Sermon Archive

Belonging To Another

  In the spiritual sense your life and your soul are in a battle between God and Satan.  Satan would love to destroy, hurt and maim you.  He desires everything that is awful and terrible in your life.  Joy?  No, he’ll take it away.  Peace?  No, everything becomes chaos.  Freedom?  No, you’ll be controlled by your very weaknesses.  But you have one who desires your good.  Your Shepherd.  Jesus.  In John 10 the battle is spoken of like this, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.” (Verse 10)  It says that this Shepherd “lays down his life for the sheep.”

View Sermon

Uncertainty

In this time when nothing seems certain there is something certain.  Jesus still makes our heart alive by His Word.  Read it.  Treasure it.  Let it sit in your belly and guide your feet.  And it is certain that whenever we will eat the Supper of the Lord again our eyes will be opened and we will see Jesus.

View Sermon

The Bummer Lamb

That is what Jesus does.  To all Bummer Lambs He comes and seeks and finds.  Some folks have been beat up by life; it has not treated them well.  Some have chosen to run from the Shepherd; to live in unbelief or rebellion and sin.  But the account of the resurrection of Jesus tells us that the resurrected Christ looks for the bummer lambs.  He seeks us.  He looks for us.  He wants us to know peace.

View Sermon

Where, O Death Is Your Victory?

This is Easter and there was no victory for the devil and death on Easter.  Jesus rose.  He was the victor.  He won.  The pale horse of death was sent on its way.

View Sermon

The Fulfilled Word

We are caught in the paradoxical tension of the now and the now yet, of being sinners in ourselves and yet fully perfected saints in Christ. Simul justus et peccator goes the familiar Lutheran formula. There is a tension, and also a daily repentance. A daily dying to the old self in Adam, and a daily rising to new self in Christ.

 

“It is finished.” Jesus says it over you in the death of your Baptism, where you died to sin to arise to life in Jesus. “It is finished.” He says it to you again, the words of absolution that recall you to that Baptism and cover you anew. “It is finished.” He says it to you with His body and blood, confirming once again His completed work of your salvation.

View Sermon

The Remembering Word

In washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus gives them a pattern for service—“that you also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13:15). This is what it means to live under Him in His kingdom and to serve Him. This King bows before His subjects and washes their feet. So also you with your fellow servants. “A servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (John 13:16). What would Jesus do? He would wash feet.

View Sermon

The Long Road

But we’re not on this long road alone!!  Jesus, the Lord, walks with us.  Philippians 2, one of the earliest creeds of the church, speaks about Jesus living in humility, sacrifice and exaltation.  We’re on this long road and we need this Lord to walk with us. 

            Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross!  Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  (Philippians 2:5-11)   

View Sermon

The Suffering Word

He drinks the bitter cup so that we might drink of His sweet, new wine. “Take, drink, this is My blood of the covenant.” He gives His sacred blood for wine, a foretaste of that great feast to come when wine will flow in unending joy in the marriage supper of the Lamb in His kingdom that has no end. He drinks of the stinging cup of our human woe, of our suffering and misery, so that we might be refreshed and renewed by His cup.

View Sermon

God’s Answers to Life’s Questions

This week, through various orders in our county and state, it was determined that we will not be open for Holy Week nor Easter.  Can you imagine that?  Easter is postponed!!  Mike Zehnder came up with quite a word to me a few days ago.  He said, “Lent is being forced upon the whole world, whether they want it or not.”  He’s right.  Lent, the time for quietness, repentance, change, reflection, thinking of things that truly matter, is being forced upon us.  We aren’t to go anywhere, we are to shelter in place.  This is the time for all to open their life to God.

View Sermon

The Dying Word

Isn’t that how it is with the life of faith? God seems so distant at times, especially those times of darkness and woe, those dark nights and days, and yet He stands ever near to embrace us in those strong, loving, fatherly arms. Jesus trusted His Father, and He did it on behalf of all of us. His trust is complete and unwavering. Though He dies, yet He trusts. Though He suffers, yet He trusts. Though the Father is silent and hidden, yet He trusts.

View Sermon