allsaintsjonesboro Sermons

Are You Right with God?

How are you made right before God? Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector to answer that question. While human reason assumes the Pharisee’s outwardly righteous life makes him justified, Jesus reveals that it is the humble tax collector who is declared righteous. The Pharisee’s prayer is full of self-congratulation, whereas the tax collector’s simple plea—“God, be merciful to me, a sinner”—is grounded in faith and dependence on God’s forgiveness alone. True humility is not a human achievement but a gift from God, worked through his Word. Ultimately, God answers our plea for mercy through Christ, who in humility bore our sin on the cross and in turn gives us his own righteousness. Christians daily make the tax collector’s prayer their own, trusting not in ourselves but in God’s promise to forgive and grant us Christ’s righteousness through his merciful means of grace. Listen to the whole of Fr. Suelzle’s sermon for Trinity +11 below.

allsaintsjonesboro Sermons

From Fig Tree to Martyrdom

From fig tree to martyrdom, Bartholomew’s life is a testimony that the power of faith rests not in us, but in Christ who calls and keeps us.

Saint Bartholomew—also called Nathanael in John’s Gospel—shows us what it means to be seen and known by Christ. At first he was skeptical when his brother Philip told him about Jesus. But when Jesus revealed that He already knew him, Bartholomew confessed with bold faith: “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

That same pattern holds true for us. Left to ourselves, we remain under the shadow of sin and death. But when Christ calls us by His Word, when He joins us to Himself in Baptism and feeds us at His table, we are brought from shadow to light, from doubt to confession, from death to life. Like Bartholomew, we find that our faith does not rest on our own strength but on Christ who first knows us.

Tradition tells us Bartholomew carried the Gospel as far as India and Armenia, where he sealed his witness with his blood. He was not remembered for seeking his own greatness but for pointing always to the greatness of Jesus. His life and death remind us that the treasure we carry is Christ Himself, and that even in our weakness the Gospel is the power of God for salvation.

May God grant us, as we pray in the Collect for this day, to love what Bartholomew believed and to proclaim what he taught: that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who still comes among us as the One who serves.

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allsaintsjonesboro Sermons

Christ, the Faithful Steward

Yesterday, we heard Christ’s teaching from Luke 16 about stewardship and how Jesus shows us what true stewardship looks like. The Father entrusted Him with everything—including fragile human flesh and blood—and He spent it all for you. Every step of His life, every word He spoke, every drop of His blood was given so that you might be forgiven and made a child of God.

That changes how we see our own lives. What we have—our time, our abilities, our possessions—isn’t really ours. They’re gifts from God, placed into our hands for the sake of others. Earthly things won’t last, but when they’re spent to share Christ’s love and His Gospel, God uses them for something eternal.

So take heart. Your salvation doesn’t rest on how well you manage what you’ve been given—it rests on Jesus, who has already secured it all for you. And now, with joy and freedom, you can use His gifts to point others to the one treasure that never fades: Christ Himself, who is your peace and your home forever.

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