Not Far From the Kingdom of God

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. In the name of Jesus. What an interesting gospel text we have today.

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Two topics are brought up. One regarding the law and the second regarding Christ and what we are to expect from the

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Messiah. And I would note that the Pharisees don't seem to ever learn their lesson.

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They're kind of like Wile E. Coyote chasing after the roadrunner. And this is another one of those instances when they're trying to ensnare

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Jesus, to test him. And here's how the text reads. When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the

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Sadducees, which isn't hard to do because the Sadducees don't believe in the resurrection. Of course, in the previous part of this text,

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Jesus pointed out that God is the God of the living and not the dead. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the

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God of the dead. And Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive and well. And so their refusal to believe in the resurrection caused them to be in great error.

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So he silenced them soundly. And now a new champion arises for the Pharisees.

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A fellow who the text says is a lawyer. But we pointed out last week the Greek word here for lawyer, namikos, is probably better translated as an expert in the law.

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And I would note, I pointed out last week, that experts in the law are not people who are well versed in the entirety of Scripture.

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They're well versed in one part of it. The analogy I used last week is that if you ever seen somebody who's a bodybuilder who only lifts weights with their arms and with their chest and they never do leg day, it's a mess.

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They end up looking like a freak of nature and they don't look right. Same with people who study only the law.

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And we'll use the Gospel of Mark to help us fill in a little bit more of the data because the resolve on this one is really fantastic, is the best way

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I can put it. So here's what the lawyer, the expert in the law asked Jesus.

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It was to test him. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?

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I'll let that one sink in for a second. I have to wonder if this is, they're gonna test

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Jesus with this? If I were to ask my catechumens, what's the first commandment?

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We will have no other gods. It's pretty straightforward stuff and there's other passages that fill out the concept.

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So were they expecting that because Jesus loved sinners, that because he allowed sinners to touch him and that he forgave their sins, were they expecting that because Jesus healed the people they condemned and gave them new life that somehow he was gonna get this one wrong?

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The greatest commandment is love and rainbows and carebears. What were they expecting at this point?

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So Jesus gives them the Jewish catechetical answer. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

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This is the great and first commandment. And he said, oh by the way, a second one's like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Now here's where I'm gonna borrow a little bit from the

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Gospel of Mark because Mark gives us just a little bit more data. Mark says that what happened after he gave that answer is that this fellow, this attorney, ends up giving, well,

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Jesus kind of high praise is the best way I can put it. And so the expert in the law said to Jesus, you're right, teacher.

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I didn't see that coming. You're right. You have truly said that he is one, there is no other beside God, and to love him with all your heart, with all the understanding, with all strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all the burnt offerings and the sacrifices of Israel.

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What a great answer. This attorney was kind of shocked by Jesus's answer and has to give him praise.

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But what's fascinating is what Jesus says next. So when Jesus saw that this lawyer, this expert in the law, answered wisely, he said to him, you know, you're not far from the kingdom of God.

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Whoo. Hang on a second here. What do you mean I'm not far from the kingdom of God?

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Isn't loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself, isn't that all there is to the kingdom of God?

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No, not at all. In fact, here's the thing. Notice the words, all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.

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How are you guys doing on that, by the way? Any of you pulling that off?

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I can say I love the Lord my God with some of my heart, some of my mind, some of my strength.

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This commandment doesn't make me feel good. It terrorizes me, and it should terrorize you too.

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You see, the purpose of the law is not to bring you into the kingdom of God. That's not its function.

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The law was given by God to condemn you and to condemn me and to show us our sin and show us our need for Jesus, a need for a

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Savior, because the law was given to make it possible for us to understand that we do not love

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God with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength, any of it. And so the law condemns us.

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And so Jesus rightly said to this fellow, you know, you're not far from the kingdom of God.

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You should really try leg day at the gym sometime, right? That's what He says here.

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You're not far. So the law can't get you the whole way. If you were to think back into the types and shadows of Israel, Moses can only take the children of Israel so far.

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He was not permitted to take them into the promised land, because the law can't bring you into the promised land.

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Who was the fellow that brought the children of Israel in the promised land? Oh, I know some guy named Yeshua.

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Isn't that Jesus's name? Indeed it is, and that's the point. So Jesus then, to help these fellows and give them their first shot at leg day so that they can actually begin to take a look at the greater part of Scripture, not just this narrow section of commandments,

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Jesus decided that He was going to lob a theological hand grenade right into the middle of their party at this point.

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And so Jesus says, hey, what do you think about the Messiah, the Christ? Whose son is

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He? And you can see the Pharisees going, duh, He's the son of David. Well, that's true.

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That's true. He is the son of David. But then Jesus, who is the Word of God in human flesh, said, well, how is it then that David in the

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Spirit, in the Holy Spirit, that's the one who inspired him to write these words in Psalm 110, how come

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David calls Him Lord saying, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

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And you can just see the wheels spinning. The transmission isn't going into gear.

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There's smoke coming from the transmission box. Things aren't computing. We'd never thought of that.

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Right. If then David calls Him Lord, how also is

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He His son? And the text says, no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask

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Him any more questions. We're done with you, Jesus. We can't trip you up. But Jesus's point still stands, and that is, how is it then that David refers to the

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Messiah, who is the son of David, that He is His Lord? And this gets into the great mystery of the

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Incarnation, and one that we are to consider on this 18th Sunday of Trinity.

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And I'm going to start by doing a little bit of an Old Testament lesson. Didn't the Pharisees actually read

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Psalm 110? They were experts in the law, but Psalm 110, as Jesus rightly quoted, it says, the

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Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

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Now, I would note that the people who believe in this triumphalism, this idea that things are going to eschatologically get better and better and better and better, they point to this text and say, look it,

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Jesus is going to have all of His enemies made into His footstool, which means that when He returns, there's going to be nobody to conquer because everybody will be under His feet.

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That's a misuse of this text horribly, and I would note other passages make that very clear.

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But there's kind of an interesting aspect of this, then. You'll note that in this

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Psalm, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool, kind of begs the question, how do we plan on escaping when

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Christ shows up? And I would note, this is where we have to take something else into consideration, and that is that Jesus is progressively making

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His enemies His footstool. And I would note that His death on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins and mine is depicted in Scripture as well as some of the artwork that we've been so privileged to see this week, with Christ planting the flag of victory over Satan and death and sin.

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That's the point, is that in Christ's death on the cross, He conquered

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Satan and made Satan His footstool. But He hasn't chosen to make humanity

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His footstool yet. You'll note that if you think back to World War II, World War II, we didn't conquer the

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United States. The Allies didn't win the war in a day. It began with D -Day in Normandy, France.

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And then there was a progressive working until the very end when finally, Herr Hitler committed suicide and the war ended.

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But that took a long time. You'll note that Christ is presently making His enemies

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His footstool, but for humanity, He has not chosen to conquer totally at this point.

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He wants the word of His mercy, His forgiveness, His grace to go out to impenitent sinners and sinners around the world so that they can consider their evil and consider

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God's kindness. You'll note that Jesus said to that expert in the law, you're not far from the kingdom of God, but you're still outside of it.

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The law condemns, the law cannot save. So Christ wants the good news of what He has done to be the thing that brings people to repentance.

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In fact, the Scripture says this, it is God's kindness, not

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His threats of wrath, not His threats of judgment. It is God's kindness that leads sinners like you and I to repentance.

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And so let us note then that we, enemies of God, condemned at birth, condemned at our conception, born in sin, we have now bent the knee to Christ and we've asked from Him pardon and mercy and forgiveness.

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And He gives it to us richly. He does not desire our destruction. He does not desire eternity for us in the lake of fire.

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He desires for us to be reconciled to Him through His shed blood. Today, we will be having the

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Lord's Supper. And at the Lord's Supper, you will hear these important words, take and eat.

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This is the true body. I liked one of the ways, I heard the translation from one of the Germans this week say it, the corpse.

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This is the corpse of Christ, given into death for the forgiveness of your sins.

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Take, drink, this is the true blood of Christ, shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

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Christ pardoning enemies, forgiving them, reconciling them to Himself, adopting them into the family of God, giving them an inheritance.

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You'll see that this is what brings people into the kingdom of God, not the law. The law prepares us so that we are ready to hear the good news, but it does not deliver the good news.

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It only delivers judgment. And so Christ is making His enemies His footstool, but for us,

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He has had mercy on us. We are not under His feet. We are under His kind and shepherding hand.

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What a beautiful Savior we have. But let me point out another text, because this is so fascinating.

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I just have to ask the question, have the Pharisees never read

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Proverbs 30? Listen to this text. Who has ascended to heaven and come down?

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Ooh, ooh, I know. But this was written long before Christ walked the earth.

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Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Mimi, pick me, I know the answer to the question.

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But it goes on. Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth?

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Oh, I know, I know, I know. But watch this next question. What is

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His name? And what is His Son's name? Surely you know.

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I would note that modern -day Judaism says that it is heresy to believe that God has a son.

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But Proverbs asks the question, what is the name of this God and what is His Son's name?

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Surely you know. I do know His name is Jesus. But that's written in the

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Old Testament, not the New. You'd think that if these guys had actually studied the full counsel of the

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Word of God, they would have been able to put two and two together. Jesus asked them a very basic question.

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How is it then that David calls the Messiah his Lord, even though He's his

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Son? How is that possible? Oh, because Proverbs says that God has a

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Son. And then you think of the prophecies of Isaiah. It's not quite

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Advent yet, but oh, I heard somebody playing green sleeves on the way over here.

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And it reminded me of that wonderful hymn, What child is this who's laid to rest? A Mary's lap is sleeping.

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This is Christ the King, right? Oh, beautiful, beautiful hymn. But Isaiah writes for us in chapter 9, starting at verse 2.

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The people who walked in darkness, they have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them light has shone.

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You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.

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Now stop for a second here. Two images that just kind of collide and don't seem like they go together.

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People walking in darkness, that's all of us. We were born into the darkness of sin.

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In fact, the scriptures in Colossians describe Satan's reign as the dominion of darkness.

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And what did our God do? He came as the light.

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And so Isaiah here is prophesying about the great light that Jesus is.

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And he came into the darkness that we were conceived and born into. And those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them the light has shone.

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And then you hear this next thing. You have multiplied the nation. And this is talking clearly about the nation of Israel.

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But I would remind you that the scriptures are very clear on this. It is only those who have the same faith as Abraham, who are reckoned by God to be the sons of Abraham.

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And Abraham, we learn from the Apostle Paul, believed the gospel, preached to him, that through him the entire world would be blessed.

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And so Paul takes great pains in the book of Galatians chapters three and four to make it very clear that when we talk about Israel, you can talk about genetic

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Israel, but that's not the Israel of note. The nation of note is the nation of believers, those trusting in the promises of God for the forgiveness of their sins that would be won by the

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Messiah in the future, by those who believed in Old Testament times. And we now in the

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New Testament, believing what God has accomplished in Christ. And you'll note that through Christ, the great light that he is, he has multiplied the nation of Israel.

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And as a result of it, human beings from across the globe, whether they be

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German or Finnish or Norwegian or Chinese or Japanese, or even those rascally

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Americans, they are all being multiplied together into the one nation of Israel.

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And as a result of it, this nation's joy has increased. And we all rejoice before God as with the joy of the harvest.

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And we are glad as a result of it. This is talking about the joy that we have when people are brought to faith in Christ.

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For the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

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For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle, tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

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The world that is coming will have no war. There will never again be somebody practicing to become proficient at killing another human being.

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Scriptures describe the world that is coming as taking our swords, maybe our

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AK -47s and our AR -15s, and beating them into plowshares so they become implements of farming.

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But here's the reason for it. For to us, a child is born.

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To us, a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called

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Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the

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Prince of Peace. You see, Isaiah knew full well why

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David said that his son is his Lord, because he prophesied this wonderful oracle that God himself would come among us, would be born as a human being, and that he would be the mighty

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God in our midst, come to save us. You'll note that God got his hands dirty.

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Have you ever been given a project that you really didn't want to be a part of, and you were thankful that there were other people kind of lesser ranked that were there to do the work, because then you can supervise it?

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Because the last thing you want to do is have to get your hands dirty, right? I may or may not have on a couple of occasions, all right, maybe dozens, no, probably hundreds of times been thankful for such an experience.

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But all of that being said, you'll note that our God is not like that at all. He gets dirty.

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He doesn't stand up in the heavens and say, you people need to get your act together, try harder.

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He left his throne and was born of the Virgin Mary. He got his hands not only dirty, he got his hands pierced by nails.

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The solution to sin is the death of God's Son so that you and I can be forgiven, so that you and I can be pardoned, so that you and I can share in the joy of the increase of the nation that God is making that will be revealed in the last times.

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Have the Pharisees never read Isaiah 9? Have they never read Proverbs 30?

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But what about Isaiah 7, where Isaiah gives this wonderful prophecy to that horrible, miserable king

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Ahaz, and he says, the Lord Himself will give you a side. Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call

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His name Immanuel, which means in Hebrew, God with us.

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You would think if they were experts in the Scriptures, they should have known this.

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And is it any wonder then that Jesus said to the fellow who was an expert in the law, you're not far from the kingdom of heaven, but dude, you're not in it yet.

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You see, the only way that we can understand and come to grips and believe the truth of who

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Jesus is, is to hear His words. This is where true wisdom is.

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The world thinks that it's smart. The world believes that it's wise. The world believes that it's shrewd.

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The world believes that it's got its act together, and it thinks that y 'all who believe in Jesus, you're not very intelligent.

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You really believe that God was born of a virgin? That's not how conception works.

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Don't you think it's time to rethink your position, they say. You believe that God created the world in six days?

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That's not how it happened. Come on, what's wrong with you people? You believe that Jesus is going to return in glory to judge the world?

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Jesus didn't rise from the dead. I'm sure they put His carcass in some common grave or threw it into the city dump of Jerusalem.

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What's wrong with you people? But you'll know, their wisdom is true foolishness.

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Absolute foolishness. Jesus is the way. He is the truth.

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He is the life. And again, this Jesus, this

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Son of God, is here now to serve us, to assure us of the forgiveness of our sins, which

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He won so amazingly by His sacrificial death on the cross for your sins and mine.

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This Jesus here is to comfort us and assure us that He has loved

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God perfectly for us. You'll note that the commandment is that you shall love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and strength. And we've all confessed that we haven't done that.

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But Jesus did it perfectly for you. He clothes you in His righteousness.

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He assures you of His forgiveness. And you'll note the great commandment is to love the Lord your

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God and love your neighbor as yourself. Well, how are you doing on loving your neighbor, by the way? Have you noticed that sometimes you have a difficult time not only getting along with your neighbors, but your closest neighbor, your spouse?

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Have you ever been sour with your wife or your husband, been in a cantankerous argument, things like that?

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What about with your children? Do they always make you feel blessed? Right?

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Of course they do. Of course. But you'll note that Christ has loved all of His neighbors perfectly.

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And He did so by not coming to condemn them, but by laying down His life so that they can be forgiven and pardoned.

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He is the true God. He is God of God in light of light as we've confessed.

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And what a great Jesus we have. You'll note then that Jesus' lesson teaches us to continue with the focus on the entirety of Scripture.

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We must read it for all that it teaches. Law that condemns. Gospel that comforts.

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And we must never break the tension between those two doctrines. Because we continually need to hear that we are sinners, and we also continually need to hear that we are forgiven for the sake of Christ.

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In the here and the now, we confess daily in the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, which reminds us that not only are we forgiven by our

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God, but the call to love our neighbor as ourself requires us also to forgive our neighbors as we are forgiven in Christ.

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That love cascading from God the Father to the Son, from the cross to us and now to our neighbors and even to our enemies.

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May God grant that to us and may we ever learn the importance of holding the entirety of Scripture in our hearts and in our minds so that we do not neglect one portion and then lose the other.

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In so doing, we may lose our faith as many have and shipwreck it. So let us praise

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God, the One who revealed in the Old Testament prophets the mystery of the incarnation and then in the

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New Testament showed us how that was to be fulfilled and fulfilled it in Christ. Note then that to know

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Jesus and what He has done for us is to be in the kingdom. And now that we are in the kingdom, we can look at God's law and understand then how we are to treat each other, not in order to be saved, but because we are.

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What a great God we have in Christ. What a beautiful Savior. What an amazing

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Friend. And I cannot speak His praises highly enough on this the 18th

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Sunday in Trinity. In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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

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