Sermon Texts

October 29, 2023 – Reformation                                                             Text:  Matthew 28:11-20

Dear Friends in Christ,

            We like to spout off about “follow the science” or “fake news” or “it’s a fact” because I heard it on Fox News or CNN or MSNBC.  We want others to adopt the reality we have decided upon.  Online profiles are distorted.  We have a penchant for replacing substance with shadows. 

            There was plenty of “fake news” in Martin Luther’s day.  His very first hymn was written and sung to cast light on the shadows of a lie being spread about the martyrdom of two young men for believing the Gospel, the first Lutheran martyrs.

            Five hundred years ago, on July 1, 2023, Heinrich Voes and Johann Esch were burned at the stake in Brussels, Belgium for refusing to deny the Gospel of the Reformation that we are saved from our sins by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake alone.

            Shortly after their murder, the fake news began that they had denied their faith in their last moments.  In response, Luther turned to the most powerful media platform of the day.  He wrote a ballad praising these martyrs and upholding their confession of faith.  By late summer the song had gone viral, and it showed Luther the power of song to overcome the shadows of deception.  We just sang the verses as our sermon hymn.  They were printed in the TLH Red Hymnal of 1941 as Hymn #259. 

“SONGS AND SHADOWS”

            Fake news is dispelled easily as Luther shows in “A Mighty Fortress.”  He says of the devil that “one little word can fell him.”  And still we cling to his lies.

            What drives our dishonesty?  Why do we spin our sins like some Washington DC lobbyist?  Little white lies are ok.  Lust isn’t hurting anybody.  My self-centeredness is just self-care.  Does God really care what I am saying in a world boiling over with violence and hatred and rampant inhumanity?  I might be dismissive toward my family members, but I have a low carbon footprint.  I might neglect my spouse, but I volunteer a lot.  I have friends heading for hell and I am not sharing the Gospel with them, but I voted the right way in the last election.

            These shadows leave us in the dark and we spin sins as virtues.  We are okay because we are doing pretty good in most areas of life.  Our shadows leave us in desperation.

            God wants us to have life and have it to the full.  Those who burnt Heinrich and Johann were afraid of the Gospel.  They were fearful it would change their little world of lies.  They didn’t understand that the Gospel doesn’t change the world.  It changes the people in the world.  The world remains the same fallen place, even after Jesus’ resurrection.

            Jesus lets us know that our sins are real, and they must be atoned for.  They deserve death, and someone must die for them.  Christ takes the mantle, and He pays for them with his innocent life.  We remain sinners, but because Christ has redeemed us, we are also saints.  This is no made-up fantasy, it is our reality.  For this truth Heinrich and Johann were burned.  This is the truth that Luther wants us singing about.  This is the truth that sets of free from our spin doctoring.  In the long run, we are set free from damnation and eternal separation from God and His people.  Being set free puts us on a path to live new lives.

            We don’t have to pretend to be someone else to be at peace.  Christ allows us to be set free from the shackles and chains.  He gives us His forgiveness in the Word and Sacraments.

            God’s grace changes us.  We were dressed in this grace at our Baptism.  We hear this grace in the Pastor’s Absolution.  We taste this grace at Christ’s altar.  This is the faith that gives us hope and offers hope to the rest of the world.  We can’t help but sing when the news is this good.  We can’t help but tell the truth when it is so liberating.  One of the ways we can do this is by telling of the saints who have gone before us.  Men like Heinrich and Johann.

            The Psalms tell us of this truth and beauty.  They encourage our new song.  Here are just a few references:  Psalm 96, verse 1 – “Oh sing to the Lord a new song.”  Psalm 40, verse 3 – “He put a new song in my mouth.”  Psalm 144, verse 9 – “I will sing a new song to you, O God.”  The new song begun by Luther, sung forever by the saints in glory.

            Sinners, yes.  Saints, most certainly.  Everyone who has lived and died in the confession of the faith, made the same confession as Heinrich and Johann made unto death.  We are justified by grace through faith for Christ’s sake alone.  This strengthens our faith and trusts no fake news.  The love of Christ that replaces shadows with song.

                                                                                                            Amen.       

October 22, 2023   Text:  Isaiah 45:1-7

Dear Friends in Christ,

Rev. Daniel Schmidt was a missionary in southern Africa and when he was there the crime rate in South Africa was rising.  One Sunday morning in his sermon, a Pastor of the Free Evangelical Lutheran Synod encouraged parishioners to believe that God is in charge in spite of the daily experience of crime.  When he came out of worship, his pickup truck was gone.  Stolen.  He stood in that parking lot, silently struggling with God, that this could happen after he just preached on the subject.  But he had a second service to conduct at a neighboring congregation.  The organist gave him a ride.

On the way they passed a mobile speeding camera.  Several cars were pulled over.  As the organist slowed, the Pastor realized one of the trucks pulled over was his.  The thief had been stopped by the police.  God used a person of authority to return the Pastor’s property to him in a way that he had not expected.  Just imagine how he preached on the same theme in the second service!

In our text we see God using a person of authority, a king no less, to further His work and His kingdom.  A gentle reminder for us.  Even when things look there worst . . . 

“GOD OVERSEES HISTORY FOR HIS PURPOSE”

Evil must bow to God.  What do you think about that?  In our Old Testament Reading, God calls Cyrus, King of Persia, “his anointed” one:  “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed.” (v. 1). The shocker here.  Cyrus is a pagan.  He has no faith in God.  He will come to rule over God’s people only because he is a conqueror.  Twice in our text it says Cyrus does not know God.  Yet God says, “I call you by name, I name you.” (v. 4b).  Cyrus is even called by God “anointed.”  Guess who else was called that?  The Messiah – Christ.  Pagan Cyrus sharing the same title as Jesus!?

What is the Lord going to allow Cyrus to do?  He is going to conquer foreign powers – even mighty Babylon.  He will collect the wealth of his enemies.  And so it happened.  History records that the Persian empire conquered lands with unprecedented speed and ease.

What is God doing here?  Why is He allowing these evil unbelievers to have such success?  Don’t we ask ourselves the same thing?  Why do oppressive governments prosper?  Why are terrorists allowed to attack?  Why does our government permit evil in the streets?

Closer to home, we might wonder why schools can get away with politically correct nonsense.  Why does our job require sensitivity training?  Why do our friends or family think that some of this evil is good?  God what are you doing?  Wake up!

Cyrus did lead the Persians to defeat Babylon.  For what reason did God direct this history?  We read in verse 4:  “For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen.”  Jehovah pours out his grace upon his chosen Israel through this conquest and through an unholy nation that does not acknowledge the one, true God.  How did He use this conquest?  After seventy years of Babylonian captivity, the fall of Babylon destroys the captors.  After Cyrus’s greatest victory, one of his earliest decrees is that the Jews can go home.  God uses Cyrus to return his chosen back to their homes and worship.

Throughout Scriptures there are examples like this.  Judas who betrayed Jesus.  Caiaphas who sent Jesus to Pontius Pilate with false charges.  The crowd that called for Jesus’ crucifixion.  The Roman soldiers who mocked him, beat him, and nailed him to a cross.  Look what evil can do.  It looks like God is not in control, that evil is stopping God’s intentions.

That is, until you hear the words of Jesus who calls out to His Father to forgive them.  Then you marvel at how the Father chose to forsake his Son for us.  You marvel even more that this Son would be punished in your place so that the evil in you could be forgiven.  Do you see that even the evil in you must bow?  When evil bows down, the righteousness of God is yours.  Isaiah writes, “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.” (v. 7)

May you rest in knowing God oversees history for His purpose.  I serve on the Church Extension Board for the district.  We decide on loans for churches and schools.  Do you know what we are seeing more and more of?  Requests for loans for Christian schools.  You always hear me say this, “actions have consequences.”  If our public schools want to continue to push an agenda contrary to God’s Word, then the God of Isaiah, who used a pagan Cyrus for His purpose, is going to open more doors for our young people to be exposed to Christ and his teaching.  It’s that simple.  The God of history is awake.

Amen.

October 15, 2023 – LWML Sunday Text:  Psalm 24:7-10

Dear Friends in Christ,

Who in this sanctuary would like to be lifted up?  OK then.  Please follow me and we will get on the elevator!  That makes no sense because I won’t even get on the church elevator.  So, let’s try this.  Let’s be lifted up together by the Word of God.

Our text from Psalm 24 reminds us that we can be lifted up by the King of glory.  We celebrate LWML Sunday and we are blessed to hear that we are . . .

“LIFTED UP BY THE KING OF GLORY”

You hear the words “Lift up your heads, O gates.”  Now that could refer to gates being lifted up, but normally in the Bible lifting up is about lifting up your spirits.  Lifting up in hope.  Lifting up in joy.  Lifting up in anticipation.  “Lift up your heads, O gates…that the King of glory may come in.”  The hope, the joy, the anticipation is that the Lord of glory will come in:  “Lift up your heads, O gates!  And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.  Who is this King of glory?  The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle!  Lift up your heads, O gates!  And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in.  Who is this King of glory?  The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!” (vs. 7-10)  Hope and joy erupt when the King of glory will enter into that heavenly home, that glorious place of God’s almighty presence.

But that leads to a question:  “When did he leave?”  When did the Lord of glory leave that glorious home?  The answer is Christmas.  From heaven above to earth below came Jesus.  He left heaven’s glory to become one of us.  You know the word Immanuel – God with us.

We want to be lifted up.  We want God with us.  We can get mighty low at times.  Broken relationships.  Broken families.  Broken government.  Our health problems that drag us down.  The continued wars and diseases and poverty and parts of our world seeming to live with no hope.  Spirits sag.  Attitudes are left wanting.  Faith flickers.

Lift up your heads.  Our sermon hymn says it this way, “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates!  Behold the King of glory waits.  The King of kings is drawing near; The Savior of the world is here.  Life and salvation He doth bring.”

Jesus with his hands, heals those who are broken.  With his heart, He welcomes those who have been left out or damaged, those who seemingly have no hope.  With his words, He forgives those who have done wrong with their hands, hearts, and words. 

A dark day comes.  Jesus hanging on a cross.  In his darkness, swirling about Him are the unclean things our hands have done; whatever impure desires, thoughts, and motivations have come from our hearts; whatever hurtful words left our lips.  Everything that would keep us from entering God’s almighty presence is there, on Jesus.  And God shuts his heavenly gates on Him as Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  It is called Good Friday, for on that cross, Jesus gives us forgiveness along with His righteousness and salvation.

Then, on Easter morning, the doors open up again.  A stone is rolled away.  Jesus is alive.  Forty days later, the heavens open again.  This time Jesus is ascending into heaven.  The disciples are looking up as Jesus rises from their sight.  What is happening here?  Jesus is entering into His holy place.  Lift up your heads, and the disciples are looking up with hope and joy and anticipation.  The Lord of glory is entering His heavenly home once again.  And why?  Jesus entered the gates of heaven to give us righteousness and salvation so that we, too, will one day enter His holy gates.

As the Lord lifts us, we can then be lifters for Jesus.  The mission of the LWML is all about lifting up.  They lift the church up in prayer.  They lift the church up in the giving of their mites.  They lift seminarians who need help getting through school.  They lift up pregnancy centers who provide support to fathers and mothers.  They lift up missionaries as they provide resources for a chapel or a school or bibles or Sunday School materials.  They lift up the blind and the lame and the weak.  They lift up the cold soul who needs a quilt.  They lift up the child who needs school supplies.  I invite you to go to their website lwml.org and look at all their mission projects.  The King of Glory is shining through their work.

We share in the mission.  Opportunities are in our church and district and synod.  Get a mite box and lift a weary soul today.  Share the Gospel in your corner of the world so that the downtrodden will know of Christ, God’s coming King of glory.  He provides redemption and everlasting life.  It is what men, women, and children need . . . TO BE LIFTED UP BY THE KING OF GLORY!

Amen.    

October 8, 2023 Text:  Philippians 3:4b-14

Dear Friends in Christ,

Nada . . . Nil . . . Nothing . . . Zero.  In our lives usually these words are not positives.  But are they always negatives?  In baseball, as a batter you don’t want a zero batting average.  But as a pitcher you would love an ERA of zero.  You don’t want nil in your bank account.  But we all pray to have nil in our church mortgage account.  You all want something.  But isn’t it nice when you have nothing to do? 

God wants to give you the nothing that is everything.

“NOTHING OF SELF – EVERYTHING OF HIM”

We strive to have it all.  Years back that was the tag line for a beer commercial.  “Who says you can’t have it all?”  Is beer having it all?  No, of course not, but it shows where the human heart is.  It looks for the fulness of life in the stuff of this world.

In our text, in the Apostle Paul’s world, the ones trying to have it all were the Judaizers.  They took great “confidence in the flesh” and in their achievements under the law.  But Paul even goes behind them with his diatribe on his ethnicity.  He throws in there that he was a persecutor of the church.  “You think you had it all under the law.  I had the zeal to take it even further.  You can’t outdo me.”

In Paul’s world the focus was not so much on material possessions but on one’s accountability to God’s Law.  You “had it all” if you were “right with God.”  If you kept His Law, then surely the material blessings would follow.

Our secular world sees no need to be accountable to God.  Our things have become our gods.  Our experiences are the idols we worship.  “I did this.  I did that.  I went here.  I went there.”  “Having it all” in our world is less overtly religious.

But what these two worlds have in common is this.  They are both focused on self.  The Judaizers were self-righteous.  How could they earn God’s favor.  Our world focuses on gratifying the self through our things and our experiences.  In both instances it is never enough.

Where are all the toys you just had to have as a child?  Where are the latest fashions that you needed to impress your high school classmates?  We live thinking “if I just have this car, or this house, or take this vacation,” then I will really have it all.  But does it ever work that way?  You know it doesn’t.  Our contentment is fleeting.  Somebody is working right now in our world to make you the latest something because they know something about you – that you can’t wait to have it.  Self always gets in the way.

We go on our self-fulfilling way until God’s Word gets through to us.  What makes Christianity so unacceptable?  We are sinful and cannot win God’s love and favor.  The Judaizers thought they were keeping God’s Law.  We think we are doing right with our tolerance and personal merit before God.  Paul knows that these things are “rubbish” and that true righteousness comes not from the law “but that which comes through faith in Christ.”  

God brings us to nil, nada, nothing so that in our nothingness we can know the all-sufficiency of Christ.  We know the power of the resurrection, we share in His suffering and death.  In our Baptism, dying and rising with Christ, we are united with the power of His resurrection.  When the Holy Spirit allows us to empty our self and the claim that things are “mine”, grace fills us with “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

In God’s grace, our nothingness of self becomes everything in Him.  We “press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (v. 14)  That goal?  An eternity with the Trinity.  Perfect peace and rest and a resurrected body that will be in the presence of our blessed Jesus in eternal heaven.

In the TV show “M*A*S*H” the character B.J. Honeycutt gave this reason for not giving in to the temptation in the midst of the Korean War.  “I live in an insane world where nothing makes sense.  Everyone around me lives for the now, because there may not be a tomorrow.  But I have to live for tomorrow, because for me there is no now.”  For B.J. his hope was defined in seeing his family again. 

Let’s transpose that to our Christian lives.  Someday, we will each be called into eternity.  Isn’t our hope for the future defined by what Christ has in store for us . . . in heaven?  In light of Jesus’ love and what He has done for you isn’t this a better way to face the future:  Nothing of Self – Everything of Him.  

Amen.

Oct. 1, 2023 – Friendship Sunday Text:  Luke 11:5-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

During World War I a soldier wanted to go into “No Man’s Land” where one of his buddies lay seriously wounded.  “You can go,” said his captain, “but it’s not worth it.  Your friend is probably dead, and you may throw your life away.”

But the man went.  He managed to get to his friend, hoist him on his shoulder and get him to the trenches.  They tumbled in together.  The captain looked at the would-be-rescuer, and said, “I told you it wouldn’t be worth it.  Your friend is dead, and you are mortally wounded.”  “It was worth it, sir,” he said.  “How could it be ‘worth it’?  Your friend is dead.”

“Yes sir,” the young man answered, “but it was worth it, because when I got to him he was alive and he said, ‘Jim, I knew you’d come.’”

Wouldn’t it be nice if all friendships were that way?  Jesus came into our world to rescue us from our sin.  He provided what we needed most:  a right relationship with God the Father through the forgiveness of sins.  He reminds is in the Bible in John, chapter 6, “whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”  

This is Friendship Sunday, and we are once again privileged to hear the Word of God.

“JESUS – OUR FRIEND INDEED”

I looked back to a sermon I preached in the 1990’s on this text.  It was mentioned in there how loneliness was a problem.  We still have that situation today and probably even worse.  During the time of Covid, many people got isolated.  There were some very sad stories especially at it related to people’s death and having no one there for them.  Man and woman still have a need for friends and friendship.  Too many times, we go looking in the wrong places and there are consequences to our bad choices.  

There is good news today.  Jesus is here for you, even in your bad choices.  Our text and the words of Jesus, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him;’ and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed.  I cannot get up and give you anything’?  I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.” (vs. 5-8)

Fascinating, isn’t it?  He wouldn’t get up because they were friends, but because of the man’s persistence he got up and gave him what he needed.  We read this wrong if we think that if we pray hard and long enough God will give us what we want.  

In the story a friend goes to a friend.  When we go to God we go to our perfect Father in heaven.  In the text, the friend goes at midnight, an inconvenient time.  With God there is no inconvenient time.  The need of bread is small.  Our needs before God are greater.  The friend offers a selfish excuse for refusing the request.  Our Father in heaven, who is perfect and kind, offers us the most wonderful promises.  

Sometimes we think God doesn’t hear us or listen to us.  That He is far away.  We think because of our hurt and sorrow that are almost unbearable at times that God doesn’t care.  But that couldn’t be further from the truth.  If we knock the door will be opened.  

We can be afraid to be persistent because our life of rebellion is too great or our sin too heavy.  That should never be a discouragement, because the Lord asks us to come.  He encourages us to knock, to search His Word in the Bible.  For any sinner, nothing is too great to bring before God.

Don’t let change frighten you.  It’s like the two caterpillars who were crawling across the grass when a butterfly flew over them.  They looked up, and one nudged the other and said, “You couldn’t get me up in one of those things for a million dollars.”

If you say “I can never change” then you don’t know Jesus.  In Christ, God opens closed doors, bring resurrection, reveals possibilities, reclaims the lost, liberates the cursed, and changes the unchangeable.

This friend Jesus offers more than a change of attitude.  He offers a transformation of life.  Jesus works His transforming power in the lives of all who hear the Good News of salvation.  Jesus – Our Friend Indeed.

Our earthly friendships sometimes let us down.  Jesus is always here.  Jesus suffered for you, Jesus died for you, and Jesus rose again from the grave for you.  He exchanged our self-centeredness for His selflessness.

Jesus is a Friend For life.  Jesus the Savior is our friend . . . indeed!

Amen.

September 17, 2023         Text:  Matthew 18:21-35

Dear Friends in Christ,

A young Nazi officer, dying in a Polish concentration camp hospital, asked a nurse to bring a Jew to him from the camp.  He wanted to confess his horrible misdeeds and receive forgiveness.  Then he thought he could die in peace.  The Jew she brought was Simon Wiesenthal, who survived the Holocaust and became well known for promoting knowledge about it.  At the bedside of the soldier, he listened to the confession.  The soldier told how several hundred Jews were herded into a house in a Russian village.  Cans of gasoline were put into the house, and then it was set afire with grenades.  The soldiers were ordered to shoot anyone who tried to escape.  The dying soldier confessed in great anguish how a father with his clothes on fire, holding a baby, jumped out of a second story window.  “We shoot” he says “I shall never forget it – it haunts me.  Please forgive me and let me die in peace.”

Wiesenthal later wrote, “I stood up and looked in his direction, at his folded hands.  At last I made up my mind and without a word left the room.”  Later some rabbis confirmed his action when they wrote, “Whoever is merciful to the cruel will end up being indifferent to the innocent…Let the SS man die unforgiven.  Let him go to hell.”

Have you ever been hurt so bad that you wanted someone to go to hell?  Have you withheld forgiveness because of pettiness or hatred?  How far does the Lord want us to take forgiveness?  He is going to answer that in our text.  Let’s take a look at how we can . . . 

“FAST FORWARD TO FORGIVE”

We live in age of quick reaction.  With our remote control or mouse, we can fast forward to about anything.  We expect things to be quick.  In today’s parable Jesus asks us, as it were, to not fast forward to forgive but to rewind.  If we rewind it allows us to recall what Jesus has said and done for us.  We can slow down the fast pace of our emotions, helping us, instead of becoming enraged, to forgive others as God has forgiven us.

Peter poses the question to Jesus, and it gives Jesus a chance to tell a parable.  Note in these verses from Matthew all of the accounting language, which makes sense since Matthew was a tax collector.  On to the parable.

A king needs to settle debts and a servant is brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.  A talent was a monetary unit worth about 20 years wages to a laborer.  Times that by ten thousand . . . and well there is no way the servant can pay it back.  Then the master really hits him in the gut.  He gets his family involved.  They should be sold, and a payment should be made.  The servant is in an impossible situation.

What situation have you been in where you saw no way out?  Job loss, your investments tanked, a mortgage couldn’t be met.  When we discussed this text at our Pastor’s Conference this week one Pastor told the story of a farm wife in his congregation who lost the family farm because of online gambling.  It can happen that quick.

The only thing the servant could do was hit his knees and ask for patience.  Amazingly, the master had unbelievable compassion.  He released him and forgave the debt.  Now we are going to see if the servant lived by the adage, “do unto others as they have done unto you.”

He fails.  He finds a servant who owes him much less – a denarius – a day’s wage and he begins to choke him.  He has no compassion.  His master is shocked at his behavior and calls him a “wicked servant.”  He failed to have mercy as he had been given mercy.

What about you and I?  Do we ever fail to have mercy?  Do we fall short in our forgiveness?  Where do you see yourself in the parable?

If you have ever had a financial debt forgiven, it is a great relief, but it pales in comparison with what Jesus did for us.  His gift is completely beyond what we could hope or dream.  Paul writes, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Col. 3:13)

Keep the rewind button handy so that you may recall all that God has done for you.  In the perfect life, atoning death, and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has totally forgiven you.  We should then take the forgiveness given to us by the Lord and fast forward our forgiveness to others.  

When we are slow to forgive there can be more conflict and bitterness.  Unforgiven sin leaves a stained heart and soul.  Is there a grudge you still hang on to after many years?  Let it go and forgive as you have been forgiven.  Christ has had the utmost compassion on us.  His forgiveness is total and complete.  I like this saying, “Don’t bury the hatchet with the handle up for future use.”

When God reigns in our hearts and the Holy Spirit does His work, God’s people forgive just as they have been forgiven.

Amen.