Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. That person portion of God's word, which we consider this morning, the Holy Spirit caused the evangelist Matthew to write for a comfort and our learning, we place a special emphasis on these words from the gospel. So the last shall be first and the first last. Let us pray. I have not my god to offer, save the blood of thy dear son, graciously accept the profit, make his righteousness mine own. It is holy life gave he was crucified for me. His righteousness perfect, he now leads before the his own robe of righteousness, my highest good shall clothe me in glory, through faith in his blood. Amen. This past weekend, I heard a pastor teach on what life yes, the question is life, what you make his life what you make. Now, most people today would probably say, Yes, you make life what it is, you earn what happens to you somehow. The problem with this is that sometimes you suffer without any real reason that you could discern, and not because of something bad you did. But because of somebody else's evil. Then people invent some sort of doctrine of karma where you're suffering from some previous life or that this is a test to make you work harder. In any case, simple man is stuck between a completely works righteous attitude that I can pull my self up by my own bootstraps into life. And then, on the other side of fatalistic determinism, where there's no point to it at all, since we can't discern it, what is life? Everybody is always by nature, either a legalist, or an anti Knowmia. And I'm going to explain what these two things mean. legalists are those who think that they earn God's favor with their obedience to the law through what they do their works. They make life what it is. And that is the first workers in the vineyard. They want to know how much their labor is worth. They want to make sure they agree with the owner of the vineyard. four scenarios, life is what you make. They didn't realize what they had, and being called into the vineyard to work. They thought they were going there to work for what was there do. Now, it's the only ones on the other hand are those who reject the law altogether. They reject the boundaries that that confine them. They imagine that the law, by law, we mean, what is written on everybody's hearts, that we should love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. They imagine that the law doesn't apply to them now that they have the gospel, or some other spiritual experience. We see this in the epistle today. All of Israel were redeemed saved from slavery in Egypt, and the tyranny of Pharaoh. They all pass through the cloud, and under the past, under the cloud, and through the sea. They were all baptized in the Moses in the cloud of the sea, they ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink. They ate and drank the words of God through Moses, they all drank from that spiritual Rock that followed them and the rock was Christ. But with most of them, God was not pleased. And their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Why? Because they did not recognize the good that God had given them, they fell from grace. Paul goes on in First Corinthians tend to say, now these things became our examples, To the intent that we should not lust after evil as they also lust and do not become idolaters, as were some of them as it is written that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play as the golden calf. Nor let us commit fornication as some of them did. And in one day, 23,000 felt, nor let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents nor complain, some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happen to them as examples. And they were written for our for our admission, our warning upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Israel didn't realize that they had they took it for granted. They had salvation and the God who saved freedom, slavery, and if they longed for the lives of bondage again, did you bring us into the wilderness to kill us? We had plenty to eat and drink in Egypt.
Both Legalist and antinomian don't work. recognize what Christ gives, they don't get what the kingdom of God is. He gives freely and what he gives is not the do reward for what we have done. God never owes us anything, he is the source of all good. It is never that we give to God, or that he gets back to us. That is actually the Roman the pagan way of thinking. And it always is, because it's natural i given then you give to me. Like it's some sort of financial transaction, God's a shrewd businessman or something like that. No, God gives freely and what he gives is always enough. But legalist wants to be under the law so that they can see through a word of the law promises them, this works in life. If you do this, then you will live. If you give this then you will get this back. And so they want to put God's conduct under some kind of legal obligation to that. You don't realize who he is where they are. And antinomian end up under the law because they returned to sins that enslave them and which the Lord justly condemns the obey the passions of their flesh, so that they consider their former bondage to be better than their salvation. They don't realize what they have. In both cases. They don't see salvation from bondage to sin, as to sin and death as life itself. They don't realize life is given. They want to make it something other than what it is. They want to make life what it is, but that's impossible. Did you give yourself life? You know, this is just such an important question. Did you give yourself life across the world out there does not believe that God created them, that God created us. They think that life is theirs for the taking, and the making. It's my life. It's now or never, I ain't gonna live forever. I just want to live while I'm alive. First of all, it's not my life. It was given to me. It's not somebody else's to take away. But who gave me this? Like, God, I didn't give myself life. Did you give yourself life? I didn't. God and I am going to live forever through faith in Christ. So who sang that anyway? Kid Rock was the Bon Jovi. Yeah. What a moron. All the songs of Saddam are so sad, you know, I mean, you can rock out to it. Okay? Especially if you have hair like Calvin used to have. I mean, you could really rock out to that. But this is the point. Life is a gift, or it isn't life. If you didn't give yourself like that, how can you make life? A lot of people talk this week, I've been given one opportunity. Okay, this much time, you don't even know how much time you have. What is life? How can you make a life? You can make decisions, I suppose. Those of us who are getting older, realize that most of our decisions weren't entirely what made our life or at all, most of the great things were decided by others. I didn't decide to have a single one of these kids. It's not like Becky and I said, hey, we'd like a really beautiful, blue eyed blond haired girl to be our first kid. We didn't do that God gave life. And what about tax? Their bodies are scattered in the wilderness. If your life belongs to you, then why can it be taken away so easily? If it really belongs to you, and how can somebody steal it? What about where you live and with whom you live. Take what is yours and go. That is what is said to those who claim that life is what they make. I'm going to agree to work for this. This is what I want. This is what like this, this is what my labor is worth. By the way, I'm going to make a correction I'm gonna change this next year. But it says our works in conduct have no work that's only in the realm of saving ourselves. There's we can't save ourselves or work some conduct have a lot of work in that we are branches in the vine and God works good through us. Okay. The Legalist doesn't realize what he has because he is only thinking about what he will get the answer to me and doesn't realize what he has because he's only thinking about what he will get. They are one in the same in the end. They seem to be quite opposite. You know, you might say that the legalist probably more likely Republican and the antinomianism are likely Democrats. But they finally in the end aren't satisfied with the life that God gives. They want to make it
They want to make life. All of us, the first workers Legalist are sent out into the vineyard out of the kingdom of God. Take what is yours, go get it. And Israelites rebelled against Moses did not enter the promised land. They didn't want. They wanted to go back to slavery, to sin. All of us struggle with both legalism and antinomianism. It's often like you go further, because we're just so foolish and machine. And we go from one extreme to the next. We have an opinion that, that just as we work on Earth, and get paid for it, so we must work harder to get more out of life, more out of what life actually is. We think that if we do this, then we will live because that is what the law written on our hearts tells us. But the kingdom of God is the kingdom of the gospel. The kingdom of God is the kingdom of good news of news that the law does not teach you. It is news that only Jesus teaches you. It is the kingdom into which we are invited. No matter who we are. All of us sinners, rich, poor, talented, untalented, lose losers, popular doesn't matter. every sinner is invited. And it is the kingdom that saves us from slavery in Egypt. It is the kingdom of grace and mercy, not earning life. And we are prone to antinomianism when we forget that we were baptized and rescued from sin, and that in the kingdom of God, we have salvation from sins that bound us and from death that frightens us, and that Christ is still with us. He is truly with us. Now, like the Israelites said is the Lord among us or not. They had all the evidence. They saw Moses staff hit that Sea and the Sea splits into and they passed over on dry ground. And then they saw Pharaoh coming after them. And they stood on the opposite side of the Red Sea. And they saw Moses hit the ground and the sea come in and drown the enemies who had oppressed them, enslaved them hold their baby boys into the river to kill them. They saw it. They were redeemed. And they forgot. They forgot their bank, forget that we must we must MUCH TRIBULATION enter the kingdom God, but that we still are in the kingdom of God. Flesh always wants the creation to worship instead of the Creator who is blessed forever. That is why we need to repent and believe the gospel every day. We have a race to run. And we need to run as if we are the only we need to win. We are running a race not for a perishable crown. They used to have crowns that they would give of oak or Laurel like bay leaves, you know, and for the Olympics. And that was the entire thing. They didn't even get like a cash prize. It was just wearing the stupid little crown. You know, at least Olympians can go sell their golden mentalism at a pawn shop and get some money from these guys. All they had was this thing just it was just the Gloria and in the race, an athlete exercises control and all things that is He abstains from alcohol or, or smoking, or even sex so that he can focus on just this race. And Paul is saying we need to focus on what the race is. I'm not saying that. Paul's not saying here that we all need to become monks, and live ascetic lives of poverty and, and abstinence. We should enjoy every gift that God gives us. What he is saying is that there is one goal that we all have. And this goal is to die in the face to die knowing what the kingdom of heaven is. We need to repent and believe the gospel every day. Many are baptized and not saved. Baptism saved them but they fell from the faith. Israel, Israel was actually saved from Pharaoh, through this baptism of the Red Sea, received the word of God and Sacraments. They were saved. They weren't dead, they weren't in bondage. But most of them fell away because they thought life has to be what they immediately wanted instead of what God gives. They valued the meat pots of Egypt, with the garlic and the leeks more than the eternal life and freedom that God had given. They didn't know it like they wanted to make it what they wanted it to be instead of it as the gift that it is. We try to make life into what we want it to be whether because we think we deserve it or because we simply lust after what is not life that seems life and we lose life altogether.
This is What happens when we worship money? Man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Do you know how many miserable rich people I've met? This is what happens when we love the pleasures of the flesh and ignore God and what He says to us about our bodies, but they are not our own to do with as we please but we're made to glorify Him, and show his majesty and bring forth new life. Ended up with babies dead. Girls, bodies broken, their hearts, unable to trust men anymore. And men, perverted, unable to lay down their lives. Because it wasn't life wasn't life. The way sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ Jesus our Lord, life is the gift of God. And when God gives you life, he wants it to be eternal. How do we escape these twin evils, these two ditches that we by nature so easily fall into thinking either we can earn like, we can make life better, by means of our harder work than that schmuck over there? We're that life. The life that God has given is not good enough for us, because we don't have this or that. What do we do? How do we escape? Because it's a real battle. We repent and listen to God's word. That's what we do. isn't just a one time event isn't a one saved, always saved thing. If that were true, if it were, if once saved always saved for true, like all of these, so called evangelical say it is that once you had this faith experience, and you're always going to be saved, if that were true that all of Israel would have entered into the promised land, they didn't. With most of them, God was not pleased and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. No, it is a continual renewal of our lives by repentance and receiving God's word. It is remembering our Baptist. God's word tells us what life is. God's Word teaches our hearts to turn away from trying to earn God's grace and mercy as if we could ever do anything to make him less anything. What kind of god is this? God's Word teaches us that life is not what our flesh desires. But in what God gives, God keeps giving. He makes his sun to shine on the evil in the good, makes the rain fall on the righteous and sinners. He keeps calling. He keeps going out into the marketplace of this world, and he calls people into His kingdom of grace and mercy. He calls them out of idleness and worthlessness. He finds you when you are doing nothing. When you have wasted the day, when you are lost in the marketplace of this world, buying and selling and worries about and desires for what passes away, having no hope and without God in the world, then God comes to you in the flesh. He finds you and He calls you to work in his vineyard. He calls you to a life that you did not make. But what cheek is, it is the end of the day that you work. This is the beautiful thing. The first, the last shall be first. That the end of the day, the end of the ages has come to us. There is not much left to be done. The vineyard has already planted, planted and you're working in the shade not in the hot sun, that those who trust in their works must always feel Jesus has taken the burden away. This is what he says, he says, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. That's that tool that you pull a wagon with. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly and heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. He calls you to rest and he calls you to work. And in that work, he calls you to rest in Him. He calls you to know what life is even with all of its suffering with all its crosses. He says you will find rest when you listen to him. When you come to Him. When you hear him say come into the venue and I'll give you what's right. He has borne the burden. He has borne the real burden. He has carried all your sins in his body on the tree so that you might die to sins and live for God. He has carried what destroys life in his body until it died in him.
And so you learn to die to the sins in your life as long as you stay in the vineyard. As long as you listen to Jesus who says what is right I will give to you he will he will teach sinners in the way and as he does so he will be merciful. He will not speak as your conscience speaks as the soul as John says if brothers of our heart condenses God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. He knows how much sin you have. He knows what you're struggling with. He knows what you're afraid of. He knows your sorrow. He knows all of it, he calls you into the vineyard to work. Because life is worth living because it is given to you. And sin doesn't destroy it. It destroyed his life, but it rose again and that life is given to you. It is an eternal life. Because Jesus died and will not die again. He lives forever for us. He will always give you enough. And you notice because he has given you himself, and he gave his life for you. And that is how he gives like to you, He forgives you. bears the heat so that you can work in the shade. So that you can live under grace, and not under the law that threatens you. Under that favor of God gently corrects you that guides you to repent of your sins and remember what a precious precious privilege it is to be there in that vineyard. To know what life is that it's given to you to be saved from bondage. In your back, he bears the burden. If you remember, in the Old Testament lesson, God says to Moses, I will go in front of you, and you strike the rock. Now I did this with Becky yesterday. How do you strike a rock? You can't do it from back. We're supposed to try to do it like a baseball, a baseball bat. But baseball hadn't been invented. Okay. Generally, either way. If Moses is going to strike the rock, it's going to be in front of him, which means, which means he's going to hit the Lord. He's going to strike the Lord who's right in front of him. It's not like God's off to the side, saying, God, okay, now hit that rock. She's getting hit. Do you understand? And that rock was who? Christ. This is a beautiful picture of the crucifixion foreshadows the crucifixion. You have Moses, who is angry with the people of Moses, who gives the law that condemns us. And he strikes the Lord God when he strikes the rock, the law strikes Jesus, the law that requires good Have you not requires it of him and he gives it the law that threatens punishment and death and futility in this life. Now threatens that against Jesus and he bears it. He is stricken true God and man in your place, and living water comes out of his side to quench your every thirst to satisfy your deepest yearnings for life. Because this is the life that is always given freely. And that will not spoil even as Jesus said to the woman at the well, whoever drinks sip of water that I give will never thirst again. I will always have this water to drink when I am thirsty. When my sins are too much for me, and they always are every day. My flesh wants to see the reward instead of recognize already what I have. My flesh wants what is not life. And I remember my baptism. And I have this water that poured from Christ's side to slake my might thirst and I have the blood that poured with it to cleanse my conscience. I come to church to hear my Lord, tell me about his mercy. When my faith is strengthened to the fight by the word that Jesus speaks in his vineyard, and I see that life is living in the garden or Jesus rose from the dead in a New Eden, a vineyard that belongs to Him who is the vine and we are the branches. I remain in his word. And so I am saved from legalism and antinomianism. I remain in Him. I expect everything from him freely because he gives it so freely. And there is nothing more precious than what he gives to me. It is salvation. It is peace. It is joy in the Holy Spirit. I will listen to him and receive life. I will not make life. I will take the life that he gave because He is the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE and He will bring me to the Father and I will thank him for it. I will love him who has loved me so dearly. He will not give me what is mine and tell me to the whole vineyard is mine. Jesus is mine and I am his life is mine. Because I received it today at this altar. Life is what God gives, not what I make it. Amen.
