Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

October 2, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 17:5-6

Sermon Theme:  “’Dead Duck’ Faith”

(Sources:  Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Anderson, Cycle C, Preaching Workbook; “the Seed of Faith,” bunbury.org; original ideas; “Verses Showing Justification by Faith,” CARM; Nelson’s Three-in-One Bible References; Online article on Faith by Greg Koukl; Luther’s Small Catechism and Explanation; Scientific American Online)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me begin with a story.

A lady goes to the vet with a duck, which she presents to the veterinary surgeon.  The duck is quite clearly dead, and after a cursory examination, the vet duly informs the lady that her duck has breathed its last.

Outraged, the lady tells the vet he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and challenges him to prove that her duck is, indeed, dead.  The vet sighs, but then opens the back door of the surgery room and ushers in a large black Labrador who walks up to the examination table, puts his paws on the table, and sniffs the duck from head to toe.  The Labrador looks dolefully at the vet and slowly shakes its head and leaves the room.

The vet then brings in a large tabby cat, which he places on the table beside the duck.  The cat also sniffs the duck from head to toe and also looks up to the vet and shakes its head.  The vet removes the cat and then says to the lady, “There you are, I told you it was dead.”  He taps a few keys on his computer and says, “That will be $150, please.”

The lady, clearly shocked, says, “$150 to tell me that my duck is dead, that’s outrageous.”

“Well,” said the vet, “if you’d taken my word for it, it would have only been $20, but with the Lab test and the cat scan, it’s a hundred fifty.”

In other words, ‘Have faith in me and my diagnosis.’  We Christians talk about being saved by grace through faith alone, and faith comes from hearing the Word of God, but you can have faith in many things, — your veterinarian, your own doctor, your own intelligence, the plumber you call, the experienced roofer, a contractor, etc.’ Continue reading →

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 25, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Amos 6:1-7

Sermon Theme:  “A ‘Prophet’ Who Practices What He Preaches”

(Sources:  Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Commentary; Prophet and Priest, chabad.org; “Practice What You Preach” by Neil Epler; notes in Life Application Study Bible; original ideas; Harper’s Bible Dictionary; Greek/Hebrew Key Bible)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Since you regularly attend a church that uses CPH inserts from a Lectionary Series, I’m sure you have noticed how all three Scriptures for each Sunday, — Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel – all have a common thread that ties them together.  Your pastor chooses one of the three to focus on, but the others relate to it.  That of course is true of today’s Scriptures.

Moses led the people of Israel as God’s Prophet, and God made Aaron, the brother of Moses, the first priest.  Many people are often confused about the difference between the “Navi” [Prophet] and the “Kohen” [Priest].  That’s because in the New Testament and in our own time, they seem to merge together.  Aaron was a descendant of Levi, so for centuries, priests and other professional church workers had to come from the descendants of Levi.

The duties of prophet and priest were distinctive, but sometimes overlapped.  Although you had to be a Levite to be a priest, you could be a prophet without being a descendant of Aaron or Levi.  Still, the most famous of the Old Testament prophets came from the families of priests, —  Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, — and I’m not sure about Isaiah.  We don’t know enough about many of the minor prophets, like Joel, Obadiah, Micah Nahum, etc., to know if they were also priests.  The Old Testament Prophets, whether from priestly families or not, were Godly men whom God used to admonish the people and to proclaim His plan of salvation.  Eventually the priests, but not the prophets, of Israel became so decadent that God had to call pure and good men like Samuel to serve as both priest and prophet. Continue reading →

Sermon for Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 18, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Texts:  1 Timothy 2:1-7 and Amos 8:4-7

Sermon Theme:  “All Need Prayer, Especially Our Leaders”

 (Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; original ideas; Emphasis Online Illustrations and Commentaries; Life Application Study Bible footnotes; Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia; www.worldreligionnews)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

           “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,” Paul says at the very beginning of today’s sermon text.  Paul presents the ministry of public prayer as a number one priority in the church.  The church has a mediator role, just as Christ has a mediator role.

We are called to bring the joys, sorrows, and needs of the world into the presence of Christ.  Prayer should not be the only thing we do, but it should be the first order of business.  We are especially called to pray for our leaders.  We cannot have a Christian society unless society is answerable to Christian principles.

Thus, Paul urges us to pray for political leaders that we may have a society where there is peace and righteousness.  We must have a government which will prohibit the abuses mentioned in our Old Testament text from Amos, — such as greed, dishonesty, enslaving people, marketing inferior products, and so on. Continue reading →

Sermonette for St. Paul’s annual Fund-Raiser

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 11, 2016

Sermonette Text:  Luke 15:1-10

Sermonette Theme:  “Lost and Found”

 (Sources: Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 26, Part 4, Series C; Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; original ideas; Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Christian Jokes Online)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

           An old drunk stumbles across a baptismal service one Sunday afternoon down by the river, back in the days when they used to have river baptisms.  He proceeds to walk into the water and stands next the preacher.  The minister sees the drunk and says to him, “Mister, are you ready to find Jesus?”

The drunk says, “Yes, Preacher , I sure am.”

The minister then submerges the fellow under the water and pulls him right back up.  “Have you found Jesus?”  the preacher asks.

“Nooo, I didn’t,” says the drunk.

The preacher gently immerses him under for quite a bit longer, brings him up, and says, “Now, brother, have you found Jesus?”

“Nooo, I have not, Reverend.”

The preacher, with prayers on his lips holds the man under for at least thirty seconds this time, brings him out of the water, and says softly, “Sir, have you found Jesus yet?”

The drunk wipes his eyes and says to the preacher, “Are you sure this is where he fell in?”

I discovered that there are hundreds of jokes about finding Jesus, but according to our sermon text, when we’re lost, we don’t find Jesus, He finds us!

In our sermon text for today, Jesus tells a story about a woman who goes looking for a coin she’s lost.  She has nine other coins, but she still really wants that one.  Jesus also tells about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep in the open country to look for just one lost sheep.  When He finds that sheep, He carries it home on His shoulders in great joy.

That’s the way God works.  Of course, God goes out looking for something far more valuable than money or sheep.  God goes out looking for people.  The people He made, — including you and me – were lost.  You and I were lost because we had separated ourselves from God by our sins.  So God went out looking for us – for every sinner, for every one of us.

He didn’t look only for sinners who had broken just one of the Ten Commandments.  He didn’t look only for sinners who seemed like pretty nice people.  No, God went looking for every sinner – even the very worst, and even for just one sinner.  He had faithful people, but even that one sinner – you, me – was really valuable to Him.  So He kept looking!

That’s the whole reason Jesus came among us.  Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”  By His perfect life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has won forgiveness, life, and salvation for us lost sinners.

He finds us today by the Word, which we hear in church, in Sunday School, and by reading the Bible.  He finds us in Holy Baptism, where He makes us lost sinners the children of God.  He finds us in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, where He gives His own body and blood to eat and drink.  That’s how God works.  He never stops looking, but sends Jesus to find us lost sinners – every one of us – and bring us to our eternal home in great joy!

Twice our sermon text tells us of the joy in heaven when a sinner repents.  We can see the smile on the Father’s face.  The choirs of angels are singing.  The archangels’ trumpets are blaring.  That’s in heaven.  How much joy is indicated when sinners repent in the average church?  In our church?

Is there a party spirit of great joy when a person is baptized or confirmed or renews His faith?  Evangelism is Happy Time at the church, because it is an echo of what goes on in heaven.  Because God’s will is fulfilled.  Because God wants everyone to return to Him.

So, why does God not find all of His lost sheep before they perish?  Because they do not want to be found or refuse to be found; they persist in rebellion.  But there is always hope.  How many times haven’t we judged a lost sinner by saying, “He’ll never change!”  Like the shepherd in our parable, God never gives up on us.  Why does God continue the search?  Because each one of His children is precious to Him.

Jesus isn’t lost, so we don’t need to find Him.  When we are lost, the Holy Spirit renews faith in our hearts so that Jesus will find us!  Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Sept. 4, 2016

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Philemon 1-21

Sermon Theme:  “Slavery and the Christian”

(Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible; The New Harper’s Bible Dictionary; original ideas; The Parables of Peanuts; Footnotes, Concordia Self-Study Bible; Life Application Study Bible;  Believer’s Commentary; Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Flawed human nature after the Fall of Adam and Eve developed a bullying system that no doubt began with Cain and Abel and led to the institution of slavery, wherein one human being ruled the life of another.

It seems to be a flawed human trait for some people to want to lord it over others.  In the microcosm world of Charlie Brown and his friends, we see the rudiments of slavery in the bullying tactics of Lucy Van Pelt.  Not only did she lord it over Charlie and his friends, but her precocious little brother Linus always caught the brunt of her bullying.

In one cartoon strip, Lucy hands Linus a script for the Christmas play, and tells him to start learning it.  He reads aloud from the script, “So the words spoken through Jeremiah the Prophet were fulfilled:  A voice was heard in Rama, wailing and loud laments, it was Rachel, weeping for her children and refusing all consolation because they were no more.”  “Good grief!” Linus says after reading it.

Lucy says loudly, “Memorize it and be ready to recite it by next Sunday.”

Linus responds, “I can’t memorize something like this in a week!  This is going to take research!  Who was Jeremiah?  Where was Rama?  Why was Rachel so upset?  You can’t recite something until you know the ‘who,” the “where,” and the “why”!

Lucy shoves her face in Linus’ face and shouts, “I’ll tell you the ‘who,’ the ‘where,’ and the ‘why!’”  She shakes her fist at him and continues, “You start memorizing right now or you’ll know WHO is going to slug you and you’ll know WHERE she’s going to slug you and you’ll know WHY she slugged you!”

As Lucy leaves the room, Linus says to himself, “Christmas is not only getting too commercial, it’s getting too dangerous!”

Sometimes when you read the Old and the New Testament, you begin to wonder whether or not God approved of slavery.  No doubt the Confederate States of America used the Bible in an attempt to justify their ownership of slaves.  Continue reading →

Sermon for Rally Day, August 28, 2016

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 28, 2016

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Hebrews 13:1-17

Sermon Theme:  “An Unchanging Christ in a Changing World”

(Sources:  Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; The Parables of Peanuts, The Gospel According to Peanuts; original ideas; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Footnotes, Life Application Study Bible)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rally Day officially launches the new School Year for the Sunday School Department.  It’s a time for celebration by leaders and students, which took place yesterday at the Woolley’s, and a time for preparation by the teachers as they plan to lead, whether they teach adults or they teach children.  Our sermon text says, “Remember your leaders who spoke to you the word of God . . . Obey your leaders, . . . for they are keeping watch over your souls.”

Of course, it is really God who works through these leaders.

As all of us, and especially the children, face future living, we need to have solid, basic guidelines by which to order our lives.  Today, we are living in a time of confusion, startling changes, moral and ethic dilemmas, and recurrent violence.  There is a breakdown in moral standards.  Things we once abhorred are done today as a normal way of life.  We are confused, we do not know whether to resist or go along with the new morality.  We feel empty from this growing loss of spiritual values.  Our text offers some hope.

This changing world was already changing when Charles M. Schulz was drawing his Peanuts comic strip (Schulz died in 2000).  For example, Charlie Brown was surprised when Violet Gray, a girl who had a crush on him, said that her parents used to belong to a church, but now they belong to a coffee house.  Charlie himself represents America’s values the way they used to be, while some of his friends begin to reflect the moral and ethical changes for the worse.

Violet Gray, for example, would hold the football for Charlie to kick, and then let it go, because she was afraid he might kick her hand.  Lucy Van Pelt, on the other hand, would let go of the football right before the kick just for spite or meanness.  Violet had no faith, and Lucy had too few Christ-like character traits in her.  The guidelines of Jesus were much more prevailing in Charlie. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

August 21, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Hebrews 12:4-24

Sermon Theme:  “The Fire of God”

(Sources:  Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible; Harper’s Bible Dictionary; original ideas; “Moses Jokes” Online; “What Really Happened at Mount Sinai,” thetorah.com; Online Bible Gateway; Believer’s Commentary; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 26, Part 3, Series C)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The late Charlton Heston, who played Moses in The Ten Commandments, once said in an interview that there were hundreds of Moses jokes and that he had heard every one of them.  So he probably heard the one I’m going to tell, but maybe you haven’t.

Three men, including Moses and Jesus, were playing golf together one day.  Moses walked up to the tee, and drove a long one.  The ball landed in the fairway, but rolled directly toward a water hazard.  Quickly, Moses raised his club, the water parted, and the ball rolled to the other side, safe and sound.

Next, Jesus strolled up to the tee and hit a nice long one directly toward the same water hazard.  It landed right in the middle of the pond and kind of hovered over the water.  Jesus casually walked on the water and chipped the ball onto the green.

The third person got up and randomly whacked the ball.  It headed out over the fence and into oncoming traffic on a nearby street.  It bounced off a truck and hit a nearby tree.  From there, it bounced onto the roof of a shack close by and rolled down into the gutter, down the drain spout, out onto the fairway and straight toward the aforementioned pond.

On the way to the pond, the ball hit a stone and bounced out over the water onto a lily pad, where it rested quietly.  Suddenly, a very large bullfrog jumped up on a lily pad and snatched the ball into his mouth.  Just then, an eagle swooped down and grabbed the frog and flew away.  As they passed over the green, the frog squealed with fright and dropped the ball, which bounced right into the cup for a hole in one.

Looking annoyed, Moses turned to Jesus and said, “I hate playing golf with your Dad!”

This joke suggests that God often acts in what seems like strange and complicated ways.

In last Sunday’s sermon, we took a look at the letter to the Hebrews through the third verse of Chapter 12.  In today’s text from Hebrews, we pick up where we left off last Sunday.  If you had trouble interpreting the text, don’t feel alone; many folks do.  I think that’s just another reason why we can be sure the letter wasn’t written by the Apostle Paul.  Paul’s writings were very structured, analytical, and even legalistic, — he laid it out clearly and you understood it.  Not true of whoever wrote Hebrews. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

August 14, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Hebrews 12:1-3

Sermon Theme: “Run with Endurance”

(Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; Harper’s Bible Dictionary; Life-Application Study Bible; Online Running and Jogging Jokes; Footnotes, Concordia Self-Study Bible; original ideas; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Believer’s Commentary)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Michael Johnson, winner of four Olympic gold medals and eight World Championships gold medals, and 400 meter world-record setter, is considered the greatest and most consistent sprinter in the history of track and field.

Well, this icon among runners went to a fancy restaurant club with his friends.  He was dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans, attire which violated the dress code of this elegant establishment.

At the door he was told, “Sorry, sir, you can’t come in here dressed like that.”

Michael was quite annoyed at this, and he retorted, “Don’t you know who I am?  I’m Michael Johnson!”

“Then it won’t take you long to run home and change, will it?,” said the maitre d’.

Michael Johnson has now retired from running, so the favorite for winning this year’s Olympic gold medal in the 400 meter at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is Kirani James from Grenada.  A new hero in the making!?

Back in the days when our sermon text was written, in Asia Minor where Paul, Barnabas, Apollos, Timothy, and others served as missionaries, the original Olympics games, as well as less prestigious track events such as those at Corinth and Ephesus, were greatly loved, enjoyed and followed by just about everyone, including Paul and his fellow workers.  I mention this because the picture language used by the writer to the Hebrews is about running a race. Continue reading →

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

August 7, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 12:22-34

Sermon Theme:  “Fear Not, Little Flock”

(Sources:  Emphasis Online Illustrations; Emphasis Online Commentaries; original ideas; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 26, Part 3, Series C; Life Application Study Bible; Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Uniijokes.com; Online Sermon Illustrations, RE Images; Online Clean Jokes; Believer’s Bible Commentary)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

At the beginning of today’s sermon text, Jesus says, “Do not be anxious about your life,” and at the end of the text He says, “Fear not, little flock.”  Worry, anxiety, and fear are so prevalent in America today that they keep psychiatrists well supplied with customers.

Psychiatrists call extreme fears “phobias”; there are over a hundred phobias, including acrophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, glossophobia, autophobia, xenophobia, choronophobia, ergophobia, and tetraphobia, just to name a few.

Tetraphobia  is a fear of monsters, and is usually seen in children.  However, there was grown man, who still suffered from this fear.  Finally, he went to a psychiatrist and explained that he had this terrible fear that there was a monster under his bed.  Not only does he live in terror, but he never gets any sleep.  The psychiatrist said he could cure the man in about forty or fifty sessions.

“How much do you charge?”  the man asked.

“Eighty-five dollars per session,” replied the psychiatrist.

Since the man couldn’t afford to pay so much, he left the shrink’s office and stopped in at the local bar to ease his frustration, telling the bartender all about his phobia.  The bartender said he knew a sure-proof, cost-free way to get rid of his fear, and he shared it with the man, who took the bartender’s advice, and soon his fear of monsters was conquered.

So he just had to drop by the psychiatrist’s office to brag about his cost-free, successful cure.

“How did this bartender cure you of your tetraphobia?” the shrink asked.

“He told me to cut off the legs of the bed, which I did, and now there’s nobody under there!”

It is a fact that 40 percent of the things the average person fears will never happen; 30 percent of the average person’s worries are about the past, and that can’t be changed; 12 percent of most people’s anxieties are about criticisms coming from other people, almost all of which are untrue.  Ten percent of the average person’s worries are about their health, and your health actually gets worse when you worry.  And only 8 percent is about real problems that have to be faced.

In our text, Jesus is essentially saying, ‘The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of faith is the end of anxiety.’  A true Christian is free from fear because of his faith in God; that’s why Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock.” Continue reading →

Sermon for Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

July 31, 2016, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Colossians 3:1-11

Sermon Theme:  “Heads Down or Heads Up?”

(Sources:  Brokhoff, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Examples; The Parables of Peanuts; Online Peanuts Cartoons; original ideas)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Back in the days when Charles M. Shulz drew his Peanuts’ cartoon strip from 1950 until 2000, he presented a microcosm of human life to the world, from a Christian perspective.  Although Shulz died in 2000, the sayings and doings of his Peanuts’ characters are still being read and loved today; and we who read them notice that the world hasn’t changed for the better since 2000, — actually, things seem to have gotten worse.

As in real life, Shulz’s characters run the gamut of all levels of good and bad human behavior.  Lucy probably shows the most examples of un-Christ-like behavior, and Snoopy and Charlie Brown are at the other end of the spectrum, with other characters, like Linus and Schroeder, in between.

In one strip, Lucy tells Charlie Brown and Linus, “I think it is possible to be too nice.”  As they look dumbfounded, she continues, “By golly, nobody’s gonna walk all over me!  NO SIR!  If anybody’s gonna do any walking, it’s gonna be me!”

She continues ranting out loud as she stalks off, “There’s only one way to survive these days . . .you have to walk over THEM before they walk over YOU!”

After Lucy is gone, Linus says to Charlie, “It must be nice to have a philosophy that will sustain you in times of need.”

Charlie’s little sister, Sally, tries, but often has a hard time being good and acting Christ-like.  In one cartoon, Sally shouts in exasperation, “What do you mean, I’ve got to be good all the time?!!  Don’t I get weekends off?”

In another strip, Snoopy says, “I don’t have time to hate people who hate me because I’m too busy loving people who love me.”

Too often, most of us are like Lucy and Sally rather than like Snoopy.  Too often, we live according to earthly values.  Usually, we walk with heads down, seeing worldly things, thinking negative thoughts, and saying and doing sinful things.  A Christian lives in two worlds – in this world of materials and vices, and in a higher world of heavenly values where Christ is.  Is it going to be heads down or heads up?!

Since Jesus has ascended into heaven, we on earth must look to Him for our values, goals, and ideals while here on earth.  Our lives are impoverished by preoccupation with worldly values leading us into negative thoughts and wicked actions.  The wagon of life needs to be hitched to the star of Christ. Continue reading →