WEBVTT

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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You shall have no other gods.

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What does this mean?

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We should fear love and trust in God above all things.

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Because I said, so.

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How many times have parents not said something like that to their

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children?

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When telling their children to do something like, get ready for bed?

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What have to go to bed now, because I said so.

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Such a response may seem like an arbitrary or capricious or

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heteronomous thing to say in the sense of being a power play. But you

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and I know that behind that often is a rationale, that's not being

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explained.

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That is to say.

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If children don't get enough sleep, chances are, they might be cranky

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in the morning and not want to get up.

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Well, I suspect that we might consider the Commandments in a similar

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way.

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Why do we have to do these?

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Cause I said so.

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No other reason than that. Now in one sense, that's a good enough reason.

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But at the same time, there is underlying rationale behind that.

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And here I think we get to the depths of the first commandment that

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are plumbed in a way that perhaps an older explanation has done before

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or since with the Small and Large Catechisms.

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That is to say

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Luther makes known

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and reveals

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that the first commandment says something about our very nature as

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human creatures.

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And says something very important about the nature of our relationship

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as creatures to the Creator.

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As a result as some have observed, this commandment is not about the

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question.

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Should you believe in God?

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Nor is the question about why we should believe in God.

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Instead

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the assumption is, everyone has a god.

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Everyone has a God.

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Why

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because creatures

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we do not receive life from ourselves.

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We receive life from outside ourselves.

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As human creatures, we have to look somewhere for life, whether it's

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the purpose of life or the meaning of life or security in life.

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Where you 

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look for Luther reveals your God.

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But it's not an option.

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Everyone has a God.

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Now as he points out, and as our gospel lesson points, out for many

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ends up, being something very tangible

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perhaps like money or power or glory, something along those lines.

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Of course, as Christians

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we know those aren't gods.

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Those are creaturely things.

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Surely one must worship the Creator rather than the creature.

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You know that raises its own problems.

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After all the ancient Greeks, when they considered transcendent

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deities, whether it was the gods of the Olympus or whether it was the

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god of the Hebrews an all-powerful

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almighty God.

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Well

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god's tend to be capricious and arbitrary and if God can do anything,

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he wants, how can you count on that

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God? Might catch him on a good day.

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You might catch him on a bad day.

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In the Middle Ages 

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trusting in God seemed though difficult at times.

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After all, he was portrayed primarily as ancient god of judgment

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god of wrath.

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And who knows, whether he was going to give you a thumbs up or thumbs

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down on Judgment Day?

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And in our day,

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God is often seen to be an absent God, a silent God.

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A God who does not seem to fit any longer in the universe as we know

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it.

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So it's not simply as easy to say what believe in the God, not the

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stuff that he had made.

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Because the as sinners the question of God raises his own problems for

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us.

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That's why as Christians Jesus Christ is so important for us.

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Because he is made known to you and me that God is a speaking God.

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More specifically a God who makes promises.

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And beyond that the God who keeps his promises.

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And we see this especially in Jesus Christ who is a fulfillment of all

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the promises that God made to the people of Israel in the Old

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Testament.

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We see this in Jesus Christ who by virtue of his death and

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Resurrection kept his promises to you

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and me, we shall live with him forever.

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And it's because that God has vindicated Jesus, because God has kept

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his promises

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that you and I trust him to continue keeping those promises to us.

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And now, in a sense we come full circle.

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For the nature of a human creature

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as God made us

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is to live by faith.

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God gives we receive.

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He promises.

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We Believe.

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That is given to us once again

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in the promises of the Gospel.

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The promises of forgiveness, the promises of Life Everlasting.

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And so we live by faith. We live by faith

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in the promises of the one who spoke in Jesus Christ.

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We live by faith in those promises because he kept those promises in

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Jesus Christ.

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Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy

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Spirit. Amen.