Immanuel Lutheran Loveland

St. Paul expresses a frustration that we all feel – we want to do good, we want to do better, we want to be better. But it just seems like we keep falling in the same hole over and over and over again. We’ll explore that frustration (and reality) that is very much part of our lives. Where can we find hope in spite of what we experience with this frustration with sin and my sinful actions? In the t...

With two baptisms on this day, the profound way that Paul instructs us regarding baptism brings hope – the life-giving connection our baptism makes directly to Jesus and His death and resurrection. How does He do it? We’ll dig deeply into these amazing words and promises from our Lord here in Romans 6. Old Testament: Psalm 89:1-4  Epistle: Romans 6:1b-11  Gospel: Matthew 10:40-42  Sermon Title: “H...

In Romans 5 St. Paul speaks clearly of the unusual place from where our hope originates – from suffering! It’s surprising and unexpected, even unbelievable, from a human vantage point. But this is the way our Lord works and how He chooses to bring hope into our lives – even in the most unusual of circumstances with outcomes we could never foresee. Psalm 86 urges us to come to the Lord in those tim...

The Gospel reading is the short account of Jesus calling Matthew to come and follow Him and be one of His disciples. Many looking on would likely question Jesus’ decision in a significant way – “Don’t you know who this man really is? Why would you select Him as one of Your disciples?!” The hope this brings to us is to understand how our Lord chooses to work – and those in whom He chooses to work....

We begin this series on hope with the “father of hope,” Abraham, focusing on God’s call to Abram that we hear in Genesis 12, and the accompanying promises God poured out on Abram. We’ll lean heavily on Romans 4 as St. Paul expounds on the significance of what God was doing through Abraham. The promise, as it came to Abraham and as it comes to us, comes by grace through faith in God’s promise – and...

Keeping Immanuel’s Mission and Vision in mind, on this Trinity Sunday, we offer our thanks and praise to our wonderful, mysterious, powerful Triune God, who is right here in our midst, who has blessed us with this marvelous creation, and has promised to be with us always – no matter what! On this Commitment Sunday, we make our commitments, not just financially toward the campaign, but spiritually...

Pentecost Sunday is all about the Holy Spirit – His dramatic coming on Jesus’ disciples 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead as well as His ongoing coming into our hearts and lives still today through Word and Sacrament. We aren’t able to Run with Perseverance or “fix our eyes on Jesus” on our own—we need the Spirit’s power in our lives! With His help we can run, and we can run with our eyes on...

We’re not in this on our own. Immanuel’s Mission and Vision are both intended to be carried out by all of us – in our individual lives, but more importantly in our life together as God’s people in this place and time. Hebrews 12 speaks of that great cloud of witnesses that we will think more deeply about because our working and serving and following Jesus “together” is far more than just the peopl...

Perseverance is key for us as followers of Jesus. Life isn’t always going to be easy or fun, new or flashy. Our life of following Jesus can be pretty challenging from multiple angles. We’re reminded in 1 Peter 3 that we always have to be prepared to give an answer to the hope that lies within us. We don’t know when that moment may come – with words or actions. We need to keep persevering – with ou...

All three readings will come into play again this Sunday with many reminders of the joy the Lord brings to us in this journey we are on with Him. There will be three youth who will confirm their faith on this Sunday and all these readings speak directly to them as well as to us. The Gospel reminds us that Jesus is the Way, Truth, and Life, and no one comes to the Father but through Him. His urging...

Jesus speaks about the imagery of sheep and shepherds. Where does joy come from? It comes in knowing our Shepherd, listening to His voice, trusting Him, and following Him. In the Acts reading, we’re reminded of the joy that comes as we live this life together in community, living life around the basics of what God has both asked of us and what He provides. And Peter, in the Epistle, expresses clea...

In each of the readings for this Sunday, we hear of the means of grace – God using ordinary elements (water, words, bread, and wine) to accomplish the extraordinary. Acts 2 speaks of baptism; 1 Peter, the “living and enduring Word of God”; and in Luke 24, Jesus reveals Himself by way of the Lord’s Supper and breaking bread. This will be a perfect Sunday to celebrate these ordinary, yet extraordina...

The first letter Peter wrote to his fellow believers was written in the face of extreme persecution. There is, humanly speaking, an irony for Peter to begin this letter with these words of praise and thanks to God – these people were suffering and going through unspeakable horrors because of their faith in Jesus. But that is the point of this journey we are on. It will never be devoid of challenge...

Multiple times around Jesus’ resurrection, we hear the words, “Don’t be afraid!” Why? Because this journey we are on takes us from the wilderness into the joy the Lord has brought to us by His Easter victory. The women who had come to prepare Jesus’ body properly for burial, after seeing Jesus, express what real life is for all of us. We’re told that they were “afraid yet filled with joy.” There i...

Holy Week is finally here. This is arguably the most moving week for us as followers of Jesus. It’s a week that changed the course of history. It’s a week that defines us, inspires us, and gives us life as we hear, observe, and celebrate everything Jesus accomplished on our behalf to bring hope, love, and life back to us and our world. As we continue our Worship in the Wilderness series, we’ll loo...

We continue with our Lent series, Worship in the Wilderness, thinking about the wilderness and about this journey we are on with our Lord together. This week we’re going to focus on the need to speak Truth in our increasingly secular society. We live in a wilderness, of that there is no doubt. And there are more and more voices claiming truth. How do we discern? Where do we look for real Truth? Co...

We continue with our Lent series, Worship in the Wilderness, thinking about the wilderness and about this journey we are on with our Lord together. This week we’re going to focus on the sacrificial journey Jesus took for all of us. We’ll look more closely at what that journey looked like. We’ll also consider His invitation to us to think about what that sacrifice means for us and the lives we lead...

We continue with our Lent series, Worship in the Wilderness, thinking about the wilderness and about this journey we are on with our Lord together. This week we’re going to focus on how hard this journey in the wilderness can be. We’ll think about lament and sorrow that we feel at different times and for different reasons. We’ll of course be mindful of our Lord’s sorrow that He expresses in multip...

We continue with our Lent series, Worship in the Wilderness, thinking about the wilderness and about this journey we are on together and with our Lord. This week we’re going to focus on simplicity. We’re going to simplify the worship service a bit and we’ll take a look at how our Lord calls us to live our lives as we follow Him, thinking about the place that simplicity can play in our lives. Old T...

Our new Lent series, Worship in the Wilderness, began on Ash Wednesday. This Sunday we’ll begin exploring what being in the wilderness can entail. We’ll consider the different kinds of roads that have brought us to worship and to the place we’re at in this season of our lives. We’ll look at what being in the wilderness is and what it is not – specifically, as Jesus was led by the Spirit into the w...

We hear about Jesus’ transfiguration as we wrap up the Epiphany season. This miraculous and spell-binding experience for three of Jesus’ disciples is almost beyond description. Peter tries to explain it in his second letter as he reminds us where we need to remain grounded – in God’s Word. It is His Word that we have to pay attention to, “as to a light shining in a dark place.” It is a life-giving...

Isaiah is preaching a very harsh sermon – one where he is uncovering all manner of darkness in the form of injustice. Do we see it? Do we care about it? Or are we letting that darkness simply cover us and cover up sin and evil and brokenness all around us? It’s not all doom-and-gloom, though, because we have the Lord who continues to love us and guide us. Isaiah expresses what the Lord will do and...

The church in Corinth was a real mess! In the opening verses of St. Paul’s first letter to them, he expresses pretty clearly and pretty quickly the bottom-line of the Gospel – that is, the message of the cross. He contrasts God’s wisdom with human wisdom and there’s not much comparison to be made! The foolishness comes in us thinking how smart and fine and wise we are – when, in reality, that is a...

From Isaiah, we hear a refrain about darkness and light that we heard from Isaiah 60 on the first Sunday of the series. We’ll revisit that but from the context of following Jesus. We hear Jesus’ invitation to Peter and Andrew to come and follow Him. We also hear St. Paul in the 1 Corinthians 1 reading the need to sort out who it is we’re supposed to be following – there was great confusion in Cori...

In John 1, Jesus is beginning to call and gather His disciples. He’s going about it all backward in comparison to the “regular” rabbis of the day. Normally students or disciples seek out a teacher or rabbi to follow but we see Jesus seeking the disciples and inviting them to follow – and they, in turn, are telling their brothers and friends also to come and see. He’s calling them out of darkness a...