Trading the Eternal for the Temporal

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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When one of those who reclined at table with Jesus heard these things, he said to him,

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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 for his servant to say to those who had been invited,

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Come, for everything is now ready. But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him,

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I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it, and please have me excused.

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

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Another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported these things to his master.

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Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, Go out quickly into the street and the lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame.

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And the servant said, Sir, what you have commanded has been done, and still there is room. And the master said to the servant,

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Go out into the highways and the hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. So what are we to make of this gospel text?

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A bunch of guys on the A -list invited to a great feast, a great banquet, and then, well, turning it down, you know, for all kinds of reasons.

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Think of it this way. When we look back in the book of Genesis, chapter 25, small little account, but it is actually helpful here.

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When once Jacob was cooking stew, Esau, remember Jacob and Esau, the twins,

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Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted.

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Therefore, his name was called Edom. Jacob said, well, sell me your birthright now.

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And Esau said, oh, I'm about to die, of what use is a birthright to me? So Jacob said, swear to me now.

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So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way.

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Thus Esau despised his birthright. What a foolish thing to do.

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A birthright in the ancient world was not a small thing, it was a big thing. And along with it, it's not just the inheritance, also comes the guy who would be the spiritual head of the family, kind of the kingdom and all those types of things, and what did

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Esau do? He despised his birthright. Why? Well, over a bowl of lentil stew?

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What utter foolishness that is. Exactly. That's the point.

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And so you'll note that these men in our gospel texts, they're really not interested in eternal life.

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They're interested in the here and the now. And it's important to note that Jesus here is speaking in a context.

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And so we need to recognize something that's going on here. But let me kind of throw in another text to kind of fill in our theme.

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Matthew chapter 16, Jesus speaks to his disciples. He says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, follow me.

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You'll note that the world we live in, denying yourself is like the mortal sin. You can't do that.

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You need to affirm yourself. You need to be you and do you and all that kind of stuff.

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Deny yourself? No, we don't deny ourselves anything. It's all about the pursuit of things and power and influence and affluence, right?

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And Jesus says, whoever would save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

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For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

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Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

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Yeah, that's kind of the thing here. Have you noticed? I mentioned it last week and I'll continue to mention it.

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Life is a fleeting thing. It goes like that. It goes by like that. You blink and the whole thing's gone and then you're dead.

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You came into the world, you brought nothing with you. When you came in, you arrived in the world naked, needing to be clothed.

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You take nothing with you when you leave the world. So why the focus on the temporal?

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It's a form of idolatry, seeking good from the good gifts that God gives us as we sojourn through this valley of the shadow of death, and really seeking them and seeking comfort from them rather than the one who is the giver of those gifts, right?

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And so in our gospel text, there's a context. I mentioned that already, and I'm going to back up just a little bit in our context so we can get the gist of what

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Christ is teaching, because I think it's important. So it says in Luke chapter 14, starting at verse 12,

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I'm just backing up a few verses, Jesus said to the man who had invited him, so a Pharisee had invited him to dinner.

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When you give a dinner or a banquet, don't invite your friends, don't invite your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and then you'll be repaid.

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But when you give a feast, ready? Invite the poor. Now by preaching this,

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Christ is taking their theology and turning it on its head, because in the

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Pharisee's way of thinking, wealth is the sign of God's blessing.

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The Pharisees are no different than the prosperity preachers of today, right? And so Jesus is saying, don't hobnob with the wealthy, don't hobnob with the powerful or those who can repay you back, instead invite the poor.

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Yeah, you know, the guy on the street begging, uh -huh, for real, who's poor and down and out.

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Invite the crippled, the lame, the blind, you know, those people your false theology say are cursed of God, and then you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.

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Oh, that's how the gospel works, isn't it, right? Could you repay God? Can you repay Christ for the good things that he's given you?

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Of course not, right? For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. The Proverbs make it clear that when you lend to the poor and they cannot repay you, don't worry,

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God will repay. Jesus also affirms this in the Old Testament, the Proverbs.

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So that being the case, this one of these Pharisees speaks up. He's one of those who reclined at the table with Jesus, heard him say these things.

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He said, well, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But Jesus said to him, all right, listen, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many, and at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come, everything's now ready.

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But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, oh, I've bought a field.

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Sorry, can't come to your banquet. I've bought a field, and I must go and I must see it.

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And please have me excused. Yeah, sorry, maybe next time. And another said, well,

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I've bought five yoke of oxen. I've got to go and examine them. We all know how much trouble those yoke of oxen can be, right?

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And again, please have me excused. And another one said, well, I've married a wife, and we're still in the honeymoon phase, you know what

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I mean? And so therefore, I can't come. You gain the whole world, and yet forfeit your soul.

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You'll note that the banquet that's being referred to here, the great wedding feast of the Lamb, Christ is the one who's prepared the table, right?

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And so what's Christ to do? The A -listers, the Jews of his time, the people who have received the fulfillment of the prophecies of the

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Messiah, Christ is calling them to do what? We can see it in that greater context when he says to them, don't invite the rich and the powerful and those who can repay you.

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Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, right? Repent. Repent.

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Your theology is off. Your works -based religion can't save you. And no, wealth is not the indicator of God's blessings.

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Why are you so enamored by the entrapments of this life and the accoutrements of what this life can offer, right?

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And said, deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow Jesus. What good is it if a man gains the whole world?

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He gonna die. You're gonna die. We're all under the same sentence of death because of our sin and rebellion against God.

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Your sin, your rebellion against God, the wages of sin is death. I'm dying.

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You're dying. No guarantee you'll even be here next week or that I'll be here next week, right? So that being the case, you'll note these fellows are being foolish, like Esau, exchanging his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup.

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I don't even like lentils. They're not that great, you know what I'm saying? Kind of remind me of like mini lima beans.

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All right. But all that being said, what are you thinking? That's the point.

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And so the servant then came and reported these things to his master. What am

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I to do, right? So the master of the house became angry and said to Esau, you go out quickly into the streets and the lanes of the city, bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame.

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Note Christ in the earlier context says that when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.

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If you want to know where you are in this parable, that's you. That's me.

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And if you do not see yourself as poor, crippled, lame, blind, man,

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I don't know what to do to help you here, but that's exactly our condition as sinners.

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And so, you know, Christ practices what he preaches. He only invites now to the wedding feast those who are crippled, poor, lame, blind.

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In the book of Revelation, in Jesus' letter to the church at Laodicea, talk about a messed up church.

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Laodicea, by the way, was a good zip code back in the day. Oh yeah. In fact, they were making money hand over fist in the city of Laodicea.

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They were known for selling a particular eye ointment, a salve to help people with eye infections and things like this.

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And they'd made themselves rich. Oh, they were at ease. And as a result of that, the church of Laodicea thought that they were the bee's knees, but they weren't.

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In fact, here's what Christ has John write to the church of Laodicea, to the angel, the pastor, the messenger of the church of Laodicea, write these, the words of the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.

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I know your works. You're neither hot nor cold. Oh, would you, you are either cold or hot.

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So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold,

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I'm going to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I'm rich. I've prospered.

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I need nothing. Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, naked.

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That's you. That's me. This is our state before God because of our sin.

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And you'll note the mercy of Christ. He rebukes the Pharisees quite nicely for not inviting the poor and the lame and the blind and those who cannot repay them.

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But that's exactly who Jesus invites to the great banquet that is prepared, the banquet of salvation.

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And so you need to see the truth about yourself. You are not wealthy.

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Don't even think about it. You are not somebody who is beyond need.

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You are in great need because of your sin and your rebellion against God and your love for the earthly creature comforts of this world that are, oh, that make it so that you have no time to hear the

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Word of God. Oh, remember that third commandment. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

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Yeah. Yeah. Think, think, just think for a second here. When in the small catechism,

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Luther asked the question, what does this mean? Oh, we should fear and love God. So we do not despise preaching in His Word, but gladly hear and learn it.

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But you don't understand, pastor. It's summer here in Minnesota.

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We've got to get to the lake. We have no time for church. I've got to go fishing. Oh, I've got my farm to tend to.

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My wife and I, I've got to keep the woman happy. And then she wants to do this, that, or the other thing.

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Uh -huh. I know. I know. You say, I'm rich.

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Jesus says, I've prospered. I don't need anything. Not realizing that you're wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

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So I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich.

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White garments so that you may clothe yourself in the shame of your nakedness and that your nakedness may not be seen and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see those whom

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I love. I reprove and I discipline them. So be zealous, Jesus says, and repent.

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Repent. Stop being distracted by the bright, shiny things of this earth and the blessings that God gives you as if somehow that's the point.

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The point is Christ. The point is our repentance. The point is our trust in him.

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You're passing through this world. You take none of it with you. Stop being enamored by all of that.

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In fact, a good way to put it is, is that Christ is the one who has prepared the grand feast.

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In his sermon on this text, Johann Gerhard says, Christ is the one who brought forth the gospel teaching from his hidden store of divine wisdom, and he's readied his table for the souls who will be fed there.

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The man who finds his way to this food, the food that Christ prepares, will discover that in the hereafter

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God has prepared a sumptuous meal, a meal of fat and marrow, of pure wine in which there are no dregs.

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God has granted to that one eternal life. There he or she will sit in heaven with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, quite the banquet, quite the guest list if you think about it, and they will be eating and drinking at Christ's table.

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He will be sated by seeing the divine countenance. Oh, you'll be hungering no more to see

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Christ because you will see him face to face, and you will be refreshed as if by an eternal fountain.

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The Lord God has invited many, in fact the whole world, to this banquet. He desires all men to be consoled and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

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It's not his will that any should perish. He sends out his word out into the world.

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He wishes for all ends of the earth to turn to him. This is why he sends his servants out at banquet time and has them announced to the guests, come, everything is ready.

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Christ has made everything ready for us. Jesus intended this primarily for the

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Jewish people. Not only had they been invited to God's kingdom through the various prophecies about the

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Messiah, but God had also sent them John the Baptist, the preacher of righteousness.

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He sent them the holy apostles. Yes, even Christ himself, God's righteous servant, and all of them admonished the

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Jews to repent and to believe the gospel for God's kingdom was at hand.

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Indeed, it was, but they didn't repent. Instead, they crucified

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Christ, and they chose the fleeting pleasures and distractions and creature comforts of this world rather than repent and receive the gift of eternal life.

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Again, our gospel text makes it clear that Christ is the one who has prepared everything.

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You bring nothing to the table. You come naked, poor, pitiable, blind, and Jesus is the one who gives you sight, clothes you in his righteousness, that perfect, sinless righteousness that he lived for you.

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He took your sin upon himself on the cross. He was clothed in your nakedness, clothed in your shame, clothed in your judgment, so that you can be clothed in his righteousness and may have the appropriate clothes for this great banquet, all as a gift.

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It's been prepared for you. Come, repent, abandon the things of this world, trust in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, turn away from your sin.

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He'll forgive you, clothe you, and satisfy your heart and your soul with the good things of the kingdom of God to come in a world without end where there is no sin, nothing here you can keep, nothing here you can take with you, but there all is given as a gift in a world without end, and the gifts that he gives cannot be taken from you.

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They cannot be stolen. They will never collect dust or rust or disappear. They last forever, and you last forever in a world without end.

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Abandon and forsake the temporal. Embrace Christ, the

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King of kings and Lord of lords, who's God of God and light of light, the one who is eternal in a world without end.

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Repent of your idolatry, of trusting in things, rather than the one who calls you to be forgiven and promises you eternal life.

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All is a gift because he's prepared it for you. And so you'll note the

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Jews of Jesus' day, they rejected Christ. Many of them in mass rejected him. Sadly, choosing power and fame and wealth and nonsense.

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They have nothing now except for shame and lament for being so foolish.

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Yeah, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and they feared not the Lord. They trusted in themselves.

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And so you'll note in our epistle text, great theme by the way. It says in Ephesians 2,

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I'll just back up a little bit in the context so that you can see it. Therefore remember that at one time you

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Gentiles, that's all of us who are not Jewish by heritage, by genetics, at one time you

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Gentiles in the flesh, you were called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands.

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Remember that you were at one time separated from Christ, indeed we were, naked, poor, pitiable, blind, right?

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We were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. We were strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and we were without God in the world.

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The gospel has gone out, and those messengers whom Christ has sent, when the message reaches us, we are dead in trespasses and sins, blind and a mess, crippled, unable even to respond, right?

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But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, now you have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

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Christ's invitation goes out now and comes to us here where we are. The blood of Christ is the one, is the thing that draws us near to God, forgives us of our sins, reconciles us.

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He himself, Jesus is our peace. He is the one who has made us both one,

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Jew and Gentile. He is the one who's broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.

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He did this by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new man, one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and so that he might reconcile us to God, right, in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

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Ah, Christ has reconciled us to the Father. He's the one who's made everything ready. He came and he preached peace to you who were far off, peace to those who were near, and through him we now have both access in one spirit to the

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Father. So then we're no longer strangers and aliens. We're no longer the crippled, the poor, the blind, the lame.

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No, we've been healed by Christ, clothed with his righteousness all as a gift, and we are now fellow citizens with all the saints, and we together with the saints of old, the saints who have gone before us, old and New Testament, we are all members of the household of God.

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We are now built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and Christ Jesus himself is the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is being joined together and grows into a holy temple in the

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Lord. In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the

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Spirit. All of these things, ah, the feast has been prepared. Don't choose your ox, or your wife, or your husband, or your things, or your field, or your car, or your clothes, or your watch.

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What good is it if you gain the whole world and forfeit your soul?

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Repent. The banquet has been made ready. See yourself for what you are.

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Repent. He will draw you to his kingdom. He will feed you. He will clothe you with his righteousness as a gift, and therefore salvation is only for those who recognize their true sinfulness and their need to be reconciled, because Christ has reconciled us to God for us in him, in his body.

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We now have these great promises. Leave it all behind. You can't take any of it with you.

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Look forward. Forward to the promises of the fulfillment of Christ when you will see him face to face and your heart will be made glad.

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And that day we will feast together in a world without end. In the name of Jesus, amen.

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

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