Twentieth Sunday After Trinity Service

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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I'm so glad to see you again. Yeah. Wyatt isn't your hair the other way.

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He's like, hey. Like, wait, wait, is that Jeff? So funny.

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Hi, kids. How you guys doing? Good. So good to see you.

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Good morning. I understand you guys are visiting us. That was you?

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That was me. Yeah, I was proud of you. I was a bit nervous, yeah. Are you okay?

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I'm bruised, but I'm alive. Yesterday.

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Yeah. They surrounded me. So there was like an inch of mud on the way.

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And I popped up out of the B field. I was going about seven -ish miles an hour every turn left.

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And I had that hard turn over. And literally, it was just like, that's it.

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I'm glad you're okay. Yes, very glad you're okay. I'm more emotionally rattled than I am physically.

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But I'm definitely feeling it right now. Yeah, my neck's locked up. It's locked up on that side.

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So where are you? I'm in a certain place.

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I'm in a certain place. Okay. Okay. Okay.

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Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

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Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

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Okay. Okay. I would like to welcome y 'all to Kong's Vineyard Lutheran Church. Today is the 20th Sunday after Trinity.

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And we will be following the order of divine service, setting three. And the psalm tone today for the intro will be psalm tone

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B, as in Bawoni. If you know the reference, it's a good one. Psalm tone

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B. Opening hymn is 568. If you are physically present here at Kongsvinger and able to rise for the opening hymn, please do so.

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Thank you for joining us for the opening hymn. In the name of the

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Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Beloved in the Lord, let us draw near with a true heart, and confess our sins unto

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God our Father, beseeching him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to grant us forgiveness.

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Our help is in the name of the Lord. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the

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Lord. And heal for days the iniquity of my sin. For the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of your beloved

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Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor sinful being.

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Upon this your confession, I by virtue of my office as a called and ordained servant of the Word, I announce the grace of God unto all of you.

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And instead, and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins.

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In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Psalm tone

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B today. The Lord is righteous in all that he has done to us, for we have not obeyed his commandments.

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Glorify your name, O Lord, and deal with us according to your great mercy.

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Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. In the city of our

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God is his holy mountain. We have thought on your steadfast love,

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O God, in the midst of your temple.

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As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.

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Your right hand is filled with righteousness. Let Mount Zion be glad.

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Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments.

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Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the

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Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.

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Amen. The Lord is righteous in all he has done to us, for we have not obeyed his commandments.

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Glorify your name, O Lord, and deal with us according to your great mercy.

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Glory be to God on high.

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The Lord be with you. Let us pray.

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O Lord, grant to your faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all of their sins and serve you with a quiet mind.

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Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one

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God, now and forever. You may be seated.

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The Old Testament reading for the 20th Sunday after Trinity is taken from the prophet Isaiah chapter 55.

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Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come, buy and eat.

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Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

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Listen diligently to me. Eat what is good. Delight yourselves in rich food.

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Incline your ear and come to me, here so that your soul may live. And I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

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Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader, a commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you because of the

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Lord your God and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the

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Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way.

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Let the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him and to our

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God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways, declares the

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Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

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This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's speak the gradual together.

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The eyes of all look to you. And you give them their food in due season.

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You open your hand. You satisfy the desire of every living thing. The epistle is taken from Ephesians chapter 5.

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Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.

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Therefore, do not be foolish. Understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the

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Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the

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Lord with all of your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. This is the word of the

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Lord. Thanks be to God. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Matthew, the 22nd chapter. Again, Jesus spoke to them in parables saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.

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Again, he sent other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see I've prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready.

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Come to the wedding feast. But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and then killed them.

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The king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. And they said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy.

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You go, therefore, to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.

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And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.

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So the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw that there was a man who had no wedding garment.

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And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? He was speechless.

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And the king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot, cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called, but few are chosen.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. Praise be to thee,

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O Christ. We confess our faith together in the words of the

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Nicene Creed. I believe in one

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God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one

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Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds,

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God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the

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Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the

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Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.

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He suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again, according to the

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Scriptures, and ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, and He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.

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And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the

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Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.

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And I believe in one holy, Christian and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

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Amen. You may be seated. In the name of Jesus.

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Amen. What's with this? We've all heard of something called a wardrobe malfunction, but a wardrobe faux pas that lands you in hell?

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I mean, come on. Don't you think this king is a little too uptight? I mean, the guy shows up, and he's not one to respect kings.

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He's one of these people who thinks that, well, everybody should be on a level playing field, and so I'm just going to show up to this wedding that I've been graciously invited to, and I'm going to refuse to put on the clothes provided for me, because my khaki shorts, black t -shirt, and Birkenstock sandals are plenty, and if this is not well enough for the king, then who cares?

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I mean, after all, this is how the kingdom of God should work, isn't it? And the king finds him and throws him into hell.

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What is that all about? Well, well, my three rules for sound biblical exegesis are context, context, and context, and I would note that our gospel text today,

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Matthew chapter 22, verses 1 through 14, the immediate context before that actually helps us out a little bit.

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We find that in the optional text for today, yes, there's an optional text, and so I decided

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I might as well bring the optional text into bear today. Why not, right? The optional text helps us a little bit understand what the theme is.

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Why is it such a big deal that this guy shows up not wearing the wedding garments? Well, Matthew chapter 21, 21, this is our alternate gospel text for today,

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Jesus tells a parable, and boy, is it a zinger. Here's what he says. Here another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country.

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Every single Jew who's been to synagogue knows what this is referencing because this is referencing an image that God makes regarding his people

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Israel in Israel in the prophet Isaiah, and he likens Israel to a vineyard.

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So they're all gonna be listening to this going, ah, Jesus is talking about us. Right, yeah, he is, very good.

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I'm glad you paid attention to your Bible in the synagogue. So when the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit, and the tenants took his servants, beat one, killed another, stoned another.

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Does that sound eerily like the prophets of the Old Testament? That's kind of the point, right? So again, he sent other prophets, more than the first, and they did the same to him.

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And finally, he sent his son to them saying, they will respect my son. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, and I'm gonna have to insert something into the text here, my apologies.

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I know eisegesis is not a good way to do this, but I'm gonna insert something into the text. You have to insert these utterances.

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Mwahahahaha. It kind of gets at the intent here. Mwahahahaha.

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This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance. See, I didn't do any violence to the text.

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I think it just added a little bit of color and nuance, right? So they took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

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So, when therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? Jesus ends his parable with a question.

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And one has to wonder, you know, because the crowd here, we get their response. If there weren't some of the crowd sitting there going, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, this sounds a little too close to home, right?

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They said, well, he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.

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And then Jesus ends with this. Have you never read in the scriptures, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

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This was the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

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I wonder what stone that would be. That's Jesus. And so the point is here, this, is that in all places, the land of Israel, a people who are supposed to be of the book, of the actual revealed word of God there in the

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Torah and the prophets, that what have they done? They've rejected the very one the law and the prophets was pointing to, the stone that the builders has rejected.

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Well, reject him or not, God's made him the cornerstone, so you're just gonna have to get over it.

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And this was the Lord's doing. It's marvelous in our sight. So here's the idea, is that this is the theme, if you would, for these two parables.

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So Jesus then says this, therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and it will be given to a people who are producing its fruits.

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And the one who falls on the stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. So the question is, is that what are you doing with that stone?

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What are you doing with, you know, Jesus? That's really the issue, even in our gospel text, which is kind of the twin, if you would, in theme up to this parable that we just read.

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Now, you all know I just got back from spending three weeks in Europe. We went on a nine -day tour of Germany and the

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Reformation sites, and I'm here to report, not happily, here to report the state of confessional

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Lutheranism in Western Europe is in tatters. The very churches that we went to visit, the historical places where Luther preached, where Bach wrote his cantatas, where important things took place in the

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Reformation, and the God having mercy on humanity and having the gospel come back to light, having been papered over by the

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Rome and the papists, well, I'm here to tell you that those places are not places that you can hear the gospel, not if you are a

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German and you attend the congregation that meets there at the normal time. In fact, one of the things that was very clear to me and the state of confessional

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Lutheranism in Germany is that not only is it in tatters, it's a tiny, tiny group of people.

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One of our days, we spent in Leipzig. We spent that in Leipzig, and the day began at a seminary, confessional

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Lutheran seminary in Leipzig. Ah, confessional Lutheran seminary. This is gonna be impressive.

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How many students do you have? One. You have one? Yeah, yeah, we have one.

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And then we heard the stories of what happened to the church during the time of the

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Eastern Bloc occupation of East Germany and how there's just a fledgling, small group of congregations all being held together, and their resources are thin.

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They're tiny. In fact, it's kind of a mess, but if we were to travel to, in fact, while we were in Leipzig, we met

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Pastor Andreas of this confessional Lutheran church body and some of his friends, associates, if you would, and one of the fellows was a teacher at the seminary, and he went with us while we did a little tour of Leipzig.

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And we went to the church where Bach wrote his cantatas, right?

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The musical hymnity behind the Lutheran Reformation, the very church where Bach's body is buried.

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And the seminary guy said to me, yeah, I went to a church service here a few weeks ago.

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Want to know what they said? The female pastor from the pulpit said that no

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Christian should own a vehicle, should own a car. The only thing that Christians should be allowed to own is a bicycle, because we have to be responsible to keep our carbon footprint small.

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That doesn't sound like the gospel to me. Doesn't even sound biblical. It sounds completely man -made and just made -up nonsense.

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Gobbledygook, right? What went wrong?

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How did it go this way? And I would note something here. Right now, today, you're going to hear the gospel, but there's no guarantee that in the future generations at Kungsminger Lutheran Church that the gospel will be preached here.

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It really depends on what you guys are willing to listen to. And I mean that.

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So you want to know what went wrong? We'll just go back in time a little bit. After the time of Lutheran orthodoxy, there were two big, if you would, enemies of Christianity that arose.

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And I'm sorry to say it this way, but Lutheran pietism was one of them. And the other one was the so -called

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Age of Enlightenment. Right? The Age of Enlightenment is that it took human reason and exalted it to the highest apex and said that human reason is going to decide for itself what's true and what is false.

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What a bunch of baloney. Human reason, after sin has come into the world, is broken and fallen and capricious.

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And this is no standard that the church should be listening to. So what happened is this is during the

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Age of Enlightenment. And by the way, the devil has a really good marketing department.

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I mean that. Okay? Rather than calling it the Age of Stupidity, which is what it was, the

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Age of Foolishness, we're going to call it the Age of Enlightenment. Oh, wow, wow. I feel enlightened, right?

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It's like today, in those states where you're allowed to commit suicide with the help of a doctor.

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Okay, they don't call those death clinics. You know what they call them in some places? Life clinics.

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You're going to a life clinic. Oh, yeah, I'm going to a life clinic. Well, what's going to happen there? I'm going to commit suicide. I'm going to unalive myself with medical assistance.

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Well, wouldn't it be better to call it a death clinic? Well, that's so negative, don't you think? Right? It's just nuts, the world we live in.

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Calling evil good, up, down, black, white. Right? Calling men women.

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It's just crazy when you think about it. So the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Enlightenment says, you know, we now are in the

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Age of Enlightenment. And I know the Bible says that Jesus was born of the

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Virgin Mary, but we know better. We know better. We know that virgins don't give birth, so this has to be some kind of a poetic metaphor of some kind or another.

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And we know that corpses don't rise from the dead, so Jesus is still dead somewhere. Right? And so you just take your human reason, and anything that doesn't agree with it, you just sit there and go, well,

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I don't have to believe that. And here's the thing. When you do that, the thing you're attacking with your so -called reason is the actual word of God.

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And when you attack the word of God, you end up making it conform to your nonsense.

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You know what you end up losing in the process? Jesus, the gospel itself.

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You end up rejecting the cornerstone. That's how that works.

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Really, you believe in a Jesus that wasn't born of the Virgin Mary, that didn't rise from the dead.

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What kind of worthless savior is that? Right? Well, I mean, after all, we live in the age of enlightenment.

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We have human reason now. We don't have to believe these things. Uh -huh. You start to see how this works.

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And so Jesus here is talking about rejecting him, rejecting his word.

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And so we gotta understand this. That so many of us, because of our sinful nature, there are things that we believe and hold on to that are exactly contrary to what the scripture says.

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I asked this yesterday in the men's and women's Bible study. So what do you do with those biblical texts you don't agree with?

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I don't like the fact that it says that the world was created in six days. I mean, come on. You don't want me to look stupid with my evolutionary friends, do you?

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Yes. Right? You're starting to get the point. What do you do with those texts that you don't agree with?

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You see, the problem isn't the biblical text. The problem is you. And the problem is that we, like stupid sheep, believe every plausible -sounding argument put out there and say, well, that's gotta be truth.

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And we, as Christians, we gotta be devoted to the truth. So we're gonna reject what the Bible says and we're gonna embrace this other thing.

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It's the stupidest thing you could possibly do and you lose Jesus in the process. And if you lose Jesus, you lose the forgiveness of sins, you lose salvation, you lose the whole kit and caboodle.

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There is no salvation apart from Christ. And by the way, did you know that Jesus was a six -day creationist?

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Let that one sit in your hat for a while and stew, right? So all that being said, we now have the understanding of what's going on in this parable.

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So the parable begins, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.

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God the Father giving a wedding feast for his son, God the Son, second person of the Trinity, starting to get the idea, who's the bride here, by the way, right?

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But this doesn't come up in the text. So he sent his servants to call those who were invited. Who were the people who

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God hung out with? Who were the people that God revealed himself to? Who were the ones that had the revelation through the prophets that there would even be a wedding feast?

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Long before Jesus even gave this parable. I know the A -listers, the Israelites. This includes the

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Jews. Those are the ones descended from the tribe of Judah. This includes all the other ones from Naphtali and Manasseh and all the other tribes, right?

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So he sends out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.

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Why? What's wrong here? There's free food. I just went a week without eating.

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And when I was able to eat again, it was the most wonderful experience I have gone through ever again.

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If you are just tired of eating, stop for a week, and start up again, it'll be the best thing that has ever happened to you.

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Just saying. There's food. There's really good food. They wouldn't come.

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So he sent other servants to remind them what's on the menu. He says, see, I've prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fat calves have been slaughtered.

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Everything is ready. We got Texas barbecue. There's gonna be wine. There's gonna be food.

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It's just gonna be great. Come on over, guys. It's all ready. But they paid no attention.

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Why? Because they had long ago abandoned God's word.

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The Jews of Jesus' day had embraced the heresy of the Pharisees. And no, I'm not trying to be poetic. The heresy of the

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Pharisees was that, well, God gave two Torahs on Mount Sinai, and we have to follow the oral tradition as well as this other written stuff.

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But when you follow the other thing, you lose the actual thing. That's the point that Jesus says.

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You make void the word of God by your traditions, by your man -made commandments.

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So they've lost it long ago. So they didn't pay attention. One went off his farm.

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Another do his business while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and then killed them. Now the king was angry.

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So he sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. The theological implications of this are huge because Jesus there is giving a very, very thinly veiled prophecy about what's going to happen in 70

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AD. And he's saying that the Roman legion was sent by him to destroy

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Jerusalem and tear down the temple. That's what he was saying here. But that is for another text.

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So then he said to his servants, listen, wedding feast is ready. Those invited were not worthy.

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Why were they not worthy? Because they rejected the cornerstone, right? Go therefore to the main roads.

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Invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. Now at this point, the text doesn't say this, but I like to imagine, work with me at this point, that the servants had to sit there and go, everybody?

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Let's talk about this here for a second, master. I mean, if you have us invite everybody, what about the guy who's sleeping in his own vomit there on the sidewalk because he was drunk the night before?

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Should we invite him? Yeah, invite him. Okay. What about when we get to that neighborhood?

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You know, that really sketchy sus neighborhood where weird things happen and it's really skibbity? And you know, there's like drug users and stuff?

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Yeah, invite them. Okay. What about the hookers on the corner?

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Yeah, invite them. Okay, well, we're just going to invite everybody.

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This will be a fun party, don't you think? All right. People that are going to be showing up are going to be really interesting.

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Should we invite P. Diddy? Yeah, invite him too, see what happens. Okay. I'm saying, did

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Christ not bleed and die for his sins as well? Right, right. So the servants went out into the roads and they gathered all whom they found.

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The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the down and the out, the drunks, the hookers, the tax collectors.

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They found one attorney. And so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

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But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw that it was a man who had no wedding garment.

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Now, what do you think that is? You remember in Ephesians 5, husbands love your wives as Christ has loved the church and gave himself for her, right?

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And washes away all of her sin and iniquity and presents her to himself in splendor.

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That's another cross -reference here. You see, wedding garments back in the days, especially if it was put on by a king, now all these people are showing up in their civvy skivvies and basically, you know, whatever they're dressed in, but nobody has the garments necessary to show up to a royal wedding feast.

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So the king decided he would enlist the help of Armani, right?

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And he had made for everybody on the spot, and we will tailor it up so it fits you perfectly, beautiful, splendid, glorious wedding garments, which is a reference to the imputed righteousness of Christ.

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Because you'll note that not a single one of us can dare show up before God in our own clothes and somehow think that we will not provoke him to anger because our clothes are soiled.

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And they smell. And they are falling apart. And they are tattered.

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Why? Because of your sin. Because of my sin.

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So we, coming to faith in Christ, are given exactly what we need to be able to be in attendance.

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Paul, in the book of Colossians, says that God has qualified you. He has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints.

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You can't qualify yourself. I can't qualify myself. Therefore, he has to qualify us, and that includes giving us the very garments that we need so that we don't upset

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God the Father. And so this fellow shows up, and here's how

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I like to think of it. He shows up, having gone to those churches that say, listen,

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God loves you just the way you are, and he celebrates your pronouns.

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Right? Those churches are lying to these people.

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Well, God is love. Love is God. You are aware that Christ died for our sins?

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Well, that's so negative. Hmm. I see. I like to think that this guy is like attended a church just like that.

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So he is poorly misinformed that he does not need to repent.

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He does not need to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He does not need to receive his salvation at all.

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He ends up, well, the wedding garment that this fellow rejected happens to be

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Christ. And so he shows up, and God the Father is provoked.

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Again, for my Greek students, look this up. Look at some of the other lexicons here. The word here for friend is not exactly the friendliest word to use for friend.

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Better translated is buddy. Hey, buddy, how'd you get in here without a wedding garment?

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How did you get into the wedding feast of the Lamb without wearing Jesus? And he was speechless.

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His answer is, he's got nothing. Well, my pastor has told me

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I can be here. My pastor has told me I didn't have to wear Jesus. I didn't know I needed him. Uh -huh.

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So the king said to the attendants, find him hand and foot, cast him into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called.

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And it says, few are chosen. Well, how are they chosen? Everybody who's wearing Jesus is chosen.

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You're not wearing Christ? Hasta la vista. And no, you won't be back.

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That's the point here. And we end by saying this is the gospel of the

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Lord? No, this is the law. Think about it. So where do we go for the gospel?

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Because I'm gonna need it after that because thinking on these things, I can think of all the different ways in which

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I have tried to push God's word aside to not believe that those texts apply to me or that I should embrace those things because I'm so intelligent and nonsense like that, right?

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Well, the gospel of today is provided for us by the prophet Isaiah. Here's what it says in our

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Old Testament text. Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. He who has no money, come buy and eat.

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Have you ever been in a situation where you were with friends and you were someplace where everybody was going to buy something to eat and you looked into your wallet and found, uh -oh,

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I haven't got enough to pay for anything, right? I've been in that situation and it stinks.

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It's an awful feeling. And so what do you do in a situation like that? It's really simple.

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You say, oh, I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry. I'll eat when

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I get home. I'm good right now. I had a big lunch. You know, things like this, right? You just start coming up with, you don't wanna say, mom didn't give me any lunch money or I don't have enough money.

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I can't afford this. You don't wanna say that. So you just say, I'll just wait till later. Wait till later, okay? That being the case, it's an awkward, terrible feeling, right?

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We all know what this feels like. But here's the thing. When it comes to salvation and all the promises of the new earth and the forgiveness of our sins and everything that goes with this and what is guaranteed to us in the world to come, you couldn't purchase it if you tried.

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You never will have enough money. That being the case, know your poverty and God doesn't give a lick about it.

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He says, come everyone who thirsts. Are you thirsty? Come to the waters. You know, baptism, right?

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Come and buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk. Do you know how expensive wine and milk are?

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Yeah. You come buy wine and milk without money, without price.

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Well, I'll just order the thing that's on the least expensive thing on the menu. Put that aside.

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Let me show you this part of the menu here. You ever had a $700 bottle of wine? Let's get you one of these.

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Here you go. But I can't afford that. I know. I can afford it for you, Jesus says.

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See, that's the thing. When you lose Jesus, you lose all of that generosity because Jesus is that generous.

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He died so that you can be forgiven. Not just of a little bit, but the whole lot.

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And He, it is His desire out of His love for you to give you the riches of heaven because of how great

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He is. Don't sit there and say, I can't afford a $700 bottle of wine. Christ is buying it for you.

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That's what's gonna be on your table at the wedding feast of the Lamb. And He paid the whole price for it.

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So why do you then spend your money for that which is not bread?

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And do labor for that which does not satisfy? Now, I want you to think this out here with me for a second.

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The prophet Isaiah is starting to wobble between two realities, a spiritual reality and a worldly reality.

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But this plays very well into something we know. We've all heard the biblical text.

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Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

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So the word of God is compared to daily bread.

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The word of God is compared to bread. I need food to survive to the next day.

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Unless you've stored up a little extra like I have, then you can go like a week without eating, but that's a whole other story. All of that being said,

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God gives us our food, but the thing is is that that's to point us to the real reality is that we all need to be eating the meal that God has called us to eat, and that is

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His word. And so watch the theme here. So why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?

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Why do you labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me.

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God says, well, how am I supposed to do that? I gave you a book,

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God says. Start there and don't deviate from it. Listen diligently to me.

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Eat what is good, i .e. His word. Delight yourselves in rich food, you know, the

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Bible. Now, another metaphor at this point. Do y 'all remember when you were that high, okay?

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Were your food preferences pretty good at that time? When I was about this high,

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I thought that the apex of human cuisine was Kraft macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, okay?

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You couldn't do any better than that. What else is there, right?

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But my mom said, nope, you're gonna have to have lima beans. What? These taste like dead bugs mixed with chalk.

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Nope, you have to have lima beans, and broccoli too, and cauliflower, and salad.

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Okay, and you know what? I remember quite a few times there would be like a Texas standoff at our dinner table.

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I'd say, I'm not gonna eat that. Mom says, you're not getting up until you do. Let's see who can outlast.

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And 20, 30 minutes goes by. The tears start going. I wanna leave.

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No, well, just eat your best. I don't wanna eat this. Right? I want you to think about this.

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Human beings are the same way when it comes to the word of God. I don't wanna believe that God created the world in six days.

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Don't make me believe that. I don't wanna believe that women can't be pastors. That's terrible.

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Starting to get it? Okay, eat your veggies. I don't want to. Shut your pie hole and start eating.

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This is good for you. Right? Because it's true. That's the point being made here.

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Delight yourself in the rich food of Scripture. But if I do that, my friends will think

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I'm an idiot. They crucified Christ. Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow

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Him for heaven's sake. Right? Then he goes on.

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Incline your ear. Come to me. Be here so that your soul may live.

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I think you're starting to get it. God says, I will make with you an everlasting covenant.

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You know, that eternal covenant. The new covenant. The covenant where God promises to do what? He remembers to forget all of your sins.

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That's the covenant that is being invoked here. Goes on to say, seek the

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Lord while He may be found. Because God can still be found today. When I woke up this morning,

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Christ hadn't returned in glory to judge the living and the dead. Today is still the day of salvation.

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Today is still the day of God's mercy. Christ can still be found. Where? Well, He said, where two or more are gathered in His name, there

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He is present. We are gathered here in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit to hear

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His word. To feast on His body and blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins. He is here present for us today.

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So seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. And then let the wicked forsake

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His way. Yes, those who are thieves need to stop stealing. Those who are drug users need to get clean.

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Those who are drunk need to get sober. Those who are stealing need to get a real job.

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Right? For sure. But then it goes on and says, and let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts.

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Including all those nonsensical false doctrines running around in your head that contradict the word of God.

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Forsake them altogether. Let them then return to Yahweh so that He might have compassion on them.

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And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts.

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Neither are my ways your ways, declares Yahweh, so much for the age of enlightenment. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

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And there is no higher thought given by God for us to ponder and to believe and to hang on to with everything that we have than this, that Christ laid down His life and died for the ungodly, including me and including you.

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Indeed, His ways are much higher than our ways. Thanks be to God. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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We rise for the operatory. Let us pray for the whole

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Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs. Holy One of Israel, righteous in all of your works towards us, your name be glorified.

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Deal with us not according to our sins, but according to your great compassion. Lord, in your mercy.

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Hear our prayer. Father, send forth your invitation to the marriage feast of your Son, Jesus Christ, overcome the apathy of this world and draw many from its ways and hedges into your

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Church. Lord, in your mercy. Hear our prayer. Your will be done, O Lord. Bless our homes that generation after generation may walk not as unwise, but as wise.

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And so redeem these evil days until your Son's return. In this foolish world, fill us with your

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Spirit that we would give you thanks and submit to all authorities out of reverence for Christ.

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Lord, in your mercy. Hear our prayer. Lord, give us bread that satisfies and everything needful, not for our sakes, but graciously on account of Christ.

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Provide, we pray, for every need of body and soul, especially today to remember those who are in great need regarding their bodily needs who are affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

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We especially pray for our brothers and sisters in Greenville, Tennessee. And we also lift up before you now,

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Lord, Evan and Naya, Kathy, Georgette, Landon, John, Catherine, Cricket, Elizabeth, Carol, Susan, Sheila, Jana, and Luca.

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We pray for Luis, Cheryl, John, Brent, Pat, Kim, Patricia, David, Roger, Robin, and Bonnie.

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We pray for Rodney, Matt, Angela, Susan, Marty, Marilyn, Mara, Nia, Jonathan, Jeff, Wendy, Luis, Deborah, Gloria, and Rachel.

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We also lift before you, Jonathan, Heather, and Doug, and Gilman. And we pray for our persecuted

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Christians and brothers and sisters in the Middle Eastern countries, especially those in Tehran.

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And we also lift up for those who are deceived by the devil in his maze of errors.

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We lay before you, Zalen, Nelson, Dania, Jessica, Robbie, Renee, Christine, Terry, JP, Corey, Ryan, Jess, Gabriel, Karen, and Tara.

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Lord, in your mercy. Hear our prayer. Heavenly Father, you have wed your son to the church and called all to share in his holy and eternal supper.

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Bring us in many more through the waters of holy baptism that we may be found worthy to taste his gracious feast already in this life.

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Lord, in your mercy. Hear our prayer. Oh, Lord, you receive the praise of harp and psaltery in the temple of old.

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Bless the efforts of sacred musicians today to lead the praises of the ascended Lord among us to the edification of your church.

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Lord, in your mercy. Hear our prayer. Spare us from all temptations, Lord, and deliver us from all evil.

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In true repentance, lead us to forsake our wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts and return to you for abundant pardon, seeking you while you may be found that when

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Christ returns in his glory, we may not be cast into the outer darkness, but welcomed into his everlasting wedding hall by grace, the same

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Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.