Return to the Lord Your God

The Sermon on the Mount and Secret Righteousness

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 Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith.

Alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the sixth chapter. Jesus said, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by.

Them.

For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.

Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward.

You.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces, so that their fasting may be seen by others.

Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head, wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward.

You.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Repentance in the Penitential Season

Repentance.

Well, it's the penitential season, and this is a good time to remind us all that repentance is not a flu shot. It's not a one and done, fire and forget kind of thing. Baptism, in fact, is the daily return in repentance to the fount of our salvation.

And a daily crying out to God to forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. But Pastor Roseboro, we attend the divine service, we've got hymnals now. We do it every week. Look, we're here for a midweek service.

Surely our religious activity is earning brownie points with God, and we don't need to repent that much of anything, right? We just need to keep racking up our good works, and God's going to be so happy to see us when we grace Him with our presence on the last day.

Isn't that how it works? Yeah, hear again the words of our Savior in the Sermon on the Mount. And these words should sober up anyone who's drunk on their own self-righteous religious activity. Because you're going to note here, Jesus, in part of the Sermon on the Mount, very heavy law passage, He's not going after the prostitutes.

He's not going after the thieves, the tax collectors, or the coveters. He's going after those who are breaking the first commandment. This is first commandment stuff. And you're going to note that we, sinful human beings, church is an interesting place for us because oftentimes we are tempted to take our good works, our own piety, and to practice them in such a way in order to be seen by others.

Think of it this way, all this talk recently of quid pro quos and things like this. If the reason why you're doing your good works is the quid pro quo because if you do your religious activity, you expect somebody to toot your horn, then I would say this, that Jesus is going to make this very clear that your righteousness is impeachable.

And this impeachment would stand, we're talking like eternal here. So here's what Jesus says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. Now granted, we gather for the divine service, well, I mean, this is a small church but there's not a lot of people that here, but still, if you're here practicing your righteousness in order to be seen by people so they can say, oh, wow, aren't you holy?

Then Jesus says, you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. I would argue that's a bad thing. Thus when you give to the needy, and notice he doesn't say if you give to the needy, when you give to the needy, yeah, remember the fifth commandment not only requires you to not murder your neighbors, which is a bad thing, it also requires you to care for them and their bodily needs.

So when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites in the synagogues do and in the streets so that they may be praised by others. I would like to hear one of these, you know, giving to the needy trumpets.

I mean, what did that sound like?

You know, hey, somebody gave to the needy.

I mean, what is this, right? Who came up with this idea? So truly Jesus says, I say to you, they have received their reward. You want somebody to toot their horn? Go for it. You can have that if you want, but don't worry, that's all you're going to get.

So when you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing so that your giving may be in secret and so that your father who sees in secret will reward.

You.

And when you pray, it doesn't say if you pray, when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. Oh, they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so that they may be seen by others.

I remember back in the day when I was a Nazarene, I hated prayer time, I really did, because we'd all stand in a circle and it was always awful because we have to hold hands with people. And it's like, if you're like standing next to that burly guy and it's like, okay, I guess my hands are not going to be on top.

It's just gross and it drove me nuts. But then while everybody was holding hands and you're holding hands with a dude and you're just kind of like not happy about this, everybody's eyes are closed. And you can always tell somebody who put some thought into how prayer goes because they're not stumbling over their prayers.

Their prayers are a little better than, Lord, I just want to just thank you for the word just because I can't think of another word to pray to you with. But some guy, all of a sudden he let out this prayer and it's as if he like memorized a psalm or something like that.

And afterwards people say, oh, that was such a good prayer. I hated that, I really did, because the reality, the reason I hated it is because I wanted to pray good prayers that people would say that was a good prayer.

That's the reason I hated it, because I hadn't figured out how to get the accolades yet. What does that tell you about my blackened heart? And see, that's the thing. We take, I mean, we take all of God's gifts, even something as beautiful and amazing as prayer, the ability to bring petitions before our God, and we turn it into America's Got Talent.

It's sick, it's sick. So don't be like the hypocrites. So they may be seen by others. Instead, I say to you, when you pray, go in your room, shut the door, pray to your father who's in secret. Your father who sees in secret, he'll reward you.

Well, if I do that, then no one's going to tell me what an awesome prayer-er I am. That's kind of the point. And when you fast, notice he doesn't say if, he says when. When you fast. Yeah, that's right, fasting is an important practice.

And it's biblical, by the way. I know, it's always funny, this time, in fact, this day, Ash Wednesday, every year, I've got a lot of people who I follow and follow me on Twitter who are Calvinists. And every year, it's the same thing.

Why?

Lent is evil. Don't do it, it's terrible.

And they've got this bad case of Romaphobia. And as someone who's like, huh, and into the mix of all of this, I want to say, happy Ash Wednesday, you know, out come the things. But the reality is this, is that when you look at the Mosaic Covenant, there were assigned feast days.

There really were. And leading up to the Day of Atonement, there was a direct command that people were to afflict.

Themselves.

And that's another way, Hebraic thought, when it comes to fasting. Now, granted, this is not the Christian version of Ramadan. You're not expected to fast for 40 days or for a month. But the idea here is that take this time and consider fasting.

And people always think that this is way more complicated than it should be. And it's really simple. Have a normal dinner. You have a normal dinner. And then the next morning, no breakfast. No lunch. And then you break your fast at dinner again.

You miss two meals. And you end up going a whole 24 hours. But when you would have been eating, you're dedicated to prayer, self-reflection. Pull out that thing called the small catechism. You guys remember that thing?

Yeah.

And open up to that first part on the Ten Commandments. And prayerfully and honestly look at your life in light of the Ten Commandments. And the reason you're doing this is to say the truth about yourself.

To remind yourself that you're not all of that. I need to remind myself I'm not all of that on a daily basis. And the cry of a penitential person is, Lord, I got nothing. I look at your holy law and even my obedience stinks.

That's an honest prayer. That's an honest prayer. And so when you fast, don't look gloomy.

Oh, what's wrong with you? I'm fasting today.

Oh, that's terrible. No, don't do that. The hypocrites, they just figure their faces so that their fasting may be seen by others. Jesus says, truly I say to you, they've received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head.

Wash your face. Put a little gel in your hair so that your fasting may not be seen by others. But your Father who is in secret, your Father who sees in secret, He will reward you. So don't lay up for yourselves treasures here on earth.

And note the treasures he's talking about are the accolades of people. Oh, wow, aren't you holy? Aren't you spiritual? Aren't you just the most amazing Christian ever? No, that's silly. That's just ridiculous.

Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Where moth and rust destroy, thieves break in and steal. Lay up for yourself, instead, treasures in heaven. Where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And so you'll note then, in all of these things that Jesus is talking about, this is a breaking of the first commandment. And what's required here is repentance and trust.

Faith that Christ forgives. And so consider then, into the context of this, that amazing psalm that David penned after Nathan the prophet confronted him with his sin of adultery and murder in the case of Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite.

And don't think for a second that somehow your sin is not all that bad that you really need to be praying Psalm 51. I mean, after all, David did murder a fellow and impregnated his wife. I mean, I'm not all that.

No, see, this is out. The reality is that we recognize that both tables of the law, the first table relating to God and the second table relating to each other, that each and every one of these transgressions, that we break God's law and we do not keep it, we have truly earned His wrath.

And so put away the grading system. This one's terrible, but that one's okay. These will all kill you, including the religious ones. And so we then humbly pray at the beginning of this Lenten tithe, Lord, have mercy on me according to your steadfast love and according to your abundant mercy.

And listen to the plea. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Take the record of death that stands against me. Blot out my transgressions rather than blot my name out of the book of life.

Let my sins, never to be named again, let them not be named. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Oh, good baptismal talk here, right? Cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.

Is this probably the reason why Paul says this is a trustworthy saying that Christ died for sinners of whom I am the chief? Because I know my transgressions and the reality is my sin is ever before me.

And you know yours as well and they are ever before you. And our transgressions, knowing them because God's law names them, God's law condemns them, knowing our transgressions and having our sin ever before us rules out all kind of boasting and arrogance, all of our self-righteousness in the things we do in order to be seen by others.

That's a humble place to be. And against you and you only have I sinned. And note this. At the end of the day, all of our sins are ultimately against God. Every single one of them is a breaking of the first commandment.

And done what is evil in your sight, so that God may be justified in his words and God is blameless in his judgments. I always find it fascinating when people want to somehow turn the table on God and accuse him of injustice for rightly condemning us in our sins.

And then this wonderful confession. I was brought forth in iniquity. A confession by David of original sin, that he was conceived in his mother's womb in sin and iniquity. And each and every one of us were as well.

Thank you, Adam, for that gift that keeps on giving to each generation. But God delights in truth and the inward being, and he teaches us wisdom in our secret heart. And so our prayer and our petition here at the beginning of this Lenten tide is that God would purge each and every one of us with hyssop, so that we shall be clean, that we would be washed and made whiter than snow.

And that occurs in our baptism because of the blood of Christ. And then our petition continues. Let us hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. I can't think of a better verse to really exemplify what the heart of Lent is all about.

God breaking our bones, the bones of our self-righteousness, crushing us, breaking us, wounding us, maiming us, so that we may rejoice. Because these are the wounds of a friend. These are the wounds of a loving father.

These are the disciplines of a God who cares about us and knows the all-consuming nature of sin and how it distorts. So please, God, hide your face from our sins. Blot out all of our iniquities. Create in us a clean heart, O God.

And please renew a right spirit within us. Cast us not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from us. And restore to us the joy of your salvation. Hold us with a willing spirit. And then into all of this, this humble prayer, this penitential prayer, this honest prayer, come the words of the prophet Joel then, which really, if you think about these words, it's so amazing to think that despite all of our sins, despite our wickedness and our rebellion and even our failure as Christians to keep God's holy law, that we hear such grace-filled words as these.

Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Rend your hearts, not your garments. Return to the Lord God, your God, for he is gracious and he is merciful.

He's slow to anger, and he's abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster. Because of God's graciousness, his mercifulness, his abounding steadfast love, he has sent Christ. And into the midst of this Lenten tide, let us never lose sight of the fact that Jesus is now, well, heading straight to the cross.

And that our pardon, our forgiveness, our peace with God came at a great cost, a cost which Jesus willingly laid down so that each and every one of us can be saved. Because God is abounding in steadfast love.

He relents over disaster, the disaster of hell that each of us have earned, because he is gracious and merciful and slow to anger. So then know then, as Christ suffers on the cross, what we each deserve, rather than getting what we deserve, we are instead given life, mercy, grace, peace, and an eternal inheritance, all because of the kindness and mercy of our God.

And I can't think of a better reason to repent than God's kindness, because after all, the Scripture says it's God's kindness that does lead us to repentance. So let us again recognize that even our best good works, our best religious works, are soiled with sin and bad intentions and quid pro quos and expected treasures here on this earth.

And again, call out to God to have mercy on us, and he will, for the sake of Jesus. In Jesus' name, amen.

Psalm 51, Original Sin, and the Heart of Lent

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