The Word of the Cross is Folly

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 in 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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Luke, the fifth chapter. On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.

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Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

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And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

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Simon answered, Master, we have toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word

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I will let down the nets. And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.

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They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink.

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But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,

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O Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken.

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And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid.

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From now on you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything, and they followed him.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. All right, here are the words of our epistle text.

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Paul says these very important words. The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.

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Now, we're going to just hit this straight on. Perishing? There are people who are perishing? Yes, there literally are people who are perishing.

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I know this is not a popular message nowadays. This is not something that people want to hear. But the word is very clear on this.

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And you're going to note that God himself has chosen a very foolish message by the world's standards.

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The gospel itself. The good news that Christ has bled and died for our sins. Risen from the grave victoriously on the third day bodily and ascended into heaven.

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So that we can be sanctified, justified, made right with God, and reconcile. That this is folly to the world.

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And because it is so to them, they are indeed perishing.

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For there is salvation outside of Christ for nobody. There is only salvation found in him.

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That being the case, we must consider the words of our epistle text in this context. Because you'll note in our day and age, people who call themselves and identify as Christians.

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Who confess Christ as their Savior and Lord. They are loath to, well, suffer the shame of being a

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Christian. They want to be popular. They want to be liked by the world. They don't like it when

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Facebook puts them in jail. This is not going to stop until Christ returns.

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And so we're going to note as we listen to our epistle text. That we must bear up under the scorn of the world.

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The people who are perishing, they are going to continue to mock. They are going to continue to persecute.

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They are going to continue to make us suffer. And that being the case, we must all the more.

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Preach the good news of Christ and him crucified. For their sins as well as yours and mine.

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I like being Lutheran rather than Reformed. Because we get to actually say that Christ has bled and died for everybody.

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The Reformed sit there and go, well I don't know if Jesus really died for you. And that's a problem. But that being the case, so the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.

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But to us, who are being saved. The word of the cross, the gospel is the power of God.

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For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. And the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.

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And here's where the temptation is. The first commandment is very clear. We shall have no other gods.

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And being the subject and the object of people's scorn. Well, it's easy for us to be tempted along the lines to adopt the world's way of thinking.

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This will get us nowhere but hell. That being the case, you're going to note that God has set this up all on purpose.

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Because through the folly of the cross, he is destroying the wisdom and the discernment of the wise.

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At least the people who call themselves wise. Think about how the world operates. In the world we live in today, what do people seek?

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Fame, fortune, power. They seek influence, affluence.

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And they exercise that, well, strongly. But this is not what we are called to as Christians.

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You'll note that it says in scripture that Jesus Christ, although he was by nature God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped.

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Instead, he humbled himself, taking on the form of a slave. And he was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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That being the case, the way the world operates is completely the opposite of how

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God operates. Think of it this way, the world that you live in, everything because of sin is backwards, upside down, and inside out.

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I remember when I was a kid, laying on my couch one day and looking up at the ceiling of my living room and thinking, wouldn't it be cool if my house was upside down and I could be walking on the ceiling, right?

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Well, the world that we live in, we are all walking on the ceiling. People who think that up is the right direction to go do not understand that Christ makes it clear that the greatest among us is the servant of all.

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The people who are seeking to attain heights are going the wrong way.

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Instead, Christ calls us and all men to repent, to humble themselves, to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him.

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And this is not what the world wants to hear. So Paul then asks the question, so where is the one who is wise?

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Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? And you'll note that every age of mankind always has like one fellow or a few fellows that they look to that are the ones who are the thought leaders who are kind of leading the way.

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And I would argue in our day, you would have postmodern philosophers who kind of fill that role, or even worse, guys like Richard Dawkins in his book,

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The God Delusion, taking swipes constantly at those who believe and trust in God. But you'll note,

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God has not made foolish the wisdom of the world. Indeed, he has. For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know

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God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preached to save those who believe. And here we need to note something.

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In the Greek world, the Greco -Roman world that Paul wrote this epistle in, wisdom was a loaded word.

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It had theological and philosophical overtones and undertones. When you invoke

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Sophia, that's the Greek word itself, for some who are involved in kind of pagan

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Gnosticism, wisdom is thought to have, well, a divine feminine aspect to it.

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There's overtones of what's going on. And Paul here is saying, yeah, that's not going to get you anywhere.

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And you'll note that the world we live in today, people want to coexist. They want to basically say, listen, all religions are true.

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All roads lead to God. It doesn't matter what you believe. It doesn't matter what you confess.

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In fact, you Christians are bigoted. You're arrogant. How dare you say that Jesus is the only way?

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You're kind of suspicious. We might need to call the authorities and have them look in to see whether or not you're abusing your children.

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You see how this works, right? But you'll note, God knows what

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He's doing. And the wisdom of the world does not lead to Christ and Him crucified for our sins.

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In fact, it is only the New Testament Church, only those who have the full counsel of the

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Word of God, they are the ones who see that there is good news for them. The Old Testament alludes to it.

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The New Testament bears it out. But you will find it in no philosopher. You will find it in no other religion.

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You cannot find the Gospel in Islam or Buddhism or Jainism or any form of initiatic

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Gnosticism. You can't find it at all. In fact, God has chosen foolishness to all of those systems to basically overthrow their wisdom and establish

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His. So Paul says, It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

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Jews, they demand signs. So does Bethel. Greeks, they seek wisdom. Yeah, they do.

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But we, we preach Christ crucified. This is a stumbling block for Jews and folly to Gentiles.

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In fact, you're going to hear this in just a little bit. Paul makes it clear that the only thing he preaches is Christ and Him crucified for our sins.

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I remember growing up in the 70s and 80s. There was a place that my parents would take me to when

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I got to be junior high age. And it was a place called Skate Junction. Alright? This is where, it was a skating rink.

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Not ice skating. Roller skating. Alright? And of course, a lot of the guys my age, they would like to go to Skate Junction in order to, well, to meet chicks.

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Now, it never worked out for me that way because at that time in my life, I was scrawny and nerdy.

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Now I'm just nerdy. But all of that being said, I remember there were all kinds of different skating things that they would do.

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They would have, they would have couples skates. They would have times when people, everybody on the floor was required to skate backwards.

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I could never do it. I never figured out how to skate backwards. In fact, I looked kind of like an old person in a walker just going backwards.

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But there was this thing called an All Skate. And when the All Skate would come up, alright, it usually would be announced with this song.

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Are you ready? Dun -da -da -da -da, dun -dun -dun, dun -da -da, dun -da -da -da -da, dun -my

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Sharona, right? That's by The Knack. Can you name another song by The Knack, by the way?

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The Knack, you know, you guys, and no, in fact, we have a term for this kind of band.

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You know what we call them? One -hit wonders, right? And here's what Christianity is.

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Christianity is the eternal one -hit wonder. we have a good news gospel to proclaim to announce to the world that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and not counting their trespasses against them that Jesus bore their sins and your your sins and mine in his body on the cross so that we can be forgiven and pardoned reconciled and given an inheritance for free and once we say that somebody will say well what else have you got well let me tell you about the blood of Jesus again and you'll know the

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Christian Church is called to preach this gospel and nothing else if we do not give the world and ourselves

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Christ and him crucified for our sins we give them nothing there is nothing else the

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Christian Church is the ultimate one hit wonder we have one song to sing one gospel to proclaim and that is a stumbling block to Jews it's folly to Gentiles but to those who are called both

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Jews and Greeks Christ is the power of God and he is the wisdom of God for the foolishness of God then is wiser than men the weakness of God is stronger than men and here we keep hearing this theme that God has hidden our salvation in a message that is intentionally designed to be foolish to the world remember the movie

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Indiana Jones and the last crusade I remember it vaguely I've only seen it a hundred times it's not quite that fresh in my memory but all that being said it's the story of the quest for the

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Holy Grail right and once they kind of get through all of the final bits and they're finally in the room where well

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I've got to solve the last puzzle they enter a room where a crusader from the actual crusades who've been living off of the water of the

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Holy Grail every time he drinks it he continues to live and he's really ancient really old a few hundred years old it's been a while since the

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Crusades they get into the room and there's a table full of grails and the only instructions are to choose wisely of course one of the bad guys he chooses poorly he goes for one of these chalices that's made of gold that has rubies and gems in it and he says this looks like the cup of the

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King of Kings and he drinks some water and he dies an inglorious and horrible death and of course the

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Crusader says well he chose poorly and Indiana Jones kind of thinking through the last puzzle he looks for the most ugly nondescript humble -looking cup that he can find that's the one he pulls and says this is the one that looks like the cup of a carpenter the

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Gospels a lot like that people expect that religion is supposed to be one of these things that's supposed to really sparkle and have have us sparkling and making us look really like shiny pennies and that the message that we preach would somehow be really appealing to the world have you ever noticed that there's always fellows as they come up through the generations they go through their childhood get into their teens get off to college and they come up with this most original idea the church is outdated you think right and so they set off to go and fix that and they end up making everything worse you see we have been given the good news in a foolish package don't let the humbleness of this message fool you it is the glory of God to forgive and pardon iniquity so to those who are called this foolish message it is the power of God and it is the wisdom of God the foolishness of God then is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men and Paul goes on to say this that consider your calling brothers not many of you were wise according to worldly standards not many of you were powerful not many of you were of noble birth every time

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I read this section of scripture I'm reminded of the fact that I've been told that on my father's grandfather's side of the family that there were members of the

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Polish mafia not royalty sketchy sketchy I'm sus as they like to say nowadays right

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I've got suspect relatives so definitely not of noble birth but see here's the thing

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God has chosen what is foolish in the world in order to shame God chose what is weak in the world in order to shame the strong God chose what is low and despised in the world even the things that are not in order to bring to nothing the things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God and here's where we have to understand this the reason why

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God chose something foolish something as foolish as the gospel itself which the world derides and people scoff at is to make it so that those who are saved have nothing to boast about before God could you imagine if some philosopher had locked himself up on the

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Isle of Patmos and determined that he was going to ponder the mysteries of the universe and finally cracked the code and figured it out that when he stood before God God would have to go well done wait good job to you be all the glory but that's not how it works you see the one who exalts himself must be humbled and so God has chosen these humble things in order to shame the wise to bring down the strong because you'll note that everybody who believes and trusts in Christ properly recognizes that they are sinners that the only thing that they have contributed to their salvation is a sin that made it necessary for them to be saved in the first place so no

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God through this foolish message is shaming all of us so that none of us can boast in the presence of God instead we who boast then let us boast in the

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Lord let us boast in the great salvation that he has given to us and Paul says when I came to you brothers

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I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or with wisdom and I decided to know nothing among you except for Christ and him crucified nothing in fact

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I remember years ago posting this very verse on Twitter which by the way is a cesspool it just really is

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I posted this verse on Twitter and said something glowing about I thought it was just brilliant that I decided to know nothing among you except for Jesus Christ and him crucified and said we need to embrace this this passage and what this passage is saying and I was shouted out on Twitter there's there's more to the

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Bible than Christ and him crucified no there really isn't I don't think you're reading it right no that well we what about getting your kids to obey what about you know what about this that and the other thing no no then

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I there's nothing except for Christ and crucified and they will accuse you of twisting God's Word at this point but was

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Paul twisting God's Word no so brothers and sisters let us not despair let us not give in to the temptations of the world our sinful flesh and even of the devil to exchange this one and only good news that we have been given the good news that gives us justification salvation and eternal life all is a gift because of what

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Christ has done let us not despair and exchange this foolish message that we've been given for one that the world will like because in so doing we will sacrifice the true gospel for a false one and when we then perceive and believe in our hearts that the message of the cross the word of the cross is folly we too then would join those who are perishing but today

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I believe that you are here because you believe that this foolish message that Christ has bled and died for your sins and we rather than perishing we have before us eternal life the face of our

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Savior the Saints who have gone before us to be back in fellowship with them and see them face to face in a world without end all because Christ has reconciled us to the

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Father by bleeding and dying for your sins and mine on of all things across outside of the gates of Jerusalem all so that we can be forgiven and pardon so let us despair of the world's wisdom and embrace this folly not to our shame but to the glory of Christ in the name of Jesus if you would like to support the teaching ministry of Cungsinger Lutheran Church you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Cungsinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th

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Avenue Northwest Oslo Minnesota 56744 and again that address is

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Cungsinger Lutheran Church 15950 470th