St. Paul's Lockport Sermons

Quinquagesima, fifty days before Easter, Jesus tells his disciples clearly that he is going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. The disciples do not understand, but a blind man sees clearly who Jesus is. Let us be like the blind man, calling out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.

Sexagesima Sunday is about sixty days from Easter. As we get nearer to Lent, our Lord teaches us in the Parable of the Sower how faith is created, the dangers to faith in this life, and how to persevere in faith to produce much fruit.

Septuagesima begins Pre-Lent, 70 days before Easter. As we enter pre-lent, we refresh our minds and souls toward what is really important, repentance and forgiveness of sins, faith and its fruit. Here we see by Daniel's example how to redeem the time even when we find we have wasted it.

We can apply this in a similar way with our faith, it is hidden, but it is not secret. Christianity is not a religion of secrets. As we see, once Christ rose from the dead, everything is told. When people join our church, they are not being initiated into something secret. We have here a public worship service where everyone is welcome. We teach publicly the Small Catechism and the Scriptures. Thi...

So when Simeon sees this little baby, it’s not just that he’s cute. Simeon takes the child in his arms and blesses God and sings this song “Lord now you are letting your servant depart in peace…my own eyes have seen you salvation.” Simeon is saying “I can depart, I can die, because I have seen Jesus. I have seen the one who is going to save us all. I’m done, there is nothing more I need.” That is...

Second, we see Joseph and Mary’s faith in that they were always diligent in worship. We might think of the Jews as a people who universally observed all of God’s laws, but that was not the case at all. Especially in the north in Galilee, where the holy family lived, there was known to be a general lax attitude when it came to religion. Mary and Joseph don’t let their distance, their poverty, or th...

So if this is what Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ, says our pastors should be, we should hold him to it. Hold me to it. God has called me not to be Lord over you, but to lead you by example in teaching and life. If that doesn’t happen, the pastor has no right to be there. 

But Jesus always saves the best for last. This is the miracle that looks forward to the greatest miracle. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, He takes on our sin and guilt, and pays the punishment for us. As He is crucified and all of God’s wrath is upon Him, He continues to be the innocent Son of God. Then He rises from the dead on the third day, Sunday, the day of new creation. 

. For Jesus, all the world has set up as His enemy. He has come as a king into a world that hates Him. He comes as the light into a world that loves darkness. But Jesus does not fight against flesh and blood. He is not anointed to conquer all sinners, captured them, and sentence them to death. He is anointed to save flesh and blood sinners whom He loves from the true enemies – sin, death, and the...

Herod is not particularly religious. He feigns being Jewish, but isn’t. He has no piety at all, or interest in the scripture. He hires people to do that for him. But Herod must deal with the fact of this king of the Jews being born. It is not something which is left for theologians to debate, but is right there, affecting his very livelihood and life. Epiphany shows us that a light has come into t...

For Christ to come in humility, he relates to every struggle of the humble. He isn’t some powerful king who doesn’t know what it’s like to be poor or despised. He knows what it is like to be hated, pursued, and cursed. All this He does out of love for us. When we face difficulty, mourning, or feel ignored or lonely, our Lord Jesus Christ is with us. He died and rose again to be with us through tho...

The twenty-fifth day of December. In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth; the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood; the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham; the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses and the going fort...

The story of Christmas is a message, a sign, and a response. 

I hope you are familiar with A Christmas Carol, the short novel, by Charles Dickens, or have at least seen an adaptation of it on TV (the muppet one is the best). If not, to sum up, a wicked man named Scrooge is visited by three ghosts at Christmas to show him how wicked he has been, the last one, the ghost of Christmas yet to come, even showing him his death, which no one mourns. This chapter of...

Remember, though, that in prison, John was encouraged by the word of God. And Jesus also sends himself to you by word and sacrament to encourage you. You have a Savior who has died for you and risen from the grave. We can be sad, we can mourn, but we always have hope. Never despair, because Jesus Christ remains with you. Without him, Christmas season is empty of meaning anyway. With him, even a Ch...

The good thing is that your marriage is not based on your feelings or your moods. You fortress is not built on feeling or even your actions. “With might of ours could naught be done, soon were our loss effected.” By coming here, having your marriage blessed by God, you are showing to all of us that the fortress of your marriage is built on Jesus Christ and his Word. “But for us fights the valiant...

What hope would we have without this holy sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood? Our Lord came in His first Advent, born of Mary, before he departed gave us this holy meal. We have a taste of His presence with us as we await for His return. We can say that wherever and whenever we live, we are entering that continuity between the Last Supper in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday and the Final Wedd...

At the time Nahum prophesies, no one would ever think that Nineveh would fall. But this is exactly the message of Nahum. It is not Nineveh, or any great city, that rules heaven and earth, but God. This means two things: (1) Those who continue in wickedness will be judged by God and fall. (2) Yet at His essence, God is merciful and loving, and a fortress to even the weak who trust in Him.

To wake up is to realize that our imagination should picture and desire the things of God. To remember where God has answered prayer. Or the peace that comes with receiving forgiveness in the Supper or confession of sins. The strength that comes from bearing one another’s burdens as Christians. When we turn our desire to these things, when we will find true joy.

True thanksgiving means contentment is not found in things, or accomplishments, or anything else. That is idolatry. Whether it is about how much we have, how little we have, or how medium amount we have. Contentment which leads to true thanksgiving has no relation to what we have at all. It is realizing that above all else, God has provided for us and will continue to provide. And that only God pr...

Sermon for the Last Sunday of the Church Year I want to use the image of an ark, a box as a mental reminder of the necessity, type, and fruit of watchfulness. We have two arks in the Bible which you probably know of at least one – the ark of Noah, and the ark of the covenant. One is a boat, and one is carried on poles and put in the place of worship, but both are boxes.

Sermon for the Second Last Sunday of the Church Year (Trinity 26) As Jesus tells about the final judgment we get a description of the three stages of a Christian’s life – his election from the foundation of the world, his life of service to his brothers in faith, and his inheritance of the kingdom in heaven.

Sermon for the Third Last Sunday of the Church Year (Trinity 25) There were other things that God hates, that are offensive to Him, that raise his wrath. The Book of Proverbs actually speaks about many things that God considers abominable. God finds to be an abomination those of crooked heart, lying lips, false balances and unequal weights (that is cheating in the marketplace), for kings to do evi...

Sermon for the Feast of All Saints All Saints is a day to remember the Christians who have gone on to glory before us. We know that God is a God of the living, not the dead, and they now live eternally with Him. We can learn about what life is like for those who are elect, that is those saints who persevered to the end, and compare to our life now. Most importantly – how living as a saint now, do...

Sermon for Reformation Sunday Our churches teach that people cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works. People are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. By His death, Christ made satisfaction for our sins. God counts this faith for righteousness in His s...