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Showing posts from October, 2025

Sermon - Trinity III, 2026 - Luke 15

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The Return of the Prodigal Son , Pompeo Batoni, 1773 The Joy of God to Save the Sinner In compassion God atones for sinful man Yet God desires children who love Him, not servants, so He gives us freedom to get lost God’s compassion brings back the sinner crushed by sin God, the angels, and the church rejoices over every sinner saved We have no need of jealousy, for the sinner saved only receives what we have already also received by grace When the father saw his prodigal son returning, seeing his pitiable state, he had compassion for his child. Such is the compassion of God to seek and save sinful mankind. “ As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. ” St. Paul writes: “ God our Savior, desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all. ” Indeed, Jesus...
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Sermon - Reformation Day 2025 - Matthew 11:12-19

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Luther Before the Diet of Worms , Anton von Werner, 1877 Be wise before this generation The Reformation is about the bravery to confess the Gospel before this violent generation The issue of the Reformation was Justification The issues today are our own, but we must wisely be brave to confess the Gospel before this violent generation A blessed feast of the Reformation to you, dear christians! Properly understood, this can be a phenomenal holiday, delightfully encouraging and immensely insightful for our modern era. To some Reformation Day is merely a celebration in German culture like a Luther Oktoberfest, which is fine, I love German stuff, my ancestry is mostly German, but that misses the point of this holiday. It’s fine to drink beer, wear lederhosen, and eat bratwurst and sauerkraut, in fact it’s good fun and I think it’d very pleasant if we did that kind of thing more. But Reformation Day is not just a German thing, rather it’s more broadly a Christian thing. The Reformation is ab...
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Sermon - Proper 22, Year C, 2025 - 2 Timothy 1:1-14

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St Paul Preaching at Athens , Raphael, 1515 Do Not Be Ashamed Intro: We commonly keep our faith private because we’re afraid of the world’s ridicule.  Of the Word of God Therefore, follow the pattern of sound words and guard the good deposit entrusted to you Nor of other christians “ I remind you to rekindle the gift of God… for God gave us a Spirit not of timidity [or cowardice] but of power and love and self-control. ” I notice a lot of timidity among Christians. We tend to treat our faith as something which is private, tucked away in our lives like a secret embarrassing hobby we’d rather others not know about. Perhaps we try not to let others know some of the details of our church, for example that our church doesn’t have women pastors or gay marriage, or that we believe all life is sacred even before birth, because we don’t want to be seen as haters, and we’d rather not face that kind of ridicule from the world. Sometimes we go so far as to even criticize fellow Christians for ...
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