You Will Be Perfect

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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Matthew, chapter 5, verses 38 through 48. Jesus said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

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But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your

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Father who is in heaven. For He makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good. He sends rain on the just and the unjust.

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For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

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And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

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You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

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In the name of Jesus. Alright, to help us out a little bit here, I'm going to reach into a movie illustration.

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One of my favorite movies of all time is that wonderful classic, The Princess Bride. Great movie.

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Inconceivable, is it not? But, if you remember, there is a character in The Princess Bride, and his name is

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Inigo Montoya. Inigo Montoya is a Spaniard who, when he was just a little lad, there was a six -fingered evil man who killed his father over a sword.

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And so Inigo Montoya, now as an adult, has made it his mission in life to find the six -fingered man and to kill him to exact justice.

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Familiar with the story? And if you remember, Inigo Montoya, in rehearsing what he would do when he finally met the six -fingered man, he said,

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I will say to him, Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father.

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Prepare to die. Yeah, that's a great line, great line. And so as the story unfolds, that moment actually happens.

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There it is. Inigo Montoya confronts the six -fingered man.

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Justice is about to be served. And he says to him, Hello, my name is

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Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. And what does the six -fingered man do?

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Runs away! What a terrible moment. I mean, this is not how this is supposed to work. Now, to help us out a little bit here,

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I want you to imagine that, well, God's holy law is like Inigo Montoya.

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He is out there hunting down the one who has transgressed

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God's holy law. But to make things really awkward, that's you.

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You are the six -fingered man, or depending, you are the six -fingered woman. And so the law is hunting you down and is rehearsing these lines.

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Hello, I am the law of God. You have transgressed His holy law. Prepare to die. Because after all, the wages of sin is death.

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Now, put that way, we don't like Inigo Montoya or God's law so well, do we?

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Well, this is going to help us a little bit here. Remember Jesus' words at the tail end of our gospel today.

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You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly

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Father is perfect. Is this a promise or is it a threat?

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Well, it kind of depends, doesn't it? So we're going to take a look at this, and we're going to first go through this understanding something very important about God's law.

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And that is that God's law always accuses. It always accuses us because we, daily, fall short.

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We do not love God with our whole heart. And we do not truly love our neighbors as ourselves.

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And as a result of it, God's holy law is always accusing and ready to strike and to kill.

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But, as we will see, that is not the only thing

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God's law does. It doesn't only accuse. It always accuses, but not only.

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We'll talk about that. So, let's return to our gospel text. Prepare to die.

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Jesus said, and you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This comes right out of the

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Mosaic Covenant. It's important to note something here. That when it comes to justice, God's law forbids escalation of hostilities.

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Think about that for a second. Jesus says, I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.

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A little bit of a note here. Jesus does not mean here that if you are walking down the street and somebody mugs you, or if you're a woman and they want to rape you, that you just go ahead and let it go on without a fight.

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That's not what he's talking about here. There are other passages that help us in this case. This is not necessarily talking about lawlessness or that Christians somehow have no right to defend themselves.

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That's not what he's saying. I have to say that so that there's no confusion. But I want you to hear what he says.

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Do not resist the one who is evil. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

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And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

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And we read this and we are thinking, come on, seriously, Jesus? This guy over here wants to sue the pants off me and you want me to give him my shirt too?

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If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.

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Now, the context in which Jesus is saying this, this becomes a little bit galling. If you know your

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Judean first century history, then you know that Israel at this time is occupied by the

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Roman Empire. And the Roman soldiers in the Roman Empire have a law, a rule. And here's how the law goes.

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If you are out there working your field, doing what you do as a farmer day in or day out or happen to be walking down the road, when a garrison of Roman soldiers comes by, a

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Roman soldier can literally pick you out and say, hey, you, come over here. What?

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I want you to carry my gear. You are obligated by law to carry that gear for that Roman soldier for one mile.

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If you think about it, if you walk at an average pace, that's 15 minutes one way, 15 minutes back, half hour of your time.

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Jesus says when those hated Roman soldiers ask you to walk one mile with them, when you get to the mile marker, you say, you know,

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I've got nothing better to do. Why don't I go another mile with you? What?

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With the Romans? Serious? That's what he's getting at. Give to the one who begs from you.

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Do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. Notice all of this presupposes a supreme love for your neighbor.

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You have heard that it says you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. And I say, who said that?

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That sounds like Islam. You're not going to find that in the Old Testament. The Old Testament doesn't say that.

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So my question is, who's talking this way? But Jesus says to you, are you ready? Love your enemies.

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Pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.

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And here's the reason why. Pay attention to the lesson that God is teaching you from the rain itself and from the sun.

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God makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good.

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Could you imagine if God only caused sunlight to fall where there were good people? What a dark planet we'd have.

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Or if he only caused rain to fall where the crops of those who are Christians were growing.

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I think we'd be experiencing global food shortages rather quickly, and the world itself would quickly begin to look like the

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Sahara Desert. Would it not? But see, this is to show us of God's mercy and his love, even for his enemies.

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He causes the rain to fall on the good, and he sends the rain on the just and the unjust. And if you love those who love you, what reward will you have?

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Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Ouch, that hurts. We all know how evil they are.

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And if you greet only your brothers, what more do you have? What more are you doing than others? Do not even the

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Gentiles do the same? You therefore... Let me retranslate this.

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The Greek is a little bit different. You will be perfect as your

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Heavenly Father is perfect. The is there is future.

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You will be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Combine this with last week's

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Gospel text, which was all law too. Now we have this train of thought.

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Oh, you've heard that it said, don't murder. But I say to you, if you hate, you've already murdered your brother in your heart.

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Do not commit adultery. But I say to you, if you've even looked with lust at another person, you've already committed adultery with that person.

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Combine all of this together, and now comes the death plunge. You shall be perfect as your

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Heavenly Father is perfect. And there's God's law. Literally saying,

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I am going to kill you. And what do you do at this point?

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It's accusing you. Do you, like the six -fingered man, pick up your skirt, turn around and run as quickly as you can away from the law?

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What do you do? This thing wants to kill you. Answer, stand your ground.

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Let it kill you. That's what it's supposed to do. God's holy law, after killing you, will lay your dead carcass at the feet of Jesus.

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And that's a good place to be. So there's the plunge, the death plunge.

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Be perfect. And you're not. I'm not. Anyone sitting there going, but I'm really close.

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Like, really close. On a scale of one to a hundred, I'm like a good 92, 93. I'm almost there.

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Now, when I was a legalist, I'll say it that way, the church that I attended, this was their central verse.

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Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. This is the one we had beaten into us Sunday after Sunday from the pulpit.

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Be perfect. And when you hear that, be perfect, be perfect, be perfect, be perfect, what do you do?

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Because there's God's holy law screaming at you, and you know you're not pulling it off. And I hate to say this, but I kind of fell for this.

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There was a group of people in the congregation who, for a long time actually, have come up with a way to make it appear as if they were pulling this off.

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And it wasn't that they actually kept the law, it's that they got under the hood and retooled the requirements.

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And so it became something like this. Well, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

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Well, I'm pulling it off because I've given up dancing. Really, you've given up dancing? Whoa, that's amazing.

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Oh, and I don't play cards anymore either. Whoa, you don't even play cards? And I stopped going to the movies.

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Anything above a G rating I never go to. Wow, you're so much like Jesus. Oh, and I don't smoke and I don't chew and I've given up scotch.

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Whew, that's quite the thing. Oh, and I burned all my secular music.

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Is that person actually closer to keeping the standard? Now granted, there are certain things we probably may not want to be filling our minds with.

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This is true. Certain things we don't want to be looking at. This is most certainly true.

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But am I closer to keeping the standard because I don't play cards,

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I don't drink scotch, I don't smoke, and I burned my Beatles White Album? By the way,

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I did that. It's just terrible. I can't believe I did that. I've been absolved of it. I did it when I was a teenager.

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Am I closer to being holy and perfect because I've done all this?

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No. And so what ends up happening is that where you only hear God's law and not the gospel, people are pushed against the wall and so they come up with their own standard by which they then can say,

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See, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. And you sit there and unfortunately when

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I was younger, I thought, wow, I've got to be more like that. I've got to do that too. And you know what?

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It doesn't work. That's not the standard because what's Jesus talking about? What's he describing? Is he describing somebody who's not a card player who doesn't dance?

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It may be that you just don't have time and you're a Norwegian. So that doesn't make you more like Jesus or is even close to perfect.

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Jesus is describing somebody who selflessly loves

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God and others. That's different altogether.

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You see, the scripture doesn't say they'll know we are Christians by our non -card playing.

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It doesn't say that. They'll know we're Christians by our love. But see, there it is again.

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I'm not doing this perfectly. So there's law. I'm going to kill you.

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You're dead. Let it kill you. You're right. Law, I haven't done this right.

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I don't do this right. And I'm pretty sure that tomorrow I'm not going to do it right either.

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In fact, when it came New Year's resolution time this year, I made the same resolution

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I made last year. And that is that I resolved that I wouldn't make a resolution. If this is what

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I've got to do in order to be saved, then I should have resolved that I'm going to be perfect. But how does one make oneself perfect?

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Can you do that? Let's try another approach to this then.

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So let the law kill you. That's what it's supposed to do. But let me give you some encouraging words.

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Remember the whole Bathsheba, Uriah the Hittite thing that happened with David?

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And he bedded her. He bedded Bathsheba, impregnated Bathsheba, then murdered her husband, and then married

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Bathsheba. Nobody knew except for God. And remember when Nathan the prophet confronts

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David with his sin? What does David do? Does he turn tail and run and blame somebody else and all this kind of stuff?

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No, actually he says, no, you're right. I have sinned against God.

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That's what he says. And what does Nathan the prophet say? Look it up in 1 Samuel 12. Nathan says,

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God has put away your sin. You will not die. Direct quote from Nathan the prophet.

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And this is because of Christ. Consider this now. Let me work back through this text just a little bit. Jesus said,

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You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.

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We do this. But see, Jesus kept this perfectly for us.

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He did not resist evil at all. In fact, when evil arrested him and put him on trial, he didn't even raise his voice in his own defense.

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And when evil punched him in the face and beat him and scourged him,

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Jesus perfectly turned his other cheek to make sure that they punched that one as well.

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And he gave them his clothes.

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Roman soldiers gambled them away while he was on the cross. You see, here in this text we see a picture of the one who kept

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God's law perfectly for us. And that's Christ.

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He was the one who didn't resist evil, but let evil have its way with him. And when he was forced to walk the distance up to Golgotha with his own cross, he would have gone the whole distance except for his legs gave out, his body gave out because of the beating that he suffered.

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And that beating that he suffered, that was for you. It was for me.

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You see, and the reason why is simple. Because Jesus never turns a deaf ear from the one who begs from him.

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And we in our sinful, miserable state have begged God to be merciful to us.

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And so he has not given out on loan his grace.

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He's given it to us freely as a gift, which means we never have to pay it back.

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You see, in God's law, we see not just its accusing finger, but we also begin to see the actual love and character of God for us.

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You see, that's what I mean when I say it always accuses, but it doesn't only accuse.

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And so for those of us who have heard the absolution, those of us who've been brought to penitent faith in Christ, who trust in Him for their salvation, not their own good works,

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God's law now takes on a different role. It reveals to us the will of God.

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It shows us His character and in a very real way gives us an eschatological promise.

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I would have you consider these words from our Old Testament text in Leviticus 19 starting at verse 9. When God says, when you reap the harvest of your land, talking to the children of Israel, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after the harvest.

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You shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor, for the sojourner.

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I am Yahweh, your God. Think about that.

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The first nation in human history to have a true welfare system that wasn't just a handout so that people can sit there in front of the television and do nothing, but that the poor would actually be cared for, is

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Israel. And in this you see God's love and mercy to take care of even the least among us.

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The most in need among us. And it's through this law that the

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Messiah Himself was able to come to us. Without this mercy of God in His own law, we wouldn't have a

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Savior. And you say, how so? Read the story of Ruth. Ruth was a

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Moabitess. She was a widow. And her and her mother -in -law Naomi, they lost their husbands while they were in Moab.

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And when they came back to Israel, they were absolutely poverty stricken. And Boaz, the son of Rahab the prostitute, by the way, do the genealogical work.

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The son of Rahab the prostitute, while he's out harvesting his field, there is

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Ruth, the Moabitess, the foreigner, the sojourner, the one who has absolutely nothing.

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But you see, she's the great -great -great - great -great -grandmother of Jesus.

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And while she's out in his field, God has mercy on her with this law.

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But not only that, Boaz himself has mercy on her. Seeing her gleaning, he says to his workers, you don't trouble her.

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You leave her alone. And while you're out harvesting, you make sure to drop a little bit more on the ground so that she has more to take home.

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This shows us the love and character of God. And it shows us our lack of love for our neighbor, but shows us

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God's perfect love for us. And without this law, we would have no Savior. But we do.

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And the story is absolutely beautiful. It's beautiful because it shows how

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God loves and cares for each of us. And He loves us even when we are at our worst.

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Romans 5 says that God demonstrates His love for us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.

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While we were enemies, God dies for us. And so, when we look at God's law that always accuses us because we fall short because of our sin, and we see phrases, you shall not steal, you shall not deal falsely, you shall not lie to one another, the reason for this is simple.

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It's because love for neighbor would never take from neighbor. Love for neighbor would never permit you to deal falsely with your neighbor and deceive him.

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Because God never takes. God never deals falsely.

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God doesn't lie. God doesn't swear falsely. And God doesn't oppress.

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And so, that law that wants to kill us, now that we have been buried with Christ, raised with Him in the waters of baptism, been absolved, forgiven,

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God's law now, although it still wants to constantly accuse us, Christ has caused it to put its sword in its sheath.

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It can no longer do that to you. Instead now, that cranky law that we were terrified of, take a closer look.

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In it, you see the very love and character of God. So what do we do as Christians?

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In the now and the not yet, that's where we are right now, where we walk by faith and not by sight, where we still have our sinful nature, well, that sinful nature of ours only wants to take care of itself.

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Think about number one. But you are a new creation in Christ. And so what we are called to by Christ Himself is to daily deny ourselves, take up our cross, follow

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Christ, put our sinful natures to death, begin practicing.

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Now remember the words that I said, and I noted what the Greek actually says. Jesus' words.

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You will be perfect. Future tense. As your

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Heavenly Father is perfect. So in the now and the not yet, while we long for and wait for the redemption of our bodies, that day when we will no longer be subjected to sin and falling short and having to plead for God's forgiveness day in and day out.

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In this time, we now look at Jesus' words. You will be perfect. That's what it says in the

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Greek. You will be. And we see it for what it is. Promise. There is a day coming, brothers and sisters.

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And if you are alive to see it with your own eyes, glorious will be the day. And if, well, you fall asleep in the meantime and we have to put you in the graveyard, don't worry, you'll still see it with your eyes.

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Because He'll call you from the grave. And when you are raised from the grave, you will be perfect.

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As your Heavenly Father is perfect. We will then again, as a race, perfectly reflect the image of God.

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There will be no lies. We will beat our swords into plowshares.

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We will always speak the truth to each other, perfectly love each other, perfectly love

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God. There will be no more curse, no more sinning, no more death, no more disease, no more pain, no more guilt.

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All of that goes away. So when Jesus says you will be perfect as your

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Heavenly Father is perfect, is it threat or is it promise? Well, it depends.

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Are you dead and made alive in Christ? Or are you still trying to run away from the law and not let it kill you?

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Do you trust in Jesus? Are you looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come?

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Well, now it's promise. If you are impenitent and you stubbornly stay in your sins and refuse to trust

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Christ, refuse to admit that you're a sinner, well, then it's a threat.

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You see the difference? It always accuses, but it doesn't only accuse.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support.

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