Tag Archives: Advent Midweek

Sermons

Advent 2 Midweek (Mal 4:1–6)

December 9, 2015
Immanuel Lutheran Church—Bremen, KS || AUDIO

INI + AMEN.

Judgment comes. We prayed it in the Psalm this evening: “the LORD knows the way of the | righteous,* but the way of the wicked will | perish.” They will perish because they “are like chaff that the wind | drives away.” We hear about this judgment again in our reading from Malachi: “Behold the day comes, burning like an oven, and all the proud and all workers of wickedness will be stubble, and the coming day will burn them,” says Yahweh Sabaoth, “It will not leave them root or branch.”

Judgment will come upon those who look to themselves, who look to their own works, their own feelings, how well they’re doing in their life in order to tell how their standing is with God. If they feel good about themselves, they think they’re on the up and up with God. It’s not based on God’s Word or His Gifts of Baptism, Absolution, and His Supper, but rather on their own selves that this determination is made. There will be judgment for those whose deeds are evil. Those who hate their neighbor, who get drunk and gossip, who desire not their spouses, who secretly go about the internet for unseemly things—in short, every sinner who sins and wishes to white wash it, “who flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.” He covers it up. Hides like Adam did. Blames others. Instead of just confessing His sin and receiving Jesus’ absolution for that sin. It’s as Jesus says, “Everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” This judgment comes as surely as Jesus comes. It’s advent, after all.

We know from Malachi 4 when that judgment comes, and, of course, it’s all tied to Jesus. “But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise.” For those who are outside of Christ, for those without faith in Him, He arises as a hot, burning sun, and “there is nothing hidden from its heat.” But for you, dear Christians, it’s entirely different.

JESUS IS YOUR SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. Continue reading →

Standard
Sermons

Advent 1 Midweek (Jer 23:5–8)

December 2, 2015
Bethlehem Lutheran Church—Bremen, KS || AUDIO

INI + AMEN.

Hear ye, hear ye! The royal decree’s been issued! So it says in Jeremiah this evening.

5 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD,
“That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness;
A King shall reign and prosper,
And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
6 In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell safely;
Now this is His name by which He will be called:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

7 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’  8 but, “As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land.” The Lord’s Word has been proclaimed and announced. Hear ye, hear ye!

YAHWEH’S ROYAL PROCLAMATION: HIS KINGLY SON IS COMING. Continue reading →

Standard