Here’s a playlist of my sermons, classes, and other video teaching.
When I was at Shepherd of the Ridge, I grouped sermons by series if you’re looking for something in particular.
Also, this channel has the recordings of the CrossFeed Religious News video podcast among other things I’ve recorded.
And my current sermon audio:
[sermons image_size=”sermon_medium” order=”DESC” ]
Our Lent series this year was based on the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer and how they match up with Jesus’s words from the cross.
Here’s the worksheet/order we used (PDF).
We also had a theme hymn, “Father God, Who Art in Heaven,” that uses the same first and last stanza each week with a different 2nd stanza each week based on the corresponding petition/words. It can be used as a general Lord’s Prayer hymn apart from the series. (Lyrics based on series order) See below for lyrics based on Lord’s Prayer order.
The Lutheran Service Builder file is in the order of the petitions.
Father God, Who Art in Heaven
Tune: Das grosse Cantional (Christ, the Life of All the Living)
1 Father God, Who art in heaven,
Your name ever hallow’d be
Let Your kingdom come among us
Earth, like heaven, Your will see
As we pardon, so release us,
From our sins and evil free us.
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity.
2 Let Your name be ever holy
Ever kept in purity
Since by Word and water solely
You have named us family
Help us show in daily living
All the mercy You are giving
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity.
3 Let Your kingdom come among us
May your Spirit help us know:
Since You’ve taken our sin from us
We to Paradise may go
As a citizen of heaven,
Let my life be loving leaven
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity.
4 As Your will is done in heaven,
Here among us so be done
Keep us firm, conviction strengthen,
Ever turn us to Your Son
Let our trust be ne’er diminished
Give us faith that “It is finished!”
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity.
5 Give us each our daily manna
Help us see Your providence
For Your mercy, loud hosanna
Always let our thanks commence
Though You suffered dehydration,
Let us trust complete salvation
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity.
6 Father God, Who art in heaven,
Turn Your eyes from all our sin
We know not the depths we’ve fallen
Purify our hearts within
Let the mercy from Your Word flow,
And our lives your saving grace show
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity.
7 O my God, do not forsake me
Hold me close in every hour
Let no evil overtake me
Keep me from the tempter’s power
Though this world and flesh may charm me,
May they not prevail to harm me
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity.
8 Let us all commend our spirits
To our Father’s loving hands
So that we may all inherit
Joyously a blessed end
Save us, Lord, from all our sorrows
Give us joy for all tomorrows
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity.
9 Father God, Who art in heaven,
Hear the prayers Your children cry
To the cross may our lives beckon
And display Christ crucified
Let us always know Your favor
For through Christ, our only Savior,
Kingdom, power, glory be Thine unto eternity!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License by Strength & Song Publishing
In the time before time, when the past met the future,
Eternity spoke, and His voice produced nature
“Let there be light,” and the darkness was ruptured
Land, feather, hoof by pronouncement alone
Then the One Who is plural, the “They” Who is “He”
Said, “Let love take on form, tangible simile,”
From the Spirit and clay, the Lord formed family
And all was deemed good by Creator alone
But love isn’t love without loving an object
And the infinite King saw the need of His subject
So He acted again to improve on the perfect
Because it’s not good to be a man alone
Alone in the garden, the man anaesthetized
The one became two, dream became realized
Then two became one as each other they prized
So they would be never again all alone
Then serpent and fruit, “Did the Lord really say?”
Brought doubt and mistrust: “No, you won’t die that day.”
Relationship severed brings sorrow, decay
As choice leaves the two both together alone
Excuses aside, the Lord calls to His children
Assuring them they haven’t halted His mission
By wounds in the heel, He would bring restoration
“I will cover your sin. I won’t leave you alone.”
In the fullness of time, man again in God’s image
The Word became flesh; we saw grace in His visage
He went to the cross that the grave He would pillage
To save us from being forever alone
Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani!
The Word cried in excruciating agony
The fruit of a woman gave up life on a tree
The only man ever that God left alone
But why do you look for the dead in a graveyard?
The stone rolled away, the Lord revealed the trump card
“Peace to you; touch the wounds.” Heaven’s gates will not be barred!
Restored to the Father, no longer alone
So now you’ve received the image restoration
Go forth in that image to each people and nation
Spread the word. Speak His name. Baptize for regeneration.
I am with you always, to the end of the age. You are not now, not soon, not ever alone.
(From a confirmation camp weekend that focused on Genesis 1-2)
Benediction: A Sonnet
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Text: (Num 6:22-27 ESV)
“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
“So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.””
This is the Word of our Lord. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Broken Promises
As passing go the days of ev’ry year
The promises we make we rarely keep
A resolution make but not adhere
As dreams from mem’ry go when rise from sleep
Pureness of heart will drive the good intent
But those intents have paved infernal roads
And though reflection on them brings lament
It doesn’t change our course as evil goads
So long as flesh is born in fallen earth
Rebellion will precede physical birth.
Our Baptismal Promise
In Baptism we make a solemn oath
Renouncing every devil’s work and way
In purity the One Who would betroth
We pledge our faithfulness to final day
Yet though our bridegroom forfeit all His life
We callously discard His affection
Our hearts and deeds do not befit His wife
And question memory of connection
Though deluge purged out Adam’s legacy,
The patriot still acts the enemy.
God’s Baptismal Promise
Yet from the flood, creation sprang anew,
And from New Adam’s veins, eternity
And just as one tree God’s image withdrew,
Yet with another gives it back to thee
And even though like Gomer, we still stray,
Our Lord forever claims us as His own
By water and His Word with each new day,
Renews His vows until we face His throne
Adopting us, bequeaths to us His name,
Indwells and grants the Holy Spirit’s flame.
The Promise at the Tomb
In Baptism, the New Man comes alive
And transgression’s left buried in the grave
Just as the Lord Himself did once revive
And pave the Way for those He died to save
So those who go again as from the womb,
By water and the Spirit rise again
As Christ was raised exalted from the tomb,
Shall follow His example at the end.
As Resurrection looms, we need not fear
His promised blessing given when He’s here.
Now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Originally preached Dec 30, 2009
Ted Geisel, American writer and cartoonist, at work on a drawing of the grinch for “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Here’s my Christmas Eve sermon from 2009:
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Text: (1 John 4:7-11 ESV) “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
This is the Word of our Lord. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
You’ve probably heard of the Grinch and the whos
That Christmas comes even when we get bad news
But Christmas is more than bright lights and roast beast
And more than friends, family, and songs, at the least!
See, Theodore Geisel’s a great storyteller
That guy, Dr. Seuss, was a talented feller
And as a Luth’ran, he liked Christmas: you said it,
But the Grinch, without Jesus, he just didn’t get it.
We think about Christmas and all of its trappings
The travel, the parties, the gifts and their wrappings
The shopping and hunting for whatnots and Zhu Zhu’s
And running around ’til you ache in your shoe-shoes.
Along with the tree and the stress and the fun
There’s still deeper meaning that’s second to none
How God sent the Savior to save everyone
The Father sent Jesus. He sent us His Son!
See, just like the Grinch, we were born with a defect
A tendency all that is good just to reject
It’s not that our hearts are two sizes too small
Our hearts are so sinful, we’re not live at all.
The heart of a human, in sin it is rooted
And thus it’s all poisoned and gross and polluted
We don’t want to live like a child of the Lord
We get more concerned by the riches we hoard.
Since God knew the problem with which we all suffer
He isn’t the type to just sit on His duffer
He had Him a plan that He knew from the start
He’d handle our sin. He’d clean up our heart.
So just when the time was right, just at that minute
When all was in place, He began to begin it
His Son became flesh, and He came to our earth
He took on our weakness and went through our birth
And although in heaven, He had all kinds of glory,
There’s not much of that in the true Christmas story
To fulfill the Law so to God you’re no stranger,
He was born in a stall and was laid in a manger.
And not far away, there was noise and commotion
While angels appeared and gave shepherds a notion
That God had sent Love not just to all the wealthy,
But to poor folks and sad ones, the weak and unhealthy.
The angel said, “Go,” and the shepherds, they came
And they found a small babe like the angel did claim
And they were so amazed, so they ran through the town
And soon all Bethlehem heard of what they had found.
That the God of the ages in a whole new endeavor
Had become mortal man to give us His forever
He put it aside, all His glory and power
To save people who’d weekly maybe give Him an hour.
Why, you ask, would a God who’s so righteous and mighty
Give Himself for a people whose commitment’s so flighty?
Is it ’cause we possess some great thingamajig?
No. It’s all ’cause His heart’s extranormously big.
Just because God is love in a way we can’t fathom,
And He saw that between us sin had dug a chasm,
He knew that we were lost; hope was beyond diminished,
And the only way was if He started and finished
So that’s why on this day we remember the child
And we sing of the infant, “So tender and mild,”
But the story’s not done. Here’s the part that gets lost:
Being laid in a trough’s only part of the cost.
Because 30 years later, He gets going and preaches,
Heals lepers, cures blindness, gives all kinds of speeches,
To sinners and tax collectors He outreaches,
And walks to a boat that’s far out from the beaches.
And even all that’s not the reason for joy
That we celebrate on this day that little Boy
On the feast of His birth and His first little breath
The real reason we’re feasting is because of His death.
Once again, when the time had been fully fulfilled,
He was hauled off to trial, and He got Himself killed
They attached Him with nails to an old wooden tree,
And He willingly went to redeem you and me.
Because on that old cross, where He hurt, and He bled,
And He suffered from whips and the thorns in His head,
And He suffered until He was finally dead,
There He paid for our sins as the prophets foresaid.
But the story’s not done, no it’s not, don’t you know it?
Since He’d paid with His life for the times that we blow it,
There’s no way death could hold Him, though He didn’t forgo it,
He came out of the grave, life forever to show it!
So with hearts full to bursting, we all share on this night
How the Lord of creation put the devil to flight
By a child in a manger, a cross and a grave
The whole world was forgiven, to sin no more a slave.
And so as you go forth with all your family
And your thoughts wander north and look under the tree,
As the Bible has told through God’s inspired pen,
Love has come down among us, and in His name, Amen.
Now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
A. Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Shel Silverstein, 1974
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans and tangerines,
Crusts of black burned buttered toast,
Gristly bits of beefy roasts…
The garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised the roof, it broke the wall…
Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from green baloney,
Rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold french fried and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last the garbage reached so high
That it finally touched the sky.
And all the neighbors moved away,
And none of her friends would come to play.
And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
“OK, I’ll take the garbage out!”
But then, of course, it was too late…
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate,
That I cannot now relate
Because the hour is much too late.
But children, remember Sarah Stout
And always take the garbage out!
But Christians have our own garbage, don’t we?
Text: …If anyone else thinks that he can trust in something physical, I can claim even more. I was circumcised on the eighth day. I’m a descendant of Israel. I’m from the tribe of Benjamin. I’m a pure-blooded Hebrew. When it comes to living up to standards, I was a Pharisee. When it comes to being enthusiastic, I was a persecutor of the church. When it comes to winning God’s approval by keeping Jewish laws, I was perfect. These things that I once considered valuable, I now consider worthless for Christ. It’s far more than that! I consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It’s because of him that I think of everything as worthless. I threw it all away in order to gain Christ and to have a relationship with him. This means that I didn’t receive God’s approval by obeying his laws. The opposite is true! I have God’s approval through faith in Christ. This is the approval that comes from God and is based on faith that knows Christ. Faith knows the power that his coming back to life gives and what it means to share his suffering. In this way I’m becoming like him in his death, with the confidence that I’ll come back to life from the dead. It’s not that I’ve already reached the goal or have already completed the course. But I run to win that which Jesus Christ has already won for me. Brothers and sisters, I can’t consider myself a winner yet. This is what I do: I don’t look back, I lengthen my stride, and I run straight toward the goal to win the prize that God’s heavenly call offers in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:4-14, GWV)
Christians all have been set free
When Jesus died upon the tree
So all the sin that ties us down
Was covered by a bloody crown
Yet though Christ rose without a doubt
We just won’t get the garbage out
We’ll pray our prayers and sing a song
Catch a sermon, short or long,
Don’t use much profanity
And guard our sexuality
But that’s not what it’s all about
No, that won’t get the garbage out
We feed the hungry, serve the poor
Tell of Jesus door to door
Read our Bibles every day
Tell the hurting they’re okay
Help out strangers on the way
And when the plate comes, amply pay
Come to classes more than others
Cook a meal, eat with our brothers
Offer prayers for one another
And don’t forget to call our mothers
Grant forgiveness one and all
Welcome guests both great and small
Love our kids, support our wives
Offer up our very lives
Yet though from hills His name we shout,
That still won’t get the garbage out
Though trying hard all good to be
That only makes a Pharisee
Pride credits us with worthless trash
And builds a house on sand and ash
Each time you’re looking down your nose
It’s as if Jesus never rose
The sewage simply piles high
Until it towers to the sky
And when the Lord gives you a glance
He simply sees your arrogance
Dear Christian friend, the day’s begun
And there’s a race for you to run
Throw off that pride you’re carrying
So only to the cross you cling
And lift your voice and gladly sing
All glory only to our King
Since long before our first birth shout
He, with our garbage, was taken out
The victory’s already won
When Jesus cried out, “It is done!”
And God Himself to us has run
He’s present now: “You’re home now, son.”
Your garbage He’s washed clean away
The cleansing flood brings a new day
And that with Word and bread and wine
You’re called by name. He says, “You’re mine.”
What pride are you still clinging to?
That clogs your heart with fearful goo?
This week, what change occurs in you
When not defined by what you do?
How will you jump the hurdles now
His victor’s crown upon your brow
When, knowing that your race is won,
You follow footprints of God’s Son
And to eternity you run
But while you’re breathing, never done
The Lord keep you each day en route
For Jesus took our garbage out.
Sermons podcast from Shepherd of the Ridge Lutheran Church, North Ridgeville, OH
Engaging. Relevant. Pastor Dale sets aside personal opinion and politics to present the Word of God, the ultimate Truth. Offering forgiveness from guilt, guidance for your daily life, insights from the mind and heart of God, and even the cure for death itself, these weekly messages present God’s love letter to you directly from Shepherd of the Ridge Lutheran Church (LCMS), North Ridgeville, OH (near Cleveland). If you have questions or comments about anything you hear, drop us a note at shepherdoftheridge.org/contact or call (440-327-7321), and find out more about us at our website, shepherdoftheridge.org.
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Pericope is a list primarily for LCMS pastors for the intention of discussing topics related to the lessons for the coming Sunday, sermons, and other worship related material. While anyone is welcome to join and participate, please know that this list is moderated by LCMS Lutherans for Lutheran pastors and other interested persons, and therefore, the approach is from a decidedly Lutheran perspective.
via Pericope Discussion List – Yahoo Groups.
Using Andy Stanley’s book, Communicating for a Change, the Me-We-God-You-We format, and the lectionary (RCL or the LCMS’s Lutheran Service Book variant): discussions on the main point and key question you find in each week’s readings.
via Communicating the Lectionary for a Change – Google Groups.
Looking for something from the old site? Check The Archive.