κήρυξον τὸν λόγον

[Introduction] Dear Jim, Jane, Laura, and David ... dear brothers and sisters in Christ ...  Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Rachel Lynn Peuster was given life by her creator and was born on December 1, 1955, the child of Clarence Walter and Lois Jean Peuster. She received the gift of Holy Baptism on December 31, 1955 at Peace Lutheran Church in Slater, Missouri, and became a child of God. Washed and cleansed with the Water and Word, God gave her new life, eternal life, as Paul teaches us with no uncertain terms in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Titus. On March 22, 1970, she publicly confessed her faith in Christ. And we know that all who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart God raised him from the dead will be saved . Rachel regularly received and was nourished by the precious gift of the Lord’s life-giving body and blood for the forgiveness of her sins. She looked forward to the Div...

I am sure you all remember the stories about the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock. I am sure you even have a picture in your mind’s eye, don’t you? Pilgrims in bonnets and stovepipe hats ... Indians in leather and feathers ... A huge wild turkey in the middle of a table ... A bounty of squash. ... Corn on the cob. ... It’s an image that continues to linger, even though some have tried to declare the picture to be more fiction than fact.  No matter how it actually happened: What you should remember most is that people were unified ... brought together ... around food. They had been called together to give thanks that God was blessing them and keeping them, that God was making his face shine upon them and being gracious to them, that God was lifting his countenance upon them and giving them peace (Num 6:24-26). Our Divine Service tonight is no different. The same thing will happen. God has called us together to bless us and nourish us with a feast that will sustain us.  Durin...

[It is clear that] you are an epistle of Christ, written not in ink but in the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of heart of flesh. Therefore we have confidence such as this through Christ before God (2 Cor 3:3-4). [Prayer] Lord God, bless your Word wherever it is proclaimed. Make it a Word of power and peace to convert those who have not come to saving faith, and to confirm those who have. May your Word pass from ear to heart and heart to lip and lip to life that it may achieve the purpose for which you send it, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. [Introduction] Today we take up two primary teachings of the Christian religion: the Law and the Gospel. The difference between the Law and the Gospel is the difference between Do and Done. The Law says what you must do, and the Gospel proclaims what God has done. Do and done. Until we can properly distinguish the difference between the Law and the Gospel, between Do and Done: We won’t have confidence in the ...

  Joel 2:12-19; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 What the Lord God said to Adam in Genesis 3:19, he also said to all of us this evening at the imposition of ashes: You Are Dust . . . and to dust you shall return. We’ve entered the season of Lent. Lent is a holy season of prayerful and penitential reflection which begins with today’s solemn Ash Wednesday assembly. Ashes ... just like my crucifix ... visually confess that the wages of sin is death .  We die because we are sinners, who are corrupt through and through, body and soul.  We die because we are sinners.  Sin sticks to us. Unlike these ashes, we are not able to wash them away. We are not able to make ourselves clean. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. We are born that way. Sin is a total corruption that leads to all kinds of unfaithfulness, unrighteousness, deceit, immorality, ruin, and misery.  Our sin is blacker than these ashes. We are like the diseased tree...