Last Sunday of the Church Year

Text: Isaiah 51:4-6
Theme: Salvation Forever
Outline
1. Trust in the Lord’s Salvation
2. Hard to trust in our world today
3. Steadfast because of His Holy Spirit
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our mediation today is the Old Testament lesson of Isaiah chapter fifty-one verses four through six.
Intro: Boys and Girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever been waiting a really long time for something amazing? Maybe it seems like your birthday or Christmas just won’t get here fast enough. You live your lives eagerly waiting for those great fun days. The same is true for us as Christians, we look forward to an awesome day. One better than any birthday or Christmas. It is the day of Jesus’ return, when we will live with Him forever. As we wait for that day, how can we live in the trust that He gives to us? You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
1. Trust in the Lord’s Salvation
Our Lord today promises that His salvation is assured. He is talking to a nation that is under siege. The Assyrian army is at the gates of Jerusalem itself. The land is war-torn and desolate. Yet, the Lord promises through Isaiah that He will act to save His people. “My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples.” The Lord will judge between the nations. He will act in His righteousness for His people’s salvation. He promises that He will be coming soon to save the people and redeem them from all of their enemies. The Lord saves Jerusalem from the hand of the Assyrians during the time of King Hezekiah by the work of the angel, breaking the siege. He brings His people back from exile in the land of Babylon through His servant Cyrus. Yet, the Persian king could not deliver God’s people from their sins and from death. A greater deliverer was to come in order to accomplish that rescue.
No matter how great Cyrus, Hezekiah, and all the other kings of Persia, Israel, and Judah were, they could not provide the ultimate deliverance that we need from our sins. We need a greater deliverer. That greater deliverer is none other than the Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah. None other than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh for us. Unlike Cyrus or the other kings, Jesus saves us from more than just physical enemies. He saves us from all enemies, physical as well as spiritual. He saves us from the power of the devil by being tempted as we are, yet withstanding through the power of God’s word and living a prefect life in our place. Jesus saves us from our sins. In our place, Jesus bore the wrath of God for us on the cross of Calvary. There God promises that you are saved, redeemed, and His beloved child because of the sacrifice of Jesus that covers all of your sins. He even proves it by raising Jesus from the dead again. Rising again from the dead Jesus destroys the power of death and gives you new life forever.
2. Hard to trust in our world today
This fact of our salvation because of what Jesus has done for us is hard for us to trust today. It is hard for our sinful nature to comprehend this fact. When confronted with the Lord’s salvation, we balk. Our sinful nature says “I am not that bad of a person.” “I lead a pretty good life.” “I have not done that many sins.” “I do not need salvation.” “Just give me some time, I can do it on my own.”
Other times we might reply with skepticism, as much of the world does today. “What do you mean that Jesus died for me?” “How can one guy’s death over two thousand years ago mean anything for me today?” It is hard, in the midst of the darkness of this world, to trust in our Lord’s salvation. It is hard to remain faithful in this world. We do not know when Jesus is going to come again, so the world tempts us to think that He is never going to come again. It’s been so long already, surely, he’s too delayed so just go on living your life however you want to live.
We agree that two thousand years ago was a long time. It seems impossible that Jesus’ death has any impact upon our lives today. After all, a lot of people have died since then. During the Roman times, a lot were crucified. Yet, Jesus’ death is different. As God in the flesh, His death was not because of Himself, but because of us. His death does have an impact upon our lives, today and forever.
3. Steadfast because of His Holy Spirit
How? Because of the very fact that He defeated death for us. He lives forever and because He lives, so too do we. How do you and I know this? Because He gives us of His Holy Spirit that we can remain steadfast in this world. We can answer the doubts and skepticism with the very word of God. That God does indeed keep His promises. Note the number of times that God says I, me, or my. He uses the first person twelve times in these three verses. His salvation is fully dependent on what He has done for you and me.
His salvation is not just for a brief period of time. His salvation is forever. It is not tied to this world or how we feel. It is secured by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is being prepared for God’s people even now by Christ (Jn 14:2). His righteousness will never fail. God’s righteousness did not fail to secure our salvation: Jesus cried out on the cross, “It is finished!” God’s righteousness did not fail to declare Jesus innocent of all charges by raising him from the dead. God’s righteousness will not fail to finish the work Jesus has begun in us by the Holy Spirit’s power through the Word and Water of Holy Baptism. God’s call to listen is a call to look to Him and away from all the false hopes that the world offers. It is a call to seek God’s eternal salvation, to yearn for it more than we do food, friendship, and financial gain. While none of us can claim to do this perfectly, it is precisely for this reason that God’s salvation is so precious and pure. It is His righteousness that will not fail. It is His salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that will last forever. He calls us to receive what he has provided, and he promises that we will be forever glad.
Let us always depend upon the Lord for His salvation and constantly hold steadfast to His promises.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Text: Isaiah 35:4-7a
Theme: Strengthened for Salvation
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament Lesson of Isaiah chapter thirty-five verses four through seven a.
Boys and Girls, I pray that you are doing well today and are rejoicing in the gift of good health. Are you strong or are you weak? You could pick up this pencil but I doubt that you could carry one of these pews. Yet, even if you are not strong physically, there are other ways you could be strong. You could be strong in your mind, in touch with your feelings. I know that all of you are strong spiritually. You know that Jesus loves you. He is with you always. Yet, we still have hard days. We have scary dreams that keep us awake at night, people that do not like us, difficulty with homework and schoolmates. While all of these things are happening, how does Jesus continue to strengthen you? Ponder that question as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
The Lord strengthens us
The people of Israel in Isaiah’s time had very little strength in our text for today. The chapter before our text ends on war and the complete and utter destruction of Edom because of their sin of unbelief against the Lord. The nation of Israel were were fearful that something similar was going to happen to them. Their hands and knees trembled because of the terror to come. Yet now, the Lord comes to them, not in judgement but with words of comfort. He says, ‘Be strong. Strengthen your feeble hands and your weak knees.’ How can they be strong? Because of the work of the Lord. The Lord turns their desolate, war-torn wasteland into a fertile land that is overflowing with good things. The Lord promises that He will be a vengeance upon the enemies of the people for the cause of Zion. God used the nations of Assyria, Babylon, and others to humble and discipline his people when they strayed from Him and fell into idolatry. But he also repaid those nations for all the evil they did against God’s people. Through the working of the Lord, He has acted to save the people. Because of the work of the Lord on their behalf, the effects of their sins are removed and they are strengthened because of the Lord’s actions for His people.
The same is true of us. We are strengthened by what the Lord has done for us and continues to do for us. Through Jesus Christ, God establishes His Kingdom, one that lasts forever. He defeats all of our enemies that seek to do us harm. On the cross, Jesus dies for the forgiveness of our sins. The devil, who works evil through so many agencies in the world, might also appear to be winning, and God uses our setbacks and seeming defeats to discipline us. But the devil’s time is short (Rev 12:12). He has already been repaid in the crushing defeat of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. Recompense is finally and ultimately coming in the end when Christ returns and the devil is forever relegated to the prison prepared for him and his angels (Mt 25:41).
Because we are snared by sins/fear/foolishness that causes us to tremble
Well, we need the Lord to strengthen us! We have weak hands and knees that tremble. We tremble because we know that even in the midst of all of these blessings that the Lord has given to us, we are still stained by our sinful natures. Our sinful flesh in league with Satan. We all have those pet sins that we love to do time and time again that we are ensnared by. Sins of lying, gossiping, disrespecting those in authority over us, placing other people and things in the place of God. These sins, and many more, rightly should bring judgement upon us and make our lives into desolate wastelands as we suffer the effects of living in a sinful world, surrounded by sinful people. Our Lord should come in vengeance upon us. He should utterly destroy us because of our sins.
The Lord comes in vengeance for the salvation of His exiled people, Redeems you by grace alone and has prepared for you a new way of life.
The Lord’s goal in this vengeance and recompense is salvation for his people (v 4). The Lord is a God defined not by wrath but by love (1 Jn 4:8). While the immediate purpose of his coming for his Old Testament people was vengeance and recompense of the wicked, that had the decisive purpose of salvation for God’s people, delivering them from those enemies. The same is true spiritually speaking. Jesus’ attack of the devil, the stronger man against the strong man, was to save you and have you as his own so that you might “live under Him in His kingdom” (Small Catechism, Second Article). You need not seek vengeance upon your enemies (Rom 12:19) but can leave that to God. You can focus instead on the salvation He has already won for you and has in store for all who believe and are baptized into Christ. Ultimately, Jesus undoes everything that could ever make us weak and fearful as He goes to the cross bearing our sins, taking upon Himself the full wrath of God in our place, and shedding His blood to give us the forgiveness of our sins, the salvation of our souls, and life forever with Him.
Because of the work of our Lord, our wastelands of sins are undone and we have new life. We have salvation forever. God has given us new life in and through Jesus Christ. Rather than coming in judgement of our sins, He has already laid that judgement upon Jesus. In the midst of our sin, in the midst of our troubles and hardships, God strengthens our weak knees and feeble hands with His Holy Spirt, that we can live daily as His people in His mercy, grace, and forgiveness. As we await our Lord’s coming on the Last Day. That day when all of sin’s ramifications will be reversed forever. The curse that now leads to being blind, deaf, lame, or mute will forever be lifted from God’s people in the resurrection of the dead. That day when we will experience completely, both body and soul, in the kingdom of glory the wonderous power of the Lord coming to save you, reversing every ramification of sin in body and soul and throughout creation.
The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
Feast of the Holy Trinity

Text: Isaiah 6:1-8
Outline
A Vast Difference bridged by almighty mercy
1. A vast gulf separates us and God
2. In His Holiness God provides the means of sanctification, Coal/JC! God is almighty in His mercy
3. Whatever God is going to do, be a part of it. Just asks who will go, Isaiah says here am I
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the Old Testament lesson of Isaiah chapter six verses one through eight.
Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever looked in a mirror? I am sure you have. You look in a mirror to see yourself. Do you think God looks in a mirror? What does God look like? Does He have a big beard, a big flowing robe? What color is His skin? Isaiah in our text for today saw the glory of God in all of His splendor. Isaiah was scared. He was super afraid because no one can see God and live. Yet, God showed Isaiah grace and mercy. How does God show Isaiah mercy? How does God show us grace and mercy today? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
1. A vast gulf separates us and God
Isaiah has a vision of the Lord that shakes him to his very core. He “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” Isaiah sees Christ sitting upon the throne, ruling and reigning over everything in all of His splendor and glory as the Almighty King forever and ever. That would be frightening enough, yet Isaih sees even more. “2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.”
Isaiah sees the Seraphim, the burning ones, crying in unending praise to the Lord, proclaiming His eternal holiness. They hide their faces, unworthy of looking at the Lord. They hide their feet, ready at a moment’s notice to do His will, whatever it may be.
What Is Isaiah’s reaction? One of sheer panic and terror because of the vast gulf that separates him from God. In the face of God’s presence, in the midst of His almighty holiness, Isaiah realized he was subject to judgment. He was unclean. When seen next to the purity of God’s holiness, the impurity of human sin is all the more evident. The prophet’s has unclean lips, his attitudes and actions as well as his words, for a person’s words reflect his thinking and relate to his actions. Interestingly Isaiah identified with his people who also were sinful (a people of unclean lips).
Has much changed? We likewise stand in the presence of God ever single Sunday. We are face to face with His holiness. And we? We are anything but holy. As we confess every Sunday, we are sinners in thought, word, and deed. We are deserving of present and everlasting punishment, both now and forever because of our sins. Our sins of anger. Our sins of unclean thoughts. Our sins of words spoken in anger or frustration. Our sins of trying to put ourselves, the world, or our possessions in the place of God. We confess with Isaiah woe is me!
2. In His Holiness God provides the means of sanctification! God is almighty in His mercy
In the midst of Isaiah’s terror. “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.” One of the Seraphim. Remember, one who is hiding his face from God, so how does he know where he is going? Where exactly is he going to put the coal? Flies towards Isaiah with a burning coal in his hand. Where exactly is he going to put the coal? Isaiah is thinking ‘Okay, this is it. I am a dead man. I have seen the Lord face to face, something even the angels in heaven who serve Him do not do! I am entirely unholy and unworthy. This is how I am going to die. I am going to be burned to a crisp by an angel with a coal.”
7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” Isaiah’s sins atoned for. The live coal symbolizes the total significance of the altar from which it came; that the penalty of sin was paid by a substitute offered in the sinner’s place. The symbol, applied to Isaiah’s lips assures him of personal forgiveness.
In His almighty Holiness, God provides a means of forgiveness, a means of purification for sin and sinners. For Isaiah, it was the burning coal that touched his lips. “See this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, your sin atoned for.”
What is our means of forgiveness? For us men and for our salvation, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, leaves His throne, enters into His creation in order to purify it by the shedding of His own blood. He suffers, bleeds, dies, and rises from the dead so that we might have the forgiveness of every single one of our sins. Like Isaiah, we are deserving of everlasting destruction. Yet what does the almighty God do? He is almighty in showing His great mercy. He gives you His very Word and Holy Spirit who creates faith for you to believe. He gives you here in the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist. Jesus says This is my body. This is my blood. Given and shed for you. “See this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, your sin atoned for.”
4. Whatever God is going to do, be a part of it. Just asks who will go, Isaiah says here am I
What is our reply to this great mercy of God? We are used by Him as a part of His divine plan to carry His message to the world. Isaiah heard God calling who will go for us? Instantly he replies, Here am I send me. Only later does Isaiah find out exactly what all that calling entails, as well as all of the hardships that go with it.
We do not always know what God has called us to do, nor all of the hardships that wait for us. We know that God is calling us as Christians to do the good works He has prepared beforehand for us to do. Though His Holy Spirit, we reply to the grace and mercy that He has given us through His Son, Jesus Christ, by doing the works He has called and given us to do. We live out our lives helping others, resisting our sinful nature, rejoicing in the wonderous gifts that God has given to us. In joy and thanksgiving for the mercy and grace God has shown to us, we tell everyone that they too do not need to despair over their sins. The almighty God has provided the means of salvation for you, and for them. Salvation given by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us.
Thanks be to God that He is almighty. That He shows to us unmerited grace and mercy.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Text: Isaiah 40:21-31
Theme: God cares for you!
Outline:
1. Seems as though no one cares about you
2. God cares for the stars, former generations, cares for you as well. How? JC! Daily Life!
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation is the Old Testament lesson of Isaiah chapter forty, verses twenty-one through thirty-one.
Boys and girls, I pray that you are dong well today. Have you ever felt like no one loves you? Like everything that can go wrong does go wrong? We have all had moments, days, or years like that. Times when we do not feel the love people have for you. You know that your moms and dads, grandparents, and many more love you but sometimes our feelings lie to us. That is how the people of Israel felt. They felt like they were not loved by God. That He no longer cared about them. What does God tell them? How does God care for us today? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.
1. Seems as though no one cares about you
Have you ever felt like no one cared about you? You could die tomorrow and no one would mourn? No one would bat an eye in sorrow. Many times, our sinful nature and Satan tempt us to feel that God is so far distant from us that He cannot care about us. We feel as though we are nothing but grasshoppers and ants, too small for Him to care about. If He is far away from us, then we need to make a god in our own image. One that is closer to us, thus we fall into idolatry.
The human mind has been so darkened by sin that it cannot imagine God as he is. Isaiah pictures God as the Creator and Ruler of the world. God sits high above the created world. He stretched out the heavens as easily as one would pitch a tent. God is not created but uncreated and eternal, without beginning and without end. He is separate and different from the world he created. He is holy, infinite, perfect, and changeless. Humans are like so many grasshoppers. Because of sin, they are nothing like God. They are finite, temporal, imperfect, subject to changes of all kinds, and mortal. What arrogance for finite creatures to fashion God! If we want to know about God, we must humbly listen to what he tells us.
2. God cares for the stars, former generations, cares for you as well. How? JC! Daily Life!
What does God tell you? God tells you that He created all the host of heaven. Just look up at the night time sky sometime and you will see His wonderous work in creating the sun, moon, stars, and other planets. A work that humbles us and reminds us how small we truly are. God created all the stars, put them in their places. He knows each of them by name. God controls the motion of the stars of heaven. Astronomy studies the movements of the stars in the vast expanse of the universe, but God determines the movement. We talk of galaxies and planets; God controls them all. He controls the movement of the stars as a general would control his army. But God does not control them with impersonal detachment. He knows each heavenly body by name. What a contrast to those who think that the stars control their destinies and who consult their horoscopes to discover what life will bring them. God controls the stars and us; the orbits of the planets and stars do not control us.
IF God’s wondrous care of creation is not enough, just look at everything God has done in your life. All we need to prove that God cares for us is to look at what He has done in the past. He shows His great love for you in daily providing for you everything you need in this body and life. As we confess in the first article of the Creed, He gives us all good things purely out of Fatherly divine goodness and mercy. He gives us daily life. Every breath that we take is a gift given to us by Him. He gave you daily life yesterday, this morning, last week, otherwise you would not be here. Our loving God is not an aloof and distant God. Rather, He care for you as an individual by providing for your earthly life.
He also provides everything you need for the life to come. Look at what He has done for you in Jesus Christ! In love for you, the Father sends the Son for your salvation. He does what you could never do. Jesus bears the punishment of every single one of your sins. By dying and rising again from the dead, Jesus destroys death, crucifies your sinful self with Himself, and gives you newness of life. This great love He shows you in, and through, His Son. He has ultimate authority and deigns to use it to love and care for you.
No matter what happens in your life, God is in control and loves you. We are God’s people by faith in Jesus Christ, but we are no less prone to complain when things go badly. God loves us not just when all goes well, but also when everything is going wrong. He loves us always. He has his own reason for allowing trouble, pain, and tears into our lives. Remember that he is almighty and all knowing. We are not. We can trust him to do the best for us. He loves us too much to do anything less. When your feelings betray you, when Satan tempts you that God is too far off. When your sinful flesh says that God cannot have created everything. God says, “My Child, look up. See the stars, I place them. I order them. I am here for you, see my great love for you in My Son.”
Depending upon His strength, we not only are strengthened but we are renewed in our strength. We are compared to eagles soaring in the sky. God promises to be our strength, to be the wind beneath our wings. Continue, beloved in the Lord, to depend upon the Lord and His great love for you shown in Jesus Christ and His wonderous care for you.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.