Category: Sermons

A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday

In the church year this Sunday is New Year’s Eve and the new year begins next Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent. As we typically do on New Year’s Eve, we take stock of what has been and look ahead at what is to come.

Looking back at this past year we see that Christian churches in our country and elsewhere are struggling, as we are individually, due to a volatile world, financial pressures, and a corrosive secularism. On top of all that is the ominous rise of Islamic jihad and a timid, confused response by many Christian leaders.

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1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Here we are one Sunday before Christ the King Sunday, the end of the church year. The texts are stronger in terms of judgment, especially judgment on those who are leaders, and then also the note of hope that we find in 1 Thessalonians.

As we have noted, there are many today, particularly among evangelicals and Baptists, who are caught in end-time thinking. Dallas Theological Seminary, which has over 2,000 students and over 100 faculty, is a major center for study of “the Rapture” and end times. And Dallas Theological Seminary is not alone. There are many such schools, neighborhood Bible studies, and preachers. We ask ourselves: What do we Lutherans say to this?

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Sermon 1: The last enemy to be destroyed is death

1 Corinthians 15:26

A sermon for All Saints Sunday

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Sermon 2: “He who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”

1 Thessalonians 2:8-13

A sermon for the end of the season of Pentecost

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A Sermon for Reformation Sunday

It used to be that Lutherans nationwide would wear red on Reformation Sunday and have special music and adult forums to mark the Sixteenth Century Reformation. That tradition has fallen by the wayside in many Lutheran churches. Nevertheless, we want to remember this particular event and what it meant to the history of the Christian Church.

506 years ago on October 31, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther nailed Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. The theses were in Latin and thus not for public discussion. Not too many people could read. But he was raising the question of salvation, and what was happening in the church of his time.

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Sermon 1: The foolishness of God is wiser than men

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; 5:24

1 Thessalonians, the earliest of Paul’s letters, has some significant things to say that are said with a certain drama, both in words and in thought. It seems that Paul just wrote it spontaneously. How did he do it? How could he have just written these kinds of things that we find in the letters of Paul?

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Sermon 2: “He who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

A few years ago a major church event happened. The Diocese of Pittsburgh voted to leave the Episcopal Church. This was an important diocese and a major break in that church. It’s best understood by a remark made by the head of the Episcopal Church at that time, Presiding Bishop Griswold. He wrote: “Our problem is that we have two religions within our church. One religion is based on experience, and the other religion based on the traditional message of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.”

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