Sermons 2025

SERMON OUTLINE
God’s creation versus our “creation”
Created with purpose
Ex nihilo versus nihilism
You are “fearfully and wonderfully made”
Our hands still make a mess of things
Our Lord’s hand is still at work
The Word through whom all things were made
The perfect image of God
He has re-created us
We are now His workmanship
Our hands are now blessed because He does the work through them

SERMON

Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed! Alleluia!]

Christ, the one through whom all things were created, has been raised! He is the hand of the Lord, our Creator, at work for us!

Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed! Alleluia!]

It is very satisfying to make something with your hands. From cooking a meal, woodworking, to working on a car, from building a shed to repairing something that was broken. It involves intentionality and purpose to bring something to fruition. It is very fulfilling to make something of beauty, order, and functionality out of this often-chaotic world in which we live. 

From Genesis, we know that our Lord loves to create with order in mind. Three and three. God creates the space then He fills the space. He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. God created everything ex nihilo, “out of nothing.” We need something to work with: the raw materials and so on. The Lord did not need any of that. Simply by speaking, He brought everything into existence. The last of His creatures was man, whom He formed in His own image, with His own fingers, from the dirt. “Male and female He created them” (1:27) to be the stewards of this creation. Humanity has meaning and purpose because God has made us with intention. God made all of this out of nothing, ex nihilo.

Sadly, some have bought into the lie that this world is just the result of a series of accidents resulting from matter that has always existed. But if you follow that thinking to its logical conclusion, a world that was not created with intention gives no reason to value  human life, truth, right and wrong, and certainly not beauty. They fall into the trap of nihilism, that nothing matters at all, and it devastates many in our fallen world.

But you not a mistake nor an accident of nature. Each one of you was made by our gracious Creator. Each one of you was made with intention and love. David writes this in Psalm 139, “For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well” (vv. 13–14). The Lord has also formed and shaped you. He has given each of you a DNA set from the moment of conception. He gave you a heart that began to beat in the early weeks of life. Even your unique fingerprints started to form in the first trimester. As technology increases its capabilities of observation, the wonder and awe at God’s creation of the human body does not decrease. It increases! Each of you has been “knitted together” in your mother’s womb. You are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” That is God’s hand at work still today.

God has created us with a purpose and made us into stewards of His creation. Even in our limited ways, the Lord has gifted us with the desire to make and fashion this world with order, function, and beauty. 

This desire has been marred by sin in this fallen world. We cannot farm the land without the sweat of our brow (Genesis 3:19). Creation seems untamable and beyond our control. Our sin twists and distorts the creative endeavors of our hands into the desire to be more than creatures. 

Our sin leads us to think that we can simply take things into our own hands and make ourselves according to our own plans, neglecting God’s created order. There is a reason why this world is fallen. We are the cause of it. Sin has been brought into God’s creation because Adam and Eve thought they were better off being their own gods. And the work of human hands has wrought catastrophe. It didn’t take long before Cain had the blood of his brother Abel on his hands. We see the continued effects of it across the world in the sinful assault on people created in the image of God. Lord, have mercy! We have so marred the image of God to make it unrecognizable. The work of our hands leads to death. Our attempt at re-creating paradise only leads to greater failure and exhaustion. Our only hope is that the hand of the Lord is still at work.

In John 1:1, we hear, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” And in verse 14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
That Word is Jesus. Everything has been made through Jesus. He is the hand of the Lord at work. He took on real flesh-and-blood human hands in the incarnation. He became like one of us in every respect except sin (Hebrews 4:15; 2 Corinthians 5:21). He is God in all His creative power in the flesh. He is the only one who can re-create this world that we have made into a chaotic mess. 

Jesus has restored the image of God to us. Colossians 1:15 says Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” He took our humanity into His hands and died for us in order to redeem us. All throughout our Lenten series, Jesus’ hand has been at work to set this world right, casting out demons, healing diseases, and raising the dead. All this work testifies to who He is as the One through whom all things were created. All of it testifies to the fact that He is the beginning of a new creation that only God could make happen. He is the only one who can forgive sins. He did all the work that was necessary to atone for our sins on the cross on a Friday, the sixth day of the week. It was the day when He completed all that He had come to do. When He said, “It is finished,” there was nothing left to do (John 19:30). And on Holy Saturday, the seventh day, the Sabbath, He rested from all His labor in the tomb. He did not stay in that tomb but rose from the dead!

Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed! Alleluia!]

He rose on a Sunday, for which we are now celebrating. Sunday is the eighth day, the first day of a new week. Sunday is the day of a new creation. For Christ’s resurrection is different from all the other times when people were raised from the dead in Scriptures. All those who were raised died again. But He rose from the dead to never die again (Romans 6:9). Christ’s resurrection is the beginning. For a day is coming when all of creation will be restored. The whole of creation will be renewed on the day of His return. Those who reject Him will be raised to judgment. But all who believe in Him will be raised to everlasting life!

How is it that we believe? Until the day when Jesus comes again, God is still creating out of nothing. By the Word of God, which is outside of us, God speaks into our ears. He creates faith in people who were once far off, and brings them near. This faith is not our work. It is merely the open hands that receive what He has accomplished. It is all a good and gracious gift. Just as Paul says in Ephesians 2:8–9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Faith itself is a gift and God’s work. Faith does not look inward but always looks outward holding onto God’s promises: His creating, redeeming, and sanctifying Word; His promises splashed on us in Holy Baptism; and His promises fed to us in Jesus’ body and blood at the Lord’s Supper. We can never do enough to accomplish rest. But because of His work, we live in Christ’s Sabbath rest, accomplished by the cross. Our salvation does not depend on us but solely on the work of Christ, the Word made flesh, God and man, for us!

Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed! Alleluia!]

Paul continues in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” As people redeemed by the work of His hand, we are His workmanship. Even the good works that we do come from Him. They flow from the faith we have been given. Our good works are not a basis for our salvation nor do they improve our standing before God. For we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. We have no need to justify ourselves by the work of our hands. Instead, God now uses our hands to do the “good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” He has given us these good works, and He given our heads everything needed, that we may love and serve our neighbors simply because our neighbors are in need. Our God, who has created, redeemed, and sanctified us, gets all the glory!

God’s creative work has been shown in Christ! His glorious power to save us has been shown in us as He saves and recreates us. We have favor with God because Jesus’ hands were pierced. His blood was shed for the forgiveness of our sins. But those nail-marked hands are the hands of the One who lives forever and ever.

Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed! Alleluia!]

Video

Sermon Outline

Do Not Fear Living and Even Dying for Christ, Because While in Adam All Die, in Christ All Will Be Made Alive.
    I.    We all die like Adam because we all sin like Adam.
    II.    But Christ died our death for us, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Sermon

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation is the first letter of Saint Paul sent to the church in Corinth, the fifteenth chapter verses twenty-one through twenty-six and thirty through forty-two. 
Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today.  How are you doing today? Are you happy to be alive? I pray that you are. There are many reasons that we can have joy over being alive. There is also a lot that we could be afraid of that might take our lives. Sickness, diseases, wild animals. There are many things that could kill us.

Paul tells the Corinthians he fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, presumably because he would not compromise his Christianity. Authorities threatened Paul repeatedly during his ministry. But Paul kept preaching Jesus, even when, eventually, he was killed for doing so.

Why do we die? To answer that question, 1 Corinthians 15 will help. Even if—or actually because—Paul is blunt. “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (v 22). There are only two possibilities. Are you dying with Adam or living with Christ? Ponder that question as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

I.
In Adam, all die. All. No exceptions. You have Adam as an ancestor. So the next time you’re at a funeral, take a good long look at the body in the casket. Unless Jesus returns quickly, the day is coming when that will be you.
You can put me in a solid gold casket, and I’ll be just as dead as if you bury me in a cardboard box. I can cover your grave with a blanket of beautiful bouquets. The flowers will hide the dirt. But they will not change the fact that you’ll still be a lifeless corpse six feet under the soil. Because you are connected to Adam. Like I am. In Adam, all die.

How does the triage nurse in the emergency room determine if the unresponsive body that just arrived is dead or alive? Feel for a pulse, right? And check for breath. If possible, maybe find out if there are brain waves. If you have a pulse and breath and brain waves, you have life, right?

No. You have death waiting to happen. You started dying the moment you were conceived. So did I.

But not Adam. Adam started with life that did not have to end in death. Adam enjoyed a carefree existence. And he could eat from apple trees, peach trees, mango trees, and especially from the life tree.
God wanted Adam to continue living. So God told Adam not to eat from one tree. From the only tree with deadly fruit. God was protecting Adam. God warned that eating that fruit would kill Adam. Maybe Adam did not believe the consequences could be that dire. God says ignoring his Commandments will kill us. But we’re tempted to believe the consequences could not be that dire. So we sin. And we die.

You can try to blame Adam. After all, you inherited sin from him. But Adam isn’t the one listening to the devil when you break one of the Commandments. You are. Adam isn’t the one who’s harboring anger in his heart toward the person who makes you mad. Adam doesn’t force you to curse. Or lie. Or covet. Adam is not the one afraid to live for Jesus. You are.

You and I are in Adam. And in Adam all die. There is nothing you can do to stop that reality or reverse that reality. We may as well eat, drink, and indulge all our sinful natures’ desires, because tomorrow we die.

II.
Unless we have another Adam. Unless there is a human like Adam but unlike us, an Adam who starts life without any of our sinful inclinations. But this Second Adam needs to do what the first Adam failed to do. Heed God’s warnings. And resist every enticement of the devil. And then this Second Adam would have to do something even more unlikely. He’d have to be willing to die for people who ignore his warnings.

Jesus is the Second Adam who volunteers to pay your debt in full. He willingly and joyfully obeys the will of the Father, even when you owe death. He takes the blame for the sin that kills you. Your sin kills him instead of you. In that great exchange, Jesus gives you, His perfection. That leaves you sinless.

That is why we clothe the newly baptized in white. It’s also why we cover the bodies at each Christian funeral with a pall. The pall is white, to tell you the body beneath it belongs to a purified, baptized child of God. Ours has a red cross covered over with gold in the center to say the body beneath it was washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, the Second Adam. The cross shows you where that blood was shed. Someday that pall may cover your dead body. 

Maybe the pall should also include an altar, where your Lord puts into your mouth his body that rose from the dead and his blood that pays the debt it would have taken an eternity for you to pay in hell.

In Adam, all die. But you have already died. With Christ. In Baptism. Now in Christ will all be made alive.

That’s why when Paul speaks of Christians who have died, he sometime calls them asleep. Oh, make no mistake; the bodies of Christians die. The wages of sin is death. We will collect our paycheck. But when you are in Christ, that death is not permanent. It is temporary. Like sleep.

One Greek word for resurrection means “to be awakened.” If you die before our Lord’s final advent, before the day Jesus returns, picture him reaching down into your grave, tapping you on the shoulder, and saying, “It’s time to wake up.” Then you will wake up from death just like you wake up each morning. You will get up out of your grave like you get up out of your bed. Because whether you’ve been dead only a few minutes or for a few centuries at his return, you still will be baptismally linked to the risen Christ. And in Christ, all will be made alive.

You no longer have death waiting to happen. You have life waiting to be lived, now in this old creation and fully in the new creation.

Death hurts. Death separates you from the people you love. Death is a blot on God’s good creation. So despise death. But do not fear death. Death has been conquered. Death will be undone. In Christ will all be made alive.
That is why Paul did not have to fear death when he faced the wild beasts. That is why you could say at your confirmation, “I am ready to suffer anything, even death, rather than compromise this confession of faith.” That’s why you can love your enemies instead of hating your enemies. Like Joseph did in our Old Testament lesson. His brothers sold him into slavery. But Joseph did not hold it against them. He believed in the God who uses evil to accomplish good, who uses the evil of death as the gate to life with him. You are in Christ. Even if they kill you for being a Christian, you won’t stay dead. Not permanently.

Maybe that’s why in, 1 Corinthians 15, Paul does not say the bodies of believers are buried. He says they’re planted, “sown” (v 42). Maybe we’ve been using the wrong word. We talk about burying Christian bodies. Maybe we should join Paul in saying we plant them. Because when you bury something, you put it in the ground and expect it to stay there. When you plant something, you put it in the ground and expect it to come out again. We plant the bodies of baptized believers in Christ. That’s why we do not need to fear living for Christ or dying for Christ.

It’s true that in Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive. 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.