The lutheransermons's Podcast

Preparing for Worship - August 7, 2022

The Scripture readings for this week encourage us to live by faith and trust in our Lord’s promises and His love for us and what he has done for us in Christ.

The Old Testament lesson is Genesis 15:1-6, where God renewed His promise to Abraham to give him many offspring, many descendants, even though he and his wife were still childless. It was difficult for Abraham, but the Lord strengthened his faith, and we hear, “He believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness.” He was counted righteous, not by his own good works, but by faith in God’s promises and work for him, including the eventual coming of the Savior, Jesus.

The Epistle lesson is part of the “By Faith” Chapter in Hebrews 11:1-16. We have a long list of people in the Scriptures who lived "by faith” in God and the power of His Word and promises, from the Creation onward, including Abraham. Faith is defined as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We have the great privilege of knowing from Scripture about Jesus and His saving work already done for us, unlike those who lived beforehand and “greeted these promises from afar”
(Hebrews 11:13).

Jesus speaks to us all in the Gospel lesson, Luke 12:22-34 (35-40), encouraging us to trust in our Heavenly Father and in Him, even about the everyday challenges we face. Jesus reminds us that worry and anxiety won’t accomplish anything. God knows what we need, and if we “seek His kingdom,” He will take care of the rest, as He knows best. Above all, He has already given us the promise of His Kingdom through Christ and by His grace, His “good pleasure.” He promises that He will return for us, one unknown day, and we need only to be ready and waiting for Him, “by faith.”

The Psalm is Psalm 33:12-22 and the Psalmist speaks about concerns we all have, about leaders and nations and sometimes their misplaced trust in themselves and their power and their wisdom, instead of trusting the Lord. The Psalmist assures us that Lord is watching, though it may not look like it, and as “we wait for the Lord” and “hope in Him,” His “steadfast love will be upon us.”

The alternate Gospel lesson used at St. James is John 20:11-18, as we hear that Jesus conquered death with His mighty resurrection, and showed Himself alive to Mary near the tomb. If Jesus could rise from the dead, He surely could take care of everything else He promised. With joy, Mary then went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” We can tell of the hope we have in Christ, too.

Study of Galatians Part 9 - Galatians 3:15-22

Last week we heard that our attempts to be acceptable to God by keeping His law put us under a curse, because we never come close to doing everything as we should. Our hope is not in our efforts, but in Christ, who “redeemed us from the curse of the law,” by taking on Himself all sins and “becoming a curse for us,” and paying the penalty for all our sins, in our place (Galatians 3:10-14).

Paul then continued to emphasize the difference between the Gospel promises of God, given to Abraham, and the Laws given 430 years later to Moses and God’s people at Mt. Sinai. Paul used a "human example” of a "man-made covenant” or agreement - for example, a Last Will and Testament that someone makes. Various promises are made about money and property and who will be given these things. Once that will is prepared and signed, it cannot be added to or changed by anyone other than the author of the will. Everything will finally be revealed at the time of death (Galatians 3:15).

This is in a sense what God did, Paul said, when He made the covenant of promise to Abraham, when He first called Abraham in Genesis 12. God promised that He would make of Abraham “a great nation” and He promised, “In you (in your seed, in your offspring) all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3, Galatians 3:16).

Paul went on to point out that in the original language, the word for “seed” or “offspring” was singular, not plural. One particular offspring of Abraham would be a blessing to all families on earth; and Paul identified that offspring, that descendant, to be “Christ“ Jesus (Galatians 3:14,16). What Abraham believed in Genesis 15:6, was that God would keep His promise and give Abraham that great nation, and give from that nation a particular descendant who would bless all nations. In effect, Abraham was ultimately believing in the coming Christ Jesus, and by that faith, Abraham was counted righteous in God’s eyes.

Paul also pointed out, in Romans 4:9-10, that Abraham was “counted righteous” by faith before, not after, he was circumcised. The call to to be circumcised came later, in Genesis 17, so circumcision itself had nothing to do with Abraham’s being called righteous. In fact, Paul explained in Romans 4:11-12 that circumcision was “a seal of the righteousness that he (already) had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.” “The purpose,” Paul said, “was to make him the father of all who believe” - whether they were circumcised or not - “so that righteousness would be counted to them all by faith” in God’s promises, not by circumcision itself.

Back in Galatians 3:17, Paul also reminded the Galatians that the 10 Commandments and other laws were not given until 430 years later (see Exodus 12:40), when God led His people out of Egypt, through Moses, and brought them to Mt. Sinai. There, God blessed them and said He loved them and had already rescued them from slavery in Egypt, by His own care and mercy. (See Exodus 20:1-2 and Deuteronomy 33:1-4.) Only then did God give them His commandments and other laws.

Paul was saying that the Law was important, but it was not a way of earning God’s favor and salvation. In Galatians 3:17, Paul made it clear that the Law did not “annul” the covenant of promise that God had already “ratified” through Abraham. The “inheritance,” the blessings of God, would still come by God’s promise, given to Abraham and fulfilled finally in the descendant, Christ Jesus, and not by keeping new laws which would make the promises of God “void.” For, Paul said, “if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise” (Galatians 3:18).

Why then the Law? Why was it given? It was not given to save us, by our obedience to it. Rather, Paul said, “it was added because of transgressions,” until the offspring, our Lord Jesus, would come, to whom and through whom the promise of God had been made and would be fulfilled (Galatians 3:19). The Law’s primary purpose was to show us and the whole world our transgressions, our sins, and that we could never be good enough in God’s eyes by our own efforts (Romans 3:19-20, 23).

Paul even went so far as to say in Romans 5:20 that “the Law came in to increase the trespass” - not that God wants sin to increase, but that we would have increasing knowledge of how great our own sins are, as we compare our lives with God’s standard, His Law. Then we stop trying to trust our own good works and efforts and know how much we need a Savior, that Offspring from Abraham, our Lord Jesus. There are other purposes of the Law, but this is the primary one, showing us how serious and hopeless our sinful condition is, left on our own.

Paul ends this section of his letter by talking about intermediaries and mediators. There is mention in the Scriptures that when the Law was given, angels were involved in some way. (See Deuteronomy 33:1-4, Acts 7:38, Hebrews 2:2, etc.) But even with all these angels around, we humans still do not always do what the law says.

Stephen preached, “You who received the Law, as delivered by angels, did not keep it” (Acts 7:53). In fact, “God is one," Paul says (Galatians 3:20). No sinful human being can mediate with God and help himself or any other person. (See Psalm 49:7-9.) Only God Himself can help us - and He does so in the person of His Son, who became man, that perfect Offspring, and did His saving work for us.

The Law is not contrary to the Gospel, the promise of God in Christ, Paul concluded. We need both, but they serve different purposes. There is no Law that can “give us life”(Galatians 3:21). Rather, the “Scripture” that is Law shows us that we and everything else are “imprisoned under sin” and cannot rescue ourselves by our own works and efforts.

We are driven by the Law, therefore, to Christ alone and what He has earned for us and gives us: “the promise by faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe,” including us (Galatians 3:22). We, along with Abraham, are counted as righteous simply by God’s promise and His gift of faith, given to us in Christ (Galatians 3:22).

That is what Paul wanted the Galatians, and us today, to believe. Being circumcised or keeping other old laws and rules cannot save us, in spite of what false teachers say. We are saved only by God’s grace, through the gift of faith that Jesus gives to us, through His Spirit, working in His Word and Sacraments.

The Lord’s blessings to you all, in the promises of God in Christ Jesus.

Sermon for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost - July 31, 2022

Sermon for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost, based on:

Leviticus 18:1-5; 19:9-18

Colossians 1:1-14

Luke 10:25-37 

Sermon originally delivered July 14, 2013

Preparing for Worship - July 31, 2022

The Scripture readings for this week cause us to think about our lives and what we are really focusing on as important. The Psalm is Psalm 100. The author is filled with joy, gladness, singing, thanksgiving, praise, and blessing, as he enters God’s house, because he remembers the goodness and steadfast love of God, who created His people and continues to care for them as His precious sheep.

In contrast, in Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, and 2:18-26, the author of Ecclesiastes, most likely Solomon, is cynical and sees, even as king, a lot of “unhappy business” and vanity in life, like trying to catch the wind. He works hard and yet what he has built might go to someone who is a fool. There is much sorrow, and his heart cannot find rest. Yet he knows that only the hand of God can give him enjoyment and wisdom, as he seeks again to trust in and please Him.

In the Gospel lesson, Luke 12:13-21, Jesus warns about “covetousness” and focusing on the “abundance of one’s possessions.” He then tells a parable of a rich man who finally thinks he has “ample goods laid up for many years” and can just relax and enjoy himself. He was a “fool,” for he died that very night. “So it is,” Jesus said, for anyone who “lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

How can we be “rich toward God?” Our Epistle lesson, Colossians 3:1-11 tells us that by “setting our minds” on “Christ, who is our life” and our guarantee of our eternal future in heaven. Even in this life, “Christ is all and in all” believers, and He can help us live with our “new self” in Him and battle the old, sinful things in our lives that are hurtful to us and others, as we await His “appearance in glory.” 

The alternative Gospel lesson, for St. James, is Luke 23:26, 32-46, where we hear of how God’s plan of salvation was completed for us by the work of Christ on the cross. He prayed for the forgiveness of all our sins and earned that forgiveness for us by His sacrificial death in our place. Then, because His mighty resurrection was coming, He could also promise to the criminal and to all us who trust in Him, “You will be with me in Paradise.”

Study of Galatians Part 8 - Galatians 3:6-14

As last week’s study closed, Paul quoted from Genesis 15:6: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Galatians 3:6). What does that mean? What Paul wrote later in his Letter to the Romans, Chapter 4, helps us to understand, as he quoted the same passage there, in Romans 4:3, and then commented that someone who works for wages expects to be paid. His wages are not a gift, but are what is due to him or her. He has earned that pay (Romans 4:4).

In contrast, in the spiritual realm, with regard to salvation, a person should not try to earn salvation by doing good works, but simply “believe or trust in Him (God) who justifies the ungodly.” That “faith or trust is counted as righteousness” for people, no matter who they are (Romans 4:5).

What Paul says here just does not sound right to our human reason and way of thinking in this world. It used to be said, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” The common perception is that you only get what you have earned and deserved and paid for. (That thinking may be changing, in a culture where people think they deserve a break and deserve more and more for themselves, regardless of their actions. But in general, people still think they should work and earn for themselves in some way if they are capable of doing so.)

In the spiritual realm with God, that will not work, Paul is saying. Go back to Galatians 3, verse 10. Paul writes, “All who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law and do them.’” This is a quotation from Deuteronomy 27:26, and in Deuteronomy 28:15-68, there is a long list of curses and judgments coming even for God’s Old Testament people of Israel if they sinned and rebelled against God’s will. And from what we just read, they would have to do it all correctly to be acceptable to God.

This is a message found throughout the Bible. See, for example, James 2:10-11: “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.’”

See also what Jesus says in  Matthew 5:21-22 and 27-28. Who of us has never broken these commandments of God, in the ways that Jesus says are still sins? Hear also what is said in James 3:2: “For we all stumble (sin) in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect person, able to bridle his own body.” Who among us is really that perfect?

See also the story in Mark 10:17-22, where a man asks Jesus what he must do “to inherit eternal life.” Jesus talked about keeping the commandments and then challenged the man about wise use of his “great possessions,” showing him that he was trusting in possessions too much, instead of trusting God. The disciples, who seemed to think that it was always a sign of blessing and favor with God to be very wealthy, asked Jesus, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus answered very bluntly, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God” (Mark 10:23-27). Imagine that! It is impossible for us to be saved by our efforts and work to please God, no matter how hard we try.

That is exactly what Paul was trying to teach the Galatian Christians as he wrote to them. If they listened to and followed the false teachers, who had given them a bunch of new laws to follow to be a "genuine" Christian, then they were doomed. They would have to keep all these laws perfectly. One failure - and they were unacceptable and condemned as sinners. And who is perfect? No one, according to God’s standard, if they tried to please God by the good things they did. (See Matthew 5:48.)

So Paul said, in Galatians 3:11, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by (keeping) the law,” because the law says, “The one who does them shall live by them” (Leviticus 18:5, Galatians 3:11-12). And who does that, all the time?

Paul is saying that we need to give up on trying to save ourselves by our good works and efforts. That will never work. We need to trust God and what he can do for us, for as Jesus said, “With God, nothing is impossible,” for our salvation (Mark 10:27). Or as the Genesis quotation said, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Galatians 3:6). Abraham was declared and counted as a righteous man simply by faith, by believing God Himself and His promises, and not by doing his own works of the law.

And this was a promise not just for Abraham, but for all people who live by faith in God and especially in the work done for us by Christ Jesus. His work saved us, not our work. Paul said, “Know then that it those of faith who are the sons of Abraham,” as well. For God was preaching this Good News, this Gospel, to all people, including non-Jews, when he said to Abraham, “In you, (in your descendant, Jesus) shall all the nations be blessed” (Galatians 3:8). “So then,” Paul said, “those who are of faith (in Jesus) are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:9, 12-14).

Trusting in Jesus and His saving work is enough, Paul is emphasizing. Everyone who trusts in Him is counted as righteous. That is true of the Galatian Christians and that is true of us, as well. Any sin of ours curses us, but Jesus has “redeemed us” (paid the price to rescue us) “from the curse of the law.” What good news for us all!

There is much more that Paul says, in Galatians and Romans, about this, and we will continue on in weeks ahead. Keep reading in Galatians and Romans 4, if you have time. The Lord’s blessings! And keep hoping in Christ alone and what He has done for you!

Sermon for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost - July 24, 2022

Sermon for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost, based on:

Isaiah 66:10-14 

Galatians 6:1-10, 14-18   

Luke 10:1-20

Sermon originally delivered July 7, 2013

Preparing for Worship - July 24, 2022

The Scriptures this week encourage us to pray with confidence as we approach our Lord in our prayers. The Old Testament lesson is from Genesis 18: (17-19) 20-33. The Lord had revealed that He would destroy the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham hoped to have his nephew, Lot, and family spared, though they lived in Sodom.

Abraham asks if it is fair to destroy the righteous with the wicked and bargains with God in prayer about how many righteous people there need to be for the city to be spared. He gets the number down to 10 righteous people, as God is very patient and merciful to him. Sadly, there are not even 10, and we hear later that the cities are both destroyed, but God in His mercy does save Lot and his two daughters, as angels drag them out of Sodom (Genesis 19).

The Psalm is Psalm 138. David knows that God is full of “steadfast love and faithfulness.” God’s Word is true, so he can call upon Him and trust His “ways.” He remembers not only to ask in prayer, but to thank the Lord again and again. David says, “The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me” with His everlasting love.

In the Gospel lesson, Luke 11:1-13, a disciple asks Jesus to teach His followers to pray. As He had already done (see Matthew 6:9-12) Jesus taught again a portion of what we call the Lord’s Prayer, the model prayer for our own praying. We pray to our heavenly Father (v.2,13), glorifying His Name and His Kingdom, and asking Him to keep on giving us what we need, day by day, and giving us the greatest gift, the forgiveness of our sins. As we are forgiven, we ask help to forgive one another and to have help in avoiding and battling temptation. Jesus then teaches us to be persistent and almost “impudent” (shameless) in asking and seeking and knocking in prayer, as little children sometimes do with parents, “Daddy, daddy, mommy, can we?… can we?” As parents who love our children, we try to do the best for them, but we often fail and are “evil,” with a sinful nature. Our heavenly Father gives us the great gift of the Holy Spirit, who brings us to faith in Jesus through the Word and baptism, and seeks to keep us in that faith, through Word and Sacrament.

The Epistle continues readings from Colossians - this week, Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19). When we were “dead in our trespasses…" God made us alive in Christ and forgave us all those sins and cancelled the record of all our wrongs and indebtedness toward Him. All our failings have been “nailed to the cross” along with Christ and forgiven by His death and resurrection for us. We now “abound in thanksgiving” in our prayers and ask the Lord to help us “walk in faith” in Christ and “hold fast to the Head,” our heavenly Father, and “grow with the growth” that comes only from Him.

The alternate Gospel reading for St. James is Matthew 4:3-11, the story of the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness. Where God’s Old Testament people failed in the wilderness and we have failed in our own lives, Jesus did everything right and followed His Father’s will in a perfect way, here and throughout His life. He knew and trusted the Word of God and used it to battle the devil and win victory for us. “Jesus then preached the Kingdom of God” and how we can enter it only through faith in Him, as a gift, and what he has perfectly done for us.

Study of Galatians Part 7 - Galatians 3:1-7

Last week, we heard Paul laying the foundation for all he would now say to the Galatian Christians. He reminded them that no one, Jew or Gentile (non-Jew), could be declared “righteous” by works of the law, but only by faith in Jesus Christ, by the grace of God. The Jerusalem Council had clearly said that, and Paul knew that was true from what Christ Himself had revealed to him.

He could not “rebuild” a salvation based also on additional works of the law. In fact, he had died to his old life, centered in the law; and Christ, the Son of God, loved him and was crucified for him and now lived in him. If Christ had not done enough for him and he had to add to what Jesus did, then he would be saying that Christ had died for no real purpose, or at least did not accomplish enough fully to save people (Galatians 2:14-21).

As Chapter 3 of his letter began, Paul made some strong statements about the Galatians and gave a series of questions to make them think. He first called them “foolish” in their thinking. Jesus had used the same term for those who would not believe that He had to die for them and rise again, according to God’s saving plan revealed in the Old Testament (Luke 24:25-27). On another occasion, Paul would say that this plan to save by Christ’s death and resurrection might seem like “foolishness” to skeptical Jews who wanted more signs and proofs and to Greeks and other Gentiles who thought that their own human wisdom was superior to this “foolish” plan. In spite of that, Paul simply did what he was to do and preached “Christ and Him crucified” before the eyes of the Galatians (Galatians 3:1). (See also 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:2.)

Paul had spoken the simple truth to the Galatians. He had likely used, in his teaching, the story found in Numbers 21:4-9, when God’s people had rebelled against Him and poisonous snakes were beginning to bite them, and they were dying. God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. If the people would look on that bronze serpent, they would live and not die, even if bitten.

Jesus then used this story in teaching Nicodemus in John 3:13-14 that He, the Son of Man, would be lifted up on the pole of the cross, that “whoever believes in Him” and his saving death and resurrection “would have eternal life” (Galatians 3:1). (See also John 3:16-18.).                                                  

It was the false teachers, the Judaizers, who had later come and “bewitched” the Galatians by adding additional requirements that they supposedly needed to do for "real" salvation. What Jesus did was not enough, these false teachers were claiming, and the Galatians were believing these additional ideas of what was really needed for salvation.

Paul then asked the Galatians to think back to when they first came to faith. Was it by Paul having them do a bunch of “works of the Old Testament law?” Or was it by the Holy Spirit working simply through what they had heard about Jesus and bringing them to believe in Him and, as we will hear later, receiving the gift of baptism? The Galatians would hopefully not have been “so foolish” as to have forgotten that they came to faith by the Spirit’s power, through the Word of God about Jesus (Galatians 3:2). (See again the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:1-3 and 2:8-10, 12, and 14. See also 1 Corinthians 12:2-3.)

Paul went on to ask, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). The Galatians would remember, reminded by Paul, that they had come to believe through the message about Jesus by the miracle of faith that the Holy Spirit had worked in them and by some other miracles that happened, even though there was persecution from Jewish groups, especially aimed at Paul and any who followed him (Galatians 3:4-5).

See also Acts 14, again, where the joys of people coming to faith in Galatia are described, along with “signs and wonders” by the Spirit’s power, and some severe persecution at times. All along, though, Paul and others “preached the Gospel… strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:3, 19, 21-22).

Notice that more than once, Paul contrasts “hearing with faith” and “works of the law.” He clearly focuses on “hearing” the Good News of Jesus and trusting Him as the way to salvation  - and not our doing many other “works of the law” in addition. He asks the Galatian believers if they feel they are now “being perfected by the flesh.” The “flesh” means our own human nature, in the Scriptures, and often is a reminder that our nature is a fallen, sinful human nature, ever since Adam and Eve’s fall into sin.

Paul is asking, do you think that your nature is being perfected by the new rules and regulations being required by the Judaizers, including being circumcised? Do you think that you are more likely to be saved by doing all these additional things? Getting the people to think about all this will hopefully get people ready for what Paul will be discussing next.

Paul ended this section by quoting one more Scripture, from Genesis 15:6: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” He will say much more about this passage in what we look at next week, in its context in Genesis. On what basis was he “counted” as a righteous man? Why is this important? What would this mean for non-Jews who came to believe, also? Finally, what does Paul mean when he says that “those of faith are also sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7).

Keep reading ahead, if you have time, for more understanding. The Lord’s blessings on your week.

Sermon for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost - July 17, 2022

Sermon for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, based on:

1 Kings 19:9b-21

Galatians 5:1,13-25   

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon originally delivered June 30, 2013

Preparing for Worship - July 17, 2022

The Scriptures this week remind us to keep listening to the Word of God. That is also a key reason for regular worship - to hear and receive that Word. The Old Testament lesson is from Genesis 18:1-10a, (10b-14). Abraham and Sarah had been promised a child from the Lord, from whose line of descendants all people would be blessed - through the coming of Jesus. Years went by and nothing happened. Abraham and Sarah seemed to ignore God’s Word and tried to provide a child by their own ideas and power. When the Lord came again, with two angels, and renewed the promise of a child, Sarah laughed at what seemed impossible, as Abraham himself had done a year earlier (Genesis 17:17). Yet the Lord fulfilled His Word to them, and Isaac was born.

In the psalm, Psalm 27:(1-6) 7-14, David knows that the Lord is “his Light and his salvation.” He prays that he may always be able to come to “the house of the Lord” to “seek the face of the Lord” and be “taught” by Him. He encourages all of us: “Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

In the Gospel lesson, Luke 10:38-42, Jesus comes to the home of Martha and Mary. Martha is very busy in preparing to serve Jesus, but Mary just sits and listens to Jesus. Martha is upset with her sister. Jesus reminded her (and us) very simply, “Martha, you are anxious and troubled by many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” May we take time to listen to the Word, too!

The Epistle lesson continues a reading from Colossians 1:21-29. Paul encourages early Christians to “continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard.” The Gospel centers in Christ and what He has done for us and His continuing to live in us, as the Hope for our future glory in heaven. “Him we proclaim,” Paul says. He and His Word are what we need to keep hearing about.

The alternate Gospel reading being used at St. James is Matthew 3:13-17. The One promised from the line of Abraham and Sarah is Jesus, as clearly proclaimed at His baptism. The Triune God is at work. Jesus was being baptized to “fulfill all righteousness” - to do everything needed by us, but in a perfect way, for which we get the credit and blessing. The Father spoke from heaven and said of Jesus, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Are we always pleasing to God? Obviously not!. Yet we get the credit for what Jesus did, in our place.) The Father repeated the same thing at the transfiguration of Jesus. He added the message of our readings today: “Listen to Him” (Matthew 17:5)! May we keep listening! The Holy Spirit also came upon Jesus in the form of a dove to strengthen Him for His ministry and to battle temptations coming and for dealing with the cross He would later bear in our place, that we might be forgiven and counted acceptable to Him.