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Is This a Day Acceptable to the Lord? 2.0

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord (Isaiah 58:4-5)? Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Imagine a world that is cold and silent toward pain and human suffering. Try to envision a place where everything is driven by self-indulgence and life is all about financial gain, business transactions, and the bottom line. A society where politics and government are more about attaining and maintaining power than serving and protecting the nation and its citizens. Countless people are being dehumanized. The sanctity of human life is determined by usefulness, cost-benefit analysis, convenience, and the god of choice. In this world, there are no prayers, liturgies, hymns, sermons, or Sacraments. And so, love and compassion are rare commodities. Thi...
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The "Folly" of the Cross

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The word folly refers to a lack of good sense, judgment, or wisdom. It describes actions, ideas, or beliefs that are considered foolish, unwise, or absurd—often because they go against common sense or accepted wisdom. Folly can also mean a costly or foolish undertaking that is unlikely to succeed. But “accepted wisdom” is not always wise. What is considered folly is not always unwise. History is full of so-called follies that only looked foolish until the day they bore fruit. For instance: When Robert Fulton put a steam engine on a boat in 1807, people laughed and called it Fulton’s Folly . Many observers mocked the project beforehand, convinced that a steam engine could never reliably or safely propel a boat upstream against the current. ...
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The People That in Darkness Sat

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Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The hymn we just sang stands as a faithful paraphrase of the comforting words of Isaiah in our Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 9:1-2, and its quotation in Matthew 4:15-16. The people that in darkness sat     A glorious light have seen; The light has shined on them who long     In shades of death have been,     In shades of death have been. LSB #412 A valuable addition to the Epiphany section of our hymnal, this text embodies much of what is celebrated during this season: God has revealed Himself in the person of Christ, and we have been brought into His light. It puts the words of Isaiah’s prophecy into our mouths, helping us to realize not only what has been done for us in Christ, but also what we look forward to in His second coming. With the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus relocates to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. ...
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God's Servant from the Womb

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Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! It is the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, the season of the year in which we focus on Jesus revealing Himself as God Incarnate, the Savior of all mankind. It is also Sanctity of Life Sunday. So, it is fitting that our Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 49, is serving double duty today. Let’s focus especially on verses 5 and 6: And now the Lord says, He who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, to bring Jacob back to Him; and that Israel might be gathered to Him—for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and My God has become My strength—He says: “It is too light a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make You as a light for the nations, that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Do you see the connection? This Servant will “bring the preserved of Israel” and will be “a light for the n...
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The Voice of the Lord Is Over the Waters

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty” (Psalm 29:3-4). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! A common theme of our Psalm, Old Testament reading, and Gospel for today, the Baptism of Our Lord, is the mention of the voice of the Lord over the waters. The creation event begins with the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters. In addition to creation, the Psalm speaks of the Flood, where the powerful voice of the Lord was over the many waters He used to cleanse and recreate His world. In the Baptism of Jesus, we see the waters of the Jordan and the presence of the Spirit in the form of a dove as the voice of the Lord speaks well of His beloved Son. Together, our readings provide a beautiful picture of what God has done in restoring His creation through His Son. Christ has come to make al...
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