A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. "The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful—for He cannot deny Himself" (2 Timothy 2:11-13). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Let’s face it: We have not been all that faithful to God. Need proof? Let’s run through the Commandments. As we do, I ask to examine your own heart and life. How faithful have you been? T he First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Have you loved God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength? Do you see your worry and fretting as sin against trusting God? Do you complain about the troubles, people, work, and suffering God lays on you? Do you love the things God gives more than you love Him? The Second Comma...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into His presence with singing! Know that the Lord, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise! Give thanks to Him; bless His name! For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations” (Psalm 100). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! You’ve surely heard of how early Christians were tortured and threatened. Those threats posed a temptation for them to give up on Christ. You may know stories of personal rejection and humiliation that others less famous faced because of their faith, which created painful pressure for them too. Today there are folks like Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop; Baronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers; and Kimberly Davis, th...

Click here to listen to this sermon. [Jesus said:] “ It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep” (Mark 13:34-35). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The last Sundays of the Church Year bring eschatology, the study of the last things, into focus with the lectionary’s emphasis on death, the final judgment, and the promise of the new heaven and the new earth. These Sundays bring us to the conclusion of the Nicene Creed, “And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.” We have said those words so often, but what do they mean? Truth be told, we are often more concerned about the judgment that comes from other human...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “But Ruth said, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you’” (Ruth 1:16-17). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! It seems fitting that on the day of the year our congregation celebrates the faithfulness of the women of the LWML that our text would highlight the faithfulness of a woman—Ruth, a young widow who refused to leave her widowed mother-in-law, or turn her back on the Lord, the covenant God of Israel, even though it meant an uncertain future, a life likely filled with hardship and loneliness. Imagine moving to a foreign country, a place where your people are considered the enemy. A place where you know only one other living person. Not ...

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! In the year 593 B.C., near the Chebar Canal in the land of the Chaldeans, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel: “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And as He spoke to Ezekiel, the Spirit entered into Ezekiel and set him on his feet, and He said, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them” (Ezekiel 2:1-5). “Whether they hear or refuse to hear they will know that a prophet has been among them.” This begs the question: How will they know that a prophet has been among them? I mean, i...