Sermon for Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost

November 17, 2013, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Sermon Theme:  “Christians Aren’t Grasshoppers”

(Sources:  Emphasis online Commentaries; Emphasis online Illustrations; original ideas; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 23, Part 4, Series C)

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

 You can’t help but think of Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper when you read today’s sermon text.  But Pastor Mosley came up with a 21^st Century version of the ancient fable which I want to share with you today.

The ant works all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.  The grasshopper laughs and dances and plays the summer away.  Come winter, the ant is warm and well-fed, but the grasshopper has no food or shelter.  Shivering, the grasshopper calls a national press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well-fed while others are cold and starving.  All the major broadcast and cable networks show up and provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to film of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. Continue reading →

Sermon for Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost

November 10, 2013, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Exodus 3:1-15

Sermon Theme:  “Excuses, Excuses, Nothing but Excuses!”

 (Sources for this sermon:  Emphasis online Illustrations; Brokhof, Series C, Workbook; original ideas; Believer’s Commentary; Halley’s Bible Handbook)

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

 When Imelda Marcos was criticized for having 3,000 pairs of shoes in her closet, her excuse was:  “Everybody kept their shoes there.  The maids . . . everybody.”  (The Divine Salvage)

When Zsa Zsa Gabor slapped a Beverly Hills policeman, her excuse was:  “I am from Hungary.  We are descendants of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun.  We are Hungarian freedom fighters.”  (Ibid.)

When God asked Moses to go liberate a nation of slaves, he had more excuses than either Zsa Zsa or Imelda.  A couple of those excuses are found in our sermon text, and the others are found in Chapters 4 and 5.  Continue reading →

Sermon for All Saints’ Day (Observed)

November 3, 2013, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon Theme:  “Song of Victory for the Church Triumphant”

(Sources:  Emphasis Online Commentaries; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas; Deutsche Zitate.german.about.com; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Volume 23, Part 4, Series C)

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

 It’s interesting to see how congregations name their church.  Have you every noticed that a vast majority of Missouri Synod Lutheran churches are named either St. Paul, St. John, or Trinity?  Maybe that’s a reflection of the sober, sedate, staid nature of a denomination founded by conservative, Midwestern German immigrants.

For more colorful diversity in the naming of churches, you need to drive around East Texas.  Or Upper Peninsula Michigan.  Piney Shade Baptist Church, for example.  But one of the funniest church names I’ve ever read about requires an explanation, or you might not get the humor. Continue reading →

Sermon for Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, October 20, 2013

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Sermon Theme:  “Surrounded by the Enemy”

 (Sources:  Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 23, Part 4, Series C; Harper’s Bible Dictionary; Concordia Journal, Summer 2013; original ideas; Believer’s Commentary)

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

 Former Lutheran Hour speaker, Kenneth Klaus, shares a war story from World War II that speaks to us this morning.

With over 250,000 German soldiers and 1,000 army tanks, the Nazi’s stormed the city of Bastogne, hoping to reclaim Europe.  American troops, under the command of General A. C. McAuliffe were surrounded.

Their general would not surrender, so American soldiers were plenty worried.  A sergeant in Bastogne talked to some of his men, including a young soldier, a private, from the South.  Being relatively new, he might, you’d think, be shaking in his boots.  He wasn’t.  He seemed so incredibly calm that his sergeant asked him a question. 

Expletives deleted, the conversation went something like this:  The sergeant asked, “You do understand the Krauts have us surrounded, don’t you?” 

“Yup, I got that, Sarge.”

“And how do you feel about that?”  asked the Sergeant. Continue reading →

Sermon for LWML Sunday, October 13, 2013

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 24:44-53

Sermon Theme:  “You Are My Witnesses”

(Sources:  Emphasis online Illustrations; original ideas and personal examples; Examples, Rev. Dien Taylor, “You Are My Witnesses”; Online SermonSuite articles on Luke 24:44-53)

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

 In all the years that my wife and youngest daughter went to LWML conventions, District and National, I never attended one.  I guess I was just too intimidated by the thought of being so outnumbered by such a huge group of ladies!  Each convention, the ladies had to have a pastor lead the Bible study and deliver the sermon, so there was always at least one man present, — maybe even the only one, or at least that’s the way I pictured it.

Pastor Gobrecht tells about a women’s convention he attended – he doesn’t say that it was LWML, but it sounded like it might be.  This women’s group had a male speaker who looked terrified when he approached the microphone – one man looking out at a sea of women.  His hands trembled. 

“Ladies, I come to you from . . .” but his throat went dry.

“He started again, “Now, ladies, I come . . . “ but again his nerves defeated him.

Undaunted, he backed up a little and said, “Now, ladies, I come” . . . and he tripped over the microphone wire, landing in the lap of a woman sitting in the first row.  “I’m terribly sorry,” he exclaimed, clambering to get to his feet.

Continue reading →

Sermon for Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Oct. 6, 2013

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

Sermon Theme:  “Trust God’s Promises Even in the Worst of Times”

(Sources:  Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 23, Part 4, Series C; Emphasis Online Sermon Illustrations; Brokhof, Series C, Preaching Workbook; Believer’s Commentary; original ideas; Online Quotation page)

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

 In some ways, this sermon text from Habakkuk reminds me of a tempera and oil painting by John Biggers, painted in 1966, — that’s two years after the American Civil Rights Act was passed and public schools were integrated all over America. 

Continue reading →

Sermon for St. Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2013

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Revelation 12:7-12

Sermon Theme:  “The Truth about Angels and Saints”   

 (Sources:  Emphasis online Illustrations; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 23, Part 4, Series C; Online angels.about.com; Online Aardvark Alley Saint Michael and All Angels; Online Ask us anything St. Michael Saint; Steve Bauer, “How Do Angels Serve God?”; original ideas; Lutheran Cyclopedia; Concordia Journal, Summer 2013; Nelson’s Three-in-One)

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

There seems to be more confusion about “angels,” than about perhaps any other subject in the Bible, — mainly because the most popular concepts today regarding angels are un-biblical.  Many of those we get from Hollywood movies.  To be sure, angels are real; it’s just that their reality is misunderstood. 

I want to begin by telling a funny story about angels, — partly because it’s funny, but mainly because it presents the most common misconception about angels that you will find.

Here’s the story: 

Continue reading →

Sermon for Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Sept. 22, 2013

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 16:1-15

Sermon Theme:  “That Dirty Five-Letter Word, “Money”

(Sources:  Emphasis online Commentary; Emphasis online Illustrations; Brokhof, Series C, Preaching Workbook; original ideas)

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

 The IRS has never called me to verify large contributions made by church members, but I have known a couple pastors who have received such inquiries. 

Continue reading →

Sermon for Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Sept. 15, 2013

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 15:1-10

Sermon Theme:  “Lost and Found”

(Sources:  Emphasis online Commentary; Emphasis online Illustrations; personal examples and original ideas; Brokhof, Series C, Preaching Workbook)

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

Most of you have been lost at one time or other in your life, I’m sure.  It’s a terrible feeling!  Growing up with a perceptual problem that is probably a mild form of dyslexia, I have always had trouble with directions and not knowing whether I should turn right or left.  When I was seven years old, I got so lost I thought I’d never see another human being ever again.

My parents, my aunts and uncles, and my brother and I were fishing in the deep woods in Dime Box.  We were fishing in groups at several locations on this endless creek, and I left my parents’ group to go join one of my uncle’s group.  Rather than follow the winding creek, I took a short cut to save time.  Well, it was the long cut, because I soon found myself in a strange part of the woods, far from any branch of the creek.  No one answered when I hollered for help, because I was too far away for my voice to carry.  Keep in mind there were no cell phones in those days. Continue reading →

Sermon for Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18

September 8, 2013, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Sermon Theme:  “What Do You Choose?”

(Sources:  Emphasis online Illustrations; Believer’s Commentary; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 23, Part 4, Series C; original ideas; Nelson’s Three-in-One Concordance notes)

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

You did not choose to be born in Wallis.  Or in East Bernard.  Or in Dime Box.  You did not choose to have Lutheran parents who made you memorize Luther’s Small Catechism, — parts of it, in German.  You did not choose to have a father who could not read.  You did not choose to have a mother who was like a marine sergeant.  You did not choose many things in your life.

Some of us were able to choose the college we attended; some were not.  Whether the young man, whose tragic story I’m about to tell, was able to choose the college he attended, or not, I don’t know.

His mother was very proud of him as he left home to attend Tuskegee  Institute.  She said tearfully to him, “Don’t forget who you are and whose you are.  Study hard and do your best.  Don’t settle for anything less.”  She was a very devout Christian, and she warned him not to bow down to the false gods of the world.

Away from home for the first time, the young man had lots of choices.  He began to party more than study.  He soon lost all sense of responsibility and purpose; it no longer mattered to him why he was in college.  He fell in with the wrong crowd, stayed out late and drank heavily. Continue reading →