A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord (Isaiah 58:4-5). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Imagine a world that is cold and silent toward pain and human suffering. Try to envision a place where everything is driven by self-indulgence and life is all about financial profit, business transactions, and the bottom line. A society where politics and government are more about attaining and maintaining power than serving and protecting the nation and citizens. Countless people are being dehumanized. The sanctity of human life is determined by usefulness, cost-benefit analysis, convenience, and the god of choice. In this world there are no prayers, liturgies, hymns, sermons, or Sacraments. And so, love and compassion are rare commodities. This i...

  Click here to listen to this sermon.  I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for Me;      I was ready to be found by those who did not seek Me. I said, “Here am I, here am I,”      to a nation that was not called by My name. I spread out My hands all the day      to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good,      following their own devices; a people who provoke Me      to My face continually, sacrificing in gardens      and making offerings on bricks; who sit in tombs,      and spend the night in secret places; who eat pig’s flesh,      and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels; who say, “Keep to Yourself,      do not come near me, for I am too holy for You” (Isaiah 65:1-5a).  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!...

"Saint Peter Walks on the Sea" by James Tissot Click here to listen to this sermon.     Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Have you ever had a nickname? Did you like it? Hate it? Still answer to it? I suppose it depends upon the nickname. Sweetie or Dolly or Mama Bear are good. Stinky or Lumpy or Terry the Toad, not so much. Did you know that Jesus had nicknames for His disciples? James and John were Boanerges , “The Sons of Thunder.” Thomas was Didumos , “Twin.” In this week’s Gospel, Jesus has a less-than-flattering nickname for Peter (already a nickname for Simon, meaning “Rock”). Jesus calls him Holigopiste , “Little-Faith.” This Greek word occurs only in Matthew (6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8). Where it does occur, it always applied by Jesus to His disciples in rebuke. However, the result never is that...

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Our text for today, Matthew 10:34-37, is a terribly difficult passage of Scripture. Not so difficult to understand, but difficult to accept. These words are even more disturbing because they come from the One whom Scripture calls the Prince of Peace. Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.”   Most Christians want to think of our home as a place of refuge and peace, our family as a source of strength and comfort—especially in times of difficulty and tumult. Heaven help anyone who...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! It’s called “the rule of threes”—how long a human being can go without the basics of life. A man can go three weeks without food. Three days without water. And three minutes without oxygen. But I submit to you that there’s one more basic of life even more vital: Man cannot go three seconds without God. The people of Israel have about run out of God. In the first 39 chapters of his book, Isaiah has repeatedly warned them that because of their idolatry and apostasy, the Lord is sending judgment upon them, first in the form of the Assyrian army, then through Babylon. Beginning with chapter 40, we read about dramatic changes for God’s people. Because of God’s intervention in history, God’s peo...