Service and Sermon for 7th Sunday after Trinity

 

Divine Service for the 7^th Sunday after Trinity

Setting Four, page 203

+ July 18, 2021 +

INTROIT    Psalm 47

Clap your hands, all | peoples!*
   Shout to God with loud | songs of joy!
For the Lord, the Most High, is | to be feared,*
   a great king over | all the earth.
He subdued peoples | under us,*
   and nations un- | der our feet.
Sing praises to God, sing | praises!*
   Sing praises to our King, sing | praises!
For God is the King of | all the earth;*
   sing praises | with a psalm!
God reigns over the | nations;*
   God sits on his | holy throne.
Glory be to the Father and | to the Son*
   and to the Holy | Spirit;
as it was in the be- | ginning,*
   is now, and will be forever. | Amen.
Clap your hands, all | peoples!*
   Shout to God with loud | songs of joy!
For the Lord, the Most High, is | to be feared,*
   a great king over | all the earth.

COLLECT OF THE DAY

P    O God, whose never-failing providence orders all things both in heaven and earth, we humbly implore You to put away from us all hurtful things and to give us those things that are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

 

OLD TESTAMENT READING   Genesis 2:7–17

   7Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

   10A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

   15The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

 A    This is the Word of the Lord.

C    Thanks be to God.

 

PSALM 33

1Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!
   Praise befits the upright.
2Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
   make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
3Sing to him a new song;
   play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

4For the word of the Lord is upright,
   and all his work is done in faithfulness.
5He loves righteousness and justice;
   the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

6By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
   and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
7He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;
   he puts the deeps in storehouses.

8Let all the earth fear the Lord;
   let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
9For he spoke, and it came to be;
   he commanded, and it stood firm.

10The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
   he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
   the plans of his heart to all generations.

 

EPISTLE   Romans 6:19–23

   19I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

   20When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

A    This is the Word of the Lord.

C    Thanks be to God.

 

HOLY GOSPEL                                                                                                                                                   

P    The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, the eighth chapter.

C    Glory to You, O Lord.

 

   1In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, [Jesus] called his disciples to him and said to them, 2“I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. 3And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” 4And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” 5And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” 6And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. 7And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. 8And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away.

P    This is the Gospel of the Lord.

C    Praise to You, O Christ.

 

The Free Gift

Romans 6:23

 

Grace, Mercy and Peace are yours from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The free gift of God is eternal life. “Free” may seem like an unnecessary, extra word in this verse. It should go without saying, if it’s a gift, it’s free. It’s sharply contrasted with what you work for, which is wages. But the translators of our English Bible add the word free here as the best way they could find to express the message in English, what was first written in Greek. There are several words for gift in Greek. Some imply that there are strings attached, gifts a person gives with the assumption that there’s going to be some sort of reciprocation. Those are the kind of gifts we most often expect in this world. You scratch my back; I’ll return the favor. But St. Paul is precise in his words here. This gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. God gives gifts to those whom He loves, free gifts, no strings attached.

Life here and now, life eternal beyond here, is the free gift of God.

With faith, the Christian sees everything that is good, everything that is healthy and helpful, anything that makes life, keeps life, enhances life is the free gift of God.

We see our life is a gift from God, every day, every breath. But there is so much more. When the Bible talks about life, as it does here in Romans, it adds the word “eternal”. Forever and ever. On and on, beyond our understanding. Our eternal life is gift from God, dependent upon His forgiveness of our sins for Jesus sake.

In Jesus’ time, thousands saw with their own eyes how the Lord provided them their daily bread. We, by faith, acknowledge the same thing today. As we receive our daily sustenance from the resources he showers upon us, we thank God that all his blessings come to us as a free gift.

Today, after church, we are going to clean up our environment a little bit. The best way to think about the world and the world’s environment is to confess that God is this world’s creator and ruler and that we are to manage the gifts he has given to us. It would be wrong to misuse or waste those gifts. It would also be wrong to have some radical agenda thinking that human attempts to control the environment through regulations and good behavior are the only hope for life on earth. No, we trust God to be good in giving gifts to the earth, to sustain life on the earth. And we do what we should in our limited areas of responsibility.

In the sacraments of the church, we get the free gift of God. Baptism is not the individual’s effort or choice, but it is the gift of God. The Lord’s Supper is the free gift of God. It’s Jesus giving you his holy body and his precious blood and telling you because of this God, my Father and your Father, has forgiven you all your sins, and brought you into his eternal, ongoing feast. That’s all free gift. It’s not up to you to make an effort to do it right. It doesn’t depend on you to imagine or to feel it’s the Lord’s body and blood in the sacrament. It is because he said it is and he freely gives it to you as a gift and it’s for you to just believe what he says it is.

Believe Him when He says it is a gift. That’s the precious Gospel truth. God gives you this wonderful free gift, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Pray God, help us each to believe what He says, because there’s a lot working against us to lead us to doubt, despair and disbelief. As I speak to you in a sermon, I have to keep in mind that there’s a lot going on in your world, in your life, in your mind, that makes it difficult to hear, and difficult to believe.

I get it. I’m talking to people who are flesh and blood humans, living in a world that’s been separated from God and His ways because of sin. I’m called to speak the word of God. You are called to hear and believe it. For example, Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. You can hear that. You can believe it. But there is stuff going on in your mind that’s pressuring you not to believe it.

Just turn ahead a page or two in Romans and you'll come to a verse that explains it well.

Romans 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 

Hostile to God -- that’s the way to explain the sinful human nature, which we all have and are struggling with. We each have to admit it, even if it hurts to. When we sin in thought, word or deed, we are hostile to God. Examining ourselves carefully, we find we do such daily.

So what’s a person like who is hostile to God? When you’re hostile towards someone, you’re not going to take their gifts. You don’t want any gifts from your enemy. You expect no gifts. Imagine how you’d speak to your worst enemy, if he had the gall to offer you a free gift. You say, “No, thank you. Just give me what I’ve got coming. Just give me what I deserve. I don’t need you to give me any free gifts, just give me my wages.”

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And hear the response that comes from the sinful nature within you, the sinful mind that is set on the flesh, hostile to God. “I don’t want your free gift; I just want my wages.”

“I want pay and recognition for all that I have done and all that I have made myself to be. Look at me. Look how right I am. Look how much I’m capable of on my own. I don’t want any free gift. I just want what I deserve. And in my judgement, I deserve everything I want.” So says, the sinful mind set on the flesh.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus taught his disciples a lesson. He had compassion on the crowd of people who had been so attentively listening to him, but now the day has gone on and everyone’s getting hungry. Jesus asks the disciples, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven”.

His lesson for them was the futility, the helplessness, the hopelessness that faces them when they try on their own, when they count their own resources, when they consider the imaginable task at hand.

That’s what you must do to confront the conflict in your mind between the word of God which you believe and the sinful mind that is set on the flesh. If your sinful mind ever starts to argue with God, and say, “I don’t need your free gift, no thank you.” Just take a moment and count up your resources. The disciples had to count up their stock of bread. They had this “Uh-oh” moment. “No way do we have enough to feed thousands”. So likewise, you. Take stock of your things. Have you got enough good stuff within you to make it to eternal life? Have you got what it takes to be good, and right, and acceptable?

Any reasonable person has to admit that there is nothing he or she can do to make it to heaven, to gain eternal life.

Problem is, the sinful mind is not reasonable, not so smart in the ways of eternal life. It’s not as easy as just reasoning it out. It’s going to take help from above, from him who is able to put the mind of sin to death, so that the mind of the believer may live eternally.

Jesus our Savior died for us, to forgive us our sins and he rose again on the third day to give us eternal life. In doing this he reconciled us to God. Hear that word at least today: Reconciled. You are reconciled to God. If you have sins in your life and sin in your mind that has made you hostile to God and reluctant to take what he says, reluctant to accept the free gifts he gives, know that Jesus your Savior has reconciled you and God. 

God’s on your side. By faith, you’re on God’s side. Hostility, awkwardness, discomfort is removed when your guilt is removed. Having be justified by the blood of Jesus, we are at peace with God. You’re on such good terms with God, that you can relax and take the free gift He gives. Amen.