When it comes to most things, it is good to go back to the basics. This is especially true regarding our salvation: it’s all God’s doing. God coming, God calling, God promising, God freely giving faith, forgiveness, and new life from above. He freely gives so that we can be born again from above and fed from above. And, we do not have to go up and get these things from above. God, as per usual, as always, brings them down to us. He brings them to us through the simplest means—water, words, bread, and wine—so that we who are simple can receive them. Perhaps these are not the most sophisticated means, but they are even better than a snake on a pole. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Jesus came to save and give life. He came into the world and was lifted up on the tree of the cross for one purpose only: that we might live. He came to give us life from above—to be that connection between God and man and between heaven and earth. Using the things of the earth—the water and Spirit of Holy Baptism, the word of absolution, and the bread and wine that carries His Body and Blood—He gives us the life of heaven. So that by looking to these “basic” things in faith and receiving them, we are blessed. We are children of Abraham. And more than that: children of God. ----- 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

When it comes to most things, it is good to go back to the basics. This is especially true regarding our salvation: it’s all God’s doing. God coming, God calling, God promising, God freely giving faith, forgiveness, and new life from above. He freely gives so that we can be born again from above and fed from above. And, we do not have to go up and get these things from above. God, as per usual, as always, brings them down to us. He brings them to us through the simplest means—water, words, bread, and wine—so that we who are simple can receive them. Perhaps these are not the most sophisticated means, but they are even better than a snake on a pole. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Jesus came to save and give life. He came into the world and was lifted up on the tree of the cross for one purpose only: that we might live. He came to give us life from above—to be that connection between God and man and between heaven and earth. Using the things of the earth—the water and Spirit of Holy Baptism, the word of absolution, and the bread and wine that carries His Body and Blood—He gives us the life of heaven. So that by looking to these “basic” things in faith and receiving them, we are blessed. We are children of Abraham. And more than that: children of God. ----- 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

The Lord called Abram (Abraham) to leave his home and go to a land that God would show him. He also promised to make of Abram “a great nation,” to bless him and make his name great as a blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Gen. 12:2–3). “Abram went, as the LORD had told him” (Gen. 12:4), and in Canaan “he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD” (Gen. 12:8). He “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3). Here the grace of God is manifested, that He “justifies the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5), not by works of the Law, but through faith in His promises. He removes all of our sins and lawless deeds through Jesus Christ, the offspring of Abraham in whom all the Lord’s promises are realized. This forgiveness of sins is the Word of the Gospel, the voice of the Holy Spirit, which “gives life to the dead” (Rom. 4:17). It opens the eyes of faith to behold Christ Jesus, the Son of Man lifted up on the cross, “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14–15).
----- 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

Full Service

 If you try to go toe-to-toe, with the devil, you will lose. You will go down. You’re not smart enough or strong enough. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t fight! We absolutely do. When the devil assaults you and attacks you and tempts you with all manner of sin, to get you to doubt God’s love for you, or hate someone, or take what is not yours or what has not been given to you, or lie or take advantage of someone, or believe the word of the world over the Word of God, or not bother to pray or read or hear the Scriptures, or give in to your urges and desires, or get annoyed with God for interfering with your life and what you want and what you think right, or any one of a thousand other ways the devil seduces you to think sin is good - fight! Be part of the resistance. Yes! But fight not with your own strength, but with the Word of God and prayer. And when you go down - and you will go down! - know that the Valiant One is on your side; the Valiant One did not go down; the Valiant One wins for you and wins you. For you are that one word the devil hates above all others. That word he cut out of his vocabulary and dictionary. That word he forbids be spoken in his presence. You are forgiven.Support the show-----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

Support the show-----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

Support the show-----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

Support the show-----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

Support the show-----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

The Transfiguration of our Lord gives us a glimpse of His glory. We, like Peter, would love to stay on those glorious mountain top moments of our lives and live in the glory of the resurrection. Unfortunately, we have to come down the mountain and face both the glorious moments in our life and those full of suffering. The voice of the Father reminds us, in good times and bad, to listen to His beloved Son who says, "Rise, and have no fear." Jesus only is enough for now and always. Support the show-----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

Support the show-----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

The Transfiguration confirms “the prophetic word … to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19). The divine glory of Jesus is manifested in the word of His apostles, who were “eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). “He was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun” (Matt. 17:2). Moses and Elijah witnessed the fulfillment of the Old Testament in this Lord Jesus, and the Father testified concerning Him: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 17:5). By His own blood, shed on the cross, Jesus makes and seals the new covenant with us. Hence, “the appearance of the glory of the Lord” is no longer “like a devouring fire” (Ex. 24:17), but it is graciously revealed in His own body.As “Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel” went up the mountain with Moses and “beheld God, and ate and drank” (Ex. 24:9, 11), we also behold the Lord our God in Christ Jesus, and we abide with Him as we eat and drink His body and blood at the altar.Support the show-----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

Support the show-----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

 The phrase, “He said what?” is a way of expressing such astonishment at what someone has spoken as to request that it be repeated.  When we hear that Jesus said, “you must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) we’re like, “He said what?”   It’s hard for us to believe that the bar for our lives could be set so high that it is impossible for us to reach.  But you heard it right, it’s what He said.  Yet, that’s not all He said.  For He also said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die” (John 11:25-26).  He said what?  He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).  He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28). Support the show-----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