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Showing posts with the label Suicide

Sermon - Trinity IX, 2026 - Luke 16:1-13

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The Parable of the Unjust Steward , Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1540 Christian Wisdom Seeks Eternal Dwellings Wisdom is forward thinking and focused on the goal Christian wisdom employs every treasure, heavenly and worldly, for the sake of reaching the goal If there is a hardest parable, it might be this one; throws people off every time. The parable presents a rich man with a steward who was found wasting the rich man’s possessions. The job of a steward is to be faithful with someone else’s possessions, and this guy wasn’t cutting it. So obviously, he got fired. What’s crazy is the rich man lets the steward hand in the books, and he doesn’t hunt them down and take them from him immediately. The steward does exactly what you don’t want the steward to do, which is why normally the books get taken from the steward: the steward cooks the books. He meets some of the rich man’s debtors, probably tenant farmers, and in order to ingratiate himself with the debtors he adjusts how much they owe, ...

Sermon - Eric Platter Memorial - John 10:27-30

Dear Jeff and Kristin, family, relatives, and friends of Eric, may the grace of God, the peace of Jesus Christ, and the certainty of the Holy Spirit richly dwell in your hearts at all times. In the words of Job, who had just lost all of his earthly possessions, including his children, he said: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord who redeems His people from their sins. Even though the past weeks have been filled with immense sorrow and deeply troubled hearts, even though this veil of tears has been even more clouded of late, the Lord’s name is blessed because He alone is our hope and joy even while we struggle to make it from day to day. Blessed are you, for our precious Lord Jesus promises you, saying “ Blessed are they that mourn, for they will be comforted. ” Jesus tells us that the Devil is a liar, a thief, and a murderer. Jesus is our Good Shepherd who guards us against the devil’s lies, thefts, and murders. Lately the threats of the devil s...