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Showing posts from October, 2025

Sermon - Calov Conference Sermon 2026 - Psalm 91

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Isenheim Altarpiece, Matthias Grunewald, 1512 Trust in the Lord and Look upon the Savior God delivers us through the blood of Jesus Christ He ordains the angels to lift us up He intentionally directs us to walk in danger for the sake of our faith After Absalom killed Amnon he fled. Joab directed a theatrical scene between David and a pretend widow, in order to convince David to welcome Absalom back to Jerusalem. In this dramatic scene, the actress recites a powerful line: “ We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and He devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast. ” What a rich illustration she uses of water spilled on the ground. Two other times in the book of Samuel water is poured on the ground. Once when Samuel is judge, after the ark has returned to Jerusalem, he pours water upon the ground as a sign of repentance. A second time David pours the water on the ground when his m...
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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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