Sermons
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Worship materials for the weekend of August 1, 2021:
07-25-21
Pentecost 9 (Proper 12), July 25, 2021
Mine!
Text: Genesis 9:8–17
- The creation of the covenant results from the flood.
- Unlike anything mankind has seen before or since, the flood was, without doubt, a holocaust of enormous and exceptional proportions.
- Chs 8–9 move this account from retribution to rescue, from condemnation to creation.
- Genesis first tells of creation from nothing (ex nihilo), and now it tells of a re-creation, a new beginning.
- V 9:
- hinni demands attention. Whenever “behold” (hinneh) is used, ears should perk up; something important is coming.
- Meqim means to “cause to arise or establish,” a hiphil participle (vv 9, 11, 17). This word is used to establish the covenant but is not what we would expect. Instead, we would expect karath, as covenants are cut denoting their formalization and the result if broken: death! Instead of an actual covenant, we have a promise possessing the essence of a covenant. This makes it no less truthful or lasting in duration, as the context emphasizes “never again” (vv 11, 15), “future generations” (v 12), and “everlasting” (v 16). In light of 8:22, it will endure as long as the earth endures. It forces us to anticipate something more coming.
- V10:
- Ark = Box or Chest
- This word is only used at another time with Moses and the "basket" that he was put in to keep him safe during his travel down the river.
- This is a different word than the work used for the Ark of the Covenant (אֲרֹ֥ן) but that word is also a "chest or box" word.
- (אַהֲרֹ֤ן) Aaron
- Don't know why the old translation used the word Ark so often, but I guess it sounds better than "the box with 2x2's"!!
- Interesting connection to the 1st Article of the Creed - "me and all (together with all) creatures.." we are ALL God's creation and at the same time the scripture makes the distinction between the difference in that creation - re: man - the stewardship of the earth etc.
- V 12:
- The thrust of the passage thus far has been the creation of the covenant established by God. Now he will emphasize the sign of the covenant, the rainbow.
- V 13:
- It had never rained up to this point - thus there was never a rainbow before - not magical - just a reminder in an earthly form - God using nature in a "Super" way rather than a supernatural way.
- The Rain Bow points it's "arrows" back at God - to the owner of the bow - thus He remembers his self-mandating covenant to never again destroy the world because of sin.
- The Rainbow is an image of POWER or MILITARY - being able to do what one says they will do!!
- V 14:
- Interesting to note that it is GOD who SEES the rainbow and REMEMBERS!! Normally we feel like the Rainbow is for US - but it's NOT!!
- As if God would "forget" to keep His Covenant not to flood - but that is what He says!!
- V 15: zkr means to “remember” (also v 16). We think of remembering as purely a mental activity—as in not to forget. Not so in the Bible. God did not forget Noah or his family. After all, God is omniscient. To remember means action. God will act with loving care, and his Word is truth.
- V 17:
- between me and all flesh that is on the earth. (Gen 9:17 ESV)
- This phrase is said over and over and over!!!! The theme then is God's Creator and Creation relationship and from which direction it flows i.e. initiated by ONLY GOD!!
- Sermon Outline
- 3. We know the jealousy of mine, mine, mine, but God is also jealous over us.
- 2. We think the covenant is mine, mine, mine, but God is in charge.
- We are the mine, mine, mine of his covenant, for God treasures us.
- God’s Covenant Says Mine, Mine, Mine of Us, His Treasured Possessions.
- Sermon
- Mine, mine, mine. In our text today, God says the covenant he is establishing is his, and he says it three times: v 9: “I establish my covenant”; v 11: “I establish my covenant”; v 15: “I will remember my covenant.”
- Mine, mine, mine. We know these words, don’t we?
- A room full of toddlers, all having fun. In the corner is little Billy with a fire truck. He’s happy and content, having lots of fun. Sam notices and runs over. “My truck.” Mine, mine, mine . . . a treasured possession.
- Oh, we know these feelings well! A treasured possession! We love it! A jealousy because we love it! Mine, mine, mine.
- God certainly knows it too. He knows a treasured possession when he sees you. Yes, he becomes jealous when you go off and about. Never thought of it that way?
- Then hear the Word of God! God calls you his treasured possession! (Note: the next four verses are paraphrases.) Ex 19:5: Out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Deut 7:6: The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Deut 26:18: And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised. Ps 135:4: For the Lord has chosen [you] to be his own, to be his treasured possession. Mal 3:17: “My treasured possession.” Titus 2:14: “For his own possession.” 1 Pet 2:9: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.”
- God calls you his treasured possession, and he is jealous for you! Ex 20:5: “I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” Ex 34:14: “You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” Deut 4:24: “The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” Deut 5:9: “You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” Deut 6:15: “The Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God. Nah 1:2: “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God.”
- God calls you his treasured possession, and he is jealous for you! It is his covenant.
- Yet there are times when we think it’s ours. Mine.
- How many times do we think we’re in charge? Mine. How many times do we think we’re in control? Mine. How many times do we think we can change it? Mine.
- Here Luther’s explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed is helpful: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me.” We aren’t in charge, in control, able to change it. But God is!
- His covenant that endures. His covenant with Noah. His covenant with Abraham. His covenant at Sinai. His covenant with David. His covenant with Israel. God’s covenant. His covenant with you. Mine!
- Yes, without a doubt, you are God’s treasured possession. God said so himself. He said, “When the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant.”
- What was the covenant? That he will never forsake us. And he hasn’t! Jesus Christ will never, never, no way ever, never leave or forsake you (Heb 13:5). That’s like saying, “You are mine, mine, forever mine, mine, mine.”
- So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:17–19)
- Yes, you are God’s treasured possession! Our God is jealous for you! In our text today God says it is his covenant, and he says it three times: v 9: “my covenant”; v 11: “my covenant”; v 15: “my covenant.” Three times? He must really want you to know it.
God’s Covenant Says Mine, Mine, Mine of Us,
His Treasured Possessions.
“You are mine, mine, forever mine, mine, mine.” In Jesus’ name. Amen!
07-18-21
Pentecost 8 (Proper 11), July 18, 2021
A Righteous Shepherd-King
Text: Jeremiah 23:1–6
Other Lessons: Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:11–22; Mark 6:30–44
- Jeremiah lived in an era not too unlike our own, since there is an immense amount of pressure to preach pleasing things in order to foster peace and goodwill toward all. However, the many lying prophets of Jeremiah’s day had almost completely driven God’s people away from him with their lying words of false comfort and false peace and false prosperity.
- God speaks in first person. He makes clear in literal language that the “flock” is “my people.”
- Yahweh will undo and reverse their damage.
- Perhaps one way to relate verse 4 to the age of the fulfillment is to relate it to pastors as undershepherds, serving the true Shepherd-King.
1. You need a king.
2. The world’s kind of king will mislead people and serve only himself.
3. But God promised a different kind of king.
4. God sent his Son to be our righteous Shepherd-King.
5. Through this Shepherd-King, you receive true righteousness from God.
- Flock of sheep daily pass - each sheep would wander off in its own direction until the shepherd came and gathered them together.
- Sinners are like that. Without a good shepherd-king, everyone does what is right in his own eyes, instead of what is right in God’s eyes.
- As Isaiah confessed for us, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way” (Is 53:6).
- Ancient Israel can function as a visual aid, as a model of what happens without God’s kind of human king.
- In ancient Israel, the king was supposed to be a good shepherd who would gather his sheep and lead them in the ways of the Lord.
- Jeremiah states God’s own expectations for God’s kind of king: “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place” (Jer 22:3).
- But a bad shepherd-king will mislead the people and serve only himself. Jeremiah, as well as Ezekiel in Ezekiel 34, condemned the last shepherd-kings of Jerusalem in his day.
- They attended only to themselves. They were only self-serving. They built their own magnificent palace but did not care for the people by doing what was right before God. Their eyes and heart were oriented toward only their own covetous desires. Their practices consisted of shedding innocent blood and practicing violent oppression.
- And the worst thing was that they led the people away from the true God toward idols. They corrupted the people, and the people themselves became corrupt and guilty as well.
- But God did not end his message there. Through Jeremiah, God announced a wonderful promise of a different future. In the future, God will regather the remnant of his flock out of the other lands and bring them back to the sheepfold. Not only that, but
The Days Are Coming When God Will “Raise Up for David a Righteous Branch, and a King Shall Rule and Act Wisely and Do God’s Judgment and Righteousness in the Land”
- “Things are bad, but good is on its way.” The good that is to come is the Messiah. Jesus will come and reign as King.
- Hear the good news. God fulfills his promises of old. He began to restore his exiled people back to the land of Israel in 538 BC and then more in 457 BC. And in the fullness of time, six hundred years after Jeremiah’s promise, God brought his ancient promises to fulfillment. God sent his only-begotten Son to join the human race, to become Israel’s human King from the line of David.
- God gave you a righteous Shepherd-King.
- Enjoy by faith his rule now. Hear the Word faithfully preached and taught by his called undershepherd, your pastor. Receive the Lord’s Supper rightly administered by his called undershepherd. And look forward to the day of bodily resurrection when you will see your righteous Shepherd-King face-to-face. Amen.
07-18-21 Video
Worship materials for the weekend of July 18
