St. Paul's Lockport Sermons

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...

Sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity We often think of faith as a binary thing – ones and zeros, on or off. We either have faith or we don’t. That is a Biblical way of looking at faith. There are believers and unbelievers. Without faith it is impossible to please God. No one enters the kingdom by kind of believing in Jesus Christ, you either do or you do not. There is no part way in th...

Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity You can see that this parable does not let you rely on yourself in any way, or assume that you can be saved simply by hearing the call. But the solution is not despair. For the wedding is prepared by God out of love for lost sinners. He invites to the feast freely. His gifts are wonderful.

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity But as baptized Christians, we have been given the new man in Christ. We are no longer stuck in the old way. As it says in the small catechism concerning what baptism indicates It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and ari...

Sermon for the Christian Funeral of Ramona Gudgel Confirmation Verse - Acts 4:12

Sermon for Michaelmas I thank you my heavenly father, through Jesus Christ your dear son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I pray that you would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please you. For into your hands I commend myself, my body and soul and all things. Let your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no p...

Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity. Guest sermon by Rev. Richard Bellas

Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity There are a couple times in the Bible where we have an image of people being rescued by being raised or lowered in a basket. The spies in Jericho sent out by Joshua were lowered in a basket to safety to avoid the city guards. St. Paul also was rescued in a basket from Damascus when there was a plot against his life. So we will use that image of a rescu...

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity God gives three remedies for worry – consider your importance compared to the birds and flowers who do not worry, consider that your heavenly Father already provides and you cannot add an hour to your life, and consider that true provision is found for body and soul in the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity Yet Jesus is ignored by the world. We know of the many who do not believe in Jesus at all, that’s one thing. Another are those who would be happy to use Him, and then ignore Him. These may even be those in the church. The nine lepers who did not return were happy to use Jesus for a need. Once they were cleansed, they did not turn from the way they wer...

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity You are a Samaritan and have a demon. This is what the Jews say to Jesus in John chapter 8. To the Jews, being a Samaritan and having a demon are equivalent. 700 years before Jesus, when the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by God for their wickedness, the Assyrian Empire took the Israelites of the northern ten tribes and scattered many throug...

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity Let not only the example of the destruction of the old Jerusalem, but the promise of the glory of the New Jerusalem to come, ever drive us to cherish our Lord’s visitation here and now above all things. Lord, help us not to neglect you and Your Word, but ever attend to it, hear it, take it into our hearts. Amen.

Sermon for the St. Paul's Family Retreat Matins Service “In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.” “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.”