Sermons

In Isaiah 40:25-31, the prophet does not give us something new - he calls us back to what we already know and confess. “Have you not known? Have you not heard?” In a world where we are tempted to think God has forgotten us, Isaiah directs us away from speculation and back to the God who has revealed Himself - steadfast, unwearied, and faithful to His promises.

This sermon proclaims the comfort of the Gospel: the Lord does not wait for your strength - He gives it. The One who never grows weary became weak for you in Christ, and even now renews you through His Word and Sacraments. When all else fails, the answer is not to search within, but to return to what has been spoken and given.

In a world where it’s easy to feel overlooked… forgotten… or reduced to your failures, the question quietly lingers:
Has God forgotten me?

In this sermon from 1 Peter 2, we hear God’s answer - not as a vague reassurance, but as something concrete, something you can actually hold onto. Peter writes to Christians who are suffering and scattered. In this situation and yours,  we receive the same promise:
You are not forgotten.

This is not a sermon about trying harder or following a better example.
This is about what Christ has done for you - what you could never do for yourself.
And what it means that your name is not written in ink…
but held in the very wounds that healed you.
Here is that message.

How do you know your faith is real? How do you know Jesus is truly for you? In a world - and in hearts - that are often uncertain, the Epistle of 1 John points us away from ourselves to something far more solid: the testimony of the Spirit, the water, and the blood. These are not abstract ideas, but concrete witnesses, rooted in the real life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and still given to you today through His Word and Sacraments. In this chapel sermon at Christ Community Lutheran School and Homeschool Program in Almena, Wisconsin, we explore how God anchors your faith not in shifting feelings, but in His unchanging gifts, and how this certainty comes to life in the risen Christ who still comes to His people.

In a valley filled with dry bones, the LORD asks a haunting question: Can these bones live? In Ezekiel 37, the answer does not come from human strength or understanding, but from the Word of God that creates life where there is none. This sermon explores how the Holy Spirit works through that Word - bringing life to the dead, faith to the unbelieving, and renewal to weary hearts. What we believe, teach, and confess is this: the power is not in our response to the Word, but in the Word itself, as God continues to breathe new life into His people through preaching, Baptism, and Absolution.

In this sermon, we begin not with celebration, but with tension - the sealed grave, the guarded stone, and the uncomfortable truth that, left to ourselves, we might prefer a Jesus who stays dead. A dead Christ is easier to manage, easier to admire, and far less demanding. But the resurrection refuses to remain an idea or a distant hope. It breaks into the world - and into our lives - with a claim that changes everything.

Drawing from the witness of Mary Magdalene at the tomb, this sermon explores the collision between human expectation and divine action. The resurrection is not symbolic, not metaphorical, and not the natural conclusion to a tragic story. It is something wholly unexpected - something that does not happen, and yet did.

More than that, it is something that still happens to you.

Here, the risen Christ is not simply proclaimed as a past event, but as a present reality—One who still calls His people by name, still forgives, still speaks, and still gives Himself in Word and Sacrament. This is not just about what happened then. It is about what is true now.

Because if Christ is risen, then He is not safely contained in history.

He is alive. And He is for you.

Why do we instinctively turn away from the cross? On Good Friday, Isaiah 52:13–53:12 confronts us with the uncomfortable truth: the cross is ugly because it reveals the full weight of our sin and God’s righteous judgment. Yet in that very ugliness, Christ bears our guilt, satisfies divine justice, and wins our salvation. This sermon wrestles honestly with our tendency to blame others while avoiding our own culpability - and invites us to look again at the cross, where God’s wrath and mercy meet for us.

Join St. Matthew and St. Paul Lutheran Churches as we gather to see the cross.