It’s common to hear scoffers say that the Church is full of hypocrites. But, is that what the Church is? That doesn’t sound right.
The Lord proclaimed his name to Moses in Exodus 34. And today’s Gospel reading is one of the best images we have depicting this name and character of the Lord.
Jesus isn’t against money. He’s not against people making it or having lots of it. He does say, “How difficult it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.” But, he follows this immediately by saying, “With man this is impossible. But with God all things are possible.” A rich man can enter into the kingdom of heaven. But not the lover of money, rich or poor. Jesus means it when he says, “You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Jesus’ command to beware of false prophets isn’t a suggestion, it’s the most necessary thing in the world, like drinking water and eating food. It’s necessary for your life.
We see that the body and soul are quite connected. This is important to note, because we live in an age that tries to separate the body and the soul. The world associates the person or identity with something like the soul or the mind, and views the body as nothing more than a tool to be used for pleasure, or a prison to be escaped, or a wrapper to be discarded. Yet we heard in Genesis 2 how the Lord made the man as body and soul, and we see also from the man’s sin how tightly joined the body and soul are. And because body and soul are so connected, the consequences of sin for the body actually illustrate the consequences of sin for the soul.
Our Lord teaches us about anger.
Jesus’s priorities for you.
Bible Text: Luke 6:36-42 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Trinity 2020 | A professor at seminary liked to stress that a pastor’s whole job is to prepare people for death, which I thought was an unnecessarily morbid job description. But there is some truth to it. We all
Bible Text: Luke 15:1-32 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Trinity 2020 | The Pharisees despise the sinners coming to Jesus for the same reason Planned Parenthood despises unborn babies. They don’t understand the worth of humans. They think people are worth something because of what they do, what
Bible Text: Luke 14:15-24 | Preacher: Pastor Andrew Richard | Series: Trinity 2020 | It was the Sabbath, and Jesus was dining at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. Jesus had just spoken of eternal life and the resurrection, and one of the dinner guests exclaimed, “Blessed is
