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Series B – First Sunday of Advent – Sunday, December 3, 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
0:22	The holy Gospel
0:29	According to Saint Mark chapter 11 verses 1 through 10. now when they drew near to Jerusalem to
0:36	Beth phage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them go into the village in
0:43	front of you and immediately as you enter it you will find a cult tied on which no one has ever sat untie it and
0:51	bring it if anyone says to you why are you doing this say the Lord has need of
0:57	it and will send it back here immediately and they went away and found a cult tied
1:02	at a door outside in the street and they untied it and some of those standing there said to them what are you doing
1:08	untying the cold and they told them what the Lord Jesus had said and they let them go and they brought the cult to
1:15	Jesus and threw their cloaks on it and he sat on it and many spread their cloaks on the road and others spread
1:21	leafy branches that they had cut from the fields and those who went before and those who followed were shouting Hosanna
1:29	blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord blessed is the coming Kingdom of Our Father David hosanna in the
1:36	highest this is the gospel of the Lord in the name of Jesus oh man
1:43	Happy New Year Pastor roseber what has gotten into you
1:48	it’s December 3rd it’s not happy New Year no you’ll notice that the colors here in the church have turned blue
1:55	today is the first Sunday of Advent and it’s the beginning of a brand new church
2:00	year now a little bit of a note that we have the big high Feast of Christmas
2:05	just around the corner now when I was growing up these these were tough days to get through very difficult you know
2:13	because Thanksgiving occurred and then it was Christmas from like Thanksgiving Day afternoon until Christmas afternoon
2:20	when I was suffering from a food coma and enjoying all of the presents that I
2:25	opened but note this that advent historically is considered to be a
2:31	penitential season it’s a lot like a mini lent I mean think of it this way
2:36	there’s a reason why our readings are not talking about the birth of Christ today and that has to do with the fact
2:42	that this is a penitential season this is a time for us to before the Feast of
2:48	the revealing and the arriving of our great God and King in tiny little package form right which is just amazing
2:55	if you think about it that during this time we reflect on the Ten Commandments
3:00	and look at our own lives and recognize
3:05	our need for a savior you know God didn’t send us a politician
3:13	right he sent us a savior which means we needed one of them so the idea here is
3:19	is that repentance is a big part of this season and I will say this by way of
3:24	just if you want to experience the full Advent thing that fasting is also
3:30	considered to be an important part of this season you’re thinking fasting yeah and it if you would like to
3:38	fast may I recommend a particular strategy for doing so
3:44	the idea here is that you rather than eat a meal you spend that time in prayer
3:51	and reflection on your own life and reflecting it on your life in light of the ten commandments so a good way too
3:57	fast would be to one day during the week say I’m not going to have breakfast I’m
4:04	not going to have lunch and funny enough your body can actually adjust to that don’t eat or drink anything with sugars
4:12	in it because you’ll be you’ll crash hard and then you you break your fast at
4:17	dinner so the idea is you have dinner the night before but then you don’t eat again until dinner you can do that all
4:24	right that that’s an easy way to do it you know you don’t have to do the 40 days in the wilderness thing so which I
4:30	have yet to do and not even gonna try it but fasting then is an important aspect
4:35	of this and pull out your small catechism reflect and spend time in prayer on the Ten Commandments now there’s a lot of
4:42	confusion regarding repentance out there what is repentance when we talk
4:49	biblically what repentance is what exactly are we saying now oftentimes
4:57	people will say well repenting is cleaning up your life nope that’s not repenting
5:04	cleaning up your life is not repenting that’s the fruit of repenting but it’s not repenting and then somebody will say
5:11	well repenting is really feeling sorry for your sins and I would say ah now we’re getting
5:17	warmer you remember when you were a kid and your parents would hide something or maybe it was just my parents my dad
5:23	would hide something of mine and so you got to go find it Chris so I’d start wandering through the house
5:29	and say oh you’re cold oh you’re freezing it’s snowing outside you’re in the middle of a blizzard so I’d change
5:35	direction and say oh it’s getting warmer the sun is out you’re getting warmer oh you’re burning up oh my goodness it’s
5:41	the sun you’re flaming right now and then you figure out where it was right so the idea is is that being sorry for
5:49	your sins oh you’re really warm you’re you’re in the right ballpark now if you
5:55	haven’t spent time ever looking at the documents that explain
6:01	what it is that we believe and teach and confess as a church you’ll note that a
6:07	few weeks ago we had a meeting to reevaluate and kind of redo our Church’s
6:12	constitution in light of a changing world and you’ll note that our confessional documents include the
6:19	Augsburg confession the Augsburg confession is the succinct summary of what it is that we believe teaching
6:25	confess and article 12 of the Augsburg confession gives us a wonderful summary
6:31	of what scripture teaches regarding repentance let me read out a portion of
6:36	it properly speaking the Augsburg confession says true repentance is
6:42	nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow
6:48	or Terror on account of sins now that’s not a full stop there’s a
6:54	comma there but that’s part of it so consider this true repentance involves sorrow Contrition and even Terror on
7:04	account of sin and then there’s an important conjunction and the conjunction is the word and
7:10	and bless you yeah
7:17	the conjunction is the word and and here’s what it says and yet at the same
7:22	time to believe the gospel believe the Absolution that namely sin has been
7:30	forgiven and Grace has been obtained through Christ and that this faith will Comfort Hearts again and set it at rest
7:38	so repentance involves kind of two primary Concepts which seems like they’re at odds with each other but it
7:44	makes perfect sense sorrow Contrition maybe even Terror because of your sin and at the same time
7:53	Having the courage to confidently believe that your sins are forgiven because of Christ that’s the two of them
8:00	so think of it this way the Apostle Paul talks about those who have Shipwrecked
8:05	their faith which is a real possibility could happen to any of us well in order for an old
8:12	think of an old wooden ship in order for an old wooden ship to stay upright and to make it so that the sails don’t
8:17	become the Keel right you would have to have these rocks down in your hole called the ballast rocks and they would
8:24	have to be on both sides of the hole so you got to balance the load ballast on this you know on the port side ballast
8:32	on the starboard side you have to have both so think of it this way repentance involves
8:38	having a balance between Contrition and sorrow and even Terror because of our
8:44	sins and confidence in the Forgiveness of sins because of Christ put that ballast in your ship and you
8:52	are not likely for your faith to be Shipwrecked it’ll stand upright kind of
8:59	put tensions on both sides of it now just so you think that the the authors
9:04	of the Augsburg confession are not totally out to lunch if then they’re not you’re going to go back with me into
9:11	Isaiah chapter 64. and I want you to watch this interplay between sorrow even
9:18	Terror of God and confidence in his forgiveness and mercy as we read this
9:25	text on a cold reading it might seem schizophrenic it might seem like Isaiah
9:32	I can’t tell if you’re having a good day or a bad day which is it with you well
9:38	as we read this you’re going to see that he’s got rocks that he’s putting on the one side for Terror and on the other
9:45	side for confidence and forgiveness this is a picture if you would in a text of what real repentance looks like and so
9:53	it begins with the terror part oh that you would Rend the heavens and
10:00	come down that the mountains might Quake at your presence as when fire Kindles
10:07	Brushwood and the fire causes water to boil to make your name known to your
10:13	adversaries and that the Nations might tremble at your presence I don’t know
10:19	about you but that sounds like a frightening and absolutely terrifying picture of God God showing up and all of
10:25	a sudden the mountains around Grand Forks wait a second there’s none of those
10:31	well imagine that there were right the mountains trembling and quaking and
10:37	being torn apart something awesome ginormous huge powerful is on the move
10:43	the closest thing I can think of imagine yourself in Africa in the deepest darkest part of Africa on a safari and
10:50	ahead you hear the Rumblings and the Earth shaking and you can see trees being torn in this direction and torn in
10:57	that direction you realize ah Stampede of elephants first move get out of the
11:03	way or you’ll be stampeded well God is so
11:09	much more awesome and terrifying than a stampede of elements and you’ll note here that this presence of God is
11:16	showing up and tearing apart everything in its path in order to make known his
11:21	name among whom his adversaries so that the Nations might tremble at
11:28	your presence hmm now we all know that scripture is very
11:34	clear that each and every one of us we were born dead and in trespasses and
11:42	sins and we were by nature objects of God’s Wrath this is what scripture says
11:48	in Ephesians 2 and we were at enmity with God
11:54	we were God’s enemies we were his adversaries now we who have been United with Christ in his death and his
12:01	resurrection and the Waters of baptism have had our sins forgiven you’re going to note that living the Christian Life
12:07	is a wee bit on the difficult side because we still have our sinful nature and if your sinful nature is like mine
12:14	wink wink nudge nudge it is your sinful nature doesn’t want to do good your
12:20	sinful nature is still probably upset at you that you got up early this morning and came to church and the last thing it
12:26	wants to do is listen to God’s word and come Monday it’s going to try to convince you to put all that Jesus stuff
12:32	aside and let’s go do something fun and by fun we mean sinful right this is
12:39	how our sinful nature works so each and every one of us understands that as Christians that we are simultaneously
12:45	Justified and declared righteous and that we have a new nature as a result of
12:50	God’s regenerative work through his word and the Waters of baptism and at the same time we still have old Adam to deal
12:57	with and old Hannah is just awful and so each and every one of us
13:04	at the close of every day needs to pray that prayer that Jesus has taught us and pray these words forgive
13:12	us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
13:18	because there isn’t a day that goes by that you do not sin against God and
13:23	behave is one of his adversaries and knowing this to be true and knowing how
13:29	awesome and holy and mighty God is the showing up of his presence well
13:36	any sane person would tremble that’s the idea
13:44	we continue when you did awesome things that we did not look for
13:51	you came down the mountains quaked at your presence but then it turns from a vold
13:58	no one has heard or perceived by the ear no eye has seen a god besides you who
14:04	listen who acts for those who wait for him
14:09	you meet him who joyfully Works righteousness those who remember
14:16	your ways huh so you’ll note all of a sudden we’ve got
14:23	this presence of God mountains being torn apart and then rather than us continuing to quake and
14:30	to tremble we are admonished to remember how the Lord Works righteousness and
14:36	there is a hint of joy which kind of comes out of nowhere what
14:42	is Isaiah doing well now he’s putting rocks on the other side of the ship the part where we are confident in God’s
14:50	mercy and Grace and his rewarding of our good works and things of that nature
14:57	behold you were angry and we sinned in our sins we have been a long time
15:05	shall we be saved what a question in our sins we have we have been in our
15:12	sins a long time shall we be saved I’m almost 50. I’ve been in my sins for
15:17	almost 50 years some of you are a wee bit older than that and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the cumulative effect
15:24	of continuing to live in this lifetime is an accumulation of more sin upon more
15:29	sin upon more sin in fact it’s rather awful to take a look behind and see the
15:34	wake of destruction of my own sin in my own life and on other people and even on
15:40	myself and then this ask the question shall we be saved
15:51	we shall we shall but not because we are righteous
15:58	so the text continues and this is where we got to be really diligent to pay attention to this text
16:05	we have all become like one who is unclean and all of our righteous Deeds are like
16:11	a polluted garment we all fade like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind
16:18	take us away there is no one who calls upon your name
16:23	who Rouses himself to take hold of you for you have hidden your face from us
16:29	and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities so after getting a little glimpse of
16:35	Hope a wee bit of gospel now comes full circle again more rocks on the other
16:40	side of the ship as it relates to God’s law and this is an important text
16:46	do you think that you’re going to be able to stand in the presence of this Mighty and holy God who when he shows up
16:54	that the mountains quake and hold up your good works and say see God you need
17:00	to let me into heaven that’s not going to work and this text explains why
17:08	all of our righteous Deeds are like a polluted garment the text says notice it
17:14	doesn’t say our sins are like a polluted garment it says all of our righteous Deeds are
17:22	like a polluted garment and to be clear this the visual in the Hebrew is blunt
17:30	and strong and quite gross polluted garment
17:35	the only polite way I can say it is it’s a used female sanitary napkin
17:44	that’s the description of all of our righteous Deeds
17:49	so holding those up to God and saying God let me into heaven that ain’t going
17:55	to work you’re going to notice because each and every one of our righteous Deeds is polluted by sin that not only
18:01	will our sin send us to hell our very best Deeds
18:08	our greatest good works are still polluted with enough sin that we could
18:13	be sent to Hell by our good works have you considered that
18:21	wow and then it goes on we all fade like a leaf our iniquities like the wind take
18:26	us away there’s no one who calls upon your name who Rouses himself to take hold of you
18:32	this is a perfect cross reference to what we read on Reformation Sunday from
18:38	Romans chapter 3 that there is none righteous no not one no one who seeks
18:43	God this text is a perfect cross-reference and it’s a description of us
18:49	and the last part of verse 7 says and you have made us melt in the hand of our
18:55	iniquities this kind of gets into that biblical theme where sin itself
19:01	is a punishment for sin an ever increasing sin is punishment for
19:07	sin itself so what are we going to do
19:13	I mean search The Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments are not going to tell you how to get out of this I mean review
19:20	The Commandments with me you will have no other gods first commandment we should fear and
19:26	love God and trust him Above All Things that we do not take God’s name in vain
19:33	or take remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy how we doing so far
19:40	and not to mention the second table of the law with honoring your father and your mother
19:46	not committing murder not stealing not committing adultery not bearing
19:54	false witness against your neighbor or coveting anything that your neighbor owns or belongs to your neighbor
20:02	How We Do It add the law to this situation and it becomes clear that each and every one of
20:09	us would be justified to have sorrow in our hearts
20:16	contrition even Terror on account of our sins that’s the working of the law but that’s
20:23	only half of repentance that’s only one part of it now look at the last
20:29	portion of our Old Testament text but now oh Yahweh you are our father
20:41	now the rocks are going all to the other side when we pray Our Father Who Art in
20:49	Heaven you can almost hear the devil saying who do you think you are praying such a
20:58	prayer but didn’t Jesus say to those who opposed him who didn’t believe in him
21:04	you are of your father the devil and your desires to do your father’s
21:09	will but notice scripture teaches those who are forgiven those who have
21:14	confidence in the mercy of God who believe that Christ has bled and died for their sins that we are redeemed
21:22	and adopted into the family of God and that we can confidently go before
21:30	him and say our father you can only say that if we are saved
21:37	100 by grace through faith years ago I used to talk about the fact
21:43	that God is the one who adopts us he’s the one who chooses to adopt us not the other way around and years ago before
21:50	Trump was present I would talk about it in these terms all right could you
21:55	imagine sending a letter to Donald Trump before he was president and saying
22:00	Dear Mr Trump you are loaded you are rich you seem
22:06	like you have a very healthy family so I have decided that you are going to be my father here are the adoption papers
22:12	just announcing to let you know yeah do you think I would be invited to
22:18	the Trump family Christmas no that’s not how adoption works right so
22:24	going around in public and saying yeah it Trump’s my dad people would be saying you are a loony loony looney looney
22:32	looney lost his mind right well here’s the thing
22:37	the same works for God can you sit there and say God I’ve sent you the adoption papers you’re now my dad Ah that’s not
22:43	how that works you see God has adopted us Christ has forgiven us Christ has
22:50	reconciled us to the father and now we can call God our Father he’s the one
22:56	who’s chosen so the opposite end of that illustration would be if Trump sent you
23:01	a letter and said you know out of all the people in the United States I’ve decided that I’m going to adopt you and
23:07	then bring you into the family and by the way I’ve written you into the will as well
23:12	people go right maybe it depends on it if you’re Republican or Democrat now but you kind
23:18	of get the idea yeah you get the idea so the good news the gospel tells us that
23:24	Christ has bled and died for us redeemed Us From Slavery and brought us into the
23:30	house not only as free but brought us into the house and God has said not only
23:35	are you an ex-slave I’m adopting you you’re my child
23:41	and you are not to refer to me as Master you call me dad
23:47	that’s the picture here that’s the picture and it’s all gospel but now oh
23:53	Yahweh you are our father we are the clay you are our Potter and
24:01	this is not talking about creation now this is talking about how in Christ those who are redeemed and forgiven and
24:07	have trust in God how they are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for
24:13	good works so we are the clay You Are The Potter we are the work of your hand
24:20	so be not so terribly angry o Yahweh and remember not our iniquity forever behold
24:29	please look we are all your people
24:34	it would be like this so on the day of judgment God decides to show up in that
24:39	way that makes everybody freak out men mountains tremble and all this kind of stuff and then God looks at you
24:48	you can see breath coming out of his nostrils what about you
24:54	and you’re just saying dad would you knock it off you’re scaring everybody
25:00	all right all right that’s the idea what about you ah you’re my father you’ve forgiven me
25:07	you’ve redeemed me and that’s really kind of the point of our epistle text and this is where
25:13	we’ll end our meditation today if you turn back with me to First Corinthians chapter one
25:19	and watch these amazing words these amazing words written to the
25:26	Christians at the church in Corinth and also written to us for our instruction and our edification
25:32	grace to you and peace
25:37	from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
25:44	notice who the peace is coming from it’s not coming from Paul
25:50	‘s only delivering a message grace to you and peace from God
25:55	our father and the Lord Jesus Christ and there’s that adoption talk again
26:03	so Paul says I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of
26:08	God that was given to you in Christ Jesus you see if Paul were writing to
26:13	the church at Kong’s finger in Oslo Minnesota first Kong’s wengerians chapter 1.
26:21	he would thank God for the grace of God that has been given to you in Christ Jesus
26:27	and he is and we also should give thanks to God for the grace of God that has
26:33	been given to us in Christ Jesus so that in every way you were enriched in Him in
26:40	all speech and knowledge even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed
26:45	among you so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the
26:50	revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ and listen to this he is the one who will sustain you to the end
26:58	Christ is in the business of sustaining Those whom he has bled and died for and
27:05	he is sustaining you today with his word with the Absolution in just a few
27:10	minutes the very body and blood of Christ broken and shed for you for the Forgiveness of your sins it’s through
27:17	these means that he sustains us and will sustain us to the end sustain us as
27:23	Guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ
27:28	you sit there and you go but I’m not Guiltless
27:35	are you higher in office than Christ
27:42	do you have the authority to overturn his word
27:50	if Jesus says to you you are forgiven do you have the ability to speak up and say
27:56	yeah yeah yeah but Jesus doesn’t know what he’s talking about
28:01	there is nobody higher than Christ and he has declared you forgiven and he has
28:07	said to you you are Guiltless and you can sit there and Grumble and complain about how guilty you are until the cows
28:12	come home it doesn’t matter because all of your sins are bled for
28:18	and died for so get used to it you are righteous You Are Holy you are
28:25	forgiven and Christ is sustaining you Guiltless Guiltless on the day when he
28:30	returns and the reason for this is not because you’re so great the text goes on
28:35	because God is faithful this is the faithfulness of God That
28:42	Forgives us and sustains us in our guilt lessness God is faithful by
28:48	whom you were called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ Our Lord
28:56	so repentance involves contrition sorrow or even Terror on account of sins
29:04	these are good feelings to experience because God the holy spirit is the one
29:10	who works those feelings in you through his law and repentance at the same time
29:16	is also that bold confidence to believe that because Christ has bled and died
29:23	for you that you are forgiven reconciled to the father adopted into his family
29:29	and considered his children and can boldly pray to him our father
29:37	these are the themes of a penitential season may we again apply ourselves to God’s word
29:45	in this penitential season and remember our sin and God’s Great
29:50	Mercy happy New Year you who are Guiltless in Christ
29:55	God is faithful he has forgiven you in the name of Jesus amen

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