Epiphany Lutheran Church
807.683.6621
  • Home
    • Location
    • Staff
  • Belief
    • We believe, teach, & confess
    • What is the "Epiphany"?
  • News
    • Calendar
  • Cool Stuff
    • Messages
    • Catechism Memory Songs
    • Stuff We Like
    • Hacienda Haberstock

Absolute[tion] Armour---First Sunday in Lent

2/17/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
lent1_-_2013-02-17.mp3
File Size: 2999 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

This is the first of a series about the Divine Service.  
Part 1: Confession & Absolution
Part 2: the "Kyrie Eleison"
Part 3: the "Gloria in Excelsis"
Part 4: the "Creed"
Part 5: the "Sanctus"
Part 6: the "Agnus Dei"
1 Samuel 17:40-51
2 Corinthians 6:1-10
Matthew 4:1-11

In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.  
Our Lord had just been baptized by John the Baptizer.  His Father had declared, “This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I take pleasure.”  His Baptism declared it.  He is God’s Son.  God’s beloved.  The One He is exceedingly pleased with.  Your baptism declares this.  You are God’s Son.  His beloved.  The One He is exceedingly pleased with.  
That is a reality.  It is created by God’s Word.  It is declared by God in Holy Baptism to you.  It is a reality we must cling to in faith for we sin much daily.  Thus we are tempted to doubt God’s declaration about us.  How can it be that I am loved by Him?  How can I be His Son?  How can He have grace on me?  How can He have good pleasure toward me?  Nope.  I don’t believe it.  My own sin is too great for that to be the case.  

So Satan, the Slanderer, comes along just like He did to our Lord, saying, “If you are the Son of God...”  There was no doubt for Our Lord.  But we are a far cry from Jesus aren’t we.  So the Slanderer comes encouraging our doubts, twisting God’s Word, fanning the flames of our fear into faithless folly.  And we fall victim.  We don’t believe God’s declaration.  We doubt His Word.  And by doing so we call God the Father and Christ our Lord a liar.  Repent.  

Sonship was yours in Baptism.  When you doubt that what is your only recourse?  What is your only armour against the Adversary’s attacks?  Christ’s Absolute Absolution.  His declaring to you through your pastor what the Father said of you in Baptism.  This spiritual game changer happens every week at the beginning of the Divine Service, or for sins that really plague you, that you can’t shake, that cause you to doubt God’s declaration of you, you need to hear it in a private session where God’s Absolution is for you and you alone.  No doubts.  No Satanic temptations.  Just God’s pure grace.  His raw naked love for you healing your hurts, covering your shame, strengthening and armouring your conscience against the Slanderer’s accusations, made false by your Saviour’s taking them all on Himself.  

The Absolute Armour of Absolution.  Christ calling you what you are in Him.  His brother.  His Father’s Son.  His and His Father’s beloved.  The One whom His Father is exceedingly pleased with, wildly benevolent toward, and slavishly indulgent of His child to a fault!  

But you and I know about sin.  Especially the sins others have done to us.  As Christians we wish to love them.  We desire to forgive them.  But over time, given repeated sins from same person against us the pain, heartache, hurt, and resentment build up.  Our attitude toward them falters. It becomes less than we know it should be.  It ceases to be gracious, or forgiving, and it becomes resentful and angry.  Malice grows in our hearts.  We no longer wish good things for them.  Instead, we want nothing to do with them.  We want to block the pain in our lives, prevent it, so we try to cut them our of our lives.   But if we are unsuccessful at blocking them out of our lives and they continue their hurtful behaviour toward us without change we eventually desire them to not even have God’s gracious mercy.  

Knowing that this is who we are, that this is how we react to those who constantly sin against us, we wonder how can God not react that way too?  So it is our natural state, hardwired into us, to doubt His Word daily, that we call Him a liar, that we act as though He is a fool who knows nothing about the realities of life on earth.  And we ask how can He be exceedingly pleased with us?  When we cut others off for their sins against us?  When we can even desire eternal damnation for them, how can He not do the same to us?  

Because He is God.  He is holy.  He is not like us.  He withstood every temptation of the devil.  He does not desire the death of the wicked, nor their eternal damnation.  His desire is that all would turn from their way and live.  He has resisted the Adversary in all things so that His sacrifice can be complete and total, sufficient to pay the penalties that every sin deserves.  But in love for you He will force no one to be saved.  In love for you He will honour your rejection of Him and allow you an eternity without Him.  He is not like us.  

Instead He clothes His enemies in His Father’s glorious love in Baptism.  By Absolution He dresses us again when like angry toddlers we throw His fine robes on the floor.  His absolute absolution dresses us in Christ Himself.  It puts us in Him so that we are not merely sons of God, but the Son of God, the beloved, with whom He is well pleased.  

That absolution, that declaration of Sonship, is armour against the Adversary.  For you and I do not need to fight Him with God’s Word for we are clothed in God’s declaration.  And the Word of God in the flesh already stepped forth onto the battle field to fight for us.  He already withstood the assaults of the Adversary.   He already fought the fight.  He is already victorius.  He has already accomplished your salvation.  

“The old satanic foe has sworn to work us woe.  With craft and dreadful might he arms himself to fight.  On earth he has no equal.  No strength of ours can match his might.  We would be lost rejected.  But now a champion comes to fight, Whom God Himself elected.  You ask who this may be?  The Lord of hosts is He, Christ Jesus, mighty Lord, God’s only Son, adored.  He holds the field victorious.”  

Do not depend upon your ability to defend yourself from that slandering, tempter, our adversary, Satan.  Do not even attempt it.  Flee to Christ.  Look to His cross.  Know that you are a sinner.  Repent and cling to your baptism.  And when you doubt it, when you can’t believe God’s Word, when you need armour from Satan’s temptations be clothed with the armour of Holy Absolution.  Be clothed in Christ’s declaration to you through your pastor that your sins are forgiven: both the things you do and fail to do and even the wicked desire to doubt God that lurks in you.  

Your sins are covered over.  Gone.  They do not matter to Him because God speaks.  You are His Son, the beloved.  He is exceedingly pleased with You.  

In +Jesus’ name, Amen.  


—Pastor David Haberstock
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Thunder Bay, ON
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Listening

    If audio is available, you may listen to it by clicking the play button.  

    Downloading

    If audio is available, you may download it by "right clicking" on the "Download file" button and choosing "Save link as..."

    Archives

    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All
    1 Chronicles 21
    1 Corinthians 1
    1 COrinthians 10
    1 Corinthians 13
    1 Kings 3
    1 Kings 6
    1 Samuel 1
    1 Samuel 12
    1 Samuel 13
    1 Samuel 16
    1 Samuel 17
    1 Samuel 2
    1 Samuel 3
    1 Samuel 8
    2 Corinthians 10
    2 Corinthians 5
    2 Samuel 11
    2 Samuel 12
    Acts 2
    Acts 8
    Advent 1
    Advent 2
    Advent 3
    Advent 4
    All Saints Day
    Ash Wednesday
    Baptism Of Our Lord
    Baptism Of Our Lord
    Bathsheba
    Cantate
    Christmas 1
    Christmas 2
    Christmas Day
    Christmas Eve
    Confirmation
    David
    Easter
    Easter 2
    Easter 3
    Easter 4
    Easter 5
    Easter 6
    Easter 7
    Ephesians 2
    Ephesians 5
    Epiphany 2
    Epiphany 3
    Exaudi
    Exodus 1
    Exodus 11
    Exodus 12
    Exodus 14
    Exodus 16
    Exodus 17
    Exodus 2
    Exodus 20
    Exodus 3
    Exodus 32
    Exodus 33
    Exodus 4
    Exodus 5
    Exodus 6
    Exodus 7
    Ezekiel 2-3
    Funeral
    Genesis 1
    Genesis 11
    Genesis 12
    Genesis 14
    Genesis 15
    Genesis 17
    Genesis 18
    Genesis 2
    Genesis 21
    Genesis 22
    Genesis 25
    Genesis 27
    Genesis 3
    Genesis 32
    Genesis 37
    Genesis 39
    Genesis 4
    Genesis 41
    Genesis 6-7
    Good Fridy
    Hebrews 10
    Hebrews 11
    Hebrews 2
    Hebrews 4
    Hebrews 7
    Hebrews 9
    Holy Cross
    Holy Thursday
    Holy Trinity
    Installation
    Invocabit
    Isaiah 52
    Isaiah 55
    Isaiah 66
    James 1
    Job 1-2
    Job 19
    John 1
    John 10
    John 12
    John 13
    John 14
    John 15 16
    John 15-16
    John 16
    John 18-19
    John 2
    John 20
    John 3
    John 4
    John 6
    John 8
    Joshua 1
    Joshua 2
    Joshua 3
    Joshua 4
    Joshua 5
    Joshua 6
    Jubilate
    Jude
    Judges 13
    Judges 16
    Judges 2
    Judges 6
    Judges 7
    Judica
    Laetere
    Last
    Lent 1
    Lent 2
    Lent 3
    Lent 4
    Lent5
    Luke 10
    Luke 11
    Luke 12
    Luke 14
    Luke 15
    Luke 16
    Luke 17
    Luke 18
    Luke 19
    Luke 2
    Luke 21
    Luke 5
    Luke 6
    Luke 7
    Luke 8
    Mark 16
    Mark 7
    Mark 8
    Matthew 1
    Matthew 11
    Matthew 15
    Matthew 17
    Matthew 18
    Matthew 2
    Matthew 20
    Matthew 21
    Matthew 22
    Matthew 24
    Matthew 25
    Matthew 26
    Matthew 27
    Matthew 28
    Matthew 3
    Matthew 3
    Matthew 4
    Matthew 5
    Matthew 6
    Matthew 7
    Matthew 8
    Matthew 9
    Misericordias Domini
    New Year
    Numbers 13
    Numbers 14
    Numbers 17
    Numbers 21
    Numbers 22
    Numbers 24
    Oculi
    Old Testament
    Palm Sunday
    Pastor And Confessor
    Pentecost
    Psalm 2
    Psalm 25
    Psalm 43
    Psalm 91
    Purification Of Mary
    Quasimodo Geniti
    Quinquagesima
    Reformation
    Reminiscere
    Rogate
    Romans 10
    Ruth
    Septuagesima
    Sexagesima
    Solomon
    St. Bartholomew
    St. Matthew
    The Epiphany
    Titus
    Transfiguration
    Trinity 1
    Trinity 10
    Trinity 11
    Trinity 12
    Trinity 13
    Trinity 14
    Trinity 15
    Trinity 16
    Trinity 17
    Trinity 18
    Trinity 19
    Trinity 2
    Trinity 20
    Trinity 21
    Trinity 22
    Trinity 23
    Trinity 24
    Trinity 25
    Trinity 3
    Trinity 4
    Trinity 5
    Trinity 6
    Trinity 7
    Trinity 8
    Trinity 9

    RSS Feed