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Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity, September 8, 2024

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Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity, September 8, 2024

The truth of Jesus’ declaration opens Luther’s words on the bondage of the will to greater importance. Luther famously argues that the human being is like a beast of burden. Either God is in the saddle or Satan is in the saddle but one or the other is going to ride the beast. God and Satan contend for the saddle seat, but they do not share the seat. The human… the sinner… the person… you… you and I cannot have two masters. With Satan in the saddle, our love and devotion are directed toward him and his lies. The things of God are hated and despised. With God in the saddle, however, our love and devotion are directed toward him, and the lies of Satan are despised and hated.

In the text before us today, money—or the love of money—is named by Jesus as the presenting symptom of Satan in the saddle. The resulting lie is revealed by the presence of anxiety… anxiety about your life. The superficial appearances of life, things such as food, drink, and clothing should not bring anxiety. God cares for the birds of the air… God cares for the lilies and the grass of the field… why should you—the capstone work of God’s sixth day labors—doubt that God would care for you? Indeed, Christ has come to be the Lord of your conscience and, as long as he rules there, you have the kingdom of God and his righteousness. With God and Christ seated on the throne of your conscience, they are in the saddle. Satan and all his lies, including those regarding the love of money and anxiety over life, are dethroned, put under the Lord’s feet.

While we are still in the flesh… while we live out the days of our baptism… the throne of our conscience remains under contention. The appropriate use of money, the lack of anxiety, and spontaneous works of love useful to our neighbors are all helpful symptoms that Jesus is Lord of our conscience. However, when our conscience begins to say, “I should… I must… I ought to… I have to…,” when we begin to gather money for its own sake… when anxiety over the things of life comes over us… well, then we have lost being “content in all things” (Ph. 4:12). Jesus is no longer Lord of our conscience or in the saddle of our life. Go! Hear the gospel! Listen to your preacher and have the Word of God rule over you once again.

Table Talk: Discuss the contention of God and Satan for the throne of your conscience.

Pray: Father, let me hear your Word that I would be content. Amen

Matthew 6:24-34

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

25 Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.