Ethnic Theocracy Denied

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. Luke the 14th chapter.

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When one of those who reclined at table with Jesus heard these things he said to him blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God but he said to him a man once gave a great banquet and invited many and at the time for the banquet he sent his servants to say to those who have been invited come for everything is now ready but they all alike began to make excuses and the first said to him

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I have bought a field and I must go out and see it please have me excused and another said

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I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them please have me excused and another said

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I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come so a servant came and reported these things to his master and then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant you go out quickly to the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in the poor the crippled and the blind and the lame and the servant said sir what you have commanded has been done and still there is room and the master said to the servant you go out into the highways into the hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled for I tell you none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet this is the gospel of the

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Lord in the name of Jesus have you ever had one of those moments where you wish you were a fly on the wall it's a it's a term that we use and I'm not talking about like a big ugly fly that needs to be swatted but the term refers to the idea of this that something has occurred there's a meeting that has taken place and that person and that person are going to have a collision if you would and oh you wish you can see the sparks hear the conversation and get all the juicy details did you know that in the gospel of Luke chapter 14 we have a fly on the wall perspective of Jesus being invited to a party put on by a ruler of the

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Pharisees I mean what an interesting party that had to be I mean the

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Pharisees outright heretics not only that I'm gonna have to fill in a few details here remember the

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Pharisees they did not believe in sola scriptura they believe that God gave an oral

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Torah on Mount Sinai this oral Torah they were in charge of and they can tell you what's in there

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Luther described such oral traditions as the magic bag you know whatever you want you can just make it up because it's in the magic bag it's there in the oral tradition oh look we just found oh well the perpetual virginity of Mary it's right there in the magic bag right and so that's how things like that occur but also keep in mind that the

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Pharisees by adding to the scriptures they were doing so for a very particular reason because they did not believe in salvation by grace through faith they were flat -out self -righteous legalists and always and again they would pick people out of the crowd or the synagogue or whatever who were experiencing problems maybe they were blind maybe they were mute maybe they were crippled maybe they were poor and they would say

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God has given them what they deserve you know but of course the Pharisees being wealthy they looked they pointed to their wealth as proof that they were receiving blessings from God it's terrible when you kind of think about it but on top of all of that in Jesus's day the

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Jews and the Pharisees taught a form of ethnic superiority keep this in mind okay this idea of ethnic superiority does not originate in the

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American South okay it's not exclusive to the Ku Klux Klan instead it also in fact impacts other ethnicities as well and the

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Jews were quite quite versed in this concept and that in fact not only did their ethnic concepts of them being superior because after all they were the direct descendants of Abraham right so they were the blessed of God but it it resulted in like them practicing segregation and it impacted their view of the

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Messiah and as a result of it the the popular view of the Messiah at Christ's time was just false and you can hear it with the

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Apostles they're kind of thinking in terms of the expectations created by the Pharisees and their eschatology how did they view the

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Messiah the Messiah was going to be an ethnically Jewish descendant of David who was going to come and reestablish the theocracy in Israel and he was gonna kick out all those

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Gentiles right and so when you think about their ethnic superiority how it was practiced it was horrible when they would travel through Samaria as soon as they left the borders of Samaria they would shake off the dust off their sandals to not bring any of that dirty

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Samaritan dirt into the Holy Land right and then you kind of think about what happened with Peter remember

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Peter God called him to go and preach the gospel to a fellow by the name of Cornelius Cornelius is the first Gentile believer he and his entire household and what ended up happening is in the book of Acts not only do you get the account of God calling

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Peter to go and preach the gospel to Cornelius and all of the details but afterwards you get a regurgitation of all of this and kind of the emphasis yeah

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Gentiles are into but listen to what happened after Peter went and preached the gospel to Cornelius they received the

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Holy Spirit they were baptized and now they're believers and you're gonna note then that in Peter's day somebody who's a believer in Jesus Christ what important meal do believers have together the

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Lord's Supper right so here's how this goes down in Acts chapter 11 now the

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Apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea they heard that the Gentiles also had received the

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Word of God and there should have been much rejoicing in the land yay right this is how this should have gone down so when

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Peter went to Jerusalem the circumcision party again a party you never want to go to criticized him saying listen to their criticism you went to uncircumcised men and you ate with them let that sink in for a second these people have received the

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Holy Spirit they are now believers in Jesus Christ and as a result of it they are full citizens of the kingdom of Jesus and you're upset because Peter ate a meal with them you ate with those uncircumcised men ah you'll note ethnic superiority has reared its ugly head well it's okay that they're in the church but we're not gonna eat with them oh yes you are right oh yes you are so Peter then has to explain himself so he explained to them in order listen

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I was in the city of Joppa praying I was in a trance I saw a vision something like great sheet descending being let down from heaven by its four corners and it came down to me looking at it closely

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I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air and I heard a voice saying to me rise

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Peter kill and eat this sounds like a good thing you know there's bacon and lobster and you know things like this right but he's but I said by no means

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Lord for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth but the voice answered a second time from heaven what

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God has made clean do not call common and God here isn't referring to food he's referring to human beings

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Christ has bled and died for the sins of the whole world and anybody who is a believer in Jesus Christ doesn't matter if they're

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Norwegian or Chinese or from the Netherlands or German or all the way down to Malawi or Japan it doesn't matter they have all been made clean by the blood of Christ and how dare you call them so this happened three times father son

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Holy Spirit always have to point that out and as he was and it all was drawn up again into heaven and behold at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were and sent to me from Caesarea and the

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Spirit told me to go with them making no distinction that's where you have to put that emphasis the

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Holy Spirit told me to go and he made no distinction he gave no restrictions he wanted me to treat them exactly the same way

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I've treated every one of the believing Jews these six brothers also accompanied me and we entered the man's house and he told us how he had seen an angel stand in his house and say send a

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Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved

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God through his angel committed to Cornelius that he and his household would hear a message the good news of Christ bleeding and dying for their sins and through that message they would receive salvation and they themselves would be saved and it says you and all of your household including your infants by the way right and as I began to speak the

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Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning and I remember the word of the Lord how he said

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John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit so if then

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God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the

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Lord Jesus Christ who was I that I could stand in God's way that's a pretty good argument right yeah it's like I I'm no longer interested in your segregation policies because God's made no distinction and there's no way

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I'm gonna stand in God's way it's it's not like all of a sudden the Holy Spirit falls on these Gentile believers and Peter goes no no no not like that not them no we want them to go to hell we don't like them they've oppressed us there are occupying force there are a bunch of pagan unbelievable not that right who was

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I to stand in God's way so when the circumcision heard these things they fell silent and then they glorified

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God saying well then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life listen to the words

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God has granted repentance that leads to life keep that verse tucked away in your head because when you explain how

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God makes Christians people sit there and say I don't understand isn't repentance required of course it is and God is the one who grants repentance to the work of the

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Holy Spirit through the Word of God but all that being said you can now see kind of how the racial segregation the ethnic superiority complex the

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Jews of old had back in the day but that then impacts their view of the Messiah which is important for us to understand as we work our way through our gospel text because they again they thought that the

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Messiah was going to come and set up an ethnic system and this is the reason why Jesus was always really careful when you read throughout the

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Gospels whenever somebody calls Jesus the Christ and they figured it out

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Jesus goes right and he basically says don't speak that out too loud because here's the thing is that that being the case their view is going to lead to all kinds of confusion because Christ hasn't come to set up an ethnocentric theocracy in Jerusalem not in this age and as a result of it you think back when

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Peter made the great confession you know who do people say that I am and Peter confesses you are the Christ the Son of the

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Living God and Jesus blesses him blessed are you Simon Barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven and you are

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Peter on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it no sooner does

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Peter get the answer correct that Jesus now has to start giving instructions about what the

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Messiah is legitimately going to do and Messiah hasn't come to kick out the

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Gentiles and create an ethnocentric theocracy and so Jesus says we're going to Jerusalem he's going to be betrayed handed over to the

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Gentiles to the Romans they're going to crucify him and on the third day he's going to rise again and Peter does the stupidest boneheaded move in all of Scripture and I'm surprised he was not put like lightning didn't strike him or like there was just a tiny little bit of smoldering ashes afterwards he rebukes

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Jesus and says Lord this will never happen to you what motivated that his false view that Christ was going to set up a theocracy on earth this is not in keeping with what he was led to expect

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Christ was going to do from all the popular teachers of his day and so he says Lord may this never be and what does

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Christ say to him get behind me Satan you remember Christ was tempted in the wilderness to become the king of the universe all he had to do is bow down and worship

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Satan that's not what Christ has come to do not in his first advent so all of that being said let's go back to the party let's do the fly on the wall thing shall we context shall be fun because what happens here is glorious it's legitimately how do the kids say it nowadays it's chef kiss on the part of Christ he just totally nails it here so we'll back up into the context 14 1 so one

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Sabbath when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the

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Pharisees oh this is gonna be good they were watching him carefully and behold there was a man before him who had dropsy and so Jesus responded to the lawyers and the

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Pharisees what a terrible group saying is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not let me throw this pitch this question to you but they remain silent so first thing at the party they've kind of set things up in order to ensnare

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Jesus what kind of party is this right so they remain silent so he took him and he healed him and then he sent him away and then

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Jesus said to them so which of you having a son or an ox's that has fallen into a well on a

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Sabbath day will not immediately pull him out hmm but they would not reply to these things oh this is a great party let me grab some more hors d 'oeuvres and just sit down make some popcorn and watch this one play out next

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Jesus go he goes after them so now he told a parable to those who were invited and when he noticed how they chose places of honor so here we are it's a banquet it's a party put on by one of the rulers of the

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Pharisees and all the important mucky mucks of the pharisaical party are trying to jockey for those important places of honor they want to sit at the right table be seen with the right people and all this kind of stuff and so Jesus he sees them basically doing this and so Jesus said to them hey listen

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I have an idea guys when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast do not sit down in a place of honor lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him and he who invited you both will come and say to you give your place to this person and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place but when you're invited you go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes he may say to you friend move up higher then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted and you can just hear all the important people who were jockeying for those important places to sit down at this party or it's in there going did he just say that I was gonna be humbled yeah he did oh it gets better so Jesus said to the man who had invited him so the guy hosting the party have a great idea for you buddy when you give a dinner or a banquet don't invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors less they also invite you in return and then you be repaid but I have an idea when you give a feast why don't you instead invite the poor the crippled the lame and the blind you know all the people you despise and point out in your sermons how

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God has cursed them why don't you invite them instead and then you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just this is our awesome this will make a great movie you know just Jesus just like a wrecking ball just going through here with a smile on his face while eating their food being on their ground completely evading the trap that they had set up is now going hard after their false theology but then we get to our gospel text today and this one requires you to keep in mind the ethnocentric views that they had regarding the

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Messiah that he was going to set up a messianic theocracy and get those evil

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Gentiles and slay them and all this kind of stuff so when one of those who reclined at the table with Jesus heard these things and the implication is is that he's become really uncomfortable okay did

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Jesus just say to invite the poor the lame the crippled and you can just hear silence among all the guests there at the party going and going and so this guy breaks the silence and he said blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God what's he referring to the messianic ethnocentric theocracy that's what he's referring to we're gonna be blessed when

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Messiah comes and he kicks out those Gentiles that's was referring to so Jesus knowing full well what he was referring to decides he's gonna take it on and boy is this a mouthful so Jesus said to him listen a man once gave a great banquet and he invited many and at the time for the banquet he sent for his he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited come for everything is now ready but they all alike began to make excuses so who's the guy who's putting on the banquet

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God the Father what's the banquet the great wedding feast of the Lamb which is the inaugural banquet of Christ's kingdom here on earth that comes at the end of the age when

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Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead so who were the a -listers who were the first to be invited ah the children of Abraham for sure they were the ones entrusted with the very oracles of God it was they who were the prophets who spoke and prophesied of the coming

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Messiah of him coming to earth bleeding suffering dying for the forgiveness of our sins reconciling us to God and then ultimately in his second coming that he would exact justice and judge the living and the dead but his kingdom is not merely a kingdom for those who are the physical descendants of Abraham and so you'll note the a -listers having then been distracted by the false doctrine of the

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Pharisees are thinking in terms of worldliness and we can see this very clearly because it's all about the places of honor it's all about being returned these guys are as shallow as shallow gets and so Christ here pointing out that the religion has has caused them to not think about the things of God instead think about the things of earth he describes three fellows who were invited and each of them provided excuses as to why they should not come only one of the excuses

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I kind of get the other two I don't get at all so the first guy said to him well I I've bought a field and I must go out and see it please have me excused what do you need to see didn't you look at it before you purchased it it has dirt probably has some weeds and some rocks and stuff what are you gonna have a survey done here okay what's so important about this dirt that you're gonna skip out on the great wedding feast of the lamb so another one said well

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I bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them just just hire a vet he'll take a look at them he'll give you a report on their health okay is that more important than being at this great feast so please have me excused now the third guy this is the only one

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I get said well I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come now listen okay wives at times can be very opinionated

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I get this but all he needs to do is put his big -boy pants on and say honey we're going okay and and that's all that needs to happen here but apparently we now know who's really in charge okay so as a result of says

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I can't come she's not gonna let me right mm -hmm you need some counseling after that so having said all these things the servant came and reported these things to his master so then the master of the house became angry and said to a servant you go out quickly to the streets in the lanes of the city and listen to who gets invited next and you bring in the poor the crippled the blind and the lame

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Christ practices what he preaches by the way right and we know this is true because all these people the poor the crippled the blind and the lame those who were despised by the false doctrine and the heresies of the

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Pharisees yeah the heresies of the Pharisees that kind of rhymes right that all those people who are despised by them they are the people who

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Christ ministered to constantly oh you say this guy was cursed well I'm gonna heal him right you say he was he was born blind because of sin

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I'm gonna make him able to see to show that you are completely the ones who are blind the

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Christ would do stuff like that all the time and so all the poor the marginalized the crippled those who the

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Pharisees hated and pointed out as object lessons of those who weren't living up to their standards they're the first ones to be invited isn't that fascinating well the servant goes and then does that and says well there's still room all right so the master said to the servant

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I want you to go out into the highways and the hedges and compel people to come in so that my house may be filled well um and you can see him going just anybody

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I mean if I do that I mean I'm gonna run into Gentiles yep there invite them up okay what about tax collectors yeah they can come to the town hooker yep she's invited what what this is what about the butcher the baker and the candlestick maker yeah okay attorneys just one just one we just need one that's it you know he didn't say that did he right right and so you can see the scandal of what

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Christ is saying here he's basically saying listen this ethnocentric theocracy that you think the

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Messiah has come to set up it's completely bogus it is not true it is false the

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Messiah has come to call people from all nations did God not tell

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Abraham that through his seed the entire world would be blessed he did so Jesus here just upsets all the apple carts tosses them all over and then he says of those a -listered descendants of Abraham who were so worldly minded they had no clue what was really going on he says

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I tell you none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet at all which then gives us a great intro into our epistle text that explains what's going on here so think of it this way back in the day the way

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Jews kind of thought about things they didn't think of terms like racially it like you have like Africans and you have people from Ethiopia then you have

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Egyptians and then you have the Greeks and the Romans in these terms at all there was only two races according to the minds of the

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Old Testament Jews there were those who were descendants of Abraham through Isaac the

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Israelites and then there was everybody else the Gentiles that's it full stop you kind of think about Gentiles is kind of like the big junk drawer then of all the ethnicities y 'all have a junk drawer in your kitchen okay it's like the best drawer ever right yeah

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I don't know where this goes let's just throw it into the junk drawer right so where does the rest of humanity if you're not somebody who's a direct descendant of Abraham and Israel like oh you go into the junk drawer known as the

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Gentiles the nations is kind of how it gets translated but note then here this then creates a little bit of consternation for us who are part of the

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Gentiles I remember when I got my DNA results back you know I was curious as to you know what my

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DNA would show my heritage was and it turns out there's a lot of Irish and there's a lot of Welsh in me there's a little bit of German not as much as I thought and when and I looked at my

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Irish and Welsh DNA I came to the conclusion that I was as Jewish as the as the lucky charms leprechaun you know but that being the case

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I what am I supposed to do with that right I mean I'm not I'm not a descendant of Abraham in the genetic sense

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I can't find any proof that I am but watch then what happens in our epistle text because this has everything to do with what

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Christ the Messiah truly came to do he did not come to set up an ethnic theocracy not in Israel not in Germany not in the

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United States of America or anywhere and anybody who would tell you otherwise is lying to you says this but now in Christ Jesus y 'all who were once far off you have been brought near by the blood of Christ the picture is actually beautiful if you think about it here at if you go back into the

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Bible the Tower of Babel humanity rebelled against the command that God gave them when humanity came off of the ark

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God said to go and fill the earth and subdue it and to be fruitful and multiply and what did humanity do they played clump ball and they all stick together in one place and built themselves a big tower to their own glory

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Oh disobeying God's command to go and subdue the earth and as a result of it God said no you guys are gonna go and do what

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I told you to do and so to make it to make sure that this is gonna happen he confused all the languages of humanity and so as a result of it all these people truly descendants of Adam and Eve and descendants of Noah were all descendants of Noah by the way and all descendants of Adam and Eve God dispersed them sent them throughout the different places in the regions of the earth and they were far off most of them live their lives with no knowledge of the covenants of the promise of the

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Messiah no understanding that God was going to send his son to bleed and die for their sins it's sad and tragic and so each and every one of us we our descendants are among those people but God through the blood of Christ has brought us who were far off he is now brought us near he's brought us so near that we're now all touching each other he himself then is our peace who has made us both and here is the category

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Jew and Gentile he's now made us one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two and so making peace when it says here create in himself one new man he's talking about one new humanity one new mankind so you'll note that in Christ because of what he has done these ethnic distinctions

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I'm German I'm Chinese I'm this I'm that they have no bearing whatsoever in how we are to look at each other because Christ has taken all of us and made us into one humanity and so that being the case

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I think it's fascinating that y 'all know that I conduct services on Saturdays for people around the globe and so every

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Saturday we conduct services for people in Western Europe and it down in New Zealand and Australia Japan and other places around the world and I've had the fortunate experience to be able to travel to meet with the people that were serving online and what's interesting is is that serving people who are outside of the

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United States gives me a very unique perspective because when I pray when I do the prayers of the church during the

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Aletheia services I don't pray for just the president of the United States I have to pray for King Charles I have to pray for the king of the

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Netherlands I forget his name from time to time I have to pray for I have to pray for the members of parliament in Sweden I have to pray for the

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Prime Minister of Australia and the thing when you do that you recognize that the one thing that we all have in common as Christians is our singular citizenship in the kingdom of God my passport says

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United States of America on it but the people we serve around the world their passports don't say that and so you'll note this text teaches us that in Christ God himself has created one new mankind out of Jews and Gentiles and as a result of it he's broken down the hostility and you're gonna note then

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Christ and the scriptures especially in the New Testament says that we are to love our neighbors as ourself and you sit there and ask the question the stupid question well who's my neighbor look it up look at the way it's being used when it says in the

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New Testament that we are to love our neighbor as ourself neighbor is just another way of saying fellow human being it doesn't matter if their skin color is white or if it's black or some shade in between by the way that's no way to determine the race of a human color is not the basis on which we decide somebody's race we are all humans we are all part of the human race right and so you'll note

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Christ has created in himself one new mankind in place of Jew and Gentile and he is the one who has made peace he on the cross did not bleed and die only for ethnic

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Jews or Germans or Norwegians he bled and died for the sins of the whole world yours and mine and so he has made peace with God and through his blood on the cross more importantly he's also made peace between us

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I love the fact that here at Kongsvinger we look like the earth we have the same amount of variety as the human race itself does and we all come together and we eat a meal with each other every single

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Sunday Christ has made peace between us and it's sad but there's a lot of rancor and hatred in our world today especially as it relates to racial tensions and it's only getting worse and it's sinful for Christians to foment that kind of hate instead we are to be ambassadors of the peace that Christ brings to the whole world to the forgiveness of sins won by Christ on the cross you see

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God reconciled us both to God in his own body through the cross therefore he killed the hostility

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Paul says and he came and he preached peace to you who are far off and preached to those who were near peace to those who were near for through him both

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Jews and Gentiles have access in one spirit to the Father so then you are no longer strangers y 'all are no longer aliens and he's talking to us

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Gentiles we're included we are now members of the household of God which is built on the foundation of the

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Apostles and the prophets that's talking about the scriptures old and new Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone and in whom in Jesus the whole structure is being joined together and grows into a holy temple in the

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Lord it's a beautiful picture of you to think of it if you have you all ever seen like a beautiful like old -school ornate building we don't have a lot of those here in Grand Forks if we have any at all but I've traveled the world and seen some pretty amazing buildings and you sit there and you just stand back and some of these buildings they just gorgeous to look at they are awe -inspiring you know maybe it's an old -school

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Cathedral with a spire that reaches up into heaven with all the details that go off and the front of it and the facade and the beautiful stained glass and all that kind of stuff if you were to think of it that way that's what

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Christ is building we're all being built together into a holy dwelling place a temple for the

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Lord and you'll note that requires a variety of stones a variety of colors and the idea then is is that what

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God is making is beautiful could you imagine if stones started getting uppity and say well I don't want to be next to that stone right how long would that building stand in fact it cannot house divided against itself cannot and so you'll note coming back to Christ teaching a house divided against itself cannot stand and that's the reason why then

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God's holy temple that he's building out of us living stones is so glorious because Christ himself has made peace with the father through his death on the cross for us of the hostility that we had with God is forgiven and through his cross he is killed the hostility that we've had with each other and as a result of it we are not a house divided against itself we are a house united around the love the mercy the grace of Christ his forgiveness his means of grace and word and sacrament today we will all receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins and that forgiveness is given without measure and we don't check your

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DNA before we feed you the Lord's Supper we are united together because Christ has made us all one citizens of his kingdom through his work on the cross so in him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the

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Spirit so brothers and sisters let us embrace this beautiful love and unity that Christ has given us let us not look with disdain on anyone among us whom

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Christ has bled and died for regardless of where they come from or where they reside on the earth but let us understand that Christ has bled and died for all and that he's made us all one in him let us rejoice in that unity 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 Northwest Oslo Minnesota 56744 and again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th