Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

An author by the name of Bel Kaufman wrote a book in 1964 titled, "Up The Down Staircase." It's a teacher's story of what its like to teach in a large, metropolitan high school. The principal character in the story is named Sylvia Barrett who repeatedly makes the mistake of going up the staircase intended only for down traffic.

Trying to go up a staircase that is only intended for downward traffic is a mistake that is made by many, maybe not in high schools, but most definitely in our quest for righteousness before God. (more…)

An elderly gentleman was sitting on a park bench, when another elderly fellow sat down. They looked at each other for a moment but did not speak. Both men sat there, staring straight ahead. After a while, one of them heaved a big, heartfelt sigh. The other jumped up immediately and said, "If you're going to talk politics, I'm leaving." I think that we've all heard enough politics lately that if I were to begin talking politics from the pulpit, I wouldn't blame you for getting up to leave. We certainly do not come to church to talk politics.

We come to church to lay our sins at the foot of the cross in exchange for the forgiveness for all of our sins. We come here with regrets and disappointments, frustrations and anxieties to hang them on the cross of Jesus Christ and take His burden upon us, which is light and easy. This is what Luther calls the "divine exchange." We come here, to this divine swap-meet, where the Holy Spirit swaps our sins for Christ's righteousness, our hopelessness for the hope of glory, our dysfunctional lives for the only real change that sets everything right again. And all of this, no matter what you politics happen to be. (more…)

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Laying a solid foundation is crucial to building a solid building. Get the foundation wrong and the rest of the building is going to be wrong. If the foundation is not deep enough, the building will not stand. If the footers aren't spaced exactly right the building will not fit together right. As Jesus puts it, "everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand." (Matt.7:24,26). In either case, the Word of God is the foundation for the doing of the one who hears that Word. First comes the hearing of the Word, then comes the doing. Apart from the hearing of the Word of Christ, our doing is built on a poor foundation.

Of course, the two always go together. As James puts it, "faith without works is useless." (James 2:20). Hearing and no action is no good, just as action without hearing the Word is no good. One makes for a well-informed couch potato and the other is a heresy or disaster waiting to happen.

So, it's always God's Word AND faith in action. It's always God's Word that directs and motivates our faith in action. And I do think that the stronger and deeper the foundation, the more solid the building. The better you learn and know God's Word the more solid will be your faith in action. (more…)

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As a father or a mother, you must ask yourself, does it really matter how rich or successful or athletic or intelligent your children are if, when you get to heaven, you don't see them there? As a son or a daughter, you must ask yourself, does it really matter how much my parents have given me or done for me or left to me, if when I get to heaven, I don't see them there? As a brother or sister, you must ask yourself, does it really matter how well you all got along or how much you argued with your siblings, if when you get to heaven, you don't see them there? As a husband or wife, you must ask yourself, does it really matter how happy or wonderful my marriage has been if, when you get to heaven, you don't your spouse there? (more…)

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As we continue our summer tour through Romans, we come now to the 9th chapter where Paul, once again, raises the example of Old Testament Israel to make his point. Paul summarizes the historical data of how God has treated the Israelites throughout their history. "They are the Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen."

By putting the historical example of Israel before us, Paul raises the question that he knows is lurking in the dark recesses of our mind. If God has so blessed Israel with this incredible résumé of benefits and privileges, why isn't all of Israel saved? Or, to put the question in a more familiar way, why are some saved and not others? (more…)

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“So then…” Nothing like coming into the middle of a conversation. “So then…” That’s an awkward place to begin a reading. “So then…”means that what is about to be said is based on what has just been said. So then, before we talk about the “so then…” we need to go back and pick up on what Paul has just said, so then we can understand the point that he wants to make.

Let’s open our bible and turn to Romans, 8 beginning at verse 1. Page 944 in your pew bible. While you’re going there, let me very briefly summarize where we left off last Sunday as we came to the end of chapter 7, because, as you’ll see, Paul begins chapter 8 with a “therefore…” which is like a “so then…” It means that what he is about to say is based on what has already been said.

Paul ended chapter seven by describing the reality of the life of faith. He describes the life of faith as one of inner conflict, frustration and disappointment with ourselves because we have the desire to please God and keep His Word, but not the ability to carry it out. In famous words, Paul says, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” And the conclusion he comes to is not that God is bad or His Law is wrong or that its all God’s fault, but, “What a wretched man I am.” (more…)

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

After they finished their Passover meal in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, Jesus led 11 of His 12 disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane. Knowing all that was to take place and knowing that the time had fully come for His passion and suffering for the sins of the world to begin, He them to keep watch while He prayed. They fell asleep. Certainly, it was not that they ignored His request or that they didn't want to keep watch. They just couldn't keep their eyes open. (Maybe some of you have had the experience. Just let it not be during the sermon.) Jesus came from where He had been praying to where He had stationed His apostles and found them sleeping. And He said to them, "The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26:41). (more…)

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This is week #6 in our 15-week summer tour through Paul's letter to the Romans. When you take a tour as long as this one, sometimes it's necessary to be reminded of why we're on this tour in the first place and what this tour is supposed to show us.

Very quickly, Paul is writing to a congregation of Christians in Rome. He's never actually met them, but he has heard a great deal about them, probably from two of their former members, Aquilla and Priscilla, whom Paul met when he was in Corinth. Paul wants to go to Rome someday, and with the help and support of the Christians in Rome, he wants to go to Spain and set up a base of operation there to do the kind of church planting work in Western Europe that he has done out of Antioch in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

So, Paul doesn't intend to spend a lot of time in Rome before moving on. A lot of the teaching and instruction in the gospel that he would normally do when he comes into a city, he is trying to do in advance, by this letter. That's why Romans is the most comprehensive presentation of Christian doctrine of any of Paul's epistles. (more…)

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

"You who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."

In 1833, the British Parliament passed the 'Abolition Of Slavery' Act, which made the practice of slavery in Great Britain illegal, and granted all slaves in the British Empire their freedom. But you are still a slave.

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring the freedom of slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America. But you are still a slave.

On December 18, 1865, the United States Congress ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution saying that, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." But you are still a slave.

Don't think that just because the Constitution says that you're free, that you're free to do anything you please. You are still a slave. You are under authority. You must obey the laws of the land. You may be free to help or not to help your neighbor in his need but you are not free to murder him. You are free to share or not to share what you have with others, but you are not free to steal from others. You are free to come and go as you please but you are not free to exceed the speed limit or drive through red lights. You are still a slave. (more…)

Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

"Since therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God."

A woman named Barbara Farnham who lived in Alexandria, Virginia died in March of this past year. She had made arrangements to be buried in Norridgewock, Maine next to her father. She was an active member of a Lutheran church in Virginia. Being the nearest Lutheran pastor in Maine, I was asked if I would be willing to conduct a committal service, to which I gladly agreed. The service took place this past Tuesday afternoon.

After the service as I was making my way back to my car, Nathan, Barbara's 14 year-old grandson caught up with me and said he had a few questions about God. Could he ask them. Little did he understand that I live for such questions.

He had a question about something that he had heard about how the God of the Old Testament was a God of wrath and vengeance but that Jesus in the New Testament was a loving God who saved you if you were good. What did I think about that? (more…)