11-7-2025

Good Morning All,

      1 Peter 2:24; “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

    It all started at a tree.  Trees on the high plains of South Dakota are rare.  If they are here, someone puts them here.  Away from the creeks, streams and rivers, there are very few indigenous trees; the probability is that someone planted the tree.  Sort of like how God planted the trees in the Garden of Eden.  “And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:9).  So, the trees began to produce food and beauty and shelter and a peacefulness that only exists in a garden.

   Yet we know the rest.  A serpent, the devil actually, whispered, and deceived Adam and Eve and soon death, sorrow, pain, sadness and all the troubles of the world showed up and the trees that once gave only food, shelter and beauty now gave spears, arrows, and ways to provide death.  Wars are fought over the territory that trees now occupy and trees are often used as shields or walls to protect or hide behind to fight.  The value of trees has shifted.

    Soon empires and rulers began to use trees in despicable ways by using them as instruments of hideous deaths.  Some would impale their victims running a spike through the lower bowel region and exiting through the collarbone region.  The goal was to miss all vital internal organs so death would be slow and painful.  Some empires and rulers preferred to hang their victims from a cross shaped tree and let them slowly die of asphyxiation.  The crueler ones would use nails to add to the pain and the suffering.  Trees had come from things of beauty and of nurturing to things of death and terror.

    It was this kind of tree that Jesus used to win the victory.  On the cross, he crushed the head of the serpent that poisoned the first tree of life.  Now Jesus has made this second tree the new tree of life for us.  With his blood we are cleansed.  With his blood we are redeemed.  So, as we look at this tree we should not be consumed by guilt.  We should not respond out of guilt thinking that we somehow owe God and can repay him.  Rather, we should look at the cross and see God’s unimaginable love and his unfathomable mercy.  Rather than guilt we should feel thankful, joyfully, exuberantly thankful.  We should experience a rebirth of desire, desire to serve God.

    For God invites us by his love to come into his kingdom and to serve him with love.  He calls upon us to see the beauty of this once hideous tree.  He calls us to cling to this cross so that we might always know of his mercy.

Father, we give you thanks for the redemption which you have so freely given to us because of what Jesus has done for us upon the cross.  Lead us to see the cross with hearts filled with thanksgiving and joy.  Let us see the cross as your great gift to us.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret     

11-6-2025

Good Morning All,

               John 20: 24-25; “Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

    Many years ago, I had a great uncle who loved the sport of boxing.  Of course he grew up in the era of great boxers, Jack Dempsey, Max Schmeling, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, and the like.  So, one evening my mom invited him and my great aunt out for supper and then we were going to sit down and watch a fight night.  I was watching the start and hollered out to him that it was starting.  The fight had started as he came in and got settled in.  He looked at me and asked, “what did I miss?”  I had to tell him, “the whole fight.”  One of the boxers got punched in the throat; it stunned him for a moment and, in professional boxing, a moment is the whole fight.  The stunned boxer was met with a crosscut to the jaw and the fight was over.  The whole fight took less than two minutes.  By the time my great uncle sat down, he had missed it all and he couldn’t believe what had just happened.

    It is like that often; isn’t it?  You have important news; you announce it but someone who is not there to hear it simply cannot believe what you announced.  “I just can’t believe it!”  “I just can’t believe he would retire.”  “I just can’t believe they would leave.”  “I just can’t believe this store is closing.”  And these people don’t believe; they won’t believe until they see the empty store; they won’t believe unless they hear it from the person himself.  It might be a question of trusting the person delivering the message; it might be that the news is so out of context of the person involved; it just can’t be.

    This is where Thomas found himself.  We are often tough on Thomas but wouldn’t we be the same?   The idea that someone who was dead was suddenly seen again, alive; would make us wonder, to question the news as well; wouldn’t it?  Thomas takes a normal human view; I don’t believe what I can’t see.

    This attitude is very human and it is designed to limit a limitless God.  It is designed to make God’s way to conform to what man’s limited thought process can manage to conceive.  Yet God goes so far beyond our limited means.  God, who created the universe and all that is in it with a mere spoken word, is never limited in what He can or will do.  A limitless God has limitless power, limitless, knowledge, but above all, limitless love which moved him to die for you and for me.

    It was the plan from the beginning, for Jesus to die to pay for your sins.  This act of limitless love, beyond our understanding, shows us God’s very nature, even his very heart and it shows the incredible love for us. 

Gracious Lord, through your death and resurrection you show us the greatest love ever displayed.  Help us to trust in this love and help us to share this love to all those whom we meet.  Lead us to celebrate your wonderful mercy and love.  In your precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret     

11-5-2025

Good Morning All,

                Luke 24: 45; “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

     There are many verses in the Bible that, though not hugely significant in terms of our theology, really intrigue my mind.  This is one of those verses of Scriptures.  It occurs after Jesus’ resurrection and has Jesus teaching the disciples.  He starts by telling them “these are the words that I spoke and this is what the Psalms and the Prophets and the books of Moses say about me” and then he begins to teach them in a way that “opens their minds.”

    Have you ever listened to someone who has such a clear understanding of the subject matter at hand that listening and talking with them really opens your eyes and your mind to looking at the subject in a new way?  I have had this wondrous experience a few times.  I always marvel when I experience it or later on when I think about it.  These people have a knack or a method about them that seems almost “folksy;” they rarely seem or act in some sort of professorial manner.  They never seem to act in a demeaning or condescending manner.  They never seem to be exasperated when they talk about the subject that they love and know so much about.  The amazing thing is how they simply lay the facts out and weave them into an intricate story that seems to complete itself.  As they discuss, any question doesn’t throw them off their speech as it does to someone who is giving a canned presentation.  You can almost hear the love and the reverence they feel for the subject at hand.

    What would that have been like, to be one of the disciples, as Jesus “opened their minds to understand Scriptures?”  Remember that often times during the three-year ministry of Jesus; they were confused and didn’t really understand what was going on.  They knew it was big and life changing but not to the degree that Jesus really changed everyone’s life.  Before they pretty much just muddled through but now, now their minds were being opened and the clarity would set in.  The deeper meanings of the messianic prophecies would make sense now.  David’s psalms would have new and renewed meaning.  All the Old Testament was designed to point to Jesus as the Son of God who would redeem mankind through his death on a cross.  The coming of Jesus began the kingdom of God reclaiming creation from the devil.  The empty tomb meant that death was no longer the great enemy which always won; it was now just a door to heaven until Christ returns and completes what he began at Calvary. 

   “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”  He did it for the disciples and his Spirit offers to us the same benefit.  He opens up his loving forgiveness and his eternal grace and mercy.  He opens up life everlasting and he opens our hearts to trusting his loving promise and offering peace.  He opened the minds of the disciples; let him open yours as well.

Father in heaven, open our minds to the certainty of the knowledge of your wonderful forgiveness.  Open our minds to seeing the truth in your love.  Open our spirits to cling only to your mercy. Open our hearts that we might go forth sharing that same love with those we meet.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

11-4-2025

Good Morning All,

      Matthew 1:21; “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

     I was watching a video news clip on the internet the other day.  It was a clip from an outside security camera system at a bank.  I couldn’t tell if it was even in the United States but it showed a man, walking down the street looking intently at his phone.  As he walked along, he headed out into the street.  Suddenly, a man, running from the opposite direction leaps and tackles the man.  Just as they hit the ground, a car goes speeding by; narrowly missing both men.  Had the second man not saved the first one; he would have been a bloody spot on the highway.

   This man was saved, by a total stranger who risked his own life in order to save the life of another.  Perhaps you remember the story of a few years ago when a plane crashed into an icy river and one man, who was driving along and saw it happened, jumped in the river, and started pulling people to safety until he himself died in the icy river.  Those people whom he saved, what do you do, what do you say?  What do you say to the family of that man?  “Gee thanks” sounds a little weak.

    Maybe you feel that way when you think about Jesus.  Many Christians in the world deal with faith from a guilt driven motive.  They feel guilty about Jesus having to die so that they could live.  They respond to feeling the need to punish or deprive themselves.  Within church history, a group called the “flagellants” would whip themselves as punishment for their sins in order to alleviate their guilt.  This truly misses the whole point.

    Jesus came to save us from our sins.  He dove into the icy waters to save us even as he himself died.  Yet it goes beyond this event.  Jesus died but he didn’t stay dead; this was all part of the plan.  He died to save us and lives to change us.  His resurrection changes everything.  Millions of people have died for you in one way, shape, or form.  Think of the servicemen who died fighting in war to protect your freedom.  Think of police officers or firemen or other rescue personal who died keeping someone else alive; only one person rose from the dead for you and that is Jesus.  Yes, he died to save you; but he lives that our life is different; it is new.  Our life is different in that we now can live a life more closely to the way it was designed to be lived.  We were designed to live in God’s presence, love one another and take care of creation.  Now, we are made new again to go back to this existence.  Luther wrote that we are to “thank and praise, serve and obey him,” That is the way we say thank you; by loving one another, caring for what God has given us and singing His praises daily.

Father, we give you great thanks and praise for our salvation.  Strengthen me so that I may live my life in service to you.  Lead me to show love to those who you place in my life.  Lead me to show mercy in all that I do.  In the precious name of Jesus, our risen Lord and King we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret      

11-3-2025

Good Morning All,

      1 Corinthians 15: 57-58; “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

    I have heard the cry and the lament many times.  “They just don’t listen to me.”  “They don’t seem to care.”  “It is hard when there are only a couple of them there.”  These particular laments came from a Sunday School teacher a few years ago.  I understood her frustrations; she would spend time doing her lesson and then trying to bring in outside material to add to it.  She made unleavened bread one time.  She had a Roman soldier sword and shield.  She was trying but her students didn’t seem to care and probably, more to the point, the parents didn’t seem to care.  There were always plenty of reasons to miss Sunday School and you could tell that the students took their cue from the parents.

    I have listened to fellow pastors share pretty much the same thoughts.  There are times when you feel like what you do has little impact.  I talked to one man who had prepared for Sunday morning services and only had two people show up.  The weather was bad so he didn’t really expect a whole lot.  “There would have only been 5 if the weather was good” was his dejected remark.  I have listened to counselors who have talked until they were blue in the face only to have those whom they counselled do the exact same thing with the same disastrous results.  How do we cope with these seemingly daunting struggles?

    Paul tells us in these verses.  First and foremost, and the absolute number one thing to always remember is that we have the victory through Jesus.  There is not one more thing that we can or have to add to that.  If nothing else occurs, that very basic fact remains.  Jesus died and we won.  So, our labor for Him is saying thanks to Him.  Our actions are for his glory and for thanks to him.  We do not do them for our own benefit or even necessarily for the person for whom they are aimed.  We do them for God and then let him use the work for whatever he desires.  It is always possible, even probable, that the good you are doing with the intent of aiding the first person actually impacts on a third or fourth person that you are unaware of.  For example, the ministry work done to a person in a nursing home may impact on the nurses and the nurse’s aides.  You don’t see it but God uses it.

   So, when you feel that your witnessing is falling by the way; remember you already have the victory and that what we do is for God’s glory.  It is you saying thank you to God for his great favor.  Whatever you do for God, whatever you do in service to him is never in vain.  God blesses you and your work, often times in ways that we do not always see.  Yet Go blesses the ones he loves and he loves you.

Father, many times we struggle with our efforts and the results that we cannot see.  We are often discouraged by things we do not understand.  Help us to see that we are giving thanks to you for your victory, which is now ours.  Thank you for our salvation and the joy that we experience.  In the precious name of Jesus our risen King we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret

11-2-2025

Good Morning All,

             Proverbs 1:33; “but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”

       “Will you listen to me?”  Any exasperated parent has spoken these words at least once or twice in their lifetime.  This is usually followed by, “Next time, maybe you will listen to me” as everyone gets down to clean up some mess that resulted from not listening.  I think that, for most people, starting at a very young age, we learn how to turn on and off our ears.  Just think how often someone hears something you do not want them to hear and how often they do not hear something you want them to hear.  We learn that real early and use it real often oftentimes it leads to less than desirable results.

     Listening is probably our greatest weakness.  We tend to think we know how the conversation will go so we quit listening.  Sometimes we get easily distracted and lose our focus on the one who is speaking.  Sometimes we do not like what is being said so we ignore the speaker.  We do this with our boss or co-workers; we do this with our parents or teachers, we do this with our spouse or children but, above all, we do this with God.

    It would almost seem that sin affects our ears as much as any other part of our life.  Too often, we simply fail to listen.  When we listen to God speak to us through his Word, we often quit listening.  We have heard it all before; we have heard it often enough that we can recite what we will hear.  We hear it so often that we can mumble the sounds without caring about the meaning.

    Sometimes we listen but get distracted.  The false pleasures of this world, the sinful and destructive siren calls can cause us to lose our focus.  We look around at the world and think that maybe it is ok to follow it once in a while.  Everyone around us is going that way; why shouldn’t we?

    Sometimes we stop listening because we don’t want to hear what God tells us.  Maybe we aren’t ready to forgive just yet.  Maybe we don’t want to worry about our neighbor or see that what we have is truly a gift from God, a gift to share.  Maybe we don’t want to hear that we are to care for one another; we prefer to be selfish.  Sometimes we simply don’t want to listen.  This always leads to trouble.  It leads to pain, it leads to sorrow and hardship and it ruins relationships.

    So, our only recourse is to listen to God and to do his will.  When we fail to do so, we suffer greatly from our sinful existence.  When we listen to his Word and follow it faithfully, we are secure in our faith and secure in our world able to rest at ease because of his great grace.

Father, in your great mercy you pour out your Spirit upon us.  Lead us to listen to your Word.  Guide us to hear you as you speak.  Defend us from all harm and danger.  Lead us to live in your kingdom in service to you.  In the precious name of Jesus our risen King we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret         

11-1-2025

Good Morning All,

               1 Corinthians 12:31; “But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.”

    One of the things I truly enjoyed was coaching little kid baseball.  There is nothing purer than the excitement of a child who comes to master certain tasks.  When they start, they have a hard time hitting or throwing or catching but soon they are able to do it with a certain amount of skill and proficiency.  Of course, every so often, you run into a parent who sees things a little differently than you do.  The problem that I had with those parents was that they saw short term success as the only measure.  I had a long discussion with a parent who wanted her son to swing up at the baseball when he played Tee ball baseball.  “If he hits it in the air; it can be a homerun!! Don’t you want them to hit homeruns??” When I told her “no,” she was completely deflated.  Then I explained to her that swinging at the baseball like she wanted him to would only work if the ball was always stationary and sitting on a “T.”  When a pitched ball is swung at; you want a slightly downward motion not an upper cut.  I was trying to teach them to be real baseball players and to have skills that would serve them throughout their playing days.  I thought learning the game properly was a higher goal; something that was of greater merit than winning a Tee ball game.

    This is sort of what Paul is trying to tell the Corinthians in our verse.  The Corinthians were arguing and engaging in divisive practices because of different spiritual gifts.  Some thought highly of speaking in tongues and some spoke highly of healing and so on and so on.  Of course, the gifts that I had were better than the gifts you had and the whole debate went downhill from there.  So, Paul told them that there were higher things; far greater than the spiritual gifts they sought.  So, he told them about these higher gifts.

   Paul ends up telling of three greatest gifts, faith, hope and love.  These are what we should desire over everything else.  Faith, because this is what gets us through today.  God gives us faith, the desire to trust in his promise of salvation, so that we can know for certainty that, whatever befalls us today, will never derail us from God’s love and his mercy.  We have hope because this is what leads us to a better tomorrow.  Hope is that anchor that we can toss out to secure us in God’s salvation.  We have hope because God’s act of salvation does not depend on you or me, it does not depend on whether you believe it or not; it always depends on God.

   Paul called love the greatest, probably because that is the one thing that will always remain.  Some day we will not need faith or hope; we will be standing side by side with Jesus in victory.  At that time, the only thing we will need or want is to love and to be loved.  These are the higher things and they are more excellent than any earthly or other spiritual gift.

Father, lead me to seek after higher things.  Lead me to seek after faith, hope, and love that I may be drawn even closer to you.  Lead me to see the excellence of your gifts which give me life and hope.  In the precious name of Jesus our risen King we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret