Podcasts about sunday after trinity

The Order for Evening Prayer, The Monday of the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity by Fr. Damien

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Monday of the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.

A Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity St. Matthew 9:1-8 by William Klock In our Gospel St. Matthew writes that “Jesus got into the boat and crossed back over to his own town.”  Back to Capernaum.  From the far side of the Sea of Galilee.  From that place where he'd been confronted by a man filled with demons and cast those demons into a herd of pigs.  You know the story.  The demon-possessed pigs promptly stampeded into the sea and drowned themselves.  And that left the pig farmer and the local townspeople none too pleased with Jesus.  They pleaded with him to leave.  So he and the disciples got back into their boat and sailed across the Sea of Galilee.  And now he's back home in Capernaum.  Matthew's version of this story is the shortest on details.  Mark's version implies that Jesus was tired.  He went home to get a break from the crowds and it took a few days before anyone realised that he was home.  But when they figured it out, the crowds were back.  Before he knew it, they'd let themselves into his house and he was preaching.  It was mostly just ordinary people, but there were some scribes and Pharisees there in that packed and crowded room.  They had to keep an eye—or an ear—on Jesus. And that crowd posed a problem to four friends.  They had a fifth friend who was paralysed.  When they heard Jesus was back in town, these four men went and got their friend and carried him, cot and all, to Jesus' house.  Jesus was healing everybody else.  Surely he would heal their friend.  If they could get to him.  And they couldn't.  I can imagine them trying.  Asking politely if people might get out of the way.  Looking to see if maybe they could squeeze through a back door or a window, then going back and trying to push some people aside to get to the front door—all to no avail.  There was no way they'd ever get their friend into that house.  And that's when they had an idea.  The roof!  In those days, in that place, roofs were flat—they served as extra living space when it was hot and you needed to get out into a cooling breeze—but more importantly, roofs were made of rush and palms plastered between beams.  So these men take their friend to the roof and they start jabbing at the roof with sticks and kicking at it with their heels and pulling it apart with their hands, until they'd made a hole big enough to lower their friend down to Jesus. Now imagine Jesus, in the house, preaching to the crowd while that was going on upstairs.  Loud scratching and thumping.  And pretty soon bits of plaster and rush start falling.  Before too long there's a hole in the roof and everyone sees these guys looking down—probably a little sheepishly.  I wonder what went through Jesus' mind.  He was tired.  His rest had been cut short.  The crowd was one thing, but he really didn't need some yahoos tearing up his roof.  “Great!  There goes the damage deposit,” he's thinking to himself.  But pretty quickly, as they lowered their friend to him, he saw what was going on.  And I think Jesus smiled. Why?  Because Matthew writes that Jesus saw their faith and if Jesus was anything like me and most of the other pastors I know, the exhaustion, the frustration of not having a break, the annoyance at having these guys destroy his roof, I think it all would have melted away, because seeing the faith of these men made it all worth it.  And looking down at the paralyzed man, Jesus says to him, “Have courage!”  Take heart!  In other words, “Don't be afraid.”  Because I imagine some people might be afraid if their friends just tore a hole in the Messiah's roof to get them inside.  Because even if Jesus was smiling, the people around him were looking shocked and outraged and angry.  “How dare you dig a hole in the Messiah's roof!”  And so Jesus looks at him and says, “Your sins are forgiven!” Now, that's not what we might expect Jesus to say to this man.  Judging by Jesus' other encounters, we'd expect him to say something like, “Get up and walk; your faith has made you well.”  But instead, he tells the paralysed man that his sins are forgiven.  That's nice, but he's still lying there paralysed on his cot.  So why would Jesus say, “Your sins are forgiven”?  Brothers and Sisters, Jesus found a teaching moment in everything.  He'd healed people more times than anyone could count at that point, and that was a sign that the Messiah had come and that God's kingdom was breaking into the world.  But what did that really mean?  Well, remember that everyone had their own ideas about the Messiah and about the kingdom—and, most important, how they could have a share in it.  The people needed more than just to see miracles.  They needed to know more than that the Messiah had come; they desperately needed to know what the Messiah had come to do.  Jesus saw that group of scribes there in his house that day and saw a perfect opportunity.  Maybe they were legitimately curious to hear what Jesus had to say or maybe they were there just to criticise or report back to the priests or the Pharisees, but, right on cue, they hear Jesus' words—“Your sins are forgiven”—and he can see their outrage.  He could see how they scowled as they grumbled to each other about how blasphemous this was.  “Who can forgive sins except God?” they howled in Mark's telling of the story. Just as Jesus could see the faith of the paralysed man's friends as they lowered him through the hole in his roof, he could see the opposite in the grumbling scribes.  And so he asks them, “Why are your hearts so intent on evil?”  Of course, that just made them angrier.  “We're not the evil ones!” they say back.  “You are…you…you…you blasphemer!”  But Jesus goes on with the teaching moment and says to them, “Which is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk?”  But so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—and now he turns back to the paralysed man—“Get up, take up your cot, and go home.” And the paralysed man got up, took up his cot, and went home.  I think there was probably a little more to it than that.  He probably stretched a bit and moved his arms and legs around and maybe jumped up and down a few times.  I think he probably laughed and yelled and gave a hug and many thanks to Jesus, but Matthew doesn't get bogged down in those sorts of details, because his point is—as usual—that when Jesus healed the man, he was healed.  There was no struggle or delay.  This was the same word God spoke in the beginning when he said, “Let there be light!” and there was light.  When Jesus told the man to get up, to take his cot, and to go home, that's exactly what the man did.  In Jesus, God's new creation had come.  And if that's all that had happened, the scribes would have had nothing to complain about. What really stuck in their craw was Jesus declaring the man's sins forgiven.  That made them mad.  Even for the Messiah, as far as they were concerned, that was too big a claim.  To heal the paralysed man?  That was good.  But if he had sins to forgive, his friends should have taken him to the temple in Jerusalem for that.  The priests there were the only ones with the authority to offer sacrifices for sin and to declare someone reconciled to God.  But the crowd understood and Matthew makes a point of saying that the crowd was afraid—afraid in the sense that they were awestruck by what had happened and knew that somehow and in some way the God of Israel was at work in and through Jesus—as if they'd just witnesses one of those great and awe-inspiring events from the Old Testament that no one in Israel had seen in a thousand years.  Matthew says they saw what had happened and that they praised God for giving such authority to men. The story is sort of the whole gospel story in a nutshell.  Jesus teaches and he heals—he does the things the Messiah was supposed to be doing.  He even foreshadows the resurrection when he tells the man to “get up”—or better to “Rise up!”  That's resurrection language.  This is what Jesus promises for everyone who trusts in him: He forgives our sins, he raises us to new life, and he invites us home—to live as his new creation in the presence of God.  But as far as the scribes and Pharisees were concerned, Jesus did all this the wrong way and that made it blasphemy. But Jesus wasn't worried about that.  You know when you're accused of something bad by someone and you just want to say, “Man, look in the mirror!”  Or that old thing your parents used to tell you when someone insulted you, “Consider the source.”  Or that line from a certain cartoon character, “Your boos mean nothing to me; I've seen what makes you cheer.”  Jesus flips around the accusation.  He exposes the wickedness in the hearts of those scribes and he does it for everyone to see.  He discredits them and their accusations.  He leaves them fuming.  You can imagine their red faces and how their mouths are moving, but they can't say anything.  And Jesus is left standing there full of authority and life and power. I wonder if this teachable moment popped into Jesus' head as the plaster rained down on him and the man was lowered through the hole.  The paralytic probably had an apologetic look on his face—like, “I'm really sorry, Jesus, for the hole in your roof.  Please forgive me and my friends.”  And Jesus realised that this was the perfect moment to say something about forgiveness—because this man and his friends and, in fact, all of Israel, that's what they really needed: forgiveness, not for making a hole in his roof, but for far more serious sins—for idolatry and for greed and for faithlessness and for all the ways they'd failed to live out their covenant with the Lord.  Israel needed a lot of things—just like the paralysed man did—but most of all she needed forgiveness.  In that, the paralysed man represents Israel and all her wrong expectations of the Messiah.  The Jews wanted the Messiah to solve all their problems.  For some that was healing sickness, for others it was casting out demons, for some it was getting everybody to keep the law better, and for others it was bashing Roman heads and destroying the pagan gentiles.  But not very many people understood that none of these things was the real problem.  The real problem was sin.  Sin is why the world is in the mess it's in.  Sin was why Israel was estranged from God.  The people had been unfaithful to the Lord.  He'd called them to be light in the darkness, but they'd hid their light under a basket.  More than anything else, they needed forgiveness, because forgiveness is the start; it's what paves the way for everything else to be set to rights.  Forgiveness is the way to new creation. I think that's the part of the story that gets most of our attention.  But notice that what Matthew puts at the heart of this story isn't the healing or the announcement of forgiveness.  The heart of the story is Jesus statement that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins and then the response of the people.  We miss this because we're not thinking like First Century Jews.  When Jesus calls himself the “son of man”, he's drawing on an image from Daniel 7.  The book of Daniel is about faithfulness in the midst of exile.  Israel had been defeated and the people taken off to Babylon. Worse, some like Daniel, were pressured to compromise, to bow to a pagan king and to pagan gods—to give up on the God of Israel and to give up on his promises.  And some did just that.  But Daniel stood firm and the Lord gave him a vision of those pagan kings cast down, of the God of Israel taking his throne, and the son of man “coming with the clouds of heaven…to be given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Daniel 7:13-14).  And yet, when Daniel asks what the vision means, he is told that this kingship and dominion “shall be given”—not to a single person, but “to the people, the holy ones of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom and all dominions shall serve and obey them” (Daniel 7:27). The son of man in Daniel's vision was a symbol for the faithful remnant of God's people—for those who stood firm in their faith in the God of Israel, who remembered his covenant, and who refused to bow to pagan gods and kings.  So when Jesus referred to himself as the son of man, this is what the scribes (and everyone else) would have been thinking of.  And this is why Matthew says at the end that the people praised God that this authority has been given not to a man—Jesus—but to men, plural.  Because up to this point, Daniel's vision had yet to be fulfilled.  The Maccabees, for example, had claimed to be that faithful remnant, but their kingdom didn't last.  The people who were that faithful remnant—people like Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph and Simeon and Anna, although they were probably too humble to actually claim being the faithful remnant—people like them knew all too well that the Lord had yet to grant them anything like authority and dominion.  That's what Mary's song, the one we call the Magnificat, is all about.  But here Jesus identifies himself with that vision.  In him the son of man is finally being granted that authority and dominion—that kingship that everyone thought of in connection with God's kingdom and the world finally being set to rights—and Jesus isn't just saying it or claiming it.  He proves it when he tells the paralysed man to get up, take his bed, and go home.  For the people there that day, this was bigger than just the Messiah.  Jesus could claim to be the “son of man”, but the son of man wasn't just one person, the son of man represented the whole faithful remnant in Israel.  We need to grasp the enormous hope embodied in those words of Jesus about the son of man.  It's not just Jesus who will take his throne.  He will.  But that he will take his throne also means that all the faithful will be vindicated as their enemies are cast down, and that they will finally share in that God-given authority and dominion.  So the people in crowded in Jesus' house that day recognised that in Jesus the Messiah, God's kingdom had finally come and that they would be part of it—not just as subject, but as kings and queens themselves.  Or to borrow from C. S. Lewis, the day was coming when these sons of Adam and daughters of Eve would once again take their rightful place in creation set to rights. This makes sense of another passage that often confuses people.  Twice Jesus said to his disciples “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”.  The first is in Matthew 16, after Jesus praises Peter for his confession, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God”.  Jesus says to him and the others, “I will give you the keys of heaven”.  And in Matthew 18, in that passage about what we call “church discipline” and dealing with an unrepentant person, he repeats this statement about binding and loosing.  This is all “son of man” stuff.  Jesus isn't giving special authority to Peter alone because he's going to be the first pope.  In fact, he's not giving any special authority just to the apostles.  No, this is a gospel authority given to all of the faithful remnant, to everyone who by faith identifies with the Messiah.  This is a people who are not only given dominion or kingship—to rule alongside the Messiah—but who also share in his role as prophet and priest.  That's what this binding and loosing language is about.  As prophets, Jesus' people were to speak out against the sins of Israel and to rebuke her faithlessness, and as priests they were called to mediate the saving, the forgiving message of the gospel to the nation—and eventually to the whole world. This was good news and it explains why the crowds wouldn't give Jesus a break.  Israel's scriptures were full of promises, but so many of them had yet to be fulfilled.  Promises like Daniel's vision of the son of man.  Promises of forgiveness and of restoration and of dominion and authority.  Time and again, things would happen and people would think, “Oh!  This is it!”  But it never quite happened.  The remnant returned from their Babylonian exile, but things were never as they had been.  The Maccabees defeated the Greeks and established Judah's independence.  And for a little while it looked like the Lord's promises were on track to be fulfilled.  And then it all fell apart.  But the people knew that the Lord is faithful.  Time and again he had shown his faithfulness in Israel's past and they knew he would be faithful in their future.  Every year they ate the Passover and remembered the Lord's promises and looked forward in hopeful anticipation.  And now, here was Jesus, and he was actually doing the things the Lord had promised and he was doing them like no one had before.  They had faith.  They would be forgiven, their enemies would be cast down, and the faithful remnant—who were now gathering around Jesus the Messiah—in them the people of God would be restored and made new and would be the people the Lord had promised—a people full of his life and a people for the life of the world—prophets, priests, and kings.  The sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve would be forgiven their sins and would take their thrones and all would once again be right with the world.  This was good news! And Brothers and Sisters, this is still good news for us—maybe even more than it was for the people crammed in Jesus house that day.  In Jesus we see the faithfulness of God.  They were still looking forward in anticipation, but we can look back and see the whole picture and how Jesus fulfilled the Lord's promises and that ought to strengthen our faith and ought to give us reason to look forward to our future in hope, knowing that what God has begun in Jesus he will surely finish.  The world is often dark, we can feel small and alone, sometimes it feels like we're fighting a losing battle, but we can look back and see what the Lord has done and trust that he is faithful.  He always has been and he always will be. And this is good news because it tells us who we are.  I think that too often we look at passages like this, where Jesus talks about himself as the son of man and we forget that it's not just telling us something about Jesus.  The son of man represents a whole people.  Because Jesus has fulfilled the role of the son of man, that means that we his people, through our union with him, we have been caught up in that son of man identity, too.  Jesus has been given power and authority and dominion forever, and you and I share that with him.  It's authority to live and to proclaim the good news that he has died, that he has risen, and that he has come again and that he brings forgiveness and life.  And it's also the authority to speak as prophets to the world, to call out sin, to remind the world that the Lord will come in judgement to cleanse his creation, and to call men and women to repentance.  And hand in hand with that role, we have the authority of priests.  We're not only prophets, but priests, mediating the good news of Jesus and the life of God's spirit—mediating the redemption Jesus has made at the cross—to a sick world, desperately in need of forgiveness and life. Brothers and Sisters, think about that as you come to the Lord's Table this morning.  The bread and the wine reminds us of the forgiveness and the life and the hope we find at the cross, but they should also remind us who we are in Jesus.  We are Daniel's son-of-man people.  We are prophets, priests, and kings and we have been made so for the life of the world.  Seeing the faithfulness of God revealed in Jesus ought to move us—like the people that day in Jesus' house—to give God glory and there is no better way to glorify him than to be the people he has made us in Jesus and the Spirit, a people who live and proclaim his good news so that the world might see and know his faithfulness and give him glory. Let's pray: O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts, that in his power we might be the gospel people who have made, that we might be faithful in making known your faithfulness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 18:9–14 | 2 Timothy 4:6–18 | by Fabien Pering | Topic: Our Posture before God Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The best-selling book in history - Online Bible Sunday Service.Our service today is from St Paul's, Barrow-in-Furness in South Cumbria in the Diocese of Carlisle.Rev Dr Robin Ham and members of St Paul's will be celebrating Bible Sunday, as we mark the importance of the Bible as the foundation of the Christian faith, giving thanks for God's word and reflecting together on its impact on individual lives and communities. Prayers will be led for the Diocese of Carlisle and its Cumbria Way project, including Rising Faith Barrow. Music will be led by the members of the St Paul's Worship team and we'll hear from Amy, who shares her journey of hearing God speak through the Bible after first attending a baby and toddler group.Tune in and be encouraged to connect afresh with the Bible alongside our online community of Christians across England and beyond.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Saturday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Saturday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Friday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Friday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Thursday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Thursday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

Peter Bender of The Concordia Catechetical Academy Concordia Catechetical Academy The post Looking Forward to Sunday Morning (One Year Lectionary): Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Peter Bender, 10/22/25 (2953, Encore) first appeared on Issues, Etc..

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Wednesday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Wednesday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Tuesday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Tuesday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Monday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Monday of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

Rev. Peter C. Bender

Rev. Peter C. Bender

Sermon delivered by Fr. John Crews on Sunday, October 19, 2025.View Transcript:https://bit.ly/Sermon_2025-10-19_The-Eighteenth-Sunday-after-Trinity_Fr-John

When the Pharisees heard that [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,“‘The Lord said to my Lord,Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'?If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.(English Standard Version)

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

A Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity St. Matthew 22:34-46 by William Klock Who is Jesus?  It's important.  It's why we have the creeds that put so much emphasis on who Jesus is.  Because if you get Jesus wrong, you won't get anything else right.  Someone knocks on your door and wants to start talking theology and it sounds weird.  Ask them who Jesus is and you'll immediately get to the root of everything.  Ah!  Mormon…or Jehovah's Witness.  What they say about Jesus lays everything bare.  The last few days I've been watching videos from a conference that's held annually down in Oregon.  I've wondered whatever happened to all the big-name people from the Emergent Church movement of fifteen to twenty years ago.  This week I found out.  They've moved on from just kind of being theology sketchy to holding annual conferences and seminars to help people deconstruct their faith—which is just the new, trendy way to talk about apostasy.  And in what I listened to, it was all about Jesus.  Except it wasn't the Jesus revealed in scripture.  It was part of the Jesus revealed in scripture.  It was the warm-fuzzy Jesus.  But they've left out the Jesus who called people to repentance, the Jesus who talked about sin and judgement, the Jesus who stands alone and apart and above every other god and king.  They've built a false religion around a false Jesus.  Brothers and Sisters, it's imperative that we get Jesus right.  Christians have known this since the beginning.  Again, it's why we have the creeds.  Faith itself doesn't save.  Faith itself doesn't forgive sins.  Faith itself won't set the world to rights.  It's the object of our faith who forgives sins and saves us from death and fills us with God's Spirit and promises we'll be raised to new life as he has been. As the Gospels reach their climax with the crucifixion of Jesus, they bring this to the forefront.  Who is Jesus?  That's what's going on in our Gospel today from Matthew 22.  All these last months our Gospels have been from early in Jesus' ministry, but today we jump almost to the end and to two questions.  The first is about the law—asked by the Pharisees.  “Which is the most important commandent?”  And Jesus gave the right answer and left them fuming and with no grounds on which to challenge him.  At the same time, his answer was so correct that it left them and everyone there utterly challenged.  And then Jesus turned the tables and asks them a question: “Is the Messiah David's son or David's lord?”  “Or is he both?”  And you can just picture them totally flabbergasted.  No one had ever even thought to ask that question.  They had no idea how to answer even though the answer—Jesus—was standing right there in the middle of them. And that was the end of Jesus' confrontations with the leaders of the Jews.  The next time he'll see them is when they have him arrested in the garden and then when they drag him before the Jewish council to make their accusations, and later as he hangs on the cross while they laugh and insult him.  But hanging over those three scenes, will be the knowledge that Jesus knows the answers to these two all-important questions and that they do not.  The very basis of their charges against him hangs on the answers to these two questions that they can't even begin to answer.  And Jesus wants them to know (and Matthew wants us to know) that it is precisely in his arrest and trial and crucifixion that Jesus is fulfilling the two great commandments of the law.  And it's precisely in his arrest, his trial, and his crucifixion that Jesus is taking his throne as Lord—as the King of the Jews and as David's lord.  This is who Jesus is and this is how he's come to rescue his people—from their sins, from death, and to bring them into God's new world. So that first question.  This is Matthew 7:34.  Matthew writes, “When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they got together as a group.  One of them, a lawyer, put him on the spot with a question: ‘Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law?'”   The Lord gave Moses 613 commandments and everyone knew which was the most important.  It was so important that it had become Israel's “creed” and part of their daily prayer.  (It still is today.)  Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”  And it goes on, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  It wasn't just something you did.  The fact that it was every observant Jew's daily prayer meant that it was deeper than just doing.  Loving God was supposed to be something that made its way deep, into your very being.  It was a heart thing. But the big question is: Did this all-consuming love for God really capture Israel's heart?  The Pharisees, of all the people in Israel, knew that it hadn't.  They, of all people, not only knew the struggle personally, they knew how Israel on the whole had failed and failed and failed.  That was their “thing”.  They knew that Israel was still basically in exile despite having returned from Babylon five hundred years before.  The Lord's presence had never returned to the temple.  Pagans still ruled them.  And no one had heard the Lord's voice in centuries.  And the Pharisees knew it was because God's people hadn't kept his law, because they hadn't loved him with all their being. Jesus knew this too.  A big part of his teaching—think of the Sermon on the Mount or we could go back to Matthew 15 where Jesus talked about cups that are outwardly clean, but filthy on the inside—a big part of Jesus teaching was that Israel was desperately in need of a renewal of her heart.  Outward keeping of the law?  Awesome!  Keep it up.  But what God's most concerned about is a keeping of the law—of a love for God and a love for neighbour—that goes deeper than externals—that grows out of a heart that truly loves God above everything else. But how is that even supposed to happen?  Before he died, Moses reiterated the law to the people a second time—deuter-onomy, second law.  And when he was finished, he exhorted them in Deuteronomy 30:11: “You can do this.  It's not too hard.  It's not far off.  It's not up in heaven.  You don't need anyone to bring it down to you.  It's in your mouth and it's in your heart so that you can do it.”  Neither Moses nor the Lord expected perfect sinlessness.  That's why the Lord had made provisions for atonement in the law.  The Lord simply expected them to follow his law, to be the holy people he had made them and for whom he'd made provision to stay holy.  All they needed to do was to keep their eyes on him, to remember all he'd done for them, to know his word, to live in his grace. And I read that passage from Deuteronomy and I think: Okay.  Being faithful to the law wasn't too hard, but that doesn't mean it was easy.  If it had been easy, Israel wouldn't have failed over and over and over.  Living on this side of the cross.  Living as someone into whom God has poured his Spirit to fulfil his Old Testament promises of heart renewal, I still struggle to love God with all my being and to love my neighbours as myself.  We all do.  Sanctification is a process.  The Spirit doesn't change our hearts all at once, although it's often the case—especially with new believers—that the Spirit will do some amazing things to jump start the process.  I've been at it fifty-three years and there's still lots to do to dig out and uproot the darkness that lurks in my heart.  Every time I think I've cleaned house and then sit down with the scriptures again, I hear God speak, and I find there's always something I missed: the baseboard behind the couch needs dusting, I forgot to scrub that invisible spot under the rim of the toilet bow, or—sometimes—there's a giant pile of garbage in the middle of the living room that I've somehow not noticed all this time.  It takes work and prayer and scripture and counsel—and most of all the Spirit—to root all that darkness out and to replace it with love.  Really, if I'm honest, I'm kind of sympathetic with the Israelites when they shared their skepticism with Moses.  Really, Moses?  This isn't too hard?  I'm fighting to do it and I'm living in the fulfilment of God's promise of the Spirit to renew my heart?  How were they supposed to do it? But maybe that's just it.  Too often we think of the law as commandments to be obeyed—mostly in our own strength.  Even Israel wasn't expected to do that.  That's why God lived in the middle of their camp.  He wasn't going to leave them alone to be holy all on their own, because that is impossible.  But more importantly, what Jesus says here about loving God and loving each other really starts to come into focus as we see Jesus on the cross, dying for the sins of his people, his enemies, and then rising from death to bring to life God's new creation.  Jesus forgives our failures and he invites us into this new life.  God even comes to dwell in us—not just in our midst, but in us to renew our hearts.  And we start to realise that these commandments aren't orders to be obeyed in our own power and strength.  Instead, they're invitations into a whole new way of life—an invitation into new creation.  They're a hope that looks forward to the day when God finally sets everything to rights.  On that day there will be no more hate and no more pride and no more selfishness and no more sin.  We'll be full of love for him and for each other.  And so, in light of that invitation and that hope, in the power of the Spirit, we just start to live it now, day by day, bit by bit, welcoming God to expose the darkness and the dirt in our hearts and then gladly cleaning it out and letting light and love and life fill us—day by day and bit by bit, a little at a time as we live in hope—knowing for sure that one day it'll all be done.  This is why we live, not only looking back to the cross in gratitude, but also looking forward in a hope made sure and certain by the cross. But wait, there's more.  That's only half today's Gospel.  That was the first question.  The Pharisees asked it.  And now Jesus turns the tables (verse 41): “While the Pharisees were gathered there, Jesus asked them, ‘What's your view of the Messiah?  Whose son is he?” That probably seems like a weird question to us, but it probably wasn't for them—although they wondered where Jesus was going with it.  They knew the answer.  It was an easy one.  Just as easy as the question they'd asked him.  “He's David's son,” they said to him.  Nothing controversial there.  In fact, Matthew's made it clear right from verse 1 of his Gospel: “The book of the family tree of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”  That's how Matthew's Gospel starts.  But, of course, it can't be that easy.  So Jesus follows up in verse 43, saying, “Why then does David (speaking by the Spirit) call him ‘Lord' when he says, ‘The Lord says to my Lord, sit here at my right hand, until I place your enemies down beneath your feet.'  If David calls him ‘Lord,' how can he be his son?” What?  I should spell that like the Internet meme: “Wut?”  I can only imagine how they looked around at each other confused.  No surprises when Matthew says, “Nobody was able to answer him a single word.  From that day on nobody dared ask him anything anymore.” This one would take some time to sink in.  I kind of suspect they never did figure it out—at least most of them.  Maybe some of them did eventually figure it out in the weeks, months, and years after Jesus rose from the dead.  Maybe they believed the stories—or maybe they saw him—and it finally clicked and they believed.  But even a lot of Christians who do believe don't understand what Jesus is getting at.  So here's his point: Just saying that Jesus is the son of David doesn't give the whole picture.  For most of the Jews in those days, “Son of David” brought to mind images of a coming great warrior king.  Like a literal David, only greater.  And he would restore the kingdom of Israel over which David had once ruled at its height, only greater.  The Son of David would expand the borders.  He would utterly destroy every one of Israel's enemies.  And there would be no end to his kingdom or his reign.  He would put Israel at the top of the heap forever.  No Solomon with his idolatry and foreign wives would mess it up.  No royal rivalries would split it up.  No foreign power would ever bring it down.  This was their vision of the world set to rights. And we can probably forgive them, because it's easy to read God's promises that way.  Just like it's easy for the folks in that deconstruction conference to read all the warm-fuzzy passages about Jesus and to forget the ones about repentance and judgement.  The passage Jesus quotes is the first verse of Psalm 110—the psalm quoted more than any other by the writers of the New Testament.  It's a psalm attributed to David and it goes like this.  Again, Psalm 110 if you're following along: The Lord says to my Lord:          “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord sends forth from Zion          your mighty scepter.          Rule in the midst of your enemies! Your people will offer themselves freely          on the day of your power,          in holy garments; from the womb of the morning,          the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn          and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever          after the order of Melchizedek.” The Lord is at your right hand;          he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations,          filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs          over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way;          therefore he will lift up his head. It's right there.  The Lord will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgement among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.”  Again, I can't blame them for expecting the Son of David to come and smash Gentile heads.  I can't…except that there's still the two greatest commandments in the law: love God with all your being and your neighbour as yourself.  You have to account for both.  Like our Article XX says, “It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.”   If the Son of David was just coming to crush and shatter Israel's enemies, how would that encourage the people, how would that help the people learn to love God with all their being and (especially) their neighbours as themselves?  One of the things we see in Jesus, not least as he goes to the cross to give his life for his enemies, is that when we say that word, “God”, we're talking about the almighty Creator who not only loves his own people, but who loves the whole world.  He loves his enemies enough to humble himself, taking on their—our—flesh, so that he could die the death that their—that our—sins deserve, all to reconcile us to himself and to set right the creation we have broken.  And he does it all so that we can have a share in, so that we can once again live in his presence in that new creation. And so Jesus' point here is that, if David's son is also David's lord, then the great warrior-messiah the Jews hoped for will, in the end, bring the saving, healing, restoring, setting-to-rights rule of this loving Creator God not only to Israel, but to the whole world.  And, yes, there will come a day when the last rebellious enemies of his people who remain, when the last rebels against the Gospel will be crushed and wiped from his creation so that it can finally and fully be set to rights, but in the meantime it means that Jesus the Messiah has not come to bash heads.  He will indeed put his enemies—and kings and nations—under his feet, but he will do that as the power of the Gospel goes out to the nations—as the good news of the servant king who gives his life for the sake of his enemies turns their hearts to this God who is unlike any god they've ever known and as Jesus' new creation gives them a glimpse of and hope for a world to set to rights the likes of which they never imagined.  And that good news will go out and it will go out and it will go out until the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea and when it has done its work, then the Messiah will defeat even death itself. Brothers and Sisters, hear the scriptures and let this Jesus sustain you.  The Jesus who, like David, has gone to battle—who has done single combat against our enemies, against sin and death at the cross.  The Jesus who teaches us by his death what it looks like to truly love God with all our heart and life and mind and strength and to love our neighbours as ourselves.  The Jesus who has risen from death and who has poured his Spirit into our hearts so that we can know God's life and God's new creation and live in hope of the day when he will finish what he has started.  Not some other Jesus.  Not a Jesus we build like a Mr. Potato Head, picking and choosing the parts we like, but this Jesus: the Jesus who is both loving shepherd and warrior king; this Jesus who ate with sinners and condemns sin and calls us to repentance; this Jesus who loves his enemies so much that he gave his life for our sake, but who will also one day wipe from his creation ever last remaining bit of rebellion and darkness and sin; this Jesus and only this Jesus who truly reveals the glory of God and moves our hearts to worship and to love and to loyalty. Let's pray: Almighty God, gracious Father, we give you thank for your promises and for your faithfulness to them.  We think today especially of your promises to David and the Prophets that gave them a hope for your Messiah.  He is both David's son and your own son, the true Israel, and in him we have forgiveness of sins and the life of your kingdom.  We pray that as we live the life he gives, we would also live in hope, knowing your faithfulness and trusting in your promises, and joyfully expecting—and participating in—the work of your Church, empowered by Jesus and the Spirit as we look forward to your renewal of all things.  Amen.

Sermon at 14:58.   Bulletin: Trinity 18 Bulletin 25   Congregation at Prayer: CaP, 10/19/25

Scriptures: Genesis 32:3–8; 22–30 | Psalm 121 | 2 Timothy 3:14—4:5 | Luke 18:1–8 | by: Fabien Pering | Topic: Striving with God through Persistent Prayer Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are the essential gifts which Christ gives to His church?

A Service for the Feast of St Luke.Today our service is from St John's and St Luke's, Peterborough. Rev Michelle Dalliston and her team celebrate the feast of St Luke and show us how they try to be like him in all their work, from community support hubs to youth groups and beyond. Music is led by the church choirs and also three local schools who will perform an inspiring version of My Lighthouse.Be sure to tune in and be part of this community of faith, connecting Christians across England and beyond.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Saturday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Saturday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Friday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Friday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Thursday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Thursday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Wednesday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Wednesday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

Peter Bender of The Concordia Catechetical Academy Concordia Catechetical Academy The post Looking Forward to Sunday Morning (One Year Lectionary): Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Peter Bender, 10/14/25 (2874, Encore) first appeared on Issues, Etc..

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Tuesday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Tuesday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Evening Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Monday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Monday of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

Sermon delivered by Dcn. Andrew Masters on Sunday, October 12, 2025.View Transcript:https://bit.ly/Sermon_2025-10-12_The-Seventeenth-Sunday-after-Trinity_Dcn-Andrew

Rev. Peter C. Bender

The Order for Morning Prayer according to the usage of the Book of Common Prayer, 1928, for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

Peter Bender of The Concordia Catechetical Academy Concordia Catechetical Academy The post Looking Forward to Sunday Morning (One Year Lectionary): Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Peter Bender,10/8/25 (2812, Encore) first appeared on Issues, Etc..