Sermon Texts

October 24, 2021                        Text:  Jeremiah 31:7-9

Dear Friends in Christ,

    When I say the words “you are in trouble” what do you think of?  Echoes of your childhood and words from dad or mom?  A sibling spouting the words at you with glee in their voice?  A friend telling you your tee shot just went behind a tree?  A co-worker who just caught the boss in a bad mood and the hammer is about to come down?  The word “trouble” and happy thoughts bouncing around in your brain do not go together.

    Jeremiah is speaking words this morning to a people who “are in trouble.”  The Israelites are having the life squeezed right out of them.  They have rebelled and turned against God.  Nations are ready to conquer them.  They have lived this way for so long that they cannot break free.  Their fate is sealed.  What can be done?

“WHERE TO TURN WHEN IN TROUBLE?”

    Jeremiah is known as the “iron” prophet because he is preaching a hapless message of repentance to these weak, weak people.  He pours out his strength in the task, hammering the people with prophecy after prophecy, firing them with repeated warnings of judgment.  The book is a fifty-two-chapter composition, which is calling the people to turn from their sin.  Jeremiah would make a classic preacher because he would repeat over and over, word for word, what he was trying to get across to his hearers.

    Think about us?  Could we be in a heap of trouble?  Are we in danger of missing the message because of what is happening around our little world?  Are we letting all the outside noise affect our faith?  Some are calling these times the worst to live in.  Really?  Did anyone try to stop you from coming to church this morning?  Other than a prison of your own making no one is putting us away for our faith.  We have been given the greatest privilege in the world to gather here on a Sunday morning to hear God’s Word and partake of His Sacrament.  Like Jeremiah, I cannot hammer that home any more clearly.  To think we are willing to throw that all away to follow other idols is a sign of our rebellion.  The trouble we make for ourselves comes directly from our confused heart and mind.

    This is what the people have done in our text.  They have thrown away their status as the firstborn of God.  They have allowed people and circumstances and government and their own foolishness to drive them away from their Father – God Himself.  Jeremiah is trying to encourage them back – “O Lord save your people, the remnant of Israel.”  He speaks to the whole; “I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth.”  He speaks to individuals, “among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor.”  He tells them how to come, “A great company, they shall return here.  With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel.” 

    Where do we need to come from?  What trouble have we gotten into?  Where in our life has our mind overcome our heart?  Why do we wander from the Lord Himself when we know He is so needed?  We too need the message over and over.  Even then we drift from His side.  Don’t let Satan alter your thinking.  Come home.  Come in weeping and mercy.  Walk by the brooks of water.  Live in the straight path the Lord has laid out for you.  

    No matter what trouble you have which is real or imagined your faithful God stands with you.  You can always turn to Him because the message of the Lord is that He always has your eternal salvation in view.  Jeremiah prophesied a new covenant and God fulfilled it in the life, death, and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, who welcomes us into His Kingdom and gives to us the new testament in his blood.

    Remember the fear you felt when hearing the words, “you are in trouble?”  God tells us today that He has released us from that fear.  Both the fear of the hammer of the law and the fear we sometimes shelter ourselves in.  Christ is our comfort and hope and joy even when the fear of trouble enters our little sphere.  Come on out.  Gather us together Lord.  It’s beautiful thing to live in God’s grace. 

                                            Amen.    

October 10, 2021                        Text:  Amos 5:6-7, 10-15

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Picture the scene.  You are at home in the middle of the afternoon.  You go to the laundry room or your workbench.  You arrive safely but you can’t remember what you were looking for.  Was it a shirt to be ironed or were you looking for a hanger?  Did you go to the workbench for a crescent wrench or a tube of caulk?  What are you looking for?

    That is a good question to ask this morning as we look at the Book of Amos.  It is a question for emotionally and spiritually restless people.

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?”

    In the large scheme of things we might answer that question with happiness or love or excitement.  We might be looking for a purpose in life or excitement.  If we eventually find some of these things they never seem to last for any length of time.  Looking for our source of life apart from God is not what we were created for.

    The Lord’s people during the time of Amos knew a thing or two about looking for things apart from God.  Amos writes in a time of relative political stability in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.  This external stability is covering up spiritual problems.  The people have calf idols and false gods.  Ultimately they adopt the great false god – they are worshipping self.

    The well to do and connected people start defrauding the common folk.  People are charged unfair taxes and they would pay off judges to maintain their enterprise.  Any of this sound familiar?  Something we might know about as Illinoins in the same state as a large city?  

    Even God’s tolerance goes only so far.  He sends Amos to warn them that their time is coming.  You have a nice house but you will not live there.  You have a wonderful vineyard but you shall not drink the vintage.  Within a generation of this writing Israel would be destroyed by the Assyrians.  

    As we look for the good life we can step on people.  When we look for pleasure we use people.  When we look for power we manipulate.  We are good at worshipping our own self-interests.

    The Lord wants so much more from us.  “Seek the Lord and live.” (v. 6a)  “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live.” (v. 14)  We look for a thousand good things in life when only one can give us the life we need.  “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (Jn. 10:10)

    We didn’t go looking for God.  He came looking for us.  He didn’t stand in the pantry going:  now what was I looking for?  He knew.  He knew He had created us.  He knew that through acts of love and mercy, Jesus bore witness of the life He came to give us.  He knew that Jesus would be given over to die on a cross.  He knew that Son of His would destroy the power of death and that He lives forever to be our life.  He is looking for us to be strengthened in Absolution and Gospel and Sacrament.  

    Firm in our Christian faith and then looking outside ourselves, God allows us to see people rightly, as objects of His love and our love.  We care for neighbor because the Lord cared for us.  With Jesus as our source of life we seek to bless those around us instead of using them for our own ends.

    The prophet Amos had words of hope for his wayward countrymen.  God would look for and seek His people.  God would save His people.  Continuing to follow the story the Lord would bring them home to a land where they would build and dwell and plant vineyards and enjoy the wine.   They would dwell in His presence forever.

    It’s a picture of the new creation for us.  We don’t need to look outside ourselves for fulfillment.  We have an eternal hope through Jesus Christ.  We may not always know what we are looking for but our Savior Jesus does.  We pray that others, especially all the lookers and seekers of our world, will find through the Holy Spirit the Lord being near and dear to them.  This is where true life is found.

                                            Amen.       

October 3, 2021 – LWML Sunday                                Text:  1 Peter 1:22

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Great to have you in worship today.  What motivated you to come to Good Shepherd today?  Worship?  Hearing God’s Word?  Holy Communion?  Visiting with fellow believers?  A less than 10-minute sermon?  Coffee and donuts?

    Maybe it was all of the above.  Churches are always inviting people to come and visit.  This is what we do.  We are privileged to be here.  Led by the Spirit these hours spent together give us a real lift.  Great to have you in worship today.

    Today is Lutheran Women’s Missionary League Sunday.  LWML is an auxiliary organization of our Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.  These women of the church support one another and the missions of the church around the world.  

The theme is based on 1 Peter 1:22 . . .

“LOVE ONE ANOTHER FROM PURE HEARTS”

    Think about a heart in a hand.  Have you ever held a heart in your hand?  Maybe while dissecting in high school or college?  Or a school field trip to a hospital?  If you did it wasn’t beating.  But think about what a transplant surgeon does.  He takes out a diseased heart and puts in a new heart.  That is what God has done for you and me.  In Baptism the Lord gives us a pure heart with all the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection.  A transplanted heart may not last a lifetime.  Our new hearts given through baptism will live forever.

    Why do you and I need heart transplants?  Because within our heart are thoughts and feelings which make us ashamed.  Within our hearts are ideas and urges that are sinful.  Within our hearts are things we never want others to know about us.  By nature our hearts are not pure.  This came with original sin that showed itself in the first two people on earth – Adam and Eve.

    While are hearts are corrupt, we do not have to continue to live that way.  Christ Jesus offers His forgiveness.  His cross transplanted His righteousness to us.  In a heart transplant, new physical life comes to a fatally ill patient.  God has given you this new, pure heart.  You have newness of life and God gives you His love.

    “Having purified yours souls by your obedience to the truth.”  Doesn’t this sound like Peter is advocating we can keep ourselves pure by keeping the commandments?  Peter is not going down that road he is simply talking about faith.  Our new heart, our new birth, makes us children of the heavenly Father who through trust look to Him and want to live holy lives for His sake.  

    At the beginning of the sermon the question was asked what brought you to church?  Part of the answer is coming together in Christ.  During the real isolated times of the virus many of us experienced meetings on our computer.  I remember one morning just working from my bed.  The Internet provided a Zoom meeting, I had my phone and I just propped myself right on the old mattress.  It was a meeting for the circuit visitors of our Central Illinois District led by President Miller.  It was good to chat and hear what everyone was doing.  Did you find this curious – where people would sit in their house for these meetings?  But then again I was in bed.  Showered and dressed but still on the bed.

    Last month for the first time in almost two years we all got to be together in Springfield.  It had a different vibe.  More togetherness.  More interaction.  You could read faces more clearly.  We all left that day knowing why we missed being in person.

    That is true of our worship.  We thank God for technology and the ability to worship safely, but being apart is hard.  Being together, in person around His Word of new birth, of life and love in Christ.  This Word transforms us as we hear it.  This Word transforms us as it is spoken and sung.  This Word transforms us as we receive it physically in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.  There are reasons to come to Church but we come to worship because here all our hearts are together, not only together with one another, but most importantly, together with one another in the Lord’s hand.

    This love inside then reaches outside these walls.  “Love one another earnestly from the pure heart.”  That is what we do.  This is what the LWML does.  They give millions of dollars through the district and synodical level for mission projects.  Unless you are really in tune with your church, most people in the pews on a Sunday don’t realize the wonderful outreach that is accomplished by our LWML and the LCMS.  The Word of God is at work.  It is transplanting hearts.  It is transforming lives.  It is a wonderful time to be the church because so many need this message.  Hearts long for something stable.  Brothers and sisters need the love of Christ.  Holy Spirit continue to lead in this direction

    Coming together in worship, God makes us a big-hearted church that extends His hand of love to everyone.

                    Amen.          

September 26, 2021                            Text:  Mark 9:38-50

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Ten women were in a book club.  One day at lunch one of the bolder women asked, “How many of you have been faithful in your marriage?”  Only one raised her hand.

    That evening one of the ladies told her husband the story and admitted that she didn’t raise her hand.  The husband turned away from the football game in shock.  The wife was quick to reassure him, “I have been faithful to you.”  “Then why didn’t you raise your hand?” he asked.  She answered, “I was ashamed.”

    Is this what it has come to?  Ashamed of being faithful?  Ashamed of the truth?  Even Christians are accommodating themselves to the world’s attitude.  If this continues Christians lose their affect.  They are no longer salt.  Nothing is different in walking as a follower of Christ. 

    Do you want to be different from the world?  Then join me in . . .

“BEING SALT – NOT SALTY”

    Things on a Sunday morning tie together.  Look at the Old Testament lesson.  The Israelites were a little salty.  “Manna again?  Where are the melons and onions and garlic and fish?  Come on Lord, we are your people.”  God is feeding and leading and it is never enough.  Do you ever get salty like that?  Take stock of your blessings but you stand in front of your closet with hundreds of pieces of clothing and go, “I have nothing to wear!”  

    We can be minute focusers and petty complainers.  We join right in.  Instead of being salt we are salty.

    Even the disciples led by John are a little salty in our text.  “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” (v. 38)  This guy didn’t have the credentials.  He didn’t have the tribalism card.  Oh by the way, I did learn that word this week – tribalism.  This idea that we are divided into tribes in the US of A and our tribes views are always right.  The disciples were a tribe and didn’t like this interloper.  But Jesus calls out their prejudice.  “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” (v. 39)  Are you getting saltier?

    Now Jesus really goes after them and after us.  He wants us to cut off body parts.  Hands and feet and eyes, oh my!  What is the Savior talking about?  He isn’t really advocated this, is He?  No.  He is trying to save us from hell.  Trying to lure us back from the depths of fire and devil.  Trying to turn our saltiness into salt.  He knows these body parts sin and are motivated by the sinful self.  We need some genuine change in our lives.  We don’t want to live as salty people in an ever -increasing salty world.  We want to be different in a God-pleasing way.

    There is a reason to be God-pleasingly different.  It is God’s favor for us through Jesus Christ.  It’s Romans 5:7, 8:  “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man though for a good man someone mighty possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners Christ die for us.”  It’s 1 Peter 2:24:  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness.”

    Absorb God’s love.  Let it flavor all that you do.  Face each day in the knowledge that you are eternally loved through Jesus Christ.  Go to bed each evening, even if frustrated in some salty behavior, knowing that your sins are forgiven for Jesus sake.  The blood stained Cross is our assurance.  With this flavor enhancer clinging to our being we can then be salt.

    “For everyone will be salted with fire.  Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?  Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” (v. 49, 50)  

    This can be a challenge because of what we have for salt today.  Salt is sodium chloride – a stable molecule.  Buy a can today put it in your pantry, come back in 50 years and it’s still salt.  It might be a little chunky, but still salt.

    When Jesus teaches the disciples, they didn’t have pure salt.  Salt was harvested from the surface of salt marshes flowing from the Mediterranean or Dead Seas.  It had impurities from the rocks it was scraped off of, and from the algae, sand, and sea life that flowed in with the seawater.  That is how the salt lost its saltiness.

    Salt has no power in itself.  Our holiness, our forgiveness, our power come from Christ.  The salt in us only has power because it is from Christ.  The salt of his sweat in Gethsemane.  The salt-laced blood He shed for us.  These won our forgiveness.  Filled with the salt of Christ, we can battle the powers of evil.  We can control our sinful appendages.  We are purified and cleansed.  We can flavor and preserve others.  We can forgive one another.  

    The salty world can dry us up, but Christ salts us with His Word and Spirit so we can have peace with one another.  Live that out today and always.

                                        Amen.  

September 12, 2021 – Christian Education Sunday          Text:  Philippians 4:10-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Martin Luther wrote:  “How rich a God our God is!  He gives enough, but we don’t notice it.  He gave the whole world to Adam, but this was nothing in Adams’ eyes; he was concerned about one tree and had to ask why God had forbidden him to eat of it.”

            Do we recognize ourselves in these words?  We are given so much but we tend to focus on what we don’t have.  We can be awfully spoiled.  God our Father would probably like to sit us in a corner but He continues to bless us.  The beauty of God’s Word today on this Christian Education Sunday.

“WHY IS CONTENTMENT SO ELUSIVE?”

            Philippians is a missionary thank you-letter.  Paul writes, “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.” (v. 10a)  Paul was close to this congregation.  He and Silas had started this church after release from prison.  Now as he writes encouragement to them he is in prison again.  This time in Rome. 

            Again our text, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.”  Astounding.  Paul is confined and he is lifting up the Philippians.  Have you ever been in prison?  Have you ever been in a prison?  In my years of ministry I have been in three different prisons, three types of security, two different people.  Two visits were less than an hour.  One was twenty minutes.  When I was in there I didn’t look around and think, “I could be content here.”  That’s foolish talk.  So how does Paul do it?

            We labor and sacrifice so much for this world.  Everything we gain at each stage of life goes away.  People in the closing stages of life reminisce about their childhood.  They talk about jobs, and children and vacations and where they lived.  They get nostalgic about goals met and friends gained and the high and low moments of living.  One thing is certain – in that closing stage of life – if one is given the time – without Christ all that’s left is the reminiscing.  It is all going to pass away…forever.  The Greek word for content is translated “self-sufficient.”  Therein lies the danger.  If we live as if everything is from our hand or our hard work or our inner strength then we have lost our way.  We fall into the abyss.

            Paul was content because he belonged to Jesus.  He knew his daily bread came from the gracious hand of his Savior.  His will is done in our lives regardless of this world.  “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.”  And the only way we can that is if we can say with Paul . . .

            “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  (v. 13)  How does He strengthen us?  Here’s an answer from God’s Word:  “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:4-6)

            You can either look forward to your last moments on earth getting chatty about things that were and never will be again – or – you can look forward to the fact that your sin is forgiven, you have eternal life and you will be raised to Christ in unending comfort and joy.  Christ strengthens us in every way through His Word.

            It has been stated:  “Those who are chosen in Christ are the special objects of God’s providence and loving care.  They have the promise that He will never leave them nor forsake them.  He will supply their needs, not simply out His glorious riches, as a millionaire throws coins to a beggar, but richly and daily in accord with the all-surpassing riches of the One to whom the whole universe belongs.”

            Why is contentment so elusive?  Because we listen to other voices than the One who created us.  You can’t positive away your moments of conflict with others, or the tragedies of life, or take away that last breath which opens entrance into eternity.  You can listen to a lot of voices or you can listen to Jesus:  “I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (Jn. 14:3)

            Today is about the Word.  Confidence in the Word.  The Word in the flesh.  “I am content, my Jesus ever lives.”

                                                            Amen.    

September 5, 2021                                  Text:  Isaiah 35:4-7a

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Are you afraid of leaves?  Pastor, what a dumb question!  Fair enough.  Probably none of us are.  We know leaves are good for trees and plants to help them store food and water.  We like the look of especially autumn leaves.  We don’t fear a leaf falling from a tree and knocking us over.  I grew up on Elm St. with two big elm trees in the front yard.  The leaves were so thick you couldn’t see the sidewalk.  It was great fun to jump in the leaves and back then you could then burn them in your yard.  There was no reason to be afraid of leaves.  

    Things were different for Adam and Eve.  Martin Luther wrote that once they fell into sin Adam and Eve would have been terrified by something as harmless as a leaf rustling in the breeze.  But then again who wants to see their pants blowin’ in the wind all day?  Once our first parents experienced fear the world changed.  Think of all the anxious moments they must have had as perfection left them behind?  

    We are on the cusp of a beautiful time of the year so let’s frame the sermon title this way . . . 

“FEAR NOT THE AUTUMN LEAVES”

    We confess in the First Article of the Apostle’s Creed meaning:  “I believe that God has made me and all creatures.”  But we also experience creation as a threat.  Anxious hearts abound.  Life in this world is marked by anxiety, for our sin is subject to creation.  Disease can enter a healthy body.  Hearing can deteriorate.  Eyesight can become limited.  Mobility can shrink or be lost.  Old age can make the sharpest minds a struggle to distinguish day from night.

    What else gives you an anxious heart?  Sex education in schools?  Mask wearing again?  Footage from Afghanistan?  How on edge everyone is in public?  The thought police?  It causes anxiety because in most of these cases we can do very little.  Think of it this way.  What if you went home today and your house was on fire?  Would a country halfway around the world or a virus threat or teaching a child how to wear a condom be on your mind?  I doubt it.  You see the closer the anxiety the more the fear.

    This is what were happening with Isaiah and his people.  The fear was close by.  The chapter preceding chapter 35, Isaiah 34 was all about judgment.  Now that will get your attention.   It is into this world God comes to save.  “Be strong; fear not!”  

    I am not sure why but I believe some people like to live in fear.  They like to buy in to all the talk and fluff being bandied about.  I am not going to live that way.  Want to join me?  Then listen up.  In both the Old and New Testaments God calms anxious hearts with words.  His words.  To Israel:  “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have you called you by name, you are mine.” (Is. 43:1b)  To Bethlehem’s astonished shepherds:  “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” (Lk. 2:10)  To terrified disciples in a rocking boat:  “Take heart; it is I.  Do not be afraid.” (Mk. 6:50)  The risen Lord to confused women on Easter:  “Do not be afraid.” (Mt. 28:10)

    The Lord has granted me many life opportunities where calm was needed in chaos.  The road of panic doesn’t help our children, or our family, or our neighbor, or our fellow citizen.  God has authorized this to you today:  “Be strong; fear not.”

    God in the flesh is the remedy for fear.  God’s vengeance was executed through Christ.  He bore your sins to the cross.  He answered them for you through His blood.  Raised from the dead, He speaks to you:  “Your sins are forgiven.”  Isaiah’s hope is not redemption from the world but the redemption of the world.

    God created you to live in creation with all its falling leaves.  It is His goodness and mercy that saves.  There is not merit or worthiness in you and I.  Jesus has reconciled all things in heaven and on earth to himself.

    The signs of redemption in our text are bodily.  The eyes of the blind are opened.  The lame leap like a deer.  And in a beautiful tie in to our Gospel this morning the ears of the deaf hear and the mute sing for joy.

    Through the atoning work of Jesus, we receive all good things from our Father.  Both in the body and in the soul.  Do you really appreciate all that you have?  We are so blessed.  So blessed.  Our response then – “For all this it is my duty to thank, praise, serve, and obey him.”

    The last blessing is for the thirsty to have ground springs of water.  Another gift we take for granted.  Israel can see the blessing of moisture more clearly.  They average only 20 inches of heavenly dew a year.  In contrast, we average 40 inches and 20 more inches of that inconvenient white powder.   Half the world struggles with water.  We think nothing of it.  We are so blessed.  So blessed.  The Lord is the living water that quenches are anxious thirst.  

    Breathe in some heavenly air.  “Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God…will come and save you.”  

                Amen.