Sermon on September 14

 Trinity 13

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,

The Introit appointed for this Sunday is from Psalm 74 and contained these words from verse 21:   “let the poor and needy praise your name.” This is our text.

We pray this because we are poor and need, and are at the mercy of God to help us

            Pray

            To believe

            To think clearly.

You are poor and needy because of your sins, your fears, and your doubts. The mercy of God for our sins is His forgiveness because of Jesus Christ. The mercy of God for our fears of the future and your doubts that He is in control is that He inspires you to believe and trust Him.

So we pray, “Let the poor and needy praise your name.” In the Matins service we pray the Te Deum which starts out this way, “We praise You, O God; we acknowledge You to be the Lord.” A big component of Praise is to Acknowledge: to acknowledge that God is in control, that He is loving to forgive our doubts and relieve our fears.

Praise. It’s what God’s people do. In fact, it’s what all creatures do. Jesus tells how the birds of the air praise the Lord, by showing that they don’t have to worry about their lives, the Lord provides for them. And the lilies of the field praise the Lord -- they don’t have to worry what they will wear; the heavenly Father adorns them with an appearance greater than King Solomon’s splendor. Also, all creatures (all created beings) in heaven praise. The angels and believers who have gone before us into heaven live an eternal life of praise.

I’d like all Christians to find encouragement and hope, even in the midst of horrible times, in Songs of Praise. The songs of the Church have a content for our praise. They give a reason for our praise. And that reason is Jesus Christ  -- who He is and what He’s done.

The Te Deum is a Creed-like, sung praise. In it we sing to Jesus, “When You took upon Yourself to deliver man, You humbled Yourself to be born of a virgin. When You had overcome the sharpness of death, You opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.”

Dear friends, you have reason to Praise God:  in good days and bad days; In times of confidence and in times of doubts; in moments of suffering, as well as, moments of joy.

When we praise the Lord we are participating in the eternal life of praise in heaven. The Te Deum acknowledges this, mentioning the praise of the angels and the seraphim and cherubim (heavenly beings described in the Bible). The words of the Te Deum remind us while we praise the Lord, those in heaven are at this same moment, praising the Lord, it mentions the apostles and the prophets and also, “The noble army of martyrs praise You.”

The martyrs are those who were killed, murdered, because they believe in Jesus. Stephen was the first Christian martyr (Acts 7). He kept talking about Jesus Christ and truth. They couldn’t shut him up, so they killed him. Those first years of the Christian Church, there were so many talking about Jesus, they couldn’t shut them up, until they burned them to death or put a sword through their necks.

So it went through the ages. Some centuries there were few martyrs. Some centuries there were many. Ups and downs. Then even last Wednesday Charlie Kirk, a Christian, was murdered by evil.

If he’d just stopped talking, if he’d just stopped believing in Jesus and the principles Jesus led him to believe. . . But he didn’t, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t.

I’ve been praying the Holy Spirit of God will use this event for His purposes in many lives:  in your lives, you who have been hearing about this, and all over the world, the people are thinking about this, this Sunday morning.

That through this horrible thing, you would see clearly, two things:

1.      The reality – the evil world won’t take kindly to Christ. You see that at the cross where they killed the innocent Savior. And the evil world won’t take kindly to you, who believe in Jesus Christ, crucified, especially if you insist that there’s no other hope, no other life, no other name by which we may be saved (Acts 4:12).

2.      Remember your confirmation vows.

P          Do you intend to live according to the Word of God, and in faith, word, and deed to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death?

R          I do, by the grace of God.

 

P          Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?

R          I do, by the grace of God.

We can talk this way with each other, we can say this things solemnly because we believe and confess that some things are worse than dying:  falling away from faith; apathy; false belief that leads to hell.

You have been redeemed, baptized, brought into this eternal life that swallows up death.

Dear God, let the poor and needy praise your name.

We can praise the Lord even in the most difficult situations.

In Acts 16, Paul and Silas were in prison, waiting for what would come next, would they be killed for their faith? Their destiny was uncertain. The jailer comes to check on them and they are singing hymns.

If you have witnessed evil this past week, if you have seen evil rejoicing over the gruesome death of a Christian, praise the Lord. Live a life of Praise – as long as the Lord gives you life. Live a life of praise with your voice, and with your actions, what you do. Jesus tells a of a man who is robbed, beaten and left for dead. Will anyone care about this poor guy? We who live lives of praise do care for our neighbor.

Live a life of praise by what you don’t do, what you say “no” to – “No, I can’t do that and still praise the Lord.”

Learn the hymns of the church and use them. Learn the prayers of the church and pray them. Use the hymns and liturgy throughout the week to praise the Lord.

Use the reports of evil as a warning.

Use the noble examples of martyrs as encouragement.

Paul’s example in prison of singing hymns is followed up by his example in words in Philippians 4:8 “brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Many of you have taken too much time with media, mass media – the news, and social media – the addiction. Please remember to take time to think about what’s true, pure, noble, worthy of praise. Take time to sing your praise to the Lord.

I wish we’d sing more. Like in the days of Little House on the Prairie. Pa would take out his fiddle and play and the children would sing along. But I know that time has passed. We live in an individualized time when everyone has their own professionally produced music available electronically and no one has to make their own music. So I have provided for you on the church’s blog, playlists of hymns and liturgical songs.

We now rise to sing the  TE DEUM     LSB 223

We praise You, O God; we acknowledge You to be the Lord.

All the earth now worships You, the Father everlasting.

To You all angels cry aloud, the heavens and all the pow’rs therein.

To You cherubim and seraphim continually do cry:

 

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;

heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Your glory.

The glorious company of the apostles praise You.

The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise You.

 

The noble army of martyrs praise You.

The holy Church throughout all the world does acknowledge You:

The Father of an infinite majesty; Your adorable, true, and only Son;

also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.

 

You are the king of glory, O Christ;

You are the everlasting Son of the Father.

 

When You took upon Yourself to deliver man,

You humbled Yourself to be born of a virgin.

When You had overcome the sharpness of death,

You opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

 

You sit at the right hand of God

in the glory of the Father.

We believe that You will come

to be our judge.

 

We therefore pray You to help Your servants,

whom You have redeemed with Your precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with Your saints

in glory everlasting. 

O Lord, save Your people and bless Your heritage. 
Govern them and lift them up forever. 
Day by day we magnify You. 
And we worship Your name forever and ever. 

Grant, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin. 
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us. 
O Lord, let Your mercy be upon us, as our trust is in You. 
O Lord, in You have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

 

 

Join with all of Heaven in Praise

 

 

Youtube playlist of music from our liturgies.

Youtube playlist of some of our favorite hymns.

Youtube playlist of the Small Catechism set to music.

 

Spotify album of the Small Catechism set to music.

Spotify album of some of our favorite hymns.

Spotify album of Matins and Vespers.

Sermon on Sept 7

 12^th Sunday after Trinity

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The antiphon of the Introit today had these words from Psalm 70:1: “Make haste, O God to deliver me! Make haste to help me, O Lord!” this is our text.

Hurry up, Lord. That’s what we are saying here.

David the Psalmist leads us in praying this way. Wasn’t it rude of him to talk to God that way? The Lord said of David, “He is a man after my own heart.” So, of course David would sing and pray properly to the Lord.

Is it rude of us to talk to God this way? “Make haste!” which is just a slightly fancier way of saying, “Hurry up!” It’s the same thing.

Let me warn you, that you not pray differently. Here’s the opposite of praying, “Make haste”: You’d say something like, “Dear God, no hurry, but whenever you get a around to it, can you help me out a little.”

“Come to think of it, Let’s not even bother with it right now. You and I, Lord, we’re both busy. Let’s get back to this later.

No. Let’s have your prayers be like this one. “Make haste, O God to deliver me!”

This is urgent.

Later in the Introit, there is this line. “You are my help and my deliverer. O Lord, do not delay.” This attitude of urgency shows what’s important, what’s of highest importance in your mind and on your heart. Your greatest desires and greatest need is for help and deliverance from your Lord.

“Make haste, O God to deliver me!” That’s our urgent thought and prayer. Life will distract you from this urgent concern. It’ll throw unimportant things at you, making you think that the distractions of life are urgent and most needed. But we have here a prayer of wone who has a child-like faith. You just can’t wait. You’re like that child who can’t be distracted (no matter how hard the grownups try) from the one thing they want and need right now.

“Make haste, O God to deliver me!” That’s the prayer you need to pray when you have temptations. When you’re tempted to worry, When you’re tempted to doubt, When you’re tempted to lust, When you’re tempted to go where you don’t belong, When you’re tempted to take what you aren’t to have, stop and pray. Pray urgently. Your Lord Jesus has taught you to pray like this: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

 

“Make haste, O God to deliver me!” That’s the prayer of one who fears death. “Deliver me from all pain and evil that lead up to death.” In the Gospel reading today, some friends brought a deaf man to Jesus, with urgency. They begged Jesus to do this one thing needful for him, to heal and restore his life (Mark 7:31–37).

“Make haste, O God to deliver me!” This is your prayer when you repent. When the consequences of sin have begun to catch up with you, consequences like: Regrets – because there are people you have hurt; Shame – because people have noticed that you are flawed; Guilt – because God knows you have done wrong; the first step to clearing a guilty conscience is to plead urgently for help to Him who judges every soul. Sinners must plead for forgiveness right away. Do not delay.

“Make haste, O God to deliver us!” This can be our prayer when we start to get cynical and discouraged, saying, “What’s the world coming to?”

Sin increases. Righteousness is more and more hidden. “What’s the world coming to?”

Those who should be leading the Church in the years ahead have stopped coming to Church, have stopped praying; stopped giving offerings; their children aren’t hearing and learning of Jesus. “What’s the world coming to?”

We are going to study the Biblical teaching of marriage in our Bible class this morning. So many young people aren’t getting married. Instead they take all the physical pleasures that should be kept in the sanctity of marriage, but don’t provide the stability and the commitment of a healthy home and a nurturing family. “What’s the world coming to?”

Instead of just wringing our hands and fretting, we should pray, urgently pray, “Make haste, O God to deliver us!”

So David sang and prayed. 1000 years later His prayer was answered. Jesus Christ, David’s Son and David’s Lord came from heaven, lived and suffered and died to deliver sinners. Our Lord Jesus took it upon himself to deliver man, that is, to deliver David, and each of you.

“Make haste”, said David, but it took 1000 years. But all the while David believed. The Lord wants you to pray and believe. In Galatians, it says, “When the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son. . . to redeem those” under the weight of sin and guilt, fear and death.

Often when you pray, “Make haste” the answer will be patience and endurance. For God knows the right time for all things. He is not slow to keep His promises. But He wants you to wait, and believe and pray urgently. Amen.

Sermon on August 24

 Trinity 10 

it is written,“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” Romans 9:33

 

This section of Romans starts with a question, a rhetorical question: “What shall we say, then?” Paul has been talking about the differences between Jews and Gentiles. Why are so few Jews believing in Jesus Christ? While others are coming into the faith and into the Christian Church, but the Jews have rejected Christ and his Church. Paul notes that the Jews have a zeal for God. They were religious, devout, righteous in the sight of everyone. But instead of believing in Jesus, they took offense.

        Jesus taught righteousness. That’s a big word that comes up again and again in Romans, meaning, to be right, alright, not wrong, especially with respect to God. We are righteous by faith. There is another couple of words that comes up often in Romans “by faith”. Paul says it a couple times in these verses here before us, especially comparing “by faith” with “by works”. The Jews were pursuing righteousness, by works, by their own merits, saying righteousness is my merit, what I deserve. Righteousness by faith was a stumbling block to their ego.

By faith – that is, what you believe, and what is it we have to believe? Christ saves sinners, He picks up the one who stumbles. He makes right the one who was dead wrong.

In the Gospel reading today, Jewish leaders in Jerusalem were seeking to destroy Jesus, But others were hanging on his words.

That rhetorical question at the start is asked because of this glaring irony. Those who should believe, who should be all about “by faith”, don’t have faith in Jesus, but faith in themselves. They believe in themselves, in their merits, their works and think their good qualities make them righteous.

When a person thinks that all you need is your own self, your own strength, and your own remarkable goodness you come to the Stone laid in Zion and you stumble on it. The Stone was meant to be the foundation. Now it becomes a tripping hazard if you are so preoccupied looking at your own abilities and amazing qualities.

God wants all to be saved. God’s people pray such. Paul says, “my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved”.  The irony is God (who wants all people to be saved) lays down a stumbling block for those who don’t believe. The hear that Jesus, the Son of God, died to redeem sinners, and they are offended at that, “Ach, I’m no sinner. You don’t need to redeem me.”

For all of us sinners who at any time love and trust ourselves above all things, God lays “in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.”  In our reading today, those words are in quotation marks. Paul’s quoting from Isaiah. There’s this promise in Isaiah of what God is doing in Zion. Zion is the place of the temple in ancient Jerusalem. It’s the house of God, the throne of His Kingdom. And there God lays a foundation stone, His Holy Son, Jesus sacrificed on the cross, to forgive all unrighteousness. And it’s offensive to those who take offense.

You ever heard it said, “Don’t take offense”? Now of course, there are often times when the sinners you are surrounded with, that you have relationships with, offend you. They offend you by what they say, what they do, what they don’t bother to do. When you take offense, think about what happens in your head, the annoyance, the pain, caused by those who trespassed against you, just repeats on a loop. Proverbs 17:9 – “Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.” When it’s possible, and it’s almost always possible, cover an offense with love and forgiveness. Don’t keep it playing in your head. Don’t let it be your narrative. Colossians 3:15 “bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you”.

Consider this, you probably don’t have a clue what that so and so is going through. They have burdens on their shoulders, torments in their souls that you don’t understand. They’re busy with their own responsibilities and problems. They just can’t provide you with the care and the service you expect. They are suffering in ways that prevent them from being all things to you.

You ever take offense because so-and-so didn’t treat you like you deserved? They didn’t respect you as they should. They don’t give you what you’ve got coming. Instead they say things that are unfair, even disrespectful to you. And you deserve better because you’re righteous, you’re in the right. And this keeps playing in your head.

Do you ever take offense because so-and- so didn’t treat you like you deserve? When you do, then you can understand: That’s what the Jews of old, and many today, do with Jesus. They say, “He doesn’t treat us like we feel we deserve. He’s not going to give us what we feel we have coming. He doesn’t respect our righteousness.” As soon as you start glorying in your own righteousness, you will hear offensive things from the Lord. He will tell you are a sinner. You are falling short of righteousness by what you think, say and do. You are failing to do what you should do in life. You aren’t believing in Jesus Christ the rock and foundation of life and eternity. The Lord Jesus Christ, dying on the cross, seems offensive. Your self-righteousness will lead you to look away from it saying, I don’t need that. It’s a scandal, an offense.

And He lays before you “in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense”.  This tripping hazard makes a violent action. It’s not like tripping over a stone out of place on your path, the kind you hit on unexpectedly, but can quickly recover from and keep walking, looking around to see if anyone notices your clumsiness. This “stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense” will give you a bruising. The fall can break and even kill.

It's kinda comical when people trip and fall, their first instinct is to look around and see if anyone noticed. Before they think about what’s broken or where they might be bleeding, they think “I hope nobody saw what I just did. I hope they don’t laugh at me for being foolish and clumsy.” Embarrassment and shame hurt the mind more than the breaks and bruises hurt the body.

Well, what’s even more shameful is to be standing in the judgement hall of heaven with all people and all angels watching you and Jesus Christ comes to judge the living and the dead and He lays out the charges against you of all your sins and your unbelief.

Then the Lord says this: “whoever believes in him will not be put to shame”.

Your self-made righteousness has to get knocked down, bruised and broken. And then Zion’s stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, which is Jesus,  becomes the foundation of your faith and life and your eternity.

Jesus who died for the shameful, the clumsy, the bruised and broken, takes away your shame. On the last day, He will remove all your shame, all your embarrassment, all your regret, and replace them with glory, righteousness and eternal joys. Amen.

Services at 9:00 am

 Starting in July, our Sunday services begin at 9:00 am.

Sermon for 4th Sunday of Easter

 

May 11, 2025

Mothers' Day

21When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

 

Normally, it is awkward, to say the least, to hear a man describe what it’s like for a woman to go through childbirth. But this is no ordinary man. Jesus our Lord, knows all, understands all, and shares all with His people, men and women. He understands the and sympathizes even with the pains of a mother giving birth.

Birth pains are one part of the curse on creation because of sin. Adam began calling his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living – a play on words because in that ancient language, “Eve” sound like the word “living”. She is our universal mother. Jesus too, who took on human existence, had Eve as his mother. But He is also her savior, taking her sins, and her sorrows.

In Isaiah 53, Jesus is called the Man of Sorrows. It says, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”.  Jesus died for you. On the cross, He knew exactly what He was dying for:  your sins of thought, word, and deed – your actual sins and your original sin, that you are by nature sinful and unclean, by nature, by birth, by your lineage that goes back to Eve. Jesus forgave that, by taking it away from you and taking it on Himself, bearing all your guilt, all your punishment, all your sorrows and all your curses.

By baptism and by faith a Christian mother is united with Christ. In the pains of child birth, He is there, with her, in union with her. Not as a coach, but as the suffering Servant of God, serving Mothers.

When a women desires to be a parent, but it is not to be, the Lord bears the grief and carries the sorrow.

At the bedside of a sick child, Christ is with the Christian mother, sharing in the grief and the fear.

When a mother has a child that is failing, falling short of the marks for development, or the grades at school, and Mom and Dad wonder what will be the future for this daughter, this son? It’s not like we planned, what we hoped for. The Lord Jesus participates in that grief.

We are all failing children. By what we’ve done, and by what we have left undone, we’ve let our mothers down. We have all been disappointments, delinquents, and derelict in our duties. And when there is grievous sins, it can shame the whole family and mothers feel that shame the most. Jesus Christ has borne our mothers’ shame and sadness.

Jesus is the Savior of Mothers. Jesus is the Savior of us sinful children.

But hear Jesus Gospel promise in the 16^th chapter of John:  “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy”.

Here on the night before He would be betrayed, arrested, and crucified, Jesus told His disciples they would no longer see Him. There’d be sorrow for a time. But then, in a little while, they would see Him and there would be joy. Our life is just like that, grief and sorrow, but in Christ, there is joy. And joy wins out.

He takes our griefs and sorrows and replaces them with His joy.  Here is Christ’s joy, as spelled out in Hebrews 12: “for the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Jesus went through His sorrow and suffering, with joy set before Him. His joy was that He would ascend and sit at the right hand of God the Father almighty. His joy is continually increased every time one of His loved ones believes and is saved. That’s His greatest joy, not in His own glory but in bringing you His dear ones into His life and glory. His joy is complete and perfect when we are with Him and love Him and share His blessings of peace and love and joy.

Have you noticed, That’s a Mother’s true joy, also. When her children are happy and healthy, loved and loving.

As some of you know, I’m part of the Camping World. It’s interesting how the camping culture is a microcosm, an example of the world in general. When campers get together they talk about  their equipment. They compare the size and even the expense of their campers, how many feet, how many pullouts. They brag about the gadgets and the toys that go with it. They strive to have more, cooking better meals, more amenities, as if more frills equals more fun and more joy. That’s the way of the world – pretending that money can buy happiness and seeking joy in the accumulation and exploitation of earthly, material things

Last night I got to watch a mother’s joy at the campground. She exuded true joy as her children and grandchildren had fun, laughed and played. Lasting joy is when you love others, more than yourself. Eternal joy is when you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Mother’s Day is not a church holiday. You don’t come to church to idolize Mom, but to worship the Lord. Today Mother’s Day aligns with Jesus words about a mother’s sorrow turning to joy. We need to listen to Him, because we live in world with messed up ideas about who we are as men and women, male and female. There are so many with messed up ideas about what is a woman. There are confused men who try to pretend to be women, but only focus on the outward and exaggerated shape and mannerisms, while despising the true beauty of women, seen in our mothers’ love and joy.  There are many who despise motherhood, because they despise babies, considering them a burden on their pursuit to selfish joys.

But hear how our Lord honors mothers, using their joy to describe our life in him:

“Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you”.

Amen.

 

Sermon for Palm Sunday

 Let everyone confess.

Philippians 2:5-11

10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).

 Let every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!

Aubree, Cashton and Jax intend to do jut that on this day of their confirmation. Those of us who have been confirmed in years past, had this opportunity to confess our belief that Jesus Christ is Lord. That becomes one of the most important memories of our youth.

But the way it sounds in Philippians 2, this is not a one day, one time thing. This is life of faith, a life of confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord. It says in Philippians “Have this mind among yourselves” – This is a daily thing; it is a constant state of mind.

Jesus Christ is Lord! This is our statement of faith.

Jesus Christ is Lord! To a lot of people this sounds burdensome, oppressive even. “We’re Americans. We don’t have lords, or dukes, or kings.” So many picture this statement “Jesus is Lord” like he’s got all the power, and that he forces us to bow the knee to his law. He, as Lord, demands our obedience.

But this is a Lutheran Confirmation. So let’s have our clear Lutheran confession of the beautiful Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the jewels of the Lutheran Confession of the faith is the distinction of the Law and the Gospel, and the Gospel is always prominent. A good example of the value and truth of our Lutheran Confession is here in the way we confess Jesus Christ is Lord, as we have it in the catechism’s explanation of the 2^nd Article of the Creed. “Jesus Christ is my Lord, who has redeemed me, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil.” We say that he has done this with “his holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death.” He rescued us out of the dominion of sin, the dominion of death, and the power of the devil. He took us out of sin and brought us into His Kingdom of forgiveness, righteousness and goodness. He took us away from death and placed us into His kingdom of resurrection and life. He took us out of the devil’s control and brought us into His Father’s love. We say Jesus Christ is my Lord, because he is my Savior, my Redeemer, my Friend who died for me.

On Palm Sunday the crowd of pilgrims sang “Hosana to the Son of David” and shouted, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Prophet Zechariah foretold this: 9Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
            Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
behold, your king is coming to you;
            righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
            on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Rejoice! Shout aloud!

When Christians confess Jesus Christ is Lord, it is the natural response of their faith and salvation. It is a function of honesty and integrity – integrity meaning that oneness of head and heart and mouth and life.

It comes from a confidence that outweighs fears and the apprehension of what other people might think. It comes from the joy of salvation that outweighs laziness and apathy and the distraction of this world’s cares.

We confess Jesus Christ is Lord with our words. And we confess with our actions, when we do what shows our Love for God with all our heart and our love for our neighbor as ourselves. We confess with our lives, with our “walk” as the Bible often calls the manner of our doing things at work or at play. We confess with our posture, our body language: “Every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

A person’s posture and body language show what’s on their mind and what’s in their hearts. Experienced investigators can get a hint if someone’s telling the truth or lying, if they’ve got something to hide by the shift of their posture and the movement of their head and eyes. They can’t prove anything in a court of law by it, but it lets them know what questions to ask next and where to look next in the investigation. Even subconsciously we get hints from others about what they’re thinking and what they’re feeling by their position and movements.

Examples of bad body language could be turning a cold shoulder to someone who needs you, versus extending a helping hand.

Every knee should bow. We do so in our worship in the presence of Jesus Christ, especially at the altar where we confess that He is really present in the body and blood of His Communion.

It’s a posture of prayer. Jax, Aubree, Cashton, aspire to be God’s people of prayer. You might from time to time feel guilty for wasting time with screens, or other bad habits or laziness. But there is no guilt for moments spent in prayer. You have time every day.

Philippians 2:5 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. . .“ Our mind and our heart is in Christ Jesus. We find the mind of Christ in the words He says, words of grace, like “Come to me” and “I forgive you all your sins”; words of salvation like “whoever believes will not perish but will have eternal life.”

But consider also His body language: , though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2).

For us and for our salvation Christ our Lord came down from heaven and was made man. As such he had a body and so He used posture and body language. He had hands that reached out to touch the untouchable leper and heal him. He had arms that stretch out on the cross, as he was obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

His words and actions show what is on His mind: His love for you, his care for your salvation.

The mind of Christ is in the sacraments. He commanded Baptism where he forgave you your sins and made you His own.  And Holy Communion where you will receive that true body broken for you and the life-giving blood shed for you. This communion, we now invite you to. Amen.