"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.