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Showing posts from August, 2022

Sermon - Trinity XI 2022 - Luke 18:9-14

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The Pharisee and the Publican,  James Tissot, dated between 1886-1894 Christ died for sinners and the humble sinners are justified. Pride flows from faith in self. Christian humility flows from faith in Christ. What kind of people will be saved? This is a fairly important question, since we would all like to be saved. Some say that “good” or “nice” people will be saved. Some say that so long as you claim to be a Christian and pray sometimes you’ll be saved. Or it’s becoming pretty common to believe that everyone, or almost everyone, will be saved regardless of anything else, afterall many say we’re all going to the same place anyways. But how does God’s Word answer this question? St. Paul wrote quite plainly: “ Christ died for our sins. ” In other words, Jesus died for sinners, and therefore the kind of people who are saved are sinners. But this is kind of tricky: since all people are sinners, does that mean that all sinners will be saved? Not at all! Only those sinners who have fa...

Sermon - Trinity X 2022 - Luke 19:41-48

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Christ Driving the Money-Changers from the Temple,  Caravaggio, 1610 Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem? It’s kind of a strange look, especially given the context for His weeping. Just prior to this was the triumphal entry. Twice during the church year we hear the account of Jesus’ triumphal entry, once in Advent and once in Lent, both times are quite celebratory. Jesus rides in on a donkey with loud fanfare, people shouting out “ Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! ” People lay down their cloaks and branches to greet Jesus as their King! But then what’s the first thing Jesus does? He weeps. How bizarre. “ When He drew near and saw the city, He wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes…you did not know the time of your visitation.” ” So today we learn of Jesus’ visitation of peace . We will consider first, that (I.) Jesus wept over Jerusa...

Sermon - Trinity IX 2022 - Luke 16:1-13

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Parable of the Unjust Steward , Marinus van Reymerswaele, circa 1540 Jesus’ parables can be quite difficult to understand and accept, and today’s is no exception. On the cover it appears as if Jesus is praising a lousy wicked man. This manager gets fired because he’s wasting his boss's possessions. Then, he’s too lazy to do manual labor and he’s too prideful to beg, so instead he takes his boss’s records and pretends to still be employed so as to falsify the bills that people owe the master, so that the master loses more money but the debtors like the manager. This means that he will have gained a bunch of friends and built rapport with them, so that when they discover he’s getting fired they despise the master and love him. The master either gives him his job back since the debtors like this manager, or the manager still gets fired but now the debtors hate the master and will care for the manager since their debts were lowered. Either way the manager wins since he played the polit...

For Endurance, Encouragement, and Hope

“Change and decay in all around I see.” Those words are from a hymn beloved by many: Abide With Me. When we look around, those words ring true. Our small towns and counties are shrinking and aging. People are confused whether they’re men or women. Children are adopting animal personas. Inflation has been crazy and now we’re entering into a recession. Our Christian churches are rapidly closing or getting smaller every year. In many ways it’s easy to be depressed and pessimistic about the future.   I think it’s obvious enough to most anyone with their eyes open that things are becoming worse rather than better, and so what I’ve said comes as no surprise. The question then is: how ought we to respond to all of this change and decay? For some people the response is anger and bitterness, to complain about everything incessantly. For others  the response is to ignore all of the problems and pretend that they don’t exist. But for many the answer is simply depression, a gloomy me...

Sermon - Trinity VIII 2022 - Matthew 7:15-23

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The Broad and The Narrow Way , Gawin Kirkham, 1883 Todays’ Gospel lesson is quite sobering. It’s a commonly held belief today that everyone is going to heaven, regardless of what they believe, since God is so loving that He could never send anyone to hell. That belief is called universalism. Aside from that belief being patently wrong, it’s also a misunderstanding of love.  Love doesn’t tolerate evil. Love actually hates those things which threaten the beloved object. For example, I love my wife, if my wife got cancer, I would hate the cancer and want to destroy it. It would be a terrible thing to say that I’m tolerant of the cancer since the cancer is killing her. Likewise, God loves us and what is good and hates what is evil, because the evil destroys us and the good. If God was tolerant of evil, that would mean that He doesn’t love us nor love what is good. So if God was tolerant of evil and let evil into heaven, then heaven would be no different than the earth we presently live...

A Defense of Headcoverings

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A Defense of Headcoverings in the Lutheran Church by Rev. John Henry Koopman “ Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, ...