"The Path of Humility Is Difficult" (Sermon on Zephaniah 2:3, 3:11-13) | February 1, 2026

Sermon Text: Zephaniah 2:3, 3:11–13
Date: February 1, 2026
Event: The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

Zephaniah 2:3, 3:11–13 (EHV)

Seek the Lord, all you humble people of the earth who have carried out his commands. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Maybe then you will be sheltered in the day of the Lord’s anger. …

3:11In that day you will no longer bear the shame of your rebellions against me. Then I will remove the proud boasters from among you, and you will never again be arrogant on my holy hill. 12But I will leave among you the people who are humble and weak. They will seek refuge in the name of the Lord. 13The Israelites who remain will no longer act unjustly. They will not lie, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Instead, they will graze peacefully like sheep and lie down. No one will terrify them.

The Path of Humility Is Difficult

Looks can be deceiving. We’re probably all familiar with the trope in movies of someone who looks completely unqualified transitioning into someone qualified for whatever is going on. Usually, that takes place in a montage of clips, whether in a makeover or a training session. The gangly nerd wins the athletic event, the clueless space-cadet comes to save the day with academic prowess, or whatever expectations-subverting event the movie’s plot needs.

In our Gospel this morning, Jesus’ beatitudes (as they’ve come to be known) present these kinds of deceiving looks as well. The poor have the kingdom, the mourners are comforted, the gentle will own the earth, the persecuted will be the victors (see Matthew 5:1-12). But this is not a new concept or promise in Jesus’s sermon on the mount. These kinds of surprising contrasts had been part of God’s promises and blessings for a long, long time.

Our First Reading for this morning takes us to the prophet Zephaniah. If you don’t feel like you have a good mental shorthand of who Zephaniah was or what he did, that would make sense, because not only do we not typically spend a lot of time with his work in our cycle of readings for worship, we also know very little about Zephaniah in general.

Some of the things we can pin down pretty well: he was a prophet during the reign of King Josiah, one of the very few good, God-fearing kings in the history of God’s people. There’s a possibility that Zephaniah was a descendant of King Hezekiah, another one of the upstanding kings from a few generations prior, but that can’t be precisely nailed down.

Zephaniah’s call is pretty unenviable. He’s given a message of judgment coming on God’s people. The Southern Kingdom of Judah had become proud and felt invincible. God had rescued them from a siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians 100 or so years before, but that didn’t turn them back to God on the whole. In fact, after that, despite all logic, they seem to have gotten even bolder. Kings Hezekiah and Josiah brought some highlights and much-needed spiritual reforms, but most other kings and the people at large were often dedicated to false gods, if to any at all.

Zephaniah’s work is very much akin to Jeremiah’s: God sends him to Judah with a message of impending judgment. His preaching would not be popular or uplifting. It would not be long before God would send the nation of Babylon to carry Judah into exile. Much of Zephaniah’s message warns of that coming hardship and reminds God’s people why it would come. They had not humbled themselves before God and went their own way, and this brought God’s judgment on them.

Do you recognize yourself in the people of Judah’s approach to life? How often do we let our ego and hubris take control? How often are we driven by what we think is right and find ourselves dismissing anyone else’s opinion? How often do I let my feelings about what I think should be right or wrong override what the laws of our city, state, or nation say, or even more direly, what God says?

In those moments, we make our own desires and preferences into our gods, just like the Israelites did. Whether we publicly make our egos known or just silently and inwardly burn against others, we show our sinful, fallen nature so clearly. We view ourselves as better, smarter, or more important than other people. Or, again, even more important than God.

This is the way of the world. It’s the way the world thinks and operates. I think you would be hard-pressed to find too many people who were viewed as successful in the world’s eyes who could also be characterized as meek and humble. The world constantly reminds us that to get ahead, you have to be big, bold, and bowl over others in your path.

That’s what the world says. But what does God say? We heard Jesus in his sermon promise that the gentle would inherit the earth, that those who are merciful and bring peace would be blessed, and that even those who are “persecuted because of righteousness” hold on to their share of the kingdom of heaven. This is wildly out of line with the way the world pushes us to behave, but it’s also the behavior that God commended through Zephaniah: Seek the Lord, all you humble people of the earth who have carried out his commands. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Maybe then you will be sheltered in the day of the Lord’s anger. In other words, “Turn from your prideful, boastful ways that you just might be saved.”

Babylon was going to come for Judah. Nothing would stop that. God has promised it, and so it would be, and no amount of solid reforms from upright kings could change the collision course the nation had put itself on. But God still encourages people to be humble before him and others. In fact, God would advise the king of Judah that when Babylon attacked, he should just surrender to him, and things would go much, much better. Of course, the king refused, and so things quickly went from bad to worse both for the king and the people of Judah, and especially those in the capital of Jerusalem.

But is our hubris and puffing up of self a reason to think that God is going send our own versions of Babylon on us? Perhaps. At times, we may need a bump or two in life to bring us back down, to see ourselves as we are, to see our needs.

We have needs far beyond what we’ve mentioned here. Our egos are just one component of our fallen selves. We have a lifetime of rebellion against God, years and decades of acting as if we knew better than our almighty Creator. Not poor in spirit, not gentle, not humble.

Jesus came not just to preach pithy sermons, but to live a gentle, humble life. He came not just to tell us how to live, but to live that life for us. And so, in Jesus, while it’s true we have a great example of how to be humble, how to truly turn the other cheek in the face of abuse, and go the extra mile when we don’t have to, that’s not why he came. He didn’t come to show us how to be humble; he came to be humble for us. He didn’t come to show us how to be perfect; he came to be perfect for us.

In Jesus’ flawless humility, we have the solution for every time we have not been humble. In Jesus’ perfect gentleness, we have the solution for every harsh word we’ve spoken or action we’ve taken. And that’s exactly what we needed because we are not just a few steps off of God’s expectations for us; we are completely fallen and utterly hopeless on our own.

Jesus’ humility is seen in its ultimate form as he humbles himself to an obedient death on the cross. There, the great exchange was made. Jesus’ perfect life is credited to us, and our sins are transferred to him. He pays the price—suffers hell—that we deserved so that we could be free from all of that punishment forever. Our failures to behave as we should, to treat others as God wants, have been forgiven.

And that changes our perspective. No longer do we need to “win” in confrontations with others; no longer do we need to let our ego run wild to try to make a name for ourselves in the world. We already have a name, the best name we could possibly have: we belong to God’s family! Zephaniah describes the result of God’s forgiveness in the short- and eternal-terms in our reading: In that day you will no longer bear the shame of your rebellions against me. Then I will remove the proud boasters from among you, and you will never again be arrogant on my holy hill. But I will leave among you the people who are humble and weak. They will seek refuge in the name of the Lord. The Israelites who remain will no longer act unjustly. They will not lie, and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth. Instead, they will graze peacefully like sheep and lie down. No one will terrify them.

Humility, either by our own choice or by being smacked down by hardship, is rarely seen as valuable. It feels bad and, to the world, looks even worse. We sit on this rock of a planet with hardships and heartaches that will not go away. We suffer in silence or right out in the open. We lose people we love dearly to relationship breakdowns or death. We feel like we have to scrape by just to survive, while others who seemingly have no regard for God or his will are comfortable and seem to be carefree. We suffer for what feels like no reason at all or even because we did the right thing. And all of this can make God seem very distant.

But through the eyes of faith we know that our loving Savior is not distant. As we go through hardships and problems, as we wrestle with the guilt of past sins or worry about future struggles, he is beside us guiding, guarding, and protecting, helping us to navigate this broken world until he calls us home to himself.

And that’s the ultimate promise that God gives to us and that he gave to his humble, faithful believers through Zephaniah’s preaching. Instead, they will graze peacefully like sheep and lie down. No one will terrify them. The Israelites were gearing up for an impossibly difficult time. Most would be removed from their homes; many would never return. But God’s promise here isn’t for earthly peace, but eternal peace. Because in heaven there will be no more sin in us or anywhere else. There will be no more egos run amuck or hardship for the gentle and humble. There will just be peace with our God with no terror or anything bad.

We’ve learned a lot about Jesus during this Epiphany season and here we have our eyes opened to our own reality. This—everything around us—is not the end. In fact, for us who cling to Jesus through God-given faith, this is as bad as life is ever going to be. When he calls us home—and he will—we will have perfect bliss forever.

Until then, we do well to recognize that the path of true, godly humility is difficult. But we don’t walk it alone. We have each other, and most importantly, we have our loving God. Thank you, dear Jesus. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Your Record Is Nailed to the Cross" (Sermon on Colossians 2:6-15) | January 18, 2026

Sermon Text: Colossians 2:6–15
Date: January 18, 2026
Event: The Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

Colossians 2:6–15 (EHV)

Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, 7by being rooted and built up in him, and strengthened in the faith just as you were taught, while you overflow in faith with thanksgiving.

8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, which are in accord with human tradition, namely, the basic principles of the world, but not in accord with Christ. 9For all the fullness of God’s being dwells bodily in Christ. 10And you have been brought to fullness in him. Christ is the head over every ruler and authority. 11You were also circumcised in him, with a circumcision not done by human hands, in the putting off of the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, 12when you were buried with Christ in baptism. And in baptism you were also raised with him through the faith worked by the God who raised Christ from the dead.

13Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. 14God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15After disarming the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them by triumphing over them in Christ.

Your Record Is Nailed to the Cross

It’s amazing what people think they can get away with, especially in our modern era, when we (evidently) have become pretty comfortable installing surveillance in and around our homes and businesses. You pretty much need to assume that if you’re out in public or outside on someone else’s property, you’re probably on camera.

Which can make the brazenness of some people particularly bizarre. You might see or hear someone speaking to police, denying having done this or that, when there’s video evidence (perhaps even from multiple angles) of them doing the exact thing they are denying. Red-light and speed cameras will record people’s license plates, making many cases essentially open-and-shut.

But never was there an open-and-shut case like the one we have before God. The police officer may give you some leeway if you’re driving 71 in a 65, but not so with God. He demands perfection—not our best, not doing better than others—perfection. And unlike the criminal who might be able to sneak around the cameras or wear a mask to obscure his face, there is no lack of evidence against us before God. The omniscient, all-knowing God knows everything that we’ve said, everything that we’ve done, and even everything that we’ve thought that violates his perfection mandate.

So we stand in God’s courtroom, red-handed as red-handed can be. And there’s no leeway with this judge. There’s no lesser sentence, no plea bargain. There’s only one punishment that fits the crime of imperfection and violation of the eternal God’s law: eternal death in hell, being forever separated from any of God’s blessings.

And there’s nothing we can do about any of this by nature. We can’t take back what we’ve done wrong. We can’t do good things to balance out the bad. God describes our spiritual state as “dead,” and just like the person who has died cannot do anything to help themselves, neither can we do anything to spiritually help ourselves. We are dead and condemned, with no hope of fixing anything.

And yet, in our Gospel this morning we heard John the Baptist boldly point to Jesus and proclaim, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). This is information we ought to be highly interested in because we can’t get rid of our sin, we can’t scrub our record before God, so if this Jesus is able to do something about it so that maybe—just maybe—we won’t face hell as the eternal punishment for our sins. If that’s true, we would want to know everything about it.

This epiphany season, we continue to see Jesus revealed as he really is because during his time on earth and especially during his ministry, he doesn’t look all that different from anyone else. The booming voice of the Father declared him to be God’s Son at his baptism, and today, through John’s testimony in the Gospel and Paul’s explanation in our Second Reading, we get a clearer idea of who he is, what his work would actually be, and what that all means for us.

Toward the end of our Second Reading, Paul outlines Jesus’ work this way: Even when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. God erased the record of our debt brought against us by his legal demands. This record stood against us, but he took it away by nailing it to the cross. After disarming the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them by triumphing over them in Christ.

There’s a lot here, so let’s unpack it a bit. First of all, God addresses our spiritual death in a way that we could not. As we noted, just like someone can’t do CPR on themselves, we couldn’t do anything to save ourselves. If we were going to be saved, it had to come from outside of us. And that’s exactly what happened. When you were dead in your trespasses … God made you alive with Christ by forgiving us all our trespasses. Jesus’ death and resurrection result in our resurrection from spiritual death as well.

How? Because Jesus took that iron-clad case that stood against us and obliterated it by nailing it to the cross. He took everything you and I had done wrong and took it upon himself so that our debt became his debt, our eternal sentence became his, and at the cross he paid for it all. There, the Lamb of God took away the world’s sins, which means he took away your sins and my sins. Now we have life from death, now we have freedom from slavery, now we have release from every spiritual power and authority that sought to do us harm, and instead will be safe with our Savior forever.

Paul warned the Colossians, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, which are in accord with human tradition, namely, the basic principles of the world, but not in accord with Christ.” What do the basic patterns of this world tell us? What is the philosophy and empty deceit of the world? Well, it can come in many flavors, and it’s all eternally destructive.

One popular notion—because we’re all hard-wired to think this way—is what we already mentioned: that we can save ourselves from our sins and do good to make God happy. We can’t and, as we’ve seen, we don’t have to. Jesus did everything for us, which is exactly what we needed and exactly what we have—thanks be to God!

But the world’s philosophy can lead us even further astray, away even from trying to make things up with God and instead questioning whether there is anything to make up for, or actually anyone to make up to. If we deny the existence of sin, the existence of hell, the existence of God’s demands of perfection, or even the existence of God himself, we can trick ourselves into thinking that we’ve found a loophole and gotten ourselves out of the spiritual mess that we innately know that we’re in. Denying God’s existence, then, becomes a popular way to try to soothe and salve the aching conscience.

Of course, you can’t stop a fire in your house by pretending it’s not there, and the vicious disease is not likely to go away without treatment. Deluding ourselves that sin or hell or God himself do not exist, while appealing to the world, is no solution at all. It’s just a twisted game of make-believe that will still result in our condemnation in hell. I can’t will God and my debt to him out of existence by pretending they’re not real.

No, we need an actual solution; we need the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Not only does God, in fact, exist, but he is Immanuel—God with us. Or, as Paul put it: all the fullness of God’s being dwells bodily in Christ. Jesus is true God and true man, which is good, because we needed an eternal, perfect God to take our place under his law, and a sacrificial man to die in our stead. And in Jesus, we have both. Through baptism, we have been connected to both his death and his resurrection. You were buried with Christ in baptism. And in baptism you were also raised with him through the faith worked by the God who raised Christ from the dead.

Jesus is the solution to the problem, not avoiding the problem. This is why we focus on both God’s law and the gospel in our preaching and teaching. We need to be reminded of the gruesome reality of our sin for Jesus’ work to have any meaning at all, but we also need to see Jesus’ triumph as certain and complete so that we do not fall into despair. Not only do we have hope, but we also have confidence in our Savior who gave his life to save ours.

And that truth leads us back to where Paul started our Second Reading: Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, by being rooted and built up in him, and strengthened in the faith just as you were taught, while you overflow in faith with thanksgiving. What is our response to God rescuing us from our sin? Joy! Thanks! Confidence! We walk about our lives in thanksgiving to God because he has saved us. We live our lives the way he wants us to live, not because we think it’ll get us off the hook for things we’ve done wrong, but because Jesus has already crucified those charges that stood against us. We were caught red-handed in our sin, and Jesus took our place so that we are declared “Not Guilty” in God’s court.

In some ways, all of this is the basic truth of the Christian faith. I suppose we could have simply summarized Paul’s words here this morning with that children’s song: Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so … Jesus loves me, he who died, heaven’s gates to open wide. What a wonderful gift God has given that through the eyes of faith we can see Jesus as he is—the Lamb of God who has taken away our sins! May this simple truth that leads to eternal life be your guide, focus, and comfort all the days of your life. And may we see our Savior in a new light this morning, freshly rejoicing in his eternal love for us! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Jesus Fulfills All Righteousness" (Sermon on Matthew 3:13-17) | January 11, 2026

Text: Matthew 3:13-17
Date: January 11, 2026
Event: The Baptism of Our Lord (First Sunday after the Epiphany), Year A

Matthew 3:13-17 (EHV)

Then Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John at the Jordan. 14But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?”

15But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, because it is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John let him. 16After Jesus was baptized, he immediately went up out of the water. Suddenly, the heavens were opened for him! He saw the Spirit of God, descending like a dove and landing on him, 17and a voice out of the heavens said, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.”

Jesus Fulfills All Righteousness

Have you ever started a project and then lost all the drive and motivation to finish it? Maybe you get that first coat of paint on the walls, but that necessary second coat just sort of feels like a bridge too far. Maybe you’re set on finally cleaning out the garage and getting to the point where you’ve filled up the driveway with random junk, but then sorting it and putting away the things that are staying just seems kind of impossible. Maybe you got the laundry all done, but it sits in the basket, wrinkling and never hitting the dresser or the closet.

Whether this happens to you rarely or multiple times a day, we all know what it is to leave a project half done, to almost make more of a mess with our effort to clean, or make problems worse with an effort to repair. Thankfully, that was not true with Jesus’ work. He didn’t leave things half-done or get part way through before losing interest and motivation. No, Jesus saw things through to the end—the bitter end—and as a result, sweetness waits for us for eternity.

Today, we see Jesus clearly starting that necessary work that he will complete for us, and it begins on the shores of the Jordan River as Jesus came to his relative and promised-way-preparer, John the Baptist. We have quite a time jump this morning from our Gospels over the last few weeks. Since the middle of December, we’ve been pretty firmly in that 2-3 year window of the announcement of Jesus’ upcoming birth, through his birth, and finally last week, in our celebration of the festival of Epiphany, we saw the nations of the world recognizing and coming to worship their Savior in the example of the Wise Men.

But all of this is still firmly in the camp of Old Testament patterns. Despite the fact that Jesus has arrived, the Savior has been born, we’re still entrenched in the Old Testament perspective of waiting and watching. Because, despite angels speaking to maidens and shepherds and Wise Men following stars, Jesus’ work hadn’t fully started yet. And that changes today.

Jesus’ baptism may seem a bit strange to us—it seemed a bit strange to John as well: “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” We clearly and appropriately put baptism in the category of something we need as sinners. In our baptisms, God washes away our sins and creates or strengthens faith in our hearts. Even though John’s baptism is different from the one we are familiar with and have gone through, it was still a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But, crucially, Jesus had no sins to be forgiven. So, why is Jesus going to John to be baptized?

There are many things we could discuss on this subject, but I believe that chief among them is the truth that Jesus’ work is to take our place. On Christmas Eve, we heard the famous words of the apostle Paul from Galatians 4: When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons (Galatians 4:4-5). Jesus’ mission was to take our place under the law. Jesus was to be what we could not be: the one person to live a perfect life under God’s expectations and commands. Part of that substitutionary work, then, is taking our place even under the baptism that he did not appear to need. Jesus’ response is vague yet also aims to set John’s concerns to rest, “Let it be so now, because it is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Jesus’ baptism will also serve a wide range of other purposes. This will be the moment of confirmation for John the Baptist that his relative, Jesus, is, in fact, the long-promised Messiah. Next week, as we hear him point the crowds to Jesus as God’s Lamb who takes away the world’s sins, we will also hear him point to this event, and specifically the Holy Spirit’s alighting on Jesus in the form of a dove, as the sign God promised to confirm these things.

This sign was a confirmation to John, in part, because God told him it would be. But it was also confirmation because these events are what God had promised would happen. We heard part of those promises in the prophet’s words in our First Reading: Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I am placing my Spirit on him. He will announce a just verdict for the nations (Isaiah 42:1). The Messiah would be anointed with power and the Holy Spirit, and that’s exactly what is happening here at Jesus’ baptism.

Kings and prophets in the Old Testament would be anointed with oil as a sign that they were set apart for a special task, and here at Jesus’ baptism, that is also happening. Although Jesus underwent the same baptism as the crowds who came to John, his baptism was unique. No one else had the Holy Spirit descending on them, and certainly no one had the voice of the Father booming from heaven.

The Father’s words that echo around the Jordan really help focus us. He comments on Jesus here, “This is my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with him.” Here is, perhaps, the first public confirmation of Jesus’ true lineage. He is not the son of Joseph nor the result of Mary being assaulted or unfaithful. No, Jesus is the Son of God.

But even more to the point, Jesus is not just the Son of God, but the Son whom the Father loves, with whom he is well pleased. There’s only one way for God to be well pleased with something, and that’s if it is perfect. We see a similar concept at creation: as God created the world, he called it “good” and “very good” (cf. Genesis 1:4, 10, 31, etc.) because it was flawless. There was no corruption of sin in the world at that time, and there is no corruption of sin in Jesus. Thus, he is the loved Son of God who makes the Father happy.

This is vital to our understanding of Jesus’ work. He has to be perfect to be of any benefit to us. As we said a few moments ago, Jesus’ work is substitutionary. He’s not showing us how to live; he’s living for us. He’s not a moral guide and grand teacher; he’s the Lamb of God who will be sacrificed in our place. This is Jesus’ commission from the Father, “Be perfect for them.”

Throughout this Epiphany season, we will continue to see more about who Jesus is and what he has come to do, and it all starts in earnest here. We won’t revisit Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness this year, but that follows immediately after his baptism. While not at all the only time he fends off temptation, it is perhaps the clearest example of it in all of Scripture. No matter what Satan throws at him, Jesus will continue to be the perfect Son of his Father.

That perfection is vital for you and me. I don’t have to tell you that none of us has been perfect. We’re not even two weeks into this year, and all of us could probably put together an embarrassingly lengthy list of ways we have failed to be the people God expects us to be. We have sinned against him, we have sinned against other people, we have sinned against ourselves. We’ve had misplaced priorities that make other things and people our gods while excluding the true God.

Jesus did none of that, and he hands his perfection to you and to me as a free gift. Even though you and I have failed over and over again, because of that gift from Jesus, our records only show Jesus’ perfection—his complete lack of sin and his flawless track record of good works. He took our place in every way so that we could live with him in the perfection of eternal life.

Jesus’ baptism is the public beginning of that work, fulfilling all righteousness by being baptized in our place, being anointed for the work of rescuing us from every sin. He fulfills all righteousness in our place and does everything we need so that, despite our sin, we have been restored to a flawless relationship with God.

May today be a reminder that Jesus did, in fact, fulfill all righteousness. But he did so not to show us how, but because we could not. He did it not to shame us for failures, but to rescue us from our sins. Jesus fulfilled all righteousness, and now, through faith, we are counted righteous as well. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Seek Him Out" (Sermon on Matthew 2:1-12) | January 4, 2026

Sermon Text: Matthew 2:1-12
Date: January 4, 2026
Event: The Epiphany of Our Lord (Observed), Year A

Matthew 2:1-12 (EHV)

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, when Herod was king, Wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem. They asked, 2“Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was alarmed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4He gathered together all the people’s chief priests and experts in the law. He asked them where the Christ was to be born. 5They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, because this was written through the prophet:

6You, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are certainly not least among the rulers of Judah: because out of you will come a ruler, who will shepherd my people, Israel.”

7Then Herod secretly summoned the Wise Men and found out from them exactly when the star had appeared. 8He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you find him, report to me, so that I may also go and worship him.”

9After listening to the king, they went on their way. Then the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them, until it stood still over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they rejoiced with overwhelming joy. 11After they went into the house and saw the child with Mary, his mother, they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12Since they had been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route.

Seek Him Out

Have you ever been on a scavenger hunt? Or maybe someone set up (or you set up for someone else) a trail of clues to follow to get to a big surprise. It can be fun, but it also can be a bit nerve-racking if you don’t know what’s at the end of the trail or if you’re not really confident about where to look to find the next item or clue on the list.

In some ways, you might see the Wise Men’s journey to find and worship the young Savior as kind of like a scavenger hunt. They had some indication of what had happened. In a way that isn’t clear to us, they knew that the appearance of a special star in the sky told them the Messiah had arrived. But they weren’t really sure where to find him or who to talk to about it, and yet in the confidence that God gave through faith, they sought him out.

While we don’t have as many unknowns in seeking out our Savior as the Wise Men did, we do well to follow their example in this young, new year. As we make our way through the days and weeks ahead, we do well to make the spiritual journey to seek out our Savior at his crib, during his ministry, to his cross, and then at his empty tomb. May God give us guidance in the days ahead just as he led the Wise Men to the young Jesus!

Despite what our nativity scenes might show, the Wise Men were not there at the stable while the newborn Jesus slept in the manger in his swaddling cloths. Likely for a variety of reasons, Mary and Joseph chose to settle down a bit in Bethlehem after Jesus was born. Once the Wise Men arrive in Bethlehem, Matthew tells us they find Jesus in a house, not a stable or an inn. Likewise, the word used to describe Jesus (translated here as “child”) is closer to our word “toddler” than to “newborn.” That, paired with Herod’s despicable actions that take place after our reading, we might assume that Jesus is somewhere around two years old at the time of the Wise Men’s visit.

But, we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. At the beginning of Matthew chapter 2, we meet up with the Wise Men as they come into Jerusalem. They saw a star that indicated that the King of the Jews, the promised eternal descendant of David, had been born. Immediately, this raises a ton of questions in our minds. What was this star? How did they know that this star indicated this specific birth? How did they have all of this information but not Micah’s clear prophecy that he would be born in David’s city of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)? We’re going to have to leave most of those open questions as God doesn’t clarify for us, but what we can say for sure is that these gentile men knew the promised Savior was going to come from the Jewish people and in some way God let them know it had happened, so they sought him out to worship him and give thanks to God for his mercy.

In some way, these men knew the eternal King had been born, and they went to the most logical place to find this young King of the Jewish people, the royal palace in the capital city of Jerusalem. But, of course, he wasn’t there. They did get the nudge they needed; the chief priests and experts in the law knew the promise made in Micah well, and so the Wise Men were directed about 5½ miles away from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to find the child, and the star God used to guide them initally confirmed they were on the right track, even somehow indicating the exact place where Jesus was. There, they were able to see him, worship him, and share the gifts they had brought with him.

This whole account is a fascinating reminder of who God lets in on the early stages of his plan of salvation. That first Christmas night, it wasn’t the priests and scribes who heard about the Savior’s birth, but angels spoke to lowly shepherds. And even now, some time later, Rome’s appointed rulers for the area and the religious leaders still have no idea that the Messiah has been born. Instead, the Wise Men, these non-Jewish foreigners, are dropping this bombshell on them as they innocently ask for directions. “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this, he was alarmed, and all Jerusalem with him.

God continues not to reveal himself to the high and mighty, to those of worldly prominence. In fact, the way he reveals himself today is in some ways even more humble and lowly than it was then. No angel hosts appearing to shepherds; no star appearing in the sky bringing people from far away; no religious leaders or prophets with a direct line to God’s will and purposes. No, the way Jesus is revealed to us today is in his Word. Even as we have spiritual leaders in our congregations—pastors and lay leaders—as well as administrators, teachers, and professors in our synod and schools, still the source of all of their guidance and information is the same as it is for everyone: the pages of Scripture.

On Christmas Day, we heard John’s observation that Jesus was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not recognize him. He came to what was his own, yet his own people did not accept him (John 1:10-11). This was specifically true early in Jesus’ life, as no one would have guessed that this little child was God who took on our human nature, but it was more broadly true during his ministry, and it’s still true today. People don’t recognize Jesus as their Creator and Savior because it doesn’t seem right, it doesn’t feel right. If someone is going to admit that there’s a God out there at all, they’re probably going to settle in their comfort zone and assume that whatever issues there might be between them and God, they need to fix them and make things right.

That’s what feels right, but it is far from accurate. The reality is that no matter what we do, we can’t make things right with God. We can’t patch up our past sins and then have him be happy with us. We need Jesus to intervene; we need Jesus to do everything for us to save us.

This flies in the face of what we naturally think and feel. When he wrong his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul commented on how wrong and demented this Jesus-for-us reality feels to us: An unspiritual person does not accept the truths taught by God’s Spirit, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually evaluated (1 Corinthians 2:14). Without the work of the Holy Spirit within us, we will never see the gospel as anything but, at best, utter foolishness.

Thankfully for us, the singular source we have to learn about what God has done for us—his Word—is also the tool the Holy Spirit uses to create and sustain faith in our hearts. So in the very moment that we are digging into God’s truths, the Holy Spirit is working to change these things from foolishness to the assurance of our salvation. By the Spirit’s work in our hearts, we see and trust Jesus’ life and death in our place as the only way we receive the forgiveness of our sins.

Let us follow the pattern of the Wise Men and seek Jesus out. To do that, we don’t need to make some long, harrowing pilgrimage. It’s not even about a total reset of your spiritual mindset. It’s all about going to where he reveals himself.

As we are still in the early hours of this year, perhaps it’s useful for us to reevaluate how we are doing at seeking him out. Are we as connected to God’s Word as we could be and want to be? Are there places we could make changes to better seek out our Savior? Are there Bible study opportunities at church that we could be making better use of? Could we be opening our Bibles or devotional books more at home?

This may sound ridiculous coming from your pastor, but I stand here this morning as someone who has really struggled with this through his life, up to and including today. Oh, I will commit myself to personal (not professional!) time in God’s Word, and it will go well for a while. Then, as I let so many good habits in my life do, it begins to fade, and I get distracted by other things, and suddenly, my personal seeking of Jesus is pretty low on the priority ladder. So then, I need to regroup and do it again. But that’s ok.

In these matters, we need to not let “perfect” become the enemy of “good.” Two days a week is better than zero days a week, even if the goal is seven; five minutes is better than zero minutes, even if the goal is twenty. The Wise Men weren’t perfect either—they sought Jesus in the wrong city! But they pressed on, they followed the guidance of God’s Word and eventually the star, and they found the treasure of their hearts.

Today, you will receive an email from me with several tools and suggestions to help you pursue this goal of seeking Jesus out. We are blessed to live at a time with such ready access to so many resources—not the least of which is God’s Word in many and varied translations accessible from almost any screen we are near—that when we wrestle with this, it’s not for lack of options or plans. Sometimes, it’s because we are overwhelmed or we just haven’t really found the right option that clicks for us here today.

So, let’s press on in seeking him out. Let’s dig into his Word, where we are reminded of the horrid reality of our sins and also the work that Jesus did to rescue us. Let’s join the Wise Men in making the journey to find him where he allows himself to be found. There we can bow down, offer our gifts, and worship the God who loves us and has saved us.

Merry Christmas and Happy Epiphany! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"This End Is a Beginning!" (Sermon on Psalm 121) | December 28, 2025

Sermon Text: Psalm 121
Date: December 28, 2025
Event: New Year’s Eve (Observed)

Psalm 121 (EHV)

I lift up my eyes to the mountains.
Where does my help come from?
2My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3He will not let your foot stumble.
He who watches over you will not slumber.
4Yes, he who watches over Israel will not slumber.
He will not sleep.
5The LORD watches over you.
The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
6The sun will not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7The LORD will watch to keep you from all harm.
He will watch over your life.
8The LORD will watch over your going and your coming
from now to eternity.

This End Is a Beginning

A new year naturally allows for some looking back and looking ahead. What were the challenges of 2025? What were the blessings? Where did things go as you hoped and wanted; where did they not? And what are the plans and goals for 2026? Are you rolling any plans over that just didn’t happen (or weren’t completed) in 2025, or is this a year of new plans and fresh starts? Or, do you anticipate things mostly going as they have been?

It’s a little bit strange to consider years from God’s perspective. After all, God is outside of time. He doesn’t experience things the way we do as a chain of events. As Moses observed in Psalm 90, “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day, like yesterday that has gone by, or like a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4). So, how does God want us to view the end of one year and the beginning of another? With God, all endings are just beginnings. No matter what end he brings about, he is setting the stage for the next chapter, whether that be something familiar or something brand new. Regardless of what it ends up looking like, we know that the events of this past year and those that will happen next year will be under his protection and blessing.

Like Psalm 130, which we meditated on for our sermon a few weeks ago, Psalm 121 is also one of the songs of ascent, one of the songs clearly linked to people’s travel to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. Psalm 121 focuses on the journey rather than the destination. Even today, in our era of adaptive cruise control and automatic braking in our cars, we know that each time we get into the car to make a trip to the store or across the country, there’s some amount of risk involved. It’s the reason we pray for safe travel for ourselves and others. Travel brings some amount of danger.

That would have been even more true for people traveling on foot across the region, or practically across the world, to reach Jerusalem. And we run into that acknowledgment of danger right away at the start of the psalm: I lift up my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from? This is not the psalm writer standing in awe at the grandeur and majesty of these hills and mountains. This type of terrain would have been a real problem on the trip because it was much more challenging to move through than flat ground, and the hills and mountains offered many places for dangers to hide, whether wild animals or other people seeking to harm the person passing through.

So, in v. 1, the psalm writer is essentially asking, “How am I going to get through that?” But he answers his own question right away. My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Was 2025 a year that felt like you were traveling through the mountains with potential danger all around? Did it feel like an exhausting slog that you weren’t sure you were going to finish, or if you did, what shape you’d be in at the end? Did you feel trapped and oppressed at all this year? Did you feel like the rug had been pulled out from underneath you? Did you face a situation (or a series of situations) that seemed entirely hopeless? Did it seem like nothing could help you, no deliverance could come, no good could be worked from any of this?

Yet, here you are. You made it to the end of this year. How did you do it? How did you make it through to be here this morning? Because your help and support were the same as the psalmist’s; [your] help [came] from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. How did you make it through? God. God brought you out of the turmoil. God sent you the help to at least survive, if not thrive, under challenging circumstances. God is the one who brought blessing out of what could have been a total disaster.

The promises of God are sure and all-encompassing. The psalmist continues, “He will not let your foot stumble. He who watches over you will not slumber. Yes, he who watches over Israel will not slumber. He will not sleep.” In other words, no matter what happens, no matter how bad things get, God will not give up on you. Maybe, though, even as this year draws to an end, there are still problems, still things weighing on your heart. In some ways, maybe it does feel like God has given up on you. “If he loves me so much, if he’s so intent on watching out for me and never falling asleep at the wheel, then why are things going like this?!”

Take a step back. Consider how bad things used to be, when you were estranged from God because of your sins, when God was not able to listen to your prayers because that wall of offenses between you and him silenced those petitions. Even then, just because you were divided from him didn’t mean that God didn’t care for you. Just because you were estranged didn’t mean that God wasn’t watching out for you.

In the way that only that amazing Christmas story can, we’ve been recently reminded about the extent of the love that God has for us. Love so amazing, so profound, so watchful and attentive, so incredibly shocking, that it sent his own Son to be born a human being. That love then compelled the God-man, Immanuel, to shoulder the burdens of every sinner who has ever lived and pay the penalty for it all. So great is the love of God that he rescued us from sin; Jesus rescued us even from ourselves.

With that context, which is so easy to miss when things are harried and difficult, we then begin to understand just what God has done and is continuing to do for us! The LORD watches over you. The LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will watch to keep you from all harm. He will watch over your life. The Lord is guiding all things for your good, even when it doesn’t feel like it, even when it doesn’t look like it, even when you feel like there is no hope or help or anything positive that’s ever going to return to your life. Our challenge is to stop fretting and worrying and trying to fix everything ourselves, and to bring our hardships and heartaches to the eternal one who loves us and provides for us. It would make good sense to ask God for strength of faith in this new year, to be able to face the challenges that you know will come with his strength, not just your own.

God does nothing without purpose. He doesn’t allow meaningless suffering. He doesn’t allow pain for pain’s sake. No, he sees beyond the here and now and uses all things, good and bad, to work toward his end-goal. And that goal is greater than peace and comfort in the here and now. That comfort is, as the psalmist writes, forever. He promises, “The LORD will watch over your going and your coming from now to eternity.”

There is the most amazing end that works the greatest new beginning. God’s promises to watch over us, take care of us, guard us, and protect us are all wonderful. But they all have but one goal: to get us through the turmoil of this life, to bring the insanity of this sinful world to an end, and to bring us to that joyous beginning that will have no end, the beginning of everlasting life in the perfection of heaven.

Every end is simply a beginning. And with God, even if the good seems to end and the troublesome seems to start, we know that he will work everything in that for our good. Look with confidence to this new year, that as 2025 ends, God’s love doesn’t. That love is what is going to bring about blessings beyond imagining, both in the coming year and throughout eternity.

My dear brothers and sisters, have an incredibly happy new year, swaddled in the love of your Creator and Savior! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"God Sent His Son!" (Sermon on Galatians 4:4-7) | December 24, 2025

Sermon Text: Galatians 4:4-7
Date: December 24, 2025
Event: The Nativity of our Lord (Christmas Eve)

Galatians 4:4-7 (EHV)

When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law, 5in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons. 6And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to shout, “Abba, Father!” 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if you are a son, then you are also an heir of God through Christ.

God Sent His Son!

This evening, we have been privileged to trace the history of God carrying out the beginning of his plan of salvation. Angel announcements of unexpected and miraculous births lay the foundations for the Savior and his way-preparer to arrive. And tonight we celebrate, chief of all, the birth of Jesus, the one Gabriel assured Mary would be the eternal King promised to David and his descendants.

But if this were simply a wild story about angels and babies, with heart-warming celebrations in humble circumstances, there wouldn’t be much to separate this account from a story like Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” If this were just a traditional fiction, we would have very little reason to gather together other than to bring some light and warmth to these darkest and longest nights of the year.

But the apostle Paul, in our brief reading from Galatians 4, helps explain everything we’ve heard and seen tonight. This is not just a story about an adorable baby in a make-shift crib. This is not a story about a young family defying the odds to make it in a cruel world that was set against them. This is a story about God’s Son and his love for you.

Paul speaks about Jesus’ redeeming work. We don’t use the word “redeem” much today outside of the topic of coupons when we go shopping, but the picture remains. When a store redeems a coupon, it is buying that coupon back from you. Usually, it’s been to incentivize a purchase, so they’re giving you some money back or perhaps a free item. But they take that thing in your possession in exchange for something valuable.

You and I needed to be redeemed because we were owned, not by a thrifty shopper, but by sin and death.  God’s perfect justice doesn’t allow him to turn a blind eye toward sin and pretend it doesn’t matter. It does. And to be true to what is right and wrong, sin must be punished. Thus, we are in captivity, owned by these horrendous masters, with the result that we would be in hell forever, never experiencing God’s blessings again.

That was not something that God could stomach, so from the very first sin in the Garden of Eden, God promised a Savior. He assured Satan that a champion for mankind was coming who would crush his head. And then through the centuries, through bits and pieces here and there, God revealed parts of his plan. Bits and pieces until the set time had fully come and God blew the roof off of everything by sending Gabriel with those messages to Zechariah and Mary. The time was now.

In order for us to be redeemed, some sort of payment had to be made. The concepts of redemption and ransom are very close to each other. Something had to be paid to get us out of this terrible state that we were in, and that payment would need to be the life of the eternal Son of God.

Paul describes Jesus’ work as being born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law. God is not subject to his own law that he’s put us under, just like the parent of young children is not necessarily subject to the rule of “no cookies before dinner.” It may not be the wisest move from a parenting perspective, but Mom or Dad is technically free to munch on some gingersnaps at 5pm because the rule applies to the kids, not the parents, to those under the law, not the law-makers.

To accomplish anything, Jesus had to submit to God’s laws. This wouldn’t be God playacting, pretending to be a human being. No, this is God taking on our human nature, becoming an actual, full-fledged human being, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. In this way, he put himself under the law that he made. His life of perfection wasn’t a farce; it was real. Jesus, having never sinned at any moment of his earthly life, finally became the first human being ever to live up to God’s standards of perfection.

So part of Jesus’ redeeming work was giving his perfect life to you and to me. We have met God’s expectations of perfection because Jesus has given his perfdection to us. Because of Jesus took our place under the law, now when God looks at you or me, he doesn’t see the sinful failures that we are; he just sees Jesus’ perfection.

The other part of Jesus’ redeeming work would be paying for our sins. It does, perhaps, feel a bit out of the season to think about death on a night like tonight, but there can be and should be no denying that Jesus was born to die. His entire life will be focused on the cross where he will make the payment for your sins and mine, where he will endure the hell that we deserved so that you and I never have to face it.

As we said on Sunday, that God would do this is shocking. But what is the result of Jesus’ life, work, and death in our place? You are no longer a slave, but a son. And if you are a son, then you are also an heir of God through Christ. We are as far removed from the just punishment of hell as could possibly be. Jesus didn’t just free us from sin and send us on our way. He didn’t just free us from sin and leave us as beggars at his door or servants in his house. No, he saved us and gave us the highest position he could grant in the family. We will inherit eternal life, not because we lived our lives so well or did all the right things, but because Jesus saved us. We are forgiven and have been credited with his perfection. The one who was born under the law has indeed redeemed us who are under the law. We are free because of our God’s love and his free forgiveness.

That means our relationship with God is as precious and valuable as it could possibly be. We can address God not as the stern judge or the king who wield power over us, but rather like a little child would address her dear, loving father, “Abba, Father!” This is the complete reversal that Jesus has accomplished for us.

So tonight, enjoy your time at the manger, enjoy this gift of God’s eternal love for you. God sent his Son not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Jesus came not because it was necessary but because he loved you and loved me. Here we have full redemption because today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11). God sent his Son—for you!

Thanks be to God! Merry Christmas! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"God's Salvation Is Shocking!" (Sermon on Isaiah 7:4-16) | December 21, 2025

Sermon Text: Isaiah 7:4-16
Date: December 21, 2025
Event: The Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year A

Isaiah 7:4-16 (EHV)

Tell Ahaz, “Get control of yourself, and remain calm. Do not be afraid. Do not lose your courage because of these two stubs of smoldering torches. Do not be afraid because of the fierce anger of Rezin, Aram, and the son of Remaliah, 5even though Aram, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted evil against you and said, 6‘Let’s go up against Judah and tear it apart. Let’s divide it among ourselves and set up a king over it, namely, this son of Tabe’el.’ ”

7This is what the LORD God says.

Their plan shall not succeed.
It shall not take place.
8Yes, the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin,
but within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken into pieces,
so that it will no longer be a people.
9The head of Ephraim is only Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son.
If you do not stand firm in faith,
you will not stand at all.

10The Lord spoke to Ahaz again. He said, 11“Ask for a sign from the LORD your God. Ask for it either in the depths below or in the heights above.”

12But Ahaz responded, “I will not ask. I will not test the LORD.”

13So Isaiah said:

Listen now, you house of David. Is it not enough for you to test the patience of men? Will you test the patience of my God as well? 14Therefore the Lord himself will give a sign for all of you. Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and name him Immanuel. 15He will eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse evil and choose good, 16because even before the child knows how to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

God’s Salvation Is Shocking

When was the last time you were surprised? Truly, knock-you-off-your-feet surprised? In today’s internet age of global, instant communication, perhaps we’re a bit jaded. We have heard so much from so many different places that something has to be incredibly touching or disturbing to get through because otherwise,  nothing is all that surprising anymore. We experience so many different things second-hand that are outside of our personal bubble through social media and other sources, even if the truthfulness might often be suspect.

No, to be genuinely shocked, you probably have to look smaller, not bigger. Politicians and other world leaders doing wonderful or deplorable things may not surprise us much, but when someone dear to us does something special and unexpected, that probably resonates more than 1,000 shocking headlines ever could. Maybe it was a past Christmas gift or another thoughtful gesture. Maybe it was an idea from someone that unlocked the way forward on the task you had been stuck on for what felt like forever—something that had seemed impossible!

This morning, with the help of the prophet Isaiah, I pray that we can look at God’s salvation with that same kind of personal, small, fresh shock—even though we’re talking about something that affects every human being. I know that many of us have heard this message hundreds, thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of times. But at the end of our Advent preparations, and as we look forward to this week’s trip to Bethlehem, let’s appreciate anew the shocking way that God saves us.

At the time of our reading, Ahaz was the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. He was not a good king in God’s eyes or in the eyes of people. The author of the book of Kings puts it this way, “[Ahaz] did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God … He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made his son pass through the fire, according to the shameful practices of the nations which the LORD had driven out before the people of Israel. He offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every leafy tree” (2 Kings 16:2-4). As he devoted himself to false gods, he was hardly the spiritual role model and shepherd that God wanted his kings to be. I don’t share that context just to drag the guy; it’s important to fully understand the conversation Isaiah and he have in our reading.

We meet up with Ahaz and Isaiah in a difficult time. Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah (the son of Remaliah), the king of the northern kingdom of Israel, were harassing Judah and threatening it. Ahaz was scared about what might happen, so scared in fact that we see him ripping parts of Solomon’s temple apart to give to the king of Assyria when Ahaz asked him to rescue them from their enemies. It’s notable, then, that God’s offer of comfort and help falls on such deaf ears.

We see a false humility in Ahaz. God encourages him to ask for something—anything—to prove that God is God and will do what he has promised. What is Ahaz’s response? “I will not ask. I will not test the LORD.” We know that Ahaz is no devout believer. He’s either trying to look good and humble in front of the prophet Isaiah, or he couldn’t care less about anything God has to say (given that he uses parts of the temple to buy earthly protection, I’d personally lean toward the latter).

What is God’s response to this pseudo-piety? The Lord himself will give a sign for all of you. You don’t want one? You’ll get one anyway! And it’s going to be shocking. Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and name him Immanuel.

Now, what does God mean by this sign, this promise, in the immediate context of Isaiah and Ahaz? It will become clear that God is with them—Immanuel!—in an unexpected way. Like a child born unnaturally—from a virgin—deliverance from their enemies would come unnaturally. It will come quickly, in fact. In less time than it takes for a child to grow up, these two nations troubling Judah would be wiped out.

Like so many prophecies in the Old Testament, this one had an immediate and then an ultimate fulfillment. The immediate fulfillment would be God rescuing Judah from their earthly enemies. The ultimate fulfillment would be the long-promised Savior to rescue all people from our spiritual enemies. And just like the immediate fulfillment, the ultimate fulfillment would come in a shocking way that we would not and could not have expected.

We can probably empathize with Joseph in our Gospel for this morning. Mary, his fiancée, was pregnant, and he knew that he was not the father. I assume that she told him about Gabriel’s visit, and I can also imagine how much water that story would have held. That was such a shocking piece of information that it was completely unbelievable by human standards; thus, God sends an angel to Joseph as well to confirm the validity of what Mary likely had told him, or at least give him the information he needed to know what was going on. This was no ordinary pregnancy; this was Immanuel to be born of a virgin! God was dwelling with his people! Shocking!

But more shocking than even a virgin birth is that any of this happened at all. As we mentioned earlier, this message may lose some of its shock value because we have likely heard it so many times, but stay with me for a moment. The almighty Creator of the universe had one expectation of us—that we follow his directions flawlessly. We did not do that. You and I are in daily, active rebellion against this all-powerful being. In fact, in our natural state, we can do nothing else. We set our hearts against God, and whether we listen to the voice of our conscience or not, we can do nothing to change course.

So, what would you imagine God’s response could have been, perhaps we might say should have been? Well, what could it have been or should it have been for Ahaz? He had been completely unfaithful to God, was in trouble, and even in those moments, didn’t turn to God for help. So, God could have just left Ahaz and the largely unfaithful nation of Judah to their own devices.

So, too, God would have been fully justified in throwing us aside because of our rebellion against him. Our sin should have meant an eternity of being abandoned by God and all of his blessings in hell. Had he done that, we would have faced unending torment because of our sins, and we would have earned and deserved every single moment of it. It is not wise to thumb your nose at the almighty and, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

The shock comes in God’s mercy that he was never under any obligation to show and to what extremes he went to show that mercy. We saw God have mercy on Ahaz and the nation of Judah despite their general unfaithfulness to him. In a shocking way, God would rescue them from Aram and Israel and in an even more jaw-dropping way, from Assyria later. But that same love and mercy from God is cranked up to an unfathomable level at the arrival of Immanuel.

This week, we will see the fulfillment of what the angels promised to Mary and Joseph, the fulfillment of what God had foretold by his prophets for generations. God himself would take on our human nature and live among us—Immanuel! God himself, the very one we had sinned against, would bear our sins in his own body. He would subject himself to the punishment that we deserved. Imagine a court case where the person wronged volunteers to take the place of the person found guilty, to serve their jail time or pay their fines. Imagine a situation where the judge does that. Either case would be baffling and shocking! And that’s precisely what happened here, on an eternal scale.

The angel told Joseph to name the child not Immanuel—God with us, but Jesus (Ieshua)—the LORD Saves. Even more than being with us, Jesus’ salvation was his mission. Taking our place was his work. And the free gifts of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life are ours because he did everything that he came to do. Your sins and my sins are gone because Jesus, Immanuel, took them away.

There’s so much about this season and Christmas in particular that is familiar. Comforting traditions and messages we’ve heard over and over again. But, my sisters and brothers, today, this week, and if possible for the rest of our lives, let’s let the shock of God’s mercy bowl us over again and again. Let’s not let this message of God’s forgiveness and the gift of eternal life be old hat and blasé; let the arrival of Immanuel leave you slack-jawed and amazed. Here is God’s undeserved love for you. Here is God’s gift of eternal life. Here is Immanuel—God with us for a time so that we could be with him forever.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come. Take away the burden of our sins, and make us ready for the celebration of your birth. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Are You Sure?" (Sermon on Matthew 11:2-11) | December 14, 2025

Sermon Text: Matthew 11:2-11
Date: December 14, 2025
Event: The Third Sunday in Advent, Year A

Matthew 11:2-11 (EHV)

While John was in prison, he heard about the things Christ was doing. He sent two of his disciples 3to ask him, “Are you the Coming One or should we wait for someone else?”

4Jesus answered them, “Go, report to John what you hear and see: 5The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the gospel is preached to the poor. 6Blessed is the one who does not take offense at me.”

7As these two were leaving, Jesus began to talk to the crowds about John. “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 8What did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? No, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. 9So what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you! And he is much more than a prophet. 10This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11Amen I tell you: Among those born of women there has not appeared anyone greater than John the Baptist. Yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Are You Sure?

Have you ever been incredibly certain of a reality in your life or a fact about the world around you, only to have that truth shot down in an instant? Maybe it was something pretty low stakes like learning someone doesn’t like some kind of food that you thought they loved. Maybe it was being certain that something was true, until a teacher in school pointed you to sources that questioned that reality of that. Maybe it was something much more troubling, such as someone keeping a secret from you that changed how you saw them or how you felt you could trust them.

Whether it was a teacher in school, or reading something in a book, or learning something new about a family member or friend that totally shattered what you thought you knew, you are probably familiar with that rug-pull feeling. You start to question if you know anything about that person, situation, or subject. And so, you might go back to that person or do more reading on that subject with the question, “Are you sure…?”

I believe that’s the situation we have here with John the Baptist this morning. We meet up with John and Jesus toward the end of John’s life. He is in prison for the most ridiculous reason—he had the audacity to tell King Herod that it was a sin to be sleeping with his brother’s wife. In fact, he’ll be killed for an even stupider reason: because Herod promised his lover’s daughter anything she wanted when she danced provocatively at a dinner party. The girl asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Herod didn’t want to look weak in front of his guests, so he ordered that John be executed.

Now, if we take a step back here and look at this in the broader context of God’s plan of salvation, can you empathize with where John’s mind could have been while he sat in that prison cell? We know that John was long-promised forerunner of the Savior. Second to Jesus, no one had a more important role in this work. John, as the last Old Testament prophet, didn’t simply say, “The Savior is coming!” but was able to say, “The Savior is here! And there he is! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” At Jesus’ baptism, John saw the confirming sign of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove while the voice of the Father spoke from heaven.

Does it make sense, then, that John might not have thought that this is how his time on earth would come to an end, rotting in a prison cell for speaking God’s Word truly and accurately? John, of course, knew that Jesus had to become greater and John himself had to become less, but do you think perhaps he didn’t expect the bottom of his lot to drop out so drastically and completely? Do you think as he sat there he perhaps wondered if he, somehow, had made a mistake or had been misled? While John was in prison, he heard about the things Christ was doing. He sent two of his disciples to ask him, “Are you the Coming One or should we wait for someone else?”

Perhaps it wasn’t John who was struggling. Perhaps John was fine with all of this; maybe it was his disciples who were really wrestling with the situation their dear teacher was in, and so in sending them to question Jesus, John was really sending them to hear from Jesus himself what was happening. But whether it was John who was struggling or his disciples (or both), the point remains the same: they seek out Jesus for direction and confirmation that their hope was not misplaced.

Our Advent preparations are a lot of waiting and watching. Our whole focus last weekend was waiting for the Lord to do what he’s going to do. But are you sure about what you’re waiting for? Does the evidence back up what you’re hoping to happen? Or, does it often feel like you’re John the Baptist sitting in prison, wondering and perhaps even fretting that you’ve been misled?

For example, does your health reflect what you expect a believer in Jesus to experience? Do you think you should have more financial resources than you do? Do you feel like what God allows in your family and other personal relationships does not sync with his promised love and care? Do you have doubts and real concerns about what Jesus is doing or will be doing for you?

The proper approach to those questions is not what we might naturally do—stewing in frustration and convincing ourselves that God is unfaithful or has just forgotten about us. No, we should do what John did, what his disciples did, and go to the source and ask. Jesus, are you really the one that we should be waiting on? Should we expect someone or something else?

Jesus is clear elsewhere what we can expect to experience in this life. The love of most growing cold, hardships and burdens, crosses to bear both as Christians and just as sinners living in a sinful world. The idea that the believer should have an easy, healthy, wealthy, and emotionally happy life is a fiction we’ve created for ourselves because we want it to be true. That’s not at all what God has promised.

But if God loves us, why would he let these hardships come on us? If God loves us, why would he withhold blessings from us? If God loves us, why are things in life not just better?

What was Jesus’ answer to John’s disciples? “Go, report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the gospel is preached to the poor.” We heard many of those promises and signs in our First Reading from Isaiah about the Messiah’s arrival, and many of these are what Jesus summarizes and paraphrases here. He’s essentially saying to John, “You know what was promised, what was going to happen when the one who was promised comes. These very things are being fulfilled. Even if it doesn’t feel like it from your perspective, or things aren’t going the way you hoped or even expected, what was promised is occurring. Take heart.”

Jesus also gives this encouragement to John and his disciples, “Blessed is the one who does not take offense at me.” Jesus’ statement there could even be more strongly translated, “Blessed is the one who is not led to sin because of me.” Jesus knows that being a Christian, following him, truly living as he would have us live, is going to be difficult. Things aren’t going to go the way we want. At times, we may feel like John the Baptist at the height of his ministry, respected by the people and privileged to point out the Messiah. At other times, we may feel much more like John here, rotting in prison for doing the right thing. We may lose friends because of our faith. We may have health problems because of (or in spite of) the life choices we’ve made.

What do we make of Jesus’ encouragement then? Stay the course. Follow me. Hold tightly to the forgiveness I freely give to you. When we’re struggling to see Jesus’ work in our own lives, it’s probably because we’re looking in the wrong place. If we’re looking at ourselves, at our circumstances, then we’re going to miss it. But as Jesus redirected John and his disciples away from their present circumstances and back to himself, so Jesus redirects us away from the navel-gazing that we’re all so good at and instead directs us back to him. Rather than focusing on what I’m going through or how I feel, I want my primary focus to be on what Jesus has done.

And this is what Jesus is getting at when he says whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than [John]. He’s not talking about rank or privilege. He’s talking about blessing. Among natural-born people, John had the greatest privilege of anyone because he got to announce that the Savior had arrived. Yet, that honor is far less than the honor of being a part of God’s kingdom by faith, the honor of being a believer and having our sins forgiven. So even John’s greatness comes not from his role as the preparer of the way of the Messiah, but because he is a dearly loved and forgiven child of God, as are you.

Jesus’ goal isn’t to make things wonderful here—though he certainly will take care of us! No, Jesus’ goal is to ensure that we are eternally safe with him. That’s clear even in the stinger on the list that Jesus sends back to John, the gospel is preached to the poor. Those in need of God’s love and forgiveness have it. It is available to all—even you and me—as Jesus freely gives it in his Word through his work in our place.

Are you sure? Are you sure this Jesus is all that he’s said he is, that he has promised to be? By the Spirit’s work in your heart and mine, we can confidently say, “Yes! We are sure!” The pain and trials of this life won’t even be worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us in eternity. Until that day, my brothers and sisters, wait patiently for the Lord. His timetable and the circumstances around us may bring doubts to our minds and hearts. But hold firm to the one who saved you; hold firm to the one who loves you.

Hear our prayers, dear Jesus, and come with the good news of your mighty deliverance. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Wait for the Lord" (Sermon on Psalm 130) | December 7, 2025

Sermon Text: Psalm 130
Date: December 7, 2025
Event: The Second Sunday in Advent, Year A

Psalm 130 (EHV)

A song of the ascents.
1Out of the depths I have called to you, O LORD.
2Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to the sound of my cry for mercy.
3If you, LORD, kept a record of guilt,
O Lord, who could stand?
4But with you there is pardon,
so you are feared.
5I wait for the LORD. My soul waits,
and in his word I have put my hope.
6My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7Israel, wait confidently for the LORD, because
with the LORD there is mercy.
With him there is abundant redemption.
8So he himself will redeem Israel from all its guilt.

Wait for the Lord

Almost every parent of small children knows that this time of year can be taxing. Sure, there’s a lot to do, so many tasks to check off the list, but often for the children, there’s one thing and one thing only in view: those Christmas presents. I know that in my own childhood, I was continually looking for ways to convince my parents to make early Christmas presents a thing because it was tough to wait. That rarely went very far, despite the great reasons I had for implementing something!

No, this season offers many learning opportunities, and patience is a big one. There’s a lot of looking forward, anticipating, hoping, and … waiting. No matter how exciting things are, no matter how much you’re looking forward to them, you can’t force December 25 to come any sooner than the calendar and clock tell us it will arrive (and for overwhelmed adults, sadly, we can’t delay its arrival either).

But what a tremendous picture of our Advent focus! Advent is all about waiting—whether we are putting ourselves in the shoes of Old Testament believers waiting and longing for the arrival of God’s salvation in the Messiah, or considering our situation as New Testament believers waiting and longing not for a holiday or other temporary joy and reprieve, but the permanent rest that will come.

Psalm 130 is a psalm about trusting God’s promises and waiting patiently for them to come to fruition. As you can see in the heading, this psalm is one of the “songs of ascent.” The songs of ascent were used by people traveling to Jerusalem for worship. No matter where you were coming from, you always spoke about going “up” to Jerusalem because of the hill on which it is built. We might think of pilgrims making a long trek on foot from their homes in the diaspora to reach this center of worship, or those making a shorter trek from nearby Judea and eventually Galilee. The songs of ascent typically center the traveler on the trip and the worship, and specifically the care that God brings to them in both.

Psalm 130 is very focused on the spiritual preparation the worshiper should invest in before coming to the temple, to be ready to hear the word and promises of God with a well-grounded, well-centered heart.

The psalm writer begins with what seems like a dreadful situation: Out of the depths I have called to you, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the sound of my cry for mercy. When the psalm writer describes himself as calling from the depths, this is a spiritual condition rather than a physical one. He’s not fallen into a hole or been thrown in prison. He’s in a very low place; low because of his sin. Perhaps David’s description of the torture of his guilt from elsewhere in the psalms comes to mind, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away as I groaned all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me” (Psalm 32:3-4). You and I both know what it is to feel guilty over the wrong things we have done or the good things we have neglected. Describing that state as “the depths” seems pretty appropriate.

One feature we should pay attention to in this section of Scripture is the psalmist’s subtle shifts in the name for God he uses throughout. When you see the name “LORD” in all capital letters in our psalm, that is God’s unique name (likely pronounced “Yahweh” in Hebrew). This name expresses his covenant grace, his love for his people, and most clearly his forgiveness. When you see the name “Lord” with regular letters, that’s a different name in Hebrew (pronounced “Adonai”). It’s a respectful name, but rather than carrying the force of God’s love and mercy, it describes the fact that God is above us and that we are accountable to him. While I probably wouldn’t advocate for this in a published English translation, it might be a helpful shorthand in our minds to substitute the word “Savior” for the all-capitals “LORD,” and to substitute the word “Master” for the regularly-lettered “Lord.”

So, his initial plea from the depths is to his Savior, to his God of covenant grace. The only way he’ll be heard is if God looks on him with mercy and love. But addressing God as “Master” in verse two, “Lord, hear my voice” acknowledges that God is under no obligation to pay attention to him. He’s asking him to, but God, being higher than us, and more to the point, God being the one whom we’ve sinned against, doesn’t need to do anything for us—save for the fact that he’s promised to.

He goes on to note that this guilt and sin, this disaster of a rebellious life against God, is the universal human condition in our fallen state. If you, LORD, kept a record of guilt, O Lord, who could stand? The answer? No one. But it is the God of covenant grace who doesn’t follow this hypothetical situation, who doesn’t keep a record of our guilt and sins. If he did so, we could never stand before the God to whom we are accountable.

Verse four is really the central verse of this psalm, not just in the number of lines of text, but even more so in thought. For the first three verses, the psalm writer has been coming to God from a state of guilt and shame over his sin. He knows that God owes him nothing, but he also knows what God has promised to him—pardon! And this verse really underscores the notion that to “fear God” is typically not to be afraid of him but to stand in awe of him and revere him. God’s pardon, his forgiveness, is the motivation for this fear in the psalmist’s eyes. Surely God’s forgiveness is not a reason to cower and hide from God, but it is the reason to be amazed at him and thank him!

This hope isn’t just some crazy fiction that we’ve created, hoping in vain for a merciful God to save us. No, this is exactly what he’s promised. And the psalm writer points us to where our confidence ought to be, not in ourselves or what we want to happen, but in what God has specifically told us he’s going to do: I wait for the LORD. My soul waits, and in his word I have put my hope. His Word is our confidence because that is the flawless, inerrant record of his promises. We can be certain that there will be pardon for all of our sins because that’s what God promised and—unlike us—he never breaks a promise.

Think back to a point when time just seemed to drag. It was probably because you were really anticipating something that was about to happen. Maybe the end of the school day or the workday meant big, exciting plans, but it felt like the clock wasn't cooperating. That’s a taste of what the psalm writer means when he says, “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” Think about what eager anticipation the night watchman would have in ancient days. They had to stand guard when there were no electric lights. Oil lamps and candles only shed their light so far. How close the enemy could get to the city walls under the cover of darkness! If the watchmen lost focus, it could be disastrous. So how welcome those first rays of light would be in the early morning—either because they made the watching job so much easier or because they meant this overnight shift was over, and the pressure was off.

That’s the kind of eager anticipation we have for God’s arrival. This life is sometimes like the night watch that feels like it’ll never end or the school or work day that seems to go on forever. We drag ourselves through this muck of this life, and it seems like it might never change. But we know it will, because our King and Judge will return. We wait for him with that eager expectation.

You don’t need to be afraid of God as judge because you know him as your Savior: Israel, wait confidently for the LORD, because with the LORD there is mercy. With him there is abundant redemption. Jesus himself, the one who gave his life as the payment for every single one of your sins, is your judge. Imagine walking into a courtroom where the judge had done everything he could to make sure you would walk out of there released and free. Imagine if you knew exactly what the verdict was going to be—and it was good for you! What a difference that would make! How greatly your nerves would be settled, where in a different situation they would probably be on edge!

This is our confidence before God: He himself will redeem Israel from all its guilt. Do not be afraid, dear Christian, because your Savior, the LORD, has loved you and forgiven you. Be confident, dear Christian, not in yourself but in our Savior who lived and died to save you from your sin. Wait patiently, dear Christian, for the return of our Savior and Judge, who will publicly announce that we are not guilty of any sin because he himself took them all away. Rejoice, dear Christian, for the Lord has heard your cry for mercy and has saved you.

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to look with eager anticipation for your return! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Live for Later, Not for Now" (Sermon on Isaiah 2:1-5) | November 30, 2025

Sermon Text: Isaiah 2:1-5
Date: November 30, 2025
Event: The First Sunday in Advent, Year A

Isaiah 2:1-5 (EHV)

This is the message that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2This will take place in the latter days:
The mountain of the LORD’s house will be established
as the chief of the mountains.
It will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it like a river.
3Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
Then he will instruct us about his ways,
and we will walk in his paths.”
For from Zion the law will go out,
and the LORD’s word will go out from Jerusalem.
4He will judge between the nations,
and he will mediate for many peoples.
Then they will beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
nor will they learn war anymore.
5O house of Jacob, come,
and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Live for Later, Not for Now

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” I’m not really sure how much truth there is in that in corporate America, though I can see an argument for self-respect in it. I know even less of what that means in Silicon Valley when often people that are worth more than the GDP of some nations typically wear jeans, tshirts and hooded sweatshirts, but there is a kernel of something that I think is worth focusing on: you want to plan for the future; you want to think ahead; you don’t want to just be stuck spinning your tires here hoping things change instead of making those changes happen.

At the start of this new church year, through the prophet Isaiah, God has us thinking about the choices we’re making now, how we’re living today, and encourages us to make choices that focus not on the immediate here and now and but on what is coming later, what is coming for eternity.

At times, when the propets’ words to God’s people involve promises about the future, it can be hard to nail down exactly what God is referring to. For example, throughout the book of Isaiah, if God promises rescue from something, we have to ask what rescue he’s promising. Is he referring to his rescuing his people from Assyria who would take the northern kingdom of Israel into exile but from whom God would protect the southern nation of Judah? Is he speaking about the eventual rescue of his people from captivity in Babylon that would come 150 or so years after Isaiah’s ministry? Is he referring to the arrival and work of the Messiah? Is he referring to the ultimate rescue of the final judgment? And, at times, is it a combination of the things above? Context has to be our guide.

In our First Reading this morning, we have a section of the propet’s words that are future-looking. But Isaiah is looking beyond his time to sometime later as he describes what will happen in the “latter days,” that is at a time near the end of time. And for this future setting, God directs our eyes toward the temple mount: This will take place in the latter days: The mountain of the LORD’s house will be established as the chief of the mountains. It will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it like a river.The temple was very important. In Isaiah’s day, it would have served as the center of worship of the true God and the place where his promises were restated and reinforced. While the hill the temple was built on was not an imposing “mountain” relative to the other heights around the world, it was very important.

In those days after Isaiah’s, the temple mount would be established as the chief of the mountains. More prominent than Everest or K2, more majestic than the Rockies or the Alps, more powerful than any explosive volcano. What would make this little hill in the Middle East so important as to be chief among all mountains? The events that would take place there.

Temple worship in Isaiah’s day and in the Second Temple period after the Israelites’ return from exile in Babylon would center on sacrifices. Those sacrifices all pointed ahead to a greater, ultimate sacrifice that would be offered just outside the walls of Jerusalem, because there the perfect Son of God, having taken on our human nature, would offer his life in exchange for ours. This hill would not be the chief of the mountains because it was so tall, beautiful, or dangerous. No, it would be chief because there the payment for sins was made; there all mankind was saved from hell. There forgiveness was won and from there it is freely given.

This little hill in Jerusalem will be—is—chief among the mountains because there our eternal life was accomplished. There, Isaiah’s sins would be forgiven as he trusted in the coming Savior. There our sins were forgiven as we trust in the Savior who has come.

This all perfectly introduces the first season of our new church year, Advent. The days of Advent are not just “pre-Christmas.” In fact, Advent in the church can be a bit of a respite from the overwhelming commercialization frenzy that accompanies this time of year. During these Sundays in Advent, we get to contemplate our Savior’s arrival as the baby in Bethlehem, yes, but also his return not as a helpless newborn, but as he truly is—the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Jesus’ first advent and the work that he accomplished brought about a global change. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. Then he will instruct us about his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For from Zion the law will go out, and the LORD’s word will go out from Jerusalem. The gospel—the good news that sins are forgiven in Jesus—makes people want to seek out their God even more than the natural knowledge of God all people are born with would compel them. Knowing that he’s not only a just and powerful God, but a God who loves and forgives, fills people with joy and a desire to be close to him. And so God obliges. He welcomes people to this mountain, not just those who are descended from Abraham, but all people, because his word goes out globally from Jerusalem. Our minds probably jump to Jesus’ direction to his disciples that they would be his witnesses first in Jerusalem and Judea, then to Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Jesus is a Savior for the whole world, not just one group of people; therefore, they all need to hear what he’s done, because it’s going to have eternal ramifications.

Isaiah’s words then jump us to the end, when those ramifications will come to fruition: He will judge between the nations, and he will mediate for many peoples. These are the events of Judgment Day. Jesus is simultaneously our judge and defense attorney. The punishment of our sins was real and justified, but because Jesus took the punishment we owed on himself, he can mediate for the world. As Paul would later write, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The forgiven people of God are renewed, defended, and saved by the Messiah who came to save us from our sins.

What a change this gospel message makes in the hearts of his people! What a change this gospel message makes in our surroundings! Then they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore. Heaven will mean the end of conflict, if you can even imagine it. Conflict between sinners and the holy God will be over because there will be no more sin. Likewise, conflict between individuals and groups of people will also be over. We won’t need weapons or military training because there will be no battles to fight, no land to defend, because our Savior King has rescued us from all of our enemies! So we will be able to take all those implements of war, so focused on death and destruction, and turn them into tools for good, to cultivate beauty and bounty. Thus will be life with our God in heaven.

Our brief reading ends where we began: dress for the job you have or the one you want? Behave as the person you are, or you will be? To live for now is to embrace our sinful natures, to indulge in the constant stream of temptations to rebel against God, thinking that it will somehow be fun or beneficial. But living for later, living as the citizens of heaven that we will be—that, truly, we are even now—looks different, sounds different. O house of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Walking in the Lord’s light means living as he wants us to live, not hiding in the darkness of sin and rebellion. No, we walk in the light of our King. We have no fear of what he will do to us because he’s already done everything good for us. We get to rejoice in him—give thanks to him—for his unending mercy.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, let’s live like the perfect King’s righteous subjects, because we are. Let us live our lives in gratitude to the God who loved us and saved us and will bring us to himself! Let us cut out the sin that brings nothing but dreadful darkness and instead bask in the light of our Savior’s love, knowing that we will live with him in the mountain of heaven forever.

The one who came as a child placed in the manager, who entered Jerusalem amid shouts of praise while riding on a donkey, will come to take us home to be with him. His first advent makes his second advent certain. Stir up your power and come, Lord Jesus! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Request with Thanksgiving!" (Sermon on Philippians 4:4-9) | November 26, 2025

Sermon Text: Philippians 4:4-9
Date: November 26, 2025
Event: Thanksgiving, Set 1

Philippians 4:4-9 (EHV)

Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if anything is excellent, and if anything is praiseworthy, think about these things. 9The things that you learned, received, heard, and saw in me: Keep doing these things. And the God of peace will be with you. 

Request with Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving and contentment go hand-in-hand. If you’re thankful for what you have, there’s a high likelihood that you’re content. And likewise, if you’re content with what you have, you’re probably thankful for it.

But I think it can be tempting to equate contentment and thanksgiving with never desiring something more, but in truth, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. Certainly a lack of gratitude and seeking after more! more! more! is a problem. But can you be thankful for what you have, content even, and still desire something beyond it?

Perhaps an illustration: the family is finishing dinner. There are no plans for the rest of the evening, and everyone is feeling satisfied. The child asks if they can go get a treat out once everything from the meal is cleaned up. If the answer is “no,” she won’t be throwing a fit. She’s just wondering—great if it can happen, and fine if it can’t. It’s just an idea for a family outing to enjoy that evening.

The little girl in that example is not unthankful for what she has; quite the opposite! And in some ways, it is her thankfulness and contentment that lead her to make the request. She knows that her family loves her and wants her to be happy, and so she makes this small request to see if they can do something special since they have the time.

It is with these thoughts that we approach our second reading for this evening. Taken from the tail end of Paul’s “letter of joy” to the Philippians, these are essentially Paul’s final words to the Christians in Philippi, a closing direction for these dearly loved children in their walk of faith and their relationship with God. Paul begins this section with famous (and perhaps obvious) words about our response to the blessings we have from God: Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice!

Of course, that’s what we want to do. We who know the love of God want to rejoice in his blessings—to be awash in joy knowing God’s love for us and the eternal blessings that he provides. But sometimes we might wonder how. Like, clearly, being in church for worship is a way to do that. A thankful prayer in the middle of the day is part of that rejoicing.

But Paul goes on to other ways that we can express that joy in God’s love for us: Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. The way you live your life, the way that you are an ambassador for God to those around you, is part of this thankfulness. Letting your gentleness be known to everyone means you don’t let anger grip you. You don’t let harshness spew out of your mouth. You treat people and situations with compassion and decency because you know the compassion God has shown you.

A lack of worry is a common goal stated in Scripture. But it’s not just the “worry is not productive, so stop it” one might find in secular self-help books. As we noted a few Sundays ago, worry is really the brain freaking out about the future because it cannot find any certainty. But for the Christian, it’s not just “stop worrying,” it’s “you don’t have to worry because the almighty Creator of the universe is working all things out for your eternal good.”

That confidence influences the prayers and petitions that we bring to God. How are your prayers different if you trust that God is taking care of you, loving you, doing what he knows, in his perfect knowledge, is best for you, working all things out for your benefit? Prayers with this motivation and backing are not desperate, but rather an expression of trust. It is not that we expect everything in our lives to be perfect—we know for certain that will never happen—but we know that when we bring our requests to God, they are received with love.

Which brings us to thankful prayers and requests. It’s not just saying thank you to God who loves us and has saved us (though that is certainly part of it!). But even more so, it is approaching God with a thankful heart that says, “I know and trust the promises you’ve made to me. Thank you for that faith, thank you for all you do. Because I know your love for me, I bring this further request before you.” It’s not unlike the little girl bringing the request for dessert out after dinner to the family. These prayers are not selfish or greedy; this is exactly what God wants us to be doing!

This stems the tide of worry because the thankful heart is firmly planted in the peace that God brings. Paul’s familiar words here generally serve as the closing encouragement for our sermons: The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This peace of God is something very special and unique. This is not the promise that he will provide us with daily bread. This is not even that he will work good from difficulty and suffering. No, this peace of God is the eternal peace brought only by Jesus.

God’s forgiveness is the anchor point, the lynch pin in our whole relationship with him. Without the peace of Jesus’ forgiveness won at the cross, we would be in a constant state of distress and hopelessness because we’d go through this life with the eternal albatross of our sins around our neck, while not being able to do a thing about it. It would drag us down to the depths of hell because that is sin’s just punishment.

The peace of God goes beyond all of our comprehension and understanding because the way he brought that peace is completely baffling. We sinned against him, but his love was so great that he took the punishment for our sins against him on himself. It’s like someone stealing your car, and then you volunteer to go to jail for grand theft auto, only infinitely worse. It makes no sense to human reason. Even for us who know that God loves us, it still leaves us dumbfounded that he would do such a thing for people like us. And yet, here we are, standing with completely mystified human reason, yet also standing in the peace of God.

Thus, we thank him with our contentment, with our gratitude, with our public gentleness, and even with our trust-emboldened requests.

There’s an internal knock-on effect to all of this. As the peace of God guards your heart and mind, your heart and mind are changed. Knowing the forgiveness of sins means we no longer have the desire to dwell in the muck and mire of our sins. Rather, we want to dwell on those things that are pleasing to God. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if anything is excellent, and if anything is praiseworthy, think about these things.

If our thoughts are dominated by these high standards—things that please God rather than things that gratify our sinful flesh—that will also shape our thanks-driven requests. The peace of God means we won’t ask for anything sinful or spiritually harmful. It means we won’t want God to do what we know he hates. It means that no matter what the content of our prayers, we know that God’s will is always higher and greater and more praiseworthy than our will, so our prayers will always ask that his will, not ours, ultimately be done.

We know that all of this is easier said that done. It’s difficult to keep our sinful natures in check, to live as we want to live. Even Paul wrestled with not being able to do the things he wanted to and constantly committing the sins that he hated! But as we struggle and strive for this life of thanks, we are an encouragement for each other.

Paul noted this, even while acknoelgeing his failings. He knew that as he strived for this life, he could be an example, an encouragement, for his dearly-loved Philippians. The things that you learned, received, heard, and saw in me: Keep doing these things. And the God of peace will be with you. So, too, can we be that for each other. Not perfectly, but in our striving for thanksgiving, in our striving to live contented lives, entrusting the God who loves us and forgives us with all of our requests, we can be this model for each other.

So, my dear brothers and sisters. Follow my lead in these thankful requests to God flowing from a heart overflowing with gratitude for my sins forgiven. As you follow my lead, I will follow yours down the same path. And together, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and [our] minds in Christ Jesus. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Listen Up! Our King Gives Rest!" (Sermon on Psalm 95) | November 23, 2025

Sermon Text: Psalm 95
Date: November 23, 2025
Event: Christ the King (Last Sunday of the Church Year), Year C

Psalm 95 (EHV)

Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD.
Let us give a loud shout to the Rock who saves us.
2Let us approach his presence with thanksgiving.
With music we will shout to him.
3For the LORD is the great God
and the great King above all gods.
4He holds the unexplored places of the earth in his hand,
and the peaks of the mountains belong to him.
5The sea belongs to him, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6Come, let us bow down. Let us revere him.
Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker,
7for he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture
and the flock in his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8do not harden your hearts as they did at Meribah,
as they did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9where your fathers challenged me
and tested me though they had seen what I had done.
10For forty years I was disgusted with that generation,
and I said, “They are a people who have hearts that stray.
They do not acknowledge my ways.”
11So I swore in my anger,
“They shall never enter my resting place.”

Listen Up! Our King Gives Rest!

Politicians on the campaign trail make a whole lot of promises. They assure voters that if they are elected (or reelected), things will be different—better—for those who vote for them. But those things don’t always happen the way they were promised. Perhaps there are political or logistical roadblocks to doing what they promised to do once in office. Maybe if you’re very cynical, you consider that they never intended to keep those campaign trail promises, and only said what they thought would get them votes.

The reality is that even the best-intentioned promises usually have an asterisk next to them. The parent who promised the trip to get ice cream in the evening cannot foresee the car troubles that will arise later that day. A rainstorm may upend the promise of a day at the amusement park.

This morning, our focus is on the Psalm of the Day, Psalm 95. The words of Psalm 95 are probably familiar to us; they are the basis for the liturgical song the Venite, or “Oh Come Let us Sing to the Lord,” that we sing at the end of most months when we follow the Morning Prayer (Matins) order of worship. The words of Psalm 95 don’t so much make promises as to what God will do, but give reasons for why we should listen to him, while also pointing ahead to the final rest that our King promises.

The first verse of Psalm 95 is the verse from which all the others flow. Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD. Let us give a loud shout to the Rock who saves us. Why would we sing joyfully to God? There are many reasons, but the fact that he is the one who saves us reigns supreme. He is the one who forgives our sins. He is the one who assures us of eternal life with him. The reasons for praising God that follow this verse, while important in their own right, would be meaningless without this first truth. For truly, God’s might and wisdom would mean nothing good for us if he weren’t also merciful and forgiving.

What is our response to God’s forgiveness? We sing songs of praise! That doesn’t mean that you need to be a great musician or show your appreciation to God. Instead, this music is the overflow of a thankful heart—gratitude and appreciation to the God who loves us and cares for us. Let us approach his presence with thanksgiving. With music we will shout to him.

And why? For the LORD is the great God and the great King above all gods. Here’s our focus for Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year. We praise God because he is above anyone and everyone. Obviously, there are no other gods except him, but he reigns supreme over anything that would attempt to steal that divine spotlight, be it the false gods of other religions or the materialistic things in our lives that often try to steal that number-one priority spot from God.

His dominion over all is shown clearly in the way he holds the whole of creation in his care: He holds the unexplored places of the earth in his hand, and the peaks of the mountains belong to him. The sea belongs to him, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Places that no person has ever gone are still in God’s care. The areas that are the most difficult for people to get to—the highest mountain peaks and the depths of the oceans—are still in his care.

This majesty and power, paired with his eternal love for us, lead the psalm writer to only one conclusion: Come, let us bow down. Let us revere him. Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the flock in his hand. For all of his goodness to us, the only response that makes any sense and the only response that is right is worship and praise.

But, does that always describe our lives? Are we always willing to submit our lives to the God who made us and made the earth? Do we always trust his promises to work good for us no matter what is going on around us? Do we always give him that number one place in our lives, or are we often giving that spot to other people or things?

The psalm writer, in a psalm that is for the most part very positive and upbeat, does give us a warning along these lines, transitioning to a direct quote from God himself: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as they did at Meribah, as they did that day at Massah in the wilderness, where your fathers challenged me and tested me though they had seen what I had done. The two events referenced here are bookends of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness. They didn’t seem to have enough water to support the group, so many of the Israelites began complaining against Moses and, by extension, against God.

Both times God miraculously brought water out from a rock, but the issue was that they ignored what they knew about God and assumed he was going to let them die of thirst in the wilderness. Rather than bringing requests to their loving King, they just grumbled and complained as if God was their enemy, ready to let them die rather than provide for their basic, physical needs.

Despite that, God’s love shines through as he provides for those needs. But God decreed that those who had sinned against him in this way “shall never enter my resting place.” When it comes to the nation wandering in the wilderness, that was the Promised Land. God was so serious about this that it even applied to Moses himself at Meribah, where he didn’t follow God’s directions and even started taking some of the credit for the miracle himself. Those who rebelled against God in these ways would never enter the Promised Land.

But there is a greater resting place in the balance when it comes to our relationship with our King. The eternal resting place of heaven stands waiting for us. Through Jesus’ decidedly unregal death, eternal life has been given to us as a free gift, like the Promised Land was offered to Old Testament Israel. But there is a warning for us here as well, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as they did…”

Not wanting to listen to God is not an uncommon trait among people—among us—but God warns us in this psalm that such a course of action has eternally dire results. Wandering away from our King means we wander away from his love and forgiveness. If we are not with our King, we are wandering alone and will need to deal with our sin on our own, something that is impossible for us to do. So, wandering away from our King or rebelling against him means that we cut ourselves off from Jesus’ forgiveness and instead face the consequences ourselves. In this case, the consequence is eternal death in hell. For if we wander away from the King, we will never enter his resting place.

But thanks be to God that he is not as quick to give up on us as we are to give up on him! In fact, he stands ready and willing to forgive, and love, and restore. The almighty God who created the whole universe loves you with that almighty power, forgives you with that unending grace, and restores you to being members of his family yet again. Perhaps the words of the doxology in 2 Timothy chapter 2 ring in our minds as we think about this: Indeed, if we have died with him, we will also live with him; If we endure, we will also reign with him; If we deny him, he will also deny us; If we are faithless, he remains faithful, because he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:12-13).

No matter what you’ve done, no matter how faithful or faithless you’ve been to your King, he stands wanting to give you his rest. He gives it to us by faith in Jesus, who gave his life in exchange for ours. He gives it to us, though we are unworthy and rebellious. Let us come to our King in sorrow and repentance, trusting his love. In the peace of forgiveness, let us praise the Lord! Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD. Let us give a loud shout to the Rock who saves us! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Worthy of the Kingdom… and Suffering?" (Sermon on 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10) | November 16, 2025

Sermon Text: 2 Thessalonians 1:5–10
Date: November 16, 2025
Event: Proper 28, Year C

2 Thessalonians 1:5–10 (EHV)

This is evidence of God’s righteous verdict that resulted in your being counted worthy of God’s kingdom, for which you also suffer. 6Certainly, it is right for God to repay trouble to those who trouble you, 7and to give relief to you, who are troubled along with us. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his powerful angels, 8he will exercise vengeance in flaming fire on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9Such people will receive a just penalty: eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious strength, 10on that day when he comes to be glorified among his saints, and to be marveled at among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

Worthy of the Kingdom… and Suffering?

Anxiety can be a wicked resident in your mind. A book I’m reading right now gave a definition of anxiety and worry that rang pretty true to me: “Worry, at its core, is the repetitious experience of a mind attempting to generate a feeling of security about the future, failing, then trying again and again and again—as if the very effort of worrying might somehow help forestall disaster. The fuel behind worry, in other words, is the internal demand to know, in advance, that things will turn out fine” (Oliver Burkeman. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, p. 116). We want to know that things are going to be fine, and our brains can, sometimes, spin out of control trying to find that certainty.

But the reality is that such certainty is not always evident, at least on a level that would satisfy our minds. We can’t always see how things are going to turn out, or how we will get from here to there safely or in a way that seems good. And so worry can step in, distract, and pull us down into dark places.

This morning, we don’t have a lot that will probably satisfy that base desire we have for certainty. We would love a promise from God along the lines of, “Don’t worry; everything will always be good!” Yet, we don’t have that. In fact, we really have just the opposite. We have warnings that our lives will be filled with trials and hardships. God’s clearest promises center on our eternal future, far-flung as that may be or seem. We know where this story ends, and so we lean on God’s promises both in good times and in difficult times, certain of his love for us. But that doesn’t mean that the here-and-now is always going to be pleasant.

In our Second Reading for this morning, we have Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians. The Christians in Thessalonica had many worries about the future. False teaching had snuck into their congregation regarding the end, saying that those who had died before Jesus’ return were lost forever. In his first letter, Paul addressed that false teaching head-on, with the comforting and stunning description of what the end will be like, assuring the Thessalonians that those who had died in faith were not lost—just the opposite, in fact. Paul describes the day of judgment this way: “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). So, those who had died were not lost, and we are all looking forward to the great return of Jesus to bring us to eternal life.

But what about in the meantime? Sure, those who had died were safe with God, but what about those who were still alive? The Thessalonians were undergoing intense persecution and trials; Paul says he holds these Christians up as examples of how to patiently endure these difficulties among the churches everywhere (2 Thessalonians 1:4). But you can already feel the tension, right? The Thessalonians felt it, and you’ve probably felt it as well. If I’m loved by God, if he is caring for me, if I will inherit these great blessings for eternity, then why-oh-why do I suffer here today?

Now, of course, we do well to take our sufferings with some perspective. While we do face persecution and trouble for our faith, we know that by virtue of when and where we live, our sufferings are not on the level of what our brothers and sisters in the faith undergo. But just because our lives may not be in constant danger because of our confession about Jesus, doesn’t mean there are no sufferings or persecutions; they are just probably more on personal levels rather than organized assaults. The mockery you face when you share your hope in Jesus and eternal life, the friends you lose when you won’t go along with their plans that you know are an affront to God’s will, the guilt you endure when you do make compromises and you do go along with others’ sin even though you knew better.

When we go through that kind of suffering, some emotions naturally spill out. Some in our day will talk about a war against Christianity as if God needs us to physically fight people to defend the faith—but ultimately that kind of attitude seems to boil down to insecurity or seeking a feeling of superiority while trying to put others down as “wrong.” The reality is that, despite claims to the contrary or feelings that we might have had, the true, Christian, biblical faith has never been the norm. Perhaps the trappings of the Christian faith have been popular, but often these things are warped and twisted beyond recognition. Christmas becomes just another opportunity for crass commercialism, and even churches that are supposed to be proclaiming the truth about Jesus proclaim a distorted message that preaches your own works as necessary to get forgiveness or even jettisons the idea of sin altogether in exchange for a “live and let live” attitude.

This warping of the truth is another form of persecution and trouble in this life. And again, we are left wondering: What is our response? What should we do? How can we fix these problems?

And God’s blunt answer is, “You can’t.” Nothing that you or I can do will ever make faith in Christ-crucified for the sins of the world be the universally trusted message across the globe. That doesn’t mean we don’t share it and work to let people in our sphere of influence know their Savior, but if we’re looking for a global conversion to the truth of God’s promises or a majority support of the truths of God’s Word, that, sadly, will not happen.

So what do we do with the false teaching that surrounds us (and perhaps even tempts us)? What do we do with those who make a mockery of us or our Savior? What do we do with the persecution and suffering and sorrow we have as Christians in this broken, sin-corrupted world?

Where does Paul point the Thessalonians and us along with them? Certainly, it is right for God to repay trouble to those who trouble you, and to give relief to you, who are troubled along with us. God’s message to you is, “Leave it to me.” It is not for us to be judge, jury, and executioner in these matters. We don’t need to stick up for and defend God; he can handle himself.

Paul’s words correspond directly with what God had told Old Testament Israel when they suffered at the hands of their enemies. Just prior to entering the Promised Land, God claimed this act of meting out justice for himself, “To me belongs vengeance and repayment. It will come at the time when their foot slips. Indeed, the day of their disaster is near, and their impending doom is coming quickly” (Deuteronomy 32:35).

You don’t need to keep a list of those who wrong you; you don’t need to seek vengeance against those who persecute you. For the unbeliever who takes his stand against Jesus, justice will be served, and it won’t be the shallow “justice” that we so often want to inflict on others (which is heavily tainted by our sinful feelings of pride or selfishness). No, God will take care of the enemies of his Word, of those who set themselves against him (and by proxy, against us) with his completely holy justice.

So what is there for us to do while we suffer at the hands of these enemies of the gospel right now? Pray for them. This ultimate justice that will come down on the unbeliever will mean an eternity in hell, as Paul puts it in our reading, God will exercise vengeance in flaming fire on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Such people will receive a just penalty: eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from his glorious strength. Those who reject the gospel will be cut off from the blessings of God forever, a fate so bad that if we truly appreciated how horrid it is, we wouldn’t wish it on our worst enemy.

Instead of reinforcing the conflict with others who seek to have a conflict with us, we respond in love, in care, in compassion, and in decency, even if the same isn’t shown to us. We look for opportunities to share the love of God. This is precisely the point Jesus made when he famously instructed us to “turn the other cheek.” In fact, that section of his Sermon on the Mount is worth hearing freshly this morning:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evildoer. If someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. If anyone wants to sue you to take away your shirt, give him your coat too. Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:38-45)

What is our goal? Jesus had explained that a few verses earlier in that same sermon: “You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden. People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket. No, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. In the same way let your light shine in people’s presence, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).

Our good works are our response to the message of sins forgiven in Jesus. The way we treat others—even those who set themselves against us—is a way to show our gratitude to God for all that he’s done for us. Paul said that the Thessalonians were being counted worthy of God’s kingdom, and the same is true for you. But you and I and the Thessalonians are not worthy because of our work, but because of Jesus’ work for us. We have this certain hope as a free gift from God, accomplished in Jesus’ death and proved by his resurrection from the dead.

Along with the worthiness of God’s kingdom that God gives comes suffering at the hands or mouths of those who set themselves against God and the message of the gospel. Patient endurance in that suffering—turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, even praying for and forgiving those who set themselves against you and your faith—is a powerful witness to the world and even to those very people who cause you harm. Not responding in kind is a powerful testimony of where our priorities are, what our God has done for us, and truly, what God has done for them as well.

Suffering feels like an odd pairing with being counted as worthy of God’s kingdom, but it is the Christian’s lot in this fallen, sin-corrupted world. But, my dear brothers and sisters, a day is coming when that will all change, when we will receive in full the blessing that our Savior won for us. Until that day, pray for strength and patience amid suffering and hardship. Trust that your Savior is working all things out for your eternal good and will not leave you or forsake you. He will return to be glorified and we will be glorified with him.

Until then, encourage and strengthen each other with this confidence. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus—the one who has freed you from sin and its punishment—knowing that in him you are worthy of the kingdom, despite the suffering that will come along with that.

Lord, keep us steadfast in our faith in times of joy and times of trial. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Welcome to the New Jerusalem!" (Sermon on Revelation 21:1-6) | November 2, 2025

Sermon Text: Revelation 21:1-6
Date: November 2, 2025
Event: All Saints Day (Observed), Year C

Revelation 21:1-6 (EHV)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, because the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And the sea no longer existed. 2And I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3And from the throne I heard a loud voice that said, “Look! God’s dwelling is with people. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. 4He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain, because the former things have passed away.”

5The one who was seated on the throne said to me, “Look, I am making everything new!” He also said, “Write, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6And he said to me:

It is done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
To anyone who is thirsty,
I will give freely from the spring of the water of life.

Welcome to New Jerusalem!

I’ve been spending a good amount of time the last week or so looking over maps for the East Coast to get familiar with the lay of the land before Alex and I head out for a long weekend trip there the end of the week. One thing that stands out as you look at a map of that area, or really in a lot of places in the United States, is how often the “New” prefix is added to the front of place names. New York, New Hampshire, New England, New Mexico. All of these exist because people were going from their home to a new place, and they had the goal to make the new place like their home, but better. It’ll be like York—but new and better. The region will be like England, but new and better.

This morning, through the revelation given to the apostle John, Jesus gives us a glimpse of the same kind of concept: New Jerusalem, like Jerusalem, but new and better.

To really get the full effect of what this New Jerusalem will be, we should spend a few minutes considering what the original Jerusalem was (or should have been). God described Jerusalem as the place he chose to place his name. Initially, as he established the rule of King David, but even more so once David’s son, Solomon, completed the temple there. At the dedication of that temple, Solomon quoted God’s intent: “From the day I brought my people out from the land of Egypt, I did not choose a city from all the tribes of Israel to build a house for my Name to be there. I did not choose a man to be ruler over my people Israel. But now I have chosen Jerusalem as the place where my Name will be, and I have chosen David to be over my people Israel” (2 Chronicles 6:5-6). Jerusalem would be the place where God dwelt with his people, where his name would rest.

But that presence was a veiled presence. The pillar of cloud and fire (the visible sign of God’s presence that had led the Israelites out of Egypt) descended on the temple to signify that this was truly his house. Surely, God is omnipresent—is present everywhere all the time at once—but in Jerusalem, he specially highlighted his presence. But his presence descended on the temple’s inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, when the Ark of the Covenant was placed there. Only the high priest could enter into that inner place, and even then, he could only go one day a year—on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And on that singular, special day, he could not enter without the blood of a sacrifice made for his own sins and also for the sins of the people. At the temple, the dwelling of God was with his people, but only sort of. It wasn’t a full presence, and it certainly wasn’t made accessible to everyone. The New Jerusalem is going to take the original Jerusalem—even in its most idyllic form—and improve on it.

To understand the true nature of this New Jerusalem, we need to go back well before Solomon’s temple, David’s rule, or even the founding of that city at all. We need to go back to Eden, to where the dwelling of God was truly and directly with people. Before the fall into sin, Adam and Eve walked, lived, and worked alongside God. They were created in his image—in perfect harmony with his will—and thus had a perfect relationship with God beyond anything that we’ve ever experienced between people or even with God in this life.

But that closeness, that bond, that unity was completely uprooted when Adam and Eve sinned. They listened to Satan’s temptations and took fruit from the tree that God had told them not to eat from—the one command he had given them! And in that moment, everything changed. Instead of walking with God, they hid from God. Instead of being united with God and agreeing with his will, they started playing the blame game for their sin, Adam even blaming God, accusing him of giving him a supposedly faulty wife in Eve. Where there had been unity, there was division. Death is that division—physical death that would divide soul from body, spiritual death that would divide people from God through unbelief, and ultimately, eternal death that would separate sinners from God forever in hell.

From then on, despite God’s presence and providence, it could not be said that God and human beings dwelled together. A wall of sin divided us from the divine, and it was a wall that we could not tear down or dig through. Sin was a problem that we could not solve.

The solution to that problem was hinted at in the Tabernacle and Solomon’s temple. There was a way to come into that Most Holy Place, but as we said, access was limited to just the high priest, and he needed the blood of a sacrifice for sin to enter. Later, the apostle Paul would make it clear and blunt that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Later, the writer to the Hebrews would add on, assuring us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). In order to solve sin, blood and death have to be involved.

But not ours. I mean, it should be ours, but there’s no way for your death or my death to bring about forgiveness, because if the punishment for our sins is laid on us, that punishment will never end. No, if sin was to be solved, if we were ever to have an actual reunion with God, someone would have to take our place. And not just any someone, but God himself. And that’s exactly what he did.

Jesus, God from eternity, took on our human flesh and lived in a state of humiliation among us. Isaiah had foretold his coming with the title “Immanuel,” meaning “God with us.” God’s dwelling was with people again, and while this was more visible and robust than the dwelling shown at the temple, it was a temporary dwelling, like a few nights’ stay in a tent while camping.

That temporary stay saw its conclusion at the cross. There, Jesus completely and fully took our place under the punishment our sins had earned. He took those wages of our sin—eternal death—onto himself and made satisfaction for them. As a human being, he was able to die for us; as God, that death was able to count for all people of all time. His death rescued us, and the proof of his victory is there in the tomb where they laid his body. Unlike the tombs of everyone else who has ever died, Jesus’ tomb is empty. He won the victory. He rescued us from the sin that made our dwelling with God impossible.

We heard God proclaim it in the last verse of our First Reading: “It is done.” While a different word in Greek, we can’t help but think of Jesus’ word from the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Nothing is left to be completed. There is no work that you or I need to do to make things right again. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, did it all.

That means that we will not have a continuously veiled presence of God with us like we have right now. And it certainly means we don’t have a complete separation from God for eternity ahead of us, as our sins deserved. No, because of Jesus’ complete forgiveness, we look forward to a time when we will see God face to face. It will not be a temporary dwelling like Jesus’ first coming; it will be a permanent living directly with God forever. Like Eden, but without the threat of sin to ruin it.

Listen to how God describes this New Jerusalem, what living there would be like. These are probably familiar words, but let them wash over you this morning as something brand new: “Look! God’s dwelling is with people. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain, because the former things have passed away.”

Like Jerusalem, but new and better. Truly, like Eden, but new and better. Like today, but new and immeasurably better.

Those who have gone before us, those who have died in faith, trusting in God’s promise of complete forgiveness, are already there in that New Jerusalem, that perfect city with no more death, sorrow, crying, or pain. That’s in part what we celebrate on this All Saints Day. We thank God for the perfect rest that he has given to his holy ones, washed clean in the blood of Jesus and brought into that heavenly dwelling.

But we also celebrate our own certainty that we will join their number. While we are not there yet, you and I are the saints of God, made holy in Jesus’ full and free forgiveness for us. When our time comes, God will bring us to that New Jerusalem, rescue us from everything that would harm us, and cut away the sin that so easily entangles us. We will be reunited with those who have gone before us and those who will come after us for an eternity of being people who dwell with God.

So, my fellow saints, welcome to the New Jerusalem. We haven’t crossed the threshold just yet, but it is absolutely certain that we will, for Jesus’ sake! Thanks be to God! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"The LORD Reforms Us" (Sermon on Jeremiah 31:31-34) | October 26, 2025

Sermon Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34
Date: October 26, 2025
Event: Reformation Day, Year C

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (EHV)

Yes, the days are coming, declares the LORD,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers,
when I took them by the hand
and led them out of the land of Egypt.
They broke that covenant of mine,
although I was a husband to them, declares the LORD.
33But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days,
declares the LORD.
I will put my law in their minds,
and I will write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34No longer will each one teach his neighbor,
or each one teach his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,”
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD,
for I will forgive their guilt,
and I will remember their sins no more.

The LORD Reforms Us

When do you need reform? Activist groups may call for reform in some area of leadership or government when they sense that the plans and actions of those in charge are not in line with the leadership’s stated goals—or the desires of the people involved. You may sense a need for reform in your own life when bad habits start pushing out good habits, and you find yourself not dedicated to your priorities and values like you want to be. Reform may be called for when a group’s actions or policies reflect a different era. These ways of doing things may have made sense in the past, but perhaps that reasoning no longer applies today.

A commonality among all of these different types of reform is that it’s going to be work. It’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s going to be difficult. Trying to steer the ship of an organization from the bottom up when those from the top disagree is a gargantuan task. Implementing new plans and goals that are different from the standard, traditional path someone has been following for a long time can be incredibly taxing. And I don’t need to tell you how tough it is to fight against your own ingrained habits to make long-lasting, meaningful changes in your day-to-day life.

All reform is uncomfortable because it’s tackling the status quo and trying to change it; it’s a fight against inertia, and sometimes it feels like trying to roll a boulder up a steep hill.

As we observe and celebrate the 508th anniversary of the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation this morning, we thank God for all the blessings he brought to the church through Martin Luther and the other reformers many years ago that we still benefit from today. But we also do well to recognize that this reformation work in the 1500s was not unique to that time; this is work that God had been doing and will continue to do among his people as long as this world endures.

There are many periods of reformation within Bible history that we could point to, but our focus this morning is the work of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s ministry was often pretty bleak. He ministered among an unfaithful nation-church as he served as a prophet to the nation of Judah. The leaders and the people of Judah were often unfaithful to God’s direction and teaching. In fact, Judah was already a splinter nation from the formerly great nation of Israel. After the days of King Solomon, that nation broke into two pieces. The northern piece was also unfaithful (perhaps even more thoroughly than Judah) and met their end through sweeping exile by the nation of Assyria some 150 years before the days of Jeremiah.

But Judah’s unfaithfulness was very real, and though the nation was rescued from the consequences of their unfaithfulness at the hands of Assyria, it ended up just being a delay rather than a complete rescue. Eventually, God had to step in to force a true reform that the people were not doing themselves. He did this, in part, through the exile of the people of Judah by the nation of Babylon.

It's at this time of unfaithfulness and consequences to that unfaithfulness that Jeremiah served. He had the unenviable task of warning the people that the nation’s destruction and people’s exile were coming. There would be no miraculous rescue from Babylon had there been from Assyria 150 years earlier.

God describes his people’s unfaithfulness to him here in Jeremiah and elsewhere using the terms of a marriage that has fallen to pieces. The people’s unfaithfulness was spiritual adultery against their loving husband. When God says, “They broke that covenant of mine,” he uses the terms of annulment and divorce. The people’s unfaithfulness to God’s covenant sought to end the spiritual, eternal marriage of God to his people.

It would be easy to imagine that the Babylonian captivity would be God’s version of giving his wife a certificate of divorce and sending her away. But this is reform, not abandonment. Yes, Jerusalem would be pulverized by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king. Yes, God’s people would be ripped out of their homeland and sent marching across the Fertile Crescent to Babylon. But this was not God divorcing his adulterous wife and sending her away; this was part of God’s reform of his Old Testament church.

God promised that seventy years after the exile, they would return. And in many ways, this reform “worked.” After the Babylonian exile, we don’t really see God’s people struggling with the worship of false gods like Baal, Asherah, and Molech. Instead, there is a newfound commitment to the truth of God’s Word and prioritizing it in the lives of God’s people.

But this reform is not just a story of getting a people group to straighten up and fly right. That would ignore the reality of sin and imply that God was having the people fend for themselves and even save themselves. Instead, ahead of the exile, God promises something different, something new, through Jeremiah: Yes, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers.

The “old” covenant that God made with the nation of Israel when he brought them out of Egypt was an earthly-blessing-focused covenant. God would be their God and bless them. He would give them the Promised Land as an enduring gift on the condition that they were faithful to him. Their job was to obey God; God’s job was to provide for them.

Obviously, we know how that went. But here God is promising something new and different. Instead of the old covenant promised and given primarily through Moses, this new covenant would be entirely God’s doing. It would be radically different in that it wouldn’t involve any work from the people at all. God was making and keeping this promise completely independent of anyone else. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put my law in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

The word translated “law” here in v. 33 is probably best understood as the whole of God’s Word. God is not simply promising to put his commands into the people’s hearts. In many ways, that was already true as all people are born with a natural knowledge of God and with that have a conscience that testifies to God’s will—what things are right and what things are wrong. No, this is something bigger, broader, something God will have to inscribe on the hearts of his people. This heart-writing will include the gospel; it will include God’s grace—his undeserved love—for his people. This reform would be centered not on God’s justice, but on his mercy, his forgiveness. No longer will each one teach his neighbor, or each one teach his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD, for I will forgive their guilt, and I will remember their sins no more.

This forgiveness—so potent that it makes the all-knowing God forget!—would be carried out by a descendant of the people facing exile. Almost 600 years after Jeremiah, the time will fully come, and God will send his Son, Jesus, into this world. God himself would take on our human nature, our flesh and blood, to live and die as our substitute. In the blood of Jesus shed at the cross, atonement—payment for sin—would be made to cover our sins and reunite us with our God.

God would reform the Israelites to be faithful, but more than that, they would be reformed to be forgiven. The faithful among this nation would put their trust in God as their eternal Savior and giver of eternal life. The forgiveness and even the faith to trust it would be a one-sided action on God’s part. Our obedience—a life of sanctification, of good works—is purely a thankful response to God’s freely-given grace and forgiveness.

The church of Martin Luther’s day was unfaithful to God’s covenant in a similar way to Old Testament Judah. The papacy and the church in Rome at large had distorted God’s Word to such a point as to rob all the comfort God intended the people to have. The message of sins fully and freely forgiven in Jesus’ death was absent, replaced with a message of works. If you wanted to receive actual forgiveness for your sins, the church said, you needed to do something to compensate for it. Maybe that was prayers, maybe that was some works of service. Perhaps that was paying the church money so they would tell you you were forgiven.

None of this is what God said, so through Luther and others, God restored the true teaching of his Word. While reform never really came for the Roman church (as it still holds to this works-righteousness teaching even today), it did come for Christendom at large. All over the western world, God worked a change so that the people would hear and know what he had done, the new covenant he had established, a covenant that did not call for works from us, but is a one-sided covenant that depends entirely on God’s undeserved love for us.  

We need God’s reform. We need him to correct our hearts and actions. We need him to redirect our gaze away from ourselves and back to him. We need him to show us our great need for rescue and that we have that rescue freely given in Jesus’ work for us.

Thanks be to God! He has written these truths on your heart and mine through his Word and sacraments. By God’s grace, we don’t have to encourage each other to learn about—to know—the God of free and faithful grace. He has made himself known to us and even dwells within us. And the promise made through Jeremiah, the promise reinforced at the time of the reformation, is the promise that rings true for you and me today: I will forgive their guilt, and I will remember their sins no more.

My brothers and sisters, so complete is your forgiveness that God can’t even remember that you’ve ever been unfaithful to him or sinned against him. Our sins are gone, completely wiped out in the blood of Jesus shed for us. So let us live our lives in a way that reflects the reformation that God has worked in each of us. Let us give thanks to God our Savior in everything we say, think, and do—now and forever! Amen.

 Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Confidence Is a Gift from God" (Sermon on 1 John 5:13-15) | October 19, 2025

Sermon Text: 1 John 5:13–15
Date: October 19, 2025
Event: Proper 24, Year C

1 John 5:13–15 (EHV)

I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

14This is the confidence that we have before him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we also know that we receive the things we have asked from him. 

Confidence Is a Gift from God

What is worse—the car that won’t start or the car you’re not sure if it’ll start or not? I might argue that the one that will not start is the preferable one. You at least know what you’re getting there. You’re not going to make plans to use that car, only to have them dashed by seemingly random failures. You know that you have to do some work on it, or get it towed, or just let it sit till you have the time or money to fix it. You have confidence in that car—in this case, confidence that it will not work—rather than a total lack of certainty. At least with a totally busted car, you won’t get stranded on the side of the freeway miles from home.

Having confidence in things is something that is so easy to take for granted. You all have confidence in the pews you’re sitting on right now that they’re not going to just break and fall out from underneath you (or, at least you did until I mentioned it). If you didn’t have that confidence, some (or all) of you would probably be standing—or opting for the live stream online for today’s worship. Confidence can remain rock-solid, but one rug pull can destroy it. You can love and trust that car for years, but the moment you turn the key or push the button to start it and it just sighs at you, that might be the time that your confidence is lost.

Confidence in physical objects is one thing, though. But confidence in our relationships between people is so much more important (and in many ways, so much more fragile). How sad it is when a child doesn’t trust their parent to provide for them or follow through on any promises or obligations! How sad it is when spouses lose confidence in each other’s faithfulness or care and concern! How frustrating it is when employees have no confidence that their employers care about them! How scary it is when someone doesn’t trust another in a position of power to do right by them, but instead can’t help but feel that they will use that power to cause harm.

Today, we cannot restore your confidence in your car or your personal relationships, but we can look to the most important place to have confidence—our relationship with God. What do God’s promises and track record mean for our confidence in him? What does it mean for our confidence for today and our confidence for eternity?

Our Second Reading this morning is taken from the end of the apostle John’s first letter in the New Testament. As he writes these words, John is at the end of his life, and much like Paul and Peter did in their final letters, John is spending time in this letter “passing the baton” to the next generation of Christians. Throughout the letter, he has encouraged and refocused his readers. He has encouraged them in their walk of faith, that they should live differently than those around them in the world. He has warned them about becoming enamored with the things of this world, because such a focus may abandon the faith in the love of God. He has warned this next generation of Christians about false teachers, both on small scales and far greater scales. To fend off those false teachers, he urged Christians to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1), that is, to examine and compare any line of spiritual thinking and teaching with God’s Word to see if it agrees.

But even in this relatively brief letter, John continues to return to the foundational and motivational truth in all of this: God’s love for us. Early in the letter, he described God’s love for us this way: My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the whole world (1 John 2:1-2). In the next chapter, he states this love in one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible, and one that I often use to begin sermons, “See the kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1). Later in that same chapter, John uses words that sound very much like the closing of the letter we have before us: This is how we know that we are of the truth and how we will set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God. We also receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight. This then is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love one another just as he commanded us (1 John 3:19-23).

In chapter 4, he describes God’s love for us and the resulting love that we have for each other in famous and beautiful ways: Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love. This is how God’s love for us was revealed: God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him. This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us so much, we also should love one another. … We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:7-11, 19).

This is a small sampling of what John means when he says in our reading for this morning from the end of the letter: I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. What things produce in people the knowledge and the confidence of eternal life? The repeated themes of God’s love for us as expressed in Jesus on every page of Scripture. To “believe in the name of the Son of God” is to trust Jesus as our Savior from sin, to know that in him we are forgiven. This faith is a gift from God.

Where do we look for such confidence? We have the words of Jesus himself—who does not lie—declaring the victory complete from the cross. And even if we weren’t going to take him at his word, we go with the women into the garden, where that tomb is cut into the rock and the stone is rolled away. We hear the angels’ earnest yet almost kind-heartedly teasing question, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has been raised!” (Luke 24:5-6). How do you know that you have eternal life, as John stresses for us? Because Jesus completed everything you needed when he died for your sins at the cross and proved that victory when he rose from the dead. “It is finished,” indeed. 

Confidence in God’s love and forgiveness for us produces wonderful, cascading effects. It allows and empowers us to love each other, as John continually encourages in his letter. The love of God for us gives us the strength to love each other. We focused last weekend on gratitude for God’s eternal gifts, which is very powerful to this same end: we love to reflect God’s love and to thank God for that very same love.

An additional effect of God’s love for us is that we have no question where we stand with God. We don’t have to worry that maybe today he’s mad at us or tomorrow he won’t have time for us. Our relationship with God is not like our human relationships—even the very best human relationships—that are still flawed by sin. No, God’s love for us is perfect; along with the forgiveness of sins, he gives us confidence in him. In our Catechism class this year, we’re going through a survey of Bible history, and one of the themes we see over and over again is God’s faithfulness to his promises. In fact, by the middle of the year, the students have learned that if I ask the question, “And how faithful was God to that promise?” the answer is always “Perfectly faithful!” Over and over again, God shows himself to be trustworthy and reliable beyond what even the most rock-solid human being could ever be.

And that confidence that God gifts to us is not just focused on eternity (though that is, of course, where our greatest blessings are coming and where our highest confidence is). But in the light of our forgiveness, in the light of God be willing to sacrifice even his own Son, his own life, to save us from hell, should we have any reason to think that he will suddenly stop providing for us? No!

In the radically comforting words of Romans chapter 8, the apostle Paul encouraged his readers this way: What then will we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him? (Romans 8:31-32). Even in a human relationship, we can see how this would be true. If you go out to lunch with someone who cares about you very much and, in their love and generosity over that meal, they give you a check that pays off all your debts or secures for you that financial goal you’ve been clawing toward for years, what do you think happens when the check for the meal comes? You might want to pick up the check to thank him, but if he cared enough about you to give you thousands upon thousands of dollars, do you think he cares about you enough to pay the $40 for lunch?

That’s Paul’s argument in Romans about our relationship with God: if God loved you enough to save you from your sins and to give you eternal life, isn’t he also going to take care of you until you get there? We sang that in our psalm this morning in the beautiful words of Psalm 121, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth” (vv. 1-2, NIV2011). In times of trial or danger or fear, where can we look with absolute confidence for help and rescue? To our God who not only made the universe but also made us and is preparing an eternal place for us.

This, then, is John’s closing point in our brief Second Reading for this morning: This is the confidence that we have before him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we also know that we receive the things we have asked from him. In any time of difficulty, in need or want, when you pray to God, you are not bringing requests to an unjust judge as in Jesus’ parable. No, you are coming to the all-powerful creator and preserver of the universe, who also happens to love you so much that he lived and died for you to save you from hell. My dear Christian, does that not fill our hearts with confidence as we lay out our concerns before him?

John reminds us that we do well to ask things according to his will, that is, we’re not asking for sinful things. And likewise, we know that God will answer in a way that is eternally best for us, even if that means that the answer is “no,” or (more likely) something different and far better than we had initially requested from him.

Not a day, not a moment goes by in this life where you are not in the shelter and care of the God who created you, loves you, and rescued you. The confidence to trust him at all times is as much a gift of his grace as anything else. Bring your prayers to him—be bold and persistent!—confident that he will hear you, answer you, and love you now and forever! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Gratitude Is Powerful" (Sermon on 2 Corinthians 9:10-15) | October 12, 2025

Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 9:10-15
Date: October 12, 2025
Event: Proper 23, Year C

2 Corinthians 9:10-15
And he who provides seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed for sowing, and will increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you may be generous in every way, which produces thanksgiving to God through us.

12To be sure, the administration of this service is not only making up for what is lacking among the saints, but it is also overflowing in many prayers of thanksgiving to God. 13By proving yourselves in this service, many people are glorifying God, as they see the obedience shown in your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity shown in your sharing with them and all people. 14At the same time as they pray for you, they also express their longing for you, because of the extraordinary measure of God’s grace given to you. 15Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Gratitude Is Powerful

Happy Thanksgiving! That might be rushing it just a little bit (unless you’re in Canada, in which case the holiday is actually tomorrow!), but this morning, as you’ve noticed in our readings and hymns, we’ve been focused on gratitude and giving thanks. So while it might be early for our designated holiday at the end of November, it is a good reminder that we’re not really supposed to relegate gratitude to one day per year, but it should be a continual way of life.

And this is not just a God-directed contentment; even the secular world recognizes the power and benefits of being actively thankful. Perhaps you’ve seen the concept of a “gratitude journal,” where you write down things you are grateful for. It can be a potent defense against depression and other mental health struggles. I, for instance, tend to “catastrophize” things, that is, to get fixated on the worst possible outcome of a given set of circumstances. It’s not a great path to go down (and in many ways ignores the promises that God has made to us), but finding even small things to be thankful for—warm sunlight on a crisp, cool morning; a cute dog on a walk or a cat in a window; the warmth of a nice cup of coffee—can help stem the tide of negativity. It doesn’t mean the struggles are no longer present or not real, but intentionally focusing our thoughts on gratitude for things that aren’t bad can help keep those more negative thoughts at bay.

Likewise, focusing on thanksgiving can help foster a sense of contentment. If I recognize that my life is a balance of good things and difficult things and can see the good alongside the bad, it becomes easier (if not actually easy) to not live in a constant sense of need, want, or even greed. Paired with God’s promises of daily bread—everything we need for our body and life—I know that I will, in fact, be taken care of in the way that I need and can find some peace even in the places I feel things are lacking.

Our focus this morning is on the power of gratitude and giving thanks, but not in the low-level ways we’ve just mentioned. Gratitude isn’t just powerful because it allows us to stave off some bad things or help us find peace in difficult situations. Gratitude is powerful because of our focus on God’s blessings—especially his eternal blessings—and because it can aid in sharing those eternal blessings with others.

If we’re going to give thanks, we need to know what for. After all, you probably wouldn’t write a thank you note for a gift you never received. How would you know what to write? How would you know what to thank the person for? How would you know they gave you the gift in the first place? Likewise, it’s a whole lot easier to thank someone for what they’ve done for you if you see the need they helped you to meet. If someone helps you load the moving truck, you know they helped you do far more than you could do on your own. If someone “helps” you by painting your kitchen neon green while you’re at work—something you neither asked for nor even wanted—well, thanking them might see just a bit off.

It never feels good to focus on places where we have failed, but in this situation it’s absolutely vital. In our Sunday morning Bible Class, we recently covered how we can divide God’s Word into two primary messages: law and gospel. The law is a pretty uncomfortable message. Anytime God’s Word points out our failures to live up to God’s standards of perfection, we are dealing with the law. The message of the law shows us our sin and our state of absolute spiritual helplessness as a result.

That’s… not a pleasant message. We don’t want to hear about what is lacking, let alone something that is lacking that we cannot solve. And so here, more than anywhere else, God met our needs. While he certainly provides for us physically here, he has perfectly met our eternal needs in Jesus. Jesus was our substitute, taking the punishment our sins deserved on himself. His perfect life and his innocent death mean that the debt of our sin is wiped out, and our account is fully funded with the perfection God demands. We are the people God expects us to be because, in his sacrifice, Jesus made us those people. Hell no longer stands as our eternal destiny; instead, we look forward to eternal life with God.

So it’s not just that we’ve been healed from leprosy, a painful skin disease that could cut us off from our families; it’s that we’ve been healed from sin, the worst disease that would have cut us off from God with painful suffering for eternity. It’s not just that we’ve been given our daily bread, enough to sustain our bodies and lives here; it’s that we will be given access to the heavenly banquet where we will eat and drink with our Savior in perfection forever.

When we truly understand and appreciate our need and what it cost Jesus to meet that need, we cannot help but be eternally grateful. In the light of the gospel, God’s law takes on a different purpose. No longer do God’s commands simply show where we have failed; now, God’s law is a roadmap for thanksgiving. Do you want to thank God? Do this good thing; avoid this sin.

And, astonishingly, God allows us to express our thanksgiving to him most often in how we treat one another. Consider Paul’s guidance to the Corinthians in our Second Reading. What would be the results of God’s goodness and blessings—especially the eternal blessings—in the lives of the Corinthians? He who provides seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed for sowing, and will increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you may be generous in every way, which produces thanksgiving to God through us. To be sure, the administration of this service is not only making up for what is lacking among the saints, but it is also overflowing in many prayers of thanksgiving to God.

Generosity to others is the primary way we show thanks to God. Treating others as God has treated us is a way to show that we understand and appreciate all God has done for us. We spent some time over the last couple of weeks focusing on forgiveness for other people, and that certainly looms large here in our life of thanksgiving to our forgiving God. But it goes even farther than that. Does your brother or sister in faith need a helping hand with a project, some assistance to overcome a financial burden, or some of your time to share what is on their heart? Give generously! Is there a neighbor who comes to you in need of a second set of hands or something more substantial to meet a need they have? Give generously! Is there a charity or other organization doing work that you cannot do, sharing the gospel or bringing physical aid to people in places or on a scale that you cannot? Give generously! Do you meet someone who claims a great need, but you know nothing about them because they are a stranger to you? You don’t have to be a detective to see if their need is legitimate or meets your standards—give generously!

Paul points us to what the effect of all this thankful generosity, this powerful gratitude, just might be: [This service] is also overflowing in many prayers of thanksgiving to God. By proving yourselves in this service, many people are glorifying God, as they see the obedience shown in your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity shown in your sharing with them and all people. Your generosity is a powerful confession of faith. Your willingness to give to others from what God has given you reflects God’s rich, eternal generosity toward you and all people in Jesus.

And so what does that mean? Gratitude is not just powerful because it shows appreciation or stems the tide of selfishness. No, gratitude that results in generosity is powerful because it might be the beginning of the opportunity to share the forgiveness of sins and eternal life with those who do not yet know it or have long-since rejected it. Imagine that—by giving from your finite resources, you might directly or indirectly share what is infinite, eternal life with our Savior from heaven!

So, my dear brothers and sisters, be thankful and let your life be filled with gratitude. Our lives will never be perfect on this side of eternity, but we all have blessings from God that we can be thankful for. And even if there is literally nothing here and now for which you can give thanks, the eternal love of your Savior remains a constant. You will be in eternal life because he loves you, and your gratitude for that just might enable you to share that same blessing he’s given to others—to all.

Let your thankfulness to God rule your heart and mind, knowing you are the forgiven child. As we will say at the end of our communion liturgy, may this verse from the psalms be the theme of all our days: Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His mercy endures forever (Psalm 136:1). Amen!

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"God Lifts You Up" (Sermon on Hebrews 13:1-6) | September 28, 2025

Sermon Text: Hebrews 13:1-6
Date: September 28, 2025
Event: Proper 21, Year C

Hebrews 13:1-6 (EHV)

Continue to show brotherly love. 2Do not fail to show love to strangers, for by doing this some have welcomed angels without realizing it. 3Remember those in prison, as if you were fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated, as if you yourselves were also suffering bodily.

4Marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers. 5Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. For God has said:

I will never leave you,
and I will never forsake you.

6So then we say with confidence:

The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid.
What will man do to me? 

God Lifts You Up

Have you ever had a coworker who seemed to make everyone around him better, or at least look better, at their job? Have you ever had a friend who always just elevated the group, came up with the best ideas for things to do or brought hightened levity or sincerity to any conversation? Do you have a family member who particularly skilled at navigating and bringing peace to inter-family strife and conflict? They can elevate the entire family dynamic.

Perhaps you’ve known and experienced all of those; perhaps none. Perhaps you fill that role in your job, or friend group, or family. Whatever your experience has been, having someone like that who lifts up a group is a blessing to everyone involved, and everyone benefits. But if you find those sorts of gifts and blessings lacking in a given group, perhaps you work to equip yourself with some of those skills—expanding what you know through professional development or gaining tools by studying conflict resolution.

That kind of growth can be good, but there are ways in which that can get out of hand and go south. You, as an employee, should not have to learn how to do your boss’s job (or your boss’s boss’s job) in order to bring competency to the workplace; that should be on those it has been entrusted to. How sad it is if a young child feels the need to do whatever she can to ensure there is food on the table because, for whatever reasons, the adults in her life are failing her. Certain tasks have been delegated to certain people, and those people should be faithful to those responsibilities for the good of all involved.

What happens if they’re not? Or if they’re perceived not to be doing what they should? Chaos can ensue. Imagine, for instance, if no one here this morning trusted that the pastor would have a sermon to share, so everyone not only worked up a message to deliver but then actively fought over each other to get into the pulpit to follow through. What a mess of a service we would have! And it would be primarily centered on the reality that preparing a sermon is not your job or your calling, and the responsibility of it should not fall on you.

But sometimes, we try to take on things that we shouldn’t or can’t. We try to lift ourselves and others up, and it can lead to trouble. It’s problematic if you put yourself in the position of doing things that are your boss’s, your parents’, or your pastor’s responsibility, but those problems are magnified when we start taking on what is uniquely God’s responsibility.

God has promised to bless you and take care of you. Last week, we heard how the material blessings we receive from God—in whatever measure—are truly blessings from him and should be used and enjoyed to his glory. We were also reminded that the best way we can use them is to wisely and shrewdly share the gospel of sins forgiven in Jesus with others.

And that is the goal of both how we use our material blessings and how we live our entire lives. In our Second Reading this morning, the writer to the Hebrews gives us a rapid-fire rundown of what the life of a Christian does and should look like: Continue to show brotherly love. Do not fail to show love to strangers, for by doing this some have welcomed angels without realizing it. Remember those in prison, as if you were fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated, as if you yourselves were also suffering bodily. Marriage is to be held in honor by all, and the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, for God will judge sexually immoral people and adulterers. Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have.

Why do we want to live like that? Because Jesus has forgiven our sins. For all the many times that you and I have failed to be loving to those we know or to strangers; for the times we have failed to show kindness to those mistreated or downstrodden; for the times that we have misused and abused God’s gifts of sex and marriage; for the times that we have been greedy, selfish, and discontent with what we have—all of those sins are forgiven. And while different parts of that list will resonate with each of us more strongly, we can find places where we haven’t lived as we should here.

But all of those things have something in common: they are trying to exalt ourselves to something different from what God has lifted us to. If I survey the blessings that God has given me and decide, “Nope, that’s not good enough. I want something more, something different,” and don’t care what I have to do to make it happen, that will bring trouble. That’s not to say that self-improvement is bad or that pursuing a new career path or educational avenue is wrong. But if that discontent leads me to sin—to greed, to coveting, to lust, or anything else—that’s where things just fall apart.

Because in those moments, we take on the responsibility God has reserved for himself. The atrocious notion that “God helps those who help themselves” is so tempting. God might use my ambition or my hard work to bring blessings into my life, certainly, but we ought not think that my sin is justified or commendable if we think we will reap material gain from it, or that God would actually want us to do such a thing.

That was the problem the rich man in Jesus’ parable in our Gospel had. He exalted himself over everything else, especially someone like the poor beggar, Lazarus. But what good did it do him at his death? Nothing. His money did earn him favor with God, nor did it buy his way out of the punishment for his sins in hell. He wasn’t in hell because he was rich, but because he viewed earthly riches as a complete replacement for spiritual blessings—a mistake that is all too easy for us to commit today as well.

Where do we look to raise ourselves up in this life and ignore eternity? Where do we look to raise ourselves up at all costs, disregarding what God says is right and wrong? Where do we make our will or desires a replacement for God? In all of these things, there is idolatry, because I am worshiping myself as my god. Obviosuly we don’t want to be doing any of that.

So what is the solution? The writer to the Hebrews points us to it: let God do the work that he has reserved for himself, because in him we have the certainty of blessings and for things to be worked out for our eternal good. Quoting from the Old Testament, the writer sums it up this way: Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. For God has said: I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you. So then we say with confidence: The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. What will man do to me? 

So what is our takeaway here? God’s love for us means that he always has our best interests in mind. No matter what happens here, he will be by our side protecting, guiding, and working all things for our eternal good. The world can never separate us from God, nor can it ever offer an alternative to God’s loving care that will be worthwhile in the long run—the eternal run. You don’t need to exalt yourself over others or look to others to raise you higher. No, God lifts you up.

And God’s exaltation might not be peace and comfort here in this life. By his own promise, God’s exaltating you will probably involve bearing crosses and difficulties in this life. But that’s only because God continually has the ultimate good in mind—eternal life. So whatever happens to us here (what we would call good or bad), whatever we have to our name here (what we might call a lot or not enough), whatever sense of fulfillment or joy or happiness we have right now—if any—is all pointing ahead to the time where we will be perfectly provided for, perfectly lifted up, and perfectly protected from any harm that could come to us. Everything God does for you is in service of preparing you for eternal life, keeping my focus on my Savior who is my true, lasting, and eternal treasure.

That all is easy to say and much harder to live. How do we navigate this world that not only has crosses and other difficulties but also a constant barrage of temptations promising us the easier, the better, and the more comfortable, all of which threaten to pull our focus off of eternity and to instead zero in on this life alone? Again, I think we can look to Jesus’ teaching in our Gospel and the words provided to Abraham in that story: “They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them” (Luke 16:29).

God promises in his Word help to bring us peace with what is happening around us and also help to guide us toward God-pleasing decisions when we look to make changes. When we have his love, forgiveness and the certainty of eternal life in heaven in clear view, we will also have the true way that God lifts us up in view. You are his own, dearly loved child and he will being you home to himself when your time comes. Being heirs of heaven provides far greater blessings than all the money in the world or any sin-guided motivation for self-exaltation could possibly provide. Let us look forward to that day and, while we are still here, enjoy and appreciate the ways that God has chosen to exalt us even today.

God bless your walk toward peace and contentment. May it always be focused on Jesus’ eternal love and forgiveness, which means eternal life! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Be Shrewd with God's Gifts" (Sermon on Luke 16:1-13) | September 21, 2025

Sermon Text: Luke 16:1-13
Date: September 21, 2025
Event: Proper 20, Year C

Luke 16:1-13 (EHV)

Jesus also said to his disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager who was accused of wasting his possessions. 2The rich man called him in and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you can no longer be manager.’

3“The manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, since my master is taking away the management position from me? I am not strong enough to dig. I am ashamed to beg. 4I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from my position as manager, people will receive me into their houses.’

5“He called each one of his master’s debtors to him. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6He said, ‘Six hundred gallons of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and write three hundred.’ 7Then he said to another, ‘How much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘Six hundred bushels of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and write four hundred and eighty.’

8“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of the light. 9I tell you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon so that when it runs out, they will welcome you into the eternal dwellings. 10The person who is faithful with very little is also faithful with much. And the person who is unrighteous with very little is also unrighteous with much. 11So if you have not been faithful with unrighteous mammon who will entrust you with what is really valuable? 12If you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you something to be your own? 13No servant can serve two masters. Indeed, either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.”

Be Shrewd with God’s Gifts

“Shrewd” is perhaps not a word we use often in everyday conversations, but it is a good word. To be shrewd is to be carefully discerning, able to measure a situation accurately and act appropriately, or at least in the best interest of your primary concerns. We might describe such a trait as being level-headed, able to read a room, discerning, and able to weigh the pros and cons of each individual action in a given situation.

It’s a trait that Jesus urged his disciples (and us who follow them) to have as he sent them out in their initial missionary efforts during his earthly ministry. At that time he noted and urged them, “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Going into the world with the gospel, going into an environment that would likely be set against them, would require them to be wise and discerning, shrewd to their surroundings while at the same time innocent of wrongdoing.

This morning, we have “shrewd” applied to someone who is a bit of a scoundrel. Jesus uses that word to describe the manager in his parable. If you’re feeling a bit confused by Jesus’ parable this morning, I think it’s with good reason. This is, at first blush, one of the most difficult of all of his parables to reconcile and understand the point. It’s the only parable where the “bad guy” in the story is held up as someone, in part, to emulate. Usually, it’s the downtrodden person who is abused by others but perseveres, or someone who understands the true value of what they have, or someone simply enjoying the pure, loving comfort of God’s care. But this morning, we have in front of us a lazy, deceptive cheat from whom Jesus seems to indicate we can learn a thing or two.

We should probably retrace the story here so that we’re all on the same page. Jesus introduces us to a manager who has been found negligent in his duties and is being fired. He has a very limited amount of time to do what he can to provide a “soft landing” for himself. So with that limited amount of time and access to the books, what does he do? He gets into the good graces of all of his boss’s debtors so that, perhaps, they will offer him a position moving forward. “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and write three hundred.” … “Take your bill and write four hundred and eighty.” He can then say, “Hey, remember that time I cut your amount owed by a third or half? Can you do something for me now?”

To be very clear, nothing about this is moral or ethical. And, I would question whether this would actually secure him a position with another employer moving forward when they saw firsthand his lack of scruples. But he did the best, the most, with what he had access to at the time, with the hope that it would provide a future for him. “Shrewd” is generally a positive term (although its long-standing connection to this parable in English translations of the Bible perhaps does cast a negative shade on it). Still, this manager is shrewd not because he did the right thing, but because he surveyed the available options before him and made the most of the opportunity to prepare as good a future as possible.

What are we, dear Christians, to make of this parable our Savior taught? Let me be as clear as I can be to start: Jesus’ point is not that you should cheat your employer out of what he or she is owed to try to make a better life for yourself. Nothing about this manager’s actions before or after he is relieved of his duties is commendable. Jesus, instead, would have us focus on his resourcefulness. For the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of the light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon so that when it runs out, they will welcome you into the eternal dwellings.

Mammon is an Aramaic term for wealth and property. It’s a largely neutral term on its own, but Jesus describes it as unrighteous mammon for its use in this lesson. There is no sense of this being an eternal treasure or spiritual blessings. Jesus’ focus is very much on the physical wealth and treasure that we have in this life. Much like the steward was shrewd in his use of his limited access to the boss’s books, so we too should be shrewd in how we use our limited-time resources.

But our goal is not to get ourselves a cushy position after our current one falls through. Jesus is clear that this shrewdness needs to have a much bigger, longer-lasting perspective: I tell you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon so that when it runs out, they will welcome you into the eternal dwellings. Jesus is not suggesting that we buy friends, or even in the more extreme case, buy our way into eternal life. No, rather, Jesus is pointing us toward the reality that our use of the temporary things in this life can have an impact on eternity. And what is the only thing that can make eternal life better than it otherwise could be? Well, if there are more people to enjoy God’s eternal home with us. Jesus says that others will welcome us to eternal life who we have, in some way, affected their ability to be there.

Here again, we need to understand Jesus’ words in the broader context of Scripture at large. How does one get into eternal life? It’s not a life well lived, money well spent, or a focus on personal piety and meditation. No, the way to enter eternal life is exactly what we heard Jesus say it was a few weeks ago; the way to enter eternal life is through the narrow door of Jesus himself.

Jesus enables us to come into these eternal dwellings because he paid for our sins. Everything that would have naturally barred the way for us to be brought into eternal life, Jesus undid by his life, death, and resurrection in our place. Jesus was perfectly shrewd—as we needed him to be—and did everything we needed him to do during his limited time here among us. He lived a perfect life, offered that perfect life as the payment for our sins, and assured us of his victory by his resurrection from the dead.

All of that paved the way. All of that is done, and no amount of earthly wealth can have any factor into that. No money can buy the forgiveness of sins, and it doesn’t need to. That is already acquired, permanently secured in the blood of Jesus shed for each of us, shed for everyone.  

How can we shrewdly use our temporary resources in the service of eternity? Not in buying it, but in sharing it. God’s Word is the way God brings faith to others, so the more we can do to connect people with God’s Word, to use our resources to share this message of undeserved but freely given love and forgiveness, then we are applying these resources as God intends them to be used, as Jesus here directs us in our Gospel this morning.

When we support home and world mission efforts through our church body, that mammon does work to bring God’s Word to people that we’ve never met. When we, as a congregation, pay our paltry $262/year to have our website be available online, and more than 15,000 people a month are connecting with us to read our confessions of faith or sermons, mammon becomes outreach for eternal life. When we give thank offerings to God that are directed at the work of our congregation at large, ensuring that we have lights on, climate controls, internet for live streaming, a copier to print matierals, evangelism materials to be sent out into the community, and a pastor to be in the pulplit, that mammon becomes a gospel, eternal light shining in dark, temporary world. When we take the time out of our day to invite someone to church with us, or to share what we believe about Jesus as Savior, or even to show kindness to someone as a possible precursor to sharing the love of God with them, that mammon (of sorts) is doing this eternal work.

All of this sets the stage for having only one master—not ourselves, not our bank account balances, but our God. We can’t be devoted to both God and money, so we do well to put God at the top and see our financial resources for what they truly are—temporary blessings from God given to be used to his glory. When we understand proper priorities and the place that mammon has in our lives, everything else starts to line up. These are my temporary blessings used to serve God, and I can do that in many ways: I can take care of the family and other responsbilities that God has given to me; I can help those who are less fortunate than me and need a helping hand; I can use them to have some fun and enjoy the time I have here as part of a peaceful life. But the best way I can use those resources, the most shrewd way to do so, is to use the temporary to acquire something eternal, to use the perishable to acquire the imperishable.

When we use the temporary resources we have—our money, skills, time, and energy—in service to sharing the love of Jesus, we’re doing exactly that. This $20 bill will not endure past this life; I won’t take this to heaven with me. But what if this $20 was spent on a few Bibles that were put into people’s hands and allowed them to learn the love of Jesus, that temporary money, by the work of the Holy Spirit through his Word, turns into eternal treasure as more souls are brought into the kingdom.

So, my brothers and sisters, how can we be shrewd when surveying what is before us? First of all, see the limited time in front of us. We’ve been stressing in our midweek Bible class on the End Times that Jesus’ return could come at any time—even today!—so we want to be prepared. One way that we prepare is by sharing Jesus’ forgiveness with others.

So, today, sit down and consider how you might be more shrewd with the gifts God has given you than you have been. Do you have more financial resources that could be dedicated to sending this gospel message more forcefully into our communities and our world? Do you have more time to devote to sharing this word with those you know or volunteering to assist in the work of our congregation? Could more of your energy be devoted to prayer for the good of God’s kingdom, that it would continue to come to us and come to many others as well? What do you have right now that will not journey with you to eternal life that could be used to see others join us around our Savior forever?

And in the end, remember the proper motivation for all of this: not shame, or guilt, or a sense of obligation. Rather, we are motivated by joy and thanksgiving to God. This is one of the ways that we show our gratitude to God for saving us from our sins—from hell itself—and bringing us to his side. These are the ways we thank him for treating us like that lost sheep and lost coin from the parables we heard last week. These are the ways we thank God for his eternal love, which means eternal life for us.

My dear friends, be shrewd as God enables you to be. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.

"Found!" (Sermon on Luke 15:1-10) | September 14, 2025

Sermon Text: Luke 15:1-10
Date: September 14, 2025
Event: Proper 19, Year C

Luke 15:1-10 (EHV)

All the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus to hear him. 2But the Pharisees and the experts in the law were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3He told them this parable: 4“Which one of you, if you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that was lost until he finds it? 5And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6and goes home. Then he calls together his friends and his neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’ 7I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.

8“Or what woman who has ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, would not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the lost coin.’ 10In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Found!

What is your value? Where do you look to understand your value? In school growing up, there was a whole lot of talk for us about self-esteem. You have value! You are special!  You are unique and that’s wonderful! Today’s messaging isn’t so different, though usually in the context of social-emotional learning that also tends to include empathy and care for others in a way I don’t remember being emphasized a lot when I was growing up, but I think it’s a change for the good.

Because all of those things are true, aren’t they? We should care about other people. We should see our own, innate value that comes from inside of us as a unique human being. We don’t have value just because someone ascribes it to us; we have value because we are.

But what about when that doesn’t feel true? What about when you feel worthless? Perhaps you messed up that thing at work, or let that family responsibility slide to everyone’s detriment, or you bombed that test in school, or you got caught doing that thing you knew you shouldn’t be doing. What does that do to your self-esteem, to your self-worth, to your self-confidence? It’s like a bomb, isn’t it? Or it can be. Some of us struggle with this more than others (and perhaps you’re learning too much about your pastor here this morning…), but there’s a struggle inside each of us to have an appropriate self-image.

And what is that self-image that we should have? Well, there are ditches on either side of this road. On the one hand, we can have a degraded self-image that views me as worthless. On the other hand, we have an insanely inflated self-image that results in pride and a superiority complex over everyone else.

These two extremes are, on some level, at the heart of Jesus’ conversation during his teaching in our Gospel for this morning. We meet up with him teaching the crowds, but it’s not just Jesus’ followers or those who were curious about his message that were there; Jesus’ enemies were also there, and they were incredibly irritated with what they saw. The Pharisees and the experts in the law were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The word translated here, “complaining,” is more literally “muttering to themselves.” In other words, this is not an accusation that these men are leveling at Jesus directly or even talking to others in the crowd about him. No, this is an under-the-breath complaint about this man that they view at best as their competition and at worst as a threat to their way of living and even their very lives because of his popularity. But in hushed tones, they clearly have no actual respect for him.

In a glimmer of Jesus’ omniscience, he addresses the complaint they didn’t even clearly vocalize. And he does so with a couple of parables—a shepherd seeking out a lost sheep and a woman searching for a lost coin. But to really understand the full weight of these brief parables and the point Jesus is stressing here in love, even to those who were against them, we need to clearly understand how the Pharisees and their ilk thought of themselves and others.

What is their complaint about Jesus? He’s spending time with the undesirables of society: the tax-collecting traitors to their people, the immoral prostitutes, the thieves, the lazy, the poor dregs. There was no chance for upward momentum in spending time with these people. There was only the chance to drag your reputation down. If this Jesus was really serious about being a notable rabbi in their community, this was not the way to do it. And for the religious leaders, it just confirmed one thing: Because he spent so much time with people they knew were beneath them, they also knew that Jesus himself was beneath them as well.

But who, in this scene, really had the problem? Was it the sinners who were coming to Jesus to hear him, to have him restore them, forgive them? Or was it the people who didn’t think they needed him?

Jesus’ parables make the point plain. The sheep wanders off, but does it know it’s in trouble? Maybe, but probably not. If the sheep could identify that this course of action was wrong or dangerous, it probably wouldn’t have done it. But off it goes, seeking out its own desires, ignorant of what it means for its well-being. And what is the shepherd’s reaction? Such concern grips him that he leaves the ninety-nine still in the flock and seeks the lost one.

The lost in this parable could be seen as the “sinners” coming to Jesus. If that is the case, then Jesus’ point is that religious leaders should be concerned about all people, even (and especially) those misled by prominent sin in their lives. However, I think that Jesus’ point is more fundamental to the leaders’ problems and rooted in their misunderstandings about themselves.

If the Pharisees were looking to identify themselves in Jesus’ parables, I assume they would think of themselves as the ninety-nine still in God’s flock or the nine coins still in the purse. The reality was that they were the lost sheep out on their own and the coin hidden among the dust, but they didn’t even realize it. They thought they were fine, but their self-confidence ignored the fact that they, too, were sinners in just as desperate need of God’s forgiveness as the rabble that came to see Jesus.

How easy it is for us to hold this same, distorted view of self. After all, here we are, in church on a Sunday morning. Are we not among God’s flock? Are we not the coins carefully contained, whose location is known? Unfortunately, our sin makes that thought and confidence a mirage. We are the lost and the rebellious. We are the cheating tax collector and the self-righteous Pharisee. Our sin makes us lost, alone, and doomed to eternal death in hell.

But here is where we see God’s nature shine through so clearly. God is represented in the parables by the shepherd looking for that lost sheep and the woman tearing the house apart looking for that coin. In those moments, what is lost is of the highest priority. So, too, is it for God. We are lost in sin on our own; thus, we are his highest priority.

God saved us not by putting us on his shoulders or sweeping the flood but by offering his life in exchange for ours. Our sin created a situation far more dire—infinitely so!—than the lost sheep or coin. No, the only thing that could save us from the eternal punishment for sin was the blood of the perfect Lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world.

Jesus’ search and rescue consists of reaching out to us with his Word, having us see ourselves as we really are (that is, see our sin in all its gruesome reality), and then showing us his saving love. His death rescued us, and the faith he works through his Word brings us back to himself. His Word brings us face to face with the reality of our situation and leads us to repentance. To repent is to have a change of heart about sin, to not want to do it anymore, while simultaneously trusting God’s complete forgiveness. You and I are among those people who have been found wandering the hillside and are rescued. You and I are the ones whose God-worked repentance causes great joy among the hosts of heaven.

Why does that happen? Because that’s just how much you mean to God, how precious you are to him. I won’t ever say that self-value and self-esteem are unimportant; that’s a foolish statement. But the best measure of our value doesn’t come from within ourselves; it comes from the value God places on us. You were worth the life and death of the perfect Son of God. You were worth his agonizing suffering of hell while nailed to the cross. You were worth it all, and if he needed to, he’d do it again, because he loves you so dearly.

That love continues to reach out to us. Because the truth is, this is not a one-time lost-and-found mission. No, we are continually wandering away from the shepherd and needing to be sought out, called back to him. And that calling isn’t always pleasant; that reunion isn’t always what our heart desires. Sometimes it looks very much like the scene in our Gospel! Because even in his interaction with the Pharisees—even in the preaching of the law!—there is Jesus’ love clear as day. Why is he confronting them with their misunderstandings and sin? Because those things were very dangerous, and Jesus had love, even for them. He called them to repentance, and each day he calls you and me to that same repentance, assuring us of his forgiving love where we find our true value.

Despite how much we may want to deny it or at least ignore it, there’s a lot of opportunity in us for the same misguided self-views that the Pharisees had to blossom. You don’t have to dig too far in mainstream Christianity in the United States today to sense the “us vs. them” mentality; it is often a core part of the message coming from these groups. And, I daresay, you don’t have to look too far in the Lutheran church to find these ideas, and perhaps, if we’re being really honest and open this morning, we can even see this in our own hearts. Do I, in some way, think of myself as better than the unbeliever? Better than the “worst” sinners because, even if I’m not perfect, at least I don’t do… that!

My brothers and sisters, let’s not complain and mumble to ourselves and to each other about how much better we are than other people who commit what the world calls horrible atrocities or who engage in activities that the world praises while God detests. Let us see ourselves as we are: sheep in need of rescue and coins hidden in the dark corners of the room. Let us see our value in the seeking, searching, and rescuing work our God has done and continues to do to find us. Let us find our value in our status with God, no longer lost, but now found!

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.