"The Second Commandment: Blessed With God's Name!" Gen. 15:1-6

June 19, 2022
Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

God the Father blesses us with His Name to save us in Christ Jesus! The Second Commandment invites us to call upon the Lord in every trouble. Trinity 1 19-June-2022 Sermon Text: Genesis 15:1-6 Sermon Theme: The Second Commandment: Blessed With God’s Name! by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert

Episode Notes

Trinity 1                                                                       19-June-2022
Sermon Text: Genesis 15:1-6
Sermon Theme: The Second Commandment: Blessed With God’s Name!
by Rev. Nathan J. Rusert
I.N.R.I. Pro 1:8-9 My son, hear the instruction of your father, And do not forsake the law of your mother; (9) For they will be a graceful ornament on your head, And chains about your neck. Pro 22:1 A good name is more desirable than great wealth. Respect is better than silver or gold.” Wise King Solomon, son of David, instructs his son. Fathers bless their children instructing them in God’s Wisdom. Eph 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” God the Holy Spirit calls fathers to action through the pen of St. Paul. Dr. Martin Luther echos this Word of God in the Small Catechism beginning each doctrinal section, As the head of the family should teach them in a simple way to his household. In the Large Catechism he wrote, “Therefore it is the duty of every father of a family to question and examine his children and servants at least once a week and to ascertain what they know of it, or are learning, and, if they do not know it, to keep them faithfully at it.”
    How can fathers be prepared to teach their children? Learn from Luther, “But for myself I say this: I am also a doctor and preacher, yea, as learned and experienced as all those may be who have such presumption and security; yet I do as a child who is being taught the Catechism, and ever morning, and whenever I have time, I read and say, word for word, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms, etc. And I must still read and study daily, and yet I cannot master it as I wish, 8 but must remain a child and pupil of the Catechism, and am glad so to remain. And yet these delicate, fastidious fellows would with one reading promptly be doctors above all doctors, know everything and be in need of nothing. Well, this, too, is indeed a sure sign that they despise both their office and the souls of the people, yea, even God and His Word. They do not have to fall, they are already fallen all too horribly; they would need to become children, and begin to learn their alphabet, which they imagine that they have long since outgrown.” Pick up a pocket sized catechism and a Bible. Carry them with you like your smart phone, then follow Luther’s advice to be in God’s Word and Christ’s doctrine!
    During the Trinity season this year we are learning again our ABC’s of Christian Doctrine: The Ten Commandments, The Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer. Today we learn: The Second Commandment: Blessed With God’s Name!
  A father blesses, honors, protects, and gives his children a promise with his name. (LSB pg. 321 2nd Commandment & W.D.T.M?) A true father blesses his children with his last name. He honors them through first honoring their mother and protecting her through the life long commitment of marriage. His name protects them with his reputation to shield them. His name is a promise that they are his, even if they fall, he will again receive them for they are his children.
      The Lord God blessed Abram with His Name calling him away from the land of his relatives and their idols.(Gen.15:1) The Lord God is Abram’s Shield and Great Reward. His Name is Life! It promises the Savior Seed will be born from childless Abram. (Gen. 15:2-3) Elderly Abram has yet to become a father - looking at his aging failing body he begins to doubt. The Lord God draws near through His Word sealing His Name and promise upon the patriarch. (Vs.4-5) God the Father is the Creator of the universe. God the Son is the Word upholding all Creation. God the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life. His Name is life, peace and joy. His Name and promise placed upon sinners brings us from death to life, from enslavement to Satan to freedom in Christ, from fear to faith. (Vs. 6) What did Abram believe? Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "AND TO YOUR SEED," who is Christ.
      Like Abram, the Lord God has blessed you with His Name as He birthed you in Holy Baptism. (L.S.B.pg.323. L.P. Intro.W.D.T.M?) Jesus teaches you to call God your Father. Tender words of invitation from God the Holy Spirit - that you may believe and pray- asking as dear children ask their dear Father. You are blessed, honored, protected, and a promise is sealed to you with God’s Name. (LSB pg. 321 2nd Commandment & W.D.T.M?). We are to fear and love God - these words flow out of the 1st Commandment - Fear, Love, and Trust in God above all things. Remember how Luther ties them into the close of the Commandments? (LSB pg. 322 Close of Cmdts/Expl). Fear God’s wrath - our old sinful self needs to be curbed by God’s Law not to do anything against these Holy Ten Commandments. The mirror of God’s Law exposes our Old Adam - we are 100% sinners born of Adam. Love and Trust flow out of the promised grace and every blessing through the Second Adam - Jesus- who kept these Commandments for us. His perfect fulfilling of the Ten Commandments is robed upon you in Holy Baptism. By grace through faith in Jesus we are 100% saints - rising daily in our baptism we love and trust in God our Father empowered by the Holy Spirit to gladly do what He commands. As St. John teaches us today, 1Jn 4:19 We love Him because He first loved us. Sinner/Saints live in the tension of fear and love of the only True and Living God.
    What about “Trust”? Trust is avoiding what our God and Father forbids and doing what He commands us to do empowered by God the Holy Spirit in the renewing blood of Jesus. (LSB pg. 321 2nd Commandment & W.D.T.M?) What does God tell us not to do with His Name? Curse - to use His name to wish evil upon ourselves or others. Christ suffered on the cross to deliver us from damnation - if you love God you will love your brother and not use your lips to wish him to go to hell. We curse God’s Name by speaking evil of our God - blaming Him for our sin, rebelling against the calling He has written into our DNA as male or female, mocking His Word and promised freedom in Jesus. The rich man in hell blasphemes God’s Name blaming Him for not doing enough to save him from eternal torment.
    Secondly we are not to “swear” by God’s Name. To swear is to take an oath to back up lies. Fathers teach their children to be honorable and trustworthy by being a man of his word. Often when someone constantly is “swearing to God” that they are telling us the truth - they lie.
    Thirdly we are not to “use Satanic arts”. The Lord God will not have His name associated with the fallen angel Satan. The rich man in Luke 16 wanted Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his five other brothers of the hell fire that awaited them. He wanted to use God’s Name to conjure up the dead. Christians never need seances, fortune tellers, or horoscopes - we have Christ’s living Word - we know that our loved ones who fell asleep trusting in Jesus in death are with Him - we know that we shall soon be together again - in these bodies freed from our original sin - rejoicing forever in the life of the world to come.
  Fourthly we are not to “lie” by God’s Name. We are not to teach false doctrine and claim that it is what Jesus says. St. John teaches us that God is love - false teachers, messengers of Satan, twist this truth and instead of freeing sinners they chain them in perversion. God is love - Love operates within the boundaries of the Holy Ten Commandments. Just the Lord gives the blessing of sex between a man and woman only for the life long commitment of marriage. It isn’t love to teach people to break the Ten Commandments and be proud of it. That would be as deadly as convincing people the law of gravity had been revoked then shoving them off a cliff. False teaching brings death.
  Fifthly we are not to “deceive” by God’s Name. We bear the Name of the living God - do you live it in your homes, your workplace, your calling as a citizen? The rich man was a fine upstanding citizen in his community and synagogue - he dies and is given a fine burial. He is a hypocrite. 1Jn 4:20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” He ignored the beggar Lazarus laid at his doorstep - not even willing to give him table scraps. Beware of abusing God’s Name as a cover up for your sinful loveless heart!
      The Lord God blesses you with His Name. Washing you alive by His Holy Spirit, making you new again in Christ Jesus, as God the Father claims you as His beloved son in Holy Baptism. (LSB pg. 321 2nd Commandment & W.D.T.M?). How do children use their Father’s Name? Call upon it in every trouble. Not only big troubles - every trouble - for God the Father loves you perfectly. He is your dear Father in Christ. The poor beggar Lazarus name means “whom God helps” a form of Eleazer. Though he seemed forgotten and forsaken - God knew his name. He wasn’t alone, the Lord ministered to him through stray dogs licking his sores, the Lord’s holy angels tended his death bed seeing him safely to Abraham’s side in the presence of Christ. In suffering Lazarus’ learned to call upon God in every trouble.
      “To pray” - Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father.” He speaks this words with us and through us breathing forth His comforting Holy Spirit to keep us in His Word and Faith until we die. Fathers teach your children to pray by praying with them in the morning, and every meal, and when you tuck them into bed at night. Teach them to cross themselves and pray, “Lord, have mercy” when they see danger. Teach them to “praise” - saying, “thanks be to God!” or “praise the Lord” when they receive a blessing or a trial. Our life is one of praising God even for the trials. The Spirit teaches sons of God,. Heb 12:5-11 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: "MY SON, DO NOT DESPISE THE CHASTENING OF THE LORD, NOR BE DISCOURAGED WHEN YOU ARE REBUKED BY HIM; (6) FOR WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE CHASTENS, AND SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." (7) If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? (8) But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. (9) Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? (10) For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. (11) Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
              “Give thanks!” to God for everything by His Name. “Give thanks” by coming to His Supper - feasting with God the Father through the flesh and blood of His only begotten Son - placed upon your lips in bread and wine. Strengthened by His Spirit receive this daily bread with thanksgiving. The Father has blessed you with His Name!(L.S.B. 323. L.P. 1st Petition W.D.T.M?) Live it! Amen.

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