Tag: faith

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity, by Fr. Josh Leigeber.

In this week’s Gospel (Luke 5:1–11), Jesus fills Peter’s nets with an overwhelming catch of fish. But the miracle is about far more than fish. It is a picture of how Christ continues to build His Church.

The boat becomes an image of the Church, the sea represents the fallen world, and the fish are those whom Christ draws to Himself through the preaching of His Word. Just as Peter caught nothing apart from Jesus’ command, so the Church does not grow through human ingenuity, programs, or entertainment, but through Christ’s Word alone. Wherever the Gospel is faithfully preached and His Sacraments are administered, Christ is still at work gathering sinners into the safety of His Church.

Drawing on the theme of this year’s Higher Things conference, Dying Church, Rising Hope, this sermon also reflects on what truly needs to die—not Christ’s Church, but our sin, our pride, and our fear. The Church will never fail because she belongs to the risen Christ, who continues to forgive, nourish, and preserve His people through His means of grace.

Though Christians will one day die, death itself has already been defeated by Christ’s cross and resurrection. Safely sheltered within the Ark of His Church, we await the day when the last enemy is destroyed and we behold our Lord face to face.

Listen to the full sermon below.

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, by Fr. Jerome Leckband.

Showing mercy and forgiving people the wrongs they do is what marks our lives as Christians. God has removed his just judgment against us and forgives us all our sins for the sake of Christ. When Jesus tells the disciples in Luke 6, “Judge not,” He is directing us to treat others with the same mercy that our Father in heaven has shown to us. Through God’s Word, He leads sinners to repent of their sins and receive Christ’s forgiveness.

Click here to listen to Father Leckband’s entire sermon.

A sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity, by Fr. Dan Suelzle.

The sinful human nature is plagued by a constant temptation to refashion God into our own image—to turn His Word into an a la carte menu where we pick what is comfortable and discard what is convicting. Whether through world religions that demand rigorous submission or modern idols like wealth, comfort, and self-righteousness, left to ourselves we will always gravitate towards a self-made religion of human effort. But as the prophet Micah warns, the true and almighty God cannot be compromised or tamed by our manufactured spiritualities; He exposes these empty, impotent idols for what they are, and invites us to cast our cares upon him, for he truly cares for us.

But his care for us is not vague. What sets the true God apart from every false, human-made religion is that He does not demand we climb a ladder of perfect submission to earn His favor; instead, He descends to us in the flesh. Jesus Christ makes all the difference, drawing a sharp, exclusive line between the religions of human effort and the Gospel of divine grace. On the cross, God poured out His just judgment upon Christ instead of us, paying the ultimate price so that we can know exactly where we stand with Him. We are left not with an anxious hope for mercy, but with the absolute certainty of being fully pardoned, loved, and redeemed by a God who has no equal.

You can listen to Father Suelzle’s full sermon audio below to hear the complete sermon.