The Joshua Victor Theory

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. During October, I am going to highlight some Reformation themes from our Scripture readings as I have done in the past, leading up to the 503 rd anniversary of Luther’s nailing the 95 Theses. October 31, 1517 marked a monumental turning point in the history of the Christian church, as Martin Luther began to reopen the Scripture and led a reexamination of how the teachings of the church compared to the Bible, and led a return to God’s Word. Key among those rediscoveries of Biblical teaching was the teaching of “righteousness.” For October, as “Reformation month”, we will examine the Biblical concept of righteousness. In Philippians 3, Paul contrasts two very different kinds of claims we can make before God. Human beings stand “before God”, who is the Creator and Judge of all. We can’t hide or escape His judgment. Digging our head in the sand and saying there is no God, is like a ...

            Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Today is a joyful day, a day to praise God and sing aloud; to give all the glory to God alone for His great salvation! God, by His grace and favor, has blessed Emmanuel Lutheran Church, with 50 years of sharing the Good News of Jesus on this island of Maui. 50 years of worshipping together as a family in Christ, 50 years of baptisms into God’s family, 50 years of prayer and intercession for this community, 50 years of preaching Jesus Christ. So many blessings have developed from the work of the Holy Spirit among us. Not to our credit, but to God’s credit, to His glory alone. 50 years of sharing the Gospel Truth that we are loved by God, we are forgiven freely by Jesus Christ as a gift, and that Jesus has called and blessed us into service toward others.           ...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Today on Reformation Day, we conclude our mini-series on some of the things that made the Lutheran Church distinctive. We’re going to look at two core ideas to Lutheranism, from our reading in Romans 3: Sin and Grace. These two teachings of the Bible are at the heart of salvation—they define both our great need before God, and His even greater solution to our predicament. Predicament , or can we say an epidemic ? We have all heard a lot in the news lately about the deadly Ebola virus and the epidemic that has people worried worldwide. An epidemic is when an infectious disease rapidly spreads through a large number of people. Technically, an epidemic is usually temporary, not permanent, and widespread, but not global in reach. The term for something truly universal or worldwide would be “pandemic.” Can the analogy of disease and viruses help us understand something about sin? Sin i...

Sermon Outline: ·          Last in our Reformation series: Christ alone. Previous weeks—faith, grace, and scripture alone. Triangle diagram: three points with Christ alone at center—all are interconnected. How does faith, grace, and scripture intersect with Christ alone? Christ stands as heart and center of our salvation, because faith or trust depends on Him—without the powerful Savior, faith would be aimless or helpless. Faith aimed toward anyone or anything else than Jesus Christ, is a vain and empty hope. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:60. Christ alone is our salvation. There is no other name under heaven, by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). ·          Without Christ, we would not know grace, as scripture says, “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Because of Jesus’ incredibl...