Each Day in the Word, Wednesday, November 30th

Posted on November 30, 2022 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Colossians 1:15-29

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, 26 the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. 27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. 29 To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.

“He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (vs. 15)

People often think of God as only invisible, or as only a spirit. God, however, not only created all things visible and invisible, but He also reveals Himself to us in ways visible and invisible. Jesus Christ is how we actually see God.

If children ask us what God looks like, the first thing we need to tell them is to look at Jesus. Likewise should we answer the adversaries of Christ’s Church who say, “Show us your God!” The first response should be to show them Jesus Christ crucified. Jesus’ crucifixion is the fullest image by which the invisible God shows Himself to mankind, because the crucifixion is a matter of flesh and blood, it is a matter of history, it is a matter of social and political consequences, while at the same time being a matter of the utmost spiritual significance.

The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is a real and visible way that He shows us that we have a God who loves us, to the point of sacrificing Himself for us. He also shows us that there is hope, which grows out of the forgiveness of our sins by His sacrifice. We have hope that our bodies and our souls will be made glorious and perfect in the resurrection, which will not only be a visible reality, but it will be more beautiful than anything we’ve seen in this fallen version of creation!

Let us pray: Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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Each Day in the Word, Tuesday, November 29th

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Acts 3:22-26

25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

“And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

There is a false teaching of God’ Word in the world that declares Abraham as the father of three distinct faiths: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. All of these so-called Abrahamic faiths are given legitimacy by the false teachers through their misinterpretation of the Word that God spoke to Abraham, claiming that all of Abraham’s descendants are blessed—together with the faiths that they hold—by virtue of their being of Abraham’s bloodline.

Abraham, however, believed differently. Abraham holds the one true faith, the Christian faith, established at the foundation of the world by God the Holy Trinity. In the Garden of Eden, immediately following man’s fall, God promised to send the Seed of the Woman (Gen 3:15) to save all the world from sin and death and Hell. As the Holy Spirit of God testifies through the Apostle Paul, that seed, of which God speaks to Abraham, is a singular seed, Christ Himself (Gal 3:16). Abraham believed God’s prophecy that the Savior would be born from His bloodline, and God delivered on the promise when Christ Jesus was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary (Mt 1; Lk 3).

In this Seed truly all of the families of the earth shall be blessed, for Jesus is the propitiation (substitute) for all. “God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities” (Ac 3:26). Any one from any of the families of the earth—whether of the blood of Abraham (or not)—is blessed in this Seed when they hold to the only true Christian faith, just as Abraham did!

Let us pray: Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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Each Day in the Word, Monday, November 28th 

Posted on November 28, 2022 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Matthew 11:25-30

25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (vss. 28-30)

To know of such a peaceful rest is definitely to know Christ! It brings us to remember how our sabbath rest is in Him. The first Sabbath was that seventh day of the week in which the Jews of old were commanded to rest from physical labor. This Sabbath was fulfilled and ended in the second Sabbath, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. Because He is the Sabbath Rest of God, everyone who believes in Him enjoys an endless spiritual peace (rest)—that is, the peace of being reconciled to God and of being forgiven of all sins. This is a third Sabbath. A fourth Sabbath is the Resurrection of the dead which will occur on the Last Day. At that time the spiritual rest which the saints enjoy now through faith will also become a bodily rest, as they enjoy everlasting perfection of body, soul, and spirit in the presence of their Savior.

This Advent season we rejoice to know that our Lord and Savior has advented to give us rest. Most importantly, He has given us rest from sin, from guilt, and from the fear of God’s wrath and continues to do so as He advents through His Word and Sacraments. But, when He comes (advents) on the Last Day, He will give us rest from pain, from sorrow, from death, and from all the weaknesses of this fallen world forever. An eternal sabbath in the Lord!

Let us pray: Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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Embrace the humility of Christ’s first Advent

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Advent 1

Romans 13:11-14  +  Matthew 21:1-9

We enter the Advent season again this year with purple on the altar, and on the pulpit, and on the pastor—the three symbols of Christ in our midst, calling on us, through the preaching of His Word and the administration of His Sacraments, to wait for Christ’s advent, for His coming at the end of the age, with repentance. What does that mean? It means that we wait for the arrival of our King eagerly, but humbly, with no pride in ourselves, but with an honest evaluation of ourselves, an evaluation not made by human reason—“Am I decent person? I think so. I’m ready for Christ to return!” No, but an evaluation made according to God’s commandments revealed in His Word, and that’s assuming that you know His Word, that you know the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible and what God commands. “Do I love the Lord my God with all my heart? Do I love my neighbor as I love myself? Do I truly believe in Christ Jesus for forgiveness? Do I trust in Him to care for me as He has promised? Am I eager to hear and learn His Word? Am I concerned with putting love into practice? Am I letting concerns for this life push God out of my heart? Am I ready to suffer all things, even death, rather than deny or be unfaithful to my Lord and my God? Am I ready for Jesus to come right now?” These are important questions to ask, because, as Paul wrote in today’s Epistle, the night is almost over. The day is almost here. And we want to be found, we must be found living as children of the day and not as children of darkness. So let the purple remind you to be asking and answering those questions for yourself.

And let the purple also remind you that Christ is a King. Purple, in the Bible, is a royal color or, at least, a color that someone important would wear. Of course, during His earthly life, Jesus only wore it once, when the soldiers dressed Him in a purple robe to mock Him as a false King, just five days after the Palm Sunday ride into Jerusalem that you heard about in today’s Gospel.

And that is the great contrast between Christ’s first coming and His second coming. The first coming was as a humble King—one who didn’t come to bring judgment upon sinners, but who came to bring salvation to sinners; one who put up with mankind’s wickedness, to give people time to repent; one who allowed Himself to be mocked, ridiculed, spit upon, struck, bruised, pierced, and killed so that by His suffering and death He might make atonement for the sins of mankind. The second coming of Christ will be as a glorious King, who will bring judgment upon sinners, who will no longer put up with mankind’s wickedness, and who will bring those whom He saved here by faith into the perfect salvation of heaven.

Even though the people of Jerusalem didn’t understand all that as Jesus was riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they did recognize Him as their King. They did celebrate His coming, waving their palms and singing their Hosannas and their Psalms, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Those who wanted Him for a Savior from sin got what they wanted, while those who weren’t interested in that kind of Advent, who were unwilling to wait for Christ’s second Advent, didn’t miss out on a little thing. They missed out on the chance to be reconciled with God, to have Him as a Father, to have Christ as a Savior, to escape from death and hell and to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The same is true for people today. If you want Jesus for a Savior from sin, who allows you to stand before God forgiven and accepted, you have it! If you want Him for some other reason, if you celebrate Christmas for some other reason, if you’re in church for some other reason, then you will miss out on all the benefits Christ came to bring at His first Advent, and all the benefits He will come to bring at His second.

And there will be many! Those who trust in Christ for what He did at His first Advent have much to look forward to when He comes again. Then the King will not be meek or humble or lowly when He comes riding into His Church, which is the New Jerusalem. No, then He will come with power and great glory. No one will mock or oppress Him or His people ever again. No one will be allowed to cause suffering for Him or His people ever again. Then the King will come with power and great glory—glory that He will share with His saints. Then the King will finally bring justice to the world by ridding the world of all evil and of all evildoers and by recreating everything, with no devil, no sin, no troubles, no sorrow, no pain, no death.

Until then, we live in the age of Christ’s first Advent, which means that the Church on earth resembles Jesus as He was in His state of humiliation. Meek. Humble. Lowly. Subject to pain and suffering. Subject to death. But because of what Jesus accomplished at His first Advent, we also have the forgiveness of sins and peace with God and His promise to be with us and to strengthen us all the way up until Christ’s second Advent. And that’s no small thing. It’s what enables you to suffer here with patience, because you know that you who resemble Jesus in His humility will also resemble Him in His glory, on the day when He comes.

That day is not here, but, as we already noted, it’s almost here. The night is almost over; the day is almost here. So how shall we prepare to meet the Bridegroom? Paul tells us that, too. By taking off the deeds of darkness and by putting on the weapons of light. By clothing ourselves with Christ Himself. By behaving as children of heaven and not children of hell. One day we will rule over all things with Christ. For now, we serve everyone in love. In lowliness. In humility. Just as Christ came the first time in meekness and humility, with love for a world that hated Him for the sake of the few who, by His Spirit, would embrace Him.

Embrace Him now in your hearts. Embrace Him with repentance, with faith, and with zeal to imitate Him in His goodness, in His love, and in His humility. Embrace Christ in His humility, and embrace His Church in her humility, too. It’s all right to be small. It’s all right to be despised. It’s all right to be insignificant in the eyes of the world. Such must be the life of those who would truly imitate Christ Jesus in this world. But be prepared to meet the Lord at His second Advent, not to face another age of humility and suffering, but to enter an endless age of glory and of joy, with songs of Hosanna and a with a Psalm that is like a sigh of relief, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Amen.

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Each Day in the Word, Sunday, November 27th

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Tom and Karen Klumb

Revelations 1:4-8

4 John, to the seven churches which are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.

To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

7 Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

The Book of Revelation is a very deep book of God’s Holy Scripture, with many things to unpack when it comes to trying to understand it. The text assigned for today doesn’t fall short of containing such depth either. From St. John’s perspective, everything is seen from the heavenly view—and thus, Revelation is embedded with symbolic divine language.

Seven is a signifier of completeness or perfection, suggesting that the Book of Revelation was not just written for the seven congregations in Asia Minor, but rather, the book was written to the universal Church—including other small communities of faith that were in and around Asia Minor. While the language of Revelation does not resonate with today’s postmodern language, the letter was written to all believing Christians, and its ultimate message is “Be prepared!”

This falls perfectly in line within the threefold theme of Advent. Namely, Christ’s first coming (adventing) when taking on man’s flesh; Christ’s continued coming (adventing) through His Word and Sacraments; and His final coming (adventing) when He comes in glory. So, indeed, “Be prepared!” for Christ’s final advent on the Last Day! There really are no better words to prepare than those of God’s Holy Scripture: “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.” “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

When working through His Word and Sacraments to keep the faith (that He created within you) fed and focused upon Jesus’ merits for you—prepared you are, indeed! Thanks be to God!

Let us pray: Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

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