Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning.

Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.

… through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Opening Illustration

Life’s Progress

Ages 1–21

Doing what somebody tells you to.

Ages 21–65

Doing what you have to.

Ages 65 on

Doing what you want to.

When God Sets You Apart

Redeeming the Time

Waiting vs Preparing

Are you sensitive to the Spirit or just touchy?

I’m Waiting for My “Now.”

Simeon was “righteous and devout, waiting...”

Not waiting for death, he was watching for life.

The descendants of the well-respected patriarchs, and the patriarchs themselves, called to mind constantly how in the beginning a person had been created righteous and holy by God.

They know that through the fraud of the Serpent, Adam transgressed God’s command, became a sinner, and corrupted and cast himself with all his descendants into death and eternal condemnation.

They encouraged and comforted themselves again by the preaching about the woman’s seed, who would bruise the Serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15); Abraham’s seed, in whom “all the nations of the earth [will] be blessed” (Genesis 22:18); David’s Son, who should “bring back the preserved of Israel” and be “a light for the nations” (Isaiah 49:6; see also Psalm 110:1; Luke 2:32), and who “was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities … and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

Message for the Mothers

Don’t let your age sideline you

You still have a voice; use it with grace and love by speaking of Him

We will now return to the Gospel, which does not give us counsel and aid against sin in only one way.

God is superabundantly generous in His grace: First, through the spoken Word, by which the forgiveness of sins is preached in the whole world [Luke 24:45–47].

This is the particular office of the Gospel.

Second, through Baptism.

Third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar.

Fourth, through the Power of the Keys.

Also through the mutual conversation and consolation of brethren, “Where two or three are gathered” (Matthew 18:20) and other such verses [especially Romans 1:12].

· Church mothers can be a blessing when they are filled with God’s Good News.

When they are focused only on “the Law in all of its severity,” without remembrance of the Gospel or of their own sinfulness, they can be a curse.

Pray for our church mothers, and they will be a blessing in your lives.

It wasn’t for Him; It was for Me

Jesus was obedient to every Covenant requirement

He didn’t need to do any of it

I needed Him to do all of it

I still do

You Better Recognize

God puts you on the stage

Your shine comes from His glory

Let Him Shine

When others try to focus on your “what,” you refocus them on your “Why.”

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