A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:17-20). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! You have likely heard these words before, the so-called Great Commission of the Church where Jesus declares the Church’s mission until He returns. Many sermons have been preached on this text, usually about evangelism and the need to make disciples. We will speak a bit of evangelism today as well. But first, dear friends, we have some even better news from this Gospel lesson: The Holy Trinity is at work. In this text, the Lord Jesus Himself declares the identity of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and you can’t find ...

"Pentecost" by El Greco Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today is our first reading, Acts 2:1-21. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Pentecostal movement raised a question for biblical interpreters. Pentecostals studied the events of the Day of Pentecost and concluded that every Christian’s life should imitate the experience of the early Christians on that day. Most pointedly, they concluded that all Christians should speak in tongues or prophesy as described in Acts 2. In contrast, most commentators view these events as unique and miraculous—not something Christians must imitate. Like all epoch-making works of God, Pentecost was accompanied by a spectacular, miraculous occurrence which both authenticated this event as an act of the God of Israel and served as a meaningful symbol of the earth-shaking change taking place in world history. It is a symbol lifted straight from the p...

"The Last Supper" by Pieter Pourbus Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Shh! Listen closely! Our Lord is praying. It is the night of the Last Supper. He is soon to be betrayed, but not yet. He and His disciples have not even reached the garden. They are in the upper room, and the Lord is praying. So, listen closely, dear friends—because He is praying for you: “Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. For You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those you have given Him” (John 17:1-2). The Son prays to be glorified. But consider this carefully. He is not praying for the world’s idea of glory. The world defines glory in terms of splendor, strength, beauty, and celebrity. The one who wins is the glorious one. But Jesus defines His glory quite differently. Because the Father has given Him authority over all people, all people are H...

Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today comes from our Epistle lesson, 1 Peter 3:15-22, which has already been read. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Death is inevitable. Sooner or later you and I must face the prospect of the end of our lives, because unless the Lord comes back for us first, we are all going to die. At this point, you may fear dying. You may be angry at the prospect of death. These are appropriate and valid feelings. Death never was God’s will or intention for humanity. He created us to live forever, but sin brought death. At the same time, we Christians need not fear death, for it is only the doorway into the loving presence of our heavenly Father. It is not a leap into the dark, but a welcome home into the arms of the One who first created us and has loved us from our mother’s womb. I firmly believe this. I am not courting my own death, but I have no anxiety about it either. I know that my eternal life—in wh...

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! Peter uses a metaphor drawn from the Old Testament, this one being particularly significant to the apostle himself. God’s people come to a Living Stone and are built up as living stones in Him. Who better to deliver a picture of stones than the one who got his name changed by Jesus, from “Simon” to “Rocky”? When Jesus asked the disciples in Matthew 16, “Who do you say that I am?” it was Simon Peter who confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in he...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what He was saying to them” (John 10:1–6). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! In our Gospel lesson for today Jesus speaks to the Jews. He had just healed the man born blind and the Pharisees are seething at Jesus’ implication that they are spiritually blind; so blind, in fact, they are completely oblivious to their conditi...