The Religion of Striving vs The Religion of Receiving

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 Rosebrook.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, chapter 18, verses 9 -17.

Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous and

they treated others with contempt.

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners,

unjust adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.

But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying,

God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be

humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Now they were bringing even infants to Jesus that he might touch them.

And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them, but Jesus called them to him saying, let the little children come to me and do

not hinder them, for such belongs the kingdom of God.

Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall

not enter it.

In the name of Jesus.

Remember the last question that Jesus asked in last week's Gospel text, Luke chapter 18 verse

8.

That's the one immediately before 9.

I don't know a lot of math, but I know that 8 comes before 9.

Here's what he says, nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the

earth?

That's the question that immediately precedes our next portion of the Gospel of Luke.

So remember, there is currently a struggle between two religions in the world.

And you're thinking, Pastor, are you sure there's only two?

Two religions in the world are struggling with each other?

I mean, just kind of do the math here.

We've got Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity.

That's more than two.

No, actually, it still boils down to two.

You see, there is a conflict between two religions.

One is the religion of striving, or works, and the other is the religion of receiving, or grace.

The religion of striving, the religion of works, takes on many, many

forms.

But ultimately, it's all the same kind of schema.

Follow this program, do these things, you earn your salvation when

you show up to stand before God.

God says, well done, you did it.

That's not Christianity.

That's a religion of striving.

And I want you to mark my words on this, that the religion of striving and those who are adherents of it

hate those in the religion of grace, in the religion of receiving.

This hate is so deep and visceral that the religion of striving seeks to murder and destroy all

vestiges of the religion of receiving and grace.

Think of it this way.

We all see the horrible stories coming out of the Middle East regarding ISIS.

What are they up to next?

Who have they killed now?

How did they kill them?

Well, see, ISIS is not an accident.

ISIS is nothing more than the religion of works on a military crusade with nothing to keep it in

check, including the Geneva Convention.

That's the true nature of the religion of works, the religion of striving.

And left to ourselves and to our own religious devices, we all, because of our sinful

and fallen natures, were born into the religion of striving, the religion of works.

And this religion is so evil that it demonically teaches that all of its adherents, that they are good

and that the problem of sin is outside of them.

It's out there somewhere.

Furthermore, it teaches that salvation, either in whole or in part, is up to you.

So if you don't get busy praying, giving alms, volunteering at church,

making your pilgrimage to the holy cities.

As a Norwegian, I'm not sure where the holy city is.

Maybe it's Oslo.

Make your pilgrimages.

Oh, and also, it's very important that you wage jihad against the infidels.

And if you don't do this, if you're not busy doing this now, well, then there's no hope of eternal life for

you.

So when one then asks, well, how many of these good works, prayers, pilgrimages, how many

infidels must I kill and stack up like cords of wood in order to be saved?

Well, the answer always comes back in the religion of works, well, in vague and ambiguous

terms.

You see, you never know when you're saved in the religion of works.

You never can say you've done enough, which does nothing more than create that nagging uncertainty in its

adherence.

And that nagging uncertainty is, well, am I saved or not?

I'm not sure.

Have I done enough?

So the solution to this nagging uncertainty, which just keeps going on inside of them, is to end

up destroying all those and murdering all of those who have peace and certainty and rest with God.

They're the threat, really, if you think about it.

So, not knowing what it'll take to save themselves, they end up waging war with any who would claim

that salvation is a gift given by God, by grace, through faith, on account of Christ

as a gift, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And so this kind of frames our two texts today.

We'll even look at our Old Testament text.

And so our Gospel says this, Jesus also told this parable to some who,

watch these words, trusted in themselves that they were righteous.

There's a saying out there in the legal world that the person who has himself as his own attorney

has a fool for an attorney.

That's how the saying goes.

The one who trusts in himself that he is righteous in himself is, well,

trusting in a fool.

This is foolishness.

But here's the nature of the religion of works.

They trust in themselves that they're righteous, and they treat others with contempt.

That's how it goes, isn't it?

That's always the telltale sign of the religion of striving.

See, the problem is never in here.

The problem's never right here.

The problem is always out there.

In fact, here's how they talk.

Well, the reason our society is going down the toilet, and it for sure is going down the toilet, well, it's because of

Hollywood.

It's because of the gay lobby.

It's because of corruption in Washington, D .C.

No, it's the fault of the liberal media, you know, CNN and MSNBC.

No, it's actually the fault of the conservative media.

It's Fox News' fault.

It's Trump's fault.

It's Hillary Clinton's fault.

You see the problem here?

And here's the issue.

Anyone who would actually tell them, kind of tap them on the shoulder and say, hey, listen, the problem isn't

Hollywood.

The problem isn't the liberal media.

The problem is you.

Yeah, anybody who is, well, bold enough to say that, they will be duly punished.

In fact, they will see their churches destroyed, their pastors' reputations tarnished.

They will see their pastors run out of office, maybe even murdered or martyred for their stubborn refusal

to stop preaching Christ and him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith

alone.

See, the religion of works always waters down the law.

The law is doable now once we dilute it.

Rather than convicting and killing us and showing us our sin and need for a savior, the law becomes the thing that

we construct into a ladder that we then climb into heaven.

And see, this is what's at the heart of our Old Testament text.

Let's turn back to Genesis chapter 4 and note what's going on here.

Here's what it says.

Now, I need to note something

here.

The Hebrew sentence, actually, if you were to just translate it straight, says,

There is an interpretive tradition within Christianity that looks at this sentence from the Hebrew

and believes that, well, Eve may have thought that she had given birth to the Messiah.

And that's part of what's going wrong here.

I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord, the ESV says, and again she bore his brother Abel.

Have y 'all ever read the story, the children's book, Rikki -Tikki -Tembo?

It's a fascinating story of how names were given in ancient China.

The firstborn son receives all of the glory.

And then every other son after that, not so much.

And so the story of Rikki -Tikki -Tembo tells us the story of a firstborn son whose name was,

get this, Rikki -Tikki -Tembo -Nosa -Rembo Cherryberry -Roochie -Pip -Perry -Pembo.

Put that on a bubble test.

And his brother's name was Chang.

Which means practically nothing.

So kind of think of it this way.

Is that Cain is, oh, I've gotten a man, the Lord.

Abel, who cares what Abel means?

He's the secondborn.

That's really what's going on here.

So the story says, she bore Abel.

Abel was a keeper of sheep, Cain a worker of the ground.

In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought

the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.

Now watch what the words say.

The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering.

But for Cain, not so much.

The Lord did not have regard for Cain, nor his offering.

Now, when I was a kid, I couldn't figure out what was going on here.

Is it that God doesn't like salad?

What's the deal?

The Mosaic Covenant nowhere forbids grain offerings or offerings from the

fruits of the earth to be brought to him.

In fact, they're encouraged.

So what's going on here?

Why is God having regard for Abel and his

offering, but no regard for Cain and his offering?

Well, thankfully, the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 4, helps us out here.

And here's what it says.

By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain,

through which he was commended as righteous.

Notice that Hebrews 11, 4 actually says that Abel is saved by

faith.

See, Abel is of the religion of grace, the religion of receiving.

Cain does not have faith.

So the text says so.

By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God

commending him by accepting his gifts.

And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

And then if you just look ahead, a couple of verses.

Without faith, it's impossible to please God.

Hebrews 11, 6 says.

Without faith, it's impossible.

Not difficult.

Not challenging.

Impossible.

It can't be done.

So we now know what's going on here.

Abel has faith.

And in faith, he offers to God a sacrifice of a

lamb.

Cain doesn't have faith.

And the fact that the Lord would have regard for somebody as worthless and miserable as Abel.

I mean, Abel, the name doesn't mean practically anything.

It angers him.

So Cain was very angry.

His face fell.

So the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry?

Why has your face fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted?

Is the Lord here saying, well, strive harder, try harder, and then you'll be accepted?

What does it mean to do well?

The Gospel of John.

People came to Jesus and said, Lord, what must we be doing to do the works of God?

Jesus answered this.

The work of God is to believe in the one whom the Father has sent.

Now you're thinking, well, this is all the way back in Genesis.

How can they believe in the one whom the Father has sent?

Well, they already have the promise from the Garden of Eden.

The promise of the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.

And it ain't Cain.

He ain't it.

That's for sure.

So to do well means to believe.

If you do well, will you not be accepted?

And if you do not do well, well, sin is crouching at the door.

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

And notice this.

Cain spoke to Abel, his brother.

And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

And the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother?

He said, I don't know.

Am I my brother's keeper?

The religion of striving, the religion of works, hates God, doesn't have faith in him,

and murders those who are saved by grace.

So now we come to our Gospel text then.

Jesus tells this parable, and this parable has everything to do with what we just heard in our Old Testament.

Here it is.

Two men went into the temple to pray.

Now, I'm going to ask a little bit of a mathematical word question for you.

I was terrible at these things when I was in grade school.

I always remembered them kind of like this, okay?

If a train leaves Cincinnati heading east at 1145 a .m., and a train

leaves San Francisco heading south at 1 p .m., what time is it in

Poughkeepsie?

And I would always read the question and go, oh, so that's how you spell Poughkeepsie.

Now I'm going to ask you a question that's kind of like that, but we can actually solve it.

But I want to put it on the table first to have you cogitate on it as I read through the text.

Two men went into the temple to pray.

Here's my question.

What time is it?

Why are these men both going to the temple to pray at the same time?

What time is it?

You all look puzzled.

I get it, okay?

It's time to pray.

Very good.

Yes, it is time to pray.

But what time is it to pray if you are a Jew living in the first century at this time?

Hold the thought.

We'll explain it as we get there.

But what time it is is very important.

So two men went into the temple to pray.

One is a Pharisee.

The other is a tax collector.

We know this about the Pharisees.

They believe that they are saved by their keeping not just of the Mosaic law.

They've come up with a schema by which you can actually be saved by works.

And here's real simple.

There's like 600 and something laws given in the Old Testament.

They added several thousand to them.

And if you kept their laws, you'd never actually break God's law.

Ergo, you're saved.

Keep that in mind.

So the Pharisee, standing by himself, he prayed thus to God.

This is a wonderful prayer.

God, I thank you that I'm not.

Like other men.

You can see him going into the hospital with tennis elbow from patting himself on the back so hard.

I thank you that.

I'm not like other men.

I'm not like extortioners.

I'm not like the unjust or adulterers or even like that tax collector over there.

I fast twice.

A week.

I give tithes of all that I get.

You've got to just love me,.

God.

Is that not how he's praying?

Now, I want you to think about this for a second to kind of explain just how ridiculous this is.

Do you all remember the movie, not the movie, the television show Bewitched?

Mrs. Kravitz?

You've got to kind of picture it as like Mrs. Kravitz.

So Mrs. Kravitz is driving down the highway and she's in a terrible car

accident.

We're talking about multiple broken bones, blood everywhere.

They had to bring in a life flight helicopter.

So they fly her to the hospital.

I mean, it's so serious that the guy flying the helicopter is called ahead.

We're going to need like medical attention for Mrs. Kravitz as soon as we hit the ground.

So like the mass units in the Korean War, the doctors come out.

They're there at the helicopter when it lands and they're administering medical attention to Mrs.

Kravitz.

And Mrs. Kravitz's first words are, I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm okay.

There's nothing wrong with me.

And as they're rolling her into the hospital, they go past the waiting room in the ER and she says,

did you see that guy right there?

He had a broken arm.

Oh, I bet that had to hurt.

And oh, that kid over there looks like he has a cold.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

That's how absurd this is.

Who does this?

In fact, St. Augustine in his sermon on this text picks up on that same theme.

Here's what Augustine said.

He said, how useful and necessary a medicine is repentance.

Think about this.

People who remember that they are only human will readily understand this.

It is written, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

The Pharisee was not rejoicing so much in his own clean bill of health as in comparing it

with the diseases of others.

He came to the doctor.

It would have been more worthwhile to inform the doctor by confession of the things that were wrong with himself

instead of keeping his wounds secret and having the nerve to crow over

others' scars.

And that's what's going on.

Something's seriously wrong here.

Somebody who's absolutely wracked with sin is thinking he is so wonderful and saying, thank

you that I'm not like that guy and that guy.

Well, you are.

You all suffer from the same disease as I do.

But here we hear about the tax collector.

The tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven.

Why is this?

Because God's law has done its work.

It has shown him how wicked and evil he is.

So he beats his breast, which is a self -deprecating move on his part.

And he says, God, be merciful to me.

A sinner.

God, be merciful to me a sinner.

Now, the Greek helps us understand what time of the day it is.

It's hard to see in the English because we see the word merciful.

And that is an okay translation of a particular word.

And the Greek word is halaskamai.

Halaskamai.

That's the one that gets translated as merciful.

But it means so much more than that.

It's really saying, God, please be propitious towards me.

Or, Lord, atone for my sins and wipe them away.

And that's only done through sacrifice.

This word, halaskamai, actually tells us exactly what time of the day it is.

You want to know what time it is?

It's three in the afternoon.

It's three in the afternoon.

The time of the evening sacrifice.

Psalm 141, verse 2 says, may my prayers rise before you as

incense.

The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Now, in the Old Testament in Exodus chapter 29, and if you have your Bible, I would really like you to flip there and

follow along.

Exodus chapter 29, starting at verse 38, are the commandments given

regarding the daily sacrifices.

There are two.

There's a morning sacrifice and there is an evening sacrifice.

And the one we're looking at today is the evening sacrifice.

But note this.

Here's what it says, starting at verse 38.

Now, this is what you shall offer on the altar.

Two lambs, a year old, day by day, regularly.

One lamb you shall offer in the morning and the other you shall offer at twilight.

When is twilight?

Three in the afternoon.

That's when twilight is.

And with the first lamb, a tenth measure of fine flour mingled with a fourth of a hint of beaten oil

and a fourth of a hint of wine for a drink offering.

Notice here.

We have grain and wine as part of the daily sacrifice of a lamb.

Hmm.

That sounds a lot like, right, it sounds a lot like the Lord's Supper.

That's on purpose.

The other lamb you shall offer at twilight and shall offer with it a grain offering and

its drink offering.

And here's, by the way, we know it's three in the afternoon.

We'll keep working with this.

So you offer with it a grain offering and its drink offering as in the morning for a pleasing aroma, a food

offering to the Lord.

It shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, which becomes the

Temple, before the Lord, where I will watch, meet with

you.

Meet with the people of Israel and it shall be sanctified by my glory.

Why is the twilight afternoon sacrifice the time of prayer?

Because right here it says, I will meet with you, the people of Israel,

every day during the twilight sacrifice.

So the children of Israel would gather at the Temple.

If you're in Jerusalem, you'd go to the evening sacrifice, the twilight sacrifice, and there you see the lamb

being sacrificed as a sin offering, a grain offering, and a drink offering pointing to the Lord's Supper.

And God has promised to be there.

If you knew that God was going to be somewhere at a particular time and you really needed something from Him, and

you had a sure and certain promise that He was going to be present, you'd show up, right?

And so here's the idea.

Two men went into the Temple to pray.

And the Greek word, helaskamai, tells us that exactly when this is taking place, three in the afternoon,

with the sacrifice of the lamb, for the forgiveness of sins, with the grain offering, the drink offering, and at this

time, God has promised to be there.

Now, with that rattling around in your head, put the pieces together.

They know God's going to be there.

Who's the Pharisee praying about?

Himself!

What's the Pharisee's sacrifice?

All of His good works.

So God's showed up.

He's promised to be there, to hear them.

And what does the Pharisee prattle on about himself?

How amazing he is.

The tax collector.

He's there, and he knows God's there.

He knows God can hear him, because he knows that God has promised to be there to hear.

And he can't even look up, because he knows that God is present.

And his sin is so in front of his eyes, and he knows that he's fallen so short.

God, have mercy on me.

And he's pointing to the sacrifice, the lamb.

Have mercy on me.

I'm a sinner.

And God hears both.

He hears them both.

And Jesus says, I tell you, the tax collector went

down to his house justified, declared righteous by

God, rather than the other.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.

The one who humbles himself will be exalted.

And see, this is scandalous.

This is scandalous.

That lousy tax collector, that wretched and sinful man, total traitor to the

people of Israel, working for the Romans, taking the people of Israel and squeezing every

drop of money out of them like a lemon, while he lives high on the hog and they are in poverty.

He gets off scot -free.

While the Pharisee, a religious man, he goes to the synagogue every Saturday.

He tithes everything he gets.

He prays constantly.

But see, the Pharisee is, well, he's just like Cain.

In his offering, he and his offering are both rejected by

God.

What was his offering again?

All of his good works, his religious actions, his prayers, his tithings.

The Pharisee was striving while the tax collector knew that no amount of striving was going to be

able to undo the sin that he'd committed.

And notice, by way of kind of a little backhanded, notice that the tax collector doesn't point to the Pharisee and say, I

thank you, God, that I am not a self -righteous, pompous hypocrite like that Pharisee over there.

He doesn't say that.

His assessment, by the way, had he said that would have been correct.

But the tax collector knew that the Pharisee wasn't his problem.

He was his own problem.

In fact, the tax collector's prayer is very much like David's prayer in Psalm 51, after the

whole Bathsheba affair.

Lord, have mercy on me.

According to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, please blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.

Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and

blameless in your judgment.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

So there, at the time of the evening sacrifice on the altar, was the Lamb

being offered as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.

The time was three in the afternoon.

The Pharisee was striving for his salvation and pointed to his strivings.

The tax collector, knowledge he was empty -handed, he had nothing to offer.

The psalmist continues in Psalm 51, deliver me, Lord, from blood guiltiness.

O God of my salvation, in my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you

will not despise.

And that was his sacrifice.

A broken spirit, a contrite heart that spoke the truth about

himself.

Not that he was good, but that he was evil.

And all of this harkens then to the sacrifice.

Times matter in Scripture.

Listen to Matthew chapter 27, regarding Jesus' crucifixion.

Starting at verse 45.

Now from the sixth hour, which is noon, there was darkness over all of the

land until the ninth hour, which is three in the afternoon.

About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eloi, Eloi, Labasamachtani, that

is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah.

And one of them at once ran and took a sponge and filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him

to drink.

Oh, there's the drink offering that goes with.

The...

Right.

Others said, wait, let's see whether Elijah will come to save him.

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, it is finished.

He yielded up his spirit.

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth shook, the rocks were split.

You see, that dreadful Friday afternoon, at the time of the twilight

sacrifice, Jesus, the Lamb of God, who

takes away the sin of the world, he was slain.

You see, God promises to be there, and he is.

He's there for you.

He's here for you now.

Where two or more are gathered, Christ is truly present.

He heard you today say that I am by nature sinful and unclean.

And because of what he has done on that Friday afternoon during the twilight sacrifice, you can leave

here today knowing that you are justified, that you have peace with God.

And see, all of this is not by striving.

All of it is by gift, by grace, through faith it is received.

And then our Gospel text to help us get this even more.

Remember, the question is, when I return, Jesus says, will I find faith on the earth?

Faith is not by your strivings and your earnings and your self -righteousness.

Faith is given by God as grace, as gift.

He goes on.

Jesus says, now that we're bringing even infants to him, that he might touch them.

By the way, you know what the Greek word for infants means here?

Infants.

Like our little girls this morning.

That's what we're talking about.

And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them.

But Jesus called them to him and saying, let the children come to me.

Do not hinder them, for such belongs the kingdom of God.

Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a

child, like an infant, shall not enter it.

Now, keep this in mind.

Infants can only be given to.

They cannot strive.

Infants cannot earn.

They are utterly dependent and incapable of caring even for one of the least of their needs.

Left to themselves, they die.

And this is what's so scandalous about the religion of grace, the religion of receiving.

Tell someone that Christ is working in the waters of baptism, and that this church doesn't forbid

infants from coming to Christ, but brings them to be baptized and they'll challenge you and say,

but infants can't.

Infants can't what?

Well, they can't understand.

They can't work.

They can't strive.

They can't make a decision.

They can't offer a sacrifice of praise.

And that's Jesus's point.

They can only be given to.

And they are not held up by Christ as those who are incapable of

being Christians.

Infants are held up by Christ as model Christians.

Only those who can be given to, who receive.

And that's the whole point, is it not?

Acts chapter 2, the great day of Pentecost, Peter preaches his great sermon, accuses everybody listening to him of

being the ones who killed Christ, whether they were there or not.

It says this in verse 37, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles,

brothers, what shall we do?

Peter said to them, repent.

Be baptized.

Passive voice.

It's being done to you.

Be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will

receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For the promise is for you and for your children and

for all who are far off and everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself.

You see, it's all received.

So put away your striving.

Put it away.

Repent of your self -righteousness, your me -centered religion that offers up

your self, your piety, your works, instead of pointing to the

sacrifice that God has provided for you.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, slain at the time of the twilight sacrifice

to take away the sins of the world.

And if you don't think that that's right, remember what Paul's words are in Galatians 5.

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.

You have fallen from grace.

So empty your hands of your good works in regards to your salvation.

Throw them in the ash heap.

They can never save you and the Lord will not lift your head because of them.

Instead, if you insist on bringing your good works to God in exchange for your salvation, you will

perish like Cain and all of his Pharisaical children in the fires of hell.

Christ is your sacrifice.

And his salvation is not earned by you.

It was earned by him and is given to all who recognize that they are sinners and in need of his mercy

and forgiveness as a gift, not a wage.

And that's what John says in his epistle.

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

See, the religion of works says the problem's out there.

It's those people.

Jesus says, no, you're the problem.

I died for you.

So the one who says he has no sin deceives himself.

The truth is not in him.

But if we confess our sins like David, like the tax collector, God is faithful and just

and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He does the cleansing.

If we say we have not sinned, we make God out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

The psalmist says in Psalm 32, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

I acknowledge my sin to you, the psalmist says.

I did not cover my iniquity.

I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.

And you know what the Lord said?

Well, to hell with you.

You're a transgressor.

Be gone.

That's not what the psalmist says.

I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

See, the scandalousness of God's mercy in grace is that not only does God

justify, declare righteous tax collectors, sinners, and

infants, the scandal of it all is that he can justify even you, even me.

So repent of your self -righteousness, your striving.

Trust in Christ's mercy and grace alone and leave here today and return to your home like the tax

collector, justified, declared righteous by God.

So when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

Only those who receive what he's done have

faith.

Repent, believe, receive, and you have.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th Avenue

NW, Oslo, MN 56744.

And again that address is Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950

470th Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744.

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