I crashed early last night, waking up around 6:30. Since Messiah Lutheran has a traditional service at 8:00, I thought I would go. It was a good thing; the air conditioner’s compressor wasn’t working, so it will be hot for those going to 10:30. Perhaps it would be appropriate for a sermon on Revelation? :)

The service was Matins, TLH p. 32, without communion. The sermon was given by the main pastor of Messiah, who had written the Romans 6 sermon in the service nearly a month ago. This was another good sermon, and when I thanked him for it, he said, “To God be the glory.” Okay, then. :)

The Pastor preached on I Kings 3:3-13. This is not a complete text, but what I was able to write down while listening.

In the early days of Solomon’s reign, he did not exercise good discernment. Instead of serving God fully, he compromised. He tried to live his father’s faith, but he made sacrifices to false gods at the “high places”. At the “great high place”, Solomon was trying to serve both God and Baal. We compromise also, in several ways (he listed them), but most importantly we come to church to listen to godly truths while the rest of the week we buy into the worldly attacks on God’s truth. We lack the same discernment that Solomon wanted later on in the text. We confess that we don’t have the wisdom to carry out God’s plan by ourselves.

Solomon asked for a mind that listens to God’s heart. In the Hebrew the word for discernment comes from “listening”. We also ask for a clean heart in our offertory, “Create in me a clean heart…” Because Christ died for us, we now have that heart. Christ listened to His Father and did his own discernment, to do what was necessary to make us whole and perfect in God’s sight. Like Solomon, God answers those prayers that are in accordance to His will. Most importantly he gives us the best thing that we need, the forgiveness of sins that comes from Christ’s death and not by our own merit. We need to pray daily for a discerning heart.

The Pastor then finished with Luther’s Sacristy Prayer:

Lord God, You have appointed me as a Bishop and Pastor in Your Church, but you see how unsuited I am to meet so great and difficult a task. If I had lacked Your help, I would have ruined everything long ago. Therefore, I call upon You: I wish to devote my mouth and my heart to you; I shall teach the people. I myself will learn and ponder diligently upon You Word. Use me as Your instrument — but do not forsake me, for if ever I should be on my own, I would easily wreck it all.

I couldn’t write it all down, but it was a good sermon, with both Law and Gospel, the Gospel predominating.

I found out one bad thing about going to an 8:00. I’ve been going to 10:30 so long that I’ve been conditioned to think lunch follows church. I was almost hungry 1.5 hours after I ate!


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