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"For faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." ~ Romans 10:17

Thy Kingdom Come

9/29/2022

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Picture
Trinity 15 
Matthew 6:24-34 
Pastor James Preus 
Trinity Lutheran Church  
September 25, 2022 
 
“Why does the sun go on shining? 
Why does the sea rush to shore? 
Don't they know it's the end of the world 
Cause you don't love me any more? 
 
Why do the birds go on singing? 
Why do the stars glow above? 
Don't they know it's the end of the world? 
It ended when I lost your love” 
 
So goes the sappy 1960s teenybopper song about the end of a teenage relationship. The singer is surprised that the world continues to function when everything she thinks matters has gone to ruin. And I think we can all sympathize with the young in love, who get their hearts shattered. It can feel like the world is coming to an end. But it doesn’t. The birds keep chirping. The sun continues its course in the sky indifferent to your suffering. Have you ever gone outside to take a breath while you’re having a really bad day? And have you ever noticed that everything just keeps on going? The grass is still green. The flowers still bloom. The birds fly and sing. The squirrels chatter and chase each other from limb to limb. It’s as if your problems have no effect on the world at all. And this is a helpful thing to do when you’re having a bad day. Look at the world around you. It’s not actually crumbling to bits.  


This in effect is what Jesus is telling us when we worry. Don’t worry. Consider the birds of the heavens. They don’t sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. How much more valuable are you than they? Are the squirrels stressed out? Are the flowers bothered? No, they’re not. How much more does God care about you than they? If God will let fish swim in the streams and frogs croak in the swamp without a care in the world, how much more does he want you to trust in him? 


So, Jesus tells us not to worry, first of all, because God cares for us. Mankind is the crown of God’s creation. God breathed into Adam the breath of life. God made Eve out of Adam’s own rib. He gave them dominion over every living thing. And when they sinned, he sent his own Son to be born of a woman, to join our sorry race, to have our flesh and blood, and to die and rise for our salvation. How much more does God care about your body, what you eat, what you drink, what you wear. God cares about these things. So, you don’t need to worry.  


Secondly, you shouldn’t worry about these things, because worrying doesn’t do any good. Who by worrying ever added an hour to his span of life, Jesus asks. Here, we must point out that when Jesus tells us not to worry, he does not tell us not to work. We should still do the work God places before us. Even the birds are busy building their nests and looking for worms and seeds. However, we should not worry as if worrying will make our work more productive. In fact, we should not trust in our work so much as if it all depended on us. God will provide. All things work out for good for those who love God. (Romans 8:28).  

Thirdly, we should not worry, because the things of this life are not what’s important. Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the rest will be added to you. Everyone enjoys a good meal, but what then? You eat it; you digest it; you forget about it. Your clothes eventually get tattered and you buy new clothes. What was fashionable twenty years ago is unfashionable today. We spend our lives pursuing our interests and goals, and yet at the end we must say with the preacher from Ecclesiastes, “vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” At the end of the day, all our stuff passes away. Whatever we build crumbles. And even if you gained the whole world, what would it matter if you lost your soul? (Matthew 16:26).  


And here is also a warning against idolatry. While worrying about the things of this life, we prove that we trust in false gods here on earth instead of him who reigns in heaven. Remember the parable about the seeds and those that fell among the thorns (Matthew 13). The thorns were the cares and pleasures of this life which choked out the word of God. When you care so much about the things of this life and pay so little attention to God’s Kingdom, then you are worshiping false gods. You’re letting the word get choked out by thorns.  

So, what really matters is not what you eat or drink or wear; it’s not where you work or in which neighborhood you buy your house. What really matters and deserves your care is the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness!  


Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, Jesus instructs us. Well, how do we do that? You can start with prayer. Jesus, when instructing us to pray says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8) So, when Jesus tells you to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he is telling you first and foremost to pray for it. You should pray, “Thy kingdom come.”  


Yes, “Thy kingdom come,” a petition you already pray every time you pray the Lord’s Prayer. But what are you praying when you pray, “Thy kingdom come,”? Our Small Catechism says, “The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without out prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also.” How does God’s kingdom come? “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.”  


First off, God’s kingdom comes without our prayer. God’s kingdom is better understood as God’s reign or God’s rule. God’s reign came when Christ Jesus, God’s own Son became man and was born of the Virgin Mary, when he lived under the Law as a human being and fulfilled it, when he went innocent to the cross bearing all our sins, when he died, rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven. That is when God’s kingdom came with its righteousness. Through his ministry on earth, Christ Jesus made everything right. He righted every wrong; he paid for every sin. He justified the world by satisfying God’s wrath against sin. This kingdom of God and its righteousness came without any of our prayers. Before Christ came, the world was under the dominion of the devil. That is why the demons went so crazy as Christ walked on the earth. Yet, Jesus cast them out. And finally, when he said, “It is finished” from the cross, he cast Satan from his throne of sin and lies and death, and Jesus established his kingdom on earth.  

So, God’s kingdom comes without our prayer. God’s kingdom is here, whether you ask for it or not. Yet, Jesus instructs you to pray that it will come to you also.  


God’s kingdom comes to you when your heavenly Father gives you his Holy Spirit, so that you believe his holy Word and live a godly life here in time. This means that you are praying that God would preach to you and that you would hear it. So, you cannot seek God’s kingdom and righteousness simply by saying a prayer, but by going and seeking what you prayed for. Listen to God’s Word. Hear his Gospel. Repent of your sins and believe that God has forgiven you for Christ’s sake. Believe that God’s Kingdom has come for your sake. Christ Jesus died for you. He cast Satan off his throne for you. He defeated death and hell for you.  

Yet, when you pray, “Thy kingdom come,” you are not praying only for yourself. When you pray the Lord’s Prayer, you are never praying only for yourself. Remember, we pray, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Our. So, you are not only praying that God’s kingdom, his reign would come to you, but to everyone; that your children will hear the Gospel and believe it; that those who have strayed from listening to the Word and going to church would repent and come and hear the Gospel and live according to it. You’re praying for missions and new congregations and for a new generation of believers; that churches won’t close and that the wayward would be granted a Christian death. Martin Luther in his Large Catechism sums it up this way, “Dear Father, give us, we pray, Your Word, so that the Gospel may be genuinely preached throughout the world. And grant that it be accepted by faith and be alive and do its work in us, so that Your reign may flourish among us through the Word and power of the Holy Spirit and that the devil’s reign may be overthrown and have no claim or power over us, until finally it is totally destroyed and we live forever in perfect righteousness and blessedness.”  


We pray that God’s kingdom come here in time. We pray that it may come there in eternity. We seek God’s kingdom and righteousness by praying for Christ to return and for us to be taken to his kingdom to live with him in righteousness, innocence and blessedness forever. This is when we really get how much more important it is to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness than food, drink, and clothing. God’s kingdom is forever! We’re talking about eternity! Don’t be so shortsighted that you give up eternal life for a bit of contentment here on earth! When Jesus tells you to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he is commanding you to ask for the greatest treasure imaginable and he is promising that he will give it to you. Ask for God’s kingdom, and it will be given to you! 


And it is only when you believe that God gives his kingdom and righteousness to you that you can be confident to not worry about worldly things. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”, so says St. Paul in Romans 8. He who gives his kingdom at the price of the innocent suffering and death of his own Son to whoever asks for it, how much more will he make sure you are clothed and fed and your children won’t be living on the streets. How much more will he provide your sons and daughters with pious Christian spouses. How much more will he add whatever else is good for you.  


If you are six-years-old, seek first the kingdom of God, and everything else will be added to you. If you are eighty-years-old, seek first the kingdom of God, and everything will be added to you. If you are a mother or father, seek first the kingdom of God, if you’re a teenager in high school or a young adult off to college, seek first the kingdom of God, if you’re sick, poor, rich healthy, whatever else is going on in your life, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Go to church, listen to the preaching, eat and drink Christ’s body and blood, pray, forgive, repent, believe, and all the rest will be added to you. Amen.  
  
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God’s Service

9/21/2022

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Picture
William Brassey Hole, "Jesus with the One Leper Who Returned to Give Thanks." (1846-1917) Public Domain.
Trinity 14 
Luke 17:11-19 
Pastor James Preus 
Trinity Lutheran Church 
September 18, 2022 
 
 
It has become common for English speaking Lutherans to refer to their Sunday worship as the Divine Service. This is a translation from the German, Gottesdienst, which literally means, “God’s Service.” Yet, the term God’s Service or Divine Service is a bit ambiguous. Who is serving whom? What are we doing on Sunday morning? Is this our service to God? Or is this God’s service to us? … The answer is yes. In the Divine Service, we serve God and God serves us.  

There were ten lepers crying out to Jesus for mercy outside a certain village. Jesus sent them all to the priests. And as they went, they were all cleansed. However, just one of them returned praising God with a loud voice, fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. This man was a Samaritan. Jesus responded, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”  


With Jesus’ words, he teaches that it is our duty to give thanks to God. We hear this at every Divine Service, “It is truly meet, right, and salutary, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to you, Heavenly Father…” And our Small Catechism teaches us that we should serve our God at all times. In the explanation to the First Article of the Creed, after confessing that God has created us and all we have and still takes care of them out of his own fatherly goodness and mercy, we declare, “For which it is my duty to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him.” In the explanation to the Second Article, we confess that Jesus Christ has purchased us, not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and innocent sufferings and death, “that I may be His own, and live under Him in his kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness…”  


And of course, our liturgy and our Catechism teach us that we should serve God, because that is what the Bible teaches us to do! St. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people… This is good and is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior.” And so, it makes sense that Jesus was disappointed in the nine men cleansed of their leprosy, who failed to return and give praise to God. 


“Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” That is a question we can ask quite frequently when we consider how many fail to come and serve God with their thanks, praise, and songs. Where are all those who were cleansed? Weren’t so many baptized? Where are they? Weren’t so many confirmed? Where are they? And of course, Christ Jesus died to save all people everywhere of their sins. Where are they? Why do they not return and give praise to God?  


Many say that they don’t need to go to a particular building to worship God, so that’s why they don’t need to go to church. And in a very simplistic way, they’re right. I visited several homebound parishioners this week in nursing homes and homes. We didn’t go to the church building. But we certainly had church. We had the Divine Service. We served God, prayed to him, thanked him, praised him, and sang to him. And God served us. He forgave our sins. He taught us. And he fed us Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. So, church-skippers are right that you don’t technically need to go to the church building to worship God. But you do need to go to Christ.  


The cleansed leper praised God and fell down at His feet giving Him thanks. Whose feet? God’s feet. They were Jesus’ feet. The leper worshipped God at Jesus’ feet, because Jesus is his God. If you are not worshipping Jesus, then you are not worshipping God. Well, how do you worship Jesus? You gather around his Word! Jesus said, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst.” (Matthew 18). Jesus said, “Go therefore, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28) Jesus is where his name is proclaimed, where his Word is taught, where his Sacraments are given. We aren’t worshipping some random sky god. We’re worshipping Him, who sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins. We are worshipping Christ Jesus Himself, our Lord and God.  


So, the first lesson about worshipping God is that we worship Jesus. The second lesson is that we must repent. The leper turned back and worshipped Jesus. Jesus said that only one returned to give praise to God. To repent means to turn. We turn from our lives. We stop what we are doing. And we give our attention to the God who deserves our thanks and praise. Oh, you still don’t want to go to church? You think the service is boring? You don’t know the hymns? It’s inconvenient? Well, tough. Not everything is about you. God desires your service. He wants you to thank and praise him. And you demonstrate that you recognize God as God when you turn from serving your own self and put your efforts into serving God. That is why we should not just show up to church, but we should listen, learn, recite the responses with the congregation, and especially, sing the hymns, as Scripture says, “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.” (Ephesians 5:19)  


And it is especially important that we listen to the words of our God. Our Small Catechism explains the Third Commandment, Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy, saying, “We should fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” Those who belong to God, who worship him, listen to his words.  


Yet, it is of the utmost importance that you know that your service toward God does not earn you the forgiveness of sins. Your service toward God in no way justifies you before God or merits eternal life for you. In fact, your service toward God is not even the main reason you go to the Divine Service! Rather, your service to God, traveling on a Sunday morning to worship, reciting the prayers, singing the hymns, hearkening your ears, is all fruit of faith!  


And this is the most important lesson in this story. There can be no worship of God without faith. Without faith, no matter how beautifully you sing that hymn, God doesn’t like your singing. Without faith, it doesn’t matter how attentive you follow the service, reciting the responses and listening to the sermon. Without faith, it doesn’t matter how early you got up, how far you drove, how on time you were, how nice your Sunday best is. Without faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:16). Without faith it is impossible to serve God.  


In our Lutheran Confessions, in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Philip Melanchthon writes, “Faith is that worship (or divine service) which receives the benefits that God offers… God wants to be honored by faith so that we receive from him those things that he promises and offers.” [Apology IV (II):49] Faith is true worship, because it receives what God offers us for Christ’s sake. The greatest honor you can give God is to believe his promises! This is what Jesus taught the Samaritan. He said, “Your faith has saved you!” 


Now, our English translation says, “Your faith has made you well.”, but that is more of a paraphrase. The translators assume that Jesus is saying that the man was made well from his leprosy, because he had faith. But there were ten lepers who were made well. Yet, only one of them demonstrated his faith by returning to worship Jesus. Jesus meant what he said, “Your faith has saved you.”  


Faith and service go hand in hand. If you have faith in Christ, then you desire to serve him. This is why this service is called a fruit of faith. Yet, the greatest emphasis in the Divine Service on Sunday morning is not our service toward God, but God’s service for us. Jesus said, “The Son of Man came not to be served by to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The greatest Divine Service ever was when Jesus Christ gave his life as a ransom for all sinners. No service you could offer or anyone could offer could make atonement for one sin. Yet, Jesus by his perfect sacrifice makes satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.  


And that is what Christ offers us in the Divine Service on Sunday morning, the benefits he gained for us on the cross: the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. So, faith draws you to go to church, not only so that you can serve God with your thanks and praise, hymns and prayers; faith draws you to church primarily so that you can receive God’s service for you.  

Before the leper was healed, he was not permitted to come near anyone. He was unclean. In the Old Testament, a number of figures are struck with leprosy as a punishment for their rebellion against God (Miriam, King Uzziah, and Elisha’s servant Gehazi). So, leprosy became associated with punishment for sin, even though lepers were not necessarily worse sinners than non-lepers. Yet, all physical ailments are a sign of sin. Sin brings death! We are sinners. By nature, we are unclean and not worthy to come before God. Yet, Scripture says in Hebrews 10, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” We draw near to worship Christ, not afraid of our uncleanness, because he has made us clean. In Baptism, Christ washes all of our sins away in his blood. And through faith, we have assurance that all our sins are forever drowned. And we continue to draw near to be cleansed by Christ. As Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, so Jesus washes our feet in the Divine Service, so to say. He declares his absolution to us through his servant, forgiving our sins. He teaches us and strengthens our faith for the continued journey through this veil of tears. He even feeds us his own body and blood to eat and to drink, a foretaste of the heavenly feast, which grants us forgiveness and strengthens us in the faith. Faith in Christ draws you to come near and receive these benefits from Christ, through his Word and Sacrament. Faith draws you to be served by God.  


And in response to being served by God, we in return serve God. The Divine Service is a heavenly conversation on earth between God and his people. God declares his grace and forgiveness to us through the mighty works of Christ Jesus, and we respond by confessing this great truth. We stand and bow and sing and declare, “amen!”, in response to being told by our God that we are his people, that he is our God, that we are no longer unclean, but we are washed in the blood of Christ. And you can often tell whether you are serving God or he is serving you based on which direction the pastor is facing. If the pastor is facing the congregation, he is likely representing and speaking for Christ to the congregation, God showering his grace on his people through his minister. When the pastor is facing the altar, he represents and speaks for or with the congregation to God, offering petitions, thanksgivings, and praise.  

Yet, our service to God is always offered in response to our faith receiving God’s service to us. And God’s service to us is always for the sake of the innocent sufferings, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has earned for us forgiveness, justification, and eternal life. This is why the number one reason anyone should go to church should always be to receive the forgiveness of sins Jesus won for you on the cross, that is, to be served by God. Amen.  
 
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He Does All Things Well

9/7/2022

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Picture
Trinity 12 
Mark 7:31-37 
Pastor James Preus 
Trinity Lutheran Church  
September 4, 2022 
 
“He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  
  
In Genesis one, after each thing that God creates, Moses writes, “And God saw that it was good.” At the end of the sixth day, Moses writes, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was
very good.” (Genesis 1:31) God cannot make a mistake. He can only do good. He can only create good. And the creation God made from the beginning was very good. It was perfect. There was no flaw in his creation. Everything was made exactly as he intended it to be. There was no sickness. There were no lame or crippled animals or diseased trees. Adam and Eve had no sin, no pain, no suffering. There was no death.  


Yet, that is not the creation we see and experience today. In this creation, we’re plagued with diseases, pain, disabilities, and death. We aren’t perfect, even at the best of times. And we’re all sinners. We don’t walk with God. Like Adam and Eve after their fall into sin, our natural inclination is to hide from God. We do not live in a perfect world. And it is common for people to blame God for this imperfection. It is even used as an argument that God doesn’t exist, because if he existed, he would have made a perfect world. But we cannot blame God for the world’s problems. Disease, illness, pain, disabilities, sin, and death are all our own doing. St. Paul writes in Romans chapter 5, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” The source of all our problems is sin. And we have no one to blame for sin, but ourselves.  

When Jesus came to earth, he found his good creation corrupted. They brought to him a deaf and mute man. Christ created the man’s ears and tongue, but they did not work. They did not work, because the man was corrupted by sin. Jesus has come to undo the effects of sin. After Jesus healed the man, the crowd shouted, “He has done all things well! He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” This is most certainly true. And this proves that Jesus is God himself, he who saw in the beginning that all he had made was good. This also proves that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed Savior of the Word. The Prophet Isaiah prophesied that when the Christ would come, “the deaf shall hear.” (Isaiah 29:18) Jesus has come to restore his creation. Yet, he has not come simply to cause the deaf to hear and the mute speak, because eventually those ears will stop hearing and those tongues stop speaking when they are in the grave. Christ Jesus has come to conquer sin and death itself.  

When Jesus healed the man, he touched his ears with his fingers and he spat and touched the man’s tongue. Why did Jesus do this? Well, the most obvious answer is that Jesus was communicating to the man what he was going to do. Remember, the man is deaf. He can’t hear what Jesus is saying. So, Jesus touches his ears to communicate that he will heal his ears. And he touches his tongue to communicate that he will break the bonds of his tongue. Jesus used sign-language. And he continues to use sign-language for us today.  

Jesus uses sign-language in Baptism. In Baptism, we have water poured over a person. This indicates that the old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires. We picture the old Adam being washed away in the flood and a new man rising out of the waters after the image of Christ, who himself was baptized with water. In the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus tells us that the bread is his body and the wine is his blood. Since Jesus is God and can do far more than we can ask or think, yet, he cannot lie, we believe him. Yet, why are Jesus’ body and blood separated into bread and wine? My blood is in my body, as is yours, and as is, presumably, Jesus’ as he is enthroned in heaven. Why then are Jesus’ body and blood separated in the Sacrament? This is sign-language, which teaches us that Jesus was sacrificed for our sins. A sacrifice is made when the blood is poured out of the victim. Jesus is our Victim. His blood was poured out on the cross to make propitiation for our sins. In the Sacrament, we receive the fruit of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, all wrought for us by Jesus’ bitter sufferings and death.  

And this brings us to another point of Jesus’ miraculous healing of the deaf and mute man. When Jesus healed the man, he looked up to heaven and sighed. In fact, he groaned. He looks up to heaven, showing that all authority he receives from his heavenly Father. And he groans, because this healing took something out of him. Jesus must spend himself in order to restore his creation. This foreshadows Jesus’ cross. Jesus is our Savior. He takes away our sins. We believe that his Word has the power to save us. Baptism forgives our sins and grants us new birth. The Lord’s Supper forgives our sins, strengthens our faith, and increases our love for one another. How? Only by means of Jesus’ cross. The waters of Baptism cleanse you of all your sin and grant you new birth only because they are joined to the blood Jesus shed on the cross. The Sacrament of the Altar gives you forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, only because Christ poured out his blood for you and gave his body over to death. The absolution proclaimed to you, which calms your guilty conscience is only true because Jesus groaned under the weight of your sin. Jesus’ groan proves to us that there is no restoration of God’s creation without the heal of the woman’s seed being bruised (Genesis 3:15). There is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of Christ’s blood. Our forgiveness and salvation were bought with a great price, the innocent sufferings and death of Christ Jesus our Lord. The Gospel preached to you and believed by your heart is not cheap. Jesus groaned in bitter pain to grant it to you.  

The first thing this deaf man heard was Jesus’ voice. How fitting. For what greater purpose did Christ create this man’s ears than that he hear the words of his God and believe them. And so, just as this man’s friends brought him to Jesus to be healed by him, so we bring our children soon after they are born to hear the voice of their God. Before a child is baptized, his ears are clogged by Satan and his mouth bound, so that he cannot sing his praises. Yet, in Baptism, when Jesus’ liberating words are spoken, the ears are unclogged and the tongue loosened. Everyone’s ears are clogged to the Gospel and lips bound by Satan until Christ sets them free. And he does this in no other way than through his Word. Baptism itself is empowered and joined to Jesus’ blood through Jesus’ Word and promise.  

And so, we not only start out our life hearing the words of Jesus as he opens our ears and loosens our tongue, but we begin our weeks the same way. I have a pet peeve, which my wife learned about after we were married. I dislike calendars, which start the week with Monday and kick Sunday to the end. But I don’t repent of this pet peeve. I’m right. The first day of the week is Sunday. Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, which is Sunday, after having rested in the tomb on the Sabbath, which is Saturday, the last day of the week. That is why Sunday and Saturday are called the “weekend.” They are fixed at the beginning and end of each week like bookends. The start of the week is Sunday, not Monday. And for nearly two thousand years, Christians have started their week by going to church to hear the word of God. There is no better way to start the week. You see, Satan does not leave our ears unclogged and our mouths loose after we are baptized. He works with the sinful world and your own sinful flesh to stop up your ears and to cut off your tongue from praising God. This means that you need Christ to speak his Ephatha to you again.  

Consider this past week or the time since you were last in church. What evidence do you see that you are not perfect as God intended you to be? What evidences of your own impending death have you experienced? How does your conscience feel? Are you proud of all that you have done? Would you stand by it before God on Judgment Day? God has given you ears, eyes, mouth, hands, and a mind. Have you used them all to his glory? Have you looked at what you should look at and kept your eyes from evil? Have you listened and paid attention to God’s Word, or to that which does not edify you? Have the words you have spoken been charitable, kind, and true? What have your hands been busy at? Would you be ashamed to reveal your thoughts to others or to consider that God already knows them?  

The deaf and mute man wanted to hear and speak, but he could not. So, he went to Jesus to be restored. St. Paul laments that the good he would do he does not, but the evil he does not want to do he keeps on doing (Romans 7). The reasons are the same. The body is corrupted by sin. You review your past week and you see that your eyes, ears, mouth, and hands, yes, even your very heart do not work as God created them to work. You need to be restored. And you’ve racked up a debt by your sins which is insurmountable, which goes above your head. You need to be forgiven. That is why you start your week by going to church. Hearing Jesus’ words, which he groaned in bitter pain to win for you, you are forgiven and restored. Those sins for which your conscience is afraid and ashamed are wiped clean. Each week, you get a clean slate. By means of his Word and Sacrament, Jesus gives to you that which he has gained for you on the cross with bitter groans.  

This is why David says in Psalm 51, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” We need the Lord to open our lips. He does this only by first opening our ears to hear his Word. Unless Christ speaks to us, we cannot confess his name and be saved (Joel 2:32; Romans 10:13ff). After Jesus healed him, the man spoke plainly. The Greek words is ὀρθῶς (orthos). That’s where we get the word orthodontist, meaning, straight teeth, and orthodox, meaning, right praise or straight teaching. Every Christian should be orthodox. We should speak the truth of God’s Word. Orthodoxy saves, because by it we learn the Gospel. But you can only speak rightly if Christ speaks to you. 

Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2:32). To confess Christ as your Savior from sin is to confess that God has restored you. You may not feel that way now. You may still die and shed this outer form. But through Christ, you will receive a much greater life in the resurrection when the entire creation will be restored perfectly forever. So, as long as we live in this fallen world filled with sin, sickness, and death, we return to him who restores us. Our consciences are restored week by week, year by year, until what we hold to be true through faith will come to completion. Amen.   
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    Rev. James Preus

    Rev. Preus is the pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ottumwa, IA. These are audio and text of the sermons he preaches at Trinity according to the Historical Lectionary. 

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