A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today is Matthew 25:31-46, which has already been read. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! It was 3:00 a.m. A piercing scream woke me. I thought it was the fire alarm, until I realized it was my own sweet baby daughter. Through the fog of my interrupted sleep I somehow realized that I was not equipped with the physical ability to nurse the famished little girl, especially at such an ungodly hour. So I nudged Aimee, who never has been as light a sleeper as I am. “She’s awake,” I said. Her response came so quickly I can only imagine that she had been rehearsing it every day while she’d been taking it easy in the hospital. “What’s your point?” Always the patient one, I said calmly and quite rationally: “She’s hungry. I can’t feed her. I don’t have the right equipment.” Again, it was like she had it all planned out. “Well, she probably also has a dirty diaper and the last time I noticed you still h...

"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 ...

I like to listen to music from a variety of genres, favoring songs that have thoughtful lyrics reflecting a true picture of the human condition with all of its joy and sorrows, challenges and triumphs, its scars and freckles, beauty marks and warts. Some songs grow on you over time; others connect with you immediately. My current favorite, “Rock That Says My Name,” falls into the latter category. The first time I heard it, I loved it. The more I hear it, the more its message resonates with me. “Rock That Says My Name” was released January 18, 2019 by The Steel Woods, a relatively new band whose music balances heavy blues-rock with Southern poetry, adding a bit of plainspoken outlaw country to the mix. (If you wish to listen to it, you will find a link to the official YouTube version of the song here. Click on “more” to read the lyrics.) “Rock That Says My Name” is a story told from the point of view of a man who works at a cemetery. A jack-of-all-trades, he keeps the groun...

Click here to listen to this sermon. But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also (2 Corinthians 8:7). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! I often marvel at the spiritual insights of children. One week during chapel services I was teaching the preschool children about David the shepherd boy as part of a series of lessons on loving our neighbor. I showed the kids two pictures: one of David as a young boy watching over his family’s sheep, and another of David as the grown-up king of the nation of Israel. And then I asked them, “Which one of David’s jobs was more important—shepherd or king?” Most of them replied predictably: “King!” But one of them stole my thunder. “It depends upon whether or not you’re one of the sheep,” Patrick said. And he was exactly right. Both jobs are important for those who are under their care and influence....

Click here to listen to this sermon. “As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4–5). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Back in Matthew 16, Jesus said to the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered for the disciples and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He was absolutely right, and so to Peter Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on ...

To listen to this sermon click here. or here. “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The church was packed for the funeral of a lady in her upper eighties. She and her late husband had had five children, and here they were, along with a whole bunch of grandchildren and even more great-grandchildren. Add in the spouses of the various generations, plus nieces and nephews and their children, and the church was pretty much filled with family, all coming before God to thank Him for this woman’s life and to commend her back to Him. But what if this woman had not happened to meet her husband way back in the 1940s? What if they had not gotten married? Half of the people in the church, from the middle-aged grandparents to the little kids squirming in the pews, would not exist. The union of that man and woman had consequences they co...