First Lutheran Church of Little Rock

Text: Isaiah 2:1–5

Theme: The mountain of the house of the Lord

Other Lessons: Psalm 122; Romans 13:(8–10) 11–14; Matthew 21:1–11 or
Matthew 24:36–44

A. In the Name of the Father…Amen.
B. The Old Testament lesson serves as our sermon text for this morning.
C. Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God our heavenly Father through
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
D. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
Psa 122:1-9
(1) A Song of Ascents. Of David. I was glad when they said to me, “Let us
go to the house of the LORD!”
(2) Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!
(3) Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together,
(4) to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for
Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
(5) There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.
(6) Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you!
(7) Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!”
(8) For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!”
(9) For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.

Introduction

A. Isaiah 1:2 “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has
spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled
against me’ ”
B. So begins the Book of Isaiah.
1. With the heavens and earth as jurors, God the Almighty Prosecutor
presents his closing argument against the defendant, his own people,
Israel:
A. They have abandoned their Maker and Redeemer.
B. Their worship is insincere.
C. Their rulers are corrupt.
D. They lack mercy.
E. They oppress the weak and live solely for pleasing themselves.
2. The just sentence for their crimes?
A. Their land shall go desolate,
B. they shall be burned with unquenchable fire.
C. Similar words of judgment and condemnation immediately follow our Old
Testament Reading for today.
C. But here in Isaiah 2 verses 1–5, the prophet abruptly shifts to words of
mercy and a description even of Israel’s future glory.
1. Verses 2-4 “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain
of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the
mountains. . . .
2. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem. . . .
3. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war anymore” What does all this mean?
4. From the prophet’s day to the present time, Isaiah’s prophecy about a
mountain that God would one day establish high above all other mountains—to
which the peoples would stream to hear the Lord’s teaching and out of which
God’s Word would flow to the rest of the world, bringing peace and
harmony—has been misunderstood and abused.
5. Where then Is the “Mountain of the House of the Lord”?
I. Jews, Muslims, and even many Christians have mistakenly identified the
mountain of the house of the Lord according to their own worldly
expectations.
A. For many of the Jews living during Jesus’ humble ministry, the mountain
Isaiah was talking about was Jerusalem.
1. That’s where God would come and deliver his people from their physical
enemies and establish a literal kingdom on earth that would rule all other
kingdoms.
2. Convinced of this, they rejected Jesus, thinking he couldn’t possibly be
the Messiah, the one sent by God to bring about such an earthly kingdom,
since Jesus brought not glory but a cross, not political freedom but
forgiveness.
B. Where then is the mountain of the house of the Lord?
1. For Christian millennialists, such as the authors of the popular Left
Behind books, the answer is much the same as the old Jewish one.
2. They, too, believe the mountain of the house of the Lord refers
literally to Jerusalem and that one day, before the resurrection of the
dead, Jesus will come to set up there a central government and rule all the
nations of the world for a thousand years.
3. The godly of the world will be in charge and the ungodly will be
suppressed.
4. No wonder our Lutheran forefathers rejected such teachings as “Jewish
opinions” (Augsburg Confession Article 17, paragraph 5).
C. Where is the mountain of the house of the Lord?
1. For modern Judaism, it is the land of Israel.
2. However, unlike the picture Isaiah gives us of the nations of the world
streaming to Jerusalem, those who hold on to modern Judaism treat Israel as
the exclusive possession of the Jews.
3. The conversion of Gentiles to Judaism is hardly a priority, and to the
extent that there are Gentile converts to Judaism, distinctions remain.
4. A Gentile is still a Gentile.
D. Where is the mountain of the house of the Lord?
1. For Muhammad, the mountain was Mecca, the center of the Muslim empire
and the future capital of a world converted to Islam.
2. But unlike the pleasing picture of peace that Isaiah paints, Islam has
always been a religion of bloodshed.
3. When Muhammad first received his “divine revelations” in the early 600s,
few in his hometown believed him.
4. So, he took his new religion north to Medina, where he found converts
willing to wage war against his enemies back in Mecca.
5. Thus began Islam, the so-called religion of peace.
E. Where is the mountain of the house of the Lord?
1. For many of the medieval popes:
A. it was either Jerusalem, the holiest of pilgrimage destinations,
B. or Rome, the center of Christendom and home of Christ’s representative
on earth, the pope himself.
2. Yet unlike the voluntary streaming of people and the conditions of peace
which Isaiah describes, the popes sought to establish the kingdom of God by
force—during the Crusades through war and during the Inquisition through
instruments of torture.
II. Christ, by his first Advent, has inaugurated the latter days, in which
the peoples of the world are brought into God’s kingdom.
A. Where then is the mountain of the house of the Lord?
1. A key to help us unlock the mystery is the phrase “in the latter days.”
2. The error of first-century Jews and modern millennialists lay in
thinking that the “latter days” to which Old Testament believers looked
forward are still way in the future.
3. How did the author of Hebrews put it?
A. Hebrews 1:1-2 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to
our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by
his Son”.
4. Did you catch that?
A. “In these last days.”
B. Every day since Christ’s resurrection and ascension until his second
coming is one of the last days.
C. There is nothing yet to be accomplished for our salvation between now
and our Lord’s coming again in glory!
D. As St. Paul said in our Epistle this morning: Romans 13:11 “You know the
time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep.”
E. We do know the time!
5. We are living even now in the last days.
B. Isaiah also spoke of people freely streaming to the mountain of the
house of the Lord to be taught by God and to walk in his paths.
1. So much for an earthly kingdom brought about by force of arms.
2. Remember what Jesus told Pontius Pilate: John 18:36 “My kingdom is not
of this world”.
3. Jesus said that from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven,
instead of committing violence, suffers violence, and he warned against
those who would try to “take it by force” Matthew 11:12.
C. The mountain of the house of the Lord is the place where God dwells and
is enthroned and reveals himself to his people.
1. The mountain of the house of the Lord is where God gathers his people
around his Word and Sacrament.
2. In short, the mountain of the house of the Lord is here, in this place,
God’s Church, where two or three have gathered in his name.
3. You and I are part of the fulfillment of Isaiah’s 2,700-year-old
prophecy!
D. Imagine a first-century Palestinian, thanks to some time-traveling
technology, transported into the present.
1. He might argue that today’s world hardly resembles Isaiah’s picture of
peace—swords being beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.
2. But what did the Christmas angels declare?
A. Luke 2:14 “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men!”
3. A modern millennialist might argue that understanding Isaiah 2 in terms
of the Christian Church does not take the text literally or seriously
enough.
4. But Isaiah says:
A. Isaiah 2:3 “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the
Lord from Jerusalem”.
5. Must the nations make pilgrimage to Jerusalem to hear the Word of the
Lord, or does the Word itself go out from Jerusalem to the nations?
6. The risen Christ commanded his disciples to proclaim repentance and
forgiveness of sins:
A. “to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).
7. And that’s exactly what happened:
A. The Word—the promise of salvation through Christ’s atoning sacrifice on
the cross—went out from Jerusalem, starting with the apostles, and spread
to sinners around the world.
B. Even today, around the world, people of every nation, language, and
tribe come to the house of the Lord and are being converted to faith in
Jesus Christ, taught by God and walking in his paths.
III. Still waiting for the consummation, we rejoice that even now the peace
between God and sinners and among the redeemed is a reality.
A. That Word which began in Jerusalem comes to you today.
1. Although you and I fall under the same judgment which God spoke to his
people in Isaiah, God has graciously pardoned us.
2. He has issued a stay of execution.
3. He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. Why?
4. For the sake of the one who was condemned in our place—his Son, Jesus
Christ.
5. Risen from the dead, God’s Son declares to you this day, “Peace be with
you.”
6. Your sins are forgiven.
B. It’s true that, just as did the believers of Old Testament times, we
still look forward with a sure hope to that Last Day, when God will put an
end to all earthly war, remove all sin, wipe away all tears, when there
will be only peace and joy in the presence of our Lord forever.
1. But unlike the Old Testament believers, we know that the age of Christ’s
second coming is the culmination of what has already begun.
2. Isaiah got to view the mountain from a distance.
3. We’re actually dwelling on it!
4. These are the last days.
5. The Light has come into the world!
6. Even now there is forgiveness of sins and peace, peace with God and
therefore with one another.
7. And the Word of the Lord draws the nations to itself.

Conclusion

A. In the 1960s, having outgrown the space in which its members had
worshiped since 1941, the leaders of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in
Dallas, Texas, set out to find a new location for their church.
1. They chose for their site what was, according to surveyors, the highest
elevation in the city of Dallas.
2. Now, for the relatively flat prairie land of Dallas, this wasn’t saying
much.
3. Some members jokingly say that Our Redeemer Lutheran Church is “a city
shining” not so much “on a hill” as on a knoll, that is, a small hill or
mound.
4. Still, the slightly higher position relative to its surroundings serves
as a visible reminder that the mountain of the house of the Lord:
A. where God’s Word is preached and the gifts of salvation are given
B. It has been established as chief among the mountains (Isaiah 2:2)!
B. What a note on which to begin a new church year!
1. Today, on the First Sunday in Advent, Isaiah reminds us that the Lord is
faithful to his promises.
2. Though we still live in a world ravaged by war and disease and other
calamities, a world still in bondage to sin and death and far from glory,
God dwells even now in his house—this house!—and reveals himself to us.
3. “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah
2:5). Amen.
C. Let us pray:
Our hearts are glad and our souls rejoice before You, Lord, our God,
because by Your Word of truth You have made us members of Your Holy Church,
in which You daily and richly forgive the sins of all those who build their
trust on Jesus Christ. Grant us grace to abide in the love of Your Word, in
purity of faith and in piety of life, even to our end. Amen.
D. The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guard your hearts
and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
E. In the Name of the Father…Amen.

Text: Deuteronomy 8:1-10

Theme: “What a Thanksgiving treat”

A. In the Name of the Father…Amen.
B. The Old Testament lesson serves as our sermon text for this evening.
C. Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God our heavenly Father through
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
D. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
E. LSB 823:1 May God Bestow on Us His Grace
May God bestow on us His grace,
With blessings rich provide us;
And may the brightness of His face
To life eternal guide us,
That we His saving health may know,
His gracious will and pleasure,
And also to the nations show
Christ’s riches without measure
And unto God convert them. Amen.

Introduction

A. Gabriel Ruth, a Globally Engaged in Outreach (GEO) missionary for the
LCMS, wanted to show her Czech students something typical of an American
celebration of Thanksgiving.
B. She couldn’t provide turkey for a hundred, so she made the
next-most-Thanksgiving treat:
1. green bean casserole.
2. Cream of mushroom soup.
3. Crispy fried onions.
C. Mmmmm! Surprisingly, she was able to find all the ingredients in Prague.
1. Baked.
2. Transported two hours on the train.
3. Sprinkled.
4. Happy American Thanksgiving!
D. Her students’ reaction? “Eww! Gross! What’s that?”
E. “Come on, try it!” she said.
1. Not many takers.
F. The only ingredient of the recipe most of Gabriel’s students would taste
were the crispy fried onions.
1. They picked them off the top, and they were a universal hit.
2. But the whole casserole, the main event?
3. They’ll never know what they missed.
G. Jesus presented ten lepers the greatest reason for thanksgiving.
1. And it wasn’t that they were healed of their leprosy.
2. That was just the crispy fried onions on top.
3. It was the fact that the Messiah, the Savior, was right there, offering
himself.
4. All ten loved the crispy fried onions, being healed of their dreaded
condition.
5. But only one tasted the whole casserole.
6. Only one realized how delicious was the treat he’d actually been given
(Luke 17:11–19).
H. We’re given so many reasons to give thanks, and the turkey and pumpkin
pie and green bean casserole we’ll enjoy tomorrow are among them.
1. So are health and friends and family we’ve enjoyed all year.
2. But every blessing we receive is only because Jesus, the Savior, has
made us God’s dear children again by dying for us, taking away the sin that
once separated us from all of God’s gifts.
3. For that, I say Happy Thanksgiving!
I. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 1 Chronicles 16:34 proclaims:
1. “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!”
2. Christians are urged to give thanks always to our Lord, who loves us.
3. Look at all that God has given to us! He has given people in our lives
who love us.
4. He has given us a country to live in, safety, good medicines, and all
kinds of daily bread.
5. Our Father gives us so much good that we should give thanks to God for
all that he has given us just this year alone.
J. At this point you might be saying:
1. Wait a minute. Pastor, did you just say we should give thanks for all
God gave us this year?
2. This year has been horrible!
3. The year 2022 is surely going to go down as one of the hardest, most
frustrating, and divisive years in U.S. history!
4. With the:
A. loss of loved ones due to death,
B. to inflation showing its ugly head every time we look to buy something,
C. to people losing the ability to be decent and civil toward one another:
1. How Can Anyone Be Thankful This Year?!?
I. We can be thankful that this year God taught us we do not live by bread
alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
A. Dear fellow redeemed of the Lord, remember what our text for our
consideration says:
1. “You shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you
these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you
to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or
not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which
you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know
that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that
comes from the mouth of the Lord” (verses 2–3).
2. Think how the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for decades.
3. Do you think they were thankful?
4. Many were not.
5. Many grumbled against God and Moses.
6. God gave:
A. daily bread miraculously,
B. from manna to water pouring from a rock to quail,
C. so the people could eat something else.
7. Other times, God angrily took lives, like when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
led a rebellion against Moses (Numbers 16),
8. or when God sent snakes to bite people and many of them died (Numbers
21:4–9).
9. So compare what the Israelites went through compared to what we have
gone through in 2022.
10. We’ve only had one bad year.
11. The Israelites had forty.
B. God sent the Israelites to the wilderness out of love to humble their
hearts.
1. God’s ways are not our ways.
2. He knew the Israelites could not yet properly receive his gifts—not the
Promised Land and especially not eternal life through faith in the coming
Savior.
3. He knew the people trusted in their own wisdom and abilities.
4. By humbling them, he meant to show them their utter hopelessness apart
from him.
5. By humbling them, God might show his beloved people that they needed his
salvation.
6. This is why God says he humbled his people:
A. that “he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but
man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (verse 3).
C. Whatever else 2022 has brought us, we can still say that God’s fatherly,
divine goodness and mercy are infinite and boundless.
1. God’s wisdom is greater than ours.
2. His understanding is unsearchable.
3. In this year that few people have liked for one reason or another, God’s
Word that proclaims Jesus, our Savior, has still been preached.
4. In this awful year, our heavenly Father has not taken his Word away from
us.
5. While other comforts were taken away, God’s Word still comforted us as
only God’s Word can.
6. This Word proclaims you righteous, right with God on account of Jesus,
even if reason disagrees and senses don’t detect it.
7. Like the Israelites, so you and I also can learn by that during this
humbling time, we do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes
from the Lord’s mouth.
II. And we can be thankful—this year as every year—for all the blessings
that the Word of God promises are ahead for us in Christ.
A. God’s Word is a Word of both Law and Gospel.
1. It first shows us the perfect way to live; and because we have not lived
this way, it also shows us Jesus, who did.
2. God in his Word desires that we would:
A. “keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and
by fearing him” (verse 6). Yet God’s Word also proclaims Jesus, whose
footsteps never strayed and who for our sake laid his perfect life down at
the cross.
B. God’s Word promised the Israelites a good land overflowing with
blessing.
1. That promise sustained the faithful as they trekked through the
wilderness.
2. With little pleasant in their day-to-day life, with frustrations as they
moved from place to place, the promise of God’s gift of an overabundant
land encouraged the faithful.
3. Certain of God’s promise, they forgot the past and pressed forward to
the great goal God was giving them.
C. The same thing is true for us too.
1. In this year:
A. when conveniences have been taken,
B. when fears have abounded,
C. when family customs had to be changed,
D. when worries for our older friends and relatives consumed us,
E. when we are frustrated at the political battles in our country (which I
think every side would admit to)—we have a sure Word of comfort.
F. That Word is the salvation promised in Jesus, who delivers us from this
valley of sorrows to himself in heaven, based solely upon his love for us.
G. So we believers can forget what lies behind and set our face joyfully to
the blessings that lie ahead.
D. By God’s Word, believers learn how to be content in all things—in normal
years and even in times when things are anything but normal.
1. By God’s Word, believers learn to trust him daily in all challenges, and
we see how richly those who also trusted him in Scripture were blessed by
it.
2. By God’s Word, believers are:
A. comforted in affliction,
B. helped in distress,
C. fed when spiritually hungry,
D. strengthened when weak,
E. loved when loveless,
F. set at peace when terrified,
G. and forgiven for Christ’s sake when guilty.
3. For that Word of our Savior and God’s undying mercy for us poor sinners
sustains us through even the hardest of years.
E. This year, I’ve seen people challenge others to come up with good things
God gave them in 2022.
1. It’s good to do, to stop and count our blessings.
2. What good things has God done for you this year?
3. What blessings did God bring you?
4. I think you could find quite a lot that God gave you this year that you
can be thankful for.
5. Even the hard things you’ve seen this year may be blessings in disguise,
blessings that will open up sometime in the future in ways that we just
don’t see now.
6. But we do see what God’s Word says.
7. And we see how God is good and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in
steadfast love.
F. There is much to give thanks for.
1. Greatest of all is that 2022 has shown us that this world isn’t that
desirable of a place. The year 2022 has taught us to set our eyes on that
which lies ahead and to forget what lies behind. For this world is not the
home of believers.
Conclusion

A. Our true home is in heaven, in the new creation and the resurrection of
the body.
B. Jesus has come to save us from this valley of sorrows, and he has done
everything we need.
C. He has gone to prepare a place for us in the new promised land of heaven.
D. He has secured that place for us by his blood, and he communicates this
to us by his Word and Sacraments.
E. For this, and for all God’s gifts, we give thanks. Amen.
F. Let us pray:
G. LSB 823:2 May God Bestow on Us His Grace
Thine over all shall be the praise
And thanks of ev’ry nation;
And all the world with joy shall raise
The voice of exultation.
For Thou shalt judge the earth, O Lord,
Nor suffer sin to flourish;
Thy people’s pasture is Thy Word
Their souls to feed and nourish,
In righteous paths to keep them. Amen.
Text: Public domain
H. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds in the true faith in Christ until life everlasting. Amen.
I. In the Name of the Father…Amen.

A. In the Name of the Father…Amen.
B. The Epistle reading serves as our sermon text for this morning.
C. Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God our heavenly Father through
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
D. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
757 Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care
1
Lord, it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve Thee is my share,
And this Thy grace must give.

2
If life be long, I will be glad
That I may long obey;
If short, yet why should I be sad
To soar to endless day?

3
Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before;
He that unto God’s kingdom comes
Must enter by this door. Amen.

Introduction

A. Use the search engine of your choice (depending on how much you like to
be watched!—yes, your every entry is being noted) for an image search of
“performance review worksheet.”
1. You will find multitudes of images and forms available at the click of
your mouse in any number of pages, colors, and file formats.
2. Maybe you’ve done this before because you wanted to know where your boss
was getting these little boxes he’s trying to squeeze you into.
3. Maybe you’ve done this before because you wanted to squeeze someone else
into a little box of your own making.
4. The results you found are for use in the corporate workplace, but you
could probably make up your own forms along the same lines under the
following search terms:
A. “husband review worksheet,”
B. “son-in-law review worksheet,”
C. “pastor review worksheet,”
D. “best-friend-who-betrayed-me review worksheet.”
5. You don’t have to make PDFs.
6. You’ve got those worksheets already in your head.
B. Your life in Christ is a strange one because it depends entirely on
someone other than you.
1. Everything else in life depends partly on you and partly on others in
some sort of way.
2. Your upbringing is partly your father’s and your mother’s doing and
partly your reaction to what they did or did not do.
3. Your education is partly your teachers’ doing and partly your acceptance
or ignorance or rejection of what they taught.
4. Your job is partly your boss’s like or dislike of you and your
performance, partly the likes and dislikes of the people around you on the
floor or in the office, and partly your liking or disliking the job and the
other people and the boss, among other things we could name.
C. All this mixture of someone else’s performance, laziness, knowledge, or
ignorance with your own performance, laziness, knowledge, and ignorance
make it seem as if life really does depend on you and how others feel or
think about you.
1. Therefore, if you like yourself and others like you, then you must be a
good person, worthwhile, not as bad as some others—pick your adjective or
phrase of self-approval.
A. You like yourself; therefore you often like others just like you.
2. If you don’t like yourself, even if others like you, or if your
self-loathing is combined with the loathing of others, then you must be a
bad person, pointless, useless, a cosmic mistake, worse in what you’ve done
wrong than anyone who’s ever done or said or thought the things you
have—pick your adjective or phrase of self-condemnation.
A. You certainly do not like yourself; therefore you’re less likely to like
others either.
D. But Christ and the life he gives you are made of the same stuff.
1. He does not mix his efforts with yours and wait to see how things turn
out, like a seventh grader in chemistry lab having little to no idea what
the results are going to be.
2. Christ instead makes your whole life depend wholly upon him and his
indestructible resurrection life.
3. So if you ask yourself or if someone asks you who you are, you don’t
have to indulge in pride or despair, in boasting or self-loathing.
4. If you know who Jesus is and what he’s done for you, then only will you
truly know yourself.
5. You will say that because of Jesus and what he has done and who he is
for you, you are able to say: (REPEAT AFTER ME)
A. I am delivered by Christ,
B. I am created for Christ,
C. I am at peace through his blood.
E. Your Life, your identity Are Determined by Jesus—Who He Is and What He’s
Done.
I. You are delivered by Christ.

A. Who you are in Christ is not only unlike every other kind of assessment
you or others might make of yourself.
A. It’s also not something you can take for granted, because there was a
time when you were not in Christ.
B. As Paul says elsewhere:
1. we “were by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3),
2. born in original or inherited sin, our genetic disease of opposing God
and exalting ourselves above him and everyone else.
3. It’s that realm of idolatry, rebellion, and unending miseries in this
life and the life to come that Paul designates in our text as the “domain
of darkness” (verse 13).
B. A “domain of darkness” is a place where darkness has its way.
1. The “domain of darkness” is dark because people cannot see their way to
the truth;
2. they cannot perceive what they should perceive about the Lord and about
themselves.
3. They grope around, they stumble, they are the “blind leading the blind”
to destruction because they have no better advice or example to offer than
that of their own impaired stumbling.
4. Sin is dark because we live in it:
1. thoughtlessly,
2. carelessly,
3. recklessly,
4. stumbling and tumbling to our own and others’ destruction.
C. The “domain of darkness” is also dark because it is precisely where
Satan has complete and total control.
1. He relies on darkness, both the darkness of night, when sin crouches at
our door so close to us, and the darkness of the heart, where we do not
even understand the things that we do or say wrongly.
2. Satan likes darkness because it affords him room to work.
3. He can work when you don’t confess your sin.
4. He can work when you spend your time and energy hiding your sin.
5. He can work when you have no one else with you and you assume no one
sees or cares what you’re doing.
6. Darkness is his favorite place to be—especially when he’s there with you.
D. From that domain, that rule, that power, that sway Jesus has delivered
us.
1. Jesus is the man of light, born in the light of the star of Bethlehem
and risen on the third day when the light began to spread on the earth.
2. He rules the darkness, too, but in the world to come we will not need
sun or moon to be lights in the heavens, because the brightness of Christ
will be such that he himself shall be our light.
3. He is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
E. When he claims us, whether very early in our lives or later in our
lives, he transfers us like a man moving from one country to another.
1. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to
the kingdom of his beloved Son” (verse 13).
2. In the old country, there were accustomed ways of acting and thinking
and speaking.
3. Those old, dark ways seemed natural, comfortable, easy, and familiar to
you apart from Christ.
4. But Jesus transferred you to a new country of light.
5. It may not feel:
A. natural,
B. comfortable,
C. easy,
D. or even familiar unless you have been with him a very long time.
E. That’s okay.
F. The most important thing is that he has transferred you here to light
and life in his kingdom.
F. That means you are delivered or, in other words, that you have
“redemption,” a state of freedom because someone else paid for you to get
out of slavery.
1. In Jesus, “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (verse 14).
2. And what did Jesus do to redeem you?
A. He paid the debt of sin you owed so that you could have the “forgiveness
of sins,” free to you because it was so expensive to him, as expensive as
his precious blood and his divine life.
B. He paid all of that to win you back from slavery.
1. You are redeemed.
2. You are transferred.
3. You are delivered because of him!
II. You are created for Christ.
A. And why should he redeem you or any other person?
1. Was it some combination of his love for you and of the faith he figured
you’d end up having?
2. Was it some blend of his desire to save sinners and your record of
Sunday School or Lutheran school or pick-your-churchly-institution
attendance?
3. Maybe it was because he is the Savior and you are such a lovable person,
so why not?
B. No, and a thousand times over, no!
1. Paul tells you that you are who you are in Christ only because he is who
he is.
2. He is not only your Redeemer extending the gift of the forgiveness of
sins to you.
3. He is also the Head of creation, its divine king, and he shall have what
is his.
A. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things
were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in
him all things hold together” (verses 15–17).
4. You and his whole creation were not made for the devil to play with, to
fiddle with in grimy darkness.
5. You were made by God for better things than sordid sins and
filthy-mindedness and the whims of your boss.
6. You were made to live under Christ’s gracious reign in his kingdom.
7. So he shall claim what is his by right.
C. Long before you ever thought or did anything, long before your parents
thought of having children, indeed from all eternity, Jesus Christ is the
image, the icon, of the invisible God.
1. You can’t see the Father’s face—no man ever has or shall—but you can see
Christ.
2. You can’t know the Father’s will or heart unless you know Christ.
3. The reason Jesus is the only way of salvation is that he is the only
access we have to the eternal Father.
4. You cannot—not just that you should not or ought not or dare not—but you
cannot come to the Father except through Jesus, the eternal Son.
5. He was the instrument of creation:
A. “all things were created through him,” Paul says (verse 16).
B. So if he has made you and all others, you are his by right.
D. You see now that the redemption he won for you by shedding his blood on
the cross and by rising again on the third day from the dead is his sure
and divine claim on what is his.
1. You were not made by Satan.
2. You were not made through Satan.
3. You were certainly not created in order to be and remain Satan’s.
A. No one was.
B. No one is.
C. No one ever shall be.
D. All have been and are and always shall be Christ’s by right.
E. You were created for Christ, and he has redeemed you to be his forever.
4. In the creation of all things:
A. in the redemption of mankind,
B. in the end of all things,
C. Christ is and shall always be “preeminent,” the first, the last, the
Alpha and the Omega. “He is the head of the body, the church. He is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be
preeminent” (verse 18).
III. You are at peace through Christ’s blood.

A. So you are delivered by Christ because you were created for Christ.
1. So, too, you are now at peace.
A. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through
him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of his cross” (verses 19–20).
B. Maybe you have nodded along until now.
C. Maybe you were thinking that all of this sounded too good to be true and
it would be such a relief not to hang your whole life and identity on your
job performance or your pride or your self-loathing.
D. It really would be great if you could locate the worth of your life in
the worth of Christ.
B. But “at peace” with God?
1. Seriously?
2. Don’t I know about the problems you’ve got with your mother?
3. Don’t I know about the grudges you’re holding against people with people
in this church?
4. What about the things that were said to you years ago that you will
never, ever forget?
5. Don’t I know what that guy did to you?
C. Indeed, I do know to a certain extent because I deal with the very same
things.
1. Everyone here today could know or could imagine
A. the suffering,
B. the pain,
C. the sadness,
D. the broken links of love,
E. the frayed ends of nerves that you have or that you have inflicted on
others, or (most likely) some combination of both.
F. We have all trespassed against others as they have trespassed against us.
D. Because of Jesus and his work and his ways:
1. you are not a captive,
2. you are not a slave,
3. you are not the tool or the instrument of all those trespasses, all
those sins, all those dark things.
4. You are redeemed;
5. you are delivered;
6. you have transferred out!
7. You are forgiven;
8. you are set free;
9. you are cleansed;
10. you are healed!
E. How can I say all this after all those dark things?
1. I do not say all this because I know all you’ve been through or all
you’ve done.
2. I don’t even know or remember—thanks be to God!—all I myself have been
through or all I myself have done.
3. I say all this to proclaim to you that you are redeemed and are at
peace because of Jesus’ blood!
F. This is the power of his blood:
1. it brings peace.
A. It brings peace between you and God because it cancels the gnawing,
terrifying, constant power that sin and sins have over you.
B. It cancels out the debt of offense and idolatry and rebellion you owed.
C. It propitiates God, making him favorable to you and eager to hear your
prayers and your worries, as a true Father always is.
G. The blood of Jesus also makes you at peace with others, not because
other people all change their ways.
1. Some will, but some never will.
2. You are at peace because your whole life obsession with how you’re doing
and how others are doing is washed away by the blood of Jesus.
3. Your whole life is not wrapped up in how well you’ve done or how poorly
you’ve done at this and that or the other thing, much less (how foolish!)
how others have done or how poorly they have done at this or that or the
other thing.
4. Your whole life hung entirely on the death Jesus died and now rests
entirely on the life Jesus lives.
5. You have peace with God because God has made peace with you through
Christ.
6. You have peace with man because God is at peace.
7. That’s why I bless you with peace at the end of Holy Communion and at
the end of the Divine Service.
8. I’m not offering you a chance at peace.
9. I am not offering you a “pie in the sky” kind of peace1
10. I am proclaiming the peace Jesus has won for you by his blood and by
his cross and by his resurrected life.

Conclusion

A. Now back to doing a search on the Internet:
1. Now search for things like:
A. “Christ crucified”
B. or “the blood of Jesus”
C. or “Jesus on the cross”
D. or “Jesus crucified with the robbers.”
2. What do you see?
A. That’s the only performance review you need to spend your time fixating
on.
3. Jesus was required to do one job with three parts to it:
A. redeem mankind from darkness and sin,
B. transfer you into his kingdom,
C. and reconcile God to mankind.
4. How did he do?
A. He did it all and did all of it perfectly as our text for today says
(Colossians 1:13–14).
B. And without our help!
5. How’s he doing now?
A. He is reigning over all things for the sake of his Body, the Church.
6. Can anything conquer him or bring him down?
A. Look at the cross.
1. He said, “It is finished.”
B. Look at the tomb.
1. It’s still empty!
C. He has done all things well.
D. Review Jesus’ job performance—it’s the only one that matters!
B. So go in peace.
1. Your God is reconciled to you.
A. You are free from sin.
2. Go in peace.
A. You are free from the darkness sin brought into your life, and you live
now in his light.
3. Go in peace.
A. You do not belong to Satan
B. or to sin
C. or to darkness
D. or to death.
E. You are alive forevermore in Christ.
4. Go in peace.
A. Your faith has saved you because you trust in Christ alone.
5. Go in peace.
A. You are at peace with all mankind because your God is at peace through
the blood of Christ.
B. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, whether you die or live
because you belong to Christ, and he is all in all, Redeemer, Creator,
Peacemaker, to whom is glory now and always.
C. Amen!
C. Let us pray:
757 Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care

4
Come, Lord, when grace has made me meet
Thy blessèd face to see;
For if Thy work on earth be sweet,
What will Thy glory be!

5
Then shall I end my sad complaints
And weary, sinful days
And join with the triumphant saints
Who sing my Savior’s praise.

6
My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him.
Text: Public domain
• The peace of God, which transcends all human understanding, guard your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
• In the Name of the Father…Amen.