Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Matthew 6,24-34. 15. Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Matthew 6,24-34 4515

15. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 060

Amatus, Bishop of Sitten in Wallis, ✠ 690.

13. September 2015

1. O Merciful God, You care for us. We receive from Your hands all that we need to live. Into Your hands we place the concerns that occupy our attention. Amen. (VELKD, Prayer for 15. Sn. n. Trinitatis § 1 2015)

2. Jesus said: „No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the reign of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.“

3. The Gospel according to St. Matthew tells us that Jesus began His ministry by preaching: »Repent, for the reign of God is at hand« (Matthew 4,17). This phrase „the reign of God“ or is alternative „reign of heaven“ developed in the context of the Second Temple Judaism that dominated Jesus lifetime. The reign of God held two particular expectations: 1. God would restore the Davidian monarchy to Israel, and 2. God would intervene in history via the Son of Man proclaimed by the Prophet Daniel. The advent of the reign of God involved God finally taking back the reins of history, which He had allowed to slacken as pagan empires had ruled over Israel. Two divergent points stemmed from this restoration: 1. God would destroy the nations, or 2. God would gather the nations along with Israel in obedience to and worship of the One True God.

4. Jesus takes up this „reign of God “ and fulfills it. Jesus declares that He Himself is God’s great intervention in history, and that He is the agent of that intervention. Thus He took up for Himself the messianic title „Son of Man“. But as the Gospels reveal, Jewish conventional wisdom is chagrined by how Jesus fulfills the reign of God. While Jesus rightly is a descendant of David through both Mary and Joseph, He refused to re-established the Davidian monarchy in Judah. Furthermore, He refused to overthrow that great pagan empire ruling over Judah known as Rome. To the great shock of His contemporary Jews, Jesus said Rome’s rule over Judah would increase and eventually result in the destruction of the temple, Jerusalem and a Roman Captivity that would make the Babylonian Captivity look trivial. The reign of God that Jesus inaugurated is centered upon His crucifixion on a Roman cross, His bodily resurrection from the tomb, the redemption of the world through this Passion and the gathering of all nations unto Him. Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, and in fulfilling them He created a new Israel, called the Church, in which: »for in Christ Jesus we are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of us as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. And if we are Christ’s, then we are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise (Galatians 3,26-29).

5. Forty days after His resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven to be at the right hand of His Father. His ascension to the right hand of God establishes Him as king. Jesus’ promise to return makes it clear that the reign of God is now in our midst but it is not realized yet in its fullness. This new testament era in which we live in the now-and-not-yet is dominated by the gospel of the forgiveness of sins. The Church proclaims this gospel to all people and exhorts all the nations to trust alone in Christ crucified. Jesus works through His Christians to bring the reign of God into the midst of individual people until Jesus returns on the last day and brings to consummation the fulfillment of the reign of God.

6. Thus Jesus exhorts us to: »Seek first the reign of God and His righteousness.« In seeking the reign of God personified in Christ Jesus Himself, we are seeking the very righteousness that only Jesus can bestow upon sinners who are wholly unrighteous. Jesus is the reign of God in our midst and He is the fulfillment of the Prophet Isaiah: »The people dwelling in darkness have seen a Great Light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a Light has dawned« (Isaiah 9,2; Matthew 4,16).

7. We know that we cannot earn righteousness by our own merits or works. Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount: »For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the reign of heaven« (Matthew 5,20). The scribes and Pharisees measured their righteousness by their obedience to the Torah of Moses and the traditions of the elders. They followed such things meticulously and kept the law. Meditate on how the Apostle Paul describes the Pharisees in his Epistle to the Philippians: »If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I, Paul, have more: as to the law, I was a Pharisee; as to righteousness under the law, I was blameless« (Philippians 3,4-6). It is simply impossible for our righteousness to exceed that of the Pharisees.

8. And that is the point Jesus makes: you cannot merit your righteousness by exceeding the works of the Pharisees. In fact, even the Pharisees could not earn their righteousness in the eyes of God. Jesus taught: »But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you are hypocrites, for you shut the reign of God in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in« (Matthew 23,13). Again St. Paul: »I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— so that I may know Christ and the power of His resurrection« (Philippians 3,8-10).

9. The apostles tell us that our righteousness comes from Christ who has merited it for us. The righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees is the righteousness that Christ exhibited by fulfilling the Torah by becoming the Passover and atonement lamb who suffered, died and rose again from the grave. The Apostle Paul tells us: »For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written: The righteous shall live by faith« (Romans 1,16-17; Habakkuk 2,4).

10. Jesus promises us that when we seek the reign of God that is having faith in Him to save us, then all these other things will be added to us. Jesus promises to provide us with food, drink and clothing. He promises to provide us with family, friends and reputation. He promises to provide us with health, healing and life. We do not need to fret over these things nor worry about them. They are all in Jesus’ hands. Those hands that healed the sick, were pierced with nails and rolled the stone of His tomb away. We have the reign of God by faith, and when we have the reign of God, then we have life in all its fulness both now and for all eternity. Amen.

11. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, blessed is the one who takes refuge in You! Pour out Your providence upon us so that we taste and see that You are good. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, September 14, 2015

Matthew 6,24-34. 15. Sunday after Trinity

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