Christ the Servant Lutheran Church

I am convinced that God works through us to bring about the kingdom God desires, but sometimes I wonder if God doesn’t get the feeling that the obstacle to getting there isn’t so much evil in the world as it is “nice Christianity.” Here’s what I mean by that: A few weeks ago I preached a sermon on the 13th Chapter of Corinthians. I mentioned that it has been sentimentalized to the point where one person said that it has been reduced to the profundity of a Barry Manilow son

Sermon by Rev. Scott Gustafson One of my overriding concerns in preaching on the assigned texts this morning is how can I be faithful to these texts and still have a few friends left in the congregation. With the exception of the passage from Corinthians, all these texts draw a sharp contrast between “the haves” – which is, quite frankly, me and most, but not all of you – and the “have nots.” And, in this Gospel lesson – Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount – not only do

I have two questions to begin my sermon and I won’t give you the answers until the end. The questions are very different, but have the same answer: 1) Are you a follower of Jesus? 2) Are the doorknobs in your home on the left side of your doors or the right side? You can be thinking about that doorknob thing as I recount the events in Today’s reading from Luke’s gospel: Jesus is on the side of Lake Geneserret He sees fishermen casting their nets. He gets into one of t

There I was after the picture-perfect wedding ceremony with the bride and groom. Everything had been just so. Colorful flowers and bows cascaded from each pew. Bridesmaids wore designer dresses. The bride got to the front of the church before the train on her dress had cleared the back door! The little ring bearer and flower girl were too cute and frighteningly well-behaved. And now the photographer was going to make sure we recorded the consummate occasion for all of p