Immanuel Lutheran Church LCMS

Clear Thinking and Decisive Action | Sermon for March 15, 2020

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent

Rev. Gregory Mech | March 15, 2020 | Sunday Morning | 10:30 am | Immanuel Lutheran Church – Joplin, MO

See how Immanuel is responding to Coronavirus. Click here.

In response to growing concern over the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, Pastor Mech clears our thinking and focuses our action with the same truth and assurances from God’s Word that Martin Luther shared during the bubonic plague in 1527. Let us cling to Christ during uncertain times!

Opening Hymn

“Open Now Thy Gates of Beauty” Hymn 901

Invocation, Confession and Absolution

Psalm 95: 1- 9

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;

    let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

    let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth;

    the heights of the mountains are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;

    let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture,

    and the sheep of his hand.

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,

    as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test

    and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

Gloria and Kyrie

Collect of the Day

The Lord be with you.

And with Thy spirit.

Let us pray. O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy, be gracious to all who have gone astray from Your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of Your Word; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

Kids Talk

Scripture Readings

Exodus 17:1–7

All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massahand Meribah [(testing and quarreling)], because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Gradual

[O come, let us fix our eyes on] | Jesus,*

     the founder and perfecter | of our faith,

who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despis- | ing the shame,*

     and is seated at the right hand of the | throne of God.

Romans 5:1–8

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,