November 23/24/25, 2013 Christ the King Sunday
Sermon by Pastor Paul Eckert
Sermon text - Colossians 1:9-20

    In our Gospel reading at the lectern before we heard about a scene
that appeared to be far from joyful.  Nor could the people be thankful
as they stood around the cross looking at Jesus.  And what about
Jesus?  He was in agony on that cross, agony beyond what we can
understand because He was loaded down with each and every one of
our sins and the world’s sins.  Joyful thanksgiving on Calvary?  It
would not seem so at all.
    How about us?  Will this coming Thursday be a joyful
Thanksgiving Day?  None of us will have the physical agony of being
on a cross.  But might we have some other problems, like some family
members missing from our Thanksgiving Day table whom we would
like to see with us, like heartaches we are dealing with, like financial
difficulties, like physical and health problems limiting us so that we
can’t do what we want to do?
    But even if we had all such situations and many more, the fact is
that we can - not only this coming Thursday - have joyful
thanksgiving.  Why?  First of all, because even such situations are
under the purpose and control of our heavenly Father.  But above all,
even if now we don’t understand the how or why in our lives, we still
can and should have joyful thanksgiving because of God’s Son who
didn’t look like a king on the cross, but who truly is Christ the King
who has a kingdom which He called Paradise. 
CHRIST THE KING AND JOYFUL THANKSGIVING
I    MARVEL AT WHO HE IS.  (15-20)
    1. Appearances can be deceiving.
        a) Could that possibly be a king one thief saw up on that cross?
        b) Listen to the description the Prophet Isaiah by inspiration gave
about Jesus many years before the crucifixion.  “He had no beauty or
majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we
should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men, a man
of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men
hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
    2. But listen to this description of Jesus in our text.  (15-17)
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all
creation.  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and
on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers
or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is
before all things, and in him all things hold together. 
        a) That helpless appearing person on the cross was God’s eternal
Son!  He was before the beginning with the Father and the Spirit.  He
was involved in the creation of our world.
        b) Listen to what Scripture says about Him also in the opening
words of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in
the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him
nothing was made that has been made.”  This is the Word, Jesus,
who at the fullness of time was made flesh in Bethlehem.
    3. Look at His total supremacy.  (18)
And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning
and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he
might have the supremacy. 
        a)  Death stops everybody else.  But not Jesus.  He did not stay
dead in the tomb.  He arose from the dead!  He has supremacy.
        b) And He, no church official or other human being, is supreme
as the Head of the holy Christian church, all true believers.  And why?
    4. Look at what He did.   (19-20)
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and
through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on
earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood,
shed on the cross.
        a) Sin separated us from God and all of God’s eternal blessings.
        b) Jesus, God’s eternal Son, removed that curse of sin by
substituting for each and every one of us and with His innocence
atoning for us the guilty, reconciling us to God, making peace through
His blood shed on the cross.
        c) Yes, God’s eternal Son crucified for us, Christ the King, has
given us every reason for joyful thanksgiving.
II    BE FILLED WITH AND LIVE HIS WILL. (9-11a)
    1. We have His revealed will.  (9)
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not
stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the
knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and
understanding. 
        a) For this reason - We have been reconciled to God; we have
the knowledge of His will.  Many, if not most of us, have been blessed
to learn it from little on in our homes, to be filled with the knowledge
 of God’s will in our school, in our church services.  And nobody,
except maybe ourselves,  is keeping us from opening our Bibles at
home to continue being filled there with the knowledge of God’s will.
        b) Yes, let’s be joyfully thankful for having God’s revealed will.
    2. Our lives should make that evident.  (10a)
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the
Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every
good work.
        a) Look at everything God has done for us, promising us finally
Paradise.  Surely we want to honor Him for that, have His approval.
.          b) But are we doing that by being misbehaving children of God?
Do we do that by despising His Word?  Is it by lives that have time for
everything, especially sitting in front of a television set, but not time for
regularly sitting in church to worship and hear from God?  Do we
consciously strive to live our Christian faith, to bear fruit in every good
work, to thank and please our King with lives following His will?
    3. We need to keep on growing in the Word.  (10b)
- bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of
God, - 
        a) After Sunday school, St. Jacobi grade school, confirmation
instructions and a confirmation ceremony, do we - or some of our
family members - stop growing in the knowledge of God?  Do we
gradually stop going to church?  Do we neglect the Lord’s Supper
which assures us that Jesus’ death is our forgiveness and life?  Do we
spend hours with texting and with earbuds for music and textbooks to
gain earthly knowledge for our jobs, but let our Bibles gather dust?
        b) Sad to say, that probably describes many.  We all are sinners. 
    4. Go to God’s knowledge to be strengthened.  (11a)
- being strengthened with all power according to his glorious
might so that you may have great endurance and patience, -
        a) Nobody says being a Christian will always be easy.
        b) But strength for endurance and patience for living a Christian
life will come from God and His Spirit’s working through the Word.
        c) So be filled with and live God’s will as we wait for Heaven.   
III  JOYFULLY GIVE THANKS FOR HIS KINGDOM. (11b-14)
    1. God’s kingdom is our inheritance.  (11b-12)
- joyfully  giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to
share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.     
        a) This inheritance of the saints, the Paradise Jesus referred to
from the cross, is not yet ours.  We aren’t there yet.
        b) But we are in God’s will, written with Jesus’ blood, that
promises us that whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.
    2. God qualified us for this.  (11b-12)
- joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to
share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
         a) We sinners could never qualify ourselves.
        b) God did the qualifying, did everything necessary, including
giving us His Holy Spirit, so that our names could be written in the
book of life.
     3. He did that to rescue us.  (13)
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought
us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, -
        a) See the climax of  the rescue effort with Jesus’ innocent death
on the cross, a death that God used to cancel out the sins against us.
        b) That rescue from hell’s dominion, guaranteed by Jesus’
resurrection from the dead, promises us the kingdom of Christ our
King. 
    4. Give thanks for what this means. (13-14)
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought
us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have
redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
        a) Now we have redemption, the forgiveness of all of our sins.   
        b) Then, at the end of our journey time here on earth, we will
receive the inheritance God has promised.
        c) For that we surely want to bring our joyful thanksgiving.

    May this Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day be a good one for all of us.
But a far more important day is coming.  It is the end of our lives and
the end of this world.  What then?  Not what we deserve, but what
Jesus our Savior deserved for us with His life, death, and resurrection.  
    Knowing that, believing that, let every day be a joyful
thanksgiving day because of Christ our King who has promised us,
“You will be with me in Paradise.”