A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! “ Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith… This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved. A creed (from the Latin credo , “I believe”) is a confession of faith used by individual Christians, congregations, and churches to express what is believed, taught, and confessed about God and, consequently, what is not believed, taught, and confessed about God. Creeds and conflict are not just intertwined; they are inseparable. When disputes over doctrine emerge, creeds are a beacon of clarity, guiding us through the diverse interpretations of God's nature. Some perceive God in one way, others in another. Some view Jesus as a righteous man, others as God incarnate, and a few as a deity with a lowercase' g'. Some argue it is inconsequential, while others assert ...

"The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones" by Gustave Dore Click here to listen to this sermon. “And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O My people. And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:13-14). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Admittedly, I chose the title “A Holy Spirit Revival” to be provocative. It is not a term we Lutherans would generally use because of the negative associations with the charismatic movement, altar calls, decision theology, and speaking in tongues. Many Pentecostal, Baptist, and American Evangelical churches describe a Holy Spirit revival as  a powerful movement of God’s Spirit that brings spiritual awakening and renewal to individuals, communities, and the church . And while that definition can be tr...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “[Jesus said:] And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are one. While I was with them, I kept them in Your name, which You have given Me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As you sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also...

"Resurrection" by Rembrandt Click here to listen to this sermon. “So when they had come together, they asked Him, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’ And when He had said these things, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven’” (Acts 1:6–11). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! In 1997, Marshall Applewhite led thirty-eight other people...

Click here to listen to this sermon. Jesus said:] “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9-11). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! It’s one of the shortest answers in the list of questions I require our catechumens to answer to be confirmed: “What, in one word, is the summary of all the commandments?” The answer: “Love.” It’s a short, simple answer. But it takes some repetition until they remember it. And even longer until they understand it. Why is that? I suspect it is because we generally use these words with different definitions in different contexts. Love and commandments are not typically associated in our everyday conversations. Love is often seen as a universally positive concept, while commandments can be viewed as strict, authoritative, and overbearing. Yet, in today’s Gospe...