Fourth Sunday in Advent (Dec 22, 2024)

A Real Christmas  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  15:21
0 ratings
· 7 views
Files
Notes
Transcript
Micah 5:2–5 (NIV84)
2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” 3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. 4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. 5 And he will be their peace.
Hebrews 10:5–10 NIV84
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.’ ” 8 First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). 9 Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Luke 1:39–56 NIV84
39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” 46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. 51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.” 56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.
There Has Really Been Only One Thing the Lord Has Given Me to Preach Here—One Person, One “Favorite Topic, Sunday after Sunday”—and That Is Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen for You.
Our text this morning is drawn from
Psalm 96:1–2 EHV
1 Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Sing to the Lord. Praise his name. Proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day.
Let us pray: “These are thy words O Lord. Help us and sanctify us in the truth; thy Words are truth. Amen,
Dear brothers and sisters of Christ Lutheran:
Almost 27 years ago when I began my seminary studies I recall a big debate in class that revolved around the lectionary. The lectionary is a list of readings that are prescribed for each worship service. Contrary to what some might think, I'm not in the habit of picking and choosing what I want to preach on, instead I always go to the lectionary, because it is good way of making sure a broad swath of readings are being heard throughout the year. So the debate revolved around to use the lectionary or should we pray and ask the Holy Spirit to give us a verse to preach on.
Our instructor then blurted out,
“Men, there is only one topic that you should preach every Sunday—Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And don’t you ever forget it!”
I pray for God’s forgiveness if I’ve forgotten this truth. Nevertheless, Sunday after Sunday, for over six years now, there has really only been one topic preached from this pulpit. Though there have been many themes and many texts, and some sermons have lacked the attention-getting freshness of others, while others have been downright boring and much too long—through it all,
There Has Really Been Only One Thing the Lord Has Given Me to Preach Here—One Person, One “Favorite Topic, Sunday after Sunday”—and That Is Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen for You.

Preaching anything else leads many to see the Gospel as a new Law.

Do we realize how truly blessed we are to be living in a time and a place when the precious Gospel “may not be bound but have free course and be preached to the joy and edifying of Christ’s holy people” (LSB Altar Book, 171)?
That certainly wasn’t the case during the days of Martin Luther. The Good News of salvation by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone had been all but drowned out in the Christian Church of his day.
Instead, people sought to earn their salvation before God by doing enough good deeds to pay God back for their sins—by acquiring enough spiritual brownie points to make themselves right with God. In other words, sinful people did exactly what comes naturally and seems logical in a world of credit and debt, cause and effect.
Have times really changed that much since the days of Luther? Sinful man certainly hasn’t, and I’m afraid it seems that sinful Lutherans haven’t either. Many years ago, an independent firm conducted a survey among Lutherans in America, and the results make one begin to wonder about the impact the Lutheran church has had on the lives of people.
For instance, when asked to respond to the statement, “The main emphasis of the Gospel is on God’s rules for right living,” over 60 percent “agreed” or “probably agreed.” In other words, the vast majority of Lutherans in this country think the Gospel is a bunch of rules to tell us what we need to do to live rightly with God.
Or to another statement, “Only those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior can go to heaven,” over 40 percent could not agree with that. In other words, it seems that many Lutherans do not believe that Jesus Christ is humanity’s only Savior from sin.
Where have we gone wrong? I would submit that the Church today has gone wrong primarily in the pulpit, because we preachers have often chosen to preach something other than Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
For many, it’s simply easier to preach at their people rather than to them—to preach only the Law and chide people into some kind of preordained behavior. Give more money, get more involved, become more spiritual, do this, do that, do, do, do! And so what do people soon begin to believe? That “the main emphasis of the Gospel is on God’s rules for right living.”
Yes, we preachers have at times turned the Gospel into a new Law, and in the process, we find ourselves and our congregations bound even more securely in our sins than ever before, because no matter what we do or how hard we try, we can never do enough to satisfy God’s demands! We can never do enough! We will always fall short! We are always going to miss the mark. And this is why the gospel, God’s grace and mercy rightly applied, results in life.

Preaching that one message is great preaching that brings peace.

Thank God that his Son, Jesus Christ, sent faithful preachers into the all the world to preach good news to sinners like you and me. Psalm 96:1 “The 96th Psalm says, ‘Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth.’
As Luther writes: For in the Old Covenant under the law of Moses, divine service was tedious and tiresome as the people had to offer so many and varied sacrifices of all they possessed. . . . And since they were restive and selfish, they performed the service unwillingly or only for the sake of temporal gain. . . . [But] there is now in the New Testament a better service of God. . . . For God has cheered our hearts and minds through his dear Son, whom he gave for us to redeem us from sin, death, and the devil” (LW 53:332–33).
Jesus Christ is your Redeemer and Savior. On the cross of Calvary he did something that you and I could never do. He paid for our sins with his own precious blood—for your sins, for my sins, and for the sins of the whole world. There’s nothing we can ever do to add to it, and there’s nothing we can ever do to take away from it! Jesus Christ has taken care of it all! And that is the precious Gospel that he’s given his preachers to preach from one generation to the next—that in Jesus Christ, God’s kingdom has indeed come, and that in the preaching of his Gospel into your ears this morning, God’s kingdom comes to you today!
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ: know this that through the ups and downs, the highs and lows, know that The kingdom of God has come to you!
Expert homileticians teach the following: “Truly great preaching is a preaching of the Gospel with contemporary urgency.” As Jesus says in our text in
Matthew 11:12 NASB95
12 “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.
Or as St. Paul declares:
2 Corinthians 6:2 (NASB95)
Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation”—
Remember old man Noah, who built the ark? It took him years to build that thing, and what was he doing all that time besides working with his hammer and saw? He was preaching. For those long years he was “a preacher of righteousness,” St. Peter tells us (2 Pet 2:5). And yet, what were the results? After years of preaching, he didn’t win a single convert! Only he and the seven others in his family were saved from destruction. By the worlds standards he was a failure and ineffective.
How many preachers have prayed this urgent prayer before they enter the pulpit? “Lord, send forth your Holy Spirit with these your words I’m about to preach, that you might turn these people’s hearts toward you in repentance and faith. For without your Word and Spirit, the words I speak will come to nothing.” And how many preachers have prayed this prayer on Saturday night before they preach? “O Lord, if tomorrow be the Last Day, when you will come in judgment for all men, only wait until I have preached this sermon one last time, that those who yet remain unconverted in this place might by your grace be turned in saving faith toward you.”
Those have been my urgent, heartfelt prayers among you these past six years, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. And now my prayer is that of the psalmist:
Psalm 90:17 NET
17 May our sovereign God extend his favor to us! Make our endeavors successful! Yes, make them successful!
Finally, truly great preaching is the preaching of peace—the peace that Christ made in heaven and on earth “by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20). If “peace” is “the cessation of war,” then the war over sin and death, fought between Christ and the serpent, has, indeed, been won, and the preaching of that peace makes every Sunday a V-day and every sermon a six-inch headline! Through the blood of Jesus Christ, you are, indeed, at peace with God, and nothing in all the world can change that.
Nothing in all the world. Through all the wonderful and happy times the Lord has given us here during these last six years together as brothers and sisters in Christ, and through all the struggles and suffering we have endured together too, nothing and no one can undo the peace that you and I share together in Christ Jesus.
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38–39).
That is the bright and glorious future that the Lord has in store for you and me!
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more
Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.