August 3, 2022
This Sunday, August 7, is the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost.
This Sunday will be the first sermon in a series of four that focus on what goes on when we gather at church – or as we often call that activity: worship. This week’s message is Lutheran Worship: Private and Corporate.
This week’s readings are:
Message: Deep and Deeper Magic
I. The Deep Magic
might be seen as God’s power and his Law.
A. Creation.
B. Word –
especially as it tells people what to do or how to live.
i. The
Word of God is often twisted and misused by the devil.
ii. He uses
it to give the impression that we are capable of satisfying God by our
actions.
II. Prophecy –
particularly that which confronts sin.
A. There is also prophecy which
promises a Christ who freely justifies sinners. This seems to correspond to the
Deeper Magic.
III. This Law
always accuses us. [“lex semper accusitat”]
IV. The Law also pronounces the death sentence
on sinners.
A.
Romans 3:23 and 6:23.
B.
This is the claim the Witch holds on Edmund when
she says to Aslan, “You know that [according to the Deep Magic] every traitor
belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to
a kill.”
V. After Aslan’s sacrifice and resurrection, he
revealed that there is a deeper magic.
A. More on this in
the next session.
B. Ultimately
the deeper magic points to an atoning sacrifice.
C. “… there
is a magic deeper still which [the Witch] did not know. Her knowledge goes back
only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back,
into the stillness and darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a
different incantation.” – Aslan
VI. Jesus is the
Redeemer from before time – out of eternity.
A. Ephesians
1:3-10 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places, 4 even as he chose us in
him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined
us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus
Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to
the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the
Beloved. 7 In him we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which
he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making
known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which
he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan
for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in
heaven and things on earth.
VII. A Brief Word about Predestination
A.
“I’m telling you your own story…. No-one is told
any story but their own.” – Aslan, in The Horse and His Boy.
B.
The Doctrine of Predestination is meant for your
comfort. God is telling you your story. You are chosen in Christ!
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