Pentecost
The Spirit will continue to work in your hearts every week, in a place like this, through these same means of grace. He will hear your confession, and will pronounce to you through the servant He has provided, the absolution—the pronouncement that Christ’s blood and merit have covered your sins, you are fully and freely forgiven. Your own question of “What shall we do?” is to be answered in the same way as for the people in our text: return to your Baptism in repentance and in faith, where God’s grace is to be found in the blood of Christ. It isn’t what you do for yourself; it’s what’s been done for you. God be praised! Amen.
Exaudi
The students hear daily about what we refer to as Jesus’ active and passive obedience. He obeyed actively, by doing everything that’s required under the Law. You and I have failed at it because we have a nature that opposes God; but Jesus has done it perfectly, and done it perfectly in our place. And Jesus has obeyed passively by allowing Himself to be crucified as the payment for all peoples’ sins. So His perfection is considered by God to be your perfection. His payment has been accepted as the payment for your guilt. His punishment is accepted as the punishment you deserved. And what has happened to the sins that separated you from God, that dictated that you must be punished? They have been forgiven entirely. Jesus was punished for them in your place.
Sixth Sunday in Easter
Do you know you’re guilty before God? Do you regret what you’ve been? Jesus is inviting you in our text to receive the grace that God is offering. In Christ’s Name, go before God with all of your concerns related to this world and the next. His very strong encouraging of it indicates His very strong interest in helping you. What He’s offering is really there for you.
Fifth Sunday in Easter
Christ’s unwavering faithfulness in the face of the worst suffering stands as your record before God because yours of faithlessness and disobedience and denial stood as His record, and as the crimes for which He was punished. You are entirely forgiven and stand under God’s grace. So, it isn’t even about the strength of your resolve; it’s His on your behalf.
Third Sunday in Easter
The fact is, your listening and your following have fallen short. But those words are spoken by the One without any sins. They’re spoken by the One whose life never had any sinful doubts in it like yours has; so His sacrifice made payment for yours. He has put Himself in your place. God has forgiven your doubts and your other sins because Jesus has put Himself in your place. Before God it looks like you’ve never committed them; He looked at Jesus as if He had, and punished Him for them.
Second Sunday in Easter
You have peace with God in Christ. Your sins are forgiven in Him. There is no need for you to be troubled. This One Who has never doubted or sinned in any other way has been put in your place, and you in His.
Resurrection Day
You can have joy on this Easter morning because you have someone who did what needed to be done in order to be your savior. You have someone Whom death could not hold. You have the One Who really is the fulfillment of what the Old Testament sacrificial lambs foreshadowed. His blood really has paid for your sins. You have One Who really removes your guilt that otherwise required you to be punished eternally in hell. The Father forsook Him, and punished Him instead. Then the Father raised Him from the dead. Christ’s death and resurrection are the works of the Lord that have removed death as an issue.
Sixth Sunday in Lent-Palm Sunday
Dear friends, shout with the Palm Sunday shouters: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Shout it because you know who this King is, that He is the one sent from heaven to make you righteous. He is the one so humble as to die for you on a cross. He is the one so merciful as to hear your heartfelt confession and respond with forgiveness.
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Put it entirely in His hands, dear sinner! God’s eternal Son has done for you what you couldn’t do for yourself. He’s the only one qualified for the job. He doesn’t have a sinful nature. There isn’t any self-righteousness in Him like there is in you and me. God has provided Him as the solution to your sinfulness that would have condemned you to death and hell. There isn’t anything for you to worry about, if He is the one in charge of your salvation.
Fourth Sunday in Lent--St. Joseph, Guardian of our Lord
You know the essence of God’s grace toward you, that Jesus, who desired at all times only what the Father willed, has made payment for your desires that were beyond that, and for every other sin. Behind the facade of your unglamorous life God accomplishes great things. His love is in you, that goes out to others. He hears your prayers.