Advertise on podcast: Sermons and More from Saint Peter's Lutheran Church in Door County

Sermon Title: The Boundless Gospel Sermon Text: Revelation 14:6–7 Sermon Summary: The gospel of Jesus Christ knows no bounds of time or place. It is an eternal message covering all sin for every people through Christ’s complete sacrifice, recovered in the Reformation and carried in mission. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Reformation Day (Observed) Calendar Date: 2026-10-25 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County, 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420. Saint Peter’s serves Casco and other locations in Northeast Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT Today’s sermon is about the boundless gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel which knows no bounds of time and knows no bounds of place. El sermón de hoy trata sobre el hecho de que el evangelio de Jesucristo es para todos los tiempos y para todas las personas. Today we heard in our first lesson these words, “Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on Earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people.” And with these words, we see two truths. First of all, the gospel of Jesus Christ knows no bounds of time. It’s an eternal gospel. Second of all, that the gospel of Jesus Christ knows no bounds of place. That it is for all the peoples of the world. And this is certainly the truth. We see this in the holy scriptures themselves, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is on the very beginning pages of the Holy Bible. The Gospel in Genesis We go all the way back to Genesis, after the fall into sin, God certainly did lay punishments upon Adam and Eve, but He not only gave punishments, but also promise. And He said to them that one of the sons of Eve who would eventually come forth would crush the head of the serpent, even while the serpent would bruise his heel. This is a lot of times known as the first gospel. This is the first prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, the wounded Savior, the wounded Redeemer. And that message of the wounded Redeemer is a message that we see repeated again and again and again in the Old Testament. It becomes more and more clear, the nature of this coming wounded Redeemer. We have, for example, the sacrifices in the temple. A visual prophecy, shall we say, or reminder of the wounded Redeemer who would come. That even as these animals were sacrificed for the sake of the people, so also would come someone far greater, who would be sacrificed for all. It becomes even more clear in the later prophets, sometimes just astonishingly clear, for example, in Isaiah, in the song of the suffering servant, that talks about the one who would be lifted up, wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, the sin of all laid upon His shoulders. Christ the Perfect Sacrifice Finally the man himself comes, the eternal Son of God in the flesh. And Jesus of Nazareth who lived a perfect life for our sakes and who died an atoning death for our sakes so that He might be the perfect sacrifice. And indeed, He was wounded for our sakes, crucified on the cross, His blood poured out for you and for me, unto the forgiveness of our sins. But not just for you and me, but for all people. So worthy is that sacrifice for our sakes that it covers over the sin of the whole world. Yes, this is a gift and a message which must be received by means of faith, and yet it is a gift which has been earned by all, but earned for all by Christ. For as it says in John chapter 3, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” And the work of Christ is not only unlimited when it comes to who it is for, but also for the sins of those that it was shed for. We’ll get to that in a second. The work of Christ, it is for all. And this work of Christ will continue to be lauded into eternity. We read from Revelation today, and there’s a beautiful hymn in Revelation in which the people of God laud the lamb, the victorious lamb, who is worthy to be praised on account of his sacrifice for the people. Even in heaven, into eternity, the message of the gospel will continue to be proclaimed and lauded. It is an eternal gospel. Opponents of the Gospel Now sadly, my brothers and sisters in Christ, even while it is an eternal gospel, in our time, there are many opponents against the gospel, and there have been throughout the ages. In fact, about 500 years ago, it seemed as if the opponents of the gospel had the upper hand. The dominant teaching in the church of that time, about 500 years ago, was that the work of Christ was severely limited. So what Christ accomplished on the cross and what we receive therefore by means of holy baptism is merely the forgiveness of original sin. So the sin that we inherited from Adam and Eve and from our forebearers who have gone before us, that’s what Christ accomplished for us. But then there’s also our actual sin. So the ways that we have failed to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, the ways that we have failed to love our neighbor as ourselves, all the various things that we ought to have done that we haven’t, and all the various things that we ought not to have done that we have. Those, the predominant teaching 500 years ago was that those were on us and had to be dealt with by means of various acts of penance. And there are all kinds of acts of penance that were put forth that might bring forgiveness for those sins. There was the act of penance of visiting a relic, for example. So you might go to a church that had in it a beard hair from John the Baptist or a hand bone from St. Luke or a piece of the Holy Cross. And the idea was if you visited a relic such as the sum of that holiness of that saint with whom it was associated, well, that would rub off on you, bringing forgiveness of sins. There were other acts of penance that were prescribed. For example, you might go on a pilgrimage and walk hundreds of miles potentially to some holy site, and this too might bring you forgiveness of sins. And it even got to the point where it was said that you could give the church a little bit of money, and the church would write you a little note that said that this act dealt with some of the actual sin that you had committed. And it was that act which caught the ire of a man by the name of Martin Luther, a monk, an Augustinian monk who was commissioned to be a teacher at the university in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther and the 95 Theses And as he started to think about indulgences, he came up with 95 reasons why we might question the sale of indulgences. They’re commonly known as the 95 Theses Against the Sale of Indulgences, and he took this document, and he pinned it to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg there. Why did he do that? Well, that’s how you proposed a debate in those days. So his idea, “I’m gonna propose this debate with these 95 theses. Maybe some other monk will take me up on this. A few of our monk friends will show up. Maybe there will be a dozen people there at best, and then, you know, we’ll see what happens.” Well, that’s not what happened. You see, there was this new technology afoot, the printing press, and people needed content to run through their printing presses. So what happened? Somebody grabbed those 95 theses off the church door and duplicated them on his printing press and distributed them. Well, guess what? There weren’t copyright laws in those times, so somebody else got a hold of those and reproduced them, and this was the equivalent of a viral video in those days. Just spread and spread and spread until finally a copy landed on the desk of the pope all the way down in Rome, and this was a problem because the pope was building a new church in Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica, by the way. And indulgences were a major funding source for this, and the pope had a problem with what Luther was saying. Luther was prone to slightly crass and bombastic sayings, and he said, “I farted in Wittenberg, and they heard it in Rome.” Now he didn’t think this was gonna be a big deal. It turned out to be a much bigger deal. And so he was confronted about this doctrine, but instead of backing down he dug in deeper and he discovered that the entire system this was based on was contrary to the scripture. And he discovered the scriptural truth that as it says in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, we are saved by grace through faith. Do you know what grace means? Grace means gift, not something earned. And it’s a gift, you see, because it has been earned fully by Christ. Really when you boil it down, the Reformation was about the commitment to the fact of who we say Christ is. If Christ truly is the Son of God, then His work on the cross is full and complete. It knows no boundaries, but rather it covers all the sin of all people, and there’s no room for our works. And all this, this revelation, this understanding of the gospel transformed Luther’s own life. Before he understood the gospel, he did not much like God. He believed in God, but he didn’t really trust in God. How much was God a terror to him? Luther’s Fear Turned to Faith There’s an account of the first time after he had been ordained a priest, the first time that he presided over the Lord’s supper. And as he presided over the Lord’s supper, his hands were trembling so much. Why? Well, he knew God was there, right? That much he knew. God was there because Jesus had promised to be there in his blood, and his hands were trembling so much that that wine, then the blood of Christ, dribbled out onto the altar. He was mortified. But his understanding that God rather than being stern judge, but rather loving

Sermon Title: Serving God [Sermon] Sermon Text: Isaiah 45:1-7 Sermon Summary: God is served under His power even by those who do not know Him, by Christians through willing faith, and at last in glory when the church sees Him face to face. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentetcost 21, Proper 24 A Calendar Date: 2026-10-18 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County. Address: 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213. Phone: 920-856-6420. Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Sister Bay and other area in Northeast Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we are going to be taking up the theme of serving God. We’re going to talk about how God is served. First of all, we’re going to talk about how God is served in His power and His providence, what sometimes is called His kingdom of power or His reign of power. Second of all, we’re going to be talking about how God is served by means of faith, and so sometimes that’s called the kingdom or the reign of grace. And then finally, we’re going to be talking about how God is served in glory. And God is served no matter what. No matter whether one is a believer or not, whether one acknowledges God or not, God is always served. His ends always are brought to a fulfillment. That’s a big part of what our Old Testament lesson was about for today, which really leads into our first point, that God’s first way He is served is that He is served according to His power and providence. Serving God According to His Power and Providence Isaiah 45, what we just read, it’s one of the most absolute most remarkable passages in the Holy Scriptures for so many reasons. We’re not going to get into all of those reasons here, but one of the most interesting things about this is the fact of what Cyrus is named, the title that he is given. So the very first verse, we encounter this word, “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus.” Shocking that Cyrus would be called anointed. The Hebrew word there for anointed is mashiach. We transliterate that into English as messiah. And in the Old Testament, various people were anointed as messiahs. Take, for example, King David, who was anointed to protect the people of God, to free them from the tyranny of the Philistines, and to extend their political power. And of course, this was just a little glimpse into the ultimate Messiah, the Messiah Jesus Christ. Christ meaning actually Messiah, actually. That’s the Greek term for Messiah. And here Cyrus is called a messiah. Now, why would that be so surprising? It spells it out there. Cyrus doesn’t even know God. He’s named by God even though Cyrus does not know God. Now, that only begins to fill in the picture here. So let’s fill in the picture of what’s being talked about here, because Cyrus is probably one of the most important figures in the scriptures, while at the same time being one of the least well-known figures in the scriptures. Cyrus was the emperor of the Persians, the emperor of the Persian Empire. Now, who was the Persian Empire? In the time of Isaiah, Isaiah foretold various political powers and how they were going to impact the people of God, the kingdom of Judah. In Isaiah’s time, several hundred years after the time of David and Solomon, by the way, by that time, the people of God had laid aside God’s Word. So many of them were worshiping false gods and goddesses. They were engaging in idolatry, to put it another way. And so they were failing to love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and strength and mind, as had been commanded all the way back in Deuteronomy. But also, they were failing to love their neighbor as themselves. I’m convinced, by the way, that so many of the Old Testament laws were there to reinforce the brotherhood of the descendants of Abraham. But instead of treating one another as brothers, instead, they were hurting and harming each other, taking advantage of each other, manipulating each other. And because of this, in the time of Isaiah, God, through Isaiah, prophesied that foreign nations would descend upon Jerusalem, and that eventually one would overcome them. And that when that one would overcome them, that people would be taken off to a strange land. This was fulfilled when the Babylonian Empire came and conquered Jerusalem. And Babylon, which was originally centered in what we would now call southern Iraq, when they came and they conquered the region they emptied the region of its treasures. One of the treasures that they emptied from that region were the leaders of the people, their greatest merchants, their greatest statesmen, their greatest generals, their greatest scholars, their greatest religious leaders. They carted all of them back to their own land in what you might call just this massive brain drain so that, in their eyes, they could utilize their abilities to extend their empire even more. So you’re familiar, you remember Daniel and all those stories from Daniel, like the lion’s den, right? And the fiery furnace of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And how Daniel refused to eat the meat offered to idols, but instead ate vegetables alone, and how he yet still had this marvelous appearance. All of that happened among those exiles to Babylon. Daniel was one of these aristocratic leaders of Israel who had been carted back off to Babylon. And yet, God promised deliverance. And deliverance through a really curious means, right? Moses was from among the people and knew the one true God. David, the same thing. But here in Isaiah 45, God promises another different deliverer, Cyrus. And Cyrus, as we said, was the leader of the Persians, and under his remarkable leadership, Persia grew from a small kingdom to conquer first a larger kingdom, a very warlike kingdom called the Medes. They conquered them first, and then after conquering the Medes and probably taking a lot of their warriors, then he was prepared to take on the wealthiest empire in the area, Babylon, which we heard about their wealth in Isaiah 45, right? These storehouses of treasures. And how, and what did the Lord do for him? Babylon fell in a surprisingly fast manner, and Cyrus had access to all this incredible wealth. Wealth, by the way, which was very much associated with idolatry, because back in those times, they didn’t have banks. The storehouses of wealth were ziggurats. Maybe you learned that in history class. They’re ancient temple complexes which, yes, had worship areas, but also had accumulated vast amounts of wealth and had storehouses where it could be held. Buildings, as we read, with gates of bronze and bars of iron that the Lord would open to Cyrus even though Cyrus didn’t know Him. Now the Lord did this for the purpose of blessing His people. We’re going to get to that here in a minute, but I want you to see this fact, that Cyrus, even though he didn’t acknowledge the Lord, was still a servant of the Lord. God is God over all. He is not just the God of Christians. He is the God of the world. Even more than that, He is the God of the universe. And so even things and even people that do not acknowledge Him, and that maybe to our eyes might even seem to be opposed to Him, yet serve Him and His ultimate purposes. This is God’s reign of power, and all things serve Him under His power and under His providence. This, by the way, is why Jesus commended the payments of taxes to Caesar. See, the Pharisees put this question to Jesus because Caesar, the Emperor of the Romans, he also was an idolater. Didn’t acknowledge the one true God, but rather worshiped many false foreign gods. And so the question sort of is this: Jesus, isn’t paying taxes to Caesar a form of serving Caesar? And if we are serving Caesar and he does not serve the one true God, aren’t we becoming servants of false foreign idols and gods? And Jesus rejects this, right? Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. And part of the upshot is that insofar as Caesar does not demand you to do anything contrary to the word of God, that even as you render taxes to him, you’re still serving God. And by the way, St. Paul makes that absolutely explicit. Romans chapter 13: “Let every person be subject,” in other words, serve, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God.” If we fast-forward to verse four it says this: “For he is God’s servant for your good.” And before I talk about for your good, I want to mention that there are multiple ways in which these servants who do not acknowledge God work for our good. First of all, in ordering our civil life here on Earth. But also, there’s another sense in which all things work to the good of those who love the Lord. We’re going to get to that here in our final point. But the point is this, there’s no question who these civil authorities are that St. Paul is talking about. He’s writing to the church in Rome. And the people who were in this authority were Roman politicians, Roman authorities. Almost every single one of them at this point, in all likelihood, idolaters. And he’s saying that these people who do not acknowledge God, yet are servants of God. And so therefore, as they are servants of God, you are called to serve them. And as you serve them, ultimately you are serving God. All things serve the Lord under His power and under His provision and providence. But we as Christians are called to serve the Lord in a different way. We have a hint at this, by the way, in our epistle lesson. Serving God by Means of Faith Today in 1 Thessalonians, Paul talks about a different kind of service. So Paul says, repo

Sermon Title: Christian Joy [Sermon] Sermon Text: Philippians 4:4–13 Sermon Summary: Christian joy is an action of gratitude for God’s gifts and petition for more. Christians rejoice in every circumstance because Christ swallowed death on Calvary and will wipe away every tear at His return. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 20 Proper 23 A Calendar Date: 2026-10-11 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Luxemburg and other areas in Northeast Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we heard from the Apostle Paul in our epistle lesson. He said these words, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice.” And on the basis of this, we’re going to be talking about the fact that Christian joy is a command that the Lord gives to us to obey. Joy is something that seems in short order these days. Instead, it seems that anger, resentment, bitterness, being down in the dumps, all of these have become rather fashionable. I remember about 10 years ago, I found myself at a children’s birthday party and I was trying to enjoy all of the things in a children’s birthday party, eating the cake, watching the kids play with the balloons, watch them play pin the tail on the donkey, and all those fun little kids birthday party games. And I was sitting out in their yard underneath some big, beautiful trees, enjoying a beautiful day. They had a house right along the bay of Green Bay there. And enjoying the birthday cake, sitting out on a lawn chair. And the grandparents of the child struck up a conversation with me. And they said, “Oh, what do you do?” I said I’m a Lutheran pastor. Oh, they were excited to hear about that. And, “Oh, you’re a Lutheran pastor, that’s wonderful.” They said what synod are you a Lutheran pastor in? I said I’m a pastor in a Lutheran church, Missouri Synod, the LCMS. That was apparently the wrong answer, ’cause boy did I get an earful about 10 minutes about how this is bad, this is wrong, even immoral. I won’t tell you what direction they were giving me these criticisms from other than it was from the South. They were from Illinois, of course. No offense to those of you who happen to be from Illinois here today. But in any case boy they were on my case about this fact. And isn’t that something? Children’s birthday party where even that kid’s own grandparents couldn’t help themselves from contaminating the joy of that occasion with bitterness, discord, disagreement, and so on. I just smiled and took it all and tried to enjoy the rest of my cake, but it certainly was hard. As I said, anger, resentment, bitterness. People wanna introduce it into the incredible feast the Lord has granted us in this life, and not only in this life, but also in the life to come. Every single moment, every single day of our lives, every single breath is a lavish gift from God to be received with thanksgiving and a cause to lift up prayers to God. God, continue to grant me your blessings. That’s what it means to rejoice, by the way. And instead of thanking the Lord for His blessings, instead of confessing our faith in Him, both to others and to Him in prayer, instead, so often people are filled with anger, resentment, and bitterness, and all of these negative things. But we as Christians especially are called to a better way. We’re all called to a better way, but of all people, Christians have more than enough cause to rejoice in every circumstance. We’re gonna be taking this theme out today under four headings. First of all, what does it mean to rejoice? Second of all, the various things that cause us to not rejoice. We’re going to talk about the fact that we all have an obligation to rejoice. And then finally, we’re going to talk about the promise that the Lord has to us with regards to joy. So let’s take up that first heading first. What Is Christian Joy? To be quite honest with you, in the first through thirds of my ministry, three-quarters of my ministry, I had a really hard time preaching on Christian joy ’cause I didn’t understand what it meant. I typically thought of Christian joy as a static thing, as a state of being, something maybe like an emotional state. That’s not the way that it’s described in the New Testament in most circumstances. Instead, in the New Testament, it’s talked about as an action, something that we do. What did St. Paul say? Did he say have at every and every circumstance warm, fuzzy feelings? He didn’t say that. Did he say in every circumstance, you have to be in this certain state? He didn’t say that. He didn’t say be joyful, okay? He said instead, “Rejoice.” Do the act of giving joy, making joy is an action in the Christian understanding. And what is this action of Christian joy? First of all, Christian joy is confession of the blessings that the Lord has given us, expressing the blessings that the Lord has laid out for us. I’d like to call your attention, if you brought a Bible along, or if you have a Bible app with you you can open up your Bible to the first chapter of Philippians. And there in verses 18 and 19, he said this: “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance.” Okay, what I want you to see there is that Paul draws a very tight connection to rejoicing and proclaiming the wonderful works that God has done for us through Christ Jesus. Okay? And then as well, in our reading for today we get this connection with joy and thanksgiving for all God’s benefits once again. After he says and encourages them to rejoice, what does he say? He says, “In everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” All right, so on the basis of this, I want you to see the first component of rejoicing, and it’s gratitude for the blessings that the Lord has given. Gratitude that is expressed, whether to others in confession of the faith that we have, or confession of that to God himself in prayer, “Lord, thank you for all of your blessings.” That’s the first part of Christian joy. And the second part of Christian joy goes right along with it. What did St. Paul say? He said, “Not only acknowledging his benefits, but also let your requests be made known to God.” Okay. Christian joy in our other readings for today is linked to a feast, right? Now here in the United States of America, probably the feast that we most think about, for example, is Thanksgiving Day. And I think back to Thanksgiving, especially the Thanksgivings at my grandmother’s house. And remembering back to that what does the rejoicing in that look like? Enjoying the blessings that my grandmother and my mother and my aunt prepared and laid out, enjoying that, saying thank you for this blessing. And then, and this is critical because it’s an intrinsic part of Thanksgiving, asking for more, right? And nothing would give my grandmother greater joy than asking for more. In fact, if you didn’t ask for more, she would offer you more. And if you said no, oh, that look on her face. Worst look I’ve ever seen on anybody’s face. The disappointment, right? Christian joy, and really the joy that all people are called to give to God. Lord, thank you for your blessings. Thank you for my house and home. Thank you for every breath that I breathe. Thank you for the food that you give me. Thank you for my family and friends. Thank you for my clothing. Lord, give me more. And the Lord invites you to do that, by the way. And as Christians, we have all the more cause to rejoice. Lord, not only have you given me my clothing, shoes, house, home, all of those blessings, you’ve not only given me these worldly blessings, but you’ve also given me spiritual blessings. Lord, you accomplished for me the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ Jesus. Lord, give me more. Forgive my sins this day. Lord, you have granted me faith by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who by means of the Word of God transforms my heart to trust in you. Lord, give me more. Make me more attentive to your holy scriptures. And through this, may the Holy Spirit lead me into greater faith and greater understanding and greater love for you and greater love for others. Lord you’ve granted me greater love for the neighbor because through the outpouring of your love into my heart, I can see that overflowing to others, but I do that imperfectly now. Lord, help me to do that. My brothers and sisters in Christ, that’s what rejoicing looks like. And that’s why we are called to rejoice in every circumstance, whether in low times or in high times, whether in what the world would consider good times or bad times, or as St. Paul talks about it, in times of hunger and plenty, abundance and need. In all times, we are called to rejoice. Yes, there can be circumstances in this world in which our life does not look the way that we might want it to look like. There may be troubles at home. There may be troubles at work. Someone that we love may have passed away. Maybe someone has harmed us or someone that we love, yet in every circumstance we can continue to acknowledge God’s goodness and still look to the Lord for His blessings. That’s precisely what St. Paul does here in Philippians, by the way. Did you catch what he said in verse 10 and following? “I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I’m speaking of being i

Sermon Title: The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ [Sermon] Sermon Text: Phillipians 3:4b-14 Sermon Summary: Knowing Christ means forgetting the guilt of the past, bearing fruit with God’s blessings, and pressing on toward the future, because His death transforms our hearts and makes us His own. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 19, Proper 22 A Calendar Date: 2026-10-04 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County (Forestville) Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Sister Bay and other areas in Northeastern Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today in our sermon, we are going to be taking up the theme of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. We’re going to be taking it up under three headings. First of all, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means forgetting what is behind. Second of all, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means bearing fruit with the blessings that we have received. And finally, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means knowing what our future holds, and therefore pressing on to that future. Knowledge, training, it can make all the difference. We can have all the raw materials, but if we aren’t oriented in the right way and things aren’t structured the right way, it can actually go in the opposite direction. Instead of being a blessing, it can be a curse. Or at least simply not utilized in the way that would be good and right. A pertinent example of this to me is in my own family. Back about, I don’t know, about 20 years ago or so, 23 years ago or so, my brother came back from Marine basic training and his advanced training as well, and was a completely different person. That’s an age-old story, right? But it was very stark and very dramatic with my brother. He had all the raw materials to be an impressive individual. So when he took the ACT, for example, he scored higher than a lot of valedictorians that I’ve known. But even while he had that intellectual capacity, he really didn’t apply it. He was a C and D student. He had a tall, big frame, taller than me by probably about 6’3″, 6’4″ or so, and very broad-shouldered and so on. But before he went off to boot camp, he was pretty flabby, pretty weak, hunched over. He came back a lean, mean, American fighting machine. It was incredible to see how the Marines were able to take all these blessings that he had been given, and were able to help him to use it and apply it to benefit others, in this case, our nation, in his service in the military. And the Lord Jesus Christ does an even more profound thing than this by filling our hearts with His love and giving us the knowledge of Him. Through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we are transformed to render unto God the fruits that he desires, the fruits of thanksgiving to him, the fruits of seeking to serve him, and the fruits of loving service of the neighbor as well. The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ Means Forgetting What Lies Behind And the way the Lord does this is first of all by, in the knowledge of him, forgetting what lies behind. And when Saint Paul talks about forgetting what lies behind, I think this is a very personal thing for him. Paul is not talking just in objective ideas. He’s talking about objective ideas, but it’s through the filter of his own subjective experience, the life that he had actually lived. ‘Cause man, did Saint Paul have some skeletons in his closet, in some senses quite literally, that was good for him to leave behind. He was a man who had been blessed in many ways, and we’re going to talk about these ways in which he had been blessed in a minute. But yet he used those blessings to hurt and to harm others. Consider, for example, his role at the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the very first Christian martyr. While he himself, it appears, did not cast any stones, he yet facilitated those who did. He watched over the cloaks of those who had laid them aside in order to stone St. Stephen, and he looked on with approval. So much approval, the next time we encounter St. Paul, he’s actually himself actively persecuting Christians. And the great honor and the great wonderful blessing that we have in the knowledge of Christ Jesus is the ability to forget the guilt and the shame of our past. To leave that behind. You see, Christ Jesus through His wondrous, loving, atoning death for our sakes, He took the just condemnation that we have all deserved according to our sinfulness. The condemnation that we have deserved is eternal death. And some people think, including some theologians think, that’s far too harsh of a sentence for our sin. But it’s just the natural result of what we have done. So consider our readings for today, our other readings, which compare the people of God of old to a vineyard. In the Lord Jesus Christ, in his parable today, somewhat modifies this to talk about them as the tenants of the vineyard. What had they received? Incredible blessings. Israel had been taken up out of Egypt. It was about to die, and yet the Lord dug them up there from Egypt and planted them in the fertile soils of Canaan. There, he watered and fertilized this vine so that it went to branch out so that many nations stood under their protection, and provision, and power. Lord had granted them many blessings. But what had they failed to do? They failed to render him the fruit that he desired from them. Lord desired that they love Him with all their heart and soul and strength and mind. And yet they let their heart be divided. Maybe they acknowledged Yahweh with their lips, and yet with their deeds and with their hearts, they were continually going after other foreign false gods. In the parable of the vineyard, of the tenants of the vineyard, Jesus relates how the tenants of the vineyard failed to render to the owner of the vineyard the fruits that were his due. And the common thread with both of these is this: a rupture in the relationship with the one who had given them such great blessings. Israel, when they failed to give God his due, they said, “God, we’ll take those blessings, but we don’t want anything to do with you who gave us those blessings.” That’s why condemnation is just. By the way, brothers and sisters in Christ, God has given us everything. God has given us life. If we reject God therefore, we reject the giver of life, and we reject life itself. It’s our preference to have death rather than life. If we reject God we reject the giver of all light. Therefore, it’s a preference for darkness. We can go on and on, but here is what Christ Jesus, our Lord, did in His holy and precious death. Even while His heart was a heart of undivided love towards God, an undivided love towards the neighbor, yet He suffered the just consequences of a rejection of God, which was His own rejection. “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Christ Jesus took the condemnation we have all deserved, leaving us therefore only the fruits of His righteousness, which therefore becomes our righteousness, our grace, our mercy. So that no longer are we guilty or ashamed before the Lord, but instead we can look to Him as dear Father. With hearts that then trust Him and acknowledge Him and look to Him as in faith. The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ Means Bearing Fruit with the Blessings We Have Received Which brings us to our second point, because that knowledge of God through Christ, it transforms our hearts so that now we are, in fact, able, imperfectly this side of heaven, but yet we are able to bear the fruits that God so desires. We can have all the blessings from God, and yet we can use them to evil ends. And this is, in fact, what we find with St. Paul. He recounts so many of the blessings that he received from the Lord God. He says, for example, “I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” He recounts many of the blessings that he had received. First of all, he was born into a pious family. And as being born into a pious family, they kept for him the laws and the rules and the regulations that were prescribed for a pious family. In those days, they didn’t bring the children to baptism as we do now, but instead they were to bring their children to be circumcised, their sons to be circumcised, and he had received that blessing. Not only this, but he was born of the people of Israel. He was descended from Abraham according to the flesh. And it says a Hebrew of Hebrews. What I think he might mean by this, by being a Hebrew of Hebrews, is that he was well-versed in the Hebrew scriptures. He knew the Old Testament, the Bible as it stood in that time. And not only this, but he was taught to observe the laws of the Old Testament in a very strict way so that those who were concerned about such things could find no charge to level against him, and yet this was all lost. Why? Because he used these blessings to be a persecutor of the church. He received many other blessings besides these ones that he lists out. Not only did he have a good Hebrew education, but he also had a good Greco-Roman education. He was familiar with the philosophers and the poets and the playwrights of the Greco-Roman world. He was not only a Jew, but he was also a Roman citizen. Because of this, he was a prime person to do what he ended up doing, to extradite people from Roman provinces such as Syria back to Jerusalem in order to try them there. He was the exact right person to do the devil’s work of persecuting the Christian church.

Sermon Title: Shining with the Light of Christ [Sermon] Sermon Text: Philippians 2:1–4, 14–18 Sermon Summary: The masses can be massively wrong, following the devil toward ruin. God calls us individually to repentance under His law, redeems us in Christ, and sends us to shine as lights in a crooked generation. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 18, Proper 21 A Calendar Date: 2026-09-27 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we heard from St. Paul these words: “Be children of God, without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” And we are going to be talking about shining with the light of Christ in our sermon today. So I’m sure many of you have heard the legend of the lemmings, right? What’s the legend of the lemmings? Up in places like Norway and Sweden, there are these little animals. They’re maybe like a hamster or a gerbil or something like this, very similar, a little creature. And the legend of the lemmings is that, once a year, they all go and jump off a cliff into the sea. That’s not exactly right, although that is a legend. We’ll talk about how that became famous. But it’s based on something that does happen. So pretty often these lemmings will have these big, huge mass migrations, where just huge numbers of them will just pick up and all together start running across the landscape to some other place. And as they run across that landscape, they can do things which seem to be rather ridiculous, run straight headlong into a river or a stream or something of this nature. And that’s the basis of the legend of the lemmings running off of a cliff. But how did that idea become so popular? Of course, it was Disney. Back in the fifties, Disney produced a movie in which they showed, in real life, a bunch of lemmings running off of a cliff. And so that’s the source for why maybe your parents said, “Would you just run off a cliff like a lemming?” Meaning, are you just gonna follow the masses and the crowds and just do whatever they do because they’re doing it? But interestingly enough, knowing that background to the story helps us to see really what’s behind the masses of people in their confusion. So how did Disney get those lemmings to run off a cliff? They hired a lemming wrangler. And the lemming wrangler’s job was to feed those lemmings, raise those lemmings. I imagine that those lemmings really thought the lemming wrangler was a great guy, right? Whenever he showed up, they got fed, and he had to make them reproduce until he had this nice big, large mass of lemmings. And then one day, this individual who you think is so great and taking care of all your needs and whatever, drives you out to what seems like a really nice environment, right? You had been maybe housed in a barn somewhere in Norway, but now he took you out to this beautiful field, and he starts shooing you in the direction he wants you to go. You think this is the right way to go because my lemming wrangler is telling me where to go. And all of a sudden you start running with your fellow lemmings straight off a cliff. This was before those times, the times now where you see the things like “no animals were harmed in the making of this video.” That didn’t exist in the 1950s. It’s a great illustration, I think, for what happens to the masses of people around us. Because even as people collectively come to various moral positions which are contrary to the word of God, which will ultimately lead them to running off the cliff, the way that people come to various spiritual ideas which have an even worse consequence, running off the cliff to perdition—well, there’s someone behind that, the devil himself. And when God snatches us out of that by means of our calling, our election, our sanctification, so that we come to trust in His Word and trust in His grace and mercy, He’s snatching us away from this great mass of people and from the one who seeks to do us in. Praise be to God for that. That’s really at the heart of our message today. ‘Cause as we shine like lights, this is a call to live as Christians, to believe as Christians, and that’s always going to look different than the mass of people around us. And praise be to God for this. We’re gonna talk about this in our three points. First of all, we are going to talk about the point that the mass can be massively wrong. Second of all, we’re going to talk about that repentance is a matter of understanding that we as individuals stand under God’s law. So we as individuals stand under God’s law and we’ll be judged individually. Then finally, praise be to God, the Lord redeems us individually so that in turn, while we shine collectively as lights with our fellow Christians, yet this will be distinct and different than the rest of the world. The Mass Can Be Massively Wrong There’s another story from the 1950s that I’d like to tell you that helps you to see how the mass can be massively wrong. Most people, when they try to understand what’s good, what is right, or what is true, normally what they will do is they will look around at the people around them, and as long as their customs and practices and beliefs look within range of similarity of the people around them, they think that they’re at least right, or in the range of being right. And that’s the instinct that most people have, but that’s an instinct that can lead to really mass delusion. And there are documented examples of mass delusion. I think it was 1954, there was something called the Seattle Windshield Mass Delusion. What was the Seattle Windshield Mass Delusion? Basically, one night a police officer was walking around Seattle, and Seattle is a place where there’s a lot of houses close together—most people don’t have garages—and so the cars were sitting out in the driveways, and the lights are shining down and made it easier to see the surface of the windshields. And he noticed something. In so many of the windshields on the beat that he was walking, so many of these windshields had divots and pockmarks in them. It seemed like every other windshield had a divot or a pockmark in it. He went and he reported that to the newspaper. The newspaper picked up that story. They published it. What did everybody do as soon as they opened the newspaper? They went out and inspected their own windshields. Guess what they found? Divots. Pockmarks. “Something’s gotta be causing this,” people thought. And there were all kinds of theories. Some people theorized that gangs of young ruffians were going around with BB guns to put pockmarks in people’s windshields. And so people would stay up late trying to catch these young ne’er-do-wells, and cops began being on the lookout for these bands of boys causing all these problems. Other people thought that it was because there was nuclear fallout coming down and landing on the windshields and causing these pockmarks, so people began to panic that maybe there’s nuclear fallout falling on Seattle. And so people started going around with Geiger counters. There was a guy on the police force, and I’m guessing he was probably one of the least popular guys on the police force, right? ‘Cause he’s one of those contrarian guys. He didn’t go along with the crowds and the rest of his police officers looking for these ne’er-do-wells. He thought maybe there’s something else going on here. You know that guy. When you say something and everybody agrees on it, it’s, really? Usually not a very popular guy. And so what he decided to do when his beat came up, he wasn’t gonna walk around the driveways. He decided to go check out the new car lots. And guess what? No pock marks on the windshields of the new cars. What everybody had noticed and began thinking was some sort of massive conspiracy was just the normal wear and tear on an average car with probably less advanced glass technology than we have now. It’s as if everybody would’ve gotten panicked over the northern Wisconsin rust epidemic on cars. It just happens, right? It doesn’t mean people are going around putting rust on your cars. It just happens. It’s one of the most well-documented cases of mass delusion. And there are many examples of mass delusions, many examples of mass psychosis. There have been documented examples of entire countries of young women having a laughing epidemic. There are examples of werewolf panics in medieval Europe. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the masses around us can be and often are massively wrong. Paul saw this. What did he call the masses of people around him? A crooked and twisted generation. What about Ezekiel? Ezekiel looked around him and found a generation that too was massively wrong. It was the saying that he quoted, a saying that seemed to have been common in his age, that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and their children had their teeth set on edge. Evidently, it seemed like many in his generation were blaming their problems on the generations that had come before. Instead of honoring father and mother, they disregarded and disdained father and mother. Instead of taking personal accountability for the problems of their household and for the problems of their city and their nation, they blamed the ones who had come before them. That wasn’t the only problem that Ezekiel called out. Ezekiel also called attention to the sexual immorality of the people around him. And in addition to this, Ezekiel also focused in on the idolatry of his generation, of the people who ought to have been God’s people. They were practicing syncretism. Maybe they hadn

Sermon Title: Daily Repentance [Sermon] Sermon Text: Isaiah 55:6-9 Sermon Summary: The proper time for repentance is today, not years past or some future date. God invites us to daily confess our sins and covers us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 17, Proper 20 A Calendar Date: 2026-09-20 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420. Saint Peter’s serves Sister Bay and other area throughout Northeast Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You may be seated. Today we heard from the prophet Isaiah, “Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, and to our God for He will abundantly pardon.” And on the basis of this passage, we’re going to be taking up the theme that the proper time for repentance is today. Not sometime off in the future, not far off years ago, but rather instead today. A Pickup Truck Full of Rust Back in college, as many of you know, I had my dirt bag white water rafting guide days. And one summer I was getting ready and making the preparations for when I’d be guiding out west in Colorado. The place where I was gonna be guiding out west didn’t have a bunk house for the guides, and so we had to kind of provide our own arrangements for sleeping. And so I went and I looked around the community and I found a Dodge D-100, a 1989 Dodge D-100. You know, this is just before they transitioned to that more rounded body. It was still the boxy body, classic look. But what really set this pickup truck apart from just about any other that I could find, it had an eight-foot long bed. And for a six-foot long guy, that was the perfect size for me to live out of the back end for a summer, and that was my plan. I was literally going to use the bed of the pickup truck as a bed. Now, I ended up not needing it there. I found a literally one-room shack with no electric and no water that I lived in for the summer. So a bit of an upgrade over what I was looking to. But anyways, I still had this pickup truck. And as I was driving out west to Colorado from where I went to school in Indiana, I drove through Topeka, Kansas, where my granddad, a jack-of-all-trades farmer, lived. And my granddad saw the pickup truck and about lost his mind ’cause it was full of rust. He couldn’t stand the sight of that rust. And so he took me into his shop, handed me an angle grinder, and started showing me everywhere he wanted me to knock the rust off that vehicle, on the bumper, on the doors. And on the doors after I knocked that rust off the vehicle, he gave me a can of white primer, and he said, “Okay, go ahead and put this primer over it. Unfortunately, the day is getting short and I don’t have any top coat, but when you get out to Colorado, make sure you buy some top coat.” So across the country I go, out to Colorado in my baby blue pickup truck with white spots on the doors there. It looked like I was driving the sky there, like clouds in the sky. Off I went out west and, you know, I had a good intention. Yeah, when I get there, I will go ahead and buy that top coat. Friends, do you think I ever bought that top coat and painted over those white primer spots on my doors? No. It stayed that way for a few years until I finally sold it, and what was absolutely predictable happened, right? Eventually, the rust stains started showing through again, and eventually, well, I had big old holes in my doors. The Corrosion of Sin I’m here to tell you that we have a corrosion far more serious than rust on the side of a door. And that corrosion that we all have is the corrosion, the corruption of sin. And on the one hand, we might be like 21-year-old Chris Jackson and say, “You know, I’m gonna take care of that at some point in the future.” The fact of the matter is that the time to address that corruption, that corrosion of sin, it’s not at some ambiguous point in the future, but instead it is now. And that is the point that Isaiah was making to the people of God in Jerusalem about 2,700 years ago. Isaiah was telling the people of Jerusalem this: Now is the time to repent. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. What Isaiah was saying is this: You may think, people of Israel, that you have time to lay aside your sin. You may think that you have time to get rid of all those idols that you are hiding or maybe not even hiding but rather instead putting in full sight on your rooftops. You may think you have time for that. And you may think that you have time to reform your business practices by which you defraud one another. Instead of using your business to serve one another, instead you are using it to defraud one another. You have time to reform those practices, but the time is now. You don’t know about the future. The Day to Repent Is Now And brothers and sisters in Christ, that is a message as pertinent today as when it was first preached by Isaiah so many thousands of years ago. And that’s a message that we as well need to hear. Oh, we may think that we have time to lay aside whatever our besetting sins are. Maybe this is the abuse of alcohol. Maybe this is lust. Maybe this is greed. Whatever it is, we may think that we have time, but the fact of the matter is that the Lord has not guaranteed the next day, let alone the next breath. This was driven home recently to me and my family. Right now she didn’t end up going, but right now my wife’s classmates from high school are celebrating their 20th anniversary of their graduation with a reunion. And an email went out pointing out the fact that of her class 20 years ago, these are people still in their 40s mind you, but of their class 20 years ago, 30 people in her class have already passed away. And as a 46-year-old man, I look around and it seems like every other day I hear about a guy my age that’s drawing his last breath. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the day to repent is now. Not far off at some future date. But rather, God calls each of us to daily confess our sins. We’re gonna talk about that a little bit more in a minute. To daily confess our sins, and God, who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In other words, if we confess our sins, God will in fact remove that rust from us far better than I could with that angle grinder, and God will cover us over with something better than an automotive top coat. But instead, He will cover us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. A righteousness which he earned for us through a holy life that he lived for our sakes, and an atoning death that he died for our sins. It Is Never Too Late to Repent Now on the other hand, there may be some of us present who know that their days maybe are a little bit more numbered than others, but who think that the opportunity for repentance has far passed. Maybe the years have grown long and the sunset is in view. And we look back upon our lives, and all of a sudden we understand how we have failed to do as God has commanded, and we think that maybe there is not time to get right with God, and that time has passed. And to this we have this beautiful parable that the Lord Jesus Christ preached. The parable of the master of the vineyard, this generous master who gives to all of his workers equally, whether they came in the cool of the morning or as the day was waning, he gives to each of them the same reward. And so it is with our God. Whether we have come to Christ as an infant, as Leighton was just baptized, or whether we come to Christ at late age, God’s grace and mercy remains the same. And it is able to cover over all of our sins. And so my message for you is this, is that repentance is not something that we ought to have done far back years ago, nor is repentance something that we can delay for some future date, but rather instead, the proper moment of repentance is right now. And this applies for each and every one of us. A Life of Daily Repentance I’d like for you to open up your hymnals to page 325. Page 325. So this is the Small Catechism, which, in a great blessing, is included in our hymnals, and on page 325 we have the Small Catechism’s discussion of the sacrament of holy baptism. And on the right-hand column, down towards the middle of the column, there’s the fourth part of the teachings regarding the sacrament of holy baptism. And it asks this question, “What does such baptizing with water indicate?” I’d like for you all to read the answer along with me. “It indicates that the old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” This is a beautiful representation of the Lutheran teaching regarding repentance. There are some Christians who teach that repentance is maybe a one-time occasion in your life, or maybe something if you backslide that maybe you do a few times, or maybe even once a year when the revival season comes around. For those who have this viewpoint, repentance is an infrequent activity. There are other Christians who maybe believe that repentance is a little bit more frequent. Maybe repentance is something that you do every few months or every m

Sermon Title: The Power to Forgive [Sermon] Sermon Text: Matthew 18:21-34 Sermon Summary: Forgiveness is not a power that lies in us but a gift God bestows through the gospel. He transforms our hearts so we can forgive from the heart, as Jesus commands, and receive the blessings that ripple out to others. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 16 Proper 19 A Calendar Date: 2026-09-13 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, E5221 Church Road, Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Back when I was Sunday school aged, at the age of five years old, my dad, for whom the faith was a very important thing to him, asked me a question. He said, “Christopher, what did Jesus do for you?” And I answered him, “Jesus died to take away my sins.” And oh, my dad was so proud. You know, the buttons on his shirt burst and he was so happy that his son knew that essential fact of the gospel. And then I turned right around and said, “Jesus should give them back.” Little five-year-old Chris Jackson couldn’t comprehend forgiveness. Couldn’t understand it. It didn’t make sense to him, right? So if someone wanted to take something from me, it was probably something that I wanted, right? If my little brother wanted to take my He-Man figurine from me, it’s because that He-Man figurine was super cool, and he wanted it. If my parents would take something from me, you know, maybe I had found my dad’s screwdriver and was playing with that, and my parents took that away from me, that was something good that I kinda wanted, but they didn’t want me to have, right? It was totally incomprehensible to me, and actually it is incomprehensible that someone would want to take something that is worthless from you. And more than worthless, something that could actually hurt you and harm you. The point that I’m getting at is this: that the forgiveness of God, his grace and mercy, is something that the mind cannot comprehend. Something Bigger Than Us It goes beyond our understanding. And praise be to God for this, that because it is something that goes beyond our understanding, it is therefore something that we can trust in, something bigger than us, something that we can have faith in. And the grace and mercy of God is not something that we receive by means of the mind, but rather it’s something that we receive by means of the heart as we trust in him, right? That has everything to do with what we are going to be talking about today. Because today we saw Jesus asking us to do something which seems incomprehensible. Something that there’s no way we can accomplish it, and that’s the point. That forgiveness is not a power that lies in us, but instead it is a power of God. And it is a power that He bestows upon the Christian as we receive His grace, as we receive His mercy, as we receive His forgiveness. God empowers us to do that which seems incomprehensible. That’s the third theme of our sermon today, the power to forgive. The Power to Forgive Because truth be told, what God asks us to do here seems beyond us. It certainly seemed beyond Peter, right? Peter came up and said to Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” And Peter thought that that in itself would be a fairly generous thing to do. But Jesus blows that out of the water, says, “No, I tell you, not seven times, but 70 times seven.” And Jesus even goes beyond this. Because Jesus qualifies what this forgiveness ought to look like. And this is not just an external kind of maintaining appearances. It’s not just being polite to the individual that you feel has wronged you. It’s much deeper than that. Jesus, at the end of our reading today: “And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers,” the unforgiving servant, right? “Until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” Oh, Jesus. Why did you have to add those last three words there, from your heart? Because, you know, I can make a good effort at doing things externally, right? I can seem to keep the commands at least in an external way. I can keep up pretenses well enough. From the heart, that’s a different matter. God Demands Purity of the Heart I mean, God demands purity of the heart. That’s why I find the ninth and 10th commandments to be the hardest commandments, right? Thou shalt not murder. And certainly, you know, I have not taken an innocent man’s blood with my hands, but according to the ninth commandment, you shall not covet, which have to do with our heart. Jesus says, “Look, even if you have hatred in your heart against your brother, you are a murderer.” And He does this with all the other commandments, by the way. The fact of the matter is that God sees our hearts and cares about our hearts, even in a sense, even more than the external actions. And those external actions themselves can be hard to control. I mean, just yesterday, I obviously would like to shed a few pounds. But just yesterday I spent multiple hours cleaning up the toilet paper that showed up in my yard again, because I’ve got high schoolers, got a few more years to deal with that issue. Okay? So I’m out there cleaning up the toilet paper. We’re still not done, but we’re making headway against it here. I’m out there cleaning it up for hours in the morning and into the afternoon, and I even took a late lunch just to kinda keep on working. Finally, I come in, and it was kind of a hot, muggy day yesterday. And, you know, I fixed my lunch, and I take my dish over to the sink, and right next to the sink is the refrigerator with that freezer underneath. And in that freezer was some nice creamy vanilla ice cream. And I knew I shouldn’t, but after that hot morning and afternoon, I knew that would taste so good. And so, yeah, I scooped myself a little bit of ice cream there yesterday afternoon. What am I getting at? We can do a halfway decent job at putting on the external show. But even there, it’s easy for us to crack, and it’s hard for us to control ourselves externally. And certainly when it comes to forgiveness, we might be able, as I said, keep up those pretenses, be polite, be at least neutral. Lord, I have a hard enough time controlling my hands when it comes to the freezer. How can I control my heart? And that’s the point, brothers and sisters: that when it comes to the demand of God to forgive the brother from the heart, something that goes beyond the way the secular gurus talk about forgiveness. I mean, you can hear secular people talking about forgiveness, but it’s all about, like, mentally moving on and, you know, getting freedom from that. But Christian forgiveness is different. Christian forgiveness isn’t just about the psyche, it’s about the heart. And it is not just about what you can gain from forgiveness, although there is much to gain from it, but it’s also about the love that the Lord desires for you to pour out for the neighbor. And that, my friends, is not something that you can accomplish for yourself. That is something that can only happen by the power of God. Solemn Warnings And the Lord has given us many blessings unto that end. First of all, the Lord has given us solemn warnings in the holy scriptures about the danger of unforgiveness, and those warnings can be hard to hear, and yet they are necessary for us to hear, and it is good for us to hear those warnings. We heard one of those warnings this morning. “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” We have another warning that is so important that the Lord incorporated it in the prayer that he taught us to pray. “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And those are some very hard words to pray and to read. They’re a good reminder to us about the danger that comes alongside a lack of forgiveness. You see, if we harden our hearts against our neighbor, then we may run the risk of hardening them to a place of total hardness against our neighbor’s creator, God himself. And if our hearts are hard against our neighbors so that we do not forgive, then they may become so hardened that we do not receive the forgiveness that the Lord desires to give us, a forgiveness that we can only receive by means of faith, hearts that look to God in trust. It’s a stern warning, but it’s a good warning that we must hear and heed. The Lord also empowers us unto forgiveness by means of putting before our eyes the blessings that come along with forgiveness. Blessings for ourselves, blessings for others as well. The Example of Joseph We have a beautiful example of this in the example of Joseph. Right? Now, his brothers sought a measure of forgiveness from Joseph, but it was just a measure of it. They thought, “Look, because of what we did to Joseph, perhaps he will have us put to death. In fact, he probably will. So let’s do this instead. Let’s concoct this story about our father, and then in addition to that, we will offer ourselves up to him as slaves.” So the idea is Joseph could have us killed. Probably the best that we could ask for is to be his slaves instead. And so therefore, they come into his courtroom. They throw themselves down at his feet. They beg him to make them their slaves. But the forgiveness that Joseph had was such an incredible forgiveness that instead of letting them sit there groveling face to foot, he lifts them up so that they can look to him eye to eye. And he welcomes them into his palace, and he sets a feast before them, and he eats

Sermon Title: Worldly Sacrifice for the Sake of Christ Sermon Text: Mathew 16:21-28 Sermon Summary: Worldly sacrifices are not sacrifices at all. Giving up our sins is pure gain, and even good things we lay aside are exchanged for the gospel and the gift of eternal life. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 14, Proper 17 A Calendar Date: 2026-08-30 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Ephraim and other areas in Northeastern Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” And on the basis of this, we’re going to be talking about the theme that worldly sacrifices aren’t sacrifices at all. I have stared directly into the eyes of evil, evil incarnate. Black eyes, just as black as night. And around the eye it was a face full of hair, shaggy hair, and that shaggy hair went all down its body. The face of evil that I stared into stood about two and a half feet off the ground. His name was McGregor. He was a Portuguese water dog. He was the dog that Mary and I first owned when we first got married. And we had to get rid of him. He was a threat to our family. He developed these very strong opinions about a few things, and if you went against that opinion the teeth would start to flash, and the voice would start to snarl, and we just could not have this creature in our home. It was very scary and certainly when you had little kids in the house, just completely not something that we needed at all. So we ended up getting rid of him. But here’s the thing, it took us far longer than it probably should have to get rid of him. And it was maybe a little bit sad when we got rid of him. We certainly liked him in some ways, even though he was categorically evil. And isn’t this just like our sins, brothers and sisters in Christ? Amen. Which while they do much harm to us, they do much harm to others, yet we cling so closely to them. But with these words, Jesus invites us to lay aside our sins, to, as the theologians say, crucify the mortal flesh or to mortify the flesh. And that’s part of what we’re going to be talking about today. We’re going to be talking about the fact that simply giving up the evil things of this world, it’s pure gain. Even the good things that Christ our Lord asks us to sacrifice, we sacrifice those good things for the sake of better things. And of all those better things that the Lord grants us, eternal life is chief among them. Giving Up the Evil Things of This World Is Pure Gain Let’s think on that first point. Simply giving up the evil things of this world is pure gain. Back to that dog McGregor, certainly there were some things that we enjoyed about him. He brought certain pleasures. I remember one of the things I really enjoyed when our kids were little and we’d walk the dog to the playground in the neighborhood, and the dog would come along, and the kids were there, and all the neighborhood kids were around there. I actually had this thing trained that he could climb up the eight-foot-tall slide and slide down that slide, and literally the entire playground of kids would—their jaws would be dropping to see this shaggy dog climbing up the slide and going down the slide. Gained a little bit of neighborhood notoriety through that. And certainly, it was fun to pet him when he was in a good mood. There were certainly some things that we enjoyed about him. Nonetheless, he was a threat to us and to our family, and isn’t this so much like our sins? The sin of bearing a grudge. The sin of holding on to bitterness. This is a sin. Let’s have no mistake about it. We pray after all, “Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We ought to forgive even as we have been forgiven. We have freely received, so also ought we to freely give, and yet it feels so good sometimes to cling to that bitterness, to cling to that grudge. What does that grudge, that bitterness let you do? It lets you put someone lower than you. It lets you look down your nose. You say, “You have done this to me, therefore you are less than me, and I have this leverage over you now.” Don’t get me wrong here. If we are wronged, yes, there can be frustration, sorrow, anger. But the nursing of a bitterness or the nursing of a grudge is holding that against somebody. And that is indeed a thing of status. That can feel good in a way. It can feel good to hold yourself up and above somebody else. And yet it’s ultimately destructive. If we hold and nurse bitterness and grudges to those around us, it cuts us off from relationship with them. There can be no relationship with others without forgiveness. And so therefore, when we nurse that bitterness, when we nurse that grudge, we cut ourselves off from the love that the Lord desires of us to give that individual and the love that the Lord desires for us to receive back from that individual. It’s destructive. Harmful. What about other sins? What about the sin of being given to drunkenness? There comes some certain worldly pleasures with that. The thrill of letting go, the freedom maybe from anxieties or cares or regrets or sorrows or whatever it is. I can give you some relief from that momentarily. But with drunkenness comes ill health. Drunkenness comes as well potentially a threat to others and to our own safety. Drunkenness maybe comes with activity that we later regret. And that too is its own kind of destruction and danger. What about the sin of lust or promiscuity? Same thing. In the moment, a thrill, but in the end, heartbreak, sorrow, destruction. When Christ invites us to take up our cross and to follow him, it’s an incredibly pregnant phrase, and I don’t want to reduce it to any one thing. But at the very least, part of what Christ is inviting us to do is to repent of our sins. To lay aside these worthless things. And that’s pure gain. When we gave up that dog, what did we gain? We gained a sense of safety. We gained a sense of relief. We got a place in our house that we could get a much better dog that you see Sunday to Sunday sitting at our porch, that we love her so much. It was pure gain. And the invitation to repent of our sins, that too is pure gain. Yes, there may be some things from a worldly perspective that are lost, but truly those things are not losses. It’s all pure gain. Laying Aside Good Things for the Sake of Better Things Now, when Christ invites us to take up our cross and follow him, on the one hand there is an invitation to lay aside the worthless things of the sinful flesh. On the other hand, there is also an invitation to take up and to receive the means by which the work of the cross comes upon us in our lives. To lay aside the good things that the Lord does give us for the sake of better things. Now, sometimes the Lord invites us to lay aside good things for the sake of better things. We can see this right exactly in this passage by the way. And we think about the context in which Jesus is saying this passage. Jesus is answering Peter, right? This is in the midst of this dialogue and this back and forth with Peter where Jesus says, “Look, the time is coming and coming soon when I’m going to travel to Jerusalem, I’m going to be rejected, I’m going to be killed, and on the third day rise.” And Peter says, “This is never going to happen to you.” And Jesus rebukes Peter, and then on the basis of that, he then goes on and says, “If anyone would be my disciple, he must take up his cross, deny himself, and follow me.” And think about this in the context of Peter. Because that call to Peter was certainly a call to lay aside what I would call objectively good things. Now, this is different from Matthew, right? Matthew was this tax collector, and we think of tax collectors today, and we think of some disinterested bureaucrat in a faraway office who makes a paltry little salary from the government and who has all kinds of laws and regulations and procedures all around what he does. This was not the case with a tax collector in the time of the Roman Empire. Roman tax collectors were businessmen. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a businessman at all, if the business is legitimate and isn’t exploitative. But that’s the thing about the way the tax business was structured. You were required as a tax collector to have a certain amount of taxes to collect and to hand over to the Romans, and one of the ways that you made money was adding a little bit for yourself on the top. And right away you can see the ability to be exploitative. And so there’s this tinge to Matthew’s background, right? Peter, it’s hard to find anything like that, right? Think about the way that Peter made his daily bread. It’s hard to think of anything more wholesome, right? He’s a fisherman, and he goes out and he toils, sometimes late into night, forgoing sleep. He toils when the sun comes up under the harsh Mediterranean sun. He’s literally earning his bread by the sweat of his brow. He’s risking his life for the sake of this. And his business is just giving food to people. It’s hard to think of anything more wholesome than that. And then on top of that, he seems to be fairly successful at what he does to some degree. He seems to own this property, which is big enough that he can play host to his mother-in-law, and he’s an established member of Capernaum there and seems to be known in the synagogue. Peter is a model of an upstanding man embedded in his community, good to his family, and who earns his way through honest, wholesome work, right? That’s not to say he wasn’t a sinner, bu

Sermon Title: The Christian’s Relationship to Civil AuthoritySermon Text: Romans 10:1-13Sermon Summary: Civil authorities are instituted by God for our wellbeing and are to be obeyed unless they command what is contrary to his word. God also rules his people inwardly by transforming hearts through the gospel of Jesus Christ.Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. JacksonLiturgical Date: Pentecost 15, Proper 18 ACalendar Date: 2026-09-06Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County Saint Peter’s serves Sister Bay and other locations in Northeast Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we are taking up the theme that civil authority is instituted by God for our wellbeing. La tema del sermon, la autoridad civil es instituida por Dios para nuestro bien. So today we are taking up that theme on the basis of our reading from Romans chapter 13. “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” And on the basis of this we’re going to be taking up three points. First of all, that civil authorities are instituted by God. That therefore, second point, civil authorities are to be obeyed insofar as they do not require anything contrary to the word of God. But then finally we’re going to be talking about the fact that God rules in another way besides the civil authorities. Rule not of external compulsion, but rather instead a rule of the heart by means of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A rule that he exercises over his people. So let’s think of that first point. Civil Authorities Are Instituted by God Civil authorities are instituted by God, and the scriptures are absolutely 100% clear about this. It doesn’t get any more clear than Saint Paul saying, “There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Now I want you to take a look at the end of verse one there in Romans chapter 13. Let me ask you a question. Do you see an asterisk? Do you see a footnote? No. You see a period. They have been instituted by God, period. No ifs, no ands, no buts, no asterisks, no footnotes. God is Lord of all, and therefore nothing happens apart from His will. And when it comes to the government, when it comes to civil authorities, it is God who has established them in their place. Now, in God’s wisdom, God does, on occasion, settle people into civil authority or groups into civil authority which are unrighteous and unholy, and go against the will of God. As Christians, we are very aware of this, and yet we understand that God has His purposes, which we may not fully understand. Think about the civil authorities in the time of St. Paul. St. Paul was very familiar with civil authorities in various ways. He, for example, was aware of the fact that the Jewish civil authorities brought Jesus forward in order for Him to be tried in front of Pontius Pilate, the Roman authority, and eventually killed. St. Paul wasn’t there, but St. Paul also knew of the fact that Pontius Pilate was an unrighteous man and had betrayed what is good and what is true. He knew that even while Pontius Pilate knew the truth that Jesus Christ had done nothing wrong, had no deserving of death in Him, yet he gave Him over to be crucified. Pontius Pilate knew this from the inside. Or rather, I should say, St. Paul knew this from the inside. St. Paul, after all, before he was converted to Jesus Christ, used the political system in order to extradite believers from Damascus, for example, from various places back to Jerusalem in order to be persecuted there. And in many ways, he was probably the right man for that job, both as a Jew and as a Roman citizen, and an educated one at that. He was able to play in both parts of that political system, and to his own evil ends. St. Paul understood that yes, there can be evil actors in civil authority, and they may do things and command things which are unrighteous, and yet St. Paul is convinced of this fact that they are all in that authority by the power of God, and their exercising of evil is contrary to the will of God, which God’s will is to bless us by means of their authority, which brings us to our second point. Civil Authorities Are to Be Obeyed Insofar as They Do Not Command Anything Contrary to the Will of God The civil authorities are to be obeyed insofar as they do not command anything contrary to the will of God. So God has established authority for a very clear purpose, that it may go well for us. We see this in His institution of authority, for example, in His discussion of authority in the fourth commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” We’ve always understood that, by the way, to, yes, talk about the authority that father and mother have, but we also understand that this applies as well to all other forms of authority on Earth. And that’s the first command with a promise. Honor your father and mother, honor authority in order that it may go well with you all the days of your life. And I’m convinced Saint Paul has this in mind in part as he discusses the civil authorities, where he says this, that “Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.” And so therefore, we are called to obey civil authority externally in part so that things might go well. Things might go well for us, things might go well for those around us as well. Through civil authority come things like traffic laws, which order our traffic so that we don’t go running into each other willy-nilly. Through civil authority comes the various laws by which we’re able to hold up a contract so that we can do business one with another in ways that are predictable and expectable and are down to our mutual wellbeing. Through civil authority comes protection from all kinds of powers which would seek to undo us. Through civil authority, for example, comes protection from fire which might consume our homes if it’s not suppressed, protection from criminals who would rob us and deprive us of the things that the Lord has given us for the upkeep of our bodies and for the wellbeing of those in our households as well. And it is for this purpose in part that Saint Paul encourages Christians to be obedient to authority. And notice St. Paul doesn’t really give, once again, much of an exception. Now there are ways in which clearly Christians are not called to obey civil authority in some matters. We’ll get to that in a minute. But that’s a very high bar that is there, right? It’s a very high bar. St. Paul doesn’t say, “Obey civil authority insofar as you like the person who is in authority.” Saint Paul doesn’t say obey civil authority insofar as you agree in your personal judgments with the various laws. He says, “Obey so it might go well with you, and as well so it might go well with others.” It’s been a little concerning to me, quite frankly, that many Christians are appealing to various kinds of unscriptural things to work out for themselves various easings of conscience with regards to their relationship with the civil authorities, and with law. God’s Word will have none of it. God calls us to be obedient insofar as what we’re called to do does not expressly violate the will of God. And there’s precedent for this as Christians as well. In the time of the early church, there were things that were being commanded by the civil authority, which clearly did go contrary to the will of God. So for example, it was commanded by the civil authorities in the early Christian times, at various times and various places, to render pagan sacrifice, to sacrifice to the pagan gods, or to make an allegiance to Caesar as if he is God. He certainly claimed at times the title of the Son of God. And Christians refused to do this, and they refused to do this oftentimes to the shedding of their own blood. It’s a big reason why Christians were persecuted, were rounded up, were taken and were put in front of gladiators and wild animals in the various circuses, in the coliseums around the Mediterranean world. Christians refused to render unto Caesar what is God’s, even while they gladly rendered unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, including tax, revenue, honor, respect, and so on. And as Christians, we are called in like manner to do the same thing, to render these things to the civil authorities, but to never render to them anything that belongs to God alone. And the greatest thing that is owed to God above all is our hearts. We love the civil authorities and render them honor and respect, but we do not allow them to take a place in our hearts where only God ought to be. We do not make a God out of civil authorities, but instead we recognize that they stand under the one true God. God Rules His People by the Gospel And God rules over us therefore as Christians, yes, through civil authority, through the stick and the carrot of the law. And St. Paul talks about that, right? So he gives approval to those who do good. There is your carrot. And then he says, “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.” And there is the stick. But as Christians, we render obedience to the civil authorities for a far greater reason and a far greater purpose, not simply externally, of external compulsion, but rather out of internal desire to honor and to love God, who has established the civil authority. God rules over us Christians above all, not through the external compulsion of stick and carrot, but rather through the internal formation of the heart. God transforms our heart

Title: Office of the Keys: Heart of the Church [Sermon]Text: Matthew 16:19Liturgical Date: Pentecost 13, Proper 16 ACalendar Date: August 23, 2026Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. JacksonLocation: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County. 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420. Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County serves Luxemburg, Wisconsin, and other areas around Northeast Wisconsin. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we heard these words from Christ Jesus, our Lord: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” And on the basis of this passage, we’re going to be taking up the theme of the heart of the church. My Grandmother’s Home As many of you know, last weekend I was out of the pulpit here at St. Peter’s as I traveled to Greeley, Colorado for two purposes. I’ll talk about one of those purposes in a little bit. But the first purpose was to lay my beloved grandmother to rest. A lovely, fine Christian lady. Lived to the age of 98, a blessed end, and really a very beloved woman to me and to our whole family. We laid her to rest last weekend. And when I think about my grandmother, I think about many things. One of the things I think about is her home in Warsaw, Missouri. This was her retirement home with my grandfather, Hugh, who himself had been ordained into the ministry, was a pastor as well. And their retirement home there in Warsaw, Missouri, to me was a palace. It was maybe one of the greatest houses on the planet. It was just a really special place. No better place than my grandmother’s home. Now, I started to look at it in a little bit different light, however, when she was getting ready to move away from there. After my grandfather died and she wanted to move closer to my mother, her daughter in Greeley, Colorado, and she was getting it ready to sell, and I was there in my last visit to that home, looking around. Seeing with Different Eyes And the way I perceived things was a little bit different because I started looking at it not from the eyes of an adoring grandson, but rather from the eyes of a potential buyer, and what I saw was shocking to me. So I looked into the kitchen, the source of so much love from her, right? And I think the house had been built in the ’70s and, go figure, that linoleum was straight from 1974. Countertops, same deal, and cheap ones at that. Cabinets, really nothing special. Pretty cheap and crummy. Really not a nice kitchen at all. And then I went and looked at the dining room. This source of great joy as we gather around the table to eat that delicious grandmother food. And I looked down at the floor and my grandfather Hugh was a big man. I mean, he was 6’6” in his prime, muscular, and had other forms of body mass as well due to my grandmother’s good cooking. Huge man. And I looked down at the floor and I realized, oh my goodness, the place where he had scooted his chair in and out at mealtime over the years, he had worn grooves down to the subfloor, right straight through the carpeting and the padding because he was such a big man and just had put that pressure on there. Holes in the carpeting. I looked up at the ceiling. This is a Christian home, so we prayed up to the Lord, right? And I looked at the ceiling and realized popcorn ceilings from 1974, but misapplied and therefore really pretty splotchy. A lot of that popcorn had come down. And I looked at the walls and, for a few years there my grandfather was in a motorized wheelchair, and I looked at the walls about four inches up from the ground and well, he had rubbed grooves in many of the walls where the wheels of his wheelchair had hit the walls, right? Cheap doors. Just a really honest-to-goodness kind of a crummy house. And I never realized it before. I had been completely oblivious to it. Why was it a palace in my view? It’s because while the externals weren’t amazing, the internals were all correct. She had attended to the heart of the home. It was a place of love, affection, good food. It was a restful place. One of the few places on Earth where I’ve ever felt truly at ease, and above all, centered on Christ Jesus the Lord. And because of that, to me, it was a palace. Our Spiritual Home Our home, brothers and sisters in Christ, is in heaven. And that’s a palace beyond compare. And we all look forward to that and anticipate that, but until we get to heaven, the Lord has granted us a home, a spiritual home here on Earth in the Holy Christian Church and in St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. And what our sermon is about today is remaining attentive to the heart of what it means to be a spiritual home here on Earth. That we remain attentive to the heart of what it means to be the church. And it’s all tied in to what you probably learned back in catechism class, the Office of the Keys. Let’s review it. I’d like for you to open up your hymnals to page 326. Open up your hymnals to page 326. The Office of the Keys On the left-hand column, about three quarters of the way down, there’s a question there: What is the Office of the Keys? I’m going to ask you to read the answer along with me. What is the Office of the Keys? The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His Church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent. All right, so now the Office of the Keys actually has three primary texts that we draw it from in Scripture. In our gospel lesson, we read one of them in Matthew 16, and another very important passage which addresses the Office of the Keys is John chapter 20. Let’s read that together. Where is this written? This is what Saint John the Evangelist writes in chapter 20: “The Lord Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’” In a way, there we see the carrying out of what Christ promised in Matthew 16. Christ promised, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.” Here in chapter 20, He actually does the deed and gives the disciples the keys. All right. Now let’s take a look at the final question regarding this. What do you believe according to these words? I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain—even in heaven—as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself. The Loosing Key and the Binding Key Now, when we usually think of the Office of the Keys, and it is in the Small Catechism written in the section dealing with confession and absolution, we usually associate it just with confession and absolution, but really it applies to all the means of grace. It applies to all the ways the Lord opens up the kingdom of heaven to us by means of His grace and mercy, which Christ so lavishly won for us on the cross. Through His blessed death, through His holy resurrection, Christ Jesus has opened the kingdom of heaven to us. And the Lord extends that grace to us through means, through the means of, well, we actually just sang about it in Built on the Rock, through the Word of God as it’s proclaimed, through holy baptism, through the Lord’s Supper. These are the means the Lord has given us to extend that grace and mercy, and that’s the loosing key. And that’s the key, the loosing key, to release us from our sins and from our bondage to death, and our bondage to the devil, and on the one hand to close the gates of hell to us, but on the other hand to open the doors of heaven to us. That’s the key that the church wants to exercise, and that’s the key that ultimately God wants to exercise as well. We have fancy theological terms for this, like the proper work of the church, and so on. But this is, to put a short explanation, this is what we want, right? This is what all our ministry leads up to: to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life through that forgiveness. Now, on the other hand, we have the binding key. So on the right hand is the loosing key, the key of the gospel. In the other hand is the key of the law, the key by which we bind sins to those who are unrepentant. And we do this through the proclaiming of the law sometimes, unfortunately, as well through Christian discipline within the congregation. And when we boil it down, the Office of the Keys is really the one work proper to the church. It’s really the one thing that separates the church from every other organization on Earth. Now, it doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that the church does or should do. We should do a lot of different things, right? Office of the Keys: What Is Proper to the Church So, and I praise God for all of these other things that the church gets involved in. For example, our sister congregation, St. John’s, last two weekends a group of men went with Lutheran Emergency Response Teams, or Early Response Teams, to help clean up after the tornadoes down in Menasha. So friends of yours that I’m sure you know, Glenn Smith, Randy Klott, and Todd Althoff rode went down to do that. Praise be to God for this. The church should be doing this. It’s an outgrowth of who we are in Christ. We who have received a heavenly home therefore are glad to serve others when it comes to their earthly homes. Praise be to God for this. But here’s the thing: you don’t need to be a part of a church to do that kind of work, right? Now, it’s good that w