Sermon: Best Wine Ever

Best Wine Ever

 

Text: John 2:1-11, 

Date: January 19, 2025

I. Intro

Do you like wine?

Do you go to wine tastings?

Are you a member of a winery?

What is your best wine ever?

 

II. Wedding at Cana

 

Important “events”	Important symbols
Mother of Jesus was invited, and Jesus also… Mary talks to Jesus MC is clueless Bridegroom is clueless too	3 days – Sabbath 6 stone water jars Water – beginning Wine – conclusion

 

III. Take away

He uses       Elements of creation

                    Time

Our gifts

To create Best Wine Ever 

Beatitudes: Introduction

Beatitudes and our attitudes

Lesson 1: Introduction

 

1. Four faces

            Ox, Lion, Eagle, Man

2. Four Gospels

            Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

3. Five discourses in the Gospel of Matthew

            a. 5 – 7 Sermon on the Mountain

            b. 10 Teaching for the 12 to share the Good News              

            c. 13 Parables of the Kingdom

            d. 18 New Social Order

            e. 23 – 25 Olivet Sermon

 

4. Mount Sinai and the Sermon on the Mountain

            a. Place of the Gift

            b. Presentation of the Gift

            c. Description of the Gift

 

HOMEWORK (!)

1. Read Mt. 5:1-12.

2. Think of the meaning of “poor” in the First blessing (v. 3). Cp. Mt. 11:5, 19-23-25; Is. 61:1.

Sermon: Beautiful Savior

Beautiful Savior

3rd Sunday of Epiphany, sermon on Luke 4:16-30 (YouTube, start at 43:30)

I. Intro – Epiphany progression

Wisemen come to worship the Beautiful Savior – Jesus

Then He is anointed for the Ministry – at His baptism

Then He make the first miracle – at Cana of Galilee

Now we are reading how He preached the Word in His home town 

 

II. Preaching in His hometown

Habit of going to “church”

Bible is ONE story

The Story of many promises: (1) proclaim good news to the poor, (2) liberty to captives, (3) recovering sight to the blind, (4) liberty to the oppressed, (5) proclaim the year of the LORD's favor.     

This story is about Beautiful Savior Jesus

But they did not need the fulfilment of these promises – they wanted messiah of their own image

 

III. Take away

Did anything change?

People still want to fit Jesus into their picture frame trimming here and there.

But Word of the Lord Endures Forever – FC, Summary, 1: We believe, teach, and confess that the only rule and norm according to which all teachings, together with all teachers, should be evaluated and judged (2 Timothy 3:15-17) are the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testament alone. 

His promises are still true.  

They are for you! 

Psalm 2 - War of pairs

Psalm 2

I. Introduction

If Psalter is the Prayer Book of the Church, then Psalms 1 and 2 are Portals of Prayer – gates into prayer life of the faithful ones.

Similar features of the psalms:

Both portrait a blessed/godly person

Both psalms talk about “resistance” to righteousness

Both psalms have a very vivid picture/illustration of godly life.

The difference between the psalms:

The tension between good and evil is more tense (pun intended).

Therefore, the pushback from God is even stronger.

Godly person in Psalm 1 is not identified, while Psalm 2 calls Him a Son – very close, familial connection. 

 

THOUGHTS on SIN

 THOUGHTS on SIN

Romans 6 – INTRO

Middendorf comes up with a helpful table in his Romans commentary (Romans 1-8, CPH, 2013, p.441), an improved version is here:

Word	Earlier	5:12-21	6:1-23	7:1-25	8:1-13	8:14-39	latter	Total
Sin	4	6	16	15	5	0	2	48
Death	2	5	7	5	2	1	0	22
Law	35	3	2	23	5	0	6	73
Flesh/ mortal Body	4/2	0/0	1/2	3/2	13/3	0/1	5/3	26/13 =39

 

According to table the main theme for chapter 6 is sin which results in death. The final verse of the chapter summarizes it, connecting both terms together: for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (6:23).

48=12*4 – square shape of 12 (tribes of Israel, apostles, etc.)

22 – number of letters in Hebrew alphabet – a complete basis for the Word. In connection with death might mean a complete sentence or judgement (cp. the structure of the Book of Lamentations).

So, what is sin? St. John says: sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4b). This reinforces what St. Paul wrote in the previous chapter – 5:13.

Both Hebrew and Greek words mean missing the mark. It might relate to the Garden story – how Adam and his wife missed the mark using the wrong tree for their spiritual growth (Gen. 2:25-3-7).

We can’t fix this – the eternal life that we get in Christ Jesus is a free gift (MS Word underlines this phase [free gift] as redundant). Question at hand – how God “brings us back to the trek” to the ways of the righteous? That’s our next lesson. 

ADAM and CHRIST

Adam and Christ

Romans 5:12-21

Structure:

a. 5:12-14, through sin death came to all

  b. 5:15, grace of God and the gracious gift

    c. 5:16a, one man trespass resulted in condemnation

    c’. 5:16b, free gift (following many trespasses) brought justification

  b’. 5:17-19, abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness

a’. 5:20-21, sin reigned in death

 

One man show – Adam’s actions had global or universal consequence. Later, people’s sins had way less impact (cp. v. 14).

Sin was in the world before the LAW – before Torah. This is just a chronological statement. Even though sin would not be counted as a “transgression” (because there was no LAW/Torah as a regulation), still death ruled in the world.

The universal impact of Adam’s sin sets him as a type of the One to come – Christ. His action also had a universal impact. Free gift of Jesus Christ brought justification. No limited atonement (cp. v. 15-16 and 18-19).

Whose action	Result	To what extend
One man’s trespass	condemnation	All men
One act of righteousness	Justification and life	All men

 

This free gift adds a reigning feature into life of a believer (v. 17).  

Reigning:

Sin reigned in death

Grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ

 

SHINING NEW BEGINNING!

Shining New Beginning

Dear brothers and sisters!

2025 is here. January begins with the feast of Epiphany [technically, it begins with the Circumcision of Jesus on January 1st, but I’ll make my point]. Thinking about Epiphany, we celebrate the arrival of the wisemen to worship Jesus. They saw the star while they were East of Judea, they came to Jerusalem, for it is the city of the King, and to their surprise no one was expecting them. No one had even heard of the birth of the new King, Messianic ruler of the World. Herod was consumed with his own sense of power: he is known for murdering his own offspring for alleged conspiracy. He did not want any competition.  When we see him attempting to find out the time of Jesus birth, it obviously was not driven by pious reasons. We know how the story ends with him–special forces were commanded to go to Bethlehem and kill all babies under 2 years of age.