A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “The Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’   He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’   The man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’” (Genesis 3:9-13). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! If you read the theme of today’s message, you might have wondered: Stewardship? What does that have to do with Lent? Or the temptations in the garden or wilderness? Did Pastor decide it’s time for stewardship emphasis? No, this is not part of a special emphasis. As I was reminded at a stewardship conference our circuit sponsored a few years ago...

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let this be the Law for Ash Wednesday: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Those are simple words, but powerful ones. They’re surprisingly difficult for me to say while putting ashes on your foreheads. I can’t help but think of the scores of men, women, and children whose bodies I have committed to the ground with similar words. These words were first spoken to Adam to describe the curse and the consequences of sin, the first announcement of death. God made them holy to live forever with Him, but they defied His Word and threw their holiness away. As a result, the Lord said to Adam, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It didn’t happen all at once that day, but Adam eventually crumbled away. You are dust, and to dust you shall return. That’s why hair falls out and skin gets waxy. It’s why arteries clog and valves leak, why eyesight fails and can...

"The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man" by Jan Brueghel Click here to listen to this sermon.  "They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Genesis 3:8-9).l Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! “Where are you?” the Lord God asks. Not that He needs to ask. The Lord God sees everything, knows everything. No, He isn’t asking for His own sake, but for the sake of the man and the woman He had created in His image and then given stewardship over all of creation. It is they who don’t realize where they are, what a serious situation they have gotten into, how they have just brought in sin and death into their lives and all of creation with their one rebellious act. They have sinned. They have broken the one and only commandment ...

"Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden" by Lucas Cranach the Elder Click here to listen to this sermon. “The Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.’   He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’   The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’” (Genesis 3:9-13). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! If you read the theme of today’s message, you might have wondered: Stewardship? What does that have to do with Lent? Or the temptations in the garden or wilderness? Is this just because Pastor Moeller went to the Stewardship Workshop a few weeks ago? Did he decide it’s time ...

"Adam and Eve" by Lucas Cranach the Elder Click here to listen to this devotion. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were na...

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Click here to list to this sermon. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15). Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! It is fitting, I suppose, that we speak tonight from the shadow of a tree. It is Christmas Eve, after all, and we Lutherans love our Christmas trees. In fact, it was a Lutheran pastor, Rev. H. C. Schwann, who is credited with putting up the first Christmas tree in an American church in 1851. What a beautiful tree we have here! Bright white lights! Shiny silver and royal blue ornaments! A dazzling star! But the fruit on this tree, though a delight to the eye, is obviously not good for food, nor does it promise to make one wise, like the forbidden fruit of the tree in Eden.  The Lord spoke the words of our text from the shadow of that tree on one of the worst days ever—the day that Adam and Eve fell into sin. God had ...