If there’s one emotion, we as Christians know well, it’s despair. We can relate to Simon Peter in today’s Gospel. “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!” I worked my tail off and everything still failed. I gave my children the finest Lutheran education, devotions every night, youth group events every time they were offered, and they still rejected the Faith when they got to college, and not just rejected it, but now they’re hostile about it! I saved and pinched pennies my entir...
If there’s one emotion, we as Christians know well, it’s despair. We can relate to Simon Peter in today’s Gospel. “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!” I worked my tail off and everything still failed. I gave my children the finest Lutheran education, devotions every night, youth group events every time they were offered, and they still rejected the Faith when they got to college, and not just rejected it, but now they’re hostile about it!
I saved and pinched pennies my entire working life and the stock market volatility seems to be spoiling my retirement, when I’m ready to retire, I don’t know if the market will enough for me to be able to retire. I took vitamins, exercised, skipped eating red meat and fast food and I still have cancer. I try with dieting follow the program and I still can’t lose those extra pounds. I read every assigned reading, thoroughly researched for every paper, and studied till all hours for every exam and still managed to end the school year with straight B’s.
I gave my marriage all I had and we still got divorced. I increased my personal devotional life—prayer and the reading of Scripture and coming to church—and I still lust after one who is not my spouse, am given to fits of rage, am filled with hate. We all know well what it’s like to recite this litany of despair. We look around us, we look inside of us, and we see that there is nothing good, nothing but reasons to despair. We want to take Jesus at His Word—try again and see if the results are different. But everything comes up wrong, against us, and often, worse than it was before.
But in these times when despair threatens to gain the upper hand, we have no choice but to cling to the Lord and His gracious promises. We have the example of Simon Peter. He doesn’t want to listen to the Lord, but he does, and finds out that the Lord always keeps His promises. And that is the same thing we find here in the Divine Service. Our environments, our emotions, our feelings, our reason all deceive us, so we must hear, over and over again, the Word of the Lord repeating the promises He has made from the beginning.
---------
Visit our website: https://www.trinitysheboygan.org/
Trinity Lutheran Church, School and Child Care have been "Making Known the Love of Christ" in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and throughout the world since 1853 as a congregation gathering around God's Word and Sacraments to receive forgiveness and life everlasting. Trinity is located in downtown Sheboygan, only one block from the Mead Public Library and the Weill Center for the Performing Arts. We invite you to vi
Support the show
-----
Trinity Lutheran Church, School and Child Care have been "Making Known the Love of Christ" in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and throughout the world since 1853 as a congregation gathering around God's Word and Sacraments to receive forgiveness and life everlasting. Trinity is located in downtown Sheboygan, only one block from the Mead Public Library and the Weill Center for the Performing Arts. We invite you to visit us in person!
Trinity Lutheran Sheboygan is a proud member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Visit their website: https://www.lcms.org/
Music for this production was obtained through a licensing agreement with One License, LLC. The copyright permission to reprint, podcast, and record hymns and songs is acquired through ID Number: 730195-A
#LCMS #Lutheran #DivineService
View more
