The Joshua Victor Theory

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Walk, walk, walk. The Bible talks a good bit about walking. Not the walking your dog type of walking, but how you conduct your life. A good walk vs. a bad walk. Walking in the way of righteousness vs. the way of wickedness. God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, while darkness and pitfalls surround the pathways of disobedience and lawlessness. In Exodus today God tests the Israelites: whether they will walk in His law or not (Exodus 16:4). Then Paul urges us: “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Walk worthily or walk unworthily. The Scripture is full of this contrast. To walk worthily, you must know the difference between a good and bad walk. Just like to seek health, you must know the difference between health and sickness. You can’t be doing destructive things to the body. To seek justice, you must know the difference betwe...

  Life Sunday Sermon 2021 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 “From Invisible to Indispensable” Rev. Michael W. Salemink, Lutherans For Life   (lightly revised by Pastor Joshua Schneider for use on 1/17/21)   So, you have these two tiny organs in your ears. Sort of a sixth sense. The utricle senses your head’s horizontal motion, and the saccule detects its vertical movement. They live inside the mystical semicircular canals of the vestibular labyrinth. The magic happens using otoliths—literally ear stones—microscopic crystals of calcium carbonate, the stuff that makes up chalk, stalagmites, seashells, and Tums. Curious, because when the otoliths act up, you can get quite queasy. When your cranium moves, the otoliths lag a little behind for a minute and tickle miniature hairs. Your brain interprets these signals as a shift in position and compares the input from both ears with the data from your eyes to define direction and orientation. Experts call it proprioception or kines...

 Sermon Outline: ·          Paul uses a vivid image to describe the church of Christ—one body, many members ·          Begins with objective reality: In One Spirit, all baptized into one body. Our entrance, identity, incorporation. ·          Illustrates the way we function together, on the one hand, how certain sins particular to the Christian body show themselves; on the other hand, what the body of Christ looks like at its best, as God intended. ·          Starting on the negative side—individualistic tendencies, rejection of our place in the body. Some today would use the language of self-esteem—but Scripture’s advice to us is not to think more of ourselves, but “not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.” Humility encourages us not to boast of ourselves. There is a “low thinking” that is ...

Note: The following sermon is part 7 of  a 13 part series on Romans 6-14, adapted from the Series "God's Greater Story" by Rev. David Schmitt of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. I did not preach sermons 4-7 in the series, if you are following along on the blog. In the beginning of the sermon I allude the difficulty of Romans ch. 9, referring to the passages about election and specifically vs. 13. In this sermon I did not tackle that large and complex issue, which would require a whole sermon in itself. However, for the interested reader, I can commend no better summary of the issue of election and predestination than the summary found here http://www.bookofconcord.org/fc-ep.php#XI.Election  or here http://www.bookofconcord.org/sd-election.php   These are, respectively the Epitome (short version) and Solid Declaration (long version) of the Formula of Concord, from the Lutheran Confessions found in the Book of Concord. While not resolving all difficulties and potent...

Sermon Outline: 1.       Simplest definition of the church: “Lambs and believers who hear and follow the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd.” Paul mixes and blends metaphors of body and building to describe the church. Here focus on the body, its internal health and unity, its growth in love. 2.       Listen to the “body language:” “ 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him wh...