WEBVTT

00:04.600 --> 00:08.800
Grace, mercy, and peace, be unto you from God, our Father and the

00:08.800 --> 00:10.600
Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ.

00:11.900 --> 00:12.200
Amen.

00:14.100 --> 00:15.900
In preparation for this sermon

00:16.400 --> 00:19.800
I consulted, my CPH commentary on the book of Romans.

00:21.000 --> 00:22.200
Where I read the following.

00:24.000 --> 00:30.300
Romans 9 through 11 contains some of the deepest thoughts in some of

00:30.300 --> 00:35.000
the most contested passages in all of the New Testament.

00:37.400 --> 00:40.100
And you all got an Admissions Officer to preach on it.

00:42.500 --> 00:43.500
I'm so sorry.

00:45.700 --> 00:50.100
Any complaints about the following sermon can be forwarded to Dr.

00:50.100 --> 00:54.700
Seifrid who can answer all difficult questions regarding this text.

00:56.600 --> 00:57.900
For simplicity's sake

00:59.100 --> 01:03.900
and for mine, we shall consider only these words for now.

01:05.700 --> 01:09.000
The depth of the riches of God.

01:11.200 --> 01:14.000
First, this Greek noun depth.

01:15.700 --> 01:21.000
Depth like in a spatial sense, like the depth of the deep end of a

01:21.000 --> 01:24.300
pool, which says 8 feet deep.

01:25.400 --> 01:27.400
Or perhaps something more inscrutable

01:28.500 --> 01:30.700
like the depth from Heaven to Earth.

01:32.000 --> 01:38.400
The depth God himself came down and placed himself in the womb of the

01:38.400 --> 01:39.000
virgin.

01:41.100 --> 01:43.200
Or is it depth in a spiritual sense

01:43.200 --> 01:45.100
in the way that Saint Paul uses it

01:45.100 --> 01:49.900
in First Corinthians, 2 verse 10. These things God has revealed to us

01:49.900 --> 01:55.100
through the spirit for the spirit searches everything, even the depths

01:55.100 --> 01:55.800
of God.

01:58.900 --> 01:59.500
I don't know.

02:01.200 --> 02:04.800
But perhaps a story from the beginning will aid us in exploring the

02:04.800 --> 02:06.800
depths of the riches of God.

02:07.800 --> 02:12.600
Where in the six hundredth year of Noah's life in the second month on

02:12.600 --> 02:13.800
the seventeenth day.

02:14.800 --> 02:19.400
All The Fountains of the deep burst forth and the windows of the

02:19.400 --> 02:20.900
heavens were opened.

02:22.000 --> 02:26.700
Rain fell upon the Earth, 40 days and 40 nights.

02:28.100 --> 02:29.700
The waters increased.

02:30.900 --> 02:32.600
The waters prevailed.

02:33.500 --> 02:34.700
The waters prevailed

02:34.700 --> 02:39.200
so mightily on the earth that even the highest mountains upon the

02:39.200 --> 02:40.700
Earth were covered.

02:42.100 --> 02:48.000
The waters, covered the mountains, fifteen cubits deep, and in the

02:48.000 --> 02:49.100
depths below.

02:50.900 --> 02:52.100
All Flesh died.

02:54.300 --> 02:54.900
Birds.

02:56.000 --> 02:58.400
Livestock, beasts.

02:59.500 --> 02:59.800
All

03:00.000 --> 03:04.100
swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.

03:05.500 --> 03:10.300
Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life

03:11.200 --> 03:11.900
died

03:11.900 --> 03:13.000
in the depths.

03:15.400 --> 03:19.300
How unsearchable are God's judgments?

03:21.200 --> 03:22.800
How inscrutable his ways?

03:24.800 --> 03:29.100
God blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground,

03:29.100 --> 03:34.700
in the depths of water. The Lord, whose robe fills the temple high and

03:34.700 --> 03:40.900
lifted up above deals with living things, and their wickedness on the

03:40.900 --> 03:49.100
earth below, and only Noah and his family eight souls in all lived to

03:49.100 --> 03:54.000
tell about the unsearchable, judgments the inscrutable ways.

03:54.700 --> 04:01.000
The depth of the riches of God, which saved them and two of every kind of

04:01.000 --> 04:02.800
animal through the flood.

04:04.900 --> 04:07.100
Seek the Lord while he may be found.

04:08.300 --> 04:10.300
Call upon him while he is near.

04:11.600 --> 04:15.700
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

04:16.800 --> 04:18.300
Let him return to the Lord.

04:19.200 --> 04:20.899
That he may have compassion on him.

04:22.000 --> 04:25.000
To our God for he will abundantly pardon.

04:26.300 --> 04:28.300
For my thoughts are not your thoughts.

04:29.500 --> 04:30.500
Neither are your ways

04:30.500 --> 04:32.300
my ways declares the Lord.

04:33.500 --> 04:36.100
For, as the heavens are higher than the earth.

04:37.000 --> 04:42.000
So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your

04:42.000 --> 04:42.700
thoughts.

04:45.700 --> 04:49.200
While I serve the flock at Trinity in Clinton, Missouri for nearly

04:49.200 --> 04:50.200
seven years.

04:51.500 --> 04:56.100
I was given the privilege of administering to emergency baptisms.

04:57.700 --> 05:00.000
One of them was upon my own son.

05:02.700 --> 05:04.500
Just minutes after his birth

05:05.500 --> 05:07.100
still fighting for his life

05:08.400 --> 05:11.200
while surrounded by doctors and nurses.

05:12.400 --> 05:12.700
There

05:12.700 --> 05:14.300
I was next to my bride,

05:15.800 --> 05:16.500
helpless.

05:18.100 --> 05:19.100
And all I could do

05:20.800 --> 05:22.100
was grab some water.

05:23.600 --> 05:26.500
Stumble my way through the Creed and place

05:26.500 --> 05:29.900
the sign of the cross both upon his forehead and his heart.

05:31.000 --> 05:32.500
Choked back my tears.

05:33.700 --> 05:39.700
And say I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of

05:39.700 --> 05:40.800
the Holy Spirit.

05:42.800 --> 05:45.000
Oh, the depth of the riches of God.

05:46.200 --> 05:51.500
When Heaven opened its doors and the riches of his grace came, rushing

05:51.500 --> 05:56.200
down all the way to you. For the Apostle Peter declares it

05:56.200 --> 05:59.800
so that Christ also suffered once for sins.

06:00.000 --> 06:05.300
The righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God, being put

06:05.300 --> 06:08.400
to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

06:09.000 --> 06:12.800
And which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they

06:12.800 --> 06:17.700
formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah.

06:18.400 --> 06:22.400
While the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight persons

06:22.400 --> 06:28.400
were brought safely through water, baptism which corresponds to this

06:28.400 --> 06:29.700
now saves you.

06:30.900 --> 06:34.900
Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God, for a

06:34.900 --> 06:39.300
good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ who has gone

06:39.300 --> 06:44.200
into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels and

06:44.200 --> 06:48.600
authorities and powers having been subjected to him.

06:51.200 --> 06:54.000
Oh, the depths of the riches of God.

06:55.300 --> 07:00.000
Given to you in those precious Waters of your baptism.

07:01.600 --> 07:08.000
All authority of heaven and on Earth was given to him. All blessing,

07:08.000 --> 07:12.200
and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and

07:12.200 --> 07:18.200
might are given to him and all enemies, even death.

07:19.000 --> 07:25.900
The last enemy shall be given to him placed under the feet of the one

07:26.500 --> 07:28.900
who shall raise you and all the dead.

07:29.800 --> 07:33.700
And the last day when you will be caught up together in the air.

07:35.400 --> 07:37.500
Oh, how unsearchable are God's

07:37.500 --> 07:38.500
judgments.

07:39.800 --> 07:41.900
The depths of the riches of God.

07:44.200 --> 07:50.400
The Holy Spirit, he who searches everything, even the depths of God is

07:50.600 --> 07:52.900
yours. In Jesus

07:52.900 --> 07:59.200
God's own, dear Son. His very own death and Resurrection is yours. His

07:59.200 --> 08:00.000
suffering for

08:00.000 --> 08:01.800
your sins is yours.

08:02.400 --> 08:04.900
He who was put to death in the flesh.

08:05.800 --> 08:07.500
Oh how unsearchable

08:08.300 --> 08:10.100
are God's judgments.

08:11.300 --> 08:13.100
How inscrutable his ways

08:14.000 --> 08:19.700
that he would give his one and only Son for poor miserable

08:19.700 --> 08:21.400
sinners like us.

08:22.100 --> 08:23.500
We were stuck in the depths.

08:24.600 --> 08:29.400
Upon his cross, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world

08:30.000 --> 08:31.500
was put to death for you.

08:32.900 --> 08:34.700
God raised him from the dead.

08:35.900 --> 08:42.299
And so he has also raised you as his own dear child through the waters

08:42.299 --> 08:46.600
of his riches which kill and make alive.

08:48.300 --> 08:54.500
In baptism the depths of God's riches and mercy cover you 15 cubits

08:54.500 --> 08:59.000
over. Oh the riches of your baptism into Christ.

09:00.100 --> 09:04.900
They are beyond our understanding and yet they go by unwanted by the world

09:04.900 --> 09:05.700
around you.

09:07.000 --> 09:10.600
Luther wants quipped that if a doctor claimed to have a cure, that would

09:10.600 --> 09:11.900
rid all ailments.

09:12.200 --> 09:16.300
People would be willing to give up house and home for such a cure.

09:16.300 --> 09:20.900
They would line up for weeks and wait for such a small relief.

09:20.900 --> 09:26.600
Yet here, our Lord comes among us plainly offering to us everlasting

09:26.600 --> 09:31.800
life in the Waters of baptism while the world passes by.

09:35.400 --> 09:41.000
Ten months after my son's baptism, he would return to the hospital

09:41.000 --> 09:41.900
once again.

09:43.600 --> 09:45.000
This time, he was very sick.

09:47.500 --> 09:49.600
He was in the PICU at Children's Mercy.

09:50.900 --> 09:54.400
About three weeks in a code was called on him.

09:55.500 --> 09:56.500
The first of many.

09:58.800 --> 09:59.800
He was near death.

10:02.600 --> 10:05.400
There perhaps is no greater feeling of helplessness

10:06.500 --> 10:09.000
then when your own child is dying right in front of you.

10:12.800 --> 10:13.800
I cried out.

10:16.300 --> 10:18.200
Flooded my couch with weeping.

10:20.500 --> 10:24.300
I prayed the Psalms of lament over and over again.

10:27.000 --> 10:29.000
And I prayed the words of the centurion.

10:30.600 --> 10:31.200
Lord,

10:33.300 --> 10:34.900
only say the word.

10:39.100 --> 10:41.300
I remember saying to my wife that night,

10:43.800 --> 10:45.400
there's nothing I can do to help him.

10:48.600 --> 10:49.800
I can't do anything.

10:52.800 --> 10:58.400
And ever so calmly, my wife took her thumb and made the sign of the

10:58.400 --> 11:02.300
cross both upon my forehead and my heart.

11:03.800 --> 11:05.400
And said you already did.

11:07.300 --> 11:09.500
Oh, the depths of the riches of God.

11:11.100 --> 11:13.100
The precious Waters of baptism.

11:14.300 --> 11:15.000
Peace

11:15.500 --> 11:17.300
even in the face of death.

11:17.400 --> 11:22.600
A peace that surpasses all understanding comes rushing down from

11:22.600 --> 11:27.200
heaven itself all the way to you here, below caught in the depths

11:27.200 --> 11:32.000
Christ is yours and you are Christ. Washed by the blood of the Lamb

11:32.000 --> 11:37.400
given everlasting life sins, forgiven drenched in the riches of God's

11:37.400 --> 11:42.300
grace and held forevermore in the arms of your savior. And nothing

11:42.500 --> 11:43.900
not even death, nor life,

11:44.100 --> 11:49.500
nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor

11:49.500 --> 11:55.100
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be

11:55.100 --> 11:58.500
able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus

11:58.500 --> 11:59.300
our Lord.

12:01.700 --> 12:03.800
Dear baptized child of God

12:05.700 --> 12:12.200
you shall soon be sent to administer these depths of the riches of

12:12.200 --> 12:12.800
God

12:14.200 --> 12:16.500
to those stuck in the depths.

12:18.800 --> 12:19.800
Your hands

12:20.800 --> 12:24.400
the Lord Almighty himself will use

12:25.500 --> 12:27.300
to give the life of his Son

12:28.800 --> 12:31.000
and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

12:32.100 --> 12:34.700
To the helpless sheep entrusted to your care.

12:38.200 --> 12:39.800
Therefore, prepare yourselves.

12:42.100 --> 12:43.400
In the words of Saint Peter.

12:44.600 --> 12:48.300
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior

12:48.300 --> 12:53.400
Jesus Christ to him, be the glory both now, and to the day of

12:53.400 --> 12:54.100
eternity,

12:55.500 --> 12:56.000
Amen.

12:58.000 --> 13:02.600
Now May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard, your

13:02.600 --> 13:05.300
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our lord.

13:06.900 --> 13:07.300
Amen.