Choosing Life

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. Matthew the 5th chapter.

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Jesus said you have heard that it was said to those of old you shall not murder whoever murders will be liable to judgment but I say to you everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire so if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you leave your gift before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison truly

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I say to you you will never get out until you have paid the last penny you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart and if your right eye causes you to sin tear it out and throw it away it is for it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell and if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off throw it away it is better that you lose one of the members of your members than your whole body go into hell it was also said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce but I say to you everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery again you've heard that it was said to those of old you shall not swear falsely but I say to you that but shall you but shall perform the

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Lord which you have sworn but I say to you do not take an oath at all either by heaven for it is the throne of God or by the earth it is the footstool his

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God's footstool or by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king and do not take an oath by your head for you cannot make one hair white or black let you simply let what you say simply be yes or no anything more than this comes from evil this is the gospel of the

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Lord in the name of Jesus there we go you can never get too many amens in so the

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Lord says to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 30 see I have set before you today life and good death and evil and then one of the most difficult words in all of Scripture if if if if you obey the commandments of the

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Lord your God that I command you today and then it goes on to say this I call heaven and earth to witness against you today

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I've set before you life and death blessing and curse therefore choose life that you and your offspring may live well there we go it's real simple so if you guys choose death or life today are you obeying or not now listen

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I'm gonna make something very clear God requires us to obey his commandments do not think for a second that you are not required to obey

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God's commandments but here's our issue we don't so what do we do with this first text you notice

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I'm gonna start with the first text because back in the day when I attended very legalistic churches usually the sermon would go something along the lines of this so choose this day whom you will serve choose life instead of death obey obey obey it's time to put away all the stuff that is well causing you to not obey yeah that's all law and you're gonna note something the law gives you no power to obey it none whatsoever and if you remember the verse from last week's sermon

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Romans 10 4 Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for all who believe that's an important sentence

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Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for all who believe so note then we'll note the context

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Deuteronomy 30 is not actually talking about salvation Deuteronomy 30 in its truest strictest sense

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God is talking to the children of Israel as they're getting ready to go into the promised land and the

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Mosaic Covenant is the thing that's being invoked here Deuteronomy 2nd law this is a restating of the

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Torah of the Mosaic Covenant and the covenant that Israel is in with God and this is like well contract a contract that you might have with your land owner or your mortgage company or something like this and upon reviewing the documents and before you sign it you sit there and go okay but these are the things that are required of me these are the things that are required of my landlord or of my mortgage company and upon signing it the the land the the mortgage company or your landlord says to you alright choose life don't choose death because if you do not follow through and obeying the stipulations of our covenant together well you're going to be thrown out of your home and you can live on the streets and everybody knows that trying to spend the night when it's 15 below outside well that's death so that's kind of the thing that's being talked about here so let's put this aside for a second in its context and recognize that there's something to be said here about obeying

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God's commandments but Deuteronomy 30 is not about salvation now I've already said that the law does not give you the ability to obey it that now in that context consider what

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Christ says in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount and you're going to note that everybody hearing the

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Sermon on the Mount they're not going to leave feeling their self -esteem has been boosted they're going to leave this sermon feeling convicted of their sins because Jesus is going to do something here that is quite fascinating now

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I want to point something out in our sermon hymn real quick in our sermon hymn it's a true epiphany hymn songs of thankfulness and praise

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Jesus Lord to thee we raise manifested by the star to the sages from afar and then anthems be to thee address

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God in man made manifest so epiphany always and again is this revealing of God in human flesh in the person of Christ and so no the the epiphany theme here is really crackling if you know what you're looking for and it's in the words that Jesus says you have heard it said but I say and you're going to know the things that Jesus says you have heard it said those are not just words out there in outer space these are not man -made doctrines or man -made commands

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Jesus is invoking very specific commands from the Old Testament you have heard it said who said it well

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God said and then Jesus turns around says but I say who is

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Jesus that he can somehow give us an authoritative understanding of the

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Word of God in such a way where he says I say well that's kind of the point Jesus is

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God in human flesh so watch what Jesus does here he's going to take the law and in spinal tap style he's going to crank it all the way up to 11 that's what he's going to do he's gonna take the law and crank it up to 11 because people for some reason seem to think that I have perfectly kept and obeyed the commands because I haven't manifested the specific behavior that the command is saying

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I shouldn't do I'll give you an example first one Jesus says you have heard that it was said to those of old you shall not murder whoever murders will be liable to judgment and this is from the

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Old Testament but watch what he says but I say to you everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire yeah now wait a second here because looking at the commandment you shall not murder

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I can say definitively I have never murdered anybody haha you know

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I've never plunged a knife into someone's back I've never poisoned them and of course no one's ever found the bodies anyway so I'm joking last part's a joke okay but here's the thing you're gonna know just because I haven't physically stopped somebody from breathing doesn't get me off the hook because sin begins in the heart you see remember the saying

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I said it before I'll keep saying it we are not sinners because we sin we sin because we are sinners sin is like a corruption it's like a virus that runs through your computer it destroys your hardware it destroys your your hard drive it destroys everything now we

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Macintosh users don't know what this is like but I've heard okay but you get the point it runs through and it just corrupts everything so that your computer is well unreliable useless it's corrupted it can't behave the way it was according to sin in a similar way runs through us it corrupts us in body mind and spirit there's not a part of us that sound that is not affected by sin and that's what

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Jesus is doing here he's basically saying listen just cuz you haven't murdered somebody physically doesn't mean that you are not guilty of breaking this commandment and then watch what he does cranking it up to 11 he says

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I say to you everyone who's angry with his brother whoa whoa whoa whoa wait a second I've been angry more than once too many times to count are you are you saying that I'm guilty of breaking this commandment yeah how about insults his brother yeah

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I've done that too or how about says to somebody you fool okay now wait a second here all of a sudden

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I went from not being a breaker of the fifth commandment to now being a full -blown breaker of it yikes hmm now goes on to talk about reconciliation

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I'm gonna come back to it let's let's see what Jesus continues to do here verse 27 you've heard that it said you shall not commit adultery hmm but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart yeah so it doesn't matter if you physically cheated on your spouse or not

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Jesus is making it very clear here oh that long look that glance that and it can happen online it can happen in person it could happen at the beach it can happen you get the point all of a sudden we've all gone from being people who haven't broken the sixth commandment to every one of us have broken it now

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Jesus's solution here by the way is not to tell us how to go about solving the problem and I'll talk about this in a second so Jesus goes on talking about the seriousness of sin and notice that the seriousness of sin that is within your heart that's where it burbles up from he says if your right eye causes you to sin tear it out throw it away and it's better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body be thrown into hell if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off throw it away it's better for you to lose one of your members then your whole body go into hell so is the solution to our sin problem amputations mutilations no

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I'm in fact I would point out historically there was a fellow a church father by the name of origin who kind of took this seriously and in order to keep himself from lusting he decided it would be best for him to make himself a eunuch and it did not solve the problem because again and the problem is not merely in your flesh it's in your heart it's in your mind it's in your soul sin has corrupted all of us and then he goes on to say this whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of war divorce you've heard it said but I say to everyone who divorces his wife except on the ground of sexual immorality makes or commit adultery whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery

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Oh guacamole this is bad okay we live in the day of no -fault divorce and Jesus is basically saying yeah only under under the rarest of circumstances is somebody exonerated regarding a divorce in fact with this standard pretty much the majority the vast majority of all divorces are fault divorces fault on both sides and now more people are thrown into the adultery category and then we can talk about oh as you've heard that it said those of old you shall not swear falsely but shall perform to the

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Lord which you have sworn I say to you don't take an oath at all either by heaven for it is the throne of God or by earth for it is the footstool or by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great

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King note something here oaths kind of imply something about us notice that when people go to court they put their hand on the

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Bible and they say I swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth what does that assume about people getting on the stand they're gonna be lying through their teeth and unless under pain of swearing you have some kind of an oath they are not going to tell the truth and notice they don't care if you're wearing a clerical collar or not if you're a member of a church or not they assume all of y 'all all of us were a bunch of liars and what does

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Jesus say yeah well that's right because you all are but the standard is not keeping your oath the standard is not having to take an oath in the first place which of us stands up to that and then consider our epistle text here you sit there and go yeah but I I lead a

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Bible study yeah yeah yeah but I teach people the Bible I preach sermons and I'm catechizing young people well

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Paul says this the one who plants the other waters they're nothing so he can't point to that either so what are we to do with this because Jesus taking the law cranking it up to 11 he's not saying try harder

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Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for all who believe so what do we do well we're gonna note something here and in our gospel text

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Jesus says if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you leave your gift before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother then come and offer and then come and offer your gift come to terms quickly with your accuser while you're going with him to court lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison now note here this is talking about reconciliation reconciliation only comes through forgiveness mercy and grace and I'm going to note something here and that is that Christ did not follow the pattern that he is requiring of us when it comes to reconciliation because you're going to note something here the person who has sinned against another person it is the person who sinned who has the obligation to go to the person whom has been offended or hurt by their sin but Christ doesn't follow that pattern because if if Christ were to follow that pattern none of us would be reconciled to God because we would all be required to go to God whom we have offended whom we have sinned against and say

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I choose I need to be reconciled to you but Jesus does something different Jesus bleeds and dies for his enemies while they are still his enemies and so Christ breaks the pattern completely and basically says alright if I'm gonna wait for you guys

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I'm gonna wait for eternity so I'm gonna do something different I am going to come to earth empty myself and be found in the form of a slave and a servant and I'm gonna lay down my life and bleed and die for every one of your transgressions so that you can be reconciled to the

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Father Christ takes the initiative and so you'll note then that each and every one of us now according to the standard that Christ has given us regarding the law each and every one of us are murderers each and every one of us are liars each and every one of us are adulterers don't even get me started on the coveting part and the thieving and all the other stuff that we're guilty of what happens is is that Christ then becomes the adulterer for us and he bleeds and dies so that we can be forgiven and reconciled

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Christ becomes the murderer for us so that we can be forgiven and reconciled to the

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Father he becomes the thief he becomes the liar you see

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God made him Christ to be sin who knew no sin so that we might be the righteousness of God and so we all we then know we are reconciled to God not by our efforts not even by our desire to be reconciled to the

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Father we are reconciled because Christ willed it he loved us in our most miserable state when we were still enemies and ungodly

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Christ died for our sins and thereby reconciled us to the Father and so you'll note the gospel goes something like this

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Jesus rather than coming to terms with his false accusers instead decided to go with them to court and then his accusers handed him over to the judge and the judge to the guard and he rather than being put in prison was nailed to a cross to bleed and to die for your sins and mine and note verse 26 truly

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I say to you you will never get out of out of that prison until you have paid every last penny that note this that Christ has paid for every last one of your sins down to the penny so that your debt can be canceled and you reconciled to the

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Father so note as uncomfortable as it makes us we need to stop looking at God's law and saying well

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I haven't done that instead look at God's law and say yeah I've broken that commandment to and consider all the ways we have done it in thought in word indeed by the things we do by the things we don't do and know that Jesus has paid to the last penny our debt because he's the one who laid down his life so that we can be reconciled to God and then this has implications on our reconciliation with each other and our reconciliation with each other does not go something like this somebody comes to you and says you know what

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I've been a jerk I have murdered you in my heart I've spoke ill of you I've called you a fool

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I have lusted after you or stolen from you or coveted the things that you've had and I know that you are aware of my sin please forgive me that's the right thing to do by the way but oftentimes we basically say well good it's about time you figured out what a jerk you were let you stew on that for a little bit of time no confessing our sins then to one another we know that the debt that we owe to other people and we do owe debts to other people is paltry compared to the debt that Christ paid for each and every one of us reconciliation is a important aspect of the gospel so if somebody well if you are offering your gift at the altar remember that your brother has something against you not you have somebody again it has something against somebody but somebody has something against you leave your gift first go and be reconciled to your brother then come and offer your gift you see

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Christ loved us bled and died for us reconciled us to the Father and that love then flows from him to us and then flavors and seasons every one of our relationships so that they can be seasoned in flavor with that same love that same grace that same mercy we seek to be at peace with everybody to be reconciled to them as much as it is in our ability to be so why because we are reconciled and so you'll note then the solution to our sin problem and it is a problem none of us stands before the law of God and can say that we've chosen life by obeying its commands the solution to our sin problem is reconciliation and we have been reconciled to God because of what

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Christ has done we've been reconciled to each other because of what Christ has done and we can even be further reconciled to even more because of what

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Christ has done for God so loved the world the sinful world the world that was at enmity with him that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life 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 one five nine five zero four hundred and seventieth

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Avenue Northwest Oslo Minnesota five six seven four four and again that address is kungsvinger

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Lutheran Church one five nine five zero four hundred and seventieth