Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity Service

Divine Service and Confession of Sin

Church. Today is the 13th Sunday after Trinity. We'll be following the order of divine service setting three. The psalm tone today will be psalm tone C as in Cucamonga. C as in Cucamonga. And if you are physically present here at Kongsvinger and you are able, please rise for the opening hymn.

Of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Beloved in the Lord, let us draw near with a true heart and confess our sins unto God our Father, beseeching him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to grant us forgiveness.

Our help is in the name of the Lord. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. Almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended you and justly deserved your temporal and eternal punishment.

But I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them and I pray you of your boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of your beloved Son Jesus Christ to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.

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 and instead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Again, psalm tone C and we'll be doing this by whole verse like we have been for a while now. Have regard for the covenant, O Lord. Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame. Arise, O God, defend your cause.

Do not forget the clamor of your foes. O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.

Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt. Do not forget the life of your poor forever. Let the poor and the needy praise your name. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.

Have regard for the covenant, O Lord. Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame. Arise, O God, defend your cause. Do not forget the clamor of your foes. Be with you. Almighty and everlasting God, give us an increase of faith, hope, and charity, and that we may obtain what you have promised, make us love what you have commanded.

Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. You may be seated. The Old Testament reading for the 13th Sunday after Trinity is from 2 Chronicles chapter 28.

The men of Israel took captive 200 ,000 of their relatives, women, sons, and daughters. They also took much spoil from them and brought the spoil to Samaria. But a prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded.

And he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria and said to them, Behold, because the Lord, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand, but you have killed them in a rage that has reached up to heaven.

And now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, as your slaves. Have you not sins of your own against the Lord, your God? Now hear me and send back the captives from your relatives whom you have taken, for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.

Certain chiefs also of the men of Ephraim, Azariah the son of Jehannam, Barakiah the son of Meshelamoth, Jehezekiah the son of Shalom, Amasa the son of Hadley, stood up against those who were coming from the war and said to them, You shall not bring the captives in here, for you propose to bring upon us guilt against the Lord in addition to our present sins and guilt.

For our guilt is already great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel. So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the assembly. And the men who had been mentioned by name rose and took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all who were naked among them.

They clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them, and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kinsfolk at Jericho, the city of palm trees, and then they returned to Samaria.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We will speak the gradual together. You are the God who works wonders. You with your arm redeemed your people. The epistle is taken from Galatians chapter 3.

To give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring who is Christ.

So this is what I mean. The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

So why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

This is the word of the Lord. The Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke, the 10th chapter. Turning to the disciples, Jesus said privately, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, Well, what's written in the law? How do you read it? He answered, Well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

And he said to him, You've answered correctly, do this and you will live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor? Jesus replied, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him, and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now by chance, a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place, saw him, and passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

He went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and then he set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, Take care of him, whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.

Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, The one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, You go and do likewise. This is the gospel of the Lord.

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

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

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Christ Revealed in the Private Words to the Disciples

You may be seated. Our gospel text has two very different pieces to it, one short and the other.

Very long. And the first piece I think we need to pay attention to before we get into the longer piece. Turning to the disciples, Jesus said, note the word, privately. Have you ever stopped to think that we in the gospels are privy to private conversations that Jesus had with the disciples?

You'll note that private conversations are generally not places that are welcome to people who are, well, on the outside. You'll note that by putting in this private information, it shows that you're on the inside.

I remember when I was a young lad, I had a tendency to not mind my own business. And when my stepsister was with her friends, and she was talking with her friends, and they didn't want me to know what they were talking about, they would talk in low tones and whispers.

And I would come in and just be stupid and say, what are you talking about? And then my stepsister would say things like, well, this is an A-B conversation, so see your way out of it. Point taken. You get the idea.

But here, this is not that kind of conversation. At least you are privy to the information that Jesus said to the disciples privately. So pay attention. They're very important words. And here's what Christ said.

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. Now, at first glance, this may not seem all too, well, explosive of a revelation.

Why spoken privately? It's important here because Christ is revealing to his disciples in very clouded, cryptic terms, but revealing nonetheless that he is the Messiah. And you'll note that many prophets and kings desired to see what the disciples saw.

In fact, if you remember back a couple of weeks ago on the sermon that I did on Cain, that Eve in the Hebrew, and there in Genesis 4, it says when she gave birth to Cain, she said, I have brought forth a man, the Lord.

She believed she gave birth to the Messiah, which tells us a little bit about Eve, aside from being woefully wrong about who the Messiah would be. It does show that she had a hope for the seed of the woman that would come and set us free from bondage to sin, death, and to the devil.

Unfortunately, Cain was not that fellow and turned out to be more like the Antichrist. But all that being said, even King David himself, you know, he writes in the Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.

And then all the prophets, they have all these passages that clearly are pointing to Christ. And when God revealed these words to them to write into the scriptures, you can see, according to Christ, that they longed to see the very things that they were prophesying about.

And now the hope of the ancient world has come on the scene. The promised Messiah is on the scene and the disciples are truly blessed to see what they see, to hear what they hear. And that being the case, we need to pay attention.

And I would note that if you are like me, you probably think, well, wouldn't it be great if I had lived back then and saw the things the disciples saw and heard the things that they heard? And I would note, you are blessed kind of by proxy, if you would, because Jesus in his high priestly prayer in the Gospel of John on the night that he was betrayed, prayed for every one of us who would believe in Jesus through their words.

He has chosen them as the eyewitnesses. So that being the case, we do not see Jesus with our physical eyes. We do not hear Jesus with our physical ears. We hear Jesus with our spiritual eyes, with the eyes of faith.

We hear Jesus with the ears of faith. And this blessing then comes to us as well. But the point is this, Jesus is the one. He's the one everyone was waiting for. Now, I always have to point this out when this text comes up because I'm still in therapy over this stuff.

And so I'm talking this out. We'll do some group therapy together. You'll know that I like to punish myself by listening to and watching copious amounts of heresy, occupational hazard. Well, back in the day when I was still pretty new at what I was doing regarding fighting for the faith, there was an up-and-coming church planter who just came onto the scene like a lightning bolt.

His name is Stephen Furtick. You may have heard of this fellow, right? He's the king of the narcissists. There isn't a single passage in the scripture that somehow isn't about him, including all the ones about Jesus.

It's weird. And he started off by basically planting his church at like a high school auditorium. And then he moved to an old folks home for a while. And then eventually they had enough people that they were able to secure a piece of property.

And once they had their first facility, their first campus, he celebrated by holding something called the Code Orange Revival, which kind of begs the question, how does one schedule a revival? You see, Holy Spirit, we're going to be having a revival next week, and I'm kind of hoping you'd show up, right?

It just doesn't work that way. But this was basically a full week of who's who among heretics coming and tickling the ears of the people there at Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. One of the nights, Perry Noble was invited.

Perry Noble used to be the vision casting leader of New Spring Church in Anderson, South Carolina. And he was removed from ministry for being a drunk and a wife beater. And then he restored himself to ministry and planted another church called Second Chance Church.

But before any of that took place, he was one of the special speakers at the first Code Orange Revival, and he preached from this text. Blessed are your eyes they see, and blessed are your ears because of what you hear.

And he said to the folks there at Elevation Church that they were blessed to hear the preaching of Stephen Furtick, and that this text was about Furtick. And their ears were blessed, and their eyes were blessed to see and hear the things that they're seeing at Elevation Church.

Excuse me, I need to barf bag. Okay, are you kidding me? Complete and utter blasphemy. Christ is the one. We are blessed in hearing and seeing him. Not me, not Stephen Furtick, not Perry Noble, not nobody.

In fact, I would remind you all that there has been some growth here at Kongsvinger. But I would remind you all, none of us are here for me. We are here for Christ. We are not blessed by me. We are blessed together by Christ and his words, right?

And when I eventually move on in ministry, either I fall asleep, crump while preaching a text. I think that's a good way to go, don't you? You know, there I am in the middle of preaching Jesus, and all of a sudden, I'm dead.

And it's like, y 'all be panicking. I'll be sitting there going, bye. When I eventually move on, the next fellow, you're not there for him either. But pick a fellow that will preach the blessings of Christ, his words and his deeds, and keep pointing you back to him, and forgiving you of your sins, and feeding you his body and blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

You get the idea. It's all about Christ, if you haven't figured it out. And Jesus, in these words, makes it clear that the entire Old Testament really is about him. He's the promised Messiah. So with that little blessing now rattling around in our ears, we are being privy to that private information.

The Law Cannot Give Life

The text goes on to say these words, behold, a lawyer. Nothing ever good happens when those words appear. I'm just saying, this is why there are so few of them in heaven. I'm just saying. And here's this fellow.

Clearly, he's been listening to the preaching of Christ. And I think, based on what it says here, behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test. Oh, boy. Think back with me for a second here. In the legal world, when it comes to attorneys, if any attorney is able to land a high-profile case and try that case, they're set for life.

Those of you old enough to remember, there was this trial that took place in the 1990s. O .J. Simpson, a murder trial, and Shapiro and other attorneys were on his legal team. And the fact that even though he was as guilty as sin, they got him off.

He got a not guilty plea. And it's like, right? Now, forget the fact that O .J. Simpson then went on to be found guilty in a civil suit and was liable financially for the death of his wife. And that other fellow, by the way, was it Goldman or something like that?

Forget all of that. What happened to the dream team? Oh, man. They have been raking in money off of more high-profile cases. Those guys were set for life, right? And so, think of it here. This attorney basically sees an opportunity.

He hears Jesus preaching, and he's assuming that he's going to be able to get Jesus to disagree with him. And he's going to prosecute Jesus using his vast knowledge of the law. And he'll be the guy that will be remembered for taking down Jesus, okay?

He's set for life if he pulls this up. So, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, and here's the question. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now, this is not a fellow who's asking in good faith.

He thinks he knows the answer to this question, right? That's the reason why he's asking. He's expecting that Jesus is going to say something that's going to be wrong. He's going to trip him up and then pounce on him like a tiger.

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And I look at the question and go, what a stupid question. Because it assumes something that we are all blessed to know that that assumption is false.

It assumes that somehow you can merit eternal life by what you do. Good luck on that one, right? In fact, our epistle text helps us out here. Let's do a little bit of an excursus. And I'm going to back up just a little bit in the context for our epistle text.

We're in the book of Galatians chapter three, starting at verse one. Listen to these words. Paul writing to the churches in Galatia who had been heavily influenced by the Judaizing heresy and the belief that if you are not circumcised, if you do not keep Torah, if you don't do all this other stuff, you're not even a Christian, despite the fact that their church was filled with Gentiles.

He says to them, opening words in chapter three, oh foolish Galatians. Now remember, this is written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Work this one out. Did Paul just say that they were fools?

Yes. He said, oh, you can't talk like that. People might get offended. Oh, this is no way for an apostle to be behaving, let alone a pastor. Get over it. The Holy Spirit inspired him to rebuke them and call them a bunch of fools.

Why were they foolish? Well, you'll see why here in a second. Oh foolish Galatians. Who has bewitched you? And then note the definitive argument. It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

That's the definitive argument. So if you hear somebody say to you something like this, well, we all know the truth that if you're a true Christian, you never smoke cigarettes and you never drink alcohol.

No true Christian would do such a thing. Your answer should be Christ was crucified. What are you talking about? And they go, what do you mean? Okay, you're going to know when people talk this way, what are they doing?

They're trying to sneak works into justification. They're trying to remove the gospel. Paul gets right to the point. Christ was portrayed as crucified. So let me ask you this. Here's question number one.

Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? And I would note in the region of Galatia, in the synagogues, the Jews there, they were hearing the law week after week after week, Saturday after Saturday and the Sabbath day.

And did they receive the Holy Spirit in the hearing of the law? No, not at all. When did they receive the Holy Spirit? When they heard the gospel and they believed with faith. That's when the Holy Spirit came to them.

He says then, are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? Now don't let these words roll by you too quickly. Slow down and think about this for a second here.

Have you ever heard somebody talk about sins of the flesh, right? They talk about it this way. Oh, that person, he's just so fleshly, right? Now I want you to think here for a second. What Paul has just said is that those who think that they can justify themselves by their religious obedience, they are not spiritual.

They're fleshly. Let that sink in for a second. So when we think of like Sister Nora, Sister Nora, oh, she's such a saint. She doesn't drink. Oh, man, Sister Nora, she's as pure as the wind-driven snow.

In fact, I've heard that it's been months since Sister Nora even sinned. And of course, Sister Nora will make sure that everybody knows it's been months since she's even sinned. And everyone goes, she's so spiritual.

Paul says, no, that's all fleshly. She's as fleshly as anyone out there sexually fornicating. Abutilating. I know it sounds odd, but this is what the Word of God reveals. The most fleshly religion on planet earth is the one that says you save yourself and you merit eternal life by your obedience, by your works of the law.

Paul says that's being perfected by the flesh. Is it any wonder then that those people out there that are constantly preaching law, law, law, more law, some law salad, some Coles law, and more law, okay, that you'll note that there's no gospel in there at all?

Is it any wonder that it always seems to come out that these guys are engaging in some pretty gross and egregious sins that usually wash them right out of ministry as soon as it comes to life, right? It's because that religion is fleshly itself, too.

So then he asks, did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain, does he who supplies the spirit to you and work miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

And you're sitting there going, well, which is it? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. So know then it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying in you shall all the nations be blessed.

So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. He then goes on to say these important words, all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. Why? Here's why, because it is written in the scriptures.

It is written for us in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 27, verse 26. Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law. And that last part says, and keep on doing them.

There is no point in your life where you can say, I've done it. I've accomplished it. I've done the law. I'm going to heaven. If you pull it off today, guess what you got to do tomorrow? Guess what you got to do the day after that, the week after that, the month after that, the years after that.

Good luck and keep on doing. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law. Let me read that again. How many people are justified before God by the law? No one is justified before God by the law.

Not one single person. The law can save you if you keep it perfectly from the moment you're conceived until the moment you die. Anyone here done that? Not me. So no, no one is justified before God by the law for the righteous will live by faith.

The law is not a faith. Rather, the one who does them, keeps on doing the commandments will live by them. And then these important words. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Now that quote, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree, comes from Deuteronomy 21 verse 23. And it's an important verse. Think of it this way.

You guys remember the story of Absalom, all right? David's son. In fact, if you've been reading the treasury of daily prayer, we've recently worked through this section of the scriptures regarding Absalom.

Now, Absalom, I like to think of him as the antichrist, okay? Now, here's what I mean. Scripture describes Christ. He had no beauty that we should desire him. Isaiah writes about him in Isaiah 53, right?

But Absalom, it describes him as handsome, as like girls, women like fawned all over him. He had long hair and muscles and stuff like this. He was like Fabio, okay? Except for the so, you know, and in fact, he was so self-important, you know, he rode in a chair.

He had 50 men in front of him saying, here comes Prince Absalom and stuff like this. So if he's on his way to the grocery store, make way, Prince Absalom is on his way to Hugo's. If he's off to the post office, make way, here comes Prince Absalom.

He's on his way to mail a letter to pay a bill. And all the women go, oh, Prince Absalom, right? And the guy was full of himself, absolutely full of himself. And he came up with a scheme, a plot, a plot to steal the hearts of the people of Israel, kill his father, and become the king of Israel himself.

I mean, after all, he's the son of King David, right? But how did he die? So he declared himself king, got a whole bunch of people to go along with that. His father had to flee Jerusalem. And then there was a battle that ensued shortly after that.

And in that battle, David's men won over Absalom's men. And while Absalom was riding his mule during the battle, he happened to go under a tree, and his long hair got caught in the tree branch. And his mule went right out from under him.

And it says of Absalom, he was suspended between heaven and earth. Wasn't Christ suspended between heaven and earth? That's kind of the point. But Absalom isn't Christ, he's the Antichrist. Right? So there he is, hanging on a tree.

Well, Deuteronomy 21 tells us, cursed is everyone who's hung on a tree. And indeed, Absalom was cursed. He was eventually killed with a spear thrust through him, his corpse thrown into a valley in a ravine, covered up with rocks.

And they tore down the monument that he'd made to himself. Who does that, by the way, right? And so we can say of Absalom, he was truly cursed. He was hanging from a tree, but he was cursed for his own sins, for his vanity, for his pride, his murderous heart.

But Christ also was suspended between heaven and earth, there on a cross, nailed to a tree. But what sin did he commit? Jesus was humble. He didn't aspire to take the throne of David. In fact, when people tried to make him king by force, he skedaddled and crossed the Red Sea by walking on the water.

Right? That being the case, it says here, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, its condemnation. How did he do it? By becoming a curse for us, for curse is everyone who is hanged on a tree. That's what Christ was doing.

You see, you and I can't keep the law, and the curse of the law condemns every single one of us. That being the case, Christ freed us from the condemnation and the curse of the law by standing in our place between heaven and earth, where you and I deserve to die the same way as Absalom did.

But Christ was pierced for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement that brought us peace was upon him. He became a curse so that we might be blessed. And that's the point then that follows.

He was cursed so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham, the one promised by faith, might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. Now, now commences our epistle text, but I'm going fast forward just a little bit.

Paul asked this question then, all right, why then the law? Why was it given? Because you're going to know, the vast majority of humanity, they think the law was given because it's just 10 easy things that you need to do in order to go to heaven.

It'll prove that you're a good person. But the law doesn't show that we're good people at all. Why then the law? Well, the law was added because of transgressions until the offspring, that's Christ, should come to whom the promise had been made.

And it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. So then he asked this question, is the law contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not, Paul says.

If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. Has a law been given that can give life? No. What does the law do? It's called the ministry of death in the scriptures, right?

The law kills us. The law imprisons us. The law screams at us that we're guilty. So if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would be by the law. But the scriptures imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus might be given to those who believe.

Thus ends our excursus. Nice little gospel. Proper understanding of the law and gospel has come back to our foolish attorney here who wants to take Jesus down. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

You already know the answer to this. Nothing. You ain't keeping the law, dude. Despite your great learning in the law, you're not keeping it. Well, Jesus knows full well that this guy's trying to trip him up, so he sends him back to the law.

So Jesus, with two questions, says, all right, what's written in the law? How do you read it? And like a perfect, arrogant, prancing pony, he decides to go ahead and give the right answer. Well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

Way to go, shiny penny. Way to go. Wow, right? But listen carefully to what Jesus says, and here's where an understanding of the Greek helps. So he said to him, you've answered correctly. I know that the ESV says do this, but here's the thing.

It is a present imperative, okay? It says tuta poie, which means keep doing this, and you will live. Remember what Paul said? Those who live by these commands got to keep on doing them. Christ said this.

Keep doing this, and you'll live. This should have silenced this fellow. Should have put an end to the whole conversation, because Jesus here is basically saying, you think you're doing it? All right, keep on doing that, buddy.