Written Thrice

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 16th chapter.

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Jesus said there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.

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At his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table.

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Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abram's side.

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And the rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and he saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.

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And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.

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But Abraham said, Child, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things.

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Now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. Besides all of this, between us and you is a great chasm that has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.

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And he said, Well, then I beg you, Father, to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that they may warn them, lest they also come to this place of torment.

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But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.

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And he said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

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This is the gospel of the Lord, in the name of Jesus. So have you ever noticed that parents don't like to repeat themselves?

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As a parent, I always felt like I was constantly repeating myself. But I think back to my own childhood, and I've got to admit the details are a little fuzzy here.

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But I remember one particular Saturday morning. I was watching H .R. Pufnstuf and eating some

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Captain Crunch. And my mom wanted me to stop watching television, because apparently

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I'd watched enough. And of course, I was sitting too close to the television. Of course, my mom was convinced that if I sat too close to the television, that I would go blind.

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Now I have an iPad, and I hold it up to my face like this, and I'm still not blind, mom. But all of that being said, she said something, again, the words are elusive, something about cleaning and oom, you know, the words are fuzzy, right?

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I'm not exactly sure I heard it the first time. Second time, with more annoyance, the words became clearer, and they sounded like clean your room.

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I think that's what she said. But by the third time, grace was done.

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And there was, there may have been a bell to paddle, the details are fuzzy, I didn't get to call

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Child Protective Services at that time, didn't seem to matter. But I'm a Gen Xer, we grew up neglecting hose water, and that being the case, you know, we didn't even have car seats when we were kids, we were just crawling around doing whatever we want.

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So there was no point in calling CPS, I just had to take my licking and keep on ticking, but that's what happens, right?

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But all of that being said, you'll note that repeating words are kind of important.

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And in our Old Testament text today, the Old Testament says, Abram believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.

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But are you aware that those same words are repeated three times in the New Testament? Thrice, if you want to talk about Old English, thrice

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God repeats those words. And when God repeats himself, maybe, just maybe, we might want to pay attention.

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Because that being the case, I think we can easily misunderstand what is the point of what

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God's words are here. And so twice in the New Testament, God uses these words, he believed the

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Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness, twice he uses those words to teach us positively what they mean.

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And once, he teaches us negatively what they do not mean. So we might want to pay attention.

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You'll note that the liturgical colors have changed to green. We're now in the time of the church, the time of growth.

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It's a good idea that we let the word sink in and let it instruct us. So working our way through the

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Old Testament text first, after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, fear not

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Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great. Now if you know the story of Abram, he lived in a really nice neighborhood,

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Ur of the Chaldeans, that was a good zip code back in the day. And God had him abandon his idolatry to leave his family and move, move to, well, the promised land.

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But we know from other scriptures that Abram was seeking a city whose foundation and builder was the Lord, which means he never found what he was looking for, kind of like that old

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U2 song, right? Never found what he was looking for in this life. In fact, the promised land was always a type in shadow of something much bigger than a postage stamp size property in the

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Middle East. That being the case, God promised Abraham that he would have children and that they would be as numerous as the sands of the seashore.

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Well, he still doesn't have any sand in his toes. And so God hasn't made good on his promise yet.

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And here's the issue. His wife, Sarai, is starting to get up there in age.

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And things happen to women hormonally when they get up there in age. You know, they start to have hot flashes and stuff.

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And a little bit of a note to younger men, when your wife finally starts to experience those hot flashes, do not make eye contact.

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Do not even draw attention to what's happening. That's like you're holding their hand and all of a sudden they warm up really hot and you can feel the fires of hell.

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Do not say anything. Don't say, whoo, honey, you're really burning up. Because violence could ensue and there is still a commandment, thou shall not murder.

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So keep this in mind. And we don't want to tempt our wives to murder us. But all that being said,

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Sarai is getting up there. The idea of bearing children is not looking positive. And so Abraham said, oh

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Lord God, what will you give me for I continue childless and the heir of my house is

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Eleazar of Damascus. I met with the attorneys and we've rewritten the will. I don't have an heir so some dude named

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Eleazar of Damascus is now going to be my heir. It's all in the documents. Take a look, God. And Abraham said, behold, you've given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir.

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And behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, the Debar Elohim, the

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Debar Yahweh has come to him. It's interesting, Christ is referred to in the Gospel of John as the word of God in human flesh.

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Whenever I see a text like this talking about how the word of Yahweh came to somebody, how do words do such things?

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It must be Jesus. Forgive me for inserting Jesus in here, but I think that's not out of place. So Jesus comes and says to him, this man shall not be your heir.

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Your very own son will be your heir. And so he brought Abraham outside and he said, look toward the heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them.

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Now, I grew up in Southern California. Talk about light pollution. I mean, there was all of maybe 10 or 12 stars that you can see at night in Southern California on a good night.

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But you get out to some place like, you know, Kongsvinger Lutheran Church. Have you ever been out here on a clear

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June night? All right, I would note, this is a good month. June is a great month to see the

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Milky Way. In fact, if you were standing over by the road, just looking at the cross and looking at Kongsvinger, if you got the right angle, you can see the

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Andromeda Galaxy. Just take a look at the bell tower, at the steeple, and just look a little bit to the left on a clear

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June night and you can see the Andromeda Galaxy. And you can see the core of the Milky Way Galaxy right now during this time of the year.

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It's a good thing to do. But here's the thing. That's what Jesus did. He took Abram outside and had him look, and this is long before the days of light pollution, so he had a good look at all the stars of heaven, and it's overpowering if you think about it.

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He says, look to the heaven, number the stars if you are able to number them, and he said to them, so shall your offspring be.

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Now we're going to throw a challenge question in here for a second. Numerous is the stars of heaven.

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Is Christ here referring to the genetic descendants of Abram or those who are the sons of Abraham who have the same faith as Abraham?

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We'll just come back to that question here in a minute. We're going to exegete our way and find the answer to the question.

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But then the text says, and our Old Testament closes with, he, Abram, believed the Lord and God counted it to him as righteousness.

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He had faith and God credits him with righteousness. Well, what are we to make of that?

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Well, this is where context, context, context doesn't exactly help us.

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We have the phrase, but you're going to note something. Scripture includes in it narratives.

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These are historical narratives. This is a historical narrative that we just read, but it also includes didactic text.

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Texts that teach us theology, that give us the meaning of the historical narratives. And so if you remember, how many times are the words,

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Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, recorded in the New Testament? Three times.

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Let's take a look at one of them. One of them is found in Galatians chapter three.

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In Galatians chapter three, you'll remember that the presenting issue for the letter that was written to the

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Galatians, which by the way, in all of scripture, there is no more of a tersely written direct in your face rebuke kind of letter.

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In fact, I would think by today's pious standards, Paul might be tone policed for writing a letter like this.

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It's not politically correct. It's in your face. And he's absolutely uncompromising when it comes to people who have a different theological opinion than he does.

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Who are these people? Well, these were the Judaizers. The Judaizers believed that you were not saved by Christ and what he has done for us alone, but you also were saved by your good works, by your observing of the

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Mosaic covenant and obeying the Old Testament commands, which were specifically for Israel.

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Paul would have none of it. He opposed these people and refused to even budge in the slightest.

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And he was not generous when it came to theological opinionating. He had a belief that there was a right way to understand these things and everything else that didn't agree with that was wrong.

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What a narrow -minded bigot Paul was, or was he, right?

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Because Paul knew that what was at stake with the Judaizers was the very gospel itself. And so Paul, writing to them, he says to them in chapter one, you know, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one already preached, let him be, well, the word is anathema in Greek and then our

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English translations, because I think there's a lot of pious church ladies who don't want to hear the actual word.

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The actual word is let him be damned. And then he says, and if that's not enough, let me say it again.

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If anyone is preaching to a gospel other than the one we already preached to you, let him be damned,

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Paul says. And so he goes on a little bit of a written tongue lashing, and by chapter three, he's hitting his full stride.

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Paul says to the Galatians, oh, foolish Galatians, oh, great, now you're demeaning our intelligence?

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Who has bewitched you, he says, it was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

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Hmm, isn't that interesting? You can just hear the Galatians going, well, we're not doubting that Jesus was crucified, but by believing that you're saved by your works, you are, because if you are saved by your works, you don't need a crucified

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Jesus. What you need is a good personal trainer, you know, the

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Jesus who comes along and says, I am going to pump you up, right? But that's not what

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Jesus came to do, he came to bleed and die for your sins. And so he sees the Judaizing heresy as a denial of Christ's crucifixion.

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So he now then starts to ask some questions. So let me ask you this, did you receive the

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Spirit, you know, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit that the apostles received on the day of Pentecost, the

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Holy Spirit that followed and was poured out as people around the world were hearing the gospel, you know, that one.

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Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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How many decades did you go hearing the Old Testament and you never had the

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Holy Spirit? But now that the message of Christ and crucified has come to you, is that when you heard, is that when you received the

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Spirit? Of course it is. It says, are you now so foolish having begun by the

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Holy Spirit? Are you now trying to be perfected by the flesh?

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Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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And here it comes, just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

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So this is referring to a doctrine that we should be familiar with as Lutherans. This is the doctrine known as the imputed righteousness of Christ.

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And by the way, you need this righteousness because if you ain't righteous when you die, you're not covered and credited with this righteousness when you die, and you stand before God in the tattered, soiled rags of your own self -righteousness, you ain't gonna make it.

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In fact, your fate is very similar then to that unnamed rich man who is in torment in our gospel text.

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But Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. And here comes the answer to the question that I posed when we were reading

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Genesis. Those stars in heaven, was God referring to the genetic descendants of Abraham or those who are the children of Abraham who have the same faith as Abraham?

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Galatians 3 verse 7 answers the question. Know then, it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

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Those who have faith are the sons of Abraham. So next time you happen to be out here in this part of Minnesota on a dark night when the sky is clear and you can see the stars in the

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Milky Way, note then that the scriptures make it clear that that is a picture of the saints and those who have faith in Christ.

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We are the ones like the stars that shine in the darkness of the world that we are in.

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So it should change your view of the stars altogether and make you want to see their glory all the more.

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The scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.

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So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith.

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Now I'm going to tease this theme out just a little bit more in our next text, well actually the one that follows our next text and the one from Romans.

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Those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith. So Abram's blessing that he received from God, this righteousness that God credits him with, you'll note that Paul here in Galatians 3 .9

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makes reference that that belongs to us. But then he says these words, all who rely on works of the law are under a curse for it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all the things written by the book of the law and continue to do them.

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Now, there is a difference between doing good works and relying on them.

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I mean, the fact, the difference couldn't be any more stark. It's the difference between night and day, truth and error.

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If you are relying on your good works in order to save you, you are no longer in need of Jesus Christ our mediator.

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You no longer need a crucified Jesus. If you are relying on your works in order to save you, you're on your own.

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But scripture here says you're under a curse. But Christians, do we not do good works?

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You better believe we do good works. And you'll note that another time in the New Testament where the words

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Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness is found in the book of James 2. And it's written to delusional

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Christians, or at least people who think they're Christians, and delusionally think that somehow the good news of Christ and him crucified for our sins means that they now don't have to serve neighbor at all.

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And you sit there and go, how do you figure? Well, these people say, well, I'm saved by grace through faith apart from works.

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So your neighbor shows up and they're in need. And you say, be gone neighbor, I don't need to help you. I'm saved by grace through faith alone.

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You sit there and go, no, that's just not how this works. So the other time, the second time in our sermon that it is said

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Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, James says words to these effect, that just as the body that is not breathing is dead, faith without works is dead.

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So don't think for a second that Paul is basically sitting there saying, that means you Christians don't have any good works to do.

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Just be selfish, live for yourself, and sin like there's no tomorrow. Because, I mean, after all, you like to sin and Jesus likes to forgive sin.

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So what a great match that is. We have a voice from on high.

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Scorching heat is mentioned in that. Wasn't that great? Words of hell. But all of that being said, note the second time then is the warning to us.

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Not to take the grace of God and turn it into a license to sin or worse, use it as an excuse or a pretense not to help your neighbor in need.

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Again, God doesn't need our good works and you don't need them for salvation. Your neighbor needs them and God wills for you to do those good works.

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So Paul, again, coming back to Galatians, all who rely on works of the law, they're under a curse. If you're relying on your works for salvation, you're under a curse.

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Because cursed be everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and keep on doing them.

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Now it is evident that no one is declared righteous before God by the law. For the righteous shall live by faith.

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But the law is not of faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. So Christ then redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

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For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. And we can see here now, law and gospel working together.

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And in their proper measure, we can see then that Christ himself, he has saved us from the curse of the law, which is its condemnation that says you have earned hell.

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But Christ steps into our place and he redeems us from the curse by being nailed to a cross.

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Cuz cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. He was cursed for you. He was cursed in your place so that in Jesus Christ, the blessing of Abraham, that text that we read in the

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Old Testament. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, that that might come to the

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Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit then through faith. The third time that these words appear, at least in the sermon, you'll note

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I'm doing them out of order from the scripture, is from the book of Romans chapter four. And we'd be wise to listen to what

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Paul writes here. Paul asks the question, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?

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If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about. But not before God, for what does the scripture say?

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Note what it says. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. I, again, will argue the repetition of that sentence throughout the

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New Testament tells us of the centrality and importance of it. You misunderstand these words to the endangerment of your eternal soul.

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Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

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We all know this because when we receive our paycheck from our employers, they never put bows on them and say, isn't this beautiful?

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We're going to offer you, here's a gift. And if they did such a thing, you might want to call

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OSHA or something. My boss has lost it. He thinks that the money I earned is a gift. We all know how this works.

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When you go to work, you punch in. Why do you punch in? Why do you have to use a time clock and things like this?

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Answer, because you've made a contractual agreement with your employer. And when you are at work, you have agreed to give your time to your employer for the purpose of doing the work of doing their business.

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So when you are on the clock, you are on their time. And you are exchanging your time in order to do business.

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And as a result of it, at the end of your pay period, they tally up all the hours that you've worked, and they determine how much money you've earned through your contractual relationship.

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And it is not a gift. It is a wage. And if you think that your good works are going to be the thing that you offer to God on the day that Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, and that somehow you've punched in enough good works in order to save yourself, you're never going to make it.

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In fact, with each passing day, with the sin that you commit day after day after day, you are robbing

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God. You are working on his clock, and you are doing your own thing.

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And the tally gets worse and worse and worse, and the debt gets bigger and bigger the longer you live.

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So the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but they're counted as his due. And the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

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I remember hearing this verse from Dr. Rod Rosenblatt. He liked to focus on this verse.

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And when I was a Nazarene, and I was on my way to heaven based upon my good works, that's spoken in sarcasm,

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I was repulsed by this verse.

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Because I hear in it kind of this thing, the one who does not work. This is the one who refuses to work.

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And I know a thing or two about refusing to work. From time to time, I get so tired, so run down that I decide that's it.

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I'm taking a day off. And you know what I want to do on my day off? I'm only going to do the things

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I want to do, right? I might not even get out of my pajamas. I might just stay in the whole day long, right?

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And what do I want to do on my day off? I'm going to pull up my Oculus, and I'm going to play some VR golf.

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And I'm going to sit down in front of my television, and I'm going to watch baseball.

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And revel in the glory of the Los Angeles Dodgers, right? But from time to time on my day off, my wife will say something like this.

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It gets to be sometime in the afternoon, and she sees that I'm still haven't taken care of my personal hygiene.

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And she'll say something to this effect. Are you going to do anything today? No, I'm not going to do anything today.

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So when I hear the words, to the one who does not work, that's what comes to mind.

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And this is the right way to think about it, it works in regards to our justification.

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And here's where we have to draw that line. We do good works because we are

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Christians. We do not do good works in order to become a Christian. We do good works because we are saved.

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We do not do good works in order to be saved, but Christians do good works. But in the justification column, justification is that right standing before God, where God declares you righteous.

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We must all take on my awful attitude about doing nothing when it comes to salvation.

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Aren't you going to get busy, Chris? Jesus is coming back. You might want to look like you're doing something.

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When it comes to my justification, I refuse to do anything. I will not burn one calorie.

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I will make no effort whatsoever to save myself. I will not take all my good works and try to line them up in a beautiful column, a beautiful spreadsheet, and hand that to Jesus as if somehow

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I'm going to earn something from him, because that's relying on the law. There is only one who we are to rely on when it comes to our salvation, and that's

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Christ. He has done it all for us.

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Are you saying then that we don't have to do good works? Go back to James and see what he says.

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Of course we do good works, not for salvation, but because we are saved. Just as the body that is not breathing is dead, so faith without works is dead.

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So to the one who does not work but believes in him who, listen to the words next, justifies the ungodly.

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Are you saying I'm ungodly? Yes, I am.

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But, well, that hurts my feelings. Well, your feelings be damned. Christ didn't die for good people.

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Christ didn't die for those who were just slightly wounded by sin. Christ didn't die for anybody who has a lot of potential, okay?

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It says here that Christ justifies the ungodly. And if you don't see yourself in that group, then you are deluded.

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If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

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But if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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The one who says I have no sin makes God to be a liar, the scripture says.

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So to the one who doesn't work, the one who believes in him who justifies the ungodly, you and I, that's what

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Christ was doing on the cross. That's why Paul in Galatians 3 says, it was before your eyes that Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified.

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You and I, we all need a crucified savior. And that's what

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God has given us, the one who has bled and died for our sins. And so he is the one then who doesn't give justification to those who try to earn their salvation by their works.

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He only justifies the ones who refuse to work and believe that God justifies the ungodly and they willingly confess that they are in that category.

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That is the Christian faith. That one, according to Paul, he says, his faith is then counted as righteousness.

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That's right, there's that blessing of Abraham. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

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Do you believe that you are a sinner and that Christ has bled and died for your sins? And that in him is mercy, forgiveness, and pardon with the father and eternal life given all as a gift?

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Well, then your faith is counted as righteousness as well. You have the same blessing as Abraham.

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Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteous apart from works.

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David writes in the Psalms, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and those whose sins are covered.

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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. So, brothers and sisters, let us embrace this blessing that comes to us today from the word of God himself, that we who believe that Christ has died for our sins, who believe that he justifies ungodly sinners like you and I, we who recognize that the scriptures call us blessed not because we're shiny little pennies who've made ourselves righteous by our good works, but instead we are blessed because our lawless deeds have been forgiven and our sins covered by the blood of Christ.

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And because of this, God will not count our sins against us, but instead has given us life, salvation, eternal life in the world to come, and pardon and peace, all because God has done it for us.

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So, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness and the folks of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, they have believed

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God and he counts that to them as righteousness as well. Oh, what a blessing we have in Abraham, our father.

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

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

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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

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