Immanuel Lutheran Loveland

Psalm 22 is another psalm written by King David. No other psalm is quoted more frequently in the New Testament than Psalm 22. This is a psalm that, more than almost any other, points directly to Jesus and His suffering on the cross on Good Friday. We’ll focus on some of those direct images tied to Jesus’ Passion and also ask what they mean for us. If you want honesty, this is a psalm where King Da...

We continue our new Lent series which we began on Ash Wednesday, The Psalms: A Book of Honest Emotions, as we look more closely at a wide variety of psalms throughout the season of Lent. This Sunday we focus on Psalm 25. Psalm 25 is one of many psalms written by King David. This psalm was written as a psalm of trust, leaning into God’s mercy and His covenant of grace and love. It’s a prayer asking...

Psalm 51 is a classic and well-known Psalm of David, written after Nathan had confronted King David following the king’s adultery (and more!) with Bathsheba. Many pieces of the Church’s liturgy have flowed out of this psalm with the power that it speaks to confession, forgiveness, and the possibilities with God of where a truly penitent and grace-filled life can lead. Old Testament: Psalm 51:1-17...

We wrap up the Epiphany season and our Called, Gathered, and Enlightened series with our observance of Jesus’ Transfiguration. However, I’m not going to focus as heavily on the Transfiguration event itself as I have in the past. As we’ve spent this season in St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, I’ll be focusing on 2 Corinthians reading for the day. Here, Paul again speaks to our times when it co...

We hear from St. Paul the mandate that flows out what we are called, gathered, and enlightened to do – to share the Gospel and “to win as many as possible.” There is some amazing freedom given here, as exemplified by Paul’s own life examples, when it comes to how important the mission is! Isaiah reminds us, with this well-known passage, exactly where the power to do what we do comes from – it is t...

St. Paul speaks right into our times once again this week – not only current times, but from the Enlightenment and Modernity with a jump to very recent times and the constant refrain we heard a couple years ago about trusting the science. Where does our trust lie? Is it in our knowledge or is it in love? Paul gives some great direction when it comes to how we live our lives, or, as he puts it, how...

This Sunday will be a reminder to keep a loose grip on the things of this world. Why? Because “this world in its present form is passing away.” What does that mean for us as we are Called, Gathered, and Enlightened? St. Paul lays this out in just a few short verses which will give us opportunity to consider what Jesus has to say in the Gospel reading, that “the time has come... the kingdom of God...

As we start our new Epiphany series, Called, Gathered, and Enlightened , we begin our 5 week journey through 1 Corinthians with some tough stuff – sexual immorality. The Lord through St. Paul is pretty direct as He speaks on this particular topic – and for good reason. I’ll dive into why that it and some direction and encouragement for all of us. I hope you can join me! As always, if you can’t be...

Epiphany Sunday is always a celebration of light. We’ll hear the powerful promises and encouragement the Lord gives us through the prophet Isaiah in this week’s Old Testament reading. Isaiah also speaks to the reality of the darkness all around us and how we as God’s people are here to stand up and shine with the light of our Savior’s love to brighten this dark world. We hope you can join us for t...

On the cusp of a new calendar year, we’ll take time on this New Year’s Eve Sunday morning to reflect on 2023 and look with anticipation toward 2024. We’ll consider the reminder from Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3 about the many different times and seasons of life and the value that can be gleaned in the ups and the downs that we go through, clinging always to the promises of our Savior. We take the clo...

Christmas Day is the opportunity to move beyond the wonderful sentimentality and to celebrate the power behind this miracle of Christmas. We hear those profound words from the opening of John’s Gospel in chapter 1, taking us back to the very beginning of creation and making clear for us God’s plan to save us, using images of light and darkness, thinking of Jesus as that “Word made flesh.” December...

Rather than talk about Christmas in general or a specific piece of the Christmas story, this message simply walks us through Luke 2 and gives us the opportunity to soak in with a sense of wonder and awe, this miracle of God’s promise fulfilled. We encourage you to grab a Bible or pull up your Bible app and follow along as we step through this amazing part of God’s Story from Luke 2. December 24, 2...

This message does NOT have a focus on Christmas. This Sunday was the Fourth Sunday in Advent as we wrap up our Advent series, The Bible: Our Book of Advent(s) , focusing on the many advents or comings of Jesus. We’ll reflect on God’s promises for the Promised Land for the people of Israel and on our own promised inheritance of eternal life with our Savior in the new creation. What does “land” have...

We’re headed back to the Old Testament again as we remember God’s many advents, or comings. We’ll look at God’s call to Moses to lead His people out of slavery with the great Old Testament event of the Exodus. Moses and this event foreshadow Jesus and the rescue He would bring. As God’s people, He invites us to pray for deliverance and rescue in times of suffering. When all is said and done, the A...

We begin our new Advent series this Sunday. When you understand the Bible as a Book of Advents, especially birth announcements leading to the incarnation of the Son of God in whom you have been given new birth in baptism, then you gain a greater sense of the presence of God for a life of living hope. We’ll be thinking through the Old Testament and the various places where Jesus was already making...

We wrap up our Kingdom People series this Sunday, which is the last Sunday of the Church Year, Christ the King Sunday. We hear more of Jesus’ “backward” theology when He tells us that the people we’re supposed to hang out with, love, and serve are those who are the poor, strangers, sick, and in prison people. We don’t “get ahead” by serving those who are well-to-do. And the clincher is that as we...

All three readings this week are dialed in on the End Times. What we hear in Zephaniah is a bit overwhelming when it comes to the “doom and gloom” aspect of the End Times. In 1 Thessalonians 5, St. Paul speaks some pretty helpful and straight-forward direction when it comes to what exactly the End Times are all about. And Jesus, in Matthew 25, using yet another story, offers some amazing wisdom wh...

Focusing on the lengthy reading from Joshua 24, we hear Joshua’s bold proclamation of who he and his household will serve – the Lord! Along with that comes a challenge to all of God’s people to serve the Lord and Him alone. As Kingdom People, we have to look at what the Lord asks of us as His people and how He desires us to live in these times, and we have to do it honestly and with our eyes wide...

This Sunday we are celebrating All Saints Sunday, a day we observe every year and that officially falls on November 1st. On this beautiful, mysterious, and powerful Sunday of the Church Year, we’ll explore “sainthood” from the three readings for this All Saints Day celebration. We’ll look at the vision of worship from Revelation 7, being surrounded by this “cloud of witnesses” and the encouragemen...

This Sunday we celebrate the Reformation, marking when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany, ultimately leading to a separation from the Roman Catholic Church and birthing not only the Lutheran Church but all other Protestant churches as well. Reformation celebrations provide a wonderful, annual opportunity to celebrate the Truth which sets us...

What St. Paul writes in the opening verses of his first letter to the Thessalonians speaks to how God’s Kingdom People were not just “believers,” but they were the very embodiment of the Good News of Jesus. Paul speaks of the modeling that was happening and how it was not just a WWJD sort of thing but rather they were living as they were, doing what they did, speaking God’s Word, all with power –...

We’re given some amazing pictures and images of what we as Kingdom People are receiving through faith in Jesus. Isaiah 25 gives us a picture of eternity as a banquet, an amazing banquet! Paul, in Philippians 4, urges us to rejoice – not just occasionally but all the time. And Jesus gives us another story this week from the Gospels about the kingdom of heaven – and this story is about, you guessed...

Using St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we are reminded of who we are as Kingdom People. St. Paul hammers home the importance of where we put our confidence, where we find our identity, where we get meaning for our lives. It’s a powerful reminder and what, I pray, will be a helpful encouragement for all of us. We hope you can join us as we continue our fall series, Kingdom People. If you can’t...

Do you know the 10 Commandments? How many can you recite? God’s giving of the commandments will be one of the readings we’ll hone in on as we consider the “why” and “how” of obedience for us as Kingdom People. It’s not that difficult to understand but where we tend to get in trouble is with the misunderstanding of the purpose of the Commandments and how Christianity tends to be viewed through the...

Generous, counter-intuitive, upside down – any of those words could fit into today’s theme when it comes to who we are and how we live as Kingdom People. The Gospel reading is another story from Jesus – this one about generosity. But not everyone sees it that way. Others in His story cry “Foul!” because what the landowner did didn’t seem fair when it came to the wages he gave to his workers. In th...