Trinity Lutheran Sheboygan

July 16, 2023. Divine Service. 8 A.M.

Pastor Bill Cwirla writes, “Soil is made out of dead stuff.” I must admit that I never thought about it that way, but it makes sense when thinking about Jesus’ parable for today. The only good soil is dead soil. Think about a compost pile. Yard waste and kitchen scraps decompose into organic matter, and a pile of dead things becomes a place where life thrives. The apostle Paul writes in our epistle lesson for today, “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Pastor Cwirla continues, “Sinners, children of Adam steeped in Adam’s sinful condition, cannot make themselves receptive to the saving Word of Jesus. They will not let Him in no matter how many times He knocks. We do not naturally and willingly repent. We must be driven to it. The rototiller of God’s law must plow us under. We need to be broken, turned six feet under, crushed if the Word of Jesus is going to be fruitful in us.” So that is what God does. He kills to make alive. His life is planted in death. ----- 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

Bible Study: Life Planted in Death

As “the rain and the snow come down from heaven” and “water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout” (Is. 55:10), so the Word of God accomplishes the purpose for which He speaks it, granting joy and peace through the forgiveness of sins and producing the fruits of faith and love in those who are called by His name. Christ Jesus, the incarnate Word, has established the name of the Lord as “an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off” (Is. 55:13). He opens our ears to hear, our minds to understand and our hearts to believe His Word, lest the evil one come and snatch it away. He thus transforms our rocky hearts into good soil, which clings to the Gospel and “indeed bears fruit” (Matt. 13:23). He is Himself the firstfruits of all who “have received the Spirit of adoption as sons” (Rom. 8:15). Thus being “led by the Spirit of God,” we are not afraid, but we cry out in faith to our Father in heaven (Rom. 8:14–15). For as we suffer with Christ, the beloved Son, so shall we “also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17). ----- 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

Sermon: He’s Got This!

July 09, 2023. Divine Service. 8 A.M.

The phrase, “you got this” is another way of saying, “you can do this!” It’s a way of encouraging someone by letting them know that you believe they can do something. For example saying, “you can do the physical therapy, or pass that exam, you got this!” Yet, as we all know there are things in life that we’re not able to do like, for example, living the perfect life or overcoming our sin and death. When Jesus says, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” He’s letting us know that He’s got this! ----- 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

Bible Study: He’s Got This!

Though we have died with Christ in Holy Baptism, and we are raised to new life in Him, we find “another law waging war” in our body and life, that is, between our old Adam and the new man (Rom. 7:23). By the Spirit of Christ, we “desire to do what is right,” but we are not able to do so because “nothing good” dwells in our sinful flesh (Rom. 7:18). “Thanks be to God,” therefore, “through Jesus Christ our Lord,” who delivers us from “this body of death” (Rom. 7:24–25). We rejoice in Him, our gentle King, who comes “righteous and having salvation” (Zech. 9:9). He speaks peace to our embattled hearts, and by His blood of the New Testament He sets us “free from the waterless pit,” and He returns us to the stronghold of our Baptism (Zech. 9:10–12). Though we “labor and are heavy laden,” He calls us to Himself and gives rest to our souls through His free and full forgiveness (Matt. 11:28), not because we are “wise and understanding,” but by the “gracious will” of God the Father, whom “the Son chooses to reveal” in love (Matt. 11:25–27). ----- 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

Sermon: It Really Is That Simple

July 02, 2023. Divine Service. 8 A.M.

You remember long ago when Jesus made the world. He made the world perfectly in love. But with our sin we wrecked it and ever since in our pride, we have been praising ourselves and our wrecked world as being absolutely brilliant and beautiful. But today in this Gospel Jesus disagrees. Jesus wants His world back and He wants all His children home again. It really is that simple! So, it is absolutely fabulous that Jesus does not make peace with the world as it is. Jesus does not make peace with our sins. Instead, Jesus comes to slay our sins and resurrect us. Jesus come to change a world that desperately needs to be changed. It really is that simple. ----- 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

Bible Study: It Really is that Simple

False prophets preach what their hearers want to hear, promising peace even when the Lord has spoken “war, famine, and pestilence” (Jer. 28:8). But if “the LORD has truly sent the prophet,” he speaks what the Lord has spoken, and “the word of that prophet comes to pass” (Jer. 28:9). The preaching of God’s Law is hard, because it confronts sin, brings it to light and makes it worse, “sinful beyond measure,” thereby “producing death” in the sinner (Rom. 7:13).
But through our Baptism into Christ, “we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive” (Rom. 7:6). Now we belong “to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God” (Rom. 7:4). Belonging to Him puts us at odds with the world and divides us from all earthly ties, not only from our human family, but each person from his own life. For Christ does not come “to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). Yet, whoever takes up his cross to follow Christ, and “loses his life” for Christ’s sake, finds new life in Him (Matt. 10:38–39).
----- 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

Sermon: Can You Handle the Truth?

June 25, 2023. Divine Service. 8 A.M.

Who doesn’t remember the iconic line, “You can’t handle the truth,” from the movie “A Few Good Men?” The line in the original script was, “you already have the truth.” But Jack Nicholson improvised a little and made movie history. “You can’t handle the truth!” The truth is that you sin, and the wages of sin is death. You can’t handle that. Maybe that’s why you, like me, deny, minimize, or blame others for your sin. Why you try to ignore the unpleasant realities of life and act like nothing is wrong. Why you prefer life in a virtual world instead of the real one. “You can’t handle the truth!” Left to yourself that’s the fact of the matter. That’s the bad news. But the good news is this: you are not left to yourself. God is with you in Christ and He has promised that “everyone who [confesses] me before men, I also will [confess] before my Father who is in heaven.” In other words, Jesus has taken care of it. He handled it. Jesus handled the truth of the world’s sin and death, took it into Himself, suffered for it, and triumphed over it in His death and resurrection. ----- 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