Sermon Texts

July 19, 2020                                                                                 Text:  Romans 8:18-27

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Listen, do you hear it?  Creation is groaning.  Wednesday night between 6:30 – 7 p.m. in the Central Illinois burg of Argenta, creation came with a boom.  Lightning struck somewhere near my dad’s house after we had finished dinner.  It was loud and got us all out of our chairs.  If not a lightning storm, then an earthquake or hurricane or drought or floods.  Listen.  Creation is groaning.

            The groans of humanity continue on – differing thoughts and opinions on most everything.  Add to it the taking over of cities and rioting and unemployment and despair and suicide rates jumping.  The family structure continues to break apart.  Listen.  Humanity is groaning.

            Creation and humanity are frustrated.  They are waiting for their groans to be given meaning.  Who will speak for us?

“CAN THE GROANING BE OVERCOME?”

            God’s Word, like it always does, steps into our world today.  The Spirit speaks words that help to overcome the groaning.  Paul heard the same groans we hear.  He makes an honest assessment of the health of the world and God’s people.  He compares our suffering to the future He has waiting for us.  The Lord determines that the future outweighs the groaning and the suffering.  He even says that this groaning may have a purpose.

            Paul begins the text with a promise of glory.  He gives us a picture of the groaning surrounded by the promise of God’s future glory.  Even when we don’t understand our groans, in them we discover the promise of God.

            Creation has been decaying since a fruit party took an awful turn in a garden.  Creation and man broke that day.  They would be at odds with their Creator.  The ground would be cursed.  The groaning would be loud.  But into the picture steps our Lord.  His word through St. Paul uses the word “hope” six times in our text.  God’s last word is not judgment but hope.  We will have relief from our groaning.  It can be overcome – hope is on the way.

            Paul also makes us aware there is something wrong with humanity.  The Holy Spirit lays the law on our hearts and we groan at the mess we can make of our lives.  We groan when we say something inappropriate.  We groan when we treat someone badly.  We groan when we start to lose hope.

            Where is a place you hear a lot of groaning?  During natural childbirth.  It made one father comment, “Put me under, and I’ll name the child after the anesthesiologist.”  There is pain but also extreme joy when that child is born.  There is the hope, in the child you caress in your arms. 

            Yesterday many of us endured some slight pain – a needle going into our arm – to provide hope for a cancer patient or accident victim or a mother hemorrhaging during childbirth.  The suffering provided the hope.

            Biosphere 2 was a scientific experiment to create a man-made environment on earth that might be re-created to sustain life on Mars.  The scientists created a rain forest, as well as ocean, tropic, and desert environments.  Eventually, they observed that the trees growing in the biosphere began to fall down.  The problem?  In this manufactured environment, there was no wind, and without the stress of wind, the trees did not grow strong roots.

            Our suffering and groaning, the pain we go through, can strengthen our faith and draw us closer to God who we depend on in our weakness, as we wait for the future glory that He has promised us. 

            The suffering provided the hope.  It came through on a hill, where a man was crucified between two thieves.  He suffered pain and groaning.  Even the creation suffered that day as darkness and an earthquake enveloped the world.  A curtain was torn in two and people were frightened.  Where was the hope?  How could the groaning be overcome?

            God would give man a two-day period to think this over.  What had been done to Jesus?  How they had treated Him.  By Sunday morning hearts had to be aching, bodies had to be groaning.  Then hope came out of a tomb.  Hope appeared to other human beings.  Hope walked along the road.  Hope ate with the disciples.  This hope, in the person of Jesus Christ, overcomes our groaning.  This hope is stronger than our pain.  This hope overcomes our bad behavior.  This hope gives us a purpose and a future. 

            Why do I describe our present groaning as “a blip in our lives?”  Am I just trying to be clever, imaginative?  No.  The truth is spoken.  The Word of God is firm.  Our future hope is a forever and ever experience in the land of the living.  What we hear today are only temporary groans.  We look forward to the song of the saints.  The chorus we join around the Lamb of God.  How about a smile?  Our full adoption as sons and daughters of the King awaits.  The groaning is overcome.

                                                                                                                        Amen.        

July 12, 2020                                                                                     Text:  Isaiah 5:10-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

            How would define the word home?  Has your definition changed since March 20, 2020?  You do recall what happened that day, don’t you?  The government asked us all to stay home – shelter in place – quarantine ourselves.  Before these last 16 weeks for most of us the word “home” evoked warm feelings.  “Home” for Christmas.  Coming “home” from college and better food.  A good night’s sleep, dad, mom, and family needling.  Dorothy famously said on the yellow brick road, “There’s no place like home!”

            Do you still see “home” the same way?  Are you tired of working from home?  Have you run out of projects around your home?  Have you felt trapped in your home? 

            The prophet Isaiah is writing this morning about Israelites living in Babylon.  They are exiles far from home.  They can’t leave and the Babylonians have become their new daddy.  They’ve been told to . . .

“SHELTER IN PLACE”

            Israel is stuck in place apart from what they are used to.  There is the detestable statue of the god Marduk.  There are canals and building projects they have no interest in.  The Israelites have no king, no temple, no royal city, no land, no liturgy, no sacrifice, no hope, no future, and no song.  How can they sing God’s songs while in a foreign land?

            So by the rivers of Babylon they sit and weep, reminiscing about the good ol’ days when they worshipped in Solomon’s temple, worked and shopped in the city of David, and saw the Mount of Olives from a distance.  O God, “there’s no place like home!”

            The Israelites are not just away from home; they are away from the Father.  Babylon is an oppressive empire.  They are seeing to it that Israel has no song to the Lord.  They want to stop their singing.  If they can’t do that, then they will pollute them with their ideology and managed slogans.

            Some of us are far away from home even while we shelter in place.  We are far away from the Father.  We have exiled ourselves right here and now.  We’ve left home for seductive lights and deadly lights.  We’ve forgotten our baptism and ended up with empty relationships and inflated egos.  What need have we of the Father . . . and we have no song to sing.

            As we shelter in place we also live with ideology and managed slogans.  Don’t gather in church, but depending on your politics, go ahead and gather by the thousands.  The hypocrisy is rampant.  Please discern what you see happening.

            Into this mess . . . into this exile . . . God speaks, “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” (v. 12)

            Just when the music died and Israel’s history seemed closed by Babylonian imperial policy the Lord raised up Cyrus in Isaiah chapter 45.  In chapter 53 a Servant was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  And the guarantee for all this?  The power and faithfulness of God’s Word found in our text.  The promises will not return empty.  God said it.  That settles it.  Faith believes it.

            In the little town of Bethlehem this faithful Word took on flesh and blood and had a heart.  He lived in exile from the Father’s home for 33 years.  What did He say, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Mt. 8:20)  Eventually the Son was exiled from the Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk. 15:34)  Lips are cracked, mouth is dry, He can barely swallow.  His voice is hardly audible.  This Jesus has not sheltered in place but has been on a mission to bring us all home.  He has been spit upon and bruised and kicked and whipped and talked down to.  He is a cross-bearer and a sin-bearer.  Nothing can quench his thirst.  He has no song to sing, the day the music died.

            On the third day, came forth no mere song, but a joyous symphony.  It would be a celebration.  It would provide you and I with a permanent home.  “In my Father’s house are many rooms…I go to prepare a place for you.” (Jn. 14:2)  “Our citizenship is in heaven.” (Phil. 3:20)

            Shelter in place has not been easy for some.  This is temporary.  Our permanent home, our shelter in place is forever and forever.  Think of the fanciest room you’ve ever stayed in.  Toni and I have been to a place where we had a swimming pool, hot tub, and sauna in our room.  The room is ready.  The price has been paid.  Here are your robe and sandals.  The sacrifice complete, and the Father has rehearsed his lines:  This Son of mine “was dead and is alive again.” (Lk. 15:32)

            Let’s sing with mountain and hills, and with the trees clap our hands.  We join in the hymn of all creation because Jesus’ dying love means we are going home!

                                                                                                                                    Amen.        

July 5, 2020                                                                            Text:  Romans 7:15-25a

Dear Friends in Christ,

            You may remember this story from a few years back.  A young stockbroker worked for a firm that made a lot of shady deals.  He warned them of this.  At the same time he quietly sent out resumes looking for another job.  He soon joined another company at a lower salary and with a lateral move.  When asked why, he responded, “I just got tired of polishing the brass on the Titanic.”  Sure enough, a few years later his old company sank.

            That expression, “I just got tired of polishing the brass on the Titanic,” is a metaphor for any futile effort.  After 20 years as a loyal subscriber I got tired of fighting with our local paper over subscription rates that I finally cancelled.  How about trying to get the doctor to return your calls?  Fighting the political system in Illinois?  Or even battles with family members that get us nowhere that we just give up.  It is futile and it wastes our time and emotions.

            In today’s Epistle lesson, St. Paul describes the futility of trying to achieve a good standing before God.  “I want to do what is right and good but I keep doing that which is evil and sinful.  I am a wretched person and I continue on this treadmill of behavior.  What’s the use of trying to do the right thing?”  We want to know that . . .

“I’M NOT JUST ENGAGED IN FUTILITY”

            Does Paul’s experience parallel your own?  You are counting on your good behavior to get right with God.  It is futile.  It’s like polishing the brass on the Titanic.  Two brothers were wrestling with each other and one pinned the other and panted, “Now, confess!  You’re in bondage to sin, and you cannot free yourself” – proving that the brothers must have been Lutherans. 

            We cannot free ourselves.  We are at war within ourselves.  We see good and evil raging around us in society but it also rages in our hearts and in our minds.  We have all been guilty of some horrible thoughts these last few months.  We’ve made judgments that have been wrong.  We’ve questioned authority.  We’ve whined about things that make no difference to our spiritual life.  You may even pray to stop this behavior and Satan slips right back in through the back of your shirt and your mind continues as a cesspool of bad thoughts.  What we want and what God wants don’t always agree.  This is where the conflict happens.

            What God wants usually comes in 2^nd place.   In this time of upheaval, as Christians we need to stay upon the fray.  We need to count our blessings and lean on our faith.  Instead, we start to look at people differently.  They are no longer children of God but misinformed malcontents.  We need to use the Lord’s words but instead we pop off with our great wisdom.  “What wretched people we are!  Who will rescue us from this body of death?”

            St. Paul had a quick answer.  “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  He didn’t stop there.  He filled his letters to the church in Rome with all manner of comforting words and uplifting thoughts.  If God can raise Jesus from the dead, He is certainly powerful enough to deliver me from the sin that infects my body and soul.

            In faith, this Jesus lives in me.  In faith, this Jesus lives in you.  This power is stronger than my sin.  This Spirit of God has made us baptized children of the Most High.  He lives in us through our Baptism and every day thereafter.  His presence comes in body and blood each time I am privileged to enter His altar.   He is renewing His presence within us right now as we hear His Word and trust his promise.

            This Spiritual presence helps us overcome our judgment calls.  This Spiritual presence helps us refocus so that we stop whining of what we don’t have to the wonderful blessings He does give us.  We stop the me, me, me chant and look to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”  It isn’t easy.  Paul knew that.  He was more aware than most that our standing before God is a gift, not achievement.

            On the cross Christ gained for us our standing before God.  We enjoy God’s love and favor because of Christ.  Our faith and obedience didn’t cause that.  God’s grace and mercy and love came upon us and made us men and women in which Christ dwells.

            We are not just engaged in futility.  The cross of Christ gives us a purpose.  For some of you do it for your children and grandchildren.  For some of us we glimpse our faith in our children and future grandchildren.  For some of you your behavior now leads to that spouse the Lord has waiting for you and the children he will grant to you.  By the power of God we are forgiven and given this great gift of the Lord in our lives. 

            We can’t help but exclaim it like Paul, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

                        Amen.               

June 21, 2020                                                                                    Text:  Jeremiah 20:7-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

            It’s far easier to be quiet than prophetic.  The life of Jeremiah wasn’t quite working out the way he wanted.  He had been a prophet at a young age.  The Lord gave him incredible gifts and made him tough.  God made Jeremiah wise and insightful and passionate and most importantly right about the things he prophesied about.  And when this occurs what happens? – it makes a person very unpopular.

            Jeremiah’s friends and family had abandoned him.  He lived in evil times but his pain was because he knew it was all avoidable.  But no one would listen.  The people worshipped false gods and demanded that the church and prophet change God’s Word and declare them righteous.

            Let’s bring Jeremiah’s predicament into Earth 2020.  It’s quite easy to do.  It’s far easier to be quiet than prophetic.  The persecutions will come, but . . .

“THE PROPHETIC VOICE WILL BE HEARD”

            Jeremiah’s voice will be heard because it is God’s voice.  Our voices will also be heard if what we speak is the truth of God’s word.  Jeremiah felt like he was trapped.  The more truth he spoke, the less the people listened.

            What is a truth spoken throughout time that people listen less and less to?  Homosexual marriage.  In 2004, the Pew Research Center found that 60% opposed this type of marriage.  By 2019, the same research company found 61% found nothing wrong with these types of unions.  Misguided Internet ner-do-well’s, interest groups and liberal commentators go after churches and businesses that uphold marriage between one man and one woman.

            There is only one universal truth.  Two weeks ago our Old Testament lesson was God creating the world in Genesis.  He laid out His plan for marriage and family.  I will continue to preach this.  Instead of simplifying life we complicate it.  God’s plan is real easy to follow.  Man and woman marry – God Blesses.  Man and woman have children prayerfully – God Blesses.  Man and woman bring children to worship and Sunday School.  Man and woman pray for their children and love them and respect them.  These same children then carry this same behavior to the next generation and the world is a more grace-filled place.

            When we deviate from the Lord’s plan then problems and challenges occur.  When I am about ready to retire, the prayer is that the world will wake up.  They will have empirical evidence by then that the two moms or the two dads do not work.  And all the liberal thinkers will wonder what went wrong.  It’s far easier to be quiet than prophetic.

            Jeremiah experienced the same thing.  Even though he had times of feeling like a man on an island, he kept proclaiming God’s truth.  I love verse 9, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, I cannot.”  This is prophetic reluctance overcome by divine compulsion.

            Have you experienced this?  You can’t continue to stay quiet as people speak God’s name in vain or trash His Word or so jumble what the Bible says that you must say something.  That is the Lord speaking through you – divine compulsion.  He even gives us the words.  It’s far easier to be quiet than prophetic.

            God speaks a Word, an eternal Word that will always prove right.  If you love your children, spouse, friends, parents, even your enemies, you should want them to hear and know the truth.  God loves His children and so He declares His Word in every generation.  He will not let it die. 

            We err if we think the purpose of life on earth is just to enjoy and be comfortable.  That is part of the promise of heaven, not earth.  It is not an option to keep heads down and eyes turned away.  Can we just have head in the clouds with abortion and assisted suicide all around us?  It’s far easier to be quiet than prophetic.

            We need help to understand what is upon us.  The way we live is our creed.  We pray that the Heavenly Father would deliver us from every evil of body and soul.  When our last hour comes we have faith he will take us from this vale of confusion and bring us to Himself in heaven.  We proclaim that the blood of the Lord overcomes the power of the devil.  We do these first among ourselves because we have been a part of evil.

            The deliverance we proclaim is not only for the world that doesn’t get it, it is for us who do.  We need a Savior from the wrath we have rightly earned.  Don’t get self-righteous at the world; understand the need you have to overcome sin.  The church is the home of rebellious sinners who long for peace and comfort.

            The church is also the home of forgiveness poured at in Word and Sacrament.  We reach out with the world’s only hope.  People hate the church for all the wrong reasons.  They hear condemnation and so it steals their earthly power and purpose.  They are so quick to defend the evil; they do not hear the salvation story.

            You and I know the prophetic word works.  The bible is full of people who hated the church and changed.  Share that story.  It’s far easier to be quiet than prophetic.  Persecutions will come…but the prophetic voice will be heard.  Amen.   

June 14, 2020                                                                                    Text:  Matthew 9:35 – 10:8

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Harold was a farmer.  A plower of the land.  One beautiful day he was putting his crops in the ground when he saw it in the sky, the Lord must be sending a message because the clouds had formed two letters – P and C.  It could only mean one thing – “Preach Christ.”  Harold hopped, actually he climbed down, you can’t hop off of tractors anymore, rushed to his home to tell his wife.  They made the decision right away – sell everything, move to the city, and Harold would begin seminary.

            The first class most take at seminary is Greek.  Harold struggled.  He couldn’t parse a verb, he didn’t know his Delta from his Alpha.  When the ten-week class ended and he saw his grade, he knew he didn’t have the skills or smarts to be a Pastor.  He would return to farming.  Before he left, he went in to tell one his professors.  Harold said, “I saw it distinctly, I just don’t understand, I was sure God was saying “P.C” – “Preach Christ.”  The professor thought for a moment and looked at Harold and said, “Harold, did you ever think that P.C. meant plant corn?”

            God does not call everyone to full-time church work.  God has invested in each of us talents and abilities to be utilized to further His Kingdom.  And the Kingdom needs furthering, doesn’t it?  When the Lord says, “The harvest is plentiful” we don’t need to be knocked in head, we can see it all around us.  If there were more souls in the kingdom of the Lord these last weeks and months might have played out differently.  The challenge has always been there.  Can you labor in the harvest for those so lost their misguided actions cause so much pain? 

“PROCLAIMING THE HOPE OF HEAVEN AT HAND”

            Who does the Lord want to labor for Him?  Christians.  Those who believe in the message of salvation and hope.  This is where what we have been gifted with comes in.  I’ve been blessed to use skills in ways I never saw.  My secretarial skills got a workout when typing all the services for online worship.  My computer and phone skills were used to further God’s Kingdom in contacting members.  I pray my calm demeanor and non-panic has had an influence especially on Karson and Holden, who will remember this time vividly in the years to come.  I pray it has also been a help to you.  The Lord is in control.  He uses my skills and abilities for His benefit and the benefit of the church.

            I know many of you can say the same.  While not being as involved here at the church, you have still called members, e-mailed shut-ins, played the organ, led the singing, took care of the plants, mowed the yard, entered the offerings, paid the bills and a myriad of other things that have furthered the Lord’s Kingdom.  You have also, I’m sure had many discussions with friends and family and maybe even strangers or non-believers about the hope you have in Christ Jesus.  Your proclaiming the hope of heaven at hand has not lied dormant. 

            Before we can be the workers the Lord needs, as you see in our text, we need the compassionate healing of our Savior.  Jesus was teaching and proclaiming the greatest hope the world has ever seen.  God in human form had the greatest talents and abilities of anyone.  He did not use them to glorify Himself.  He used them to save us and the whole world from drowning in the pit of sin and damnation.  Jesus threw us the lifeline that we needed.  In the quicksand of despair and hopelessness, he pulls us out through the power of the cross.  When we struggle with direction and meaning, He shows us the path to eternal life.  His hope is our hope.  This Jesus whom we proclaim is the ultimate Helper. 

            He helps us through our questions with answers in His Holy Scripture.  He helps us through our sin-stained body with a thorough washing clean in Holy Baptism.  He helps us through our spiritual and mental struggles with problems and people by feeding us His body and blood so that we can make a new start, a fresh perspective, a hope that will not waver.  This Lord is always there even when you struggle to see His presence.  God’s word and promise and hope and forgiveness and salvation are a constant in our lives.  It is ingrained in our soul. 

            You know the hope you have makes a difference.  The Lord wants to use that hope in you to reach others.  The disciples were to proclaim, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (v. 7b)  Things can go two ways.  People can be drawn back to the Christian faith and worship because they have seen things out of their control, they have watched destructive behavior, they need purpose and meaning for their existence.  They need hope.

            Or God created men and women can see no hope.  They can get comfortable in their individualism and worship online.  They can shelter in place because things weren’t too normal even before the last few months.  They can stop engaging to help because of fear.  They live for themselves or their politics or their self-preservation.

            Jesus asks us to step into these moments of opportunity.  The Holy Spirit gives a calm voice to speak with the misguided.  The Lord allows our hearts to pray for those on the outside of the faith instead of “putting them in their place.”  If we don’t live the hope we possess in Christ what is the purpose of such hope?

            Jesus didn’t send those first disciples to those who agreed with them or knew the hope they knew.  The Lord sent them into hostile and difficult situations.  He knew what they faced.  They knew they didn’t go there alone.  The Lord’s work was done by the Lord through them.

            That is the simple task He gives to you and I.  Make a difference, with the Lord doing the heavy lifting, where he has placed you.  Proclaiming the hope of heaven at hand.

                                    Amen.    

May 31, 2020 – Pentecost                                                                Text:  Acts 2:1-21

Dear Friends in Christ,

            How do you view our relationship with the Holy Spirit?  The third person of the Trinity is the hardest to get a grasp of.  We understand the Father, because we are fathers, we had a father.  We understand the Son for many of the same reasons, obedience to the Father and his humanity displayed in Scripture.  But the Holy Spirit is a little tougher to nail down.

            Scripture does give some help.  John calls the Spirit a “helper” and a “guide.”  But if we think of the Spirit in this way, He is really at our disposal.  When do we need a helper?  When we can’t do something on our own.   When do we need a guide?  When we can’t find where we are going on our own.  The Spirit is not at our disposal . . . that doesn’t feel right.  He is not something we use when we feel like we need Him. 

            It is more that the Holy Spirit uses us.

“POSSESSED BY THE SPIRIT”

            There is our word for this day of Pentecost – possession.  The Holy Spirit is one who possesses his people.  Which makes you and me people who are possessed.

            What images comes to mind when you think of being possessed?  We think of heads spinning or people running around wildly, or someone screaming uncontrollably.  We think of an evil spirit occupying a helpless victim.  Remember these demon-possessed people from Scripture?  The man who lived among the tombs in the region of the Gerasenes.  He had a whole legion of demons.  Chains could not contain him.  Or the boy with the unclean spirit in Mark 9.  He would foam and grind his teeth and become rigid.  Can you imagine such an existence?  Possession can be a horrifying thought.  Why is that?  Because the possessed has no control.  The possessed are at the mercy of the possessor.

            But think of being possessed by a different kind of spirit.  This Spirit does not possess to harm or destroy or make you crazy.  This Spirit possession restores and comforts and saves.  What would it be like to be possessed, not by a legion of demons, but by the Spirit of a good and gracious God?

            We don’t have to imagine.  We see it in our text.  The Spirit rested on each of the believers.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.  They began to speak in their own tongues the mighty works of God.  Spirit possessed Peter stood up and preached the promises of Jesus.  As those possessed continued to speak the words of Jesus, the dead came to life, hearts were restored and lives were renewed.  Thousands upon thousands were saved on that day.  The word of the Lord grew as the Spirit of the Lord took possession of those who heard and believed.

            He has possessed us, too.  “I believe that I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him.  But the Holy Spirit” – you know how it goes – “has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts…”  He has taken possession of me.  I am no longer the one in charge of my life.  I don’t live by my own determination.  The Spirit of the Risen Christ possesses me!  Until eternity, He has made me His dwelling place.  He has done the same for you.  You are His possession.  Possessed by the Spirit.

            When I was 15 years old, in the summer of 1981, I was blessed to pitch a five-inning no-hitter.  I struck out 12 of the 15 batters and did not walk anyone.  In today’s language the kids would say I was “in the zone” or “en fuego” – “on fire.”  But in the language back then, I remember my catcher saying, “Man, you are possessed today.”  I threw almost every pitch where I wanted.  I had that feeling only one or two other times in my sports career.  What about your God-given talents?  Have you had that feeling of being possessed?  Everything clicks.  Everything goes right.  Someone may remark, “What’s gotten into you?”

            “What’s gotten into you?”  They will ask that question if you take your family overseas to serve Christians in a poor country.  “What’s gotten into you?”  They will ask when they see you loving someone who is hard to love.  “What’s gotten into you?”  They will ask when you defend a brother or sister who has been wrongfully accused.  “What’s gotten into you?”  They will ask when you deal with a life-changing event with grace and patience and faith.

            “What’s gotten into you?”  The Lord.  The Spirit of the Risen Christ has defeated for you every dark and diabolical power.  He has gotten into you.  He comforts and restores and strengthens and saves you.  And He uses you to comfort and restore and strengthen others through you.

            There is an old spirit that still resides in you and me.  This spirit has been working to dash your hopes these last few months.  He fights like hell to bring you down.

            That spirit must die – every day.  If you didn’t say these words at your baptism, your parents and sponsors did.  I renounce the devil and his works and his ways.  Do you renounce them in your words and in your life still today?  The Holy Spirit possesses us so we can say, “Yes, I renounce them.”  Every day, we renounce.  Every day, we lean into our possession by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus.  And every day we go forth in his gracious power – Possessed By The Spirit.

                                                                                                                        Amen.