Not Even Worthy of a Park Bench

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Sunday school from August 12th, 2018

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Let us pray. Blessed Lord, you have caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning.
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Grant that we may hear them, mark, read, and learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of your holy word we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. Amen. Alright, so, my apologies ahead of time.
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It's wonderful having this many people in church. I have a second parish that I serve, and it's an
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LCMS church up near Radium. And so, their service starts at 1 o 'clock, so this will be a short, brief
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Sunday school. So, my apologies, but I have a day job.
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So, that being said, let me ask, are there any questions that percolated up as a result of the sermon?
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One of the things I like to hammer really hard on is that sanctification requires faith.
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And the biblical doctrine of sanctification calls us to good works, but not in order to be saved.
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And so, paying close attention to the details of the epistles makes it so that you do not overthrow the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone.
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Many people have, to their own demise and the shipwrecking of their own faith, somehow thought that the gospel gets you in, and now it's all about the works that you do in order to maintain or contribute to your salvation, and scripture simply does not teach that at all.
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Like, nothing even closely, remotely close to it at all. I remember when
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I was a member of the Nazarene Church, and I mentioned this yesterday, the Nazarenes, it's a weird mix between Wesley's Methodism, and has anyone heard or read
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John Wesley's Doctrine of Perfection? Yeah, there's a book that I read in college, and it actually resonated with me because at the time
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I was a Nazarene, but I was not aware of it, is that John Wesley had a book that he published called
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A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, and he literally argued that it was possible in this life, in fact, something that many people should strive for, to seek to attain sinless perfection here, now, prior to the resurrection.
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And he himself said that he hadn't attained it, but he knew a woman who did. I guess it wasn't his wife.
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Okay, so in the Nazarene Church, that's from the Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Be perfect as your
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Father in Heaven is perfect. And so what the Nazarenes did with this verse, out of context, by the way, what they did with this verse is that became almost like their core central text.
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So when we talk about denominations, or different movements in theology, or different church movements, one of the things we look at, what's their core doctrine, what's their central doctrine, and then what's the authority behind that doctrine.
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So in the Nazarene Church, the core doctrine was what Christ said, be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect, and here's the assumption.
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God would never give us a command that we couldn't keep. So since he told us to be perfect, that means perfection is attainable.
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See, stop being all biblical and stuff. So be perfect as your
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Father in Heaven is perfect, and then with the understanding, he would never give us a command that we couldn't obey, so therefore perfection is attainable.
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But what does Paul say regarding the law? What is the reason why the law was given? So that we can see our sin, right?
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So there is a day coming, by the way, for each and every one of us, where we will perfectly keep
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God's law. It's not prior to the resurrection. And so instead, you saw in the text today in Ephesians, that Paul is admonishing those who truly have been united with Christ, who truly have been forgiven of their sins and regenerate, and he has to tell them, take off the old self, put on the new.
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This is like my mom telling me, remember to tie your shoelaces, and please comb your hair, right?
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Yeah, mom. As I go skipping out the door with untied shoelaces and my hair is a mess.
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So, right? Yeah. Isn't there a danger in this
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Lutheran theology, of the verse of anti -Nomadism, that now we don't have to do all the things that were in Ephesians?
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That really isn't for us because we're believers, and you have the chance of becoming the
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ELCA. All sinners are welcome, the more sins the better, and keep doing them because we're not going to ask you to stop doing them.
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Unlike your church here where all sinners are welcome, but we come to be forgiven and to repent.
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Okay, so here's the thing. You preach the gospel correctly to somebody who has been brought up in legalism of one stripe or another, and they are going to wrongly assume you're one of these
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ELCA libertines who is endorsing same -sex marriage and all this kind of nonsense.
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And when I heard the gospel when I was in Nazarene, I literally thought these people are nuts.
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Because if the gospel is really free, and there's nothing
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I have to do to be saved, oh man, I'm going to party like it's 1999 in the name of Jesus.
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And boy did I get it wrong. Boy did I get it wrong. And the reason I got it wrong is because when you use the law unlawfully, and Paul actually talks about this, using the law in an unlawful manner, you don't actually end up curbing sin, you inflame it.
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And so it is not a coincidence that some of the most notorious law preachers, who barely ever if any preach the gospel, that they've got all kinds of crazy skeletons in their closets, and then eventually they get caught.
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Because they're not dealing with sin properly. So Paul himself gets accused of this.
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So when Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, this is the man who preaches against the law.
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This is the guy, come get him. And then of course he had his own critics, and you can hear the critics in Romans 6.
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Let's take a look at the text. In Romans 6 you can see Paul's critics against the gospel.
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And he takes up their argument and actually puts it in scripture. So what shall we they say?
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Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? That's like literally one of the charges against him.
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So you're saying we can sin so that grace may abound. I didn't say that at all. Have you ever noticed that about people?
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You say one thing, and then they turn right around and say, so what you're really saying is this.
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That's weird, that's weird behavior. When you see that happening, sometimes you'll see it like on the news, if you've ever seen
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Jordan Peterson interviewed by SJW Media Types. So what you're really saying is, and it's like, no,
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I didn't say that. And so somebody's made a charge that Jordan Peterson needs to be held responsible for how people are interpreting him.
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That's literally a thing that's on the internet right now. So people hear the Apostle Paul saying, you are saved by grace apart from worse.
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It is not required for you to keep Torah. You don't have to have your kids circumcised.
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You don't have to show up in Jerusalem for the Passover Shavuot, or the
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Feast of Booths. And what are they saying? What is this guy doing? What?
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Right? This guy is saying that because of the grace, we can just do whatever we want.
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Total category error. And the linchpin to all of this comes back to the book of Exodus.
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Now here at Kongsvinger, we've been working our way through the book of Exodus. One of the things I've been making a point of is that that's not their story.
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That's our story. We have been united with these people in our baptisms, grafted into Israel.
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Wild olive shoots grafted into Israel. And so this is our story.
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Our story is a story of slavery and miraculous liberation.
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Not that providential stuff, right? In this case, it's actually miraculous.
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And so our story is that. And this is what Paul says. So should we sin so that grace may abound?
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No. By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it?
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Which begs the question. When did we die to sin? Right.
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Yeah. So you meant it this morning when you were in spirits of Ephesians and the good stuff we're supposed to do.
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Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I wasn't pretending that Paul was saying that you should do these things.
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It isn't what creates our salvation. No, it doesn't. No. In fact,
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I always like to say it this way. You know, cows moo because they're cows.
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It's really profound, right? Cats meow. You know why? Because they're cats.
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Right. Christians do good works. Because they're Christians. Because they're
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Christians. That's the reason why we do our good works. If you are doing your good works in order to become one.
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Or to maintain being one. You are trying to turn your good works into a currency that you expect at the end of time to somehow cash in for a part of your salvation or all of it.
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What do you say to the people that are looking for those crowns that you spoke of?
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Yeah, well, I seem to recall those crowns. We take them and throw them back at the feet of Jesus. Right.
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You know, that's the picture that's given. It's like, I have no use for a crown. And I look terrible in a tiara.
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But I'm just saying that because that is almost the next step they go to.
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Well, what about your place in heaven? I mean, I always thought that was a disciple's argument before.
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Yeah. Okay, so we must embrace this truth because it's true. There are rewards given in heaven.
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There's no doubt about it. Jesus rewards. Straight up. Can any of you tell me what those are?
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I mean, I couldn't tell you what one is. I can tell you this. I don't deserve a single one of them.
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And here's the most amazing bit of all of this. Is that God is the one who sent
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Christ. The father sends the son. They're both the same God. He is incarnate, humbles himself, bleeds and dies in my place on the cross.
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Every one of those sins for which I am ashamed. And the ones I will be ashamed of in the future.
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He bled and died for every single one of them. Securing my salvation.
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He then in the waters of baptism. United me with himself. And with all of you.
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Gave me the gift of salvation. And through his gifts of word and sacrament. Sustains that gift that he's given to me.
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All of which I received. And at the end of it, he's going to give me rewards.
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How does this make any sense? You know, I, there is a song.
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And it's turned into kind of a contemporary praise song. But the imagery of it is, you know.
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I would rather be in the courts of the Lord. Right, than anywhere else. And I, the way
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I look at it is, is that I haven't even earned a park bench. In the new earth and some newspapers.
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That's pretty much where I'm at at this point. So if I get anything more than a park bench.
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I'm getting way more than I deserve because I don't even deserve that. But I'll tell you this. I would be satisfied if only
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I can see the face of Christ. I want to see his feet.
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I want to see where they drove the nails into his hands. Because those are the emblems of what he's done to save me.
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I don't even think I deserve to look him in the eye. But just to know and to be in his presence.
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To see him. That is, that's the reward. Everything else is chump change.
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What, I mean, we live in a world of things and actions, right? What thing could
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Christ possibly give me? A trophy. A crown.
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A Rolex. I don't know if there's such a thing in the new earth, right? That could surpass him.
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What would I do with a Rolex anyway? And so when we talk about rewards, so many times we run it through the value system of this world.
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And the value system of this world is upside down, inside out. And totally satanically focused on self.
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So when we talk about rewards, I like the fact that scripture gives us no details. And we always interpret it in light of crowns, swimming pools, mansions, and stuff like this.
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He's preparing a mansion for all of us. I don't know what I'm going to do with a mansion. I don't want to have to clean a mansion.
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Why would we care? Yeah, right. Yeah. Do you think it's going to matter that I have a mansion to live in or that I'm going to be with all of you forever?
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You know, I love one of the pictures. And we picked this up in the fall last year as we were working through our eschatological text.
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And I preached on it at the reformation conference the ALC put on. There's this beautiful picture of the marriage feast of the lamb in one of the
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Old Testament prophets. And the way it's written, it's just so beautiful because we're all there.
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There we are. We're at the marriage feast of the lamb. We're at the table together. And we're feasting on the finest foods.
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And the wine is flowing. And it's the most amazing wine ever. Right? But that's not the focus.
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The focus is all of a sudden, in the midst of all of this, Christ shows up.
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And we are going to be whispering and muttering to each other, there's our God.
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That's Him. There He is. The food doesn't matter at that point.
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And the wine is amazing as it's going to be. Nothing compares to that.
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Nothing. So, I'm just not caught up in the rewards thing.
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Because that is an excuse to somehow do my good works for myself.
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And as soon as I'm doing my good works for me, they cease to be good works. And they will send you to hell.
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My good works are for you. Your good works are for each other. I serve you.
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You serve me. Each of us considers each other better than the other. Outdoing each other by going to the bottom.
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Not the top. That sounds like a really cool world to live in.
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And you know the best part? What's coming is what we are called to practice and start gaining skill at now.
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The church is supposed to start to be a place where the new age that is coming has already broken in here among us.
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So that we can get not just a foretaste of the feast to come in the supper.
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But a foretaste of the life to come in love and mercy and grace towards each other.
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I look at the Ten Commandments now and I go, man, that would be a great world to live in. I want to live in that world.
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That kingdom. That country. I forgot to pay my credit card.
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It's a survey. It's a joke. It's a survey. So all of that being said, kind of on a tangent.
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Sorry about that. No, that's okay. No, no. You've got to understand the give and take of teaching is that I learn from you the same way you learn from me.
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And these questions are for all of us. They're up for all of us. Speaking of tangents.
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So we've got on the screen some stuff from Romans. Getting further in the verses.
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I can't see the smaller numbers, but. For if we've been united with his death, we should because the old self has been crucified.
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I don't know if. Okay. I don't have scripture for this question, which is the best way to ask questions, of course.
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Okay. So you said, you've talked about how our old self, our former man, was already killed in our baptism.
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Yeah. And I'm remembering the phrase. I don't know if this is scriptural of daily dying to yourself.
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Yeah. And I believe, is that other passages? Is that this passage? And can you put those?
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Yeah. So here's the picture. Is that it is absolutely 100 % true.
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We've been united with Christ, the oldest past, the newest come. And at the same time, we still have that old man stuck to us.
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In a meaningfully awful way. Because all of the desires we have towards sin have their genesis then in our old nature, in our sinful
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Adam. And so our new person that we are in Christ is in conflict with this old
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Adam. And, oh, it is just a mess. So the text that we looked at in the sermon today from Ephesians.
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Take off the old self. Well, that assumes you have one. Put on the new self. That assumes you have one of those too.
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And there's a really good book. And I forget the author. And it was a dissertation by a
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LCMS pastor when he was doing his doctorate work. And the name of the book is The Eye in the Storm. The Eye in the
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Storm. You can find it on Amazon and buy it on Kindle. And it's a great exegesis of Romans 7.
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Which is one of the key passages for understanding what's called the doctrine of the simile. And when you pay attention to how the eye, the word eye works.
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That becomes a critical junction for understanding this. Let's take a look at it. So we'll go, let me read out part of Romans 6 here so we can get the baptismal reality.
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We'll jump into 7 and pay attention to the eye. So do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, we were baptized into his death.
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We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. In order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father.
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We too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, have we?
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Yes, we have. We shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
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Will we be united with him in his resurrection? Yes, of course. We know that our old self was, past tense, crucified with him.
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In order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. And so here's the thing. Your body of sin will be brought to nothing.
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That's what we call a funeral. Right? This is where we're all heading. So that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
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For one who has died has been set free from sin. Have you died? Yes, that's right.
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That's what it's saying. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again.
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Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died. He died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
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So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. Why? Because you are.
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This isn't pretend. I'm going to pretend that I'm dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.
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He says you must consider yourself to be this. And the reason you must consider yourself to be this is because you are this.
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This is the weapon than our baptism. This is why I keep coming back to it in sermon after sermon.
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Our baptisms are the weapon against our own sinful nature and the temptations of the devil. And like we pointed out at the conference, we don't say
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I was married. I say I am married.
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You don't say I was baptized. You say I am. I am baptized.
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And that's the difference. And it just hurts me terribly. There's whole sections of evangelical
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Christianity who claim to understand the gospel. But think that somehow baptism is a mere symbol.
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It's not. It's not a symbol. We must consider ourselves dead to sin because we are.
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So now Romans 7 comes into play. So we'll take a look at it then. Because as we read this out, we're going to say that sounds a lot like my daily struggle.
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So likewise, my brothers, 7 for you have also died to the law through the body of Christ that you may no longer belong to another to another to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
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So notice we are bearing fruit. We aren't producing it. That's kind of an important distinction.
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We're not producing the fruit. God's producing the fruit in us. They are called the fruit of the spirit, not the fruit of you.
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So God produces these fruits in you. Because, well, here's another profound thing.
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You know why orange trees bear oranges? Because they're orange trees. Yeah, I know.
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You know why Christians bear good fruit? Because they're Christians. You see?
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You either is or you isn't. And you is or you isn't because God has either made you that way or you're not.
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So for while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law. And there you can get a picture of what
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I was talking about. If you preach the law without the gospel, oh beware. Oh man.
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So this is what happened in the Nazarene church. Oh, there should be no formal caboodling going on among Christians.
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You should not be doing this and not be doing that. And you're sitting there going, oh, that's terrible.
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I've been doing that. Pastor, please forgive me. And then he mentions a sin that you haven't tried yet. And you go, I've got to try that out.
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Really? People do that? No way. Okay. I'm sorry, but you preach the law that way and it will arouse.
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Your sinful passions and your sinful nature is going to sit there and go, that sounds kind of cool. You know?
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That's the scary part about all this. So while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law.
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While we're at work and are members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive.
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So that we serve in the new way of the spirit, not in the old way of the written code. And this is an important distinction.
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Paul, when you read his body of letters, he uses belief in the promises of the gospel as a synonymous, another synonym for it, is to walk by the spirit.
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Or to do things in the spirit. By the spirit is to do it by faith, to believe. The phrases are actually synonymous.
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And they work their way out in that way. So we do things by the way of the spirit. By faith, not by way of the written code.
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For what shall we say then that the law is sin? And that's kind of a logical question. Okay? Because the law is constantly screaming at us.
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Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. You're not doing. Try harder. Do more, do more, do more, do more.
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So we sit there. We want to rail against the law. So what you're saying is the law is bad, right?
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No. The law is not bad. The law is not the problem here.
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We are. So what shall we say then that the law is sin? No. Yet if I had not been for the law,
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I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet.
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But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
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So I once was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
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For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy.
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The commandment is holy and righteous and good. Do not slander
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God by calling his law bad. It's holy, righteous, good. You're the problem.
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So that which is good then bring death to me? You see, the law didn't even bring death. No. By no means.
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It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin.
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And now you can see what the killing work of the law does. It's there to show you you're a sinner. Not to tell you that you can be perfect by trying harder.
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So Christ saying be ye perfect is a condemnation. But I can't,
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Lord. I've tried, it doesn't work. Right. What is it produced in you?
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Sin like you wouldn't believe in a lot of it. So you're recognizing then you're a sinner.
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Yeah, because I don't even come close to perfection. So through the commandment, through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
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So we know that the law is spiritual. But I'm of the flesh. Sold under sin.
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And this is where you've got to pay attention to the word I. Watch how the eyes work. We know that the law is spiritual.
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But I am of the flesh. Notice Paul in talking about himself as the eye here. Sees himself as different than his sinful flesh.
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This is the regenerate eye speaking now. For I do not understand my own actions.
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I do not. For I do not do what I want. But I do the very thing
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I hate. Isn't that interesting how the eye works. Now, if I do what
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I do not want. I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer
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I who do it. But it is sin that still dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.
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For I have the desire to do what is right. That's his regenerate self. But not the ability to carry it out.
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For I do not do the good that I want. But the evil I do not want is what
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I keep on doing. Do I get an amen here? Does anyone sit there and go that sounds like you've been reading my emails.
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You've been putting a camera in my office and watching my life. Now, if I do what
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I do not want. It is no longer I who do it.
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It is sin that dwells within me. So somehow sin is still attached to us.
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This is why you take that old self off. And you put on the new self.
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So I find it to be a law. That what I want to do right. Evil lies close at hand. I delight in the law of God in my inner being.
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But I see in my members another law. Waging war against the law of my mind. And making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
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Oh, wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind. But with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
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And then we get these wonderful words in chapter 8. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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And I love how it says in Christ Jesus. Again, a reference back to baptism.
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For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do.
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By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He condemns sin in the flesh.
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In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
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For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit.
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Set the mind on the flesh is death. Set the mind of the spirit is life. You see it?
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It's there. It's so obvious. And yet it's so hard. Because existentially what you feel on the inside of you.
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Is that conflict between the two. And when you fall short you rightly feel guilt and condemnation.
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And the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sins. And then the pastor preaches the law. And you realize man
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I'm not doing this as well as I thought I was. And what does that do?
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Bring you back to repentance. Back to your baptism. Back to the forgiveness of sins. Wash.
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Rinse. Repeat. Right? So in this life.
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In the now and the not yet. We wrestle against our sinful nature. We resist the temptations of the devil.
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And the world. And we get. It's the whole life of a Christian. Is the non -stop warfare.
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War with your old nature. War with the devil. War with the world. And here's where you come.
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To be filled back up and receive the forgiveness of sins. Have your wounds mended by Christ.
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And have your confidence in his mercy and grace. Be renewed and grow. Through the preaching of the word.
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And the receiving of the gifts of Christ. That we have in his body and blood. Seems really humble.
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This isn't a life of victory. Of going from glory to glory. At least not in that sense.
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This is a humble one. That requires us to stay on our knees. And recognize. What God said to Elijah.
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The journey is too strong for you. It's too strong. Here take heed.
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It's too strong. And then I have to end there.