After a week away at the Higher Things youth conference in Saint Louis, we were privileged to have the Rev. Dr. Karl Fabrizius preach for us this morning. No text to post here, but you can watch the livestream recording of the service on our YouTube channel here. (Video posted after the service!)
Thank you, dear brother, for giving a tired pastor a break today!
For the Week of Pentecost 6 (July 6-11, 2026)
Invocation: In the Name of the Father and of the (+) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Speak the Apostles’ Creed.
Verse: Psalm 103:8 – “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”
Hymn of the Week: Lutheran Service Book #586 “Preach You the Word”
Hymns for Sunday: 905, 586, 618, 577, 584, 691, 921
Readings for the Week: [The readings for Thursday-Saturday are the Scriptures for this coming Sunday.]
Monday: Psalm 65
Who is the God who dwells in Zion? What did He do? Why does He dwell there? Does He need to? Who needs Him to? Why?
Tuesday: Romans 6:1-11
Does it matter if we sin? Why does a Christian not want to sin? What does Jesus want for us? How does He give this to us?
Wednesday: Matthew 5:17-26
Can we ever pay our debt to the Law and be righteousness? So how do we be? How does the Law help us with that?
Thursday: Isaiah 55:10–13
What kind of harvest does the Word of God produce? How does it “rain” in our hearts? How does the Word of God do this?
Friday: Romans 8:12–17
How do you receive the Spirit of God? What has He done for you? What does He continue to do for you? How does this affect how you live?
Saturday: Matthew 13:1–9, 18–23
Is this parable instruction to us or a promise and consolation to us? Why? Why is it important to get this right? What happens if we get this wrong? How can that discourage us?
The Catechism - The Lord’s Prayer: The Introduction: Our Father who art in heaven. What does this mean? With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.
Collect for the Week: Blessed Lord, since You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord. Amen.
The Prayers: Please pray for . . .
+ yourself and for all in need (remembering especially those on our prayer list).
+ God’s blessing, wisdom, and guidance for our congregational financial treasurer, Dave Fields.
+ the Confessional Lutheran Church of South Africa, for God’s wisdom, blessing, guidance, and provision.
+ God’s blessing, guidance, wisdom, and provision for the Lutheran Haven adult care community.
Conclude with the Lord’s Prayer and Luther’s Morning or Evening Prayer from the Catechism.
Now joyfully go about your day (or to bed) in good cheer, child of God!
Collect for the Week © 2018 Concordia Publishing House.
Lutheran Service Book Hymn License: 110019268
2 July 2026
Saint Louis, MO
Higher Things Thursday Matins
Dying Church, Rising Hope
Jesu Juva
“It’s a Miracle”
Text: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
In the Name of (+) Jesus. Amen.
Jesus is not giving you spiritual gardening tips today. He’s not telling you to take a look at your heart and try to figure out how much is good soil or not, or to weed or unrock your heart, as if you could. No, this parable is your life. You know it. You live it.
Maybe this has happened to you . . . You stay up late one night, really late. Maybe for a really good reason! Because your little brother was sick and you were helping take care of him, or you had a project to finish up for school. Or maybe it was for a not so good reason. That happens too, right? And the next day is Sunday. So you get up and go to church, but you just. can’t. focus. You’re not following. You’re too tired. And the Word that is read and preached and sung is snatched away.
Or maybe this . . . Have you ever done something you knew was wrong, and you didn’t want to do it - you really didn’t! - but you did it anyway? The temptation was too great, and you were too weak. Maybe it didn’t really even seem that bad. Talking about that person behind their back, looking at that stuff online . . . And maybe you even wondered, Did God really say . . . ? And the Word of God, planted in you, was choked.
How ‘bout one more . . . A friend of yours, or maybe someone in your family gets sick or hurt - really bad. They’re suffering, hurting, dying. And so are you, for them! Or your grandma gets Alzheimers and doesn’t remember you anymore. Or internet trolls or real life bullies are making your life as a Christian bitter. And the questions come . . . Why God? Why her? Why me? Do you even see, and care? Do you love me? And the Word of God, planted in you, is scorched by the heat of sadness and tragedy and death.
If any of that has happened to you - and I’ll bet pretty much ALL of that has happened to ALL of you! - then you’ve lived this parable of Jesus today. There are a LOT of enemies of God’s Word, all bearing down on you, attacking you. From the devil and a sinful world outside you, to your own hard and rocky sinful nature inside you. And you think about all that, and how life just seems to be getting harder and more complicated every day, and you realize: With all this, it’s a miracle the Word of God grows at all!
Exactly. It’s a miracle. It’s not your doing. It’s Jesus working in you. And that’s the hope Jesus wants you to have with this parable. That despite the best efforts of the devil, the world, and the reality of your own sinful nature to snatch and scorch and choke the Word of God, they’re not going to win. Because you are baptized. Your heart made into good soil by Jesus. To produce a harvest.
So they’re not going to win. These enemies of God and His Word aren’t going to win because they’ve already been defeated by Jesus. He took the attacks; all the attacks of the devil and the world, the worst they could dish out. On the cross, the promised Seed of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, the promised Seed of God that was sown into the womb of Mary, was Himself scorched and choked and attacked. And dead. Really dead. Planted six feet under dead.
And then that Seed grew! They could not stop Him or keep Him down or dead in the tomb. And that growth continued ever since, and is producing a harvest more abundant than can be counted. The Word of the Lord now planted in you.
For the Scriptures and Liturgy aren’t just words about Jesus - they are Jesus speaking to you and sowing the Seed of His Word into your heart.
When you stumble and fall in sin, Jesus throws the Seed of His Word into your ears and says: I forgive you all your sins!
When you have doubts and fears and troubles, Jesus throws the Seed of His Word into your ears and says: I baptized you! You are mine, and I’m not letting you go!
When you’re faced with death, so fearsome and so final, so filled with sorrow and dread, Jesus throws the Seed of His Word into your ears and says: Been there! Done that! Came out alive! And you will, too. In Me.
And when you are scorched and choked and weak, Jesus throws the Seed of His Word into your ears - and your mouths! His Body and Blood feeding, nourishing, strengthening you.
And that Word grows. Christ grows! In you. And not a little. Abundantly. Lavishly. He promised. And He produces a harvest - a hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold.
So though you are harried and harassed, assaulted and attacked, and maybe look like a dying Christian, and feel like one, too . . . you have implanted in you a rising Seed that cannot die, and that will produce a harvest, and a resurrection. That is your hope - a sure and certain hope, in a sure and certain and risen Saviour.
That’s your life. Christ is your life, your hope, your victory. Look to Him. Listen to Him. He won’t let you down.
In the Name of (+) Jesus. Amen.
Jesu Juva
“Rightly Ordered Loves”
Text: Matthew 10:34-42; Jeremiah 28:5-9
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
It’s a good thing the Holy Gospel for today wasn’t read last Sunday - Father’s Day! To hear that Jesus had come to set a man against his father - that would have been awkward! But, of course, it still is. Quite awkward. No matter which week we hear it. Jesus the home wrecker.
Today’s Gospel is the last of three where Jesus is instructing His disciples before sending them out. As you may remember, it started out so well! He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. . . . He told them to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. That’s cool. But then it was all downhill from there . . . Things go from bad to worse.
They’re going to face rejection. They’re going out as sheep in the midst of wolves. They will be handed over to the authorities. They’re going to be hated and called demons. And now this we heard today! So maybe they’re having second thoughts? Couldn’t blame them!
And that happens to Christians today . . . maybe even you. Second thoughts, when you hear God’s Word and what it says.
I mean, Christmas and baby Jesus is cool. O Little Town of Bethlehem, Silent Night, candles, Joy to the World. Like that! And Easter - the flowers and alleluias. Good stuff. Love and joy and peace - who doesn’t want that?
But stick around, and then you begin to hear more . . . Things like: your enemies? Love them! Those who persecute you and make your life tough, pray for them! Turn the other cheek. Lay down your life for others. Forgive without limit. Don’t repay evil for evil, but repay evil with good. Be sexually pure, honor the authorities, no matter who they are . . . and then things like we heard today. That as a Christian, you may have to give up some things; change some things about your life. Not to win God’s favor - you already have that! But because they’re not good for you, even if you think they are.
Hmmm. This Christian thing, this Jesus thing . . . I didn’t know it was going to be so hard!
But this is how it has been, the pattern of things, from the beginning. When because of the sin of Adam and Eve, things plummeted from great to worse. From perfection to death and hell on earth.
So what kept them going . . . all the saints of old, living in such a world? From Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, to David, the prophets - what kept them going in the midst of the opposition and pain and struggle? One thing only, really - the promise of a Saviour, who would raise them and this world to life and love, peace and joy, again. And so the book of Hebrews says that all those saints of old, they could have gone back; they could have just thrown up their hands and given up . . . like maybe some are tempted to today. But instead, they looked forward to what was coming. To the greater, the more glorious, the restoration. So going back, giving up, really wasn’t an option. There wasn’t any guarantee that would be easier or better anyway. The good ol’ days usually aren’t as good as we remember or imagine.
Which brings us back to the words Jesus spoke to His disciples today . . . these tough words!
The thing to know about those words, to help us understand them, is that Jesus wasn’t the first to say them. They were first said by the prophet Micah, describing the evil and wickedness in the world. This was their reality. This was happening in Israel. They were turning against one another - even families! They weren’t living as God’s people. There were false prophets in those days, too - one we heard of today in the Old Testament reading, named Hananiah - false prophets who were saying in the midst of all the wickedness and evil: Don’t worry! Be happy! All is well. Even though they had been conquered by the Babylonians and many people had been taken there from Israel, it won’t last long! Hananiah said. God’s going to bring you back. And soon. We are His people, after all!
But that wasn’t true, the prophet Jeremiah said. I wish it were! he said. We’re His people, yes. But God was disciplining His people, and it was going to last the full 70 years, as God had said.
So you had these two prophets - and more - saying different things. Not unlike today, where you have lots of different people saying lots of different things, about God, about life, about truth . . . sometimes making it hard to know what to believe.
So what did Micah say, living in that situation? After being the first to say these words about families divided? He said this, in the very next verse: But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. That’s exactly what the saints of old did. Looking forward, not back; looking to the Lord, and no other; and waiting for His salvation, not taking matters into their own hands. No matter how great the evil or how bad the wickedness in them and in the world, they looked to the Lord for forgiveness and waited for the Lord to come and fulfill His promises. For He always does.
So by Jesus taking up these words of the prophet Micah and quoting these shocking words - by doing so He wants you to think about four things:
First, the condition of the world, how steeped in sin and rebellion and division it is, as it was in Micah’s day.
Second, to think about the condition of your heart, and the sin that has maybe snuck its way in and that maybe you are a little too comfortable with, as the people’s in Micah’s day.
Third, that He is proclaiming that He is the one Micah and the saints of old looked forward to, the save from this mess.
And then fourth, He wants you to do the same; to look forward as well, to Him and His salvation. His salvation coming not only on the Last Day, but already here, already now, in His Word and Sacraments.
For Jesus doesn’t hate families! There’s a commandment, in fact, about honoring your father and mother - remember that? And it’s importance is shown by its being the first commandment in the second table of the Law, about loving your neighbor. That placement is important, and the commandment is important. And Jesus isn’t contradicting that Word of God. But important also are the commandments that come before it, regarding God; the first table of the Law. And we can never pit them against one another. But living in a world steeped with sin - sin without, sin within, sin all around! . . . what if there comes a time when honoring God and honoring my father go against one another and I can’t do both? What then? Which do I do? And what of other situations - impossible situations - when it seems like of the choices I have, both are wrong? That no matter which I do I’m sinning?
And you begin to realize . . . I’m the one Jesus was taking about. I am not worthy. And I can’t be. And if it were up to me, I never will be! Hard as I might try. Full stop. Because these situations come up. And I have crosses I don’t carry and won’t carry. I have divided loves. I do try to save my life, what I have, what I’ve done. The world may be a mess, but so am I.
It’s good to know that. Hard! But good. Not so that we’ll throw our hands up, give up, and stop trying. But so that we look for help in the right place. Not within ourselves and what we can do - but that we look forward and look to Jesus. The only one who ever was and is worthy, and who came to make you worthy.
Because the truth is that Jesus didn’t come to wreck families, He came to wreck you! You who are wrecked with sin, divided loves, and doubts - He came to finish you off! To kill you, so that He could raise you to a new life. The sword of His Word slaying you in repentance, so that His healing Word of Absolution raise you again in forgiveness to a new life. That you find your hope in Him and turn to Him alone.
But to do that, to save you like that, Jesus had to be slain Himself. He had to take your place under the sword of God’s wrath Himself. Take your sin, take your guilt, take your shame, take your divided loves, take your doubts, take your unworthiness, take it all away from you and lose His life to give you life. That in His resurrection, you rise, too. That joined to Him in Baptism and made His child, you find your life in Him. So that knowing the depth and enormity of our sin, we also know the greatness and glory of our Saviour.
And then, baby steps. Receiving a prophet, to listen to him speak God’s Word. A cup of cold water to a little one. And a reward . . . for that? Yeah!
And maybe a Father’s Day example here - a week late! When children are little, the gifts they give are small, usually homemade, but precious. When they get bigger, the gifts might get bigger and more expensive. But isn’t it those little gifts that are remembered and kept? The drawing, the little plaster handprints, the homemade card. What we do is like that. What you do - so little and rudimentary - when done in love, when done as His child, is precious to your Father in heaven.
That’s what makes you and what you do worthy. Not that what you do is perfect or even close to it, but that you’re His dearly loved child, adopted into His family, by Baptism, washed clean in the blood of the Son, and with a seat at His Table. When you’re not here, He misses you. When you rebel, He grieves. When you repent, He rejoices, and He lavishes His love and forgiveness on you. And when you do those little, rudimentary, imperfect things, trying to be like Him, He loves it.
So Jesus is no home wrecker. He is, in fact, a home builder. It is the sin in our world that has wrecked our homes and lives and disordered our loves. It is only His forgiveness and life and love that can restore them, and His forgiveness and life and love that also gives us a new home, and a new family - a family of faith and a heavenly home. If you want to save your life in this messed up, disordered, wicked world, you can. You can do that . . . But why? You have another life, one without the sin and death and evil, that will last forever. Maybe that’s the one worth saving?
So love those God has given you to love, as Jesus did His earthly family. But even more, love Him who gave them to you, and gave Himself for you. And then, in Him, you’ll find not one pitted against the other, but your loves ordered rightly.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
