Weeds or Wheat?

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 Matthew chapter 13, verses 24 -30 and verses 36 -43.

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Jesus told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.

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When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said,

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Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?

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Well, an enemy did this, he replied. The servants asked him, Do you want us to go and pull them up?

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No, he answered, because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.

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Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters, first collect the weeds and then tie them in bundles to be burned, then gather the wheat and bring them into my barn.

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Then he left the crowd and went into the house and his disciples came to him and said, Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.

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He answered, The one who sowed the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world.

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The good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

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As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age.

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The son of man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.

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They will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father.

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He who has ears, let him hear. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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All right, let's face it. This parable of Jesus is a parable that touches on judgment, and when we hear it, we begin to get a sick feeling in our stomachs and may even have difficulty sleeping at night if we allow our minds to chew on this passage.

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Face it. You're not getting any younger. Nope, you're not.

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And we've all had that startling reality stare us in the face, and that reality says, one day

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I'm going to stand face to face before Jesus on the day of judgment. Now, if you're like me, you've realized mortality is creeping up on you, and don't you young people think that it can't stalk you?

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It can, right? So then here's the all -important question. Weeds or wheat, which one am

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I? Now in searching for the answer to that question, it matters because here

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Jesus makes a direct reference to the fires of hell, and quite frankly, none of us want to go there. But there is this problem.

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When you and I examine our lives in light of God's holy law, we don't measure up, and we look a lot like weeds, and we do not at all times act like wheat.

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Yeah, y 'all been to the fair or to an amusement park, right? It says you have to be this tall to ride this ride, right?

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Yeah, God's law is kind of like the Empire State Building, and it says you have to be this tall in your righteousness in order to enter in, and we're looking up at it going, how on earth is that going to work, right?

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So let's take a look at God's law real quick. We'll use Hare Luther's small catechism to help us out here, and this will demonstrate the problem.

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Let's kind of review the commandments. First commandment, you will have no other gods. What does this mean? It means that we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

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So when you're in trouble, what do you fear, love, and trust in? What do you go to for comfort? Do you go to God? Do you expect

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God to help you, or do you find other things to comfort you? Well, if you're doing that, you're committing a sin, the sin of idolatry.

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You've made something else your deity. Guilty? I'm guilty. Second, you shall not take the name of the

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Lord your God in vain. What does this mean? Well, answer, we should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use witchcraft, lie, or deceive by his name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.

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Now, this touches on the pastor's major sin. There's lots of pulpits out there where people basically declare falsehood about God.

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They deceive people. They twist God's word. And this is how you blaspheme his name. And if you pass along that false doctrine as if it's true doctrine, you are participating in that sin.

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This is so much more than somebody texting somebody and saying, OMG, right? Yeah, it's that, but a lot more.

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How about this one, third commandment? You shall sanctify the holy day. Well, what does this mean? Listen carefully.

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We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and his word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

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Yeah, that means that if you start to roll your eyes at the 15 minute mark when the pastor's sermon runs a little bit long, that's breaking the third commandment.

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You need to repent. Yeah, sometimes the pastor needs to go long. Fourth commandment, you shall honor your father and mother that you may live long on the earth.

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What does this mean? Luther got this right. We should fear and love God so we do not despise or anger our parents or our employers or masters, but give them honor, serve them, obey them, and hold them in love and esteem.

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How many of you have an employer that you talk badly about behind his or her back? It's not just your parents we're talking about here.

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This also goes all the way up to the highest office in the land, the president of the United States. Consider this.

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Do you dishonor him in your critique of the way he governs? Yeah. Fifth commandment, you shall not murder.

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Oh, finally, we've gotten to a commandment none of us have committed, right? Wrong. Let me explain.

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What does this mean? It means that we should fear and love God so we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need, in every need and danger in life and body.

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That would be a nice friend. When you're not doing that, you're murdering. And oh, by the way, Jesus kind of cranks this one up to the max when he says in Matthew chapter 5, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.

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But I tell you, anyone who's angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, rachah, which means empty head, okay?

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Great insult, is it not? You empty head. Well, Jesus says, you say that, you're answerable to the

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Sanhedrin, but anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fires of hell. Woof.

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Sixth commandment, you shall not commit adultery. Another one we haven't committed. Yeah, not so fast.

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What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we may lead a pure and decent life in word and deeds and each love and honor his spouse.

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Now, if you think you haven't committed this sin, Jesus says this, you have heard that it was said, do not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

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Whoops. Wow. Do not steal. What does this mean?

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We should fear and love God so we may not take our neighbor's money or property or get them with bad products or deals, but help him to improve and protect his property and his business.

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Eighth commandment, you should not bear false witness against your neighbor. What does this mean? That we should fear and love God so that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, or slander or defame our neighbor.

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Yeah, gossip falls under this category. Did you hear that? So -and -so did such and such.

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I can't believe that she would do that. You're breaking this commandment. You're tearing down and murdering your neighbor's reputation.

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Instead, you should defend your neighbor. Think and speak well of him or her and put the best construction on everything.

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If you haven't done this, you're guilty of breaking this commandment. Ninth commandment, you shall not covet your neighbor's house.

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What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we may not craftily seek to get our neighbor's inheritance or house or obtain it by a show of justice on the right or by any other means, but help and be of service to him and helping him keep it.

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And then you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, his manservant, or his maidservant, or his cattle, or anything that is his, including his tractors.

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All right? What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we may not turn, force, or entice away our neighbor's wife, servants, or cattle, but urge them to stay and carefully do their duty.

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So what does God say about all of these commandments? The answer is, he says, I, the Lord your God, am a jealous

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God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

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So what does this mean? God threatens to punish all who sin against these commandments. Therefore, we should fear his wrath and not act contrary to these commandments.

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Any of you, can you say you've kept these perfectly this week, this month, this year?

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Is this not how the weeds behave? Are we wheat? Now this gets the rub here.

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If commandment keeping is what determines the difference between the weeds and the wheat, then you and I are without hope.

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Commandment keeping is not what makes the difference. Who among us can honestly say they keep these commandments? A few years back,

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I was serving at an evangelical church and a member of my Sunday school class, he was admitted into the hospital and the test showed that he only had a few weeks to live.

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He was terrified. He was very terrified. I remember visiting him in the hospital and when he saw me, he looked really honestly scared.

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First words out of his mouth, Chris, I hope I've done enough to make it into heaven.

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I hope I've done enough. When I come visit you in the hospital and you're on your deathbed, are you going to say

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I hope I've done enough? Now I won't tell you the rest of the story, but we'll continue kind of making the point here.

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So done enough, let that sink in. Done enough. What is enough? Does God grade on a curve when it comes to commandment keeping?

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How do you know that you've kept enough of them? Let's face facts. God's law demands perfect obedience 24 seven and Jesus is half brother

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James. He says this in chapter two of his abyssal, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

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For he said, he who said, do not commit adultery also said, do not murder. If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a law breaker.

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Now comes the excuse making, right? But, but, but the pastor, I'm a good person. Surely God knows that I'm a good person and I fully expect that he will be happy to see me when

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I did because of my, my reputation will precede me. Now, if you believe that you are a good person, let me be blunt.

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You are self deceived and you are blind to what God's law commands. Here's what

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God's word says. Romans chapter three. In fact, if you have your pew Bibles, I'd like you to open to this passage. Romans chapter three.

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We're going to start at verse nine. This will make it clear. There's no good people. No one.

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Here's what the text says. Romans chapter three, verse nine. What shall we conclude then?

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Are we any better off? Well, not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles, that's everybody in the world alike are all under sin as it is written.

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There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands.

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No one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless.

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There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit.

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The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

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Ruin and misery mark their ways and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

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To sum it up, you and I are not good people.

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So don't think for a second that you're going to get to heaven and say, well, I'm a good person. No, you're not.

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God's word says you are not. The guilty verdict stands. We continue with the passage.

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Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

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Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his. That's God's side by observing the law.

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Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin. What does that verse say? How many people are going to be declared righteous in God's side by observing the law?

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How many? Zero, not one. That includes you.

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You will not be declared righteous before God by your good deeds.

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Period. Neither will I. So let me translate that for you in light of today's parable.

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Therefore, no one will be considered wheat in God's site by observing the law.

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Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin. No one is wheat on account of commandment keeping.

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God's law was not given so that you could save yourself by being a good person. It was given to show that you are not a good person and to silence you before God.

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The purpose of God's law is to shut you up. Right. But God, remember that one time when

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I helped that poor silence. You're a sinner. But God, I pray every day.

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Okay. All right. Maybe not every day. But I pray at least three or four times a week. Silence.

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You're a sinner. But God, I've never been to prison and I pay my taxes.

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I'm better than that other guy who lost his license because of a DUI. Silence. You are a sinner.

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Surely I've got something. Silence. You are a sinner. You've got nothing.

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There are not enough good works, good thoughts or good deeds that you could perform that would even begin to pay your sinful daily rebellion against God.

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Now, if we were to use a money metaphor to describe your sins and your good works, we'd have to say that your sins are like the

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United States is national debt. How many trillions of dollars is that thing?

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Right. And if you, yeah, if you're trying to get on God's good side by commandment keeping and you, well, that is kind of like this.

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You've got a trillion dollar debt, multi trillion dollar debt, and you're going to try to placate and pay that debt down.

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But here's the problem. You've got a minimum wage job at McDonald's flipping burgers. How on earth do you intend to pay your multi trillion dollar debt to God?

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You can't even pay the interest on the debt with that minimum wage job. You're delusional if you think you're going to be able to even begin to pay the principal.

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You won't even be able to touch it because the interest is compounding daily. In other words, you need mercy.

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You do not need a payment plan. Let me say that again.

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You need mercy. You don't need a payment plan. Now look back in your Bibles, verse 21.

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But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify.

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This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

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There's no difference. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That includes you and I, and are justified.

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It means to be declared righteous freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

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God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. And he did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.

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He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

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That's right. God declares sinners righteous by faith in Jesus alone.

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Period. So where then is boasting? It's excluded. On what principle?

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On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified, again, to be declared righteous.

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A man is declared righteous by faith apart from observing the law.

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So our parable today is about judgment. Let me read to you what that's going to look like from the book of Revelation.

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Revelation chapter 20, starting at verse 11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.

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Earth and sky fled from his presence and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne.

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Books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

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The sea gave up the dead that were in it and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them.

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And each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

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The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

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This is not a parable. This is a description of what's coming on that great and terrible day when

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Jesus returns. And it says here they were judged according to what they had done and what was written in the books.

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Let me give you a cross reference then. Colossians chapter 2, starting at verse 8.

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Pay close attention. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

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For in Christ all the fullness of the deity, that's all the fullness of God, lives in bodily form.

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And you have been given fullness in Christ who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with the circumcision done by the hands of men, but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead.

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When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature,

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God made you alive with Christ who made you alive. God did.

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When did he make you alive? Right there in the waters of your baptism. Right.

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And he forgave us all of our sins. Here's the important part. Having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and stood opposed to us, he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

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Are you in Christ? Are you baptized? Have your sins been washed away?

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Well, this passage should give you hope. Because when the books are open, your book has pages that have been ripped out of it.

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Literally. Here's what it says again. Having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us, he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

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In your books, all of those sins that you've committed that were written down in the books, those pages have been ripped out, and Christ has nailed them to the cross, and in blood it says paid in full.

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Jesus paid your debt for you. In other words, if you're trying to placate the fiery wrath of God against your sin by trying to establish your own righteousness through your commandment keeping, well, then you're a weed.

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And you're going to burn in the fiery furnace. To you, Christ says, repent.

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Jesus did not come for the healthy. Jesus came for the sick. He did not come to call righteous persons, but he came to save sinners.

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And if you say that you are not one of those, then you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you. But if God has opened your eyes and silenced your mouth through his holy law and has shown you that you are not righteous, instead he's shown you that you're a sinner, and he's forced you to see the ugly truth that you are bankrupt, poor, and miserable, and you believe that Christ suffered and died for your sins and that your sins have been washed away in the waters of your baptism, then you are clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

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You are wheat. And Christ knows of the difficulty of growing alongside of the weeds.

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But for your sake, he's enduring the ignominy of the current situation which was caused by the devil and his abject hatred of our merciful and kind and loving

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God. But the harvest is coming. It's closer now than ever before. And when our

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Savior in God appears, he will send his angels to gather us into his kingdom. And because your sins have been forgiven and pardoned by what

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Christ has done for you, and your heart has been circumcised by the hand of Christ in the waters of your baptism, there's no need to fear.

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Instead, you wait with hope for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior.

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You, if you believe this, you are wheat. Right? And let me close with the words of a hymn.

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I like old hymns, by the way. If a hymn is like only a hundred years old, that's like a teenager to me. Okay? This hymn was written early in the 1700s.

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It was written by a gentleman by the name of Erdmann Neumeister. Great name, right?

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And the wonderful thing about this hymn is there's a sense of defiance. Defiance against the devil and certain confidence of a right standing before God.

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And see, that's the point of the gospel. Because you've been washed, because you've been baptized, because you've been forgiven, because you have faith in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you have confidence and hope.

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You don't need to fear. Instead, you can kind of go to the devil and the world and even your own sinful nature.

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Here are the words. God's own child, I gladly say it.

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I am baptized into Christ. He, because I could not pay it, gave my full redemption price.

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Do I need earth's treasures many? I have one worth more than any that brought me salvation, free, lasting to eternity.

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Sin disturbed my soul no longer. I am baptized into Christ.

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I have comfort even stronger. Jesus' cleansing sacrifice should a guilty conscience seize me since my baptism did release me in a dear forgiving flood, sprinkling me with Jesus' blood.

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Satan, hear this proclamation. I am baptized into Christ. Drop your ugly accusation.

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I am not so soon enticed. Now that to the font I've traveled, all your might has come unraveled.

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And against your tyranny, God, my Lord, unites with me. Death, you cannot end my gladness.

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I am baptized into Christ. When I die, I leave all sadness to inherit paradise.

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Though I lie in dust and ashes, faith's assurance brightly flashes. Baptism has the strength divine to make life a mortal mine.

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There is nothing worth comparing to this lifelong comfort sure. Opened eye, my grave is staring.

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Even there, I'll sleep secure. Though my flesh awaits its raising, still my soul continues praising.

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I am baptized into Christ. I am a child of paradise. Brothers and sisters, you are baptized into Christ.

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You are wheat. You are not weeds. You have a comfort and a hope that cannot be stolen from you.

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Rest in this knowledge that you, as sinful as you are, are in Christ.

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You are forgiven. You are pardoned. The debt has been paid in full.

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The law and the devil can no longer accuse you. You stand free. You stand forgiven.

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And when Jesus appears in glory to judge both the living and the dead, you will not hear him say to you, depart from me.

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I never knew you. Instead, you will hear him say, well done. Well done.

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And you say, but how? It's simple. None of your sinful deeds are recorded in your book.

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Those pages have been ripped out. All that is left are the little good works that you've done along the way.

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And they are counted righteous, even them, because of what Christ has done for you. Rest and hope.

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You are forgiven. You are free. You are a child of paradise. You are baptized into Christ.

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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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