The Joshua Victor Theory

  Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. These are ordinary questions: “Do you read the Bible?” “How do you interpret that passage?” Now flip them around. What if I asked you: “Do you let the Bible read you?” “Are you letting this passage interpret you?” God’s living and active Word reads and interprets our lives. Sharper than any two-edged sword, God’s Word searches our hearts and minds (Heb. 4:12). The real question is how God’s Word is reading and interpreting our lives. How is God’s Word at work in us? So instead of us acting on God’s Word, God’s Word is acting on us. Let’s try this with Psalm 28, our Introit. On the one hand we could read the Psalms like a Bible study of the prayers and hymns and laments of Old Testament believers. But that wouldn’t let God’s Word “read us.” It keeps God’s Word at arm’s length. For God’s Word to “read and interpret us”, we must find ourselves, our unnamed fears and emotions in the ...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Every day we are engaged in a spiritual battle. We may or may not be conscious of it. But Bible passages like Ephesians are meant to wake Christians up, to be alert and engaged in the spiritual battle. You can guess how well the spiritual battle will go for us if we are sleepwalking, unarmed and unprepared, vs. being watchful and alert, armed and ready. To this end, Ephesians 6 tells us what the lay of the battlefield is, who our true enemies are, and what armor God equips us with. Last week at my drill with the National Guard, I talked in my sermon about how soldiers are issued a uniform, and expected to report for duty or ceremonies dressed in their uniform. Just like the wedding guest in last week’s parable did not wear the garment that would have been issued by the host. I also made a stop by the supply room, where they took my sizes to issue me a helmet, vest, and other gear. I neither make my own unifo...

[The following sermon is adapted from sermons from Rev. Lyndon Korhonen and Rev. Michael Salemink on Lutheransforlife.org  You can find more encouraging, life-affirming materials and resources on their website]. If we did not have the Word of God, wouldn’t we wonder what is going on in our world? Life, as many of us have known it, is under attack. Over 40 years ago, our nation legalized the killing of babies in the womb. The “right to death” is seemingly being treated as an enshrined right, rather than the “right to life.” In several states, people have been given the right to end their lives through legal suicide. The value that we place on the elderly continues to decline. Marriage has been redefined by the U.S. Supreme Court. The sex one is born with is now up for change. The world is ever pushing to redefine even fundamental realities. And yet with all this so-called “progress” in getting what we want , people are profoundly unhappy and discontent. Jesus unmasks the conf...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The Beatitudes are 9 deep and powerful statements that open Jesus’ longest recorded Sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. They set the tone and picture the life of Jesus Christ reflected in the lives of the believers, or followers of Jesus. In other words, they paint the picture of how your life is modeled after the life of Jesus Christ, and what the blessings are of being attached to His life. This life is very obviously different from the desires and examples of the world. Today, we’ll zoom in on one Beatitude in particular: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” To be called sons of God shows that peacemakers reflect one of God’s key qualities. How is God a peacemaker, and how do we reflect that? Colossians 1 describes how Jesus makes peace. Jesus is the image of the invisible God —meaning that what we see in Jesus Christ is the exact imprint of God’s nature (Colossians 1:15; He...

*Please check out an accompanying post for a hymn that I wrote that speaks of our temptations and how Christ is with us, with the same title as the sermon. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. As we study the temptation of Jesus today, let’s first discuss the significance of temptation in general, then look specifically at how this passage gives us courage and hope in the face of temptation. No story of Jesus’ life would be complete without seeing how Jesus faced temptation. The Gospels show the teachings and miracles of Jesus, they follow the trajectory of the Old Testament prophecies that Jesus lived and knew—and follow Him all the way to the cross. But had the Gospels not recorded Jesus’ temptation, we would never have seen inside His personal struggle against the devil—who tempts Jesus, just like us, to commit sin and evil. The New Testament tells us that we are blessed to have Jesus as the One who represents us ...