"Wait for the Lord" (Sermon on Psalm 130) | December 7, 2025

Sermon Text: Psalm 130
Date: December 7, 2025
Event: The Second Sunday in Advent, Year A

Psalm 130 (EHV)

A song of the ascents.
1Out of the depths I have called to you, O LORD.
2Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to the sound of my cry for mercy.
3If you, LORD, kept a record of guilt,
O Lord, who could stand?
4But with you there is pardon,
so you are feared.
5I wait for the LORD. My soul waits,
and in his word I have put my hope.
6My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7Israel, wait confidently for the LORD, because
with the LORD there is mercy.
With him there is abundant redemption.
8So he himself will redeem Israel from all its guilt.

Wait for the Lord

Almost every parent of small children knows that this time of year can be taxing. Sure, there’s a lot to do, so many tasks to check off the list, but often for the children, there’s one thing and one thing only in view: those Christmas presents. I know that in my own childhood, I was continually looking for ways to convince my parents to make early Christmas presents a thing because it was tough to wait. That rarely went very far, despite the great reasons I had for implementing something!

No, this season offers many learning opportunities, and patience is a big one. There’s a lot of looking forward, anticipating, hoping, and … waiting. No matter how exciting things are, no matter how much you’re looking forward to them, you can’t force December 25 to come any sooner than the calendar and clock tell us it will arrive (and for overwhelmed adults, sadly, we can’t delay its arrival either).

But what a tremendous picture of our Advent focus! Advent is all about waiting—whether we are putting ourselves in the shoes of Old Testament believers waiting and longing for the arrival of God’s salvation in the Messiah, or considering our situation as New Testament believers waiting and longing not for a holiday or other temporary joy and reprieve, but the permanent rest that will come.

Psalm 130 is a psalm about trusting God’s promises and waiting patiently for them to come to fruition. As you can see in the heading, this psalm is one of the “songs of ascent.” The songs of ascent were used by people traveling to Jerusalem for worship. No matter where you were coming from, you always spoke about going “up” to Jerusalem because of the hill on which it is built. We might think of pilgrims making a long trek on foot from their homes in the diaspora to reach this center of worship, or those making a shorter trek from nearby Judea and eventually Galilee. The songs of ascent typically center the traveler on the trip and the worship, and specifically the care that God brings to them in both.

Psalm 130 is very focused on the spiritual preparation the worshiper should invest in before coming to the temple, to be ready to hear the word and promises of God with a well-grounded, well-centered heart.

The psalm writer begins with what seems like a dreadful situation: Out of the depths I have called to you, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the sound of my cry for mercy. When the psalm writer describes himself as calling from the depths, this is a spiritual condition rather than a physical one. He’s not fallen into a hole or been thrown in prison. He’s in a very low place; low because of his sin. Perhaps David’s description of the torture of his guilt from elsewhere in the psalms comes to mind, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away as I groaned all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me” (Psalm 32:3-4). You and I both know what it is to feel guilty over the wrong things we have done or the good things we have neglected. Describing that state as “the depths” seems pretty appropriate.

One feature we should pay attention to in this section of Scripture is the psalmist’s subtle shifts in the name for God he uses throughout. When you see the name “LORD” in all capital letters in our psalm, that is God’s unique name (likely pronounced “Yahweh” in Hebrew). This name expresses his covenant grace, his love for his people, and most clearly his forgiveness. When you see the name “Lord” with regular letters, that’s a different name in Hebrew (pronounced “Adonai”). It’s a respectful name, but rather than carrying the force of God’s love and mercy, it describes the fact that God is above us and that we are accountable to him. While I probably wouldn’t advocate for this in a published English translation, it might be a helpful shorthand in our minds to substitute the word “Savior” for the all-capitals “LORD,” and to substitute the word “Master” for the regularly-lettered “Lord.”

So, his initial plea from the depths is to his Savior, to his God of covenant grace. The only way he’ll be heard is if God looks on him with mercy and love. But addressing God as “Master” in verse two, “Lord, hear my voice” acknowledges that God is under no obligation to pay attention to him. He’s asking him to, but God, being higher than us, and more to the point, God being the one whom we’ve sinned against, doesn’t need to do anything for us—save for the fact that he’s promised to.

He goes on to note that this guilt and sin, this disaster of a rebellious life against God, is the universal human condition in our fallen state. If you, LORD, kept a record of guilt, O Lord, who could stand? The answer? No one. But it is the God of covenant grace who doesn’t follow this hypothetical situation, who doesn’t keep a record of our guilt and sins. If he did so, we could never stand before the God to whom we are accountable.

Verse four is really the central verse of this psalm, not just in the number of lines of text, but even more so in thought. For the first three verses, the psalm writer has been coming to God from a state of guilt and shame over his sin. He knows that God owes him nothing, but he also knows what God has promised to him—pardon! And this verse really underscores the notion that to “fear God” is typically not to be afraid of him but to stand in awe of him and revere him. God’s pardon, his forgiveness, is the motivation for this fear in the psalmist’s eyes. Surely God’s forgiveness is not a reason to cower and hide from God, but it is the reason to be amazed at him and thank him!

This hope isn’t just some crazy fiction that we’ve created, hoping in vain for a merciful God to save us. No, this is exactly what he’s promised. And the psalm writer points us to where our confidence ought to be, not in ourselves or what we want to happen, but in what God has specifically told us he’s going to do: I wait for the LORD. My soul waits, and in his word I have put my hope. His Word is our confidence because that is the flawless, inerrant record of his promises. We can be certain that there will be pardon for all of our sins because that’s what God promised and—unlike us—he never breaks a promise.

Think back to a point when time just seemed to drag. It was probably because you were really anticipating something that was about to happen. Maybe the end of the school day or the workday meant big, exciting plans, but it felt like the clock wasn't cooperating. That’s a taste of what the psalm writer means when he says, “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” Think about what eager anticipation the night watchman would have in ancient days. They had to stand guard when there were no electric lights. Oil lamps and candles only shed their light so far. How close the enemy could get to the city walls under the cover of darkness! If the watchmen lost focus, it could be disastrous. So how welcome those first rays of light would be in the early morning—either because they made the watching job so much easier or because they meant this overnight shift was over, and the pressure was off.

That’s the kind of eager anticipation we have for God’s arrival. This life is sometimes like the night watch that feels like it’ll never end or the school or work day that seems to go on forever. We drag ourselves through this muck of this life, and it seems like it might never change. But we know it will, because our King and Judge will return. We wait for him with that eager expectation.

You don’t need to be afraid of God as judge because you know him as your Savior: Israel, wait confidently for the LORD, because with the LORD there is mercy. With him there is abundant redemption. Jesus himself, the one who gave his life as the payment for every single one of your sins, is your judge. Imagine walking into a courtroom where the judge had done everything he could to make sure you would walk out of there released and free. Imagine if you knew exactly what the verdict was going to be—and it was good for you! What a difference that would make! How greatly your nerves would be settled, where in a different situation they would probably be on edge!

This is our confidence before God: He himself will redeem Israel from all its guilt. Do not be afraid, dear Christian, because your Savior, the LORD, has loved you and forgiven you. Be confident, dear Christian, not in yourself but in our Savior who lived and died to save you from your sin. Wait patiently, dear Christian, for the return of our Savior and Judge, who will publicly announce that we are not guilty of any sin because he himself took them all away. Rejoice, dear Christian, for the Lord has heard your cry for mercy and has saved you.

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to look with eager anticipation for your return! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Live for Later, Not for Now" (Sermon on Isaiah 2:1-5) | November 30, 2025

Sermon Text: Isaiah 2:1-5
Date: November 30, 2025
Event: The First Sunday in Advent, Year A

Isaiah 2:1-5 (EHV)

This is the message that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2This will take place in the latter days:
The mountain of the LORD’s house will be established
as the chief of the mountains.
It will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it like a river.
3Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
Then he will instruct us about his ways,
and we will walk in his paths.”
For from Zion the law will go out,
and the LORD’s word will go out from Jerusalem.
4He will judge between the nations,
and he will mediate for many peoples.
Then they will beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
nor will they learn war anymore.
5O house of Jacob, come,
and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Live for Later, Not for Now

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” I’m not really sure how much truth there is in that in corporate America, though I can see an argument for self-respect in it. I know even less of what that means in Silicon Valley when often people that are worth more than the GDP of some nations typically wear jeans, tshirts and hooded sweatshirts, but there is a kernel of something that I think is worth focusing on: you want to plan for the future; you want to think ahead; you don’t want to just be stuck spinning your tires here hoping things change instead of making those changes happen.

At the start of this new church year, through the prophet Isaiah, God has us thinking about the choices we’re making now, how we’re living today, and encourages us to make choices that focus not on the immediate here and now and but on what is coming later, what is coming for eternity.

At times, when the propets’ words to God’s people involve promises about the future, it can be hard to nail down exactly what God is referring to. For example, throughout the book of Isaiah, if God promises rescue from something, we have to ask what rescue he’s promising. Is he referring to his rescuing his people from Assyria who would take the northern kingdom of Israel into exile but from whom God would protect the southern nation of Judah? Is he speaking about the eventual rescue of his people from captivity in Babylon that would come 150 or so years after Isaiah’s ministry? Is he referring to the arrival and work of the Messiah? Is he referring to the ultimate rescue of the final judgment? And, at times, is it a combination of the things above? Context has to be our guide.

In our First Reading this morning, we have a section of the propet’s words that are future-looking. But Isaiah is looking beyond his time to sometime later as he describes what will happen in the “latter days,” that is at a time near the end of time. And for this future setting, God directs our eyes toward the temple mount: This will take place in the latter days: The mountain of the LORD’s house will be established as the chief of the mountains. It will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it like a river.The temple was very important. In Isaiah’s day, it would have served as the center of worship of the true God and the place where his promises were restated and reinforced. While the hill the temple was built on was not an imposing “mountain” relative to the other heights around the world, it was very important.

In those days after Isaiah’s, the temple mount would be established as the chief of the mountains. More prominent than Everest or K2, more majestic than the Rockies or the Alps, more powerful than any explosive volcano. What would make this little hill in the Middle East so important as to be chief among all mountains? The events that would take place there.

Temple worship in Isaiah’s day and in the Second Temple period after the Israelites’ return from exile in Babylon would center on sacrifices. Those sacrifices all pointed ahead to a greater, ultimate sacrifice that would be offered just outside the walls of Jerusalem, because there the perfect Son of God, having taken on our human nature, would offer his life in exchange for ours. This hill would not be the chief of the mountains because it was so tall, beautiful, or dangerous. No, it would be chief because there the payment for sins was made; there all mankind was saved from hell. There forgiveness was won and from there it is freely given.

This little hill in Jerusalem will be—is—chief among the mountains because there our eternal life was accomplished. There, Isaiah’s sins would be forgiven as he trusted in the coming Savior. There our sins were forgiven as we trust in the Savior who has come.

This all perfectly introduces the first season of our new church year, Advent. The days of Advent are not just “pre-Christmas.” In fact, Advent in the church can be a bit of a respite from the overwhelming commercialization frenzy that accompanies this time of year. During these Sundays in Advent, we get to contemplate our Savior’s arrival as the baby in Bethlehem, yes, but also his return not as a helpless newborn, but as he truly is—the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Jesus’ first advent and the work that he accomplished brought about a global change. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. Then he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For from Zion the law will go out, and the LORD’s word will go out from Jerusalem. The gospel—the good news that sins are forgiven in Jesus—makes people want to seek out their God even more than the natural knowledge of God all people are born with would compel them. Knowing that he’s not only a just and powerful God, but a God who loves and forgives, fills people with joy and a desire to be close to him. And so God obliges. He welcomes people to this mountain, not just those who are descended from Abraham, but all people, because his word goes out globally from Jerusalem. Our minds probably jump to Jesus’ direction to his disciples that they would be his witnesses first in Jerusalem and Judea, then to Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Jesus is a Savior for the whole world, not just one group of people; therefore, they all need to hear what he’s done, because it’s going to have eternal ramifications.

Isaiah’s words then jump us to the end, when those ramifications will come to fruition: He will judge between the nations, and he will mediate for many peoples. These are the events of Judgment Day. Jesus is simultaneously our judge and defense attorney. The punishment of our sins was real and justified, but because Jesus took the punishment we owed on himself, he can mediate for the world. As Paul would later write, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The forgiven people of God are renewed, defended, and saved by the Messiah who came to save us from our sins.

What a change this gospel message makes in the hearts of his people! What a change this gospel message makes in our surroundings! Then they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore. Heaven will mean the end of conflict, if you can even imagine it. Conflict between sinners and the holy God will be over because there will be no more sin. Likewise, conflict between individuals and groups of people will also be over. We won’t need weapons or military training because there will be no battles to fight, no land to defend, because our Savior King has rescued us from all of our enemies! So we will be able to take all those implements of war, so focused on death and destruction, and turn them into tools for good, to cultivate beauty and bounty. Thus will be life with our God in heaven.

Our brief reading ends where we began: dress for the job you have or the one you want? Behave as the person you are, or you will be? To live for now is to embrace our sinful natures, to indulge in the constant stream of temptations to rebel against God, thinking that it will somehow be fun or beneficial. But living for later, living as the citizens of heaven that we will be—that, truly, we are even now—looks different, sounds different. O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Walking in the Lord’s light means living as he wants us to live, not hiding in the darkness of sin and rebellion. No, we walk in the light of our King. We have no fear of what he will do to us because he’s already done everything good for us. We get to rejoice in him—give thanks to him—for his unending mercy.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, let’s live like the perfect King’s righteous subjects, because we are. Let us live our lives in gratitude to the God who loved us and saved us and will bring us to himself! Let us cut out the sin that brings nothing but dreadful darkness and instead bask in the light of our Savior’s love, knowing that we will live with him in the mountain of heaven forever.

The one who came as a child placed in the manager, who entered Jerusalem amid shouts of praise while riding on a donkey, will come to take us home to be with him. His first advent makes his second advent certain. Stir up your power and come, Lord Jesus! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Repentance Produces Joyful Fruit" (Sermon on Luke 3:7-18) | December 15, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 3:7-18
Date: December 15, 2024
Event: The Third Sunday in Advent, Year C

Luke 3:7–18 (EHV)

So John kept saying to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8Therefore produce fruits in keeping with repentance! Do not even think of saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ because I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. 9Even now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

10The crowds began to ask him, “What should we do then?”

11He answered them, “Whoever has two shirts should share with the person who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”

12Tax collectors also came to be baptized. They said, “Teacher, what should we do?”

13To them he said, “Collect no more than what you were authorized to.”

14Soldiers were also asking him, “And what should we do?”

He told them, “Do not extort money from anyone by force or false accusation. Be satisfied with your wages.”

15The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might be the Christ. 16John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But someone mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor. He will gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

18Then with many other words, he appealed to them and was preaching good news to the people.

Repentance Produces Joyful Fruit

When young children are first being introduced to the idea of receiving gifts, what do parents often have to instill in them? Showing their thanks. Now, that doesn’t mean they aren’t thankful or appreciating for a present or other kind gestures, but a parent will help the child learn how to express that to the gift-giver. Are you thankful? Say, “Thank you!” For children (or even some adults), this concept can be a bit of a foreign one, and it’s only with modeling and direction that it starts to become ingrained and automatic (though, hopefully not thoughtless) to thank the person giving you something or who has done something kind for you.

This morning, we will be spending time with John the Baptist again as he’s teaching some of the crowd about thanksgiving, not to people, but to God. We are building on the concept of repentnace this morning, and focusing on the fruit of repentance, the things we joyfully do because God has taken away our sins.

The opening verses of our text might sound a little rough, might sound a little harsh. John calls the group gathered before him “offspring of vipers.” It’s even harsher sounding in the more standard English translation, “brood of vipers,” indicating that the people he's talking to are vipers themselves.

However, John’s point seems more about the parentage than the offspring. While it’s completely logical that vipers produce vipers, this dressing down seems aimed at the parents rather than the children, and in this case, it is aimed directly at the spiritual parents—the religious leaders of the day. “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”

The assumed answer to that question is, “No one,” because the religious leaders tended to focus on what the people should do to be worth something to God. They directly tied the people’s value to the Almighty with their actions. The Pharisees felt pretty comfortable in their own behavior and thus their status with God. But in a message that is all, “Do better! Do more!” there is no sense of repentance of that U-turn we talked about last week. There is no call to examine your life and acknowledge that there are places where you have sinned, places where you have failed and should do different and better.

It's almost as if the religious leaders lumped people into two groups: those who were doing great and those who were beyond hope. The ones who were beyond hope were the outcasts of society, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the “sinners.” And so John, in his message of repentance, is calling on the people to examine their lives. He wants everyone, no matter their social status or occupation, to recognize that they haven’t been good enough for God because they have been perfect and, just as importantly, to recognize that there is forgiveness for all of those failings from God.

That is repentance: sorrow over sin, trust that it’s forgiven, and a desire to change your ways. This morning John is taking us on the next step of that spiritual journey, to the fruits of repentance. What comes aftewr true, God-worked repentance? The life the rejoices in what God has done! And John doesn't want the people to fall into that false sense of security that the Pharisees may have led them to think that just because now I'm repentant, well, now I must be good with God. Just because Abraham is my father, I must be good with God. There’s no confidence in that! God can generate biological children for Abraham from stones! Being in Abraham’s family line has no impact on eternity.

And in fact, John says, “Now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees.” A life lived in rebellion to God, a life lived in rejection of repentance, a life lived without the fruits of repentance ,will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

With this solemn warning, the crowds began to ask him, “What should we do then?” And I think we do well to take this not as a question of fear, but as a question of legitimate desire for direction. This is not a request of frightened people trying to make God happy with them. This is people who understand the imporance of all of this, and desperately want to live a life filled with the fruits of repentance, to respond properly to God’s love and forgiveness. And so they come to John for some specific direction and guidance

John’s responses are, perhaps, surprisingly… normal? Even boring? There’s no grand spiritual journey and high-falutin ceremony to perform. No, what does it look like to have the fruits of repentance in your life? “Whoever has two shirts should share with the person who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.” The unremarkable direction continues when some tax collectors and Roman soldiers, two groups that would have been reviled by Jewish society then, ask John the same thing. John’s answer to them? “Collect no more than what you were authorized to … Do not extort money from anyone by force or false accusation. Be satisfied with your wages.” Just do your job honestly; that is a life filled with the fruits of repentance.

John addresses this idea of the fruits of repentance vocationally. What does it look like to have a life filled with the fruits of repentance and the joy of knowing that we are forgiven? Well, that will vary depending on the places God has put us in and the opportunities he has set before us. Parents have opportunities to produce fruits of repentance as they raise and nurture their children in youth and contnue to provide stability and direction for them when they're grown. Workers will have the opportunity to do their job faithfully, regardless of what industry or specific occupation and vocation they have. Everyone can be a good, kind neighbor to those who live near us or even to perfect strangers—yes even the person that cuts you off on the road or makes that long flight across the country uncomfortable as your seat-mate.

Living our life in a way that pleases and thanks God in every circumstance is a life filled with the fruits of repentance. Because those works are done not just out of a sense of obligation or because it’s the “right” thing to do but because you know you have a God who loves you, has freed you from your sins, and will bring you home to eternal life. These are actions that we take in joy, in celebration, rejoicing in knowing our sins are forgiven, that the Lamb of God, Jesus, has taken away not only the sin of the world but my sin; my personal failures are gone because the promised Savior came and lived and died for me; he's done exactly the same for you.

Of course, as John started his work and gained popularity and notoriety, there was a little buzz about him. He was a bit weird. He lived in the wilderness; he didn't wear conventional clothing or follow a conventional diet. And so all these things combined with his powerful preaching and teaching made the people wonder if John might be the Christ. Might this be the promised Savior? Might John be the one who came to save us? And John is very quick to deflect and shut down those rumors. “I baptize you with water. But someone mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

We could spend a lot of time this morning trying to parse out the different options of what it means that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. But let’s focus on one option this morning. In this brief discourse, we have fire mentioned three times. The first is what will happen to those fruitless trees that get cut down. The last is the separation of the wheat from the chaff, the good grain from the worthless leftovers. The fruitless tree and the useless parts of the plants are burned up. And then we are also told that that Messiah will come and baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

I would suggest that the difference between the Holy Spirit and fire in Jesus’ baptism is the difference between faith and unbelief at this preaching and teaching. The Holy Spirit comes to anyone who hears God’s Word, his promises, and the work that has been accomplished for us. For some, the Holy Spirit stays and creates and strengthens faith in the hearts of those who hear. For others who reject the message and the Holy Spirit, fire replaces him. The heart that refuses to have fruits of repentance, that refuses to acknowledge joy or see anything special or good in what God has done for us is going to be that tree that's cut down and thrown into the eternal fire of hell, the chaff that's burned up with that unquenchable fire, the one that that our coming king will send to that eternity of abandonment by God, baptized with fire, not in a spiritual or refining sense, but in the sense of condemnation.

But my brothers and sisters, you and I are not destined for that fire. By God's grace, we cling to our Savior as the solution to our sin. We know that we couldn't do anything on our own, and he has done it all for us. So now we have that joy because we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. We have that faith that God has produced in us, whether through our literal baptisms, preaching or hearing and reading his Word, and strengthened by the Lord's Supper. Here the Holy Spirit, given by Jesus, does his work to keep us forever in the true faith.

Your sins are gone. How do you want to live your life? Joyfully, in rejoicing and thanksgiving to the God who loves you. The end is coming. We still have Judgment Day in view here in the latter part of Advent. But that need not be a scary thing. That need not be a fearful thing for us. Instead, it will be a joyful thing because that will be the fulfillment of our forgiveness, the fulfillment of our redemption. And in heaven, we won't need fruits of repentance because we will have nothing to repent from. At that point, sin will be but a distant memory.

Until that rescue, until that day, what should we do? What does it look like to have a life filled with the fruits of repentance? Perhaps Paul’s direction to the Corinthians best summarizes John the Baptist’s teaching. Whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do everything to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"My Soul Proclaims the Greatness of the Lord" (Sermon on Luke 1:39-55) | December 22, 2024

Sermon Text: Luke 1:39-55
Date: December 22, 2024
Event: The Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year C

Luke 1:39-55 (EHV)

In those days Mary got up and hurried to the hill country, to a town of Judah. 40She entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41Just as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42She called out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44In fact, just now, as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy! 45Blessed is she who believed, because the promises spoken to her from the Lord will be fulfilled!”

46Then Mary said,

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
47and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,
48because he has looked with favor on the humble state of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed,
49because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
51He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52He has brought down rulers from their thrones.
He has lifted up the lowly.
53He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty.
54He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy,
55as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever.

My Soul Proclaims the Greatness of the Lord

Well, we’ve reached it. The Fourth Sunday in Advent, the last Sunday before Christmas, finally has a Christmas feel to it. It’s still Advent; we’re still firmly in the preparation phase, but with readings focused not on the end, not on John the Baptist’s ministry, but firmly on prophecy of the Savior’s birth and reaction to the upcoming arrival of the Savior. We’re almost there; the preparations are nearly complete.

Our Gospel for this morning takes us to the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, a childless couple blessed with a son in their old age. Their son was John the Baptist, whose adult ministry we’ve focused on for the last two Sundays. But for today, we take a step back in time, still three months or so from John’s birth. The angel Gabriel had announced this unexpected pregnancy to Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband. Because he doubted God’s promises, Zechariah could not speak throughout Elizabeth’s pregnancy and wouldn’t have that ability restored until it came time to name the child.

During these exciting and undoubtedly chaotic times in their home near Jerusalem, Zechariah and Elizabeth have a visitor—one of their relatives from the north, from Galilee. Mary arrives not long after her own angelic encounter, where Gabriel also appeared to her to give her news about another miracle birth. Of course, this birth would be even more jaw-dropping than Elizabeth and Zechariah naturally having a son in their old age. Mary, a virgin, was told that she would bear a son. But not even just a miracle child, but the miracle child—the long-promised Savior. Gabriel described how it would happen in the verses just before our Gospel: Listen, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end. … The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Listen, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age even though she was called barren, and this is her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible for God (Luke 1:31-33, 35-37).

Mary was undoubtedly and understandably overwhelmed with this news, and given that the angel had told her that her relative, Elizabeth, was in at least a related situation, it made sense that Mary would make the journey south to visit her and Zechariah. It’s clear from the moment Mary first speaks that God is doing something incredible here. As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the yet-to-be-born John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb and Elizabeth herself was filled with the Holy Spirit. As soon as Mary entered their home, Elizabeth knew what was happening: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Both of these women were basking in God’s graciousness to them. Not only did he love them and promise to remove their sins and bring them to eternal life with him, but he actually blessed them by allowing them to play incredibly important roles in his plan of salvation. Elizabeth was the mother and caretaker of the promised messenger to prepare the way before the Messiah; Mary was the mother and caretaker of the Messiah, God-come-in-the-flesh, true God and true Man, for our salvation.

Mary responds with what we have traditionally referred to as Mary’s Song or the Magnificat. These words show that the enormity of this moment and these events was not lost on her. Let’s take a few moments to walk through her Spirit-inspired words, and let them find application not only for her and the people of her day, but for us as well.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, because he has looked with favor on the humble state of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed, because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. Her first sentence gives us the whole point of what she’s doing and feeling in the moment: her very spirit within her can’t help but broadcast the greatness of the Lord. And what is she looking to share? That God, her Savior, had looked with favor on her.

Now, we could certainly zero in on the specific blessing of Mary being the mother of the Messiah. But there’s more here than just that. In calling God her Savior, she’s seeing not only the great privilege and honor that God has placed on her, but her very need of it. She was going to be the mother of the world's Savior, yes, but more to the point, she would be the mother of her own Savior. The child she would bring into the world would pay for her sins when he was taken out of the world. His death would save her as it would save all people.

And we don’t want to miss this critical point about our final preparations here today or our celebrations later this week. We’re not just observing a tradition. We won’t just be singing familiar songs or perhaps enjoying special food. We won’t just give and receive gifts with bows, tissue paper, and shiny wrapping. No, this preparation, this celebration, is for a purpose infinitely beyond all of that.

Because the true gift that we have received, the true reason for celebration, is that here is God’s mercy and God’s promise come in the flesh. Here is what God had meant when he first promised that Satan-stomping champion in the Garden of Eden. Here is God putting things into motion what his people had been waiting for for millennia.

And the effects of all of this are crucial for us today. Because salvation and forgiveness were not just for Adam and Eve or Elizabeth and Mary, but for you and me as well. This forgiveness of God—long promised and taking so long to fulfill—is still our confidence of better things to come, even at this late date in history. Those better things are not necessarily here in this life (which is in many ways a deceitful charade, as Mary will explain in a moment), but we are looking ahead to better things in eternity. Jesus took your sin and mine on himself so that even though you and I do not participate in the actual execution of God’s plan to save the world, we can join Mary and say, “The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name,” because he has rescued us from hell and will bring us to himself in heaven, forever.

Mary continues: He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones. He has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty. In a world where political and socio-economic standing and power seem to be the only things that matter, the only ways to really get things done, Mary reminds us of the truth hidden behind that façade. Is the ruler of a nation in charge of things? Is the one who holds all the wealth in charge of things? Is the one who promotes themselves and exalts their own importance in charge of things? NO! God is the one with the strong arm that works his will. God is the one that accomplishes what he knows needs to be done. God is not limited by any earthly political power or wealthy influence. He cuts through it all.

In fact, God is so much in charge that he uses those who think they are in charge. The Romans thought that they were in control at the time of Jesus’ birth. The emperor, Ceasar Agustus, declared a census. The rules dictated that families had to go to the origin point of their family lines. This meant Mary and Joseph would need to make that trek down south to Bethlehem Ephrathah, so small among the clans of Judah, but the promised birthplace of the Messiah. God saw to it that the Savior in the line of King David would be born in David’s birthplace and used that as a sign to confirm, in part, who Jesus was.

As we prepare not just for Christmas and not just for the end of time but for anything this next week or the new year might bring, we do well to keep Mary’s reminder in mind. The Lord is in charge of all. That little baby still forming in his mother’s womb whom we’ll see in Bethlehem’s manger? He’s King of kings and Lord of lords. He is, right now, ruling all things for your eternal good, and no one can wrench control away from God. No one in a national or community scene nor even someone in a more local family scene—can oust God as the one who watches you, protects you, forgives you, and will bring you home to himself.

And that’s where Mary leads us: His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. … He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever. That phrase, “remembering his mercy,” looms so large. To be clear, this is not God going through the events that I’m so familiar with: sitting somewhere, perhaps working, perhaps relaxing, perhaps sleeping, when all of a sudden, the memory of that thing you forgot to do comes crashing into your mind and, in a panic, you race to try to get it done before it’s too late. God doesn’t forget; nothing slips his mind. But when God “remembers,” he is keeping his promise; he’s making clear that he didn’t forget.

From Adam and Eve to Noah to Abraham and all the children of Israel, God had promised our ancestors in the faith to save all humanity in the Savior’s work. Here, he keeps the promise. Here in the mission of Gabriel to speak to Zecahariah and then Mary, here in the working of humble faith in Mary’s heart that trusts these promises will be fulfilled, here is our hope for eternity.

Let us all follow Mary’s example, and let us all proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Maybe we won’t burst into poetry or song in the home of a loved one, but those fruits of repentance we spent time with last week are all ways to proclaim God’s greatness. Let us share the good news of this upcoming birth. Invite a friend to worship this week, share the hope you have for eternity, and let your joy in God’s eternal rescue from sin motivate every moment.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, now and forever! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"The Days Are Coming!" (Sermon on Jeremiah 33:14-16) | December 1, 2024

Sermon Text: Jeremiah 33:14-16
Date: December 1, 2024
Event: The First Sunday in Advent, Year C

Jeremiah 33:14–16 (EHV)

Listen, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promises that I have spoken to the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah.

15In those days and at that time,
I will cause a righteous Branch to grow up from David’s line.
He will establish justice and righteousness on earth.
16In those days Judah will be saved,
and Jerusalem will dwell securely.
This is what she will be called:
The Lord Our Righteousness.

The Days Are Coming

The days are coming! How many until Christmas? I’m sure you could ask most of the children and they could give you an exact number. The rest of us could probably do the math, but perhaps we don’t want to think about that just yet. There’s so much to do to prepare—planning, decorating, cooking, emotionally centering ourselves. It’s a lot. But unless the Lord returns before December 25, it will be here. That day is, in fact, coming!

This morning in worship, we are not yet getting into the Christmas season itself, but we are beginning a new church year, and we begin that year in the season of Advent. Advent is a season all about preparation which fits in more ways than one at this time of year. Amid all the preparations that happen for us to celebrate Christmas, spiritually, we are preparing our hearts for a dual purpose. We are, in part, preparing our hearts to hear that glorious Christmas gospel that the angels and shepherds will share that night in Bethlehem. But we also continue to prepare for his second coming, ensuring our hearts are ready to receive him not just as the baby in the manger but also as the returning King of kings and Lord of lords.

In some ways, we begin the new church year in a very similar way to how we ended the last church year this past Sunday. In our Gospel, we saw Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and while there is humility as he rides on a lowly colt of a donkey, it’s still a greatly different picture than what we saw in last week’s Gospel when Jesus was on trial before Pontius Pilate. Shouts of praise from the Psalms, and specifically praise to the promised Messiah, filled the air!

Our focus this morning takes us back, though, some 600 years before that first Palm Sunday. In our First Reading, we spend time with the prophet Jeremiah, who lived and worked in a dreadful time in the history of God’s people.

The Israelites had lived in the Promised Land for over 800 years, and during that period, there was a constant struggle to keep God's commands and directions. Not only did they struggle with the normal sinful natures that would lead them astray from God’s will anyway, but they also allowed people who worshiped false gods to continue to live among them and influence them. So the pull to fictional deities like Baal, Asherah, Molech, and others constantly distracted from the true God and while also incorporating pure sin in their worship practices.

God sent his prophets to them repeatedly, warning them that he would step in with chastisement using the sword of foreign powers if things did not change. That happened to the northern part of Israel before Jeremiah’s time when the nation of Assyria came and exiled most of the people and mixed in people from other nations with the Israelites who remained.

The southern part of Israel had some brighter spots. A few kings like Hezekiah and Josiah would come in and try to clean up the worship life of the nation. They would clean up and repair the temple. They would reinstitute festivals and sacrifices God had commanded, which the people had long forgotten. But things never fully turned around; the people never devoted themselves back to God reliably.

The real issue was not the faithfulness of one nation or several tribes but God’s global promise of a Savior. Just like when God intervened with the flood of Noah’s day because the promise of the Savior was on the verge of being extinguished, so God intervened here. While his actions were not as dramatic and did not require an ark, it was no less critical. The promise had to be preserved, and it wouldn’t be a pleasant road ahead for the Israelites.

At the beginning of Jeremiah 33, before our First Reading for this morning starts, God outlined what this was going to be like: The Lord, the God of Israel, says this concerning the houses of this city and the palaces of the kings of Judah …  I will fill them with the corpses of men whom I have killed in my anger and my wrath. I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness (vv. 4-5). There’s no sugarcoating that. Things would be miserable because the people had abandoned God’s ways.

And this makes up a large percentage of the message God sent Jeremiah to share. The people responded to that message as well as you might imagine they did. They viewed Jeremiah as a liar, a blasphemer, a traitor to the nation and king. Who would say such horrible things about their own country, their own people? And yet, Jeremiah was sharing what God had told him to say. Jeremiah was just the mouthpiece; the words were God’s.

However, there is something important to remember about this downfall God promised for the nation of Judah: God set an expiration date. It wouldn’t be short—70 years—but it would end. The purpose of this was not to punish unfaithful people; the purpose was to purify, to rehabilitate an apostate nation because they had a role to carry out for the good of mankind; it was through them that the Savior of the nations would come.

So Jeremiah had the privilege of describing future days. The terrible days are coming! Babylon would come and carry the nation into exile. The difficult days are coming! A seven-decade-long exile would end all but a select few of that current generation. The trying days are coming! Even in return to their homeland, exiles would find it difficult to endure; as they took a stronger stand against the false religions around them, they would find relationships with the other nations much more difficult in the short and long term.

There’s not a ton to be excited about in these promises. These coming days sound dark and cold. But then, there are other days that Jeremiah is privileged to announce: Listen, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promises that I have spoken to the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah. God would someday keep and complete the promises he made to his people. What would that look like? In those days and at that time, I will cause a righteous Branch to grow from David’s line. He will establish justice and righteousness on earth. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. This is what she will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness. The salvation days are coming! God will come and save his people, and the people, the cities, and the nations will be named to reflect the reality of their spiritual condition: The Lord Our Righteousness.

A branch would grow up from the house and line of King David—Messiah would be the descendant, the son, of David. And he would do what David and the rest of his bloodline couldn’t: bring real justice and righteousness. Justice because sins would be truly and fully paid for; righteousness, because by paying for those sins in his own body, the Messiah would put our broken relationship with God back together and make it right again.

So, this was the answer to the Israelites’ sin problem. They couldn’t make things right by suffering in exile. They couldn’t make things right by turning over a new leaf and suddenly being very faithful to God. No, they would need a Savior to rescue them from their sin, pay for their wrongdoing, and put them at peace with God. In his work, Judah would be saved, and Jerusalem would find a peaceful existence.

If we compare ourselves to the Israelites, we note there’s not much difference. Perhaps we’re not building altars to Baal and participating in pagan worship services. But aren’t we often prioritizing other things, letting matters other than God be king in our hearts? When we allow work or school, money or influence, entertainment or relaxation to become the dominant focus of our lives at the expense of God, we’re making that thing or goal our god in his place. We are no better than the Israelites visiting shrine prostitutes to worship fertility gods or sacrificing their children in the fire to Molech. It just takes different forms for us: pornography use and sex outside the bonds of marriage, neglect of family or children due to work, play, alcohol, drugs, or anything else that pulls us from our God-given responsibilities. All of these sins can become our gods.

And so, what do we do? Well, nothing. We should not be surprised if we find ourselves in a really bad situation at some point—now or later. Maybe not exile in Babylon, but perhaps something God uses to wake us up from our spiritual apathy or unfaithfulness. Why does he do that? Because the days are coming, or more to the point, the day is coming. Be it the end of our lives here through death or his return at the Last Day, there is a moment when we will have no more time left, where the clock on our time of grace here in this life will stop ticking, and then we will face judgment before our God.

Because that day is coming, Jesus rouses us from our sleepy and sinful spiritual state. He warns us that that day is coming like the day of exile was coming for Judah. But he also points us to himself and reminds us why we do not need to be afraid. All of our unfaithfulness to him, every time we have made other things our gods rather than him, all of our sins of weakness and willful sins of desire, they are all forgiven in him. The days were coming and have in fact come when the King of kings and Lord of lords took on our human flesh, lived and died in our place. By that life and death, he destroyed our sins, justified us, and made us righteous. That branch from David’s line, Jesus from Nazareth, is the long-promised Messiah, the Savior we desperately needed.

My brothers and sisters, because of Jesus, the days are coming when we won’t have to fight this battle inside of us and around us to be faithful to our God. The days are coming when he will pluck us out of this life of misery and bring us to himself in heaven. The days are coming when we will live and bask in the complete fulfillment of everything Jesus accomplished for us, when “The LORD Our Righteousness” will also be the name given to us.

Until that day when we have it in full, hold on to what we have in part. Guard the good deposit of the Holy Spirit that God placed in you. Value God’s work and promises to you above all else. Prioritize him above everything, even in (and perhaps especially in) these busy days before Christmas. The days are coming. Lift up your head! Your King will come to you! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.