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Date: All Saint’s Day
Text: Matthew 5:1-12
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 fifth chapter. Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth, and he taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Alright, so this is the feast of all saints. Now notice I put the emphasis on the word all. And that's kind of, the reason why is because if you've been in the church or at least churches that follow the historic lectionary and the historic practices of the church, all saints is usually focused in on well, the dead, those who are departed.
But I'm going to focus in on the word all because you know what the Greek word all means? It means all. Now I know the Reformed say all means some, but they're wrong when they say that. So I just want to make sure we've got that clearly figured out.
But all of that being said, our epistle text today is amazing in reminding you that we are part of the same congregation, although separated at this point, not seeing Christ with our own eyes, not being in the physical presence of Christ and his throne, but we are part of that great multitude that Revelation described for us today.
And so consider our epistle text in this regard. Listen to these words. Behold what manner of love the Father that he has given to us, that we should be called the children of God. Think of it this way.
Have you ever stopped to think what a motley crew we are? Yeah, I know some of the people here present physically. I also know some of you people who are present joining us online. And all I can say is what a motley crew of ungodly sinners we all are.
And that's the scandal of this. All saints is that we... The scandal is that God has shown such great love to us that we sinners, all of us, idolaters, blasphemers, murderers, adulterers, thieves, coveters, and liars alike, that we should be called the sons of God.
Oh, behold what manner of love the Father that he has given to us, that you and I can be called the sons of God. And listen to these words next in our epistle text. And so we are. Oh, that just puts a wooden stake in the heart of the vampire known as self-righteousness.
Because self-righteousness would teach you, well, if you try hard enough, and if you're good enough, then maybe then you might be worthy to be called a child of God. Bah humbug. All who are in Christ, who have been forgiven of all of their sins, are children now of God.
Not children hopefully. We're not sitting on the adoption block waiting for God the Father to go, yeah, well, maybe I'll adopt you, maybe I won't. Hoping for the adoption papers to go through. The adoption papers have gone through.
The gospel has come to you. The mighty working of the Holy Spirit has worked in you. The forgiveness of sins regenerated you, brought you to penitent faith in Christ. You have been washed into the waters of baptism, united with Christ in his death and his resurrection.
And so you are presently now a child of God. I remember one time a lady who attended here for some time took me aside after a sermon and said, you know, pastor, I'm a little uncomfortable about something that you do.
And I said, really, alright, what is it that I'm doing that is making you uncomfortable? She says, you're preaching to everybody here as if they're Christians. And I said, well, of course I do, because it was a Christian congregation who called me to preach the word to them.
And if I don't think the Christians here are Christians, then who am I serving? You see, that's kind of the point. That's the scandal of salvation by grace through faith alone. I can say with confidence you who believe in Christ, that you are a child of God, and I have biblical precedent to do so, because this text says, so we are now.
And if you don't think that's enough, well, the text goes on to say, see, this is the reason why the world does not know us, is that it did not know him. So, beloved, we are God's children now, the text says.
Not later, now. And what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him, listen to what John writes here, everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
How is one purified? By hoping, by trusting, by believing. We are saved by grace through faith, apart from works. And so you'll note, then, it is out of line, it is out of order, it is bad theology. Every time one of you Christians, even myself included, would say something as foolish as, well, I'm no saint, but.
You see, that's an idiom that we use. Oh, knock it off. If you are in Christ, then you are a saint. You have been made holy. The Greek word for saint is hagios, the plural hagioi. And what does it mean?
The holy ones. You who are in Christ, you are the children of God now. God is your father now. You have been reconciled to God now by the work that Christ did 2 ,000 years ago. You see, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting your sins against you, not counting my sins against me.
You see, God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that you might be the righteousness of God. And all of that being said, then consider this wonderful vision that we get of the great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from tribes and peoples and languages, including, of all people, the Norwegians.
Who knew that they could make it, too? But they do. And that's the point. And what were they do? They were standing before the throne, before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, palm branches in their hands.
These white robes are the garments of salvations, the righteousness of Christ given to us by grace through faith, his righteousness given to us because he had received our ungodliness, our sins, our iniquities, and he bled and died for all of that.
And as a result of this, clothed in white, standing in the throne in the presence of Christ, all the saints now are doing this presently. They are worshiping in the presence of Christ. And this is a good place to mention the fact that those who have preceded us have gone on to glory, have fallen asleep in Christ, that this is where they are.
And if Christ tarries and you begin to grow weary and you fall asleep, too, because that's what happens to us all, then you, too, will be with Christ. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, the Scripture says.
And listen to what this great multitude sings in their praise. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And I would note, indeed, salvation does belong to our God. It's His.
And what does He do with it? He gives it away for free as a gift. He doesn't sit there and say, no, mine. He says, no, this is my salvation and I'm going to give it away to everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.
And as a result of this, the angels, the living creatures, the elders, all there in worship fall down before God and their response is amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever.
Amen. Who are these clothed in white? The angel asks John and responds with the answer, these are the ones coming out of the Great Tribulation. Now, this is probably for a little bit of a future lesson, but I'm going to note here, the Great Tribulation, you're already in it.
It's not something in the future. It's been present for quite a long time now. And you'll note that those who are mentioned here and the benefits, the beautiful things that they have are the same promises that are given to all Christians, not merely those who, quote, die in the very, very last of the days.
They have washed their robes, made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Indeed, you have done that as well. What an amazing detergent the blood of the Lamb is, that it can whiten our robes and make us clean and spotless, sinless before God.
Therefore, they are before the throne of God. Serve Him day and night in His temple, and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. That's a promise for all of us. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.
The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat any more. You see, this is the picture of the fulfillment of our salvation. The very thing that the Apostle Peter writes about in 1 Peter chapter 1, when he admonishes us to keep our eyes on this blessed hope that we have.
Peter writes, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because according to His great mercy, uh-oh, we have a modifier. Great mercy. It's not just merely mercy. It's great mercy. Some might be scandalized here.
Peter might actually be some kind of a weird, soft antinomian, because he's making mercy sound like it's so amazing, so amazing and so great that it can forgive even you. Oh, watch out for that Peter, man.
He's got too much gospel going on. He's got to stop gospeling us. Nonsense. According to His great mercy, God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
Brothers and sisters, we have an inheritance. And you'll note, this is an inheritance that doesn't fade. It doesn't matter how long it takes for you to get to heaven. The luster, the shine, the beauty of this inheritance will never fade.
It is as new today as it was when Christ first set it aside for you. And you'll note, inheritance are things that we receive when somebody dies. And that's a good thing to think about when we think about salvation, because who died to give us such a great inheritance?
It was none other than our brother Jesus. And it is His last will and testament to give you an inheritance, a world without end in His presence forever. And this inheritance is unfading and is currently being kept in heaven for you.
And you, according to Peter in verse 5, are now presently being guarded through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this then you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.
And I would note, it seems necessary that we all be grieved by various trials. Have you noticed that 2020 hasn't exactly been the best thing ever? I was kind of sad when I found out we were going to get an extra hour of 2020 today.
I was not happy about that. I'd like to get the whole thing over with. But if you have to be grieved by various trials, so what? Your salvation will be revealed in the last time. And all of these trials, well, they test the genuineness of your faith.
And your faith, according to Peter here, is more precious than gold. And even though it is tested by fire and perishes, but our faith doesn't perish when it is tested by fire. Instead, our faith may be found then to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus.
And though you have not seen him, dear saints, you do love him. Note here, even Peter is writing to people that he already assumes are children of God and Christians and not striving to be potential Christians and is reminding us of the very hope that we have in Christ and the very goal, the terminus of our faith in Jesus.
Though you have not seen him, you believe in him and you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. And you are presently obtaining the outcome of your faith. And what is the outcome of your faith?
Well, I would beg to differ with Joel Osteen. It's not your best life now. The outcome of your faith is the salvation of your souls. And here in this revelation text, we have this beautiful picture of what the salvation of our souls looks like.
Complete face-to-face reconciliation with our God, being able to worship in his presence and praise his name with the angels and archangels and with even the creatures of heaven, which is what our destiny is.
That's kind of the whole point. And so all of that being said, again I remind you, all saints, you're part of the all. And so consider then, just briefly, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which is our gospel text.
Have you ever stopped to think that the Sermon on the Mount is the first of Jesus' sermons recorded for us in Scripture? If Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, this sermon is the Alpha sermon. And as the Alpha sermon, Jesus doesn't start by rolling up his sleeves and saying, you know, I was pretty happy being up there in heaven and you guys couldn't get your act together so finally I decided to come down here and scold you enough to kind of motivate you to get your act together and here's a list of things that you need to do in order to be blessed.
That's not what he did. In Jesus' Alpha sermon, the very first words out of Jesus' mouth in this beautiful manifesto of a sermon is his proclamation of present blessings for all who believe in him. You see, if you've ever heard a sermon where somebody's taken the Beatitudes and turned them into a to-do list of things that you have got to do in order to be blessed, they don't know what they're doing because Jesus here in the Greek, he is basically pronouncing present tense blessings on the people who are being described.
And who is being described in this text, in the Beatitudes? The saints. Those who believe in Jesus. That's you. That's me. So hear then the blessings of Jesus on you, oh saints. Here's what Jesus says.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And you can almost hear the self-righteous and those out there decreeing and declaring who claim that they are the head and not the tail, who are out there performing signs and wonders and claim to be rich in all kinds of conquering abilities sitting there going, say, what?
What do you mean the poor in spirit are blessed? That's the point. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? It means to recognize that you are poverty stricken spiritually. You got nothing to offer God.
You haven't got a farthing in your threadbare pocket that you can offer to Jesus in exchange for the salvation that he is offering. It means coming to Jesus and saying, Jesus, I am a sinner have mercy on me.
I got nothing. I'm not obedient enough. I don't obey enough. In fact, to talk about my obedience is a joke. I'm not rich in obedience. I've got nothing. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Christ says theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn. But you sit there and go, well, everybody mourns. Everybody loses somebody and experiences mourning. Well, that's not the mourning that Christ is talking about. This is the mourning that David experienced when David wrote Psalm 51 and says, Against you only, O Lord, have I sinned.
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. It's the mourning and lamenting of sin. And every one of the saints knows what this mourning is.
It's recognizing I don't measure up. And what does Christ say to those who mourn in this way? They shall be comforted. Comforted with the words of well done, good and faithful servant. Why? Because the good news comforts us and assures us that though our sins be as scarlet, Christ washes away all of them and makes them white as snow through the detergent of his blood.
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. And this, in contradistinction, what's the opposite of meek? Well, the arrogant. The prideful. Oh, I thank you, Lord, that I am not a sinner, that I'm not like that guy over there, that I tithe all the way down and offer 10 of my revenue every single Sunday.
And you just go on and list all the things. That's just arrogance. The meek says, Lord, everything I have I receive from your hand. Everything. These are the ones that Christ say shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Have you ever just said to yourself, I wish I could be done with sin? You yearn for your eyes to see the face of Christ, to no longer have within you the temptations that arise because of your own sinful nature, because of the world, because of the devil, and the thing you look and long for, the thing you hope for is a world where there isn't rancor, where there isn't sin, where righteousness shines like the sun, where there's true love for each other and true love for God.
Oh yeah. That's what we're talking about here. And that's something that is common for the saints. In fact, all of them. And what does Christ say for those who hunger in this way? They will be satisfied.
You will be filled to the full. You will not be disappointed. And blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Brothers and sisters, what do we pray in the Lord's prayer? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
You see, we forgive because we are forgiven. And so you'll note, this again is a description of the saints presently. This is a description of you. You shall receive mercy. And blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
And I know that when you look into your heart, just like me, you do not see purity. You see sin. But again, what did our epistle text say in this regard? John said, everyone who hopes in Christ, everyone who has faith in Him purifies himself as he is pure.
We are purified. Our hearts are purified by the working of God because of faith in Jesus Christ. Do not forget that. So you have already been made pure of heart. Your heart of stone has been replaced with the heart of flesh.
And blessed then are the peacemakers. And the peacemakers here are not talking about people who broker peace deals between the Muslims and the Jews in the Middle East. This is talking about those who recognize that as Christians, we are partakers in the ministry of reconciliation.
That God is reconciling men to Himself by not counting their trespasses against them. And we go and proclaim the good news of the free forgiveness of sins so that men may experience peace and shalom with God again.
They will be called the sons of God. But mark my words on this, dear saints. We have not left the church militant to join the church triumphant. We have not even remotely done that yet unless, of course, you're already dead.
That being the case, those who are the peacemakers who preach the gospel, Christ warns us and reminds us that we should expect persecution. Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely. That's right. You can expect to be slandered. It goes with the territory.
But note this. Christ says that when this happens again, you are blessed. And when you take on this mentality of all saints, I am part of that group. I am part of all of the saints, even the ones worshiping in heaven, then you recognize that a heavenly perspective here is what's called for when you are persecuted and evil is spoken against you, you now have the freedom to rejoice and to be glad and trust the words of your Savior who assures you that your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Brothers and sisters, for all saints today, again let me remind you, behold what manner of love the Father that he's given to us, to us sinners. He's loved us so much that he sent his only begotten Son so that we who believe in him might be called the sons of God and so we are.
So you are. So rejoice this all saints day that your name is numbered among the great multitude that cannot be numbered all because of the grace and mercy of Christ and the salvation that belongs to him that he is so freely given you as a gift.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
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