"Be Ready" (Sermon on 2 Timothy 4:1-8) | June 21, 2026

Sermon Text: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
Date: June 21, 2026
Event: Proper 7, Year A

2 Timothy 4:1-8 (EHV)

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom: 2Preach the word. Be ready whether it is convenient or not. Correct, rebuke, and encourage, with all patience and teaching. 3For there will come a time when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, because they have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in line with their own desires. 4They will also turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

5As for you, keep a clear head in every situation. Bear hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry.

6You see, I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. 8From now on, there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness. The Lord, the righteous Judge, will give it to me on that day, and not only to me but also to everyone who loved his appearing.

Be Ready

I’ve recently been replaying an old video game from my childhood, and one thing has stood out to me. The game will telegraph when things are going to get difficult. Suddenly, your characters will find tons of supplies, and there will be an opportunity to save your game so that if you fail in what’s coming, you’ll be able to restart relatively close to the pressure point. On the one hand, it’s exciting because you’re getting stuff that is good for what is coming. On the other hand, you are probably dreading what is coming. The game is essentially telling you, “Be ready. Things are going to be rough.”

We don’t always get such clear sign-posting about what is ahead in our lives, but we do have a general sense of how things are going to go—and we probably shouldn’t expect sunshine and lollipops every day of our lives. What does Jesus say we should be ready to do in our lives? Take up our crosses and follow him. Or, putting a bit of a finer point on it, consider what we heard him warn his disciples in our Gospel this morning, “Brother will hand over his brother to death, and a father will do the same with his child. Children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all people because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:21-22). Existing in this life is going to be painful and difficult enough, but being a true, biblical Christian is going to bring with it its own hardship and suffering.

But, Jesus also said we go forward into this life with the care of our almighty Creator. Not even sparrows suffer injury without God knowing about it, and as Jesus expressed in that remarkable understatement, “You are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31).

In our Second Reading for this morning, Paul addresses similar thoughts and encouragements with Pastor Timothy. At the time of writing, Paul is very near the end of his life, and he clearly knew that was rapidly approaching: You see, I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. So what does Paul, the champion of the gospel of Jesus, want to impart to the next generation of pastors, to the next generation of Christians? Be ready.

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word. Be ready whether it is convenient or not. Correct, rebuke, and encourage, with all patience and teaching. Now, some of this is specific to Timothy’s calling as pastor in the church in Ephesus in the 1st century AD. He was called to shepherd the flock of people in that place at that time. We’re not all pastors; we’re not all called to the public ministry; and not one of us is serving 2,000 years ago. But some of the principles will apply to all of us.

Paul charged Timothy to preach the word, but he’s not just talking about the Sunday morning sermon (to use our modern-day equivalent), because he’s calling on Timothy to preach whether it is convenient or not. Now, I suppose you could limit this to “be ready to preach on Sunday whether you got a good night’s sleep or not” or “be ready whether the sermon really came together this week or not” or “be ready regardless of how much other stuff weighed you down this week,” but I think it’s a whole lot broader than that. Timothy’s calling to preach the word was not just a localized, public worship setting, but to preach the word at all times, in all places.

You might never have set foot in a pulpit, you might not have ever spoken in front of a crowd after high school speech class or a wedding toast, but you and I preach more sermons with our lives than we even realize. When you clearly forgive the person at work who hurt you deeply, you preach loudly to those who would find solace in harboring anger and nursing grudges. When you keep a positive outlook on life because you know the forgiveness of your Savior, even if, by human measures, your life seems to be falling to pieces, you are preaching a powerful sermon to those who know you. And when someone wrongs you, and you do not retaliate, you don’t let anger take over, but you assure the other person that because Jesus forgives you and forgives them, you also forgive them; that is the gospel beaming forth from your life, perhaps clearer than any biblical statement uttered in this place in the last 60 years.

Why are those actions powerful sermons? Because they are situations that are far from convenient, and in fact, it would probably be much more comfortable to act contrary to that in those moments. Paul’s words for what Timothy would face in his life ring true for us today: There will come a time when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, because they have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in line with their own desires. They will also turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths. You could probably describe all of modern society as people looking to find “truth” to scratch their itchy ears. People run to whoever says what they want to hear. And even if no one is saying what they want to hear, they just listen to their own heart, their own emotions, and convince themselves that what they feel is good and right, and that anything contrary to it is wrong and should be dismissed. People do not put up with the solid biblical teaching of God’s law condemning sin and the gospel that brings forgiveness only in Jesus. They long to find another way, and they delude themselves into thinking that they’ve found it.

But you and I know better. That’s not to say we’re perfect in this—far from it! We have itchy ears, just like everyone else, and the draw of those who would say what we want to hear is strong. But sometimes what we want to hear and what we need to hear are very different things. This itchy-ears-scratching might sound like someone trying to assure us that what we did (or want to do) is right, even when God says it’s wrong. It might sound like a harsh condemnation of the actions of a group of people that we already don’t like, and so we continue to justify our vilification of a particular family, or ethnic group, or faith system. Anyone who tells us what we want (or they think we want) to hear is coming to address that itch with myth, fable, and fiction.

Paul tells Timothy that sometimes, often even, the role of Christians will be to deliver news and reminders that make the itch worse rather than better. We are not called just to tell people what they want to hear or to just stay in the realm of the pleasant and socially acceptable. The Christian faith is deeply offensive to our natural selves, and you can’t be faithful to God’s Word without bringing that offense. No one is going to say, “Oh, thank you for telling me what a failure I am in God’s sight! Thank you for letting me know that I deserve hell for my rebellion against God and his commands!” No one is going to say that because all of that is incredibly bad news that no one—not you, not me, not anyone—wants to hear.

So, be ready for people not to want to hear what you need to share. Be ready for people not to be excited about God’s truths that he’s entrusted to you. But be ready to share them anyway; be ready to share them no matter what the effect or the cost, whether you feel ready and prepared to talk about it or not.

But as important as the readiness is the motivation. Why should you be ready? Not to cut someone else down. Not to prove that you are right where they may be wrong or at least misguided. No, the reason you and I want to be ready to share God’s Word, share both his condemning law and his sweet, forgiving gospel, is love. Love for the person who needs to hear it. Love to the person who has been so distracted looking for scratchers for their itching ears that they’ve missed the truth. Love for the person—for everyone—that we want to share eternal life with.

Because that’s what this is about. It’s not about achieving personal glory or sustaining an institution like a Christian congregation. This is about reaching souls with the eternally vital truths from God. It’s about addressing sin with the only thing that can—Jesus’ life and death in our place—and finding peace and comfort in that free gift. It’s about loving all people in a way that proves you want them rescued from hell.

So, be ready. But be ready in love. Be ready with humility. Be ready with empathy and sympathy. Be ready to share the comfort the Holy Spirit has already put inside of you, but that you know is not just for you, but is for all people. And God bless your preparations and your readiness, using you and your words and actions in the ways that he knows is best. 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 Gospel Goes from Generation to Generation" (Sermon on Numbers 27:15-23) | June 14, 2026

Sermon Text: Numbers 27:15–23
Date: June 14, 2026
Event: Proper 6, Year A [Confirmation Sunday]

Numbers 27:15–23 (EHV)

Moses spoke to the LORD, 16“May the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the community, 17who will go out before them and come in before them, who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the community of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

18The LORD said to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and place your hand on him. 19Have him stand in front of Eleazar the priest and the entire community. You will commission him in their sight. 20You will give some of your authority to him so that the entire Israelite community will listen to him. 21He will stand before Eleazar the priest, who will inquire for him before the LORD with the decision of the Urim. He and all the Israelites with him, the entire community, will go out at his command and come in at his command.”

22Moses did just as the LORD commanded him. He took Joshua and had him stand in front of Eleazar the priest and the entire community. 23He placed his hands on him and commissioned him, just as the LORD spoke through Moses.

The Gospel Goes from Generation to Generation

Nothing lasts forever. Sometimes, that’s a good thing. You’re going through a hard time in life, and you know that it will pass and something better (or at least different) will be around the corner. Eventually, for new parents, that baby will sleep for more than 18 minutes at a time. But sometimes it’s tough. You have to come home from the dream vacation. That friendship or other relationship that you thought would be precious for the rest of your life disintegrates underneath you. Effort in training for a sport ends with an injury, leaving you unable to compete—the very reason you were training in the first place.

This morning in our readings, we have a lot of torch-passing. Jesus to the disciples, Paul and Apollos to the Corinthians, and in our focus this morning, Moses to Joshua. While they might not all be the exact end of their respective eras, they all point to an upcoming transition. Eventually, Jesus’ work would be done, and the disciples would be the ones to preach and teach the gospel. Eventually, Paul and Apollos would be called home to eternal life, and the Christians in Corinth would have to press on without them, but using the training they had been given. And not long after our First Reading, Moses would die, and Joshua would take over as leader of Israel as they finally received the blessing of the Promised Land from God’s hand.

This morning, we’ll get a hint of that as well. As Miles and Karl are confirmed, as we hear them profess their faith, we’ll be reminded that those of us who are older will not be here forever, that eventually the value of the gospel and the responsibility to preserve it and share it always pass on to the next generation, and we want to do everything in our power to ensure that they are ready to receive it. But is it really us who do that?

At the time of our reading, Moses knew that his time leading Israel and his time on earth in general was drawing to a close, and it wasn’t just because he was 120 years old. Back in Numbers 20, we saw a repeat of the scene at the end of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness that we saw at the beginning. The people were in a place with no water, and they were complaining that they had been brought out of their slavery just to die of thirst in the wilderness.

At the beginning of these forty years, God had Moses strike a rock with his staff, and God sent water from the rock for the people to drink (Exodus 17). But this time, God gave Moses different directions: “Take the staff and assemble the community. You and Aaron, your brother, speak to the rock before their eyes, and it will pour out its water” (Numbers 20:8). But Moses was so angry with the people that in his frustration, he took his staff and struck the rock with it as he did the first time forty years earlier. Now, God still provided water for the people through this, but God was clear that what Moses had done was wrong: “Because you did not trust me enough to honor me as holy in the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this assembly into this land which I have given to them” (Numbers 20:12). Moses’ public sin of striking rather than speaking to the rock meant that he would not be the one to lead these people into the Promised Land; that task would fall to his sucessor.

Despite Moses’ frustration with the people, we can see his heart at the beginning of our reading. What is he concerned about? That the people will have no leadership, and this whole thing will be for naught, which will include the destruction of the nation. So he prays for them. He asks God very specifically to give them someone to lead them in his place so that the community of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.

What is God’s answer? “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and place your hand on him.” Notice what God’s qualification for Joshua was. Not that he was a good leader, or a motivating speaker, or a great military strategist. But the Holy Spirit was in him. His faith and dedication to God would drive him, just as it had driven Moses. Joshua would be the one who would boldly and confidently tell the nation to choose what religious path they were going to go down in the future, but made it very clear, “as for me and my household—we will serve the LORD!” (Joshua 24:15).

The single most important thing to God was not the physical well-being of his people (though that was certainly important). No, the single most important thing to God was the spiritual well-being of his people, their eternal good. Sin would be their constant companion in so many different ways, and yet God would always promise to remove their sins as far as the east is from the west, to bury them in the depths of the sea. His promise of a Champion from Abraham’s family who would crush Satan’s head always remained God’s prime focus, and it was important that the people stood firm in their trust in God’s mercy.

Nothing has changed in the 3,400 years since Joshua took over for Moses. What do God’s people—all people—need? We need the gospel, we need the message of God’s loving forgiveness, because sin is just as much our companion in this life as it was for the Israelites. We need leaders who will guide us in the truth, and we need to pass that truth on to the generations that will come after us.

We’re going to get to see that happen this morning in a very special and heartwarming way. Both Miles and Karl, after enduring four long, grueling years with their pastor in catechism class (it wasn’t that bad, was it??), are here to present themselves to be confrimed in their Christian faith, to take up the mantle of adult membership in our congregation, to join us at the Lord’s Supper and receive Jesus’ true body and blood with the bread and wine for the forgiveness of their sins.

And this is not just a rite of passage; this is not akin to graduation from middle school, high school, or college. Those events mark the end of something, whereas confirmation marks the beginning of something: the beginning of an adult life surrounded in the love of God as we find it in his Word and the sacraments. A lifetime of digging into the condemning truths of God’s law—that we deserve hell for our many sins—and the predominating power of the gospel, that Jesus truly is the one who freed us from those sins and that because of his love for us, we will be in eternal life with him.

When Jesus sent out the twelve on their first practice mission trip in our Gospel this morning, he encouraged them with this overriding truth: Freely you have received; freely give (Matthew 10:8). That is a stunning reminder for us as well. We have been given this gospel message, this forgiveness of our sins, freely and generously by those who came before us. We have the Christian faith as an inheritance handed down from our faith family in generations past. So we, too, should share it with the next generation. We, too, should be Joshua to the Israelites and share the Spirit that has been given to us. We should be the disciples, proclaiming the truths we’ve learned from Jesus himself.

So later today, as you leave this place, consider anew the gift of eternal life that has been given to you, as well as the faith to trust all that Jesus has done to make that eternal life yours. And then consider how you might take this to the next generation, whether they be younger in age or younger in faith. How can you share God’s goodness with those yet to be born, with those yet to learn about their Savior’s love, with those who suffer now but will find relief in the life, death, and resurrection of their Savior? How can you mimic the commendable faith-life goals that our confirmands will express in their essays this morning?

More than any dream vacation or meaningful relationship, we do not want the gospel to end. It is something we don’t want and frankly cannot allow to disappear. God has promised that such a thing won’t happen, but he has also entrusted us with caring for it and sharing it. Let’s take it seriously. Let’s take up the call as Joshua took up his new position and ensure that, well after we are gone, others will learn about and cherish their Savior in some small way because we saw to it that they could hear it.

Lord, send us out into those harvest fields and do not leave us or any of your people as sheep without a shepherd. 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 the Worst Sinner?" (Sermon on 1 Timothy 1:12-17) | June 7, 2026

Sermon Text: 1 Timothy 1:12–17
Date: June 7, 2026
Event: Proper 5, Year A

1 Timothy 1:12–17 (EHV)

I give thanks to the one who empowered me, namely, Christ Jesus our Lord, that he treated me as trustworthy, appointing me into his ministry. 13He did this even though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. But I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. 14The grace of our Lord overflowed on me along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15This saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” of whom I am the worst. 16But I was shown mercy for this reason: that in me, the worst sinner, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his unlimited patience as an example for those who are going to believe in him, resulting in eternal life. 17Now to the King eternal, to the immortal, invisible, only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Are You the Worst Sinner?

“Ugh, that is the worst!” Perhaps you’ve heard that said or you’ve said it yourself. I’m most familiar with using it or hearing it used in the context of some relatively minor inconvenience. Like, a paper cut or forgetting you’re out of milk and having to run to the store when you’re already in your pajamas. It’s a phrase that we often use to describe how annoying something is, but how often is what we are talking about the actual worst? I’d guess probably never. No matter how bad something is, we can probably come up with some way to one-up it, to make it worse than it already is.

No, the superlative "worst" is extreme, and we usually don’t use it in its full sense unless we’re comparing a few things. For instance: forgetting to charge your phone, slipping on a wet floor, and starving to death. Like, all of those are bad to some degree, but one is clearly the worst. But to contemplate the worst of all life experiences, the worst of all situations, the worst of all hardships? That seems a bit impossible.  

But Paul makes an observation about himself in our reading from his letter to young Pastor Timothy that probably makes our eyebrows rise in surprise or concern: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” of whom I am the worst. Is Paul the worst sinner? Is the champion of spreading the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles the worst person to ever live? And if so, by what metric? Number of sins? Severity of sins? And even if he is, Paul is writing about 2,000 years ago; has someone surpassed him since then? Have you? Have I?

Paul establishes some bona fides for this claim: formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. We know from the history of the book of Acts what Paul is talking about here. The first part of Paul’s life was lived as a devout and zealous Jewish believer. He was a member of the group called the Pharisees, who we are pretty familiar with from Jesus’ ministry. The Phraisees were a highly spiritual group, but they also had very misguided notions about where their spiritual security should come from. They most often looked to their own works rather than to God’s mercy for their eternal confidence, a path that Jesus made clear, over and over again, would lead to their spiritual downfall.

But Paul’s zealousness as a Pharisee went beyond centering himself on works righteousness. We are first introduced to Paul in the biblical narrative as he guards the belongings of those murdering Stephen, making Stephen the first Christian martyr. And lest we think that was just a passive mistake, after that, he took a very active role in trying to squash out the fledgling Christian church. In Acts chapters 8 and 9, Luke describes Paul’s actions this way: [he] was trying to destroy the church by going into one house after another, dragging off both men and women, and putting them in prison. … [He] was still breathing out murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any men or women belonging to the Way [that is, Christianity], he might bring them to Jerusalem as prisoners (Acts 8:3, 9:1-2). It’s in the act of this region-trotting hunt that Jesus appeared to Paul, made clear to him how misguided he was, and eventually called him to be an apostle, a messenger of the gospel, especially for the Gentiles, for people who were not Jewish.

But Paul did not—probably could not—forget his past. He knew what he had done, the offense he had committed against his God and Savior, and the grace and mercy that had been shown to him to spare him and then even to be privileged enough to serve in the gospel ministry.

Paul’s situation is not radically different from Matthew’s in our Gospel. Matthew was a tax collector, a traitor to his people who served Rome and then likely lined his own pockets by overcharging his countrymen (as was common for tax collectors of that day). He deserved to be punished, and yet what did he hear? “Follow me” (Matthew 9:9). I doubt that Matthew ever forgot his old way of life before he became Jesus’ disciple, but he probably would have echoed Paul’s sentiment: I give thanks to the one who empowered me, namely, Christ Jesus our Lord, that he treated me as trustworthy, appointing me into his ministry.

Now, what about you? What about me? I’m not aware of any of us ever having been a traitorious tax collector (although, have we always been honest in every bit of business we’ve ever had—even with the IRS?) nor do I think that anyone here is actively persecuting other Christians or any other group for that matter (although, have we always treated all people with the respect and love that we should?), but truly none of us have been perfect, which is what God demands. So how should we view ourselves?

There are a lot of people out there doing clearly sinful things. Some people are vicious, some are greed-fueled, some seek their own pleasure above all else and at all costs. And these things lead to horrible outcomes, making headlines in news articles and serving as subject matter for “true crime” shows. At least I’m not like them. At least I’m not one of the bad ones.

Except, by whose standard am I finding comfort in that? My own? I have judged that I’m better than someone else; therefore, everything is ok? Why kind of biased, subjective judgment is that? How could that bring any real comfort? This pull toward comparative righteousness, trying to see myself as better than others, is a dangerous game.

If I look at other people and see those who are worse than I am, that probably points to a really serious spiritual problem inside of me; I probably lack almost any self-reflection. True, someone may have done something sinful (even reprehensible) that you would never do, but what sins have you committed that they would never dream of doing? What depravity oozes up from the depths of your heart that that other person would never consider? And just how many of their sins are you aware of compared to how many of your own?

Why did Paul call himself the worst sinner? I don’t think it was the types of sins he committed (although that surely didn’t help). It seems far more likely that Paul is looking at an honest numbers game. He might have known one, or ten, or a hundred, or even a thousand of the sins that another person had committed. But no matter how big that number was, no matter how many sins he knew someone else had committed, it was minuscule compared to the number he knew he had committed.

No matter who we might compare ourselves to, no matter how well we know them or how close we are to them, be they a spouse, or parent, or child, or sibling, or friend, we know an infinitesimally smaller amount of their failures—their sin—than we know of our own. And it’s good and healthy for us to sit with that, examine that, just let it breathe and exist within us and around us. It’s uncomfortable dwelling on how great a failure you are in God’s sight. God demands zero sins in your entire life; how many have you committed this year so far? In these early days of this month? Today? Since you got to church? Since this sermon began?

Sit with it for a moment. Marinate in the reality that you are the worst sinner that you know. And if you would dispute that reality, that’s just further evidence that this is true. See yourself as you are by nature. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of my mountain of failures, and yet I need to see that sin in all its horrid mass, lest I start to think too well of myself.

So, again, sit with that for a moment, but my goodness, don’t stay there. Dwelling on sin and only seeing the sin, only seeing the failure, is the surest way to hopelessness and despair. It’s healthy to dwell on it to a point—to see how great your need is and to put to death the impulse to compare yourself favorably against other people—but beyond that, it is spiritually toxic. Beyond that, it leaves you looking to yourself for comfort or direction that you won’t find in you and I know I will not find inside me.

No, like Paul, like Matthew, like Moses, there is one place for us to look for comfort, despite being the worst sinner we know. The grace of our Lord overflowed on me along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” of whom I am the worst. Paul’s words are just as true for you as they were for him. The “worst sinner” part, yes, but also the Lord’s grace and Jesus’ salvation mission.

Jesus came to save sinners, even the worst sinner, even you. Even me. Remember what he said to his critics in our Gospel: “The healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ In fact, I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13). Jesus didn’t come for the really good people; he came for the broken, the wayward, the disobedient, the proud, the unforgiving. That is, he came for you, and he came for me.

Paul didn’t earn his status as an apostle; that was God’s undeserved love for him. Matthew didn’t earn his status as a disciple, apostle, and evangelist; that was God’s undeserved love for him. Moses didn’t earn his status as a prophet and nation-rescuer; that was God’s undeserved love for him. You and I have not earned anything good from God, least of all forgiveness or eternal life. No, we have not earned it, but like Paul, Matthew, and Moses, that is God’s undeserved love for you and for me.

Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and he accomplished that work. His death was the payment we owed that we could not pay. His resurrection is the proof that it is all truly finished. The world’s sins—every single one of them, be they big or small in our eyes—are paid for. That means, dear Christian, that your many sins are included in that number. Yes, you, the worst sinner, have been completely and fully forgiven. Whether they are sins of ignorance or choice, sins you can recount, or sins you aren’t even aware of, all of them are gone.

Being the worst sinner is not a contest to be won. I already know that I meet that criteria, as you already know that you do as well. But forgiveness was a mission to be accomplished, one that cost the blood and life of the perfect Son of God. But he did it. He did it willingly, lovingly, and gladly, because that’s how much he values you and me.

Are you the worst sinner? Yeah, unfortunately, you are. But, are you the most dearly loved child of God? Well, he’s removed every single sin you’ve ever committed against him. So, yes. Worst sinner to dearest child; it doesn’t get any better than that. I was shown mercy for this reason: that in me, the worst sinner, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his unlimited patience as an example for those who are going to believe in him, resulting in eternal life. Now to the King eternal, to the immortal, invisible, only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. 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.