Who shall stand?

Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
0 ratings
· 14 views
Files
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Notes, Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021, Proper 17 LORD, who shall dwell in your tabernacle? * Or who shall rest upon your holy hill? Whoever leads an uncorrupt life, * and does that which is right, and speaks the truth from his heart. My initial response to the psalmist's summation is: that's easy for you to say. It is a tall order to lead an uncorrupt life. To always do that which is right. To always speak the truth from the heart. If this is truly what it takes to dwell in the Lord's tabernacle, well, heaven help us. And that is exactly what the readings for this Sunday try to do. Collectively they paint a picture of the breath of our corruption and the help heaven sends us to prevail. Moses was nervous for his people. They stood on the brink of achieving the very thing they had spent their lives seeking, the Promised Land. Moses takes no comfort from their being close. Instead, he sees that they are about to encounter a swamp of temptations. How will they prevail? How well has scarcity prepared them for abundance? He takes account of their weapons. "And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you." Statutes and rules are a good defense. When I played high school and college football, my coaches spent a lot of time teaching the proper techniques for blocking and tackling. But they also spent a lot of time teaching the rules of the game. If you knew the rules you were less likely to be penalized for breaking them. That's true. But it's also true that the rules are there to make you a better player, keep you from getting hurt or hurting someone else. A good coach uses the rules to teach his players the game. A bad coach blames the rules for his and the team's failures. Moses was a good coach. Rules and statutes originated from God as a gift to his people and Moses' concern was how to pass them on to future generations. He rightly concluded that what was needed lay beyond the scope of the rules themselves. "Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life." The soul and the heart need to be involved. It's a lesson Jesus returned to in our reading from Mark when he confronts the pharisees who kept the rules but lost contact with heart and soul. Next we turn to Paul's letter to the Ephesians and the famous passage about putting on the whole armor of God. If Moses was nervous about his people's vulnerability to temptation, Paul is nervous about our susceptibility to things unseen. The forces of evil that penetrate our world with evil intention, causing us to commit sin blindly but just as guiltily. Aren't there enough pot holes out there that we can see without worrying about the invisible ones? Can't we just let God's angels fight that battle for us? Paul says no. We, after all, are the prime targets. We are the ones who fall victim so unless we ourselves defend ourselves, we will be hurt, or worse. Much has been written about Paul's armor but I make one observation for us this morning. It's all defensive armor, except for the sword, which can also be a defensive weapon. The angels of God are better equipped for offensive warfare than us. We need to build defenses. Notice how often the word "stand" appears. Not charge, but stand. We defeat Satan by outlasting him. Jesus in the desert did not defeat Satan. He outlasted him. Wearing the armor of God gives us strength we ourselves do not have in order to stand against forces we cannot see. Where do we get these defenses? From God himself. The shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, the word of God are all from God. Our contribution is prayer and supplication. That is how we put on the armor of God. Humbly, Gratefully, With confidence. And when we pray for others we help them put on their armor because sometimes we need that. We cannot always put our armor on by ourselves. In my football analogy I see the team before the game begins, in the locker room, checking out each other's shoulder pads, cleats and helmets. You're ready brother. Let's go! Finally, we come to Mark's account of Jesus confronting the hypocrisy of the pharisees. Hypocrisy, by the way, literally means play acting. It helps clarify this episode if we see the pharisees as play actors, more childish than professional. Theirs' is a defined and precise piety, the law of Moses divorced from the heart that Moses said must be there. Jesus doesn't dismiss their misunderstanding of all the law and the prophets, but it is their self-deception that most angers him. They've managed to convince themselves that their holiness is achievable by their practice of piety. That leads to a string of misconceptions leading all the way back to the nature of sin itself. Jesus tells them, "There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." Because the pharisees zeroed in on the disciples eating habits, Jesus uses food to make his point. Food is among those things that enter a person from outside. In itself, it is neither moral nor immoral. It is material, and a necessity for life. What is unused gets disposed of and the body lives because of it. To say that food is either morally good or morally evil is absurd. But what if that food becomes an obsession? What if anything that is taken in becomes the thing that draws the heart away from God? Then we have evil. Then we have sin. Jesus says guard not against what you take in, but what it does to you, what you make of it, what comes out of your heart as a result. I am reminded here of the wisdom contained in our Baptism examination. Candidates for baptism are asked to make three renunciations. The first is to renounce the devil and all the spiritual forces of wickedness. This is where Paul stands bearing the armor of God. Then the candidate is asked to renounce the empty promises and deceits of the world. This is where Moses worried about his people's ability to prevail against the excesses of the Promised Land. And finally, the candidate renounces the sinful desires of the flesh that draw him from the love of God. We hear Jesus' teaching about what corrupts the heart condemns the man. So, we are vulnerable creatures much in need of heaven's help. How do we fail? Self-deception, weak resistance to temptation, forgetfulness, willful disobedience, principalities and powers. What is the remedy? God desires not the death of a sinner, but that he should repent and live. Repentance reestablishes rightness with God, the atonement of Christ blots out our offenses, charity reestablishes rightness with our neighbors, prayer protects us from the assaults of the enemy, God's grace covers our mistakes. LORD, who shall dwell in your tabernacle? * Or who shall rest upon your holy hill? Unbelievably, you and I.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more