Sermons (Page 105)
Election anxiety or comfort?
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + + Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. These days it seems like we can hardly pick up a newspaper or newsmagazine, or…
Simul Good Wheat et Bad Weeds
What is it that makes Jesus’ parables so appealing to us? For one thing, of course, they’re the Word of God—spoken directly to human beings by the incarnate God—and recorded for us and all His Church by the power of the Holy Spirit. I think another thing that we like about them is that they’re rather accessible to us. Even without the explanations that Jesus often…
More Than Just a Power
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase, “Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.” Most of us, at one time or another, have probably been in a social situation where we felt like the odd person out. Maybe you were tagging along with a married couple or dating couple, and making…
A Free People
Fourth of July weekend. The celebration of Independence Day. The weekend when many of our fellow countrymen declare that they’ve had enough of the “oppression” of coming to hear God’s Word and receive the gifts of His Absolution and of His body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. They revolt from His kingdom by disappearing from our midst for several weeks. Some will…
Confessing and all with Saints Peter and Paul
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + + Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Probably since about the middle of the third century, June 29 has been celebrated as The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles. On this date, apparently both of their remains were moved for a time to a vault on the Appian Way, the…
Fools for the Lord
From the book of the prophet Jeremiah, the 20th chapter: O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me. (Jeremiah 20:7) There’s an old adage that goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” The supposed wisdom in that statement is…
A Compassionate Harvest
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our compassionate Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. In today’s Gospel lesson from St. Matthew’s account, we have heard a description of the kind of person Jesus is. We learn that our incarnate Lord is one who loves people. He enjoys being with them. He enjoys helping them. Matthew wrote about his master,…
What’s the Big Deal?
I’m sure that many of you have heard the presumably fictional anecdote about the three pastors who got together one day for coffee—or was it another Lutheran beverage? In their conversation, they found that all their churches had recently experienced bat infestation problems. “I got so mad,” said one, “I took a shotgun and fired at them. It made holes in the ceiling, but…
It’s Guaranteed
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the only truly Righteous One. Amen. If it’s one thing we learn from the Bible, and particularly from today’s Epistle lesson from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, it’s this: Mankind is not in control. We are in control of some things, of course. But we are certainly not in…
Teaching and Authority … or Authority and Teaching
Some of you may remember an ad campaign several years ago for a particular investment firm. The premise was that the advice given by this firm was so valuable, whenever one of their customers was about to repeat it to a friend or colleague, everyone within earshot would fall completely silent, so…
