Read Together in unison Psalm 100 (NKJV) A Psalm of Thanksgiving.

1 Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! 2 Serve the LORD with gladness; come before His presence with singing. 3 Know that the LORD, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. 4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. 5 For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.

Bible Study

1. See v. 1-2. What does this psalm call upon us to do? To whom does this call extend? How do we do this?

2. See v. 3. What are we to know? Who is the LORD? What does it mean when our Bibles capitalize the word LORD (YHWH in Hebrew)? Read Deuteronomy 6:4 – How many Gods is the LORD? Read Matthew 28:19 – How many Persons are in the Godhead? Read 1 John 5:7 (KJV or NKJV) – What does this verse say about the Triune (three-one) God? Read Isaiah 48:16-17 – Who is speaking? Who sent Him and speaks by Him?

3. Cf. Isaiah 44:24; Nehemiah 9:6; Genesis 1 & 2, John 1:1-5; Hebrews 1:1-3. What do these verses teach us about who made us and to whom we belong?

4. Read Psalm 139:13-16. How did God create each of us?

5. How else are we like sheep? Read Isaiah 53:6a. What has God done to bring us back into His fold? Read Isaiah 53:6b; John 3:16; 10:11; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 2:22-25. Read Isaiah 44:22. For whose sake has the LORD blotted out our sins? Cf. 1 John 2:1-2.

6. If the LORD God made us and redeemed us by sending the Son into the world to die in our stead as a sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the entire world, are we our own or do we rightly belong to Him?

7. What does the Apostle Paul say is a fitting response for us when we come to know and trust in God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ? Read Romans 12:1-2. How do we do this?

8. Read v. 4. What are we entreated to do in this verse? What does this mean and how do we do this?

9. Why do we do this? Read v. 5. How is the LORD good to us? Does His mercy ever run out? Why? Read Psalm 108:4; John 1:14; 14:6. What is His truth and how does it endure to all generations? Does it remain true even yet today for us, our children, our grandchildren?

10. What important truths have you learned from this study? Write a brief summary and, going around the table or room, share it with others.

From Wikipedia
“Old 100th” or “Old Hundredth” (also commonly called “Old Hundred”) is a hymn tune in Long Metre from Pseaumes Octante Trois de David (1551) (the second edition of the Genevan Psalter) and is one of the best known melodies in all Christian musical traditions. The tune is usually attributed to the French composer Louis Bourgeois (c. 1510 – c.1560).

Although the tune was first associated with Psalm 134 in the Genevan Psalter, the melody receives its current name from an association with the 100th Psalm, in a translation by William Kethe entitled “All People that on Earth do Dwell.” The melody is commonly sung with diverse other lyrics as well.

All People That on Earth Do Dwell

All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.

Know that the Lord is God indeed;
Without our aid He did us make.
We are His folk, He doth us feed,
And for His sheep He doth us take.

Oh, enter then His gates with praise;
Approach with joy His courts unto;
Praise, laud, and bless His name always,
For it is seemly so to do.

For why? The Lord our God is good:
His mercy is forever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood
And shall from age to age endure.

To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
The God whom heaven and earth adore,
From us and from the angel host
Be praise and glory evermore.

Hymn # 791
Lutheran Service Book
Tune Author: Louis Bourgeois
Tune: Old Hundredth
First Published: 1561
Text Author: William Kethe (died about 1593)

We give you thanks and praise, O LORD God, for creating us and giving us life, for redeeming us through the holy life and innocent sufferings and death of Your Son Jesus Christ, and for bringing us to faith in our crucified and risen Savior through Your Word and Sacraments. Graciously keep us in the true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.

Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Matthew 4:10

Who do you worship and serve? We may profess to worship and serve the LORD God who made and redeemed us, but a simple test of how we use our time and talents may reveal otherwise.

If we are so busy with the things of this world that we have no time for God and His Word, no time for daily devotions and prayer, no time to join our fellow believers for Bible study and worship, then maybe the world and the things in this world (money, goods, house, business, success, etc.) have taken the place the LORD God should hold in our lives.

The Bible tells us: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:15-17).

When Jesus was tempted of the devil in the wilderness, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory and offered them to Jesus if He would only fall down and worship Satan (Matt. 4:8-9). What a temptation! Jesus had come into this world to set up and establish a kingdom, and now He was being offered all the kingdoms of the world!

Yet, Jesus did not come to establish or reign over an earthly kingdom. Rather, He came to establish a heavenly kingdom. He “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Gal. 1:4). He suffered and died on the cross, bearing the punishment for our sins, that God might pardon and forgive us and grant us a place with Him in heaven.

Keeping in mind that He had come into this world to do the will of His heavenly Father and die for the sins of all mankind and that it would be wrong to worship or serve any other beside the LORD God, Jesus responded: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” What an example for those of us who trust in Him as Savior!

Dear Lord Jesus, through the study of the Scriptures, give us a knowledge of You and Your will and grant that we love and serve You alone and not give in to the many temptations of the devil, the world and our flesh. We ask this for the sake of Your holy life and innocent sufferings and death on the cross to redeem us. Amen.

[Scripture is taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.]

“For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.” Romans 7:15

Some would have us believe that, when we become Christians, all our struggles in life go away. But, actually, the opposite is true. When the Holy Spirit washes away our sins and regenerates us through the preaching of the Gospel and by means of Holy Baptism – bringing us to trust in Christ Jesus and His atoning sacrifice on the cross for our salvation – the struggle begins.

When the Holy Spirit brings us to faith in Christ, He also takes up residence in our hearts and continues the sanctifying work which He has begun in us. He regenerates us and creates in us new natures which trust in God and His promises and love God and seek and desire to be pleasing to God and do His will. This new nature trusts in Christ’s death and resurrection for salvation and, as a fruit of that faith, seeks to do all that God commands and teaches in His Word.

The problem is that we still also have our old sinful natures inherited from Adam which do not trust in God and His promises and seek, rather, to gratify our old sinful longings and desires. And so, though we according to the new man – the new natures created in us by the Holy Spirit of God – will and seek to do what God commands, the old sinful nature in each of us would rather do its own thing and wills and does what it pleases to gratify its sin-corrupted self.

The result is that what we will to do we do not practice; and what we hate and do not wish to do, that we do. And how frustrating this is for us as Christians! We trust in Christ alone for pardon and forgiveness and, as a fruit of faith, we seek to be pleasing to Him in all things. Yet, we fail again and again. We don’t do the things we know we should be doing, and we do the things we hate.

With the apostle, we say: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).

In fact, that is why we begin our worship services each Sunday acknowledging and confessing our utter sinfulness and our inability to free ourselves from our sinful condition, and it is why we ask God, Sunday after Sunday (actually, each day), to deal with us in mercy for the sake of Christ Jesus and His innocent sufferings and death for us upon the cross.

And the Apostle Paul also tells us the solution to this wretchedness: “I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25); and, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). He explains that when we walk according to the Spirit, we are not condemned because, through faith in Christ, we have the pardon and forgiveness Christ won for us on the cross and we are clothed with His perfect righteous and holy life.

Some might assume that walking by the Spirit is our own endeavor to live a righteous and holy life, but walking by the Spirit is walking in the truth which God’s Spirit reveals to us through God’s Word. Walking by the Spirit is acknowledging and confessing the sins the Spirit reveals to us through the preaching of God’s Law, and it is taking comfort in the Gospel message of mercy and forgiveness for the sake of Christ’s holy life for us and His innocent sufferings and death for the sins of the world. Cf. 1 John 1:5 – 2:2.

Tomorrow, as we come to worship and to receive the body and blood of Christ Jesus which was given and shed for us on the cross, we confess our wretchedness – that we have sinned against the Lord God in our thoughts, desires, words and deeds and that we are truly deserving of God’s wrath and punishments, both temporal and eternal.

But we flee to the cross of Jesus for mercy. Through the preaching of the Gospel and through God’s word of absolution, we take comfort in the fact that “Jesus Christ the righteous … is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:1,2). We have a certain hope of God’s forgiveness and of a place in God’s everlasting kingdom because Jesus gave His body into death for us and shed His holy and precious blood on the cross to establish a new covenant in which our sins are forgiven and we are accepted as God’s people. We are comforted with pardon and peace as we partake of Christ’s sacrifice in this covenant meal!

And, for Christ’s sake, we have the assurance that when we awake on the last day, it will be without sin to serve our God forever and ever in righteousness and holiness. We confess with David: “As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness” (Psalm 17:15).

“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Amen.

[Scripture is taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.]

Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken. Luke 18:31-34

If Jesus had not died for our sins and rose again, you and I could not be saved. It is as the Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth (1 Cor. 15:17-19): “If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”

Though Jesus told His disciples this, they did not understand. In fact, even after Jesus had died on the cross and risen again, they failed to understand; so, “He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem…’” (Luke 24:44-47).

And many remain blind to this truth today, as well. They imagine that the cross was unnecessary and think that they can merit their own salvation by following the examples left for us by Jesus. For them, it really doesn’t matter if Jesus died on the cross and rose again bodily on the third day – His death was only an unfortunate end of Jesus’ life. They believe Christ lives on if we carry His love and concern for the poor and downtrodden into our age by following His example of meeting the physical needs of the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the blind.

Though Christ had perfect love for His neighbor and indeed met the physical needs of those who came to Him, that’s not the most important reason for His coming. He came into this world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15); and, to save sinners, it was necessary for Him to be mocked, scourged, beaten, crucified and buried, and then to rise again from the dead on the third day. This is what the prophets had said He would do, and this is what was necessary to redeem us from our sin and the death we so deserve.

And this is what the Scriptures promised. He was the Seed of the woman who crushed the head of the serpent but was bruised in His heel (Gen. 3:15). He is the promised Son of David who would redeem Israel from all his iniquities (Ps. 130:7-8). He is the Lord God Himself in human flesh and blood that He might take our place under the law and fulfill it perfectly for us and then suffer and die upon the cross to bear our iniquities (Isa. 53; Ps. 22).

“His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men” (Isa. 52:14). “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:5-6). Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). “When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities” (Isa. 53:10-11).

It was necessary for the promised Messiah, the Christ, to suffer and die for the sins of the world and to rise again on the third day; and it is necessary that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations,” that we might place our faith in Him and be saved!

We thank You, O Christ, for going to the cross, bearing our sins, and redeeming us to God. Amen.

[Scripture is taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.]

A Series of Devotions by Pastor Randy Moll

Colossians 1:1-8
“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.” Colossians 1:1-8

Though the Apostle Paul may never have visited the church in Colosse, when he heard of the believers’ faith in Christ Jesus and the resulting love they had for their fellow believers, he, together with Timothy, gave thanks to God for giving them the confident hope of eternal life in heaven through Messiah Jesus.

The good news of God’s pardon and forgiveness and the promise of everlasting life in heaven because God the Son became true man and redeemed mankind reached the ears of the Colossians through Epaphras (and perhaps others, too) and faith in Jesus was kindled in their hearts through the hearing of the Gospel.

As the good news of God’s gracious gift of forgiveness of sins and eternal life in heaven for Jesus’ sake was used to generate faith in the hearts of the believers at Colosse nearly 2,000 years ago, so this same message generates faith in human hearts today. The same Gospel, that Word of truth, tells us of the certain hope laid up for us in heaven, not because of anything we have done or can do, but because God’s own dear Son, Jesus Christ, came into this world and suffered and died for the sins of all people and rose again in victory. God’s Word tells us that His gift to us for Jesus’ sake is life everlasting in the mansions of heaven.

Such a gracious gift of God – the forgiveness of all our sins because of His own Son’s holy life and innocent sufferings and death in our stead and the assurance that we have a place in His eternal, heavenly kingdom – will also move us to selfless love for other believers and fellow heirs of eternal life in heaven, but this love is the result of God’s loving gift of salvation to us, not the cause of it.

What a comfort to know that, though we have sinned and come short of the holy demands of God’s good law, Jesus fulfilled it for us and then took our sins upon Himself, paying the just penalty upon the cross that we might have forgiveness and life everlasting! And this hope which we have is not an uncertain hope, but simply a waiting for of the things assured to us by the promises of God.

God has offered and promised to us a place in heaven through faith in His Son. That place has been made certain to us by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We await that day in confidence and assurance that heaven is ours for Jesus’ sake.

When we face the end of our lives here in this world, we need not doubt and wonder if we will make it into heaven. Heaven is guaranteed to us because Jesus shed His blood for us and paid in full for all our sins. If our salvation depended upon us or anything we did, we could have no certainty and no hope; but because it depends upon Jesus and His atoning sacrifice for us, we have every assurance and hope of everlasting life in the mansions of our heavenly Father’s house!

Paul wrote this letter, while he himself was a prisoner, because there were those who were seeking to rob these believers of the assurance and hope they had in Jesus by placing other demands upon them – suggesting such things as the worshiping of angels, eating of certain foods or observing certain days. Today, too, there are many false teachers who would suggest and say that, to be true Christians, people must exercise certain gifts, eat certain foods or observe certain days.

The apostle’s message, the true Gospel, is that we are complete in Jesus – our salvation and everlasting life are certain in Him – there is nothing we need add to His redemptive work!

Dear Father in heaven, thank You for graciously bringing to us the word of truth, the saving gospel of forgiveness of sins and life everlasting for the sake of Your Son, Christ Jesus. By Your Spirit, move us to believe and take heart and be assured that, for Jesus’ sake, our sins are forgiven and, for Jesus’ sake, we have life everlasting with You in heaven. Amen.

[Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.]