Sermons by “Rev. John R. Larson”
The God Whose Name is Grace
Did you deserve forgiveness? Did you deserve that God would give you peace? Did you deserve heaven instead of hell? No. You didn’t work for it. You haven’t earned it. It was just given to you. Just like me receiving the gift of someone else’s work and enjoying a time in the mountains, so we receive what we don’t deserve at someone else’s expense.
View SermonThe God Who Opens Hearts
“You have forsaken your first love.” Who was that? Did they become unloving in their marriages? Did they start out with such good and pure hearts and then become stagnant, unloving, unfaithful to their spouse? Or was the call for them to return to a living, vibrant faith in Jesus? Sometimes we are “on-fire” in the faith and then the faith gets doused. Had they become apathetic in trusting Him or following Him? Did they fall into the trap of a boring faith and a failing love?
View SermonThe God Who Planned All Things
Why are you saved from your sin and hell and the devil? Because of you? Because you have measured up and done what is right? No. You and I are saved only by God’s doing. We are saved by grace. We are saved because God, without our doing, chose us, elected us. He saved us in Jesus alone.
View SermonWhat Defines You?
Baptism defines who you are. I’m His. I’m washed. I’m righteous. I’m saved. When you have that good discussion of what Baptism is, stand strong in every superlative about Baptism. You can speak that way because God speaks that way.
But not only does Baptism define who you are, Baptism defines how you are. When Jesus was baptized the word for “The heavens were torn open” when the Spirit came down as a dove, is actually quite a violent term. Baptism, God’s act of grace, is also God’s action of power. All of you who are baptized are called to be different than before you were baptized. God is the one who comes to disrupt, disturb and change life through Baptism.
View SermonA New Year’s Prayer
Wisdom begins with humility. “I am only a child and do not know how to carry out my duties.” When Solomon knows that the task was too much for him he looked to God. He wanted a discerning heart, one that could choose between right and wrong, good and evil. He wanted God’s wisdom.
View SermonGood Riddance
We are ready to start 2021. Is there anything you need to get rid of as we leave this year and enter a new one? Are you looking forward to leaving behind some sin or some bad way of living? Are you looking for something better or being someone better? Start this New Year with repentance, the guarantee of a new start, and the power of God’s promise and His Holy Spirit.
View SermonWe Have Seen His Glory
Today God invites us to truly see Jesus. John saw Him. He writes in our text, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John doesn’t say, “We glanced” or “We glimpsed.” John doesn’t stand in the back of the room or listen to someone else describe Jesus. No, John focuses and fixes his own eyes and John says that he got to see Jesus. He got to see the glory of Jesus.
View SermonThe Word Dwelt Among Us
A couple of weeks ago when we were recording one of our services, Mike Zehnder, was coming from the balcony, and he was visibly shaken. There were tears in his eyes. He had just sung, “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful” and he said that he had a hard time singing the last stanza, “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing”, which says that God became man. When he thought of that great humiliation of Jesus becoming fully human, all for us and for our salvation, it was just too much to take in. “The Word became flesh!!” That’s what Christmas tells us. The fully divine became fully human. In the Nicene Creed we speak this, “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man…”
View SermonComplicated and Confusing
Complicated and confusing. Sometimes preaching can be described as that. A while ago one honest listener following one of my sermons said, “I couldn’t follow you today”. So, let me give you a heads up on what I’m going to say today. I’ve selected three phrases of the word the angel said to the shepherds for my main points. They are:
Fear Not
Unto You
A Savior, Who is Christ the Lord
“Truly Impossible”
God has no limitations. None. The Bible is filled with God doing the impossible. He does miracles – things that we can’t explain, or duplicate. Jesus walks on water. You ever try that? The creation of the world is described as a work that the one who does the impossible alone can do, “By faith we understand that that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” (Hebrews 11:3)
View Sermon