Zion Lutheran Sioux Falls

Our Bible Reading of the Day is Genesis 22:1-19. God had blessed Abraham with the son he had waited for his entire life; yet now God asks the seemingly impossible—sacrifice your son to Me. By faith, Abraham takes Isaac to the mountain, trusting God, who was able to raise his son from the dead. Abraham completes the test, and God provides the sacrifice. Christ is the ultimate sacrifice, substituting His perfect, sinless life for our sinful lives to save us from the just wrath of God for eternity. 

Our Bible Reading of the Day is Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7. The Lord and two angels
appear to Abraham in human form, promising the birth of a son to Abraham and Sarah within the year. Sarah conceives and gives birth to Isaac, as the Lord fulfills His promise of generations to come and the promised future Offspring—the Savior, Jesus. God was faithful to give Abraham and Sarah their promised son in Isaac. God is faithful to us in giving us His promised Son, Jesus Christ, the descendant of Abraham, who fulfilled God’s promise from of old to redeem His people.

The Reading of the Day is from Genesis 15:1-6; 17:1-21. God reassures Abram of His promise to bless the earth through Abram’s offspring. God changes his name from Abram (“exalted father”) to Abraham (“father of many nations”) and institutes circumcision as the sign of His continued covenant with Abraham. Despite Abraham and Sarah’s advanced age, God promises they will have a son of their own. God promised to send a Savior to crush Satan’s power over us. Jesus is the promised Offspring of Eve. He fulfilled this promise and defeated Satan by His work on the cross

Our Bible Reading of the Day is Genesis 1:26-2:25. God creates man in His own image with His own hands and breathes in him His own breath. Formed from the dust of the ground, Adam needs more than just animal companionship. So, our heavenly Father makes the perfect complement to man, creating woman from Adam’s rib, and places them in the garden. Christ, true God and true man, has come into the world to forgive us our sins and to begin to restore to us the image of God once again.

Welcome to Rally Sunday!  Today, we celebrate the start of the 2025-26 activity year here at Zion Lutheran Church. Each week we rally around the Word of God and Holy Communion. We listen together as the lessons are read. We listen together as sermons are preached, as songs are sung and anthems soar. We rally around the love that God has for each of us and the lengths to which He will go to seek us out, to save us, to make a place for us, to celebrate with us! Let’s Rally Together to be a presence of Christ in the world today!

Today, we begin a new fall series of answering the question every week of “Where is Jesus in the Old Testament?” Our first focus for today as we begin this series is the disciples on the Road to Emmaus when the risen Jesus reveals the scripture to them. Luke writes, Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. Where is Jesus? … He is in all the scriptures including all of the Old Testament. 

With the cross of Christ, the time has come “to gather all nations and tongues” (Isaiah 66:18). The sign of the cross is set forth in the preaching of the Gospel, the declaration of the Lord’s glory “among the nations” (Isaiah 66:19). Many “will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:29), but only by the narrow way of the cross. Those who refuse to follow Christ crucified will ultimately find only “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Luke 13:28), whereas Christ’s disciples, called from all the nations, will eat and drink with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. They will come into “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22).

Today we worship the God who gives us His Word. The Word is at times like a fire or a hammer, speaking law and condemnation; but it is also the Word that encourages us with the Gospel, creating our faith response to His grace.

To live for earthly things “is vanity and a striving after wind,” and work that is driven by such vanity “is an unhappy business” (Ecclesiastes 1:13–14). The man who lives like that has nothing to show for “all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun … all his days are full of sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 2:22–23). So, too, your “covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5), makes a god out of that which cannot give you life or happiness. For “one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). But “Christ who is your life” (Colossians 3:4), in giving you Himself, gives you all the wealth of heaven. Instead of striving to lay up treasures for yourself, be “rich toward God” in Him (Luke 12:21).

This week it’s all about listening … to God’s word … and to living it out in compassion, integrity, and mercy … which requires listening to others. This can be harder than it sounds with all the noise that bombards us each day. That’s why the discipline of worship is so important. It gives us the time and the space to learn the practice of listening well.  As we listen to God’s message and implement God’s saving reconciling word through simple acts of mercy, compassion and a commitment to truth and integrity, that we find ourselves living out the reality of God’s reign in our lives and our world. May your listening abilities be enhanced by your worship this week.

The text for our message is from the epistle reading, Colossians 1:  “We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 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.”