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Gratitude and Hospitality
God is not in the business of getting along with “pretty good people,” God wants to save sinners. This kind of thinking turns the world upside down. Jesus’ encounter with Simon the Pharisee and the “sinner” woman shows us that God’s love flows freely for those who know they need Jesus the most.
Total Loss
A sermon on Luke 7.11-17 I preached at St. John’s on June 6. While our lives are often a total loss, Jesus steps across the boundaries of space, time, and culture to give us hope and new life.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved
I’m getting the church caught up on sermon video this weekend, and a few of them are my own sermons. This is the first.
This was my sermon for Pentecost 2010 on Acts 2.1-21. The sermon recalls that Pentecost reverses the confusion of the Tower of Babel and draws God’s people together again, where we share community and purpose by gifts of God’s Spirit.
Mother’s Day Sermon
A sermon preached at my internship site, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Sterling, IL, on May 5 and 9, 2010.
The message connects John 14:23-29 (the text for Easter 6, Year C) and Jesus’ promise of shepherding comfort to the way that mothers provide a glimpse of God’s comfort and grace. It also speaks to the difficulty of Mother’s Day for some, as it can bring up painful memories and make some women (and men!) feel excluded. Ultimately, God’s comfort and grace is for all people, especially for those who know God’s brokenness.
My Sheep Hear My Voice
A sermon on John 10.22-30 and Psalm 23 emphasizing the comfort that comes from knowing our Good Shepherd and being fully known by Him.
“Brother Saul”
A sermon on Acts 9.1-20, the story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, focusing on the perspective of the disciple Ananias, the one who must forgive Saul before he can go to be an agent of God’s healing to the man God chose to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles.
Given at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Sterling, IL on April 18, 2010 at 10:45am.
Toys Help Preach Lent
Jonathan Acuff is right:
For those of us that have been to a Christian conference, retreat or youth camp in the last decade, we know the power of the Tangible Sermon Reminder…
As Christians, we don’t remember any of the sermons we’ve heard in the last ten years but I ALWAYS remember the TSRs.
Christians love tangible sermon reminders. I posted one we did for Ash Wednesday recently, and some people are still carrying it around.
So I wanted to tell you about this idea that Pr. Dennis Heaney of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Somonauk, IL put together for his midweek Lenten sermon series on Luther’s Small Catechism. He divided it up into five parts:
Four 2009 Sermons Available for Listening
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to preach more extemporaneously, so I haven’t had sermon manuscripts to post here on the site. Nevertheless, sermons are being prepared and preached! St. John’s has been recording many of its services, and I’ve begun to extract the sermon audio from these recordings. Here are the “back issues” of sermon audio from the past several months.
A Sobering Experience
Occasion: Third Sunday of Advent
Text: Luke 3.7-18
This sermon was prepared for Wednesday evening worship at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Sterling, IL on 9 December, 2009.
The Axe at the Root of the Tree
Have you ever had a sobering experience? Here’s mine: I was driving from Kirksville, MO one night on the way to a Lutheran church camp in the south-central part of the state. We were going down there to do some service work and have a good time. It was dark, and I was driving faster than I should have been. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I got the immediate, pressing demand that I stop the car – right in the middle of that two-lane county road. Without thinking, I slammed on the brakes, and as we crested the hill, we came face to face with a six-point buck staring back into our headlights. I couldn’t have seen it coming, and another second’s delay would have spelled disaster.
Needless to say, after that I slowed down and took my time getting the rest of the way to camp that night.
Jesus is Going to Crash Your Party
Occasion: Second Sunday of Advent
Text: Luke 3.1-6, Malachi 3.1-4
This sermon was prepared for services at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Sterling, IL on December 2 and 6. The Gospel reading preceding this sermon was this video.
Siberian icon of John the Baptist
As we get started reading this passage from the Gospel according to Luke, we can see that we’re getting set up for something big.
- “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius…” Wow, that’s the Roman emporer!
- “when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,” I know that guy, he’s famous!
- “Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene,” Other kings, other kingdoms. This is getting impressive.
Into the midst of these great kings, something big is about to happen. Then it goes on:
- “during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,” Alright, something’s going to happen to Israel. The big shots at the top of the hierarchy are involved, this is going to be huge!
- “the word of God came to John son of Zechariah” Zechariah was a priest – his son must be something great, too!
- “in the wilderness.” Wait… what?
Why would he do that? And then we find out in other places in the Gospels that this guy lives outdoors, eats bugs and honey, and wears camel hair. Huh?
You see how St. Luke does that? It starts out with this monumental proclamation. We’re being set up for something big. And then at the end, we find that we’ve just been set up. We get closer and closer to the seat of power, Jerusalem, and then we abruptly veer away. What on earth is John the Baptist doing in the wilderness? Let me try to put the weirdness of this into perspective.
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