Dear community, tonight we're going to listen to a few parts of the Bible. First, Exodus 20. And then, Matthew 4, Acts 10, Revelation 19 and 22. So, Exodus 20. First. Listen now to the words of the Lord. Then God spoke these words and said, I am the Lord your God, who has led you out of the land of Egypt, out of the slaves. You shall not have any other goods before me. You shall not have a cut image, or any likeness of what is above in heaven, or of what is below on earth, or of what is in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down before them, and they shall not worship you. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, who has visited the sins of the fathers to the children of the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, and I show mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You are not allowed to bow down to them, nor to serve them. You are not allowed to have any other goods in store for me. Let us now listen to Matthew 4, verse 8. This is where our Lord Jesus is searched in the desert. This is one of the devil's attacks. Again the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their nobility, and said to him, I will give you all these things if you fall down and pray to me. Then Jesus said to him, Go away, Satan, for it is written, The Lord your God will pray to you and serve Him alone. Then the devil left him, and the angels came and served him." Let us now listen to Acts 10. I will listen a little more here, but the focus is mainly on verses 25 and 26. Let us listen to verse 1. In Caesarea there was a man by the name of Cornelius, the chairman of over a hundred of the so-called Italian teaching departments. He and his whole house were happy and God-fearing, and gave much alms to the people, and was always there in prayer to God. He clearly saw an angel of God coming in at nine o'clock in the morning, and he said to him, Cornelius. And he kept his eyes on him, and full of fear, said, What is this, my lord? Then he answered, Your prayers and your alms have come before God in thought. Send men to Job, and let Simon go, who is also called Peter. He is at home with a certain Simon, a teacher-lawyer, whose house is on the sea, and he will tell you what to do. And when the angel who had spoken with Cornelius was gone, he called two of his housekeepers and a proud soldier of the one who was always with him, and told them all, and sent them to Joppa. And the next day, while they were on their way and had come to the sea, Peter had climbed on the roof at six o'clock to pray. And he became very hungry and wanted to eat. And while they were preparing, a flood of sin came over him. And he opened heaven, and he saw heaven opened, and an object, like a large layer, came down to him. which is bound to the four corners and is laid down on the earth. In it was all the four-legged animals of the earth, and the wild and creeping animals of the birds of the sky. Then came a voice to him, Stand up, Peter, beat and eat. And Peter said, Never, my lords, for I have never eaten anything unholy or unholy. And again the voice of the second time came to him, What God has made holy, thou shalt not eat unholy. And it happened three times, and the example was taken up again in heaven. And while Peter was amazed at what he had seen, the men who had been sent by Cornelius stood at the gate and went to Simon's house. And they cried out and asked if Simon, who is also called Peter, was there at home. And while Peter was approaching by the face, the Spirit said to him, There are three men who are looking for you. Stand up, climb down, and go with them without hesitation, for I have sent them. Peter climbed up to the men who had been sent by Cornelius and said, Look, this is what you are looking for. What is the reason you are here? And they said, Cornelius, a ruler over a hundred, a righteous and God-fearing man, who has a good name in the whole Jewish nation, has received a divine revelation from a holy angel to bring you to his house to hear what you will say. And he took them in and housed them. And the next day Peter went out with them, and some of the brethren from Joppa went with him. The next day they arrived in Caesarea, and Cornelius was waiting for them. And he had already called together his family and special friends. When Peter came in, Cornelius went up to him and fell at his feet, to prove his innocence. But Peter raised him up and said, Stand up, I am also but a man. Here we see how the gospel is served to them, and how the spirit is poured out over these people. Let us listen to Revelation 19, verses 10 and 22, verses 8 and 9. Both times it is John who has seen a lot. He is so overwhelmed that he wants to pray to the angel that shows him these things. Revelation 19, verse 10. And I fell at his feet to pray to him, But he said to me, Do not. I am a servant of you and of your brothers who have the testimony of Jesus. So pray to God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of the prophecy. And it was I, Joannes, who saw and heard it. And when I had heard and seen it, I fell down to pray for the feet of the angel who had shown me these things. Then he said to me, Moony, for I am a servant of you and of your brothers, the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. I pray to God. Amen. That is the word of the Lord. Beloved community, a long time ago, we were standing in silence at the teaching of the Trinity. We can say that there are three fundamental teachings that you have to understand well. It is fundamental. We can certainly add a lot in a way. But one is, who is God? That is the first question. Who is God? What is your teaching of God? And there he will talk about God's essential qualities. He is unchangeable, He is eternal, He is omnipotent, He is almighty. All the essential qualities of God. And also about the teaching of the Trinity. A second important question is, Who is Jesus? That is the second fundamental question. If you are dealing with the Christian faith, and also if you want to clarify the Christian faith for someone, it is a fundamental question that you have to answer. Who is Jesus Christ? The third fundamental question, I would say, is also, and how can I be saved? How can I be saved without Jesus? Tonight we want to focus on the second question. Who is Jesus Christ? Who is He? We are not going to touch on everything in Christianity, but there is one aspect. He is someone who has to be worshipped. Jesus Christ is someone who has to be worshipped. Now, before we get to that, let's go to the part of the scripture that we just read together. 1 Thessalonians 20. We know it very well. It's the law of the Lord, which the Lord declared with His own voice from Mount Sinai, that the earth trembled before the voice of the Creator, and that the people were so afraid that they said, no, we're going to leave it in the middle. We score one that will stand between us and the Lord. If we stick to the Lord's system, we will die. And then they ask Moses, Moses, will you be our mediator? How beautiful is that? Then realize, we score one that can be our mediator. And in the end, that is also our Lord Jesus Christ. But when the Lord, the Lord God, speaks to His people from the mountains, How precious are those first words? I am the Lord your God. This is where it begins. It begins with this announcement. I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God. And not only that. I am the Lord your God. that saved you, that led you out of Egypt into slavery. I am the God who has seen you there in Egypt. I have seen how heavy you are. I have seen in what a great need you are. I have seen that you can not do anything on your own. I am the God who descended. I am the God who saved you powerfully from the land of Egypt. I am the one who freed you from the hands of Pharaoh. I am the one who drowned Pharaoh in the sea. I am the one who led you with powerful deeds to this mountain. that you can worship me. I am the Lord, your God, who has redeemed you. It doesn't have a logical consequence. You can't have any other God before my face. He just said, this is who I am for you. I am God. I am the Lord, your God. And you are not allowed to give this recognition to any other being. You are not allowed to bow down in front of any other thing and pray to it. Because there is only one God. He is it. Yahweh. You are not allowed to give any other goods in front of His face. And you are not even allowed to make an image of what is above the heaven and what is below the earth and bow down in front of it and receive that number. You can't bow down before it and serve it. Because, he said, I, the Lord, am your God. Now, when we come to the New Testament, where the devil comes, this sluggish enemy, comes to seek Jesus Christ. Like he sought the first Adam, where he brought the first Adam to a fall with his attacks and his lies, now he comes to the second Adam, to Jesus Christ. And he also attacks him. He wants to see if he can win again. There in the garden, he has won a great victory and brought a great slaughter under humanity. That he got man to choose against God and thus choose death, to fall into death. But here is the second Adam now, in the desert, not in a garden, alone, without help, and hungry. And He comes, and He falls on him. He falls on him with His requests. And then the last request that the devil wants to use. He points... He takes him to a high mountain. He points to all the kingdoms of the world and their nobility and says to him, I will give you all these things if you fall down and pray to Me. We just heard it. If you fall down and pray to me, then our Lord will receive the Old Testament. He says, Satan, go away, because it is written there, you must pray to the Lord your God and serve Him alone. Then the devil left him. Now, one thing to see. Jesus can only command the devil. He says, go away. The devil must go away. Our Lord is mightier than the demons. He is mightier than the evil forces. He is the Almighty. But here we read an interesting Greek word. The Lord your God must worship you and serve Him alone. The Greek word is proskynio. The idea with this word is that you, with your heart, bring recognition that this being in front of you is God. But also that your body reacts. It's not just a recognition in your heart and your body is cold and dead. Here, read in my style, that people have fallen on their faces. They have fallen on their faces and have prayed. That is what I want to convey here. Now, there are some of us who are now in real conversations with Jehovah's Witnesses. And if you are now going to point in the New Testament, but look, Here it says that we have to pray to Jesus. We just have to pray for God. Then the answer that will come is, yes, but this word that is used here can mean more than one thing. One is to pray, but the other one is just to show respect. Just like I am sitting here in front of you and I am treating you with respect, I am actually trying to make you happy. I am trying to treat you with respect, to give you honor. And then I can take you a little bit aside, because you want to go in your Bible to this part of the scripture where it is very clear, You have to pray to Jesus Christ, Jesus is praying in the New Testament. And then it's everywhere, it's these words, listen carefully. And if he opens up his Bible, the New World Translation, where they have changed a lot of things, that it speaks nicely in line with what they teach. Then you will see in every place where this word is used for Jesus. Then it's just that you have to show respect. The English word is obedience. Before I spoke, I had never even heard of the word. But you just have to show respect. You don't have to pray for it. The question is then, what is true? Does Jesus just have to be respected? Or does he have to be prayed for? Well, we have very clear signs in the New Testament about who is not allowed to pray. And every time this word is used. In Acts 10 we read of Peter who arrived at Cornelius. And standing there, Cornelius went to meet him and fell at his feet and begged him. Now, it's a shame, in our own translation, we use the word as a proof of holiness. It's really a shame. But here you have Cornelius, who falls at Peter's feet. And if it was just plain holiness, then you can ask, why was it ever necessary for Peter to say, Stop! Stop! Don't do that! Stand up! I am also just a human being. We can show respect for people, right? We can offer honor to people, right? It's a beautiful part of our culture, that we show respect for our elders. And we say, Om, and we say, Thani. We stand up when they come in. It's good to show respect for people. But it's not good to worship people. And this is what Peter realizes here. He realizes that Cornelius is doing more than just showing respect. He realizes that Cornelius is praying here. And so he stops for him. I'm just a human being. You don't have to pray to a human being. This is an example of where... This, which is also called Proskeneio, cannot be given to a human being. Also, in Revelation 19 and 22, here you have this poor John, who is overwhelmed by the terrible good he sees. And every now and then he is so overwhelmed, also by the angels in front of him, he falls down in front of the angel and begins to pray to the angel. And every time the angel has to say, stop! Don't do that! Don't pray to me, pray to God! Even the angels, you can't give them a piece of bread. If we go through the whole New Testament, you can see how this word is used 59 times in the verb form. And if you can only sit one side in every case, where it is used in reference to Jesus Christ. And just look at how this word is used in all the other contexts in the New Testament. Then it always has to do with worship. Or worship of God, or worship of a deity. This little word, C, means a lot more than just showing respect. It means that you are praying with your heart and your body for your God. And that is why our Lord Jesus also used this when he punished Satan and when he accepted the law of the Lord in the Old Testament. Then said the Lord your God with your proskyne eyes and serve Him alone. No creation can receive such an honor from these words. So if we want to ask, who is Jesus Christ? Then there is one way to answer it. Is it true that people have proskyne eyes for Jesus? And then we see a overwhelming yes. Even at the beginning of the Gospels. Stay with me to Matthew 2. And again in our translation it is bitterly unfortunate that it is so translated. Those of you who have an English translation will see that it is a different translation than many of the English translations. In Matthew 2, verse 2, the wise men of the East... Let's read verse 1 and 2. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, on the day of King Herod, the wise men of the East arrived in Jerusalem and said, Where is the King of the Jews that is born? For we have seen his star in the East, and we have come to show him holiness. And again, this holiness here is where we have come to worship him. That's how the English translation is translated. Now, think about how much it takes a Jew to hear, here come men from the West to offer a Jewish barbecue under our feet. How about your back? And then it also makes more sense that the red one, he realizes that the Messiah is being spoken to here, and that he can quietly talk to them and say, will you find out where he is and make it known to me, because I also want to worship him, says the red one. Because we know that he has a plan, he actually wants to kill for Jesus. But then we can go to verse 11, Then we see how they finally arrive at Jesus. And they went into the house, and found Mary's mother in the garden, and fell down, and prayed for her. They opened up their pockets, and brought her gold, silver, and myrrh. Here you have this special event. that the Lord brings people out of the East, and in some way, that they know the promises of the Messiah, that they know the Lord's message, in some way that they have revealed, that the one who lies there is more than just a naked man, he is worthy to be worshipped. That they fall down before this barbeque, on the ground, in worship. We read the same thing every time through the Gospels. When our Lord Jesus is approached for help, then this person does not just come with, he is not a prophet, he is a mighty figure, no. No more is it. In Exodus 8, verse 2, where we read of the last man, And when he came down from the mountain, a great multitude followed him. And there came the last man and fell down before him. Here they have just translated it with a drop of water. What you have to hear then, that worship of God is something that your body is involved in. that it is good to fall in prayer at times, to lay on the ground, to lay on your face in prayer to your God. But this time before Jesus fell down, he prayed and said, You see how the Gospels say, is giving you these guidelines on who Jesus Christ is. We can go to chapter 9, verse 18. Then you read again. while he says to the woman who had bleeding, while he says to them, come to a certain superior and fall before him. Excuse me, that is now before the woman of bleeding, that is now the daughter of Jairus. My daughter has now died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live. There again, and fall before him. Here comes the man, and he pricks his own eye in front of Jesus. It is more than just a respectful bow in front of Jesus. It is a deed of worship. Every time, you read about this in the Gospels. Verse 14, verse 33, again. Because this is us, from the storm, and the disciples who are afraid, and they say to Jesus, they wake him up, they realize they need help, they are going to sink, they are going to drown. And then Jesus stops the storm, and then... Excuse me, this is actually where we walk on the sea. My mistake. So Jesus walks on the sea and he calls for Peter. And finally, when he climbs on the sky again, Jesus says in 1st Corinthians, Then he who was in the sky will come and fall down before him, and say, Verily, I am the Son of God. In the end, that is what you have to do when you are reading one of the Gospels. You have to ask all the time, who is Jesus Christ? This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This Gospel writer wants to tell me something about Jesus Christ. He wants to reveal Jesus to me, that I should see Him for who He is. And what is it in this one word, which comes from the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew, all the way to the end of the Gospel, then it is well told. Then we read that the disciples prayed to him, in Matthew 28, twice. We read that he prayed. But it is exactly the same word. At the end they translated it with prayer. But not the whole time actually, people are busy praying to Jesus. Are they trying to fall before Him? Is there some kind of realization? This One who is standing before me in flesh and blood is more than a human being. It is Yahweh. It is the Lord God who is standing before me. And that is why I can say, I believe He is mighty to make us healthy. I believe He is mighty to raise us from death. I believe He is mighty to save us. Because He is the Lord God Himself. He is Yahweh. Over and over, this testimony comes through the Gospels. And it's only a few places, like I said, it's actually 59 times that this word appears in the New Testament. You can read them all, and you'll see how it's always right. It's about prayer. And from here... Then we can remember how the Lord says over and over in the Old Testament, there is only one God. There is only one. It is not that there is the Father, who is God, and now we have a second God, who is Jesus. And we now offer two gods. No. Over and over, Yahweh is saying, I am God and there is no other. Over and over again he is announcing it. Isaiah 43, Isaiah 45, Psalm 86, 1 Corinthians 8. This is also an interesting part because Paul is saying that the abject gods do not exist. They are not real beings, real gods. Little gods under God. We don't believe in a pantheon of gods. There is only one true God and that is Yahweh. So if we then say, one God, but here he is being distinguished, in this case Father and Son, then we already have two steps of the teaching of the Trinity. Father, Son and Spirit. But he was born as a human being. The people who are praying here, fall down in front of a human being. A human being that is standing in front of them. And in this we learn, not that he God has changed into a human being. It is not a transformation. We believe in incarnation. God has taken on the human nature. And so He stands before them, true God and true human being. What is the difference? If it is a transformation, then it means that there is just a normal human being standing before you. And then every time He had to pray before them, He had to stop them. He said, no, not for me, not like what Peter did. But every time Jesus is silent. It's as if he says, it's right, it's right, it's appropriate. Then pray to me, for I am God. Here you stand before the Holy Second Person of the Trinity, true God and true man. And then you ask yourself, why? Why was it necessary for God to become human? At the celebration of the nightmare, they experience it so concretely. He became human because he has a body that is broken. He can't break out of God. He can't bloom out of God. He can't lie out of God. He can't die out of God. But a human can. And so He takes on a true human nature, so that God Himself can lead you to humanity. That His body is broken, that His blood is shed, to heal your sins with Himself. You see what is happening here. It's beautiful. If you read the Psalms, it is often said that the Lord raises thunder from his eyes. It is the voice of the Lord that sounds like that, like the thundering of the thunder. So if it happens again and you wake up, think again of the voice of the Lord. What we have here is not like someone who is at the sea and you see someone in the sea who is drowning and then you let the lifeguard know and you say, you go and save him. That God sends someone else to save people who have been lost. A better gift to receive is a father who is very kind to his child. And the child is in the process of drowning. The child is lost. And the father dives in himself. to save. That's what you see here. That's what the Gospel is. God comes to save Himself. He Himself. Yahweh saves Himself. That's what you see when you learn from the second person who becomes human. You see how God Himself comes to save. He doesn't contract it out. He wants to die in the human nature to save sinners. And there he saves your mediator. If you think about Moses. Moses fulfilled a type of mediator role. But think about how it happened. There was always a type of distance between him and the Lord. He was the one who could talk to the Lord face to face. The Lord talked to him like with a friend. Moses was still very far away. We also read that there was no human being who went up to heaven. But then we read of the mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ. And here you see how He can truly be your mediator. It's because He is who He is. It's because He is a true God and a true human being. He can truly, as a human being, stand before God. And He can truly, as God, come to us. Here you have one who is able to be the mediator we need. And without the mediator, I think the people in Exodus 20, they spoke the truth. The Lord did not address them as if they had the wrong idea. That if the Lord would address them in such a way, they would not die. He did not say that. He said, it is good. It is good that they are free. But what do you see? You see the need of a mediator. Without the mediator we will die. Without the mediator we will perish. We cannot stand before the Lord without our mediator. And here he is, Jesus Christ, the only-born Son of God who became human. So who is Jesus? We can answer this question in a number of different ways, because the teaching about Jesus Christ is extremely rich. But one thing, one thing you have to keep in mind, is that Jesus Christ is Yahweh. He is the true God. He is worthy to be worshipped and served. And He is a true human being, He is my mediator, who will heal me with God. May you experience this tonight in the nightmare, as it has happened, and you have shared the bread with the bread, and you have shared the wine, and you have experienced something there, of I have a part in Jesus Christ, in His body and His blood. May you experience, but I have a mediator, who is mighty to save. And while the rain is falling, I think about how the rain is making everything wet and the grass is turning green and the plants are growing. The Lord also gives you this tool. He gives you the announcement of the Word and the celebration of the Sacraments. It is water for your soul. That which your soul needs. A life in us. Something that lets you grow. Amen.