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The Mystical Body of Christ

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The Feast of All Saints is the most comprehensive of the days of commemoration within the Church year, encompassing the entire scope of that great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded (Hebrews 12:1). It holds before the eyes of faith that great multitude which no man can number: all the saints of God in Christ—from every nation, race, culture, and language—who have come out of the great tribulation … who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9, 14). As such
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A Church That Takes God's Word Seriously

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’” (John 8:31–32). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! From the beginning of the Reformation, Lutherans have taken God’s Word seriously. After being excommunicated for heresy and threatened with death in 1521, Martin Luther appeared at the Diet of Worms, and refused to recant of his writings, stating, “I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. God help me. Amen.” [i] Fifty years later, a new generation of Lutheran pastors declared to the world: “By God’s grace, with intrepid hearts, we are willing to appear before the judgment seat of Christ with this Con
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A Good Man Is Hard to Find

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Click here to listen to this sermon. “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me’” (Mark 10:21). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The story starts on a hopeful note. A breathless young man catches up to Jesus as our Savior sets out on His journey to Jerusalem for what would come to be known as Holy Week. He kneels before Jesus and asks: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call Me Good?” Jesus asks. “No one is good except God alone.” Does the man realize Jesus is God in human flesh? Possibly. Note the man’s posture as he comes before Jesus. He kneels—a sign of reverence and respect, but also desperation, as the two words that form the Greek indicate. In Mark 1:40, it is the leper who approaches Jesus like this. In Matthew 17:14, it is the father of a demon-possessed boy. This man i
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The Prayer of a Righteous Person

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Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Recently, I was asked if I would preach a sermon on prayer. I said I would try to do that the next time that prayer was the subject of one of our texts. Well, here it is: “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (James 5:16). Then I began to regret answering that way. That’s a challenging verse in a challenging epistle. I’ve made it a point to preach on the epistles from James during September; and when I arrived at this one, my first thought was, “Maybe it’s time to preach on the Gospel for a Sunday.” The reason for the challenge is this: when we think of “the power of prayer,” the antennae start to twitch as we think about televangelists with unusual hairdos who define the power of prayer something like this: “As long as you have enough faith, God will give you whatever your heart desires.” We want to avoid that ditch; the easy way to do so is to give
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Friendship w/world = Enmity w/God

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Click here to listen to this sermon. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives mo
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