Sermon Texts

September 29, 2024 – St. Michael and All Angels Text:  Revelation 12:7-12

Dear Friends in Christ,

Satan that sneaky little devil is quite the liar.  He has way of convincing people in our world that he is not real.  If he doesn’t exist, he can work his evil schemes more effectively under the radar.  

The Scriptures reveal Satan for who he truly is.  From his fruit tree trickery in the Garden to his boastful tempting in the desert with Jesus.  It is the work of Jesus in overcoming Satan and the forces of evil that come to a climax in our text.  The joyous message is that this great accuser of mankind, Satan, is no longer in heaven to bring accusations against us.  This text unveils the truth . . . 

“CONQUERED BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB”

As a competitor one line I never like hearing is:  “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, only how you play the game.”  Then why am I out there?  That line is much easier to swallow if you are the victor.  If we lose, we don’t like it.  We may give our best and still walk away with head down.  “It is just not fair.”  We may be right.

The struggle for many is that the battles they fight so often are battles they must fight alone.  Even the people of God feel this way at times.  The power of the enemy can be so strong, we can be so weak.  Victory often goes to those who oppose God and His truth.

Look at the world around you.  What do you see?  You see sin, death, and Satan seeming to win battle after battle.  We have unending conflicts between countries.  Hatred and violence toward others.  Political upheaval.  The Lord mocked and ridiculed by many voices.  No sense of right and wrong.  The sound of a broken world is deafening.

Let’s break through the noise.  Satan’s rebellion and removal from heaven is one of those mysteries that God tells us very little.  We do know Satan led a substantial rebellion of angels after creation and before the fall of Adam and Eve.  Our text is a place where this becomes clearer.  Revelation makes it clear that after Satan’s fall he still had access to the presence of God for some time.  His primary activity was to bring accusations before God as our text states, “The accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.” (v. 10)  Not a pretty scene.  Satan reminding God of the sins of mankind day and night.

The good news trumpeted by our text is that this kind of Satanic activity is no longer effective.  Satan has been defeated, cast out of heaven, thrown down to earth.  “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.  And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.  And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” (v. 7-9)  Alrighty then, let’s cheer.  Michael and the good angels defeated this wily serpent and his minions.  We win!  We win!  Yes!

Who should get the credit for this conquering victory?  The text is clear:  “They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb.” (v. 11a)  Jesus the unblemished, perfect sacrifice whose blood makes payment for all sins of mankind.  Christ as Advocate interceded for us.  Paul writes:  “Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” (Rom. 8:34)  The source of this victory in heaven, then, is the blood of the Lamb.

We all know people who like to pump iron.  They lift weights to build up muscle in their bodies.  They want to be stronger than the next person.  Was this Michael’s secret?  Did the archangel pump more iron in heaven than Satan had in hell?

No.  The key battle in the war against Satan was not one angel, Michael, confronting another angel, Satan.  It was the Lord Jesus Christ confronting Satan and all the forces of evil as the sacrificial Lamb whose blood was pumped out on the cross as payment for our sin.  Michael and his angels are not an independent militia who had pumped more iron in the gym than Satan and the evil angels.  They are the army of the Lamb enforcing the victory of the Lamb by casting Satan out of heaven.

We do not fight alone.  The great evil has been overcome.  Thank God for this victory in heaven, won by Christ on the cross and carried out by Michael and the angelic hosts.  Feels good to win, doesn’t it?  Conquered by the Blood of the Lamb.

Amen.

September 22, 2024   Text:  Jeremiah 11:18-20

Dear Friends in Christ,

To what are you committed?  What commitments have you made in life?  

Dr. Paul Farmer grew up impoverished in an old bus his father, mother and four siblings lived in.  Paul was intelligent with a photographic memory.  He graduated from Duke and then Harvard with a medical degree and PhD.

His accomplishments are numerous.  He dedicated his career to find ways to combat major health problems among the poorest of the poor.  He started his work in Haiti, but it soon stretched around the globe.  He became a world-renowned expert on the subject and by his mid-forties a best-selling book was written about him.

In February of 2022, Dr. Farmer died of a heart attack while working on a health project in Rwanda.  He was 62.  The public health community said they had lost a “giant.”  Farmer spent his whole career committed to the cause of improving healthcare for the poor around the world.  He was all in for the cause.

The prophet Jeremiah is committed to the cause of which God has called him.  He is to make known the Word of God to the people of Judah.  He is to call Judah to repent of their idolatry.   Can we be like Jeremiah . . .

“COMMITTED TO THE LORD’S CAUSE”

Jeremiah is the weeping prophet.  He cries a lot because his family and hometown are plotting against him.  He will suffer hardship and persecution.  Jeremiah gets just a taste of the betrayal that would happen to Jesus.  Like the Lord God, Jeremiah was trying to bring salvation to the people, yet the more he did so, the more infuriated toward him they became.

Have you ever been betrayed by family or friends.  Are there those who pull away from you because you are trying to share the Gospel with them?  Do you have a certain challenge currently that you are up against?

God knew the scheming of the people before Jeremiah did.  He revealed it directly to Jeremiah.  God knows the troubles and challenges we face, even before we do.  We can feel like Jeremiah, lost and confused; a lamb led to the slaughter. 

Jeremiah was not married and had no direct descendants.  The people still wanted him annihilated, “his name be remembered no more.”  They hated Jeremiah, but their real hatred was toward God.   Everything about God had to be eliminated.  It looks overwhelming to Jeremiah, so he takes it to the Lord.  

Things don’t look good for this prophet.  But he does not waver in his commitment.  I understand that.  I have been called a “commitment-phobe” in my life.  I got that from my parents.  You say you are going to do something, you do it.  At times it does not make life easy.  How do you see yourselves?  Committed like Jeremiah or a little more wishy-washy about what you should be doing?  Being committed means sacrifice.  Being committed can mean suffering.  In being committed you need to see the difference it is going to make.

Jeremiah saw that.  He trusts in the righteousness of the Lord of hosts.  God cared about Jeremiah.  God cares about what is happening in our world and what is happening in our individual lives.  Jeremiah saw people becoming angrier and angrier.  We see that same tone around us.  People can lose it over the silliest things.  

The townspeople of Anathoth, the hometown of Jeremiah are losing it.  They are plotting to kill the guy, and Jeremiah still wants to work to save these people.  That is commitment.  I have been reading a book of Christian martyrs over the years and their commitment to the Gospel always stands out.  I appreciate the groundwork they have laid.  But I also tend to notice that maybe there was a better avenue not as dangerous.  A way to stay alive and continue the work.  

That is Jeremiah’s story.  The Lord brought justice.  The vengeance of the Lord was a fair retribution against those who had fallen away from God.  Jeremiah put his trust in the lasting and final justice God would provide in the coming Messiah, the Savior, who would take away the sin of the world.  We can have that same trust in the perfect life, atoning death, and victorious rising again of Jesus Christ.  Like Jeremiah, we can commit our cause to the way of the Lord.  We know that the Lord is our strength and shield.  It gives us confidence just like Jeremiah.

Jeremiah would cover the reigns of the last five kings of Judah.  He would continue to stay committed by denouncing the policies and idolatries of his nation.  Can we do the same?  Remember this:  God is faithful, God is just, God is caring.  It strengthens us to stay committed to the Lord’s cause.

Amen.     

Sept. 15, 2024 Text:  James 3:1-12

Dear Friends in Christ,

Hello.  You have heard a lot about them.  Here they are.  My headphones.  These help me survive in public places.  Ball games – I wore them to the Illinois football game last weekend.  Grocery store.  Airports and airplanes – needed going to and from Germany.  Will be on my head this Tuesday and Friday, flying to and from my trip to see my friend.

Why are they needed?  Because the world cannot control the tongue.  I see more and more people doing what I have been doing for five years.  Verbally we have reached what one commentator calls a sad state of “hyperinflation” in our verbal tools of outrage.  One can no longer say anything shocking enough to grab anyone’s attention.  We might rightly ask, “How did we ever arrive here?”

The tongue as a means of destruction is as old as the Bible.  James under timeless truth given from the Holy Spirit says the tongue “is a fire.”  

“CAN YOU SMELL THE SMOKE?”

Our speech is burning our decorum and kindness down to a mere ember.  Like the western wildfires that gave us a haze in the Midwest, the smoke of our language makes its way throughout our country.  

Our tongues set “fires.”  A small bit can direct a horse, a tiny rudder can direct a massive ship.  A tiny fire can engulf a forest.  The language we use matters.  We have been in the gutter for quite some time.  

The path or course of human existence is engulfed; the source of the devastating flames is hell itself.  Hurtful words do damage not only to the one who speaks them; the hearts and mouths of those who hear such sin-soaked speech are set ablaze as well.  Sin multiplies sin.  James observes that for one and all the tongue influences the course of life – and seemingly not vice versa.

We are told in verse 7 that every living creature can be tamed by man.  To control the tongue is the faithful Christian’s constant quest, never finished, always under God’s grace.  The goal is so near and yet so far.  The best way to control one’s sinful tongue is simply to keep thy mouth shut before damaging words and hurtful thoughts emerge.  No human being since the fall has completely succeeded in this straightforward task.  This is why we must turn to Christ and His Gospel constantly for the healing balm of the forgiveness of our sins.

The last warning James gives is the pitiful irony of our sin.  This same mouth can curse and bless.  James says that a tongue on fire, creating a lot of smoke is like freshwater and salt water.  You mix the two and the saltwater is going to overtake the freshwater.  Our society is the pro facia case of the salted tongue making all of us a bit salty.  We are trying to be freshwater in our words, but it’s tough.  Even Christians use forms of the word “God” in their speech.  I learned in confirmation that this breaks the 2^nd commandment.  Knock it off with God’s help.

I don’t buy the argument that the tongue cannot be tamed.  I know from my own history it can.  I also recently saw it played out in a very public place.  A football team.  Name – Chicago Bears.  They were on a TV series called “Hard Knocks.”  A behind the scenes look at their day-to-day operation.  There was no profanity.  Do you know why?  Out of respect for the McCaskey family who owns the Bears.  Amazing.  If ballplayers and coaches can do it there is hope.

We need restoration.  We need someone to clear the smoke.  Control the fire, the bit, the rudder.  Jesus has restored our tongues to his great good by enduring the fire of God’s wrath against all our sins – including the sins of the tongue – in our place.  He undoes the chaotic damage that has been done.  He suffered scorn and abuse, physical and verbal, on the cross.  His death there has effectively extinguished the fiery danger of God’s judgment into hell for all who use their tongues to confess his name.

He has undone the damage by preaching the healing, life-giving, divine Word that sets all things right where all has gone terribly wrong.  Such preaching continues today – for our forgiveness, for our life, and for our salvation.

Let us continue, through the strength of the Holy Spirit to train and use our tongues as instruments that able to accomplish good.  May our blessings be stronger than our curses.  May our compliments be more numerous than our complaints.  May our tongues show the non-Christian and struggling Christian that words make a difference.  The cleansing, pure fountain of the Gospel can spring forth so that it changes hearts, puts out fires and diminishes all the smoke around us.

Amen.

Sept. 8, 2024 – Christian Education Texts:  Ge. 22:1-14, Hebrews 1:1-3a, John 1:1-5

Dear Friends in Christ,

Are things ‘ok’ in your life?  In our speech we tend to ask people, “How are you doing?”  We get answers from “living the dream” to “better than I deserve.”  Many times, we get the “not bad,” “pretty good,” and then the proverbial “I’m doing ok.”  You have to listen to the tone of their voice, but it has been my experience that many of the people who answer this way are not ‘ok.’  They tend to have something that is troubling them.

How long do you think ‘ok’ has been around?  On March 24, 1839, the Boston Morning Post first published the initials “O.K.” – the abbreviation for “oll korrect,” a popular slang misspelling for “all correct.”  Eventually, OK would become part of everyday speech in the United States.  At the time, misspelling words intentionally was a favorite pastime for the younger, educated crowd.  They would often take words, misspell them as slang when conversing with one another.

Today is Christian Education Sunday.  The three readings serve as the texts.  We look at our world and wonder, “what’s next?”  We question if we are ok.  Thank God for His Holy, Life-Giving Word!  We can walk confidently when asked . . . 

“ARE THINGS ‘OK’ IN YOUR LIFE?”

How might Abraham and Isaac answer that question?  In our Old Testament lesson, Isaac asks his father, “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”  You’re the parent how are you going to answer?  In some form, we are going to let our child know things are ok.  Abraham answers, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”  Simple, concise, even while his heart must be aching.

We have always admired the faith of Abraham in this scenario.  But what about Isaac?  He could have overpowered his father, but he didn’t.  When things didn’t look ok, both father and son trusted.  God will provide.  And He did.  A Son who became our sin offering.  Wood that was cut into a Roman Cross where God offered His Son.  God literally took the fire and knife, so to speak, when He had His Son beaten, whipped, mocked, and crucified at Calvary.  For you.  For me.  It is what God did: provided.

God spoke to Father Abraham.  In our day He speaks to us through His Son.  That is in our Hebrew reading.  God speaks through Law and Gospel.  The Law shows us a need for a Savior.  We are not always ok.  We have problems, challenges, sins we can’t shake.  The Gospel shows us a Savior.  Christ is the Word (we’ll get to that in a minute from John).  God promises that His Word will accomplish His will in your life.  God sends this Word to you in the person of Jesus.  His does it in various ways – sermons, worship, bible studies, prayer, sacraments, the support of a friend.  Where one path is blocked, He opens another.  God’s Word can forgive and heal.  God spoke to our ancestors in days past, He still speaks that same Word to us today.

John writes, “The Word was God.”  Did you catch this part?  “In the beginning was the Word.”  Christ has always been.  Christ is eternal.  God was thinking about us long before the creation of the world.  He was already making plans for our salvation.  He knew life wasn’t always going to be ok.  We never tire of sin, or if we do, we can’t stop it.  Confession and absolution are not just a Sunday “to do”, they need to be a part of our daily lives.  The Lord hears our pleas.  He sends the light into the darkness.  It’s not, “I’m OK, You’re OK.”  It is forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ.

I am going to share with you one of my favorite sermon illustrations.  Maybe you have heard it in another church.  In over 25 years I have never shared it with you.  Maybe you’ll see why.

John Griffith was a man who lost all in the stock market of 1929.  He took a job in Mississippi tending a drawbridge over a railroad trestle.  This happened in 1937.  He took his 8-year-old son Greg with him to work.  They joked around in the office, but then John got back to work.  He heard a train approaching with around 400 passengers.  He couldn’t find Greg.  When he saw him, he was climbing on the gears of the drawbridge.  He yelled, but the train noise made it impossible.  John Griffith faced a horrible dilemma.  He could try to rescue his son, but 400 people would probably die in the crash.  If he closes the bridge, his son gets crushed.  He pulled the lever and closed the bridge.  The train went by, and nobody realized he had sacrificed his son their behalf.

God knows we are not always ok.  We struggle in mind and body.  The devil plays on our impatience.  Sometimes, we can’t see an end.  But you see things are OK.  They are “all correct,” because God pulled the lever.  He gave His Son for the life of the world.  Our journey has a happy ending.  So, how ya doin?  God’s Word tells us, “OK, I am doing OK.”

Amen.     

August 25, 2024 Text:  Mark 7:1-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

You have heard the expression “lip service,” and you probably know what it means.  You probably do not know that the expression was inspired by our text for this morning where Jesus quotes from Isaiah.  Paying lip service is saying one thing and doing another.  Remember during Covid when politicians told us we couldn’t get haircuts and then they were sneaking underground for a clip and a perm?  Made you mad, didn’t it?  

Let’s welcome the Pharisees to the party this morning.  They would like you to wash your hands.  And if you don’t, well, you can’t really be a follower of God, because you are not keeping his law.  Throughout Scripture, these men are known for . . . 

“PAYING LIP SERVICE”

Are you a regular hand washer?  Are you as anal about it, as I am?  Every Sunday, after all the handshakes.  Soap and water in the vestry.  Get to the office, wash.  Go home, wash.  Shoot baskets, wash.  In a hospital or nursing home, wash.  I am not trying to keep up with the Pharisees, but I do believe my hand washing is a reason for my many years now of not being sick.  

Ok, you are going to a private audience with Jesus.  What are you going to ask him?  Anybody here going to ask him how to wash before a meal?  Didn’t think so.  You’ll never make it as a Pharisee.  Look what they do.  “The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands.’” (v. 5). Jesus’ opponents have completely lost sight of what matters to God.  They have put human concerns before and above what is important in God’s eyes.  

Does Jesus play nice with this question?  No, he calls them “hypocrites” and then he quotes from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, “’This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (v. 6-7)  The Pharisees are more concerned about whether people’s hands are clean than whether their bodies have been cleansed of disease by the words of Jesus and whether their hearts have been filled with the peace that Jesus is proclaiming.  That is exactly the sort of thing that happens when we stop asking what is important to God.

For the Pharisees their lips are close, but their hearts are distant.  They are paying lip service to Jesus.  If Isaiah’s words are prophesied about us, and if Jesus’ warnings speak to us, we had better examine our own lips and hearts and heads and hands to see how we are doing.  How have we lost sight of what’s really important?  What traditions of men, what traditions of our own, have we let crowd out God’s Word from its proper place as the Word that demands our total obedience?  

If we say we are followers of the Word but call out our neighbor for dirty hands, what are we doing?  We are paying lip service to our beliefs.  Don’t miss the dirt behind your ears or the dirt in your eyes or the dirt that clogs your heart.  God doesn’t just tell us we are dirty, rather our Lord calls us from human tradition to God’s Word and His priorities.  His voice declares us clean.  He forgives our lip service.  

We pray that the Holy Spirit will help us live this way.  Even young children pick up on telling them one thing and doing another.  Jesus tells us from the cross, “Come to me and I will make you clean.”  Our hypocritical behavior was washed away at Calvary.  We can come into His presence with clean hands and clean hearts.

When I have gone to neo-natal intensive care units, I must wash my hands like a doctor.  Hot water, soap and do it for at least a minute.  Then you glove and gown up to go in.  Those hands are pretty clean, but put them under a microscope and what are we going to see?  A least a few germs.  The cleansing that Jesus gives takes the tiniest microbe away.  His cleansing lasts for an eternity.  He didn’t just pay us lip service, He was obedient to the Father and finished the plan of salvation.  You can walk away clean . . . hands and heart.

Amen.   

August 18, 2024 Text:  Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18

Dear Friends in Christ,

Thomas Jefferson should have been rich.  He was born into a prominent Virginia family.  He married a wealthy widow.  He farmed a lot of land and had a lot of business ventures.  He was President of the United States.  Yet he died deeply in debt, and all his property was sold to pay for it.  How did this happen?

He inherited a large debt from his father-in-law and farming was an uncertain source of income.  People who owed him did not always pay him back.  He spent beyond his means.  His credit was bad.  When he died, he had a debt of $107,000 – millions in today’s dollars.

Money is seductive.  We think if we have enough, we will be secure.  But that is an illusion.  If relying on wealth, sooner or later it will fail you.  After all, you can’t take it with you.

Joshua was aware of this as his death drew near.  He knew he was leaving God’s people a rich and productive land, all of its blessings and promises.   But these comforts and wealth would be worthless and soon lost if Israel forgot the Lord.  Leaving them with a final word from the Lord would, Joshua knew, be a much more precious legacy.

Which G(g)od were they going to serve? 

“HOW CAN WE KEEP OUR VOW TO SERVE THE LORD?”

Israel always struggled in their vow to serve the one true God.  The friends, family, and neighbors of Abraham had invented some 4,000 gods.  At that rate they could serve a different god every day for about 11 years.  Their commitment at times was lacking.

We want to be committed to the God we know.  God the Father who sent His Son to die and rise again to save us.  We know Jesus has freed us from sin, death, and the power of the devil.  We know the Holy Spirit came in our Baptism to make us His sons and daughters.  We love God because He first loved us.  We want to commit to Him.  “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (v. 15b)

Sounds easy enough, but is it?  How many gods can we create?  10?  100?  1,000?  If we set here long enough, we might come up with 4,000 like the Israelites.  We trust God, but aren’t there times we think He needs our help?  If your trust is not solely on Him in your sticky situations, well . . . maybe that vow is a little harder to keep.

We make poor choices.  We let wealth hold back the offering.  The Saturday night party that has us in no shape for the Sunday worship.  The child’s involvement in an activity where their faith is sacrificed on the altar.  Genetic family that comes before God’s family and fellowship.  Going after our “15 minutes of fame” instead of an eternity with Jesus.

We break our vow with things that will always let us down.  Only God can be trusted not to fail when we need Him most.  Sometimes He can be the last one we turn to in the support system.  “Lord, have mercy.”  Thank God, He does have mercy.

Even though God the Son deserves our complete devotion, he set aside His glory for our sake.  Sent to earth by God the Father, he was born of the Virgin Mary and became one of us.  He lived a perfect life of service to God and neighbor, which God credits to us.  Jesus serves us, by giving his life as a ransom for the many.  When are trust wanes, he carried that to the cross.  When we fail to put Him first in our lives, He forgives through His death and resurrection.  God has been faithful, giving us life and salvation in His name.

By the end of our text, the people have joined Joshua in a pledge to serve this Lord.  They give a confession of faith which tells of the way God had saved them.  

Because Jesus served us, we can serve the Lord.  When tempted to depend on earthly things more than God, The Holy Spirit reminds us through the Word and Sacraments where our true security lies.  When seeing all that God has done for us, we respond naturally to praise God for His love, mercies, and blessings.  When our main trust is in the Lord, and we love God above all things, we want to help others around us.  

Let’s hang it proudly in our homes.  Maybe have it on a poster in our bedroom or a bumper sticker on our car.  The people of Israel fashion their confession after the words of Joshua.  Their commitment to the Lord is the same as his.  We make that same vow today, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Amen.