Prayers, Readings and a Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Trinity

 

Manuscript for the service on September 26

 

+ Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity +

 

579 THE LAW OF GOD IS GOOD AND WISE

1 The Law of God is good and wise
And sets His will before our eyes,
Shows us the way of righteousness,
And dooms to death when we transgress.

 

2 Its light of holiness imparts
The knowledge of our sinful hearts
That we may see our lost estate
And turn from sin before too late.

 

3 To those who help in Christ have found
And would in works of love abound
It shows what deeds are His delight
And should be done as good and right.

 

4 But those who scornfully disdain
God’s Law shall then in sin remain;
Its terror in their ear resounds
And keeps their wickedness in bounds.

 

5 The Law is good; but since the fall
Its holiness condemns us all;
It dooms us for our sin to die
And has no pow’r to justify.

 

6 To Jesus we for refuge flee,
Who from the curse has set us free,
And humbly worship at His throne,
Saved by His grace through faith alone.

Text: Public domain

  

P    In the name of the Father and of the T Son and of the Holy Spirit.

C    Amen.

 

COLLECT OF THE DAY

P    Let us pray.

Lord, we implore You, grant Your people grace to withstand the temptations of the devil and with pure hearts and minds to follow You, the only God; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

 

 

EPISTLE                                                                                                                                        Ephesians 4:1–6

   1I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

 

A    This is the Word of the Lord.

C    Thanks be to God.

 

 

HOLY GOSPEL                                                                                                                                                   

P    The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the fourteenth chapter.

 

 

 

   1One Sabbath, when [Jesus] went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” 6And they could not reply to these things.

   7Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8“When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

 

P    This is the Gospel of the Lord.

 

 

APOSTLES’ CREED

C    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 T everlasting. Amen.

 

 SERMON

On The Third Commandment

 

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

Jesus said to the lawyers and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” (Luke 14:3)

                Here Jesus teaches the Third Commandment.

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

What does this mean? 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.

 

Consider now 1.) the meaning of the 3^rd Commandment, 2.) the history of the 3^rd Commandment 3.) and the Promise of the 3^rd Commandment.

                First the meaning. “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.” Higher than all concerns about certain days and times set aside for religious ceremonies, even high above certain holy places, and buildings and altars dedicated to worship stands the Word of God. God’s command is that we hear his word, and gladly learn it. When we gladly hear and learn God’s word we come to know our God and Savior and we come to know ourselves as his people, the sheep of his pasture.

                True religion must never be reduced to accomplishing the bare minimum of going to a certain place at a certain time to go through the motions and perform the ceremonies. Things happen, Lord knows, like when the ox falls in the pit or when a pandemic disrupts our peace and our regularly scheduled duties. Hearing and learning God’s word helps us to be ready when such things happen to do the compassionate thing. Get the poor beast out of the well. Help the sick, have compassion on the suffering. And trust God that he will provide time later for us to again gather together, hear his word, sing joyful songs and pray together.

                Secondly, for understanding it is good to remember the history of the 3^rd Commandment. When God spelled out the commandments for Moses and the people on Mt. Sinai, he said this about the third commandment. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20).

                God’s good order was for people, and also their beast of burdens, to have a day off each week. For rest, and for remembering the gifts of the God who created them. These people who had come to Mt. Sinai and were first hearing this commandment had just come out of Egypt where they were slaves, under cruel taskmasters who demanded unending labor from them. What a good commandment now! You are free. Do your work in six days and then take a healthy rest. Be compassionate on your servants, employees and beasts, let them have a day to rest up as well.

                But then as the history progressed, the leaders of the Jews began to make this pleasant commandment harsh and burdensome.  They complicated it unduly, setting strict limits on the activities one could do on the day of rest. You could walk only so many steps, no farther, you had to eat only leftovers, cooking would not be resting. So Jesus suggests they go ahead and debate it further, Can you even show compassion on some dear sick person on the Sabbath? Or does that break God’s law.

                These freed slaves, were being put back into the shackles. This time the taskmaster was the law of the commandments.

                Jesus frees sinners from the bondage of the law’s demands. God has having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14-15). You are free. Live in that freedom.

                Now the history of the 3^rd Commandment goes on from there. And you know the history. We got tractors and machines to do our heavy labor. We don’t work our livestock anymore; they get to lay around every day, just getting fat and tasty for us. We have cushy jobs and entertainment and diversions, for more than we have time to take advantage of.

                People, as lazy as pigs, no longer needing a Sabbath observance, despise preaching and God’s word. We think to little of this commandment, as also the other nine.

                This Third Commandment is the command of God. He says do this. Hear the Word of God.

“You shall observe the worship day

That peace may fill your home, and pray,

And put aside the work you do,

So that God may work in you.” (LSB 581)

Which brings us to the promise of the 3^rd Commandment. When God created the heavens and the earth in six days, he created day and night, times and seasons. The 3^rd Commandment reminds you that God is in control of time. We hustle and hurry all through every day, as if we were in charge of making everything happen.  Your days and your moments are in God’s hands. He gives you your days for you to manage. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3).

             Manage your time, for it is a gift of God on loan to you. Work when you are to work. Play when its time to play. Sleep with a peaceful mind when it is time. Pray when it is time to pray.

                Go to church when possible. We want you here. We want you to encourage others to be here and bring them here with you. This is a congregation. The root word of that is Latin for flock. God’s sheep flock together here around the good shepherd, as “one body, one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). 

                The promise of the Third Commandment is that God gives you time to worship, to pray and to hear His word. God gives you all of your days. And when your time is full, and you close your eyes in the final sleep and faith, God will fulfill all his promises to you, taking you to himself into his final joyful eternal rest.

 

 

PRAYER OF THE CHURCH

P    Let us pray for the whole Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs.

 

Almighty Father, unite Your Church in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Lead Christians who are at odds with one another to seek reconciliation in Christ and, as brothers, to bear with each other in love. Lord, in Your mercy,

C    hear our prayer.

 

P    Preserve and give success to the preaching of Your Holy Word. Through pastors, missionaries, church workers and the priesthood of all believers, send forth Your Son’s gracious invitation to repent and believe and cause it to be received with joyful faith. Lord, in Your mercy,

C    hear our prayer.

 

 

P    Almighty God, uphold our president Biden, our governor Reynolds; and all our leaders. Direct their work toward the common good of all people, which is found in God’s Law written on our hearts and in Your righteous decrees — especially for the protection of the unborn and those who cannot speak for themselves. Lord, in Your mercy,

C    hear our prayer.

 

P    Merciful Father, spare those who are ill, suffering or in sorrow especially Dale, Sandy and all others struggling with disease or death. Comfort them with Your promise of constant care and mercy. Show compassion also to the bereaved. Comfort them with Your promise of a joyful reunion with Christ and their loved ones who have died in the faith. Lord, in Your mercy,

C    hear our prayer.

P    Into Your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in Your mercy; through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

C    Amen.

 

LORD’S PRAYER

P    Our Father who art in heaven,

     hallowed be Thy name,

     Thy kingdom come,

     Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;

     give us this day our daily bread;

     and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us;

     and lead us not into temptation,

     but deliver us from evil.

       For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

 

BENEDICTION                                                                                                                                                     

P    The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and T give you peace.

C    Amen.

 

580 THE GOSPEL SHOWS THE FATHER’S GRACE

1 The Gospel shows the Father’s grace,
Who sent His Son to save our race,
Proclaims how Jesus lived and died
That we might thus be justified.

 

2 It sets the Lamb before our eyes,
Who made the_atoning sacrifice,
And calls the souls with guilt oppressed
To come and find eternal rest.

 

3 It brings the Savior’s righteousness
To robe our souls in royal dress;
From all our guilt it brings release
And gives the troubled conscience peace.

 

4 It is the pow’r of God to save
From sin and Satan and the grave;
It works the faith which firmly clings
To all the treasures which it brings.

 

5 It bears to all the tidings glad
And bids their hearts no more be sad;
The weary, burdened souls it cheers
And banishes their guilty fears.

 

6 May we in faith its message learn
Nor thanklessly its blessings spurn;
May we in faith its truth confess
And praise the Lord, our righteousness.

Text: Public domain

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Divine Service, Setting Three from Lutheran Service Book

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV^® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2021 Concordia Publishing House.

No Divine Service for 9/26

 Dear members of St. Paul's Lutheran Church,

We are cancelling our Divine Service for tomorrow morning, September 26.

My wife, Sandy, has contracted COVID-19 and I was, of course, exposed to the corona virus. I had a negative test yesterday. I should be ok. But out of an abundance of caution, the congregational leadership has decided to forego our gathering together this week. 

I will have a video recording of the readings, prayers and a sermon on our YouTube channel tomorrow morning. I will send the link in a separate email.

Thank you for your understanding.

The Lord be with you all.

Pastor Ron Koch

Memory work for 9/29 -- Law and Gospel

 

Sing along with pastor: https://recorder.google.com/share/1c99168a-0480-46d3-9c0b-cee5c0afb665

Sing along with pastor to the Gospel Hymn at: https://recorder.google.com/share/0c713b3a-9d37-4a5d-84a0-608e2b557f97

Sermon for September 19, Living and Dying with Jesus – Luke 7:11-17

 Jesus said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother” Luke 7:14-15.

Jesus had compassion on this woman and her family. This was the second time she had to have a funeral for her loved ones. Some time before this day’s funeral of her only son, she had buried her husband. Now she is alone and, in that society, and that economy she would certainly have been destitute.

Jesus raised her son to life again and did this very compassionate thing, “Jesus gave him to his mother.” That’s why he could tell her to stop weeping in the middle of her only son’s funeral, because he was undoing death and the pain and separation that death causes. He was giving her back her only son.

Isn’t it nice to think of the people in our lives that way: our Lord gives them to us? They don’t just happen to bump into us randomly. God provides. He answers our prayers. In the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for our daily bread and all the stuff we need to make it through life. The Lord answers that prayer by giving us “food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like” (Small Catechism, 4^th Commandment). Usually such gifts from God come to us in very ordinary, unsurprising ways. But by faith we understand that these good things come from God. Some rare times these good things come from God in miraculous and exciting ways as it did that day in Nain when he raised the widow’s son and gave him to her.

As for me, I’ve wondered what it must have been like for this young man. What did he experience? What did he do with his added-on bonus time of life? It’s the same with the other people that Jesus brought back from the dead, like Lazarus or even the son of the widow of Zerapheth whom Elijah prayed for and was raised. We are not told much. In the passage about Lazarus, it’s all about his sisters, Mary and Martha, very little about Lazarus. In the passage about Elijah, the son was raised so that the widow would believe the truth of God. So here at Nain, we’re not told much about the dead man, what he experienced, what his future days were like. It simply tells how Jesus gave him to his mother.

He was to spend a few more days and years in this world. He got a little bonus time. But, of course, he would die again. This little resurrection recorded in Luke 7 is not quite complete, final, or permanent. It is only a foretaste of the feast to come, a foreshadowing of the resurrection this man of Nain, and you and I and all believers should look forward to.

So much about our faith, our worship, our learning of God’s Holy Word is just like this, a sign of things to come. By nature we would have a fear of the unknown future. By faith, we have hope for the future. If anyone fears death, let them find peace in the Gospel of Jesus. That’s what we were singing about in the hymn of the day a little bit ago.

758 The Will of God Is Always Best

4    When life’s brief course on earth is run
    And I this world am leaving,
Grant me to say, “Your will be done,”
    Your faithful Word believing.
        My dearest Friend, I now commend
My soul into Your keeping;
        From sin and hell,  And death as well,
By You the vict’ry reaping.

Jesus is the Lord of life. And our hope is in him that one day He will raise us and all our loved ones and give eternal life in His kingdom to all who believe in him. The resurrection of this young man in Nain that day is a foretaste and foreshadow of the great resurrection we are looking forward to.

Now consider this, you are having a common experience as that man had on the day of his funeral. I like to read a passage from Romans 14 at funerals:

⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. ⁸ For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

Jesus teaches us how to die and how to live. Like the dead man, Jesus gives us life. We were dead in our trespasses and sin. In your baptism, Jesus has taken away your sins and the condemnation and the punishment they deserve for you. The soul that sins, deserves to die. That’s what divine justice demands. But Jesus stays your execution. He dies instead. And declares you to be worthy of life. Every morning when you wake up you should say, “Thank God, I’m not dead. Today is a bonus day, a new life.”

Jesus has granted us the resurrection from sin and hell. Our life is from him. And it’s eternal. When we have finished our days here, we will have an even better life with Jesus. In the meantime, every day we get is a bonus. So we can live not to serve ourselves and our self-interests. The newly raised man of Nain was not given life so that he could have more “me-time”. He was given to his mother, He had those bonus days to continue on with his vocation as son, and servant of the Lord.

So likewise, you and I don’t need more “me-time”, more selfish pleasures and earthly pursuits. We have been given all. We have eternity before us. We need not live by taking all we can get out of life, as if there’s nothing beyond. With Jesus, we are crucified to self. If we live, we live to the Lord, serving him as he calls us. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.

Amen.