His Guts Were Wrenched

Matthew’s Gospel and the Sending of the Twelve

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.

A holy gospel according to St. Matthew, the ninth chapter. Jesus went through all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. And healing every disease and affliction.

When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. And He called to Him His twelve disciples and He gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal every disease and every affliction.

The names of the twelve apostles are these. First, Simon, who was called Peter. And Andrew, his brother. James, the son of Zebedee. John, his brother. Philip and Bartholomew. Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector.

James, the son of Alphaeus. Thaddeus, Simon the zealot. And Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. These twelve Jesus sent out instructing them, Go nowhere among the Gentiles. Enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Proclaim as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Cast out demons. You received without paying. Give without pay. This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ. We confess our faith together in the words of the Apostles' Creed. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. In the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, so a little bit of a note here.

The Problem of Home Repairs and Needing Help

I remember when I first purchased my first house, and I got to admit that I thought it was a great thing having a house, and then I learned rather quickly that houses, they're not all that great, you know, because something always goes wrong with them.

One thing or another, you know, maybe the paint job goes bad, a piece of plumbing stops working, you know, the air conditioning unit isn't quite up to snuff, it's not doing what it's supposed to do, the BTUs are out, your garden gets thrashed by your dog, you know, just crazy things like this, and the other thing I've noticed in owning a house is that oftentimes I fall from my wife's good graces when the to-do list around the house gets a little long, and so I remember, you know, in my first house, I don't remember the exact repair, but I remember heading off to go and take care of a home repair, you know, and so here in town we have lows, but as I was recalling, you know, this particular incident, I think I ended up going to Home Depot for this one, and boy, I hate that place.

I absolutely hate Home Depot. You know, it's the do-it-yourself home repair center, right, and you walk into the place and the aisles are caverns. I mean, the Grand Canyon has nothing on this place, and of course, you know, I'm not exactly the handiest guy, and so sometimes I don't know exactly what I'm looking for.

I know that what I need is there, but what I need may not be exactly what I expect. So I remember in this one particular case, I was wandering the caverns looking for the thing that I needed to fix the problem that I had in my house, and so I couldn't figure it out, and so I had to break the mail code.

By the way, there's a mail code. The mail code includes you're not allowed to ask for directions, okay? That's part of the mail code. It's in the book, okay? And the other thing you're not supposed to do is ask for help, and so I had to break one of the rules of the code, and I figured I might as well sin boldly.

So I found the person who was working that part of the home repair store and asked him. I told him, here's the thing that's wrong with my house, and I think I need something like this, and the guy looked at me like I was an idiot and said, No, you don't need that.

You need something else, and the something else that I needed is something I never even considered, and so he took me two aisles over, and he loaded me up with the things that I need and says, When you get home, you do this with this thing, and you do this other thing with that thing, and next thing you know, your problem will be solved, and, of course, I'm not familiar with any of this stuff.

It's the days before YouTube. Nowadays, what I do is I look on YouTube first and figure out how to do the repair, so that way I don't have to ask for help, but anyway, so he loaded me up, purchased the things that I need, went home, and wouldn't you know it, the thing I didn't even know I needed was the solution to the problem that I had.

It was glorious. It was absolutely glorious, and after the repair, my wife's good graces returned until the next thing broke, so, yeah, you see how that works, but all of that being said, consider our gospel text today, and this is an interesting one, because here is the Son of God in human flesh now experiencing in the midst of the mire, the muck, the consequences, the torment, the, how shall we say, the slave master of sin.

He's seeing sin and its repercussions working through the creation that he said was tov ma 'od, very good, after he created it, and here's what it says, so Jesus went throughout all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

By the way, if you want to know what the gospel of the kingdom is, it's just the gospel. It's the good news of the forgiveness of sins. We learn earlier in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus, he picks up right where John the Baptist left off and he proclaims, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

This was the message that Jesus spoke. And repentance, well then, calls for people to confess their sins and the one to whom they are confessing that they are sinful always gives an absolution because he is there to bleed and to die for their sins and mine.

So the gospel of the kingdom is the gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins from the one who is the king himself. You see, the kingdom has drawn near because the son of David, the king of Israel, is present there among them and he's there to save, to forgive, to heal.

And so along with his gospel proclamation, there are signs and wonders validating the message of the good news that he's proclaiming. So Jesus healed people of their diseases, of their afflictions, and kind of like a bunch of people who have been locked up in their houses for months because of a pandemic, when they realize that there's somebody there that can finally help them, they come flooding out of their houses, a crowd has gathered around Jesus, and oh boy.

And here's what the text says in the Greek because the English is kind of weak. The English says, he had compassion for them. You see, when I hear a translation like that, I think that there's Jesus and he sees a bunch of people who are afflicted and he pats them on the head and says, hear, hear, I understand that things are difficult for you.

You know, that's not what the Greek says. The Greek says that his splogneeds, oh my. That's the Greek word, by the way. Splogneeds, oh my. It's a great word. His guts were wrenched for them. His guts are wrenched for these people because, and listen to the phrase, they were harassed.

They were helpless. They were like sheep without a shepherd. Is anything different today? Is anything different today? I don't know if you guys have noticed, but here in the United States, things have gone a little bit waywire.

Okay, just a little bit on the.

Whoa side.

Yeah, I don't know if you noticed, it's like the whole world has gone berserk, right? And there are people who are harassed,.

Who are helpless.

There are people who are harassing.

The helpless.

There are, it's just, it's craziness. And all of this is what? It's the consequence of sin. People have been sinned against and their solution is to sin against them.

More.

You know, it's quite the terrible solution. I forget who said it. I forget who said it. Maybe it was Gandhi. I don't know. But if we go with the eye for an eye mentality, pretty soon the whole world will be blind.

And who's going to save us? Who's going to help us in this situation where the world has gone crazy? I don't know if you've noticed, the politicians all seem to be quite inept in this category. It doesn't matter which party,.

Right or left,.

Up or down, it just doesn't seem to work. Nothing seems to be going on that's right here. And so Jesus, he sees the same consequences of sins. People under the boot of the Roman Empire, those who are harassed and helpless against the devil and his schemes, the dominion of darkness.

Sinners sinning against each other and sinning back in return. Eye for an eye. Crowds harassing and hating each other. People being like sheep without a shepherd. And so Jesus, his guts are wrenched. And what's his solution?

Did Jesus raise an army? Did he start a, how should I say it? Because in Seattle, they started this thing, the Capitol Hill something, a Chaz zone. Did he start a Roman Empire free zone in Galilee? No, he didn't do that either.

You know what he did? He gave us the solution we weren't looking for. The solution that actually addresses the real problem. Here's what he says.

He says,.

The harvest is plentiful. The laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. You see, the problem here is that people need to hear the gospel.

That's the problem. It is that sinners sin against sinners because they're sinners. This is sin compounding sin and the whole world is just getting uglier by the minute. What's the solution to this? Well, the only solution to sin is the good news.

And in order for there to be good news, somebody's got to go out and proclaim the good news. So you need laborers who are going to go out into the harvest field and proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins to call sinners to repentance and to receive a full pardon by grace through faith as a gift from God for the sake of Christ.

This is the only solution to the problem that we have. And I would note here, I don't know if you've been paying attention to how things are going in the church at large, but it seems like the Protestant churches, oh, about a hundred years ago, began to lose confidence in the Word of God.

They began to lose confidence in the Word of God and as a result of it, they stopped preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus' name. And what has happened is that, well, the gospel is no longer considered to be even an option of solutions to problems that we face.

In fact, I find it fascinating that Beth Moore, while the riots were.

At their hottest,.

When people were going out there to show how woke they were, she, on social media, told Christians, do not, if you go out to join the protest, do not preach the gospel to those people who are protesting.

Say what?

You see, Jesus,.

In the midst of sin, in the midst of those harassed by the devil, in the midst of those who are afflicted with all the consequences of sin,. His solution was, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers.

I don't know if you've noticed, but the harvest seems to be rotting in the field right now. That's the problem. So the solution we need is,.

What?

The gospel. And in order for the gospel.

To prevail, you need people.

Who are going to preach it.

So Jesus,.

In the midst of all this, he picks 12 guys, 12. That's his personal, if you would,.

Contribution.

To solving the problem. And he names them. We know who the names of these people are. Peter and Andrew, James and John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, Thaddeus, Simon,. And I love this one, a fellow who happened to be a zealot.

Zealot, you could say a terrorist. Some guy who's a repentant terrorist is also included in the midst. And then, of course, Judas who betrayed Jesus. But Jesus' solution is to send out laborers into the harvest field to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness.

Of sins.

And that's what we need.

Because,.

What does Scripture say? The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ. See, that's the solution that nobody is looking for, which also happens to be the only solution.

It's to lay down your arms and confess.

That you are guilty,.

That you are a belligerent in the sin wars that have been waged against God and against neighbor that are going on even as we speak.

You see,.

People need to hear this good news that while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. And if you don't think you're part of that group, then you don't need Jesus. It's real simple.

Jesus didn't die for good people. He didn't die for people who were trying hard, who just needed.

A little bit of a push.

So that they can finally be good. He didn't die for the eagle scouts who've never sinned. Jesus only died for the ungodly. And that's me. And that's you.

You see,.

One will scarcely die, Paul writes, for a righteous person. Maybe perhaps for a good person, one would even dare to die. But here's the best part. God demonstrates his love. You'll note that God isn't like those lousy lovers out there that some people have chosen for themselves as partners.

They're not even husbands or anything like that. These are fellows who say, Oh, honey, I love you.

And they're really good.

At sending flowers.

They're really good.

At writing cards. But when the time comes.

To actually show that they have love,.

Oh, these guys are too busy watching Netflix and drinking on the couch. They're worthless, right?

You see, Jesus isn't.

Anything like that. God isn't anything like that either. You see, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood.

And justified means to be declared righteous by the blood of Christ. How much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God? You see, ultimately at the end of all of this, I mean, could you imagine if Jesus shows up on Thursday of next week?

Just think about it for a second. Thursday of next week, Jesus decides it's done. He's showing up. That's the day of judgment. He just so happens to show up in the middle of a combat battle between Antifa and Trump and all the forces that are out there rioting and all this kind of stuff.

When Jesus comes back to you, what do you think's going to happen in the midst of all of that? Because when Jesus shows up, Jesus is going to say that's it, we're done. The day of grace is over. And he's going to take people on the right and take people on the left, people who are fighting for, I don't know what they're fighting for now at this point, and he's going to throw them on the hell.

And the reality is all of us deserve that. And that's the wrath of God. You want justice. Oh, I can tell you about justice. You want justice from God.

Oh, yeah.

Don't worry, he'll give it. But we'll start with you. And if the thing you want from God is justice, then you will face God's wrath. Because if you want justice, then an eternity of hell, of God's wrath awaits you.

So go ahead, start talking to me about justice. But see, God doesn't want to give you justice. He wants to pardon you. He wants to forgive you. And so he has demonstrated his great compassion, his great love, his great mercy for you by sending his own son in human flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, to bleed and to die and to face and suffer the wrath of God in your place.

So you, who is as guilty as sin, as ungodly as they get, can be pardoned. And rather than get justice, get mercy and grace. And I'll be blunt. Scripture says that we don't love... The reason we love God is not because of us, but we love him because he first loved us.

And that kind of love sobers you up. That kind of love makes you realize what you have been fighting against.

Doesn't make any sense.

But isn't that what we're all doing? We're all fighting against it. Am I any more evil than any unjust police officer or any looter or murderer out there? No, and neither are you. You see, if while we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, how much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life?

More than that, we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received.

Reconciliation.

You see, reconciliation with each other begins first with our reconciliation with our Creator. Because we sin first against God, and then we sin against each other. Every time we sin against each other, we are also sinning against God.

So note, reconciliation begins at the source, and God himself is the one who reconciles us. Not because of anything worthy in us. No, we were enemies. We were still gone as gone gets. And yet, God seeks mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

And so, he provides it in Christ. So brothers and sisters, in the midst of all the chaos, the consequences of sin, the craziness that is going on around us, note then that the solution that Jesus gave for the craziness that he saw was the good news.

So let us pray to the Lord of the Harvest that he sends workers, laborers, out into the harvest field yet again to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ. So that sinners like you and me, around the world, can hear of the great news, the good news of the kingdom, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them so that we can be forgiven, pardoned, and have hope of eternal life in a world without end, in a world without sin, in a world without police brutality and injustice, in a world without racial tensions and hatred and bigotry, in a world where there is the perfect love for God and love for neighbor.

And all of that, because faith comes by hearing, and the hearing by the word of Christ, is the solution to the problem that we have. It's the one we were not expecting, but it is the only solution. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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