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The following reading from the CONCORDIA edition of the Book of Concord is for the Epistle, Philippians 1:2-10 for the Advent 2, series C, December 9, 2012. It is from Solid Declaration, Article II, page 523. God works in the heart of His people to desire to do God's will. And because they feel inadequate they are encouraged ask God for necessary guidance and strength. Click here for the reading formatted for the back of a standard CPH bulletin. Pastor Doug May
What God's Son says remains eternally true, "For apart from Me you can do nothing" [John 15:5]. Paul says, "For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" [Philippians 2:13]. To all godly Christians who feel and experience in their hearts a small spark or longing for divine grace and eternal salvation this precious passage is very comforting. For they know that God has kindled in their hearts this beginning of true godliness. He will further strengthen and help them in their great weakness to persevere in true faith unto the end. The saints prayed that they might be taught, enlightened, and sanctified by God. Thus they declare that they cannot get those things that they ask of God from their own natural powers. In Psalm 119, David prays more than ten times that God would give him understanding, that he might rightly comprehend and learn the divine teaching. Similar prayers are in Paul's writings (Eph. 1:17; Col. 1:9; Phil. 1:9). These prayers and passages about our ignorance and inability have been written for us. They are not written to make us idle and remiss in reading, hearing, and meditating on God's Word, but that we should first thank God that by His Son He has delivered us from the darkness of ignorance and the captivity of sin and death. Through Baptism and the Holy Spirit He has regenerated and illumined us. (paragraphs 14-15)
These are excerpts from the Book of Concord.
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