fact that not even

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Solomon, this great king of the ancient past, he was never arrayed like the flowers of the field.

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And then he says, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive, tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?

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Oh, you of little faith. And there's the problem. Whereas those who have money, they're tempted to turn money into an idol and to worship and look to it as the thing that's going to supply their need, when we struggle and toil under the curse, which is what we're all doing, and we have to, well, by the sweat of our brow, put bread on the table, the tendency is to think that somehow

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God doesn't care. But he does. That's the point.

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He absolutely cares. And you'll note that the reason why we toil is because of our rebellion against God.

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And here's where I think it would behoove me to remind us all that Jesus is

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King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And Philippians 2 makes it very clear that even though he was by nature

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God, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, and instead he humbled himself and was found in the form of a slave.

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Think about the details of Jesus' birth, who every year at Christmastime we note that Jesus was born in very humble circumstances, wasn't born in a palace, born in a barn.

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His first crib was a feeding trough. Why? Why is that important?

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The reason it's important is because Jesus knows what it's like to eke out an existence in this life.

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If you think about it, even his parents, they couldn't afford the full sacrifice that was required by the

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Mosaic Covenant as Jesus was the firstborn of his mother who opened her womb.

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And so they could only afford the poverty sacrifice, the two turtle doves.

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And Jesus grew up in a really obscure small town called Nazareth, and his dad, yes, you can say that he was a carpenter, but the

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Greek word for carpenter there probably means he was a blue -collar construction guy rather than a cabinet maker.

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And you'll know something, and that is that blue -collar construction guys, they work really hard.

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They work really hard. And they wear their bodies out doing that job.

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Is it any wonder that Joseph wasn't even alive by the time Jesus begins his earthly ministry?

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So Jesus knows a thing or two about all of this. But he basically divested himself of all of his power and his glory and the wealth of heaven and earth so that we can be forgiven, so that we can be pardoned.

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If that is not a demonstration of how much God cares for us, then I don't know what is.

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And it's absolutely true that Christ cares about birds, he cares about lilies, but he cares about us.

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God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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Christ then took your sin upon himself. The penalty and the iniquity of sin, he bore that in his body, bled and died in your place, and he has promised you the riches of heaven.

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You'll note that right now King Charles III is the king of the

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United Kingdom. But has he been coronated yet? No, he hasn't.

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But he's already king, right? But he hasn't been coronated yet. Here's the thing.

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Christ has promised us He's promised us an inheritance in the world to come.

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In the end of the book of Revelation, Jesus says, Behold, I make all things new. When Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, the curse that we find ourselves under right now will be lifted.

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We will be transformed into new bodies. We will be raised from the dead, those who've passed, by the time

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Christ returns. And Christ has promised us an eternity in the world to come that we will rule and reign with Him.

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We are sons of God, and we will even receive from Christ crowns.

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That being the case, what are we complaining about? Yeah, this life is difficult.

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Yeah, we're currently walking through the valley of the shadow of death. But why on earth would we be worried about anything?

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We have been promised that we will inherit the new earth. And in the new earth, food doesn't cost money.

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The streets are paved with gold. There is not a thing we need to concern ourselves with.

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We have it now, but not yet. And it's coming. It's as good as in our hands now because Christ has died and risen from the grave.

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And you have been baptized into His death and His resurrection. Your sins have been washed away. And everything that Christ has promised,

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He will make good on. So note then, Christ admonishes us, do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat?

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What shall we drink? What shall we wear? The Gentiles seek after these things. But your

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Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. So instead, seek first the kingdom of God and seek

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His righteousness. And all these things will be added to you. The kingdom of God is the kingdom where Christ rules and reigns.

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And we come into that kingdom through repentant faith in Christ and trusting in Him. And you'll note, we are to seek

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His kingdom and we are to seek His righteousness. His kingdom is an eternal kingdom and His righteousness is imputed and given to us freely as a gift by grace through faith.

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And note then, seeking first God's kingdom, His righteousness, God promises all these things will be added to you.

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So therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow. Tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

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Brothers and sisters, you already have the kingdom. You have it now. You have the promises of Christ and you've been given the

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Holy Spirit as a deposit that guarantees your inheritance when He returns. So don't be anxious about anything nor put your trust in riches.

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Our faith is in Christ, our King of kings and Lord of lords. He currently rules and reigns and He will return.

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You already are wealthy in Him. So patiently endure this short, short season where we still have to toil and suffer in the valley of the shadow of death.

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This soon shall pass. In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again that address is

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Kungsinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support.

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