Sermon preached on Saturday, November 28, 2020 (First Sunday of Advent) via Zoom at Church of the Savior in Wheaton, IL. Your browser does not support the audio element. If there are two things I hate, they are waiting and staying awake. I hate waiting. Ask anyone who knows me. I am absolutely horrible when it comes to delayed gratification. I’ve been known to open new boxes of cereal on the way home from the store. ...
(To listen to the audio of this sermon as it was preached on June 6, 2020, click here.) Christians believe that there is one God in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Or, as my daughter Eva put it recently after seeing a picture in her book, “Father, Son, and Bird.” We’re working on that… We Christians have been taught that the Trinity is important. No one wants to be a heretic. Trinity, good. Modalism, bad. ...
(Sermon preached at Church of the Savior in Wheaton, IL.) I’d like to pray this week’s collect again: Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. ...
Good morning! And Merry Christmas! Together, let us pray: O God, you make us glad by the yearly festival of the birth of your only Son Jesus Christ: Grant that we, who joyfully receive him as our Redeemer, may with sure confidence behold him when he comes to be our Judge; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Almighty God, who wonderfully created us in your own image and yet more wonderfully restored us through your Son Jesus Christ: grant that, as he came to share our humanity, so we may share the life of his divinity; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. ...
I. Introduction: The Prodigal Son, Part 2 What a relief, to get out of that house. Ordinarily, Jude would have scoffed at his father’s request to purchase farming equipment from the next city – a three-day journey! But ever since Ethan, that rascal (you might even say that prodigal) brother of his, had returned, Jude could not stand to be in either man’s presence for long. So he relished the chance to forget about his family tension on this farming errand. ...
(TEXTS: Jonah 3:5-10; 4:1-11; Nahum 1:1-8) INTRODUCTION A great green theologian of old claimed that anger is based on fear, that it leads to hatred, and results in suffering. And while I do not wish to disregard the wisdom of a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I would like to take a closer look at anger as discussed in Scripture, and to consider what makes certain instances of anger righteous or unrighteous, legitimate or illegitimate. ...