Dynamic, contextual sermons from Pastor Josh Ehrler, who serves a small town ELCA Lutheran congregation in Northern Illinois. Sermons are rooted in scripture and reflect the local community, as well as the movements of the wider world. He and his congregation are affirming of LGBTQ+ personhood and live out their baptismal promise to seek (racial, economic, identity, environmental) justice and peace.
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The text for August 4 2024 is an encounter between Jesus and the crowds after he has fed them. So they know what free bread tastes like. No shame in asking again. Jesus points them past the moment to God's promises revealed, and to stories from deep in the past that still speak of grace and life. #sermon…
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Our text the week of August 11 2024 is from Ephesians, and bears the promise that grace is a gift, unearned and undeserved. It is a promise so complete and remarkable that we choose not to believe it. We cannot abide by the notion that we are fully, eternally loved by God. #sermonโดย Pastor Josh Ehrler
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The reading the week of August 25 2024 closes a three part series on the letter to the Ephesians that sends us to the cosmos. We humans do like a good argument, and our reading with all of its military lingo could be used as a defense for picking a fight. But, the fight is not with other humans. The battles we wage every day are eternal. They go al…
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Christ has destroyed the power of death! Yet, we encounter death every day. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice! (Martin Luther King, Jr) Yet, racism and hate speech has found new voices and new ways to destroy Black and brown lives in the public square. How do we deal with promises made that don't line up with lives…
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On this Earth Day, we give thanks for God's creative energy bringing life with a word. In our reading from Isaiah, God is responding to the Israelites, who are struggling to believe. As we are encountered by God today through scripture, God may find us struggling to believe what God can do. Or, if God is even around. Seeing the difficulty and doubt…
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