First Lutheran Church of Little Rock

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.

LSB 745 In God, My Faithful God
1
In God, my faithful God,
I trust when dark my road;
Great woes may overtake me,
Yet He will not forsake me.
My troubles He can alter;
His hand lets nothing falter.

Introduction

A. Long before Paul knew to call Jesus Lord, the Word of the Lord was
speeding ahead, going faster and farther than anyone could ask or imagine.
1. The Word of the Lord was proven true in the conception and birth of the
Messiah by a virgin.
2. It went far ahead of expectation when Jesus suffered, died, was buried,
and rose again according to Scripture.
3. The Word of the Lord prevailed mightily when, in a single day, thousands
were converted at the preaching of Peter.
4. The Word of the Lord accomplished all these things and so many more that
time would fail to tell before—long before—Paul knew to call Jesus Lord.
B. When Jesus at long last encountered Saul (who would be later called
Paul) on the road to Damascus, what seemed like an interruption—abrupt,
troubling, blinding—to Paul was all within Jesus’ divine purpose.
1. As the Lord explained to Ananias, who would baptize the newly blinded
and newly believing Paul,
A. “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts
9:16).
2. Jesus did not say that Paul’s life would be easy or pleasant or nice or
simple to understand, with a cushy return on his retirement investments.
3. Jesus did not say that Paul would know where he would lay down his head
every night or where he would be buried.
4. Jesus did say that he knew and had determined what Paul would be put
through for the sake of the Gospel and that Jesus would show his servant
those things:
A. those pains,
B. those trials,
C. those tribulations.
C. When you at long last encounter pains or trials or tribulations, what do
you do?
1. Are you surprised?
A. Don’t be.
B. Suffering and trial are our lot as this old world is wearing out and as
Satan thrashes around and lashes out, seeking his prey like a hungry lion.
2. Are you wearied?
A. Don’t be.
B. Nothing has overtaken you that is not common to man.
C. Your battles are not new, and they are not your own.
D. You labor with Christ and with all his people.
3. What should you do?
A. Realize that We Have Confidence Because of the Lord’s Faithfulness and
Quietness Because Our Lives Are His Gift Entirely.

Introduction

A. Long before Paul knew to call Jesus Lord, the Word of the Lord was
speeding ahead, going faster and farther than anyone could ask or imagine.
1. The Word of the Lord was proven true in the conception and birth of the
Messiah by a virgin.
2. It went far ahead of expectation when Jesus suffered, died, was buried,
and rose again according to Scripture.
3. The Word of the Lord prevailed mightily when, in a single day, thousands
were converted at the preaching of Peter.
4. The Word of the Lord accomplished all these things and so many more that
time would fail to tell before—long before—Paul knew to call Jesus Lord.
B. When Jesus at long last encountered Saul (who would be later called
Paul) on the road to Damascus, what seemed like an interruption—abrupt,
troubling, blinding—to Paul was all within Jesus’ divine purpose.
1. As the Lord explained to Ananias, who would baptize the newly blinded
and newly believing Paul,
A. “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts
9:16).
2. Jesus did not say that Paul’s life would be easy or pleasant or nice or
simple to understand, with a cushy return on his retirement investments.
3. Jesus did not say that Paul would know where he would lay down his head
every night or where he would be buried.
4. Jesus did say that he knew and had determined what Paul would be put
through for the sake of the Gospel and that Jesus would show his servant
those things:
A. those pains,
B. those trials,
C. those tribulations.
C. When you at long last encounter pains or trials or tribulations, what do
you do?
1. Are you surprised?
A. Don’t be.
B. Suffering and trial are our lot as this old world is wearing out and as
Satan thrashes around and lashes out, seeking his prey like a hungry lion.
2. Are you wearied?
A. Don’t be.
B. Nothing has overtaken you that is not common to man.
C. Your battles are not new, and they are not your own.
D. You labor with Christ and with all his people.
3. What should you do?
A. Realize that We Have Confidence Because of the Lord’s Faithfulness and
Quietness Because Our Lives Are His Gift Entirely.

I. We have confidence because of the Lord’s faith­fulness.

A. Paul tells the congregation he planted in Thessalonica to pray that the
Word of the Lord would speed ahead just as it did to them, making haste,
making a way for faith.
B. Verse 1
Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead
and be honored, as happened among you,
1. Paul commands that they pray because he knows that the Lord is faithful.
A. Verse 3a
But the Lord is faithful.
2. The Lord’s desire and design for his children is to guard and keep them
from the evil one
A. Verse 3b
He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
B. just as you pray in the Lord’s Prayer that you may be delivered from
evil, or, more literally, from the evil one.
3. When Paul was wearied or perplexed or downtrodden or near death, he
still had a loving Father and a Savior whose atoning blood was shed for
him.
4. And so do you.
C. You can have confidence in the Lord’s faithfulness because his record is
solid
1. Verse 4
And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will
do the things that we command.
2. Tell me: Which of his promises has failed?
A. The promise that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head?
B. The promise that in the Seed of Abraham all the families of the earth
would be blessed?
C. The promise that death would not find anyone inside the homes on which
the lambs’ blood was smeared on the doorposts?
D. The promise that the Virgin would conceive and bear a Son?
E. The promise that the Holy One of God would not see corruption?
F. Which of his divine and everlasting promises has failed?
G. Not a single one!
H. All the promises of God find in our Lord Jesus their Yes and their Amen
to God’s eternal glory!
D. His record is solid, and his faithfulness is sure.
1. Not a single day in your life goes by that has not been lived apart from
his care and love.
2. You may have always known that care and that love.
3. You may not have always known or not always appreciated or not always
cared about that care and that love.
4. He did not take it from you.
5. He never left you, nor did he forsake you.
6. May the Lord direct your hearts to God’s love so richly and eternally
displayed in the cross of Jesus, where you see for yourself how strongly
his fatherly love for you sought you.
7. If God were anything other than a loving Father, he would not have sent
his Son, Jesus, to the cross for you, laying on the God-man’s shoulders:
A. your sin,
B. your complaining,
C. your grumbling,
D. your fear,
E. your cowardice,
F. your indifference,
G. your shallowness and
H. yes, your pettiness.
8. God did not count those trespasses against you but made peace by the
blood of Jesus’ cross so that you and Paul and all the saints might say
together,
A. (cf Romans 5:1).
“Therefore, we have peace with God!”
E. Peace with a loving God will direct your hearts to the steadfastness of
Christ.
1. The world swirls and changes constantly.
2. It did in Paul’s day.
3. It does in ours.
4. You don’t have to be confident
A. that “it will all work out.”
5. You don’t have to be confident
A. that everything you ever wanted will someday fall into your lap.
6. No such life is promised in the Bible, so you don’t need to worry about
the fact that it didn’t happen.
7. What is promised and seen in the Bible is that Jesus Christ is
steadfast.
A. Everything changes;
B. everything comes and goes;
C. the surest things and the surest friends are here today and gone
tomorrow.
D. Life fades like a dream, and all flesh is like grass, growing, fading,
dying.
E. But the Word of the Lord endures forever.
F. The world will turn and change, but Christ is the same today, yesterday,
and forever.
F. So you won’t have
1. a bad day
2. or a bad week
3. or a bad month
4. or a bad year in which God is not your loving Father
5. and Christ is not your steadfast Savior.
6. You won’t face
A. a little difficulty
B. or a big bill
C. or a temporary inconvenience
D. or an accident that changes life forever without a Father who sees and
knows your every need
E. and a Brother who was himself perfected through suffering.
7. You will not see a single sunrise without knowing the Father who set the
sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens and the Savior who is fairer
and brighter than the sun.
A. Therefore trust in the Lord!

II. We have quietness because our lives are the Lord’s gift entirely.

A. Paul trusted in the Lord for his good purposes, and the apostle was
confident that the Thessalonians would lead lives fitting for believers.
1. Verse 12
Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do
their work quietly and to earn their own living.
2. There is one characteristic of a Christian life especially suitable for
a people confident that their Father is providing each and every day:
quietness
B. The situation in Thessalonica was that some people, believing the
resurrection had already occurred, were living as if nothing mattered, and
among other things, had stopped working.
1. Verse 11
For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but
busybodies.
2. They did nothing all day, just blabbed and chattered and upset their
fellow believers, yapping and running at the mouth.
3. Sticks and stones can break your bones, and sometimes words do hurt you
or others.
4. Saying anything that comes into your head,
5. having “no filter,”
6. offering your opinion on every subject,
7. and especially proclaiming false doctrine—
A. in this case, that the resurrection had already happened, strange as
that falsehood may seem
B. are evils far more grievous far more often than a neighborhood kid’s
baseball breaking a window.
C. Jesus said about people’s lives:
1. Matthew 7:16
“You will recognize them by their fruits”
2. Don’t just listen to what people say—important as words are—
A. but observe also what they do.
B. The blabbers and chatterers do nothing.
C. Paul reminds the Thessalonians that when he first preached the Gospel to
them, he was doing anything necessary for the Gospel to spread.
D. Verses 7-8
(7) For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were
not idle when we were with you,
(8) nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and
labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you
E. Paul was providing for himself until they were established enough to pay
their own pastor and Paul would move on to another place.
D. Examples are powerful, and lives speak volumes.
1. The life Paul led showed that he thought the Gospel and the faith of the
Thessalonians in the Savior were more important than anything else.
2. He was willing to set everything else aside and to inconvenience himself
so that they could hear and believe the Gospel that Jesus was their
steadfast Savior.
3. The blabbers and chatterers are willing to set everything else aside
(especially productive work!) so that others can pay attention to them and
heed their words and stir up trouble and strife.
4. They talk and talk and talk and do nothing because they love to be heard
and to take bread from someone else’s mouth without lifting a finger.
E. That’s why Paul sums up his teaching with this:
1. Verse 10
“If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
2. Sound too harsh?
3. The idea is that freeloading comes along with consequences.
4. Talking and not working is not a “victimless crime.”
5. Nothing is free.
6. Everything has its cost.
7. The only question is who will be paying the bill.
A. Who will provide lunch?
B. Who will provide meals when a baby is born or someone goes into the
hospital?
C. Who will provide a helping hand when the lady down the street is too old
to care for her house like she used to?
D. All these things,
E. all this love and care,
F. everything good about being together in our families, our neighborhoods,
and our churches, cost someone something.
F. Jesus knew that.
1. His forgiveness and mercy cost him his very life.
2. He knew that was the cost, and he paid it nonetheless.
3. Paul knew that Jesus had paid his whole debt of sin, and he imitated
Christ in giving up his rights and prerogatives for the sake of the Gospel,
working with his own hands so that the new Christians would not have to go
without the Gospel because they couldn’t pay a preacher of the Gospel.
4. Everything costs someone something, and the Christian who is imitating
Paul, who was imitating Christ, knows that.
G. You know that providing lunch after church or meals when someone’s in
need or a helping hand around the house or love for a lifetime all have
costs, and because you are in Christ, you are to be happy to bear those
costs.
1. You don’t need to talk about them, telling everyone all the good you’re
doing.
2. You don’t need to shout from the rooftops the meals you made for Kevin
after he came home from the hospital.
3. or the aid you gave Lynn after his stroke last November.
4. You don’t need to talk and chatter and blab on.
5. You need to know what costs have to be borne and what burdens have to be
shared, and you pray that you may bear them and share them, just as Christ
bore and shared yours, just as Paul bore and shared the Thessalonians’.
6. We who are in Christ are always bearing one another’s burdens and so
fulfilling the law of Christ, who bore all our sin.
H. A life that shirks those burdens and that sharing is not a life in
Christ.
1. It may sound Christian or speak in good Lutheran slogans, but it is not
in Christ.
2. It may say the right words from the right people, but it is not in
Christ if it does not bear the burdens of the saints and share in the life
we all have in Christ.
3. It is empty talk and mere words, a bag full of gas and nothing more.
I. That’s why Paul is so definite.
1. He does not want the Thessalonians or you or I to fall into an empty,
vain life, with much pretense of Christ and little of the life that is in
Christ.
2. He has no truck:
A. with vain words,
B. using empty and deceptive ways, going on and on to the point it gets
annoying.
3. The apostle and his Lord are men of action and would have all Christians
be active in love, as faith always is.
J. We live the life of Christ, bearing burdens in quiet confidence.
1. Quietness is the opposite of blabbing and gossiping, but quietness is
not the same thing as silence.
2. Silence never speaks;
A. quietness may sometimes speak.
B. It may speak to encourage, to forgive, to guide, to sing, to pray.
C. Quietness does not have to be heard at all times, at the beginning and
end of every meeting.
D. Quietness is happy to listen, quick to hear, slow to speak, and thus
slow to anger.
E. Quietness can carry a tongue in its head without always using its
tongue.
F. Quietness will not set the whole world on fire and does not need to.
G. It is confident that the Lord will act and that the Lord will fulfill
his Word.
K. Quietness was Christ’s, and so it’s yours too.
1. He was quiet when Satan taunted him in the wilderness, using only God’s
Word to fight.
2. He was quiet in the face of his many accusers, and when they made a
mockery of him as he was shedding his life’s blood for the life of the
world, he prayed for his mockers’ forgiveness.
3. Quietness is confidence;
4. Loudness, brashness, yapping, blabbing, gossiping, chattering cannot and
are not signs of confidence.
5. Instead, they are signs of someone being:
A. nervous
B. anxious
C. and worried about how they sound and how they look.
D. Christ, in his quietness, looked only to God for vindication and life,
and his confidence was not put to shame.
E. In quietness, he was raised on the third day.
L. How is quietness not the same thing as silence?
1. Verse 12
Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do
their work quietly and to earn their own living.
2. Many believe the two things are identical, but you can hear the
difference between them in the outdoors.
3. Only people who don’t know anything about birdsong think that the
outdoors are “silent.”
4. Silence would mean the absence of life.
A. No animals crying or singing,
B. no insects chirping or creaking,
C. no wind blowing or howling.
D. Silence is when there is truly nothing there.
M. People unfamiliar with the outdoors or even just rural communities
sometimes describe those places as “the middle of nowhere,” but the
outdoors and rural places aren’t nowhere.
1. They’re not absent of life.
2. They’re quiet, but not silent.
3. Birds sing and chirp, according to the seasons.
4. Animals cry or sing or make the multitude of noises their feet or
throats or arms make as they go about their business.
5. The wind blows or howls or screeches through the trees.
6. It may be quiet, but it is not silent.
7. Those with ears to hear truly do hear quietness.
8. No one can hear silence.
N. The quiet confidence we have in Christ is not silence.
1. It can be heard in prayer, in song, in preaching.
2. It does not have to shout all the time, making the noise of a city
garbage truck.
3. It could be as quiet as birdsong, but it is truly alive in Christ, full
of quiet joy and peace.

Conclusion

A. Therefore, lead the quiet life you’ve been given, however much noise the
world puts into it.
1. Share in the burdens of the saints,
2. love your family,
3. love your neighbor and neighborhood,
4. and love the church the Lord has called you to be.
5. You do not need the world’s vindication or applause.
6. You have a Father who sees in secret and a Savior in whose scarred hands
your whole life is now hidden from sight.
7. When he appears at long last with his angels and all the elect of God,
you will receive the life and glories he has laid up for you, the treasures
that nothing can touch.
8. He is steadfast,
9. he is faithful,
10. and he will surely do it. Amen.
B. Let us pray:
LSB 745 In God, My Faithful God
5
“So be it,” then, I say
With all my heart each day.
Dear Lord, we all adore You,
We sing for joy before You.
Guide us while here we wander
Until we praise You yonder. Amen.
Text: Public domain

E. The peace of God, which transcends all human understanding, guard your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

F. In the Name of the Father…Amen.

A. In the Name of the Father…Amen.
B. Psalm 149 serves as our sermon text for this morning, which reads as
follows:
(1) Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the
assembly of the godly!
(2) Let Israel be glad in his Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in
their King!
(3) Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with
tambourine and lyre!
(4) For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with
salvation.
(5) Let the godly exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their beds.
(6) Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords
in their hands,
(7) to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples,
(8) to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron,
(9) to execute on them the judgment written! This is honor for all his
godly ones. Praise the LORD!
This is the Word of the Lord. Amen.
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:
LSB 679 Oh, How Blest Are They (Stanza 1)
Oh, how blest are they whose toils are ended,
Who through death have unto God ascended!
They have arisen
From the cares which keep us still in prison. Amen.

Introduction

A. We ought to be very thankful that our Hymn of the Day is “For All the
Saints Who from Their Labors Rest” and not “When the Saints Go Marching
In.”
1. Singing “For All the Saints” on All Saints’ Day often brings a sweet and
truly joyful tear to our eyes as we remember loved ones who’ve gone to
heaven before us.
2. That they beat us to heaven!
3. There’s beautiful Gospel and comfort in the hymn that a New Orleans jazz
number just doesn’t deliver.
4. But Louis Armstrong and the boys get it right on this line:
A. “Yes, I want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.”
5. I want to be in that number!
6. We want to be in the number of the saints!
B. Our text today, Psalm 149, takes a decidedly upbeat view of the saints
on this All Saints’ Day.
1. That’s because The Saints of God are So Blessed in This Life and in the
Next!
C. Let’s see some of those blessings promised to the saints that our text
lays out, reasons we want to be in that number.
I. The Lord takes pleasure in the saints (verse 4a).
A. This is present tense in the original. Therefore, it applies to all of
you saints. Consider this deeply.
1. The Lord takes pleasure in you.
A. This means, among other things, that you make him happy.
2. Notice, it’s not that you will make him happy, someday, when you’re in
heaven and don’t have sins, but rather that you make him happy now.
3. After all, this is exactly why Christ died for you, to make you
delightful and perfect.
4. And God has already baptized you into Jesus’ death:
A. to make you his own and bring you into his home by adoption and delight
in you.
B. This applies also to all “his people,” including the saints from our
parish who have gone to heaven this year.
1. Virginia Kindervater
2. Val Zeh
3. Heath Conrad
4. Drew Riegler
5. Jacqui Kaucher
6. Chris Patton
C. We delighted in these dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and we miss
them.
1. But God delights in them even more through Christ.
II. The Lord will beautify the saints’ affliction by giving them salvation
(verse 4b).
A. This is future tense, so it does not yet apply to us, at least not fully.
1. Our affliction might indeed include all the suffering that we endure in
this brief life.
2. However, “affliction” in the Old Testament most often indicates one’s
distress over one’s own sin and failure.
a. It is the Law that afflicts them.
1. They are burdened by a longing to be morally perfect now, to be free
from their constant sinning and their addictions.
b. Those who are afflicted are what we often call in theology “the
repentant.”
1. They know and feel their sins and long for relief.
3. Jesus speaks of this in our Gospel:
A. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).
1. Christians here and now are perfectly righteous through faith indeed,
but they are not perfectly righteous in their lives the way they want to
be. For that, they wait.
2. Jesus says “they shall be satisfied.”
A. In heaven, they will have what they need.
B. They will be free of the constant and nagging affliction of their flesh.
C. They will be satisfied.
D. But, for now, they merely hunger and thirst for this, waiting in hope.
3. This longing affliction should not surprise us.
A. The psalmist acknowledges it.
B. Jesus teaches it.
C. St. Paul lamented about it in Romans 7:19 when he said:
1. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that
I do.
D. For now, we are the afflicted.
B. But this blessing does presently apply to the saints in heaven.
1. It is true that they are now free of bodily and worldly afflictions, as
John shares in his revelation:
A. Revelation 7:16–17
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun
light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the
throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of
waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
B. Val is free of cancer.
C. Virginia no longer has to deal with congestive heart failure.
2. But the greatest affliction from which they have been “saved” is the
affliction of their sinning.
3. The old Adam has been drowned for the last time.
A. The flesh doesn’t lure them.
B. The demons cannot tempt them.
C. While they were here communing with us at this rail, they were free from
guilt by divine declaration, but now at the heavenly banquet, they are free
in fact.
1. The psalmist here describes this as “beautifying” them or “adorning”
them.
A. They have their robes washed in the blood of Christ (Revelation 7:14).
B. Remember that the prodigal son was received back by his father not with
mere feasting and joy but also with:
1. “the best robe,”
2. “a ring on his hand,”
3. and “shoes on his feet” (Luke 15:22).
2. Take courage, dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
3. Their present condition is our future hope.
III. The Lord makes the saints joyful in their glorious standing (verse 5a).
A. The saints of God are honored, glorified, by God in Jesus Christ.
1. Through faith, Christians are glorified or honored by God.
A. He speaks well of them in Christ.
B. God is pleased with them.
2. The reason a man or woman is called a saint, holy, is the cleansing
blood of Jesus Christ, not because of the good works they do.
3. In this status, God profoundly honors them:
A. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth
comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

B. God will reveal his glory in us.
C. He will honor us.
B. That is amazing enough, but God also calls upon us here to rejoice in
this reality.
1. He desires for us to be happy about our honored position.
A. Not embarrassed.
B. Not self-effacing by saying:
1. “Oh woe is me! I’m just a rotten old sinner.
C. Not sad because I keep sinning and should be able to figure this out.
IV. The Lord makes the saints to rest with singing (verse 5b).
A. “Their beds” are where they return after their day’s labor or a battle.
1. At present, we don’t always sing for joy on our beds, but rather weep,
as the psalmist says in Psalm 6:6–7:
A. I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I
drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief; it
grows weak because of all my foes.
2. But the saints in heaven do now rest from their labors, as John declares
in Revelation 14:13:
A. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the
dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit,
“that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”
B. The psalmist says that they shall “sing for joy.”
1. They rest from their labors, but they do not rest from their singing!
2. Our present songs are some mixture of joy and tears, but their tears
have been wiped away; only songs of joy remain.

Conclusion

A. “The Lord takes pleasure in his people,” the psalmist reminds us (Psalm
149:4).
1. Isn’t that remarkable!—that God has so washed us in the blood of Christ,
so renewed us in the Holy Spirit, that he is pleased with us sinners; in
fact, that we are able to do things that please him!
B. C. S. Lewis’s little essay called “The Weight of Glory” illustrates this
in a student’s joy in her teacher’s pleasure.
1. Lewis points out that childlike faith is not conceited but does take
great joy at being praised or complimented.
2. Sin easily contorts this joy into arrogance or contention, but the joy
itself is good!
3. On reflecting on his own childhood experiences with teachers praising
him, Lewis recalls one moment, which he says was very, very brief, when
just perhaps the delight he felt in pleasing his teacher wasn’t selfish but
was pure.
4. There can be something entirely good in the feeling we receive from
praise for pleasing someone whom we rightly fear and love (The Weight of
Glory [HarperOne: New York, 2001], 25–46).
C. That small moment Lewis experienced, fleeting though it was, might give
us a glimpse of the day when we finally stand before Christ and he declares
to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
1. After all, we can enter heaven only as a child, so we should not let
false humility rob us of God’s gift of being treated as children, of being
praised by our loving Father.
D. What an amazing thought!
1. That’s the praise we will receive on the Last Day!
2. And yet, already now, the Lord Jesus is no less pleased with us through
faith than he will be then or ever.
3. We are already saints, and this is the joy of being one of God’s saints!
E. We don’t know exactly which songs as God’s saints we will actually sing
in heaven.
1. But isn’t it wonderful to know that Christ, by his cross, has made us
holy so that we will be in that number! Amen.
F. Let us pray:
LSB 679 Oh, How Blest Are They (Stanza 5)
Come, O Christ, and loose the chains that bind us;
Lead us forth and cast this world behind us.
With You, the Anointed,
Finds the soul its joy and rest appointed.
Text: Public domain
G. The peace of God, which transcends all human understanding, guard your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
H. In the Name of the Father…Amen.