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Series A – First Sunday in Lent – Sunday, March 5, 2017 | Pr. Chris Rosebrough

Welcome to the Teaching Ministry of Kongsvinger Lutheran Church. Kongsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of Northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone, and now, here’s a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrough:

Time Stamp	Transcript
0:29	the holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew Chapter 4 verses 1 to 11.
0:35	then Jesus was led up by the spirit Into the Wilderness to be tempted by the devil
0:40	after fasting 40 days and 40 nights he was hungry and the tempter came and said to him
0:47	if you are the Son of God command these stones to become loaves of bread and he
0:53	answered it is written man shall not live by bread alone
0:58	but by every word that comes from the mouth of God then the devil took him to the holy city
1:03	set him on the Pinnacle of the temple and said to him if you are the Son of God throw yourself down for it is
1:10	written he will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone
1:17	Jesus said to him again it is written you shall not put the Lord your God to the test again the devil took him to a
1:23	very high mountain showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and he said to him all of these I will
1:29	give to you if you will fall down and worship me then Jesus said to him be gone Satan for
1:34	it is written you shall Worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve then the devil left him and behold
1:40	Angels came and were ministering to him this is the gospel of the Lord in the name of Jesus
1:46	amen all right every Earthly military battle has its aftermath and its grisly
1:54	mathematics now keep that in mind when I was growing up I had family from Tennessee and from
2:02	Georgia and our family would visit them fairly regularly and although I grew up
2:07	in Southern California I was never considered by them to be from the south it’s weird how that works I mean
2:13	technically I was farther south than never mind you get the point so my Southern relatives when we would visit
2:19	whenever the American Civil War was invoked they would always correct me and say it’s not the Civil War that’s the
2:27	war of Northern aggression hmm okay
2:33	I don’t know if you’ve noticed the southerners are a little touchy about this even to this day it’s as if the
2:39	loss of the Civil War has left well a pretty serious mark on the psyche of the
2:45	people in the South that lingers to this day and that’s relevant for our text so regardless of what you call it whether
2:52	it’s the war of Northern aggression or the Civil War the South effectively lost that war
2:58	in early July of 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg which took place in the North
3:04	in the state of Pennsylvania that battle lasted three days July 1st
3:10	July 2nd and July 3rd and it was The Ultimate Collision of the two armies the South nearly won the battle on day two
3:17	but had just come up literally inches short it’s almost miraculous when you
3:22	consider the Battle Tactics that were involved in maintaining the military positions on the little round tops but I
3:29	digress General Longstreet of the Confederate Army noted that General Lee’s blood was
3:35	up he was really incense that they did not actually defeat the Union forces on
3:40	the second day and so he was determined to fight and defeat the Union Army who was in front of him the solution that he
3:46	came up with will forever go down in history as one of the most costly decisions ever made in the annals of
3:53	armed military conflict it is known as Pickett’s Charge and on July 3 1863 at 2
4:01	pm that’s when it started 12 500 Confederate soldiers marched across
4:08	an open field in full view of Union artillery batteries and Riflemen with
4:14	the objective of taking Cemetery Ridge only half The Men Who marched onto that
4:20	field that day survived the ordeal in fact it was such a sound defeat that
4:27	William Faulkner years later in his work titled Intruder in the dust notes that
4:33	this day July 3rd 1863 2PM is burned
4:39	into the hearts of young men from the south here’s what he wrote for every Southern boy 14 years old
4:46	not once but whatever he wants there is the instant when it’s still not yet two
4:53	o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863. the brigades are in position behind the
5:00	rail fence the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are
5:05	already loosened to break out and picket himself with his long oiled ringlets and
5:11	his hat in one hand probably in his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Long Street to give the word
5:17	and it’s all in the balance it hasn’t happened yet it hasn’t even begun yet
5:24	it’s not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin
5:30	against that position and those circumstances but see Pickett’s Charge did happen
5:38	Pickett did make give the order to send his men across that field and his division was annihilated
5:47	and the Confederate Army did lose the Battle of Gettysburg
5:52	in fact there’s no way to undo that defeat and living in an alternate reality where
5:57	you can imagine what it was like before they lost is really not nothing but
6:04	wishful thinking and a way of not actually having to deal with the painful reality and the brutal truth of defeat
6:11	and in losing the battle of Gettysburg the South had effectively lost the war
6:16	that day the outcome was inevitable it was a couple years later when
6:23	Antietam not Antietam but um uh the courthouse I forget the name of
6:29	it happened but anyway you get what I’m saying getting old so the here’s the uh here’s the idea
6:35	then this battle the losses on both sides were catastrophic consider this the Union Army in the Battle of
6:41	Gettysburg lost 23 000 men that who were either
6:47	killed wounded or went missing literally their bodies just ceased to exist after
6:52	they were blown up Confederate Army 28 000 men were either killed wounded or
6:58	missing total 61 000 men in three days
7:04	the cost of this battle is staggering to calculate and to contemplate as far as
7:11	the repercussions that it had on human lives but I want you to consider this
7:17	our Old Testament and epistle text today in them we see the aftermath of our
7:24	failed conflict with the enemy of God who’s the devil
7:29	and this encounter was truly a cosmically cataclysmic
7:35	defeat and the cost of this defeat makes Gettysburg look like a picnic or a walk
7:41	in the park in fact if you really think about it going back and imagining what life was
7:48	like before this happened you know Genesis 2 when Adam and Eve live in
7:55	Paradise walking around naked without shame we have no way of even contemplating that none of us have even
8:03	experienced anything like it and so with that let’s return and I want to look at the aftermath of the effects in Genesis
8:10	3. we’ll start at verse 16. there’s a few things I want to pick up before we get into our epistle text and then
8:16	ultimately into our gospel Genesis 3 16. God is speaking punishment now to Adam
8:23	and Eve for their Disobedience to the woman he said I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing in pain you
8:31	shall bring forth children not many women in this room do not know what this is talking about
8:37	we thank God for epidurals and things like that but still and your desire shall be for your
8:43	husband and he shall rule over you if you remember back in the early part of Genesis 3 it talks about how Eve desired
8:51	the fruit that she sought and was desirous that same word desire there is
8:57	here and it basically the way the Hebrew works is in what it’s saying is that
9:02	because of the Fall your desire will be to be above your
9:08	husband to rule over him but he will rule over you in other words those of us who are married who understand that
9:15	there always seems to be a constant power conflict within our marriages this is a result of the Fall don’t elbow your
9:22	spouse please Adam he said because you’ve listened to the voice of your wife and you’ve eaten
9:28	of the tree of which I commanded you you shall not eat of it note God here tells you who you should be listening to you
9:34	listen to me not to other people even your own wife if your wife is telling you to do something contrary to the will
9:40	of God because you’ve done this and listened to her voice not mine cursed is the ground
9:45	because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring you forth for
9:51	you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the
9:58	ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall
10:03	return calculate the math here
10:10	so each and every one of us from the time we’re born already have one foot in the grave each and every one of us in
10:17	order to survive depend upon toil and the sweat of our brows to pay our bills
10:22	and each of the farmers here understand that when they plant their crop in the spring there’s no guarantee that it’ll
10:28	yield a harvest when it comes time to the fall we had to Battle Bugs and thorns and
10:35	thistles and hail storms and all this kind of stuff all the while while keeping a careful eye on our bank
10:41	accounts praying that we have enough pennies at the end to pay the bills
10:46	all of this is because when we went toe-to-toe with the Devil
10:52	we listened to him rather than listen to God we were in battle and didn’t recognize
10:59	it for what it was and we lost and so every single one of us who has family
11:05	members in that graveyard every single one of us who have recently lost somebody that we love or lost
11:12	somebody we love long ago or each and every one of us who suffers with languishing debilitating pain in our
11:20	bodies as we head towards the grave all of this is the grisly mathematics caused by our
11:28	failed Encounter With the Devil we were thrust under the Dominion of
11:35	Darkness put in bondage to sin death in the devil and who’s going to rescue us from that
11:43	the text then continues the man called his wife that’s the Hebrew because she was the
11:49	mother of all the living and the Lord God Made For Adam and his wife garments of skins and he clothed them a hint at
11:56	the gospel itself some poor animal maybe even a lamb or two had to lose their
12:03	lives in order for Adam and Eve to be clothed important to know verse 22 which is not
12:10	in our pericope I think is important then the Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us this
12:16	is the Trinity speaking amongst itself I don’t know if that’s the right way the the pronouns work when talking about the
12:23	Trinity but I think it’s a good way of looking at it so the father Son and Holy Spirit are discussing among themselves
12:31	man’s become like one of us knowing Good and Evil
12:36	now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and
12:41	live forever if you notice that that sentence doesn’t
12:46	seem like it’s complete in the ESV in your Pew Bible after the word forever there’s a dash and the
12:53	reason for that Dash is simple is because this is not a complete sentence in Hebrew
12:58	it’s as if God the Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit contemplating the magnitude and the depth of the defeat
13:06	that we have suffered contemplates and thinks the only thing
13:11	worse than this would be if man reached out his hand and ate of the tree of life
13:17	and lived forever in a sinful Fallen corrupt state in bondage to sin and the
13:24	devil and the thought is so Unthinkable he can’t even finish his sentence
13:31	lest he reach out his hand and eat of the tree of life and live forever what a thought
13:40	this is defeat the highest magnitude so what is the result of this defeat in
13:46	theological terms a little bit of a note here you’ll notice Genesis 3 is historical narrative
13:54	our epistle text Romans 5 technically is a type of Passage known as a didactic
14:00	text it is a teaching text it gives us the theology so that we know what the
14:07	theological implications are of Genesis 3. and here’s what Romans 5 12 says
14:12	therefore just as Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all men
14:19	because all sinned
14:25	this is not painting a pretty picture the person who really thinks that life
14:30	is nothing but My Little Pony and rainbows and that people are basically good does not understand the reality of
14:37	the situation man is not basically good because of what Adam and Eve did Sin has come into the world and it is impacted
14:44	every single one of us for sin was indeed in the world before
14:49	the law was given yet sin is not counted where there is no law yet death reigned what reigned death did
14:57	Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those whose sitting was not like the transgression of Adam who was a type
15:05	who was a one to come and here in our epistle text we begin to
15:10	see the turn in the face of such cataclysmic defeat of which the consequences are so
15:18	ginormous that we can’t even begin to calculate in the midst of all of this we begin to hear the hints of a second Adam
15:27	not the first Adam but it’s second atom the first atom pointing to him the second atom being Christ and here’s what
15:34	it says but the free gift the free gift there’s a free gift tell me about that free gift because I think
15:41	we need something like that the free gift is not like the trespass for if the
15:46	many died through the one man’s trespass and that’s all of us how much more have
15:51	the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many
15:57	and the free gift is not like the results of that one man’s sin for
16:02	judgment following one trespass brought condemnation
16:08	notice no Second Chances Adam and Eve com they broke one command judgment
16:14	follows and that brought condemnation not just to them but to every one of us
16:19	but the free gift following many trespasses brought
16:25	justification important word it’s a legal term
16:30	when you go to court the judge slaps the gavel down he says either guilty or not guilty
16:37	justification is when the judge declares you not guilty or innocent
16:43	so the free gift brings not guilty
16:49	hmm for if because of the one man’s trespass death reigned through that one man
16:55	how much more will those who receive the abundance of Grace and watch what the
17:00	free gift is and the free gift of righteousness
17:06	hmm scripture says that the free gift
17:12	is righteousness that’s Christ’s righteousness given to
17:19	you and to me remember how God clothed Adam and Eve
17:24	he now God Is clotheing Us in the righteousness of Christ and he’s doing this not by a wage you don’t earn it
17:32	he’s doing this as a gift so the free gift the abundance of grace and the free gift
17:38	of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ therefore as one trespass led to
17:45	condemnation for all men one of them did one led to condemnation for all men so
17:52	one act of righteousness this is Christ’s death on the cross for you and for me leads to justification and life
17:59	for all men for as by the one man’s Disobedience the many were made Sinners
18:05	this is the reason why in our confession of sin we confess these words I confess
18:10	that I am by Nature sinful and unclean
18:16	because according to Adam’s sin we were all made to be Sinners so though by the
18:23	one man’s obedience the many that’s us will be made righteous and all of this
18:29	is a gift from God well how can this be
18:34	how can this be well Our Gospel text and I want you to consider this
18:40	is truly amazing and it should cause all of us to stand up and to take note and as a result of
18:48	it begin to dare to Hope in our deliverance and our Redemption Our
18:54	Gospel text recalls the hand-to-hand combat of Jesus who is one of our own
18:59	he’s a man a descendant of Adam and Eve but he’s also God in human flesh and his
19:05	battle against the same foe who defeated our first parents doesn’t end up in the same tragic result rather than defeat
19:13	the results in Victory in fact consider this return with me now to Our Gospel
19:18	text in Matthew chapter 4. here’s what it says Jesus was led up by the spirit Into the Wilderness to be tempted by the
19:26	devil and every one of us in hearing that sentence should shudder because up to this point the devil is
19:33	The Undefeated heavyweight champion of the world there is nobody who’s gone
19:38	toe-to-toe with this Foe and one and after fasting for 40 days and 40
19:44	nights he was hungry two notes on this sentence you’ll see that 40 days 40
19:50	nights children of Israel were 40 years in the wilderness all of this is showing
19:55	that Jesus is Israel squished into one human being but this does not sound like
20:02	the way you prepare for Mortal battle I want you to consider the Rocky movies
20:07	if you would remember the original Rocky movie and Mick when Rocky was training
20:13	to go against Apollo Creed was he fasting no what was he doing he was training he
20:21	was chasing chickens while Mick was yelling at him catch the chicken Rock catch the chicken and don’t stay away
20:27	from your wife because women they weaken legs you know this is the way Rock talks no big talks and so what does he do he’s
20:32	training he’s running he’s lifting weights he’s drinking raw eggs he’s boxing pieces of meat he’s getting ready
20:40	to go against Apollo Creed because this is how you defeat an enemy
20:47	but what’s Jesus doing eating nothing
20:52	now I don’t know if you’ve noticed it may not be the same for you but
20:58	I have a difficult time making it from lunch to dinner
21:03	okay as we get close to the five o’clock hour
21:10	I don’t know if I can make it and by the time six o’clock rolls around when dinner is in our house I’m crawling down
21:16	the stairs I don’t think I can make it I’m so hungry I’m starving Jesus has gone 40
21:23	days without eating I don’t know how anyone does this and he
21:28	is doing this in preparation for his battle with the Devil
21:33	it says after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights he was hungry in my notes duh
21:41	of course he’s hungry so the tempter came and said to him now watch
21:47	if you are the Son of God command these stones to become loaves of bread what’s
21:54	the devil going after well the context helps us if you look just back into chapter three you
22:01	remember Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist and the voice the father is audibly heard what is the voice of the
22:08	father say this is my beloved Son and whom I am well pleased so here’s the Temptation Of The Devil he always has to
22:15	go after the word of God God told Adam and Eve don’t eat from that tree the day you’ve eaten of it you’ll surely die
22:20	Devil comes along and says you will not surely die don’t believe God he’s a liar
22:25	so here’s Jesus in the wilderness hungry duh and the devil says to him if you are
22:32	the Son of God I’m sure you are but I mean you heard that voice the word of God we’ve let’s test to see if that’s
22:39	really true Jesus then command these stones to become
22:44	bread and then Jesus his first counter attack against the
22:51	devil’s battle plan quotes Deuteronomy it is written man shall not live by
22:58	bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God
23:04	repulses the Devil with a word of God no secret ninja moves
23:09	none of that no power-ups needed for those of you who play video games none of that
23:16	he just simply quotes back the word of God and oh he’s hungry hmm
23:22	so the devil basically thinks all right he wants to play that game he can quote the word of God well I can quote the
23:28	word of God too but remember Jesus tells us about the Devil he’s a liar and he and the truth is not in him so when the
23:35	devil quotes the word of God trust me when I tell you he’s quoting it out of context and misquoting it so the devil
23:41	took him to the holy city set him on the Pinnacle of the temple said to him if you are the Son of God throw yourself
23:47	down for it is written he will command his angels concerning you and you should put dot dot dot and on their hands they
23:55	will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone he’s quoting Psalm 87 but leaving an important little piece
24:00	of it out to make it look like the Bible is teaching that the Messiah when he shows up can do crazy things like jump
24:07	off of cliffs without a parachute and that the Angels would catch him but that’s not what the text is saying and
24:13	Jesus you can almost see Jesus kind of going listen I got things to do here um it’s
24:19	written you shall not put the Lord your God to the test this doesn’t even seem like a fair fight
24:26	so again the devil took him to the very high mountain and by the way important things happen on high mountains and the
24:31	devil knows this thinking this is the Pinnacle moment I’ll take Jesus up on a high mountain we’ll recreate Sinai and
24:37	this time I can be gone and so the devil takes him to the high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world
24:43	and their glory and he said to them all of these I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me what a thick
24:52	thick narcissistic creep the devil is
24:58	and Jesus said be gone it’s written ye shall Worship the Lord your God and him only shall you sir
25:10	as far as epic battles go that was the least epic of the epic battles I’ve ever read anywhere
25:19	and yet in listening to the voice of God and not listening to the voice of the devil
25:27	unlike Adam and Eve unlike us Christ defeats the devil that day
25:35	it says the devil left him behold the Angels came and were ministering to them and hopefully they brought him a Big Mac
25:43	so Jesus won he defeated the serpent now I want you to think about this the
25:50	implications of it we like the 14 year old boys of the
25:56	South the Faulkner talks about we look back through Genesis 3 into
26:02	Genesis 2 and we try to imagine what it was like before the serpent struck
26:08	but with Jesus’s victory over the devil we no longer need to look backwards we can now begin to look forward
26:17	and the reason for this is quite simple because also in Genesis 3 we heard these important words the Lord God said to the
26:24	serpent because you have done this curse are you above all livestock and above all Beasts of the field and on your belly you shall go and thus you shall
26:32	eat all the days of your life and I will put enmity between you and the woman and
26:37	between your Offspring and her Offspring singular referring to Jesus he shall
26:43	bruise your head you shall bruise his heel Jesus will literally crush your head
26:49	mortal blow and already we read in Our Gospel text Jesus is on military
26:57	campaign and the first toe-to-toe battle with the Devil the Devil comes up the
27:02	loser first time in human history and then Jesus ultimately crushes the head
27:08	of the serpent by going to the cross bleeding and dying for our sins
27:16	taking all of our guilt and shame upon himself so that God can say to you and
27:22	to me innocent forgiven pardoned not guilty
27:29	so that we can be set free from the Dominion of darkness and all of this
27:34	these consequences that we are suffering because of the defeat that we suffered at the hands of the Devil by listening
27:41	to him rather than God Christ is undoing all of that and so we read it in our Psalm today
27:48	blessed is the one whose transgression Is Forgiven and whose sin is covered
27:55	blessed is the man and woman against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in
28:00	whose Spirit there is no deceit and so our Psalm today tells you of your
28:07	blessed State because of what Christ has done because your transgression Is
28:12	Forgiven your sin is covered the Lord will never count against you your
28:18	iniquity because it was imputed to Christ he bled and died for it and now
28:24	all of your sins have been cast into the sea of God’s forgetfulness and there’s a posted sign that says no
28:30	fishing allowed talking of our languishing under the
28:36	curse for when I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all the day long for day and night your hand was
28:44	Heavy upon me my strength was dried up as like that of the heat of Summer but I acknowledged my sin to you
28:52	and this is what it talks about and talks about repentance repentance is acknowledging your sin
28:58	before God and saying I am guilty I have sided with the Devil I have listened to
29:04	his voice and not yours and done what is evil in your sight so I acknowledge my sin to you Lord and I did not cover my
29:10	iniquity I didn’t hide it I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and then you hear these wonderful words
29:17	and you forgave the iniquity the shame and the guilt of all of my sin
29:23	and here’s the therefore so therefore let everyone who is Godly and that is you and me because we are in Christ
29:30	clothed with the righteousness of Christ remember the text said the gift of righteousness
29:36	given to you therefore let everyone who is Godly now offer prayer to you at a
29:41	time when you may be found and today is the day of salvation Christ can truly be found he’s here today for giving sins
29:48	he’s here today in the Lord’s Supper in his body and blood broken and shed for you for the Forgiveness of your sins
29:54	he’s here today he can be found today and because he can be found today you can be forgiven you can be assured of
30:01	the life to come and it’s all given as a gift so surely in the rush of the Great Waters they shall not reach him and now
30:09	we can say of Christ you are a hiding place for me you preserve me from trouble and you
30:16	surround me with shouts not of defeat you surround me with shouts of
30:24	Deliverance what a great Victory Christ has won for
30:29	us in the face of our cataclysmic defeat by listening to the voice of the devil
30:36	all of this is by Grace all of it is received through faith so let us again repent
30:43	acknowledge our sin before God let us again acknowledge that we have fallen short
30:49	and received the abundance of Grace in Christ so that our sins may be covered
30:55	our iniquity atoned for so that we can be covered with shouts of Deliverance
31:01	and have a hope a hope of the world to come when the final battle takes place
31:07	and Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead and kills the devil with the breath of his mouth
31:13	and casts him into the Great Lake of Fire and makes all things new
31:19	the defeat that we are all still languishing under is going to be flipped
31:24	over done away with and we will live in Christ’s Victory and in the shadow of
31:30	his wings forever in the name of Jesus amen

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