Understanding Divine Service Part 1

Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, with us abide, round us falls the even tide.

Let your word, that saving light, shine forth undimmed into the night. In these last days of great distress, grant us, dear

Lord, your true steadfastness, that we keep pure till life is spent, your holy word and your sacrament.

In Jesus' name, amen. Today we're going to launch into a little mini -series, and it might take a few weeks to do this, but we're going to be talking about worship.

We're going to be talking about why we do what we do when we do it in the church service.

And it's actually quite important that you recognize it. And to kind of help us out with that,

I'm going to use a template. In my Kindle, I have a copy of the

Lutheran Service Book, which is the hymnal used primarily by the Missouri Synod.

And you'll note that our flow of worship follows very closely much of what goes on in what's called the

Divine Service. Now, there are people who have been at Kongsvinger for a few years.

There have been a few people at Kongsvinger for a few decades. And then there's been a few people from Kongsvinger who've been here all their lives, and they can recall what it was like after the flood.

I'm joking. Noah was a friend of mine.

Okay, Noah was a friend of mine, that's right. And Jeremiah was a bullfrog. But anyway, that's a whole different story.

So the idea then is this, is that I think it's important for us to recognize a few things about Kongsvinger.

Kongsvinger, historically, was planted as a Haugi Norwegian Lutheran church.

And I don't know if you've noticed where we've been on the rural side. Kongsvinger is out here in the middle of the sticks.

And you've got to... There's no sticks. There's not enough sticks out here. And in the great flatness that is this place, one of the seven wonders of the world.

You can watch your dog run away for two weeks here. So historically, the original families that founded

Kongsvinger, Norwegian descent, Norwegian immigrant families and their descendants.

And when Kongsvinger was initially planted and the congregation got up and running, they had a hymnal.

And in the hymnal, there was a liturgy and it was called the Divine Service. And then you'll note that in our bookshelf and one of the cabinets there, there's an old green hymnal.

Old green hymnal. Who remembers using the green hymnal here? Okay, just a few people. And that green hymnal has the

Divine Service and a whole bunch of different things. And it's been a long time since Kongsvinger has used that. And currently, the hymnal being used is the

Family of God. And there's no formal liturgy in the Family of God.

It's basically primarily a hymnal. And it's fascinating when you look at the Family of God because as hymnals go, it actually has some of the older things that you wouldn't exactly expect to see in an

American hymnal. For instance, have you ever flipped the pages and saw, what's this thing called the

Todeum? Have you ever looked? It's actually in there. And you look through this thing and it still has the

Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed in it because we open our hymnals and look at these things. But what we're going to be doing is we're going to be looking at everything you need to know that you didn't know that you needed to know regarding Christian worship.

And you're going to note that we do things differently than like your big box megachurches. Has everyone at least been once to a big box megachurch?

Now, here's going to be a primary distinctive and one that is vital that we understand.

Why we do what we do in the worship service has to do with our first point.

And if you want to write it down, you can. It's direction of worship. Direction of worship.

Historically, the Lutheran liturgy has been referred to as the divine service.

And it's not called the divine service because we think it's so, you know, divine. You know, that's not why it's called that.

The primary understanding, and this isn't exactly the most accurate way of putting it, but it's in the ballpark, is that we recognize that worship first begins with God and then we respond to God's movement.

And so you're going to notice is that I've made a habit of letting the worship leaders know don't ever start our church service with these words.

We begin our service. No, we don't. That's the wrong direction.

That's from us to God. Instead, our church service begins with an opening hymn and then the invocation in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So it begins with God coming to us.

Because remember, what does Jesus say in Matthew 18? Where two or more are gathered in my name, what?

He is present. So the short, you know, the long phrase for the name of Jesus is in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We invoke the triune God. And then you're going to notice here that the pastor wears a uniform.

And the pastor covers up. And the pastor has all these symbols on him that basically not only cover him up but are designed to invoke slavery and an ox.

Again, this is kind of important stuff. This is a slave shackle. And the stole that I wear goes over my neck.

And it is a yoke. It is a pastor's yoke. So I am the slave and I am the beast of burden.

Yeah, exactly. My wife would agree. He said I was an ox. And so everything there is designed to diminish the man and emphasize the office.

And so the idea then is that the pastor then, since we do not visibly see

Christ present, although he is present when we gather in his name, the pastor then is the stand -in who is visibly doing the work that if Jesus were to physically show up at a church service,

I would sit down and he would continue doing. Does that make sense? This is one of the reasons why, and I'll kind of get into some other ideas here, this is one of the reasons why men are to be pastors.

Scripture makes this very clear that women are not to be pastors, but men are. And part of this has to do with the idea then is that they are the stand -in for the invisible

Jesus and the bride of Christ is the congregation. And then you're going to notice this very interesting thing, according to the ancient historic liturgy, is that there is no audience.

We are not here to be entertained. We are not here to be made to feel good.

We may feel good as a result. We may feel terrible. Who knows? What you feel is kind of not the important thing.

We are gathered in a fellowship and we are gathered around Christ's word, his body and blood, and we are gathered to do very specific things.

And it always begins, the motion begins from God. Now, I hate to say this, but I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

And that is, as your pastor, I know for sure what you've been doing from the time you leave

Kong's Vineyard until the time you show up the following Sunday. You want to know what you've been doing? You've been sinning.

I know, I know. It's like I'm a psychic, right? I know you're very impressed with my prophetic skills here.

And so you're going to note then that the liturgy assumes, the divine service assumes that having been out in the world, in your vocations, that you have been tempted by the devil, the world, your own sinful flesh, and that you haven't perfectly obeyed

God's commands. I know that every one of you, you're really close to not messing it up, but still you do, being a little facetious.

And the reality is this, is that as we work through life, there are seasons where it just feels like the devil has the upper hand.

Our sinful flesh is not being tamed and living the

Christian life is a brutal struggle. Difficult, difficult, difficult.

And so, as your pastor and the historic church has understood, the first thing we need to do if you're sinners and you are now in the presence of Christ, Him being holy,

Him being perfect, Him being glorious, even though He's not visibly present,

He's present because He says that He is. First order of business for sinners in the presence of God is what?

You've got to get that forgiveness taken care of. So you're going to note something here. I'm going to show you this, because I think the

Lutheran service book does this really well. So it begins with, In the name of the Father, Son, and the

Holy Spirit, which is a direct quote from Matthew 28, 19. Next order of business.

Listen to these words. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins,

God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

All of that is word for word a direct quote from Scripture from 1

John 1, verses 8 and 9. Did you know that? Look it up in your

Bible. Let's see if that's true. All right, hang on a second here. 1 John 1, verses 8 and 9.

And here it is in the ESV. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,

He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So you're going to note here that the historic liturgy, which we follow a lot of it.

We follow a lot of it. That you're going to note that the words that are given to us to say together, who were they given us by?

The Bible. God. It's the word of God. So the idea is that God has given us

His words. We say them back to Him. And so the idea is that the ancient church in putting this together kind of knew what they were doing.

And so you come into church and you confess that you have sinned against God. Thought, word, deed, things you've done, things you haven't done.

You haven't loved God with your whole heart. You haven't loved your neighbor as yourself. And you confess that you justly deserve

God's eternal punishment, which is most certainly true for all of us. And then you hear from the pastor as a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by His authority,

I therefore forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yeah, but who are you to do that?

Yeah, see, you... Who are you? The answer, I'm nobody. No, but I say that because it's happened in this church.

It's happened in other churches. They don't understand that you, the words being called by, called.

They don't understand the call situation. Yeah. The calling is not just, you know, elected to...

Yeah. You have been called to... By who? By the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit calls pastors, yeah.

So therefore, it is not your words. You have been coached to say them. However, it was your calling to learn to do this.

Yeah, yeah. So now let me back this up then a little bit. So notice, first words, in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

We confess then that we are sinners. And then the pastor says, I forgive you all of your sins. Where, who is this guy that he forgives sins?

Yeah, but who are you to say I'm a sinner? I, well, actually it's God's word that says that.

Well, I'm just... Yeah, yeah. Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just telling you what God says. No, I'm just playing the other people who don't get it.

Yeah. So here's, here's, by the way, the absolution. This is where this comes from. The gospel of John chapter 20.

And here's what it says in verse 22. So when Jesus had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the

Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.

Now this is just hard to pull into the English, but let me see if I can pull this up in a way that we can see it in the

Greek and I'll explain it. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

The Greek verb there, phiami is in the, I know this is not going to make any sense.

The plural, perfect, passive, indicative, which is a bizarre verbal tense.

Let me explain. The perfect means that it's happened in the past. The passive means you're not doing it.

Okay. For instance, I'll give you an example. We, we, if you ever written a document in Microsoft Word and you know, the green line comes up or that stupid paper clip used to come up and says, you're just written in the passive voice.

You know, you might want to correct your sentence and do something different, right? But the passive voice is a fascinating thing.

It doesn't work too well in English. But if I were to say to you, I went to the barbershop and I got a haircut, who cut my hair?

Somebody at the barbershop cut my hair, right? And you would be thinking, this is very good. Now, if I were to show up wearing a baseball cap to church and I said these words,

I cut my hair, active voice. What would you all say?

Exactly. We know why you're wearing a baseball cap. It's not because you're a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, right?

So, so the idea then is we kind of understand this. And so passive voice means that you're not the one doing it.

It's already been done for you or to you. And so here we got this very interesting verb tense in this text.

If you forgive the sins of any, this is conditional, they have already been forgiven in the passive voice, meaning you wasn't the one who did the forgiving.

Okay? So when you hear me say these words, I forgive you all of your sins, you know from this text,

I'm not the one doing the forgiving. The forgiving has already happened in the past tense and all

I'm doing is speaking what's already occurred, which then begs the question, where has the forgiveness of your sins been announced?

In heaven by Christ? Or we can say this, the visible Christ whom you can't see and who has chosen not to be heard in any other way except through his word presently.

When I speak these words, he who is present has set, is basically said,

I forgive you all. And then I get to echo that. I forgive you.

And it's not me saying it, it's him. That's the idea. So first order of business, name of the father, son and Holy Spirit.

Christ is present in the presence of a Holy God. We confess that we are sinners.

We receive that absolution is not coming from me, but coming from Christ. Your sins are forgiven.

So what would be the logical response to somebody who's had all of their sins forgiven by God?

Thank you. Right? And so you can note then how this works is an ebb and a flow.

It begins with God. He's present. You confess. He forgives.

Your response is praise. And that's how it works out.

Now in the big box churches, it's different. And let me explain. If you've been to a big box church, you better have some really good shoes.

How does the service begin? Standing. Standing for how long?

Like a half hour. Doing what? Singing praise songs.

Why? Because their service begins with, quote, a sacrifice of praise.

So the direction is from us to God. Is that law or is it gospel?

Law. When it's from God to us, is that law or gospel? It's gospel.

You see the difference? And so the idea then is this, is that the reason why this way of this flow, this order of service makes sense with our theology, which is biblical, is because this flow is consistent with salvation by grace through faith alone.

The other direction is inconsistent with salvation by grace through faith alone.

And it's not a coincidence. Not a coincidence that many people who attend those types of churches do not have confidence of their salvation.

They have major doubts regarding it. Because literally, and this is kind of one of the rules that goes way back in the ancient church, there's a phrase, a

Latin phrase, and the phrase is lex orendi, lex credendi. Lex orendi, lex credendi.

The law of prayer is the law of belief. The law of prayer is the law of belief.

So if you attend a church where the flow is from you to God and it's up to you to get

God's attention, because how does God reward the people with their sacrifice of praise?

Usually with goosebumps or something like that, right? Oh, I really felt the presence today.

Oh, the atmosphere was heavy with the glory or stuff like this. But that sounds like emotionalism to me.

And believe me, I raised three kids, and I've been married now for 30 years. And I can tell you, there are good weeks, and then there are rough weeks when it comes to raising a family and being a married fellow.

And usually when it's rough, it's because I'm being stupid. This is just an open confession here.

So, I mean, have you ever done this? There you are. It's Sunday morning. You get your kids all dressed up in their

Sunday best, and I have two girls, which means a lot of primping and ribbons and bows and things like this, right?

And you get them all in the backseat of the car, and it begins. Mom, he's touching me.

He's touching me. You make him so excited. Like this, right? And, of course, you're on your way to church, and then,

I'm trying to drive here, honey. Could you get the kids under control? Because I'm about ready to put my head through the steering wheel. Hey, what do you mean?

Why are you yelling at me? How come they're my kids now, right? And you're da -da -da -da -da -da -da like this. And then, all of a sudden, you get to the church parking lot, and it's like,

Hi, guys. Lord bless you. How's it going? Thank God it's not just me.

And what happens? You go into church, and you're totally faking it on the outside.

On the inside, there's total turmoil. And then strikes the praise band. You know, they open up with the chord of G or whatever.

And you're supposed to get up and raise your hands and have 30 minutes of just, you know, in these praise songs, right?

And your heart's not in it. You're still angry at all of your children and your wife. And nothing's been resolved, right?

And you don't feel nothing. And somebody will come up to you afterwards and say, Didn't you feel the presence of God?

Oh, yeah, I, yeah. Almost knocked me over. It was so thick today.

And you're lying through your teeth. And you know it. And then you get the kids in the car.

You leave the church parking lot. And as soon as you are in the clear, Welcome to living together as sinful human beings.

It's just so unpleasant. And you get the idea. So note, in the sacrifice of praise model that goes from you to God, on your bad weeks, you are beginning to doubt whether or not you're a

Christian. Because you go home and you sit there and go, Man, if I really loved God, why was I so sharp with my kids?

If I really loved Jesus, you know, why are my wife and I just, why is the tension so thick between the two of us?

Maybe I'm not really a believer at all. And these are the kinds of things that nag and gnaw at you.

So, the other way, the way that the church historically has done it, you come and you confess your sins first, and Christ forgives you.

I assume that there are Sundays that you come here, you've been fighting from East Grand Forks all the way up to the church parking lot.

And do you know what you need to hear? You need to hear that your sins are forgiven. You need to hear that even that turmoil that you went through, as sinful as it was, and your participation in it, as sinful as it was, that Christ even bled and died for that.

So, we are here to heal and care for and bind up the wounded.

This is not a gym. The church is not a gym.

Gyms, what a crazy place, right? Guys sitting there in front of the mirror going, like me,

I look at it and go, yeah. Yeah, I got a kegger right there.

Anyway, you get the idea. This is not a place where we show off our piety in the mirror.

This is a place where we come and confess that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and Christ is here to forgive us, renew us, sustain us, call us to repentance again, assure us of His forgiveness, and feed us with His body and blood, broken and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins.

You go out into the world, do your good works in your vocation, rinse, wash, repeat.

And you know what? This will never be sexy. This will never be relevant.

And on top of it, a disco ball makes no sense in this context. But this is the reason why we do what we do.

It has to, first and foremost, it has everything to do with the direction. The direction is from God to us, and then our response is thanks and praise.

And so you'll notice how that all works. So in our service, the next thing we do after the confession and absolution is something called an introit.

Where am I standing when we read that psalm together? Louder. Facing the altar, but have

I gone up yet? Not yet. So the idea then is that before the pastor enters the presence of God, the introit is kind of like opening up the door.

Then setting the theme, setting the tone, and then after the introit, then we have our songs of praise.

Which are appropriate, because what are we praising God for? I don't know. I think it's kind of cool that God just forgave me all of my sins and forgave all of you guys all of your sins.

I think praise is kind of an important thing at this point. It makes perfect sense. And then after that, what comes?

What comes after that? The reading of the word. From there we receive the word.

Who's giving us the word? God. It's his word. He's feeding us his word.

Now it's important to note that in the historic divine service, there's actually two steps that we've skipped here at Kong's Finger.

Now in the past they haven't skipped them, but presently that's not part of our service. And those two steps are the

Kyrie and something called the Collect. The Kyrie and the

Collect. I'll explain. So the Kyrie, and let me show you the text for this so you can kind of get the idea.

And let me pull this up so you can kind of see this. So you got your intro at Psalm, entrance hymn, and then you get to the

Kyrie. And Kyrie eleison, that's Greek, means what?

Lord have mercy. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison,

Christos eleison, Christ have mercy. Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy. Now we don't sing it in Greek or Latin, but the idea then is that the

Kyrie can either be sung or spoken, and it's the first petitions of prayer or supplications that we are offering together as a church.

And these particular prayers and supplications are so vital that they get set aside from the bigger prayers of the church that we do from week to week.

So that they are constantly, we are constantly praying these things back to God. Praying for these things.

And if you look at the Lutheran service book, Mark 10, 47 is the text that is referenced.

And let me show you where this comes in. So when we're saying Lord have mercy in this context, it's not

Lord have mercy as in forgive me of my sins. It's Lord have mercy, relieve us or protect us or guide us.

It has to do with the prayer type of Lord have mercy. Does that make sense? Good.

See, there I go again. My prophetic skills are off the chain today. But here's the text.

Mark 10, 46. They came to Jericho and as Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples, a great crowd.

Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was

Jesus crying out, he began to cry out saying, Jesus, son of David, have mercy.

Eleison. Have mercy on me. And many rebuked him. Really?

Human nature is so ornery. There's this blind guy in need and everybody knows that Jesus can heal.

And he's crying out, Lord, have mercy on me. Son of David, have mercy. They're like, be quiet, shut up.

It's unbelievable, right? So many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more,

Lord, son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, call him.

And they called the blind man, saying to him, take heart, get up. He's calling you.

And then throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, what do you want me to do for you?

The blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, go your way.

Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. So the

Kyrie then builds off of this biblical theme, that there are certain prayers that we always pray to Christ that he would hear us and meet our needs.

It's not regarding blindness, but let me show you kind of the different petitions that normally go with the

Kyrie. So in peace, let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy.

And so this little petition here is invoking this idea that we're praying for peace.

First and foremost, it begins here in Kongsvinger. In peace, let us pray to the

Lord. So Lord, have mercy on us. Let us have peace and unity in our own congregation. First petition.

For the peace from above and for our salvation, let us pray to the

Lord. Lord, have mercy. For the peace of the whole world, for the well -being of the church of God, for the unity of all, let us pray to the

Lord. And you can kind of see now that these petitions are actually quite important. And I think it's just amazing that the ancient church took these specific petitions and said, these are so vital.

We don't want to go a Sunday without praying. And they really are.

Because if Christ doesn't sustain our church, if Christ doesn't bring his peace here, among us, we're doomed.

And so we're crying out with now blind Bartimaeus, Lord, have mercy on us.

We are in great need. For this holy house, for all who offer here their worship and praise, let us pray to the

Lord. Lord, have mercy. Help, save, comfort, and defend us, gracious Lord, week after week after week.

These are, we as blind sinners are begging God to have mercy on us and to help us with these very, very dire needs that we have.

And so I thought that's brilliant that the church used to do that. So that's one of the things that's missing. Now you're going to note then, from there it goes into a hymn of praise.

And in the ancient liturgy, they would have a standard like the Gloria Patri. You know, glory be to the

Father. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the

Holy Ghost. Yeah, the Gloria. And so there would be a hymn of praise. And then from there you go into the

Collect. But we have our praise songs kind of in the right place.

But the only thing missing in our liturgy then is the Kyrie. So you kind of get the idea.

But our praises are perfectly set so that we're responding to God's action.

And they are exactly where they should be. God says, I forgive you. He's given us, set the table with the intruit.

And now we respond by thanking and praising God for what He's done. So you kind of see the flow.

And now the Collect then. Now, by the way, there's another praise song that the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod has added.

And this one they use only for like high feast days. So they would use it like first couple weeks of Easter.

They would use it for Pentecost. They would use it for Christmas Day. You know, if you were to have a

Christmas celebration, the first Sunday of Christmas. And another one is this is the feast of victory for our

God. Great tune, but that's kind of irrelevant. So then you hear the Lord, the pastor say this, the

Lord be with you. The congregation responds and also with you. So you're going to note that in the historic liturgy, no audience, everybody's participating.

You have a function. The pastor has a function. Christ has a function. Everybody is here together.

And we're not here to be entertained. So we're mutually even encouraging each other because we're all participating in the responses.

So there's a back and forth to it. It's kind of a living, breathing thing. We are a living organism as a congregation.

So we're not here to just sit and stoically fold our arms. We're here to participate.

So the pastor says, the Lord be with you. You respond by saying, and also with you. He says, let us pray. And then there's a short, short,

I mean this, prayer called a collect, and it changes Sunday to Sunday.

Today being the fifth Sunday of Pentecost, if we were following the divine service, our collect today would have been these words.

Almighty God, in your mercy, guide the course of this world so that your church may joyfully serve you in godly peace and quietness.

Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen. So just a quick, short prayer. And then you're going to notice this then.

In the divine service, you've prayed twice now. You've prayed the curiae.

You've prayed the collect. And now we receive God's word. And God's word then begins with the

Old Testament reading. And then you'll note then in the ancient liturgy that it is standard practice that after receiving the gift of God's word, the person who is reading would say this is the word of the

Lord, and listen to these words. Thanks be to God. Why?

Because you've just received the gift of his word. His word is life and light.

His word is a lamp to our feet. He has given us the gift of his very words, his revelation, and our response is thank you.

It makes perfect sense. And then in many congregations, they'll do what's called a gradual between the

Old Testament and the epistle reading. And usually it's like one or two verses from a psalm, which is it just kind of has this ebb and flow to it that kind of breaks things up just a little bit.

And then you have your second reading. And the second reading, this is the word of the Lord, and our response to receiving the gift of God's word is thanks be to God.

Now, so far you can see we're actually pretty close. We have a lot of these elements already in our service.

Now, when we get to the gospel text, I stand and I say please rise for the gospel. Historically, one of the ways in which churches have done it is what you see here, and it's called the triple alleluia.

Rather than the pastor standing up and saying everybody please rise, which seems kind of really kind of formal, there's been the triple alleluia that is sung instead, and that's the key to everybody.

This is where we rise for the gospel, so it becomes like an auditory musical reminder. This is the part where you stand, and we all know this.

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

Triple alleluia. These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the

Christ, the Son of God. Alleluia.

Alleluia. Alleluia. So rather than saying everybody stand up, you sing instead, and it serves the same function.

It's a little prettier, by the way, but you've got to know it. It depends on who's singing it, right?

Yeah. You know, on that thanks be to God, and if they didn't know, you know, that's fine and dandy, you know, but I just wish now woulda, shoulda, and coulda, if you want to look at it that way.

You know, I honestly think that there wouldn't be a pushback on this if it was explained ahead of time on this, and I'm not putting anybody down on this.

It's just that this is a wonderful way of putting it to use and bringing it to use.

I remember, and I'm not even Lutheran, but I remember my first Lutheran dealings that this was all in there.

Yeah. It was all in there. The weddings, the funerals, and the times you went to church with Lutheran friends.

Yeah. You know, it was all in there. Now, I'm going to point something out here is that you're going to note that this whole order of service is literally jam -packed with Scripture, and this is kind of important, and let me explain why, because pastors are sinners.

If you don't believe me, we can talk, okay? I know you think I walk on water, but I don't, all right? You know, and so I hate to break it to you, but pastors are sinners, and we're weak, and sometimes we deliver sermons that are duds, all right?

And I want you to think about this for a second, okay? So you come to church. You're thinking, oh,

I can't wait to hear the sermon today, and after the sermon, you're sitting there going, what happened?

I, whoa. I mean, pastor has, like, lost his mind. He's off his game. He's, what was, it's like he phoned it in, right?

Okay. It's like, yeah, yeah, oh, no. He's buying his sermons from Rick Warren.

Okay, so what happens when that happens?

And you're going to notice something. The liturgy itself anticipates that because it has a safety net.

The whole thing is chock -full of God's Word, so it's guaranteed that even if the sermon is a complete apocalypse, that what will happen is is that you're still going to hear law.

You're still going to hear gospel. Christ is still going to be proclaimed, and so what it does is it dilutes the sermon a little bit and doesn't make it the sole pinnacle of the service.

It makes it so that there's other measures in place so that if you get a dud sermon or God help you, if somebody actually gets the text wrong or something like that, the liturgy is your safety net.

It protects you from your pastor. And I hate to say it, but doesn't it also practicing the liturgy and showing up, doesn't that build the pastor up?

In a sense, it keeps the office in its proper place but not the person, and that's kind of the important part.

But if the person was getting into the liturgy rather than, like,

I'm sorry to say this, but as far as sometimes we get passive on it or complacent,

I should say, if you become complacent in it, then the chances of having a dud sermon would be greater, but if you're taking this seriously and bringing it up, you'd think it would build the pastor up.

Now, I'm going to say this, kind of building off your idea, is that I think there's nothing better than a divine service done well, and there's nothing worse than a divine service done poorly, and I mean it, okay?

And here's the thing, is that this is a gift. It's not a requirement, and there are fellows who kind of dogmatically browbeat everybody and say, you must do it this way or else, and then you get into their churches and the whole thing becomes law, right?

Or you get a pastor who has checked out. He's no longer really engaged in his office, and he's thinking,

I got two years to retirement, so I'm just going to go through the motions, right? His heart's not in it, and that's rough.

Oh man, that's a tough road to hoe. Yeah, exactly. But that can be periodic also.

Yeah. You may be in a funk somewhere, and you're just, you're here in body but not in mind.

I mean, that's human nature. Right, I mean, I'm a Dodgers fan, and even Clayton Kershaw goes through slumps. I'm sorry, you know, but you get the idea.

So a properly ordered service that has its direction from God to us is designed in a very specific way to protect you from pastoral duds.

It ensures you're going to hear law and gospel. It's not possible to leave this service without hearing the gospel, even if the pastor doesn't say a word of gospel in the sermon and decides he's going to read a recipe book from the pulpit.

I've seen worse, but you kind of get the idea. Yeah. You're using the Missouri Synod service book as a reference, but I mean, as you mentioned earlier, it goes way back, even in our earliest, some of our

Howie books. Yeah. It's very close. Not quite the same, but it's close. Right. The ELC had it.

Yeah, the ELC had it. It went way before ELC. And you also talk about the early church, and some people, some

Protestants criticize this because it sounds Catholic. Well, there's a lot of similarities. So how far back does it go in church history to the roots of the liturgy?

Way, way far back. All right, so let me explain. One thing is that we can see this exact same outline of the liturgy recorded for us by a church father by the name of Hippolytus.

Hippolytus is a 3rd century church father, martyred for his faith, by the way. And he was at odds with the

Bishop of Rome, which is kind of fascinating. But Hippolytus wrote a work called the

Apostolic Traditions. And the reason why he wrote the Apostolic Traditions, he actually makes this very clear, is because already by his time, people were kind of deviating in the church service.

And he wanted to write down, this is the way the apostles did the church service, and this is what's been handed down to us.

And I'm going to write this down. And in Hippolytus' Apostolic Traditions, you have literally the same outline of the liturgy we follow.

And you're going to notice then that the outline allows variations on the same theme.

And so the Norwegian Lutherans have a different set of songs, but in the same place than the

Germans had and the Swedes had. And so the idea, like, all right, after the offering, what's the song that we sing?

We give thee but thine own. Whatever the gift may be. That's called an offertory. That is not the standard offertory that the

Germans use, but it's this offertory that this Norwegian congregation uses. And it's in the exact same proper place that it should be, but it's a different theme, a different tune.

The tune used by the Germans, the Missouri Synod, is, What shall

I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

So they have a different offertory, different words, different song, different tune, plugged in in the same place.

The old ALCM book, the green or even the red book, had Created Me a Clean Heart. Yeah, in fact, yeah, that's right.

The TLH has Created Me a Clean Heart. Creating me a clean heart. Ah, I forget the tune.

Creating me a clean heart, O God, and renewing the spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I remember that one. There was a church I attended that they had that as the offertory. And so the idea then is this, is that when you've got the flow down, then what happens is is that in the liturgy then, there's two pinnacles that hold this thing up.

Not one, but two. The first is the sermon, and the second then is the

Lord's Supper. Two vital components then kind of hold and suspend everything up. And that's really kind of the twin focus of the liturgy itself.

And everything makes sense with God moves, we respond. God moves, we respond. We together are saying things to each other.

And that's the idea. And this is the reason why the pastor does things like this. Are you ready? Alright, so pretend this is where Norwegian Jesus is.

There are times when I'm facing Norwegian Jesus, and there's times when I'm facing you. Alright, why?

Why? Alright, when I'm facing Norwegian Jesus, I'm part of the congregation.

We are speaking together to Christ. When I'm this way, Jesus is speaking to you.

He's present, and he's chosen to have you hear his voice through me, which doesn't seem smart at all, but nonetheless, that's the case.

So the idea is that which direction I'm facing tells you whether I'm part of the congregation or I'm functioning in the office of the pastor and speaking words for Christ.

Now, a real quick question. Why the sign of the cross? Yeah, there it is.

That's right. To remind us of our baptism. This is the one that makes everyone really nervous. It's like, the

Roman Catholics crossed themselves. Yes, Christians have been doing this for like forever. Okay?

You make the sign of the cross. Why? When you were baptized, I promise you, for most of you

I wasn't there. Alright? Some of you I was. But when you were baptized, you were baptized in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. God put his name on you.

You were united with Christ in his death and his resurrection. Your sins were washed away.

Your heart was circumcised. You were given the gift of the Holy Spirit. These are all important things.

And so over and over and again, when we invoke the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we cross ourselves to remember that that name has been actually put on us by God himself in the waters of baptism.

So that's your way of saying, I am a baptized child of Christ. Is it wrong not to?

No, absolutely not. It is not wrong not to. And see, here's the thing. When it comes to these things, you have freedom.

There is no biblical text that says, Thou shalt cross thyself or you'll be thrown into the lake of fire.

No text says this. Okay? In Presbyterian, he didn't, and I just never got into the habit of it.

Right, right. So here's the idea. When it comes to things that we have freedom in, we are to have an open hand, not a closed fist.

And you're going to know, here at Kongsvinger, we have some people that come from the Norwegian Lutheran tradition.

We have some people from the German Norwegian tradition. We have a family here.

One of the members spent time in the Roman Catholic Church. And we have some other people who have attended nowhere.

And we have a fellow here who his only training in Christianity prior to coming here was Baptist. And so we all have these different things.

And the idea then is that as a congregation, we recognize this. We have been given the task.

And the task is this. To make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching all that Christ has commanded.

The four things that comprise what a good church service should be is the apostolic teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers.

They're all present here. What we embellish those with, we have freedom on.

And so if we're going to embellish the gospel with the curiae, that's a good thing to do.

Are we wrong if we don't? No. Are we free to?

Yes. Are we free not to? Yes. So many times when it comes to a worship service, people will say these words.

We do what we do because we've always done what we've done. Well, what if we want to do it that way?

No, we've never done it that way. Well, actually you have. No. And what happens is that what we do is then decided based upon somebody's feelings.

Not whether the important question is how does this help in embellishing, highlighting the gospel, the biblical text, the

Lord's Supper, gives reverence, and other things like this. And all of these things have a function.

Nothing is there in the church service just because. So if I came out with streamers and started doing this, you'd all shoot me.

How does that embellish the gospel, right? It would be the last thing

I did as pastor of Kongsvinger. So you get the idea then.

It's that as a congregation, I believe it is vital for us to take a look at our theology of worship, take a look at what we do, and ask ourselves, why are we doing these things?

What other options are available? What can we be doing better? What should we be not doing at all?

These are valid questions, but here's the thing. The liturgy doesn't belong to me.

It doesn't belong to you. It belongs to us. All of us.

Whether or not you've been a member of this congregation for four months or 90 years.

The liturgy still belongs to all of us. And it's I think we need to be asking ourselves these questions.

Why do we do what we do and how does this serve? Our mandate to make disciples.

To baptize, teach, have the apostolic teaching, the prayers, the breaking of bread and the koinonia and the fellowship.

Right? So I think we'll stop there today. We'll talk about the

Lord's Supper next week, but this just begins to open the conversation. Have you had some questions? Oh, the apostolic teaching, apostolic teaching, the prayers, the breaking of bread and the fellowship.

And you're going to find those four elements in the book of Acts chapter 2. Right after the baptism part, it talks about all the believers that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the prayers, the breaking of bread and the fellowship.

Those are really your four components of what makes a vital and healthy church.

Yeah? I think it's also important to point out the difference between German Lutheranism historically and Norwegian Lutheranism historically.

Some of the tweaking that went on in the liturgy in terms of words, not so much the parts of the liturgy, but some of the words, particularly in the absolution, was a political situation, not a church situation.

Because in the 1700s, Norway, Scandinavian general, but Norway particularly was under the rulership of the

Danes. The church was a state church. The Danish pastors were trained, some of them in Germany, some in Denmark, and they were imposed upon the

Norwegian peasants, and most all Norwegians were peasants at that time. And so there was a corruption at the governmental level in the state church level that the peasants were feeling like they were getting left out.

So you had the hierarchy, the elite, clergy, and then the peasants. And so the peasants were feeling imposed upon, and the revivalism that took place in Norway, largely with Hauge, and even before him, was a reaction to the state church imposing itself on the common man.

And so the idea that a pastor of the elite would come in and tell the peasants what to do, and it really hit the absolution part, where the pastor says,

I forgive you of your sins. The reaction was, who is this guy to tell me that he can forgive me of my sins?

And so the tweaking started to take place in the absolution. In some cases, it disbanded altogether. But if you look at the

Norwegian Lutheran hymnal history, you will see words like, I declare to you that you are forgiven, rather than I forgive you of your sins.

There's kind of a passive voice speaking there. And so that has carried its way all the way through to today, and that's why you have this slight difference in perspective.

But on the other hand, there's research done in the last 15 years, which shows, since I'm changing direction here, but in the last 15, 20 years, we've got a technology called neuroimaging, which allows you to see what part of your brain sparks, lights up, when you hear certain words.

And there's a whole body of research going on called forgiveness research, which is done from a secular perspective.

But it's showing that you need to hear the words spoken, I forgive you, and it sparks, your brain starts to light up in the right places when you hear those words spoken in an active sense, more so than in a passive sense.

So the church has probably been right for the last 2 ,000 years. I would say

Jesus was right. So Jesus was right. There's probably some scientific proof today that shows that you need to hear those words directly spoken to you in order for that forgiveness to be the most meaningful to you.

Well, let me ask you this. I know you've been married for a while, and it's probably been about 37 years since you and Marilyn had a disagreement.

No, it's been a while. But, I mean, if you're like me, and you've put your foot in your mouth, and you've really upset your wife, and she's mad that you justifiably so, which is more effective in order to resolve the conflict?

Her saying, we're fine, or her saying, I forgive you,

Don. Which is more effective? Number two. Yeah, number two. Well, love means never having to say you're sorry.

You know it. What's well -fined then? Huh? What's the words well -fined then?

Yeah, see, right. You said it with the right emphasis, too. Fine is a four -letter word, and that means duck and cover.

Okay, that's what it actually means. Yeah, it's in the dictionary.

Yeah, look it up. So, yeah. Alright, we'll leave it there.