The Joshua Victor Theory

 Sermon Outline: ·          Parables: ordinary story with spiritual meaning. Look for the surprise/unexpected. The recognized sinner is “justified”, while the apparently upright religious person is not. ·          Who are the Pharisees? Model citizens, lay leaders with intense dedication to their own version of religiosity. Highly respected. Tax collectors? Despised. Took more than allowed, worked for enemy. ·          Dimensions of the story/pitfalls to avoid o    Comparisons/treating others with contempt (look at all those terrible people) o    Self-righteousness/trusting yourself, nothing to repent (look at my record!) o    Boasting before God/not a real prayer (my good deeds should impress God; reward) ·          What is it aiming for? o    Humility established in...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. What can turn us from prisoners, slaves, or children under guardianship and into freed people, adopted sons, and full-fledged heirs of God? That’s the change our reading is about today. We’ll look closer to see how, but first of all realize this isn’t a status change we can accomplish by our power. Getting free from the power and slavery of sin is something only God can do by His grace. Only He can make us His heirs. This is about what God does for us, not what we can do for ourselves. First, you should know the audience of this letter. Galatia was a Roman province in the middle of what is now Turkey, and Galatians is one of St. Paul’s most important letters. So urgent that he skips his usual formalities and launches sharply to the point. With fiery urgency he tells them the very Gospel of Jesus Christ is at stake. They’re surrendering the true Gospel for a counterfeit. His urgent message is sent to get them...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The epistle of Galatians is a short, 6 chapter letter written to one of the Apostle Paul’s mission churches he’d helped to establish 2,000 years ago. He wars against the ever-popular opinion that we can be justified before God by our works. We saw it a few weeks ago in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee thought he had God’s law down just fine, and had nothing to be sorry for before God. Besides, everyone else he knew was worse than him! He was righteous in his own eyes—trusted in his good effort to get him in good with God. We don’t have to be quite as pompous as the Pharisee to fall into the same trap. But the tax collector knew better. He cried out: “ God, have mercy on me, a sinner !” Jesus said that tax collector went home justified, with God’s verdict of innocence. Paul is determined in Galatians 3 to drive away the spirit of the Pharisee, trusti...

            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.           ...

See also the catechetical hymn that I wrote as a paraphrase of the commandments and their explanations, to use as a sermon hymn:   http://thejoshuavictortheory.blogspot.com/2017/06/a-hymn-on-ten-commandments.html Sermon Outline: ·          The most widely recognized set of laws—often represented with the symbol of two stone tablets. But how well are they known, individually? Name by heart? 1 st Table, 2 nd Table (Jesus made this division—Love God, Love neighbor). Which is the first? “ I am the Lord…out of the house of slavery …” or “ You shall have no other gods before me ?” Numbering is not so important; content is; don’t reduce. ·          In Proverbs 1, Solomon describes the foolishness of violent and greedy men, and says that their plans for evil are in reality setting an ambush or a trap for their own lives (Prov. 1:18-19). The point is that they are greedily pursuing their own interests, b...