Sermons and More from St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Forestville, WI

About Sermons and More from St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Forestville, WI

Sermons, Bible Studies, and other audio media from Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County, Wisconsin. Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County is located in the village of Forestville, Wisconsin. We are a congregation of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. We are a confessional and liturgical congregation. Saint Peter’s is located at 316 W. Main Street, Forestville, WI 54213. Phone: 920-856-6420. Email: info@doorcounty.church. Website: https://doorcounty.church. We welcome listener comments, questions, and feedback.

Publisher

Sermons and More from Saint Peter's Lutheran Church in Door County

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Aug 2023

Latest episode

6 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

38 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   6 Oct 2026

   The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ [Sermon]

   Sermon Title: The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ [Sermon] Sermon Text: Phillipians 3:4b-14 Sermon Summary: Knowing Christ means forgetting the guilt of the past, bearing fruit with God’s blessings, and pressing on toward the future, because His death transforms our hearts and makes us His own. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 19, Proper 22 A Calendar Date: 2026-10-04 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County (Forestville) Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Sister Bay (https://doorcounty.church/communities/sister-bay-wi/) and other areas in Northeastern Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today in our sermon, we are going to be taking up the theme of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. We’re going to be taking it up under three headings. First of all, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means forgetting what is behind. Second of all, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means bearing fruit with the blessings that we have received. And finally, we’re going to talk about the fact that knowing Christ means knowing what our future holds, and therefore pressing on to that future. Knowledge, training, it can make all the difference. We can have all the raw materials, but if we aren’t oriented in the right way and things aren’t structured the right way, it can actually go in the opposite direction. Instead of being a blessing, it can be a curse. Or at least simply not utilized in the way that would be good and right. A pertinent example of this to me is in my own family. Back about, I don’t know, about 20 years ago or so, 23 years ago or so, my brother came back from Marine basic training and his advanced training as well, and was a completely different person. That’s an age-old story, right? But it was very stark and very dramatic with my brother. He had all the raw materials to be an impressive individual. So when he took the ACT, for example, he scored higher than a lot of valedictorians that I’ve known. But even while he had that intellectual capacity, he really didn’t apply it. He was a C and D student. He had a tall, big frame, taller than me by probably about 6’3″, 6’4″ or so, and very broad-shouldered and so on. But before he went off to boot camp, he was pretty flabby, pretty weak, hunched over. He came back a lean, mean, American fighting machine. It was incredible to see how the Marines were able to take all these blessings that he had been given, and were able to help him to use it and apply it to benefit others, in this case, our nation, in his service in the military. And the Lord Jesus Christ does an even more profound thing than this by filling our hearts with His love and giving us the knowledge of Him. Through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, we are transformed to render unto God the fruits that he desires, the fruits of thanksgiving to him, the fruits of seeking to serve him, and the fruits of loving service of the neighbor as well. The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ Means Forgetting What Lies Behind And the way the Lord does this is first of all by, in the knowledge of him, forgetting what lies behind. And when Saint Paul talks about forgetting what lies behind, I think this is a very personal thing for him. Paul is not talking just in objective ideas. He’s talking about objective ideas, but it’s through the filter of his own subjective experience, the life that he had actually lived. ‘Cause man, did Saint Paul have some skeletons in his closet, in some senses quite literally, that was good for him to leave behind. He was a man who had been blessed in many ways, and we’re going to talk about these ways in which he had been blessed in a minute. But yet he used those blessings to hurt and to harm others. Consider, for example, his role at the martyrdom of St. Stephen, the very first Christian martyr. While he himself, it appears, did not cast any stones, he yet facilitated those who did. He watched over the cloaks of those who had laid them aside in order to stone St. Stephen, and he looked on with approval. So much approval, the next time we encounter St. Paul, he’s actually himself actively persecuting Christians. And the great honor and the great wonderful blessing that we have in the knowledge of Christ Jesus is the ability to forget the guilt and the shame of our past. To leave that behind. You see, Christ Jesus through His wondrous, loving, atoning death for our sakes, He took the just condemnation (https://doorcounty.church/news/the-power-to-forgive-sermon/) that we have all deserved according to our sinfulness. The condemnation that we have deserved is eternal death. And some people think, including some theologians think, that’s far too harsh of a sentence for our sin. But it’s just the natural result of what we have done. So consider our readings for today, our other readings, which compare the people of God of old to a vineyard. In the Lord Jesus Christ, in his parable today, somewhat modifies this to talk about them as the tenants of the vineyard. What had they received? Incredible blessings. Israel had been taken up out of Egypt. It was about to die, and yet the Lord dug them up there from Egypt and planted them in the fertile soils of Canaan. There, he watered and fertilized this vine so that it went to branch out so that many nations stood under their protection, and provision, and power. Lord had granted them many blessings. But what had they failed to do? They failed to render him the fruit that he desired from them. Lord desired that they love Him with all their heart and soul and strength and mind. And yet they let their heart be divided. Maybe they acknowledged Yahweh with their lips, and yet with their deeds and with their hearts, they were continually going after other foreign false gods. In the parable of the vineyard, of the tenants of the vineyard, Jesus relates how the tenants of the vineyard failed to render to the owner of the vineyard the fruits that were his due. And the common thread with both of these is this: a rupture in the relationship with the one who had given them such great blessings. Israel, when they failed to give God his due, they said, “God, we’ll take those blessings, but we don’t want anything to do with you who gave us those blessings.” That’s why condemnation is just. By the way, brothers and sisters in Christ, God has given us everything. God has given us life. If we reject God therefore, we reject the giver of life, and we reject life itself. It’s our preference to have death rather than life. If we reject God we reject the giver of all light. Therefore, it’s a preference for darkness. We can go on and on, but here is what Christ Jesus, our Lord, did in His holy and precious death. Even while His heart was a heart of undivided love towards God, an undivided love towards the neighbor, yet He suffered the just consequences of a rejection of God, which was His own rejection. “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Christ Jesus took the condemnation we have all deserved, leaving us therefore only the fruits of His righteousness, which therefore becomes our righteousness, our grace, our mercy. So that no longer are we guilty or ashamed before the Lord, but instead we can look to Him as dear Father. With hearts that then trust Him and acknowledge Him and look to Him as in faith. The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ Means Bearing Fruit with the Blessings We Have Received Which brings us to our second point, because that knowledge of God through Christ, it transforms our hearts (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/sermon-jesus-the-solution-to-our-faith-problem/) so that now we are, in fact, able, imperfectly this side of heaven, but yet we are able to bear the fruits that God so desires. We can have all the blessings from God, and yet we can use them to evil ends. And this is, in fact, what we find with St. Paul. He recounts so many of the blessings that he received from the Lord God. He says, for example, “I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” He recounts many of the blessings that he had received. First of all, he was born into a pious family. And as being born into a pious family, they kept for him the laws and the rules and the regulations that were prescribed for a pious family. In those days, they didn’t bring the children to baptism as we do now, but instead they were to bring their children to be circumcised, their sons to be circumcised, and he had received that blessing. Not only this, but he was born of the people of Israel. He was descended from Abraham (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/sermon-spiritual-pride-spiritual-humility/) according to the flesh. And it says a Hebrew of Hebrews. What I think he might mean by this, by being a Hebrew of Hebrews, is that he was well-versed in the Hebrew scriptures. He knew the Old Testament, the Bible as it stood in that time. And not only this, but he was taught to observe the laws of the Old Testament in a very strict way so that those who were concerned about such things could find no charge to level against him, and yet this was all lost. Why? Because he used these blessings to be a persecutor of the church. He received many other blessings besides these ones that he lists out. Not only did he have a good Hebrew education, but he also had a good Greco-Roman education. He was familiar with the philosophers and the poets and the playwrights of the Greco-Roman world. He was not only a Jew, but he was also a Roman citizen. Because of this, he was a prime person to do what he ended up doing, to extradite people from Roman provinces such as Syria back to Jerusalem in order to try them there. He was the exact right person to do the devil’s work of persecuting the Christian church. All these blessings that he had received from the hand of God, he turned to evil ends. And so it is with so many of us, so many around us. The Lord has blessed our country and our land with incredible material prosperity. We are the richest nation, the most powerful nation that has ever existed on the face of planet Earth. Because of this, our hearts ought to be filled with gratitude towards God. His courts ought to be full. We don’t need to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day in order to make means come together. And yet so few people come to give thanks to the Lord God and to receive His blessings of eternal life. The Lord has granted us such blessings, and yet so many people turn aside from His ways. And instead of rendering God the obedience that they ought to do, instead of loving neighbor as themselves, instead they follow their own ways and look to who they consider to be number one. People use their blessings and use them towards evil ends, and fail to render God His due. They fail to offer up the fruits of righteousness. But for those of us who know Christ, it is entirely different. For those of us who know Christ, our hearts are transformed. That makes all the difference. Just as my brother had all the raw materials, but needed a personal transformation in order for them to be put to good ends, so also as Christians, we are transformed. Our hearts, instead of holding God at arm’s length or even further, instead are filled with love and gratitude towards Him. And these hearts are transformed to the neighbor as well, that even as God has loved the neighbor, so also that love is reflected in us towards the neighbor as well. So that we render to God what is His due, thanksgiving, obedience. We render to our neighbor what God desires of us to do, loving service. The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ Means Knowing What Our Future Holds Now that’s certainly imperfect this side of heaven, and St. Paul acknowledges that as well in Philippians. He says, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Jesus Christ has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” This side of heaven, the old sinful flesh still hangs around our necks. Because of this, we will fail. We’re going to fail sometimes to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind. We’re going to fail to love our neighbor as ourselves. And yet, on account of the mercy we have in Christ Jesus, we know what lies ahead for us. We know that when Christ returns in power and might and glory, we will be utterly perfected, completely glorified. No longer will our hearts be divided. No longer will we love anything before the Lord God. No longer will we put anything in God’s place. No longer will there be any shade upon our hearts to prevent us from loving neighbor as ourselves. That is what we look forward to as Christians. We know what lies before us. Because we know what lies ahead of us, we press on and we strain towards it, seeking by the power of God to become more and more who we will be when Christ returns (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/sermon-blessing-people-on-the-way-to-heaven/). To seek to love the Lord God more and more, and to seek to love the neighbor as ourself more and more. Not that by these means we earn our own righteousness or our own salvation, but rather as a reflection of the love of God so lavishly poured into our hearts, this love by which He became one of us, to live for us, to die for us, to bring us forgiveness and everlasting life. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. <p>The post The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ [Sermon] (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/the-surpassing-worth-of-knowing-christ-sermon/) first appeared on Saint Peter's Lutheran Church (https://doorcounty.church).</p>

2. 

   1 Oct 2026

   Shining with the Light of Christ [Sermon]

   Sermon Title: Shining with the Light of Christ [Sermon] Sermon Text: Philippians 2:1–4, 14–18 Sermon Summary: The masses can be massively wrong, following the devil toward ruin. God calls us individually to repentance under His law, redeems us in Christ, and sends us to shine as lights in a crooked generation. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 18, Proper 21 A Calendar Date: 2026-09-27 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we heard from St. Paul these words: “Be children of God, without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” And we are going to be talking about shining with the light of Christ in our sermon today. So I’m sure many of you have heard the legend of the lemmings, right? What’s the legend of the lemmings? Up in places like Norway and Sweden, there are these little animals. They’re maybe like a hamster or a gerbil or something like this, very similar, a little creature. And the legend of the lemmings is that, once a year, they all go and jump off a cliff into the sea. That’s not exactly right, although that is a legend. We’ll talk about how that became famous. But it’s based on something that does happen. So pretty often these lemmings will have these big, huge mass migrations, where just huge numbers of them will just pick up and all together start running across the landscape to some other place. And as they run across that landscape, they can do things which seem to be rather ridiculous, run straight headlong into a river or a stream or something of this nature. And that’s the basis of the legend of the lemmings running off of a cliff. But how did that idea become so popular? Of course, it was Disney. Back in the fifties, Disney produced a movie in which they showed, in real life, a bunch of lemmings running off of a cliff. And so that’s the source for why maybe your parents said, “Would you just run off a cliff like a lemming?” Meaning, are you just gonna follow the masses and the crowds and just do whatever they do because they’re doing it? But interestingly enough, knowing that background to the story helps us to see really what’s behind the masses of people in their confusion. So how did Disney get those lemmings to run off a cliff? They hired a lemming wrangler. And the lemming wrangler’s job was to feed those lemmings, raise those lemmings. I imagine that those lemmings really thought the lemming wrangler was a great guy, right? Whenever he showed up, they got fed, and he had to make them reproduce until he had this nice big, large mass of lemmings. And then one day, this individual who you think is so great and taking care of all your needs and whatever, drives you out to what seems like a really nice environment, right? You had been maybe housed in a barn somewhere in Norway, but now he took you out to this beautiful field, and he starts shooing you in the direction he wants you to go. You think this is the right way to go because my lemming wrangler is telling me where to go. And all of a sudden you start running with your fellow lemmings straight off a cliff. This was before those times, the times now where you see the things like “no animals were harmed in the making of this video.” That didn’t exist in the 1950s. It’s a great illustration, I think, for what happens to the masses of people around us. Because even as people collectively come to various moral positions which are contrary to the word of God, which will ultimately lead them to running off the cliff, the way that people come to various spiritual ideas which have an even worse consequence, running off the cliff to perdition—well, there’s someone behind that, the devil himself. And when God snatches us out of that by means of our calling, our election, our sanctification, so that we come to trust in His Word and trust in His grace and mercy, He’s snatching us away from this great mass of people and from the one who seeks to do us in. Praise be to God for that. That’s really at the heart of our message today. ‘Cause as we shine like lights, this is a call to live as Christians, to believe as Christians (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/sermon-jesus-the-solution-to-our-faith-problem/), and that’s always going to look different than the mass of people around us. And praise be to God for this. We’re gonna talk about this in our three points. First of all, we are going to talk about the point that the mass can be massively wrong. Second of all, we’re going to talk about that repentance is a matter of understanding that we as individuals stand under God’s law (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/sermon-dying-with-regard-to-the-law/). So we as individuals stand under God’s law and we’ll be judged individually. Then finally, praise be to God, the Lord redeems us individually so that in turn, while we shine collectively as lights with our fellow Christians, yet this will be distinct and different than the rest of the world. The Mass Can Be Massively Wrong There’s another story from the 1950s that I’d like to tell you that helps you to see how the mass can be massively wrong. Most people, when they try to understand what’s good, what is right, or what is true, normally what they will do is they will look around at the people around them, and as long as their customs and practices and beliefs look within range of similarity of the people around them, they think that they’re at least right, or in the range of being right. And that’s the instinct that most people have, but that’s an instinct that can lead to really mass delusion. And there are documented examples of mass delusion. I think it was 1954, there was something called the Seattle Windshield Mass Delusion. What was the Seattle Windshield Mass Delusion? Basically, one night a police officer was walking around Seattle, and Seattle is a place where there’s a lot of houses close together—most people don’t have garages—and so the cars were sitting out in the driveways, and the lights are shining down and made it easier to see the surface of the windshields. And he noticed something. In so many of the windshields on the beat that he was walking, so many of these windshields had divots and pockmarks in them. It seemed like every other windshield had a divot or a pockmark in it. He went and he reported that to the newspaper. The newspaper picked up that story. They published it. What did everybody do as soon as they opened the newspaper? They went out and inspected their own windshields. Guess what they found? Divots. Pockmarks. “Something’s gotta be causing this,” people thought. And there were all kinds of theories. Some people theorized that gangs of young ruffians were going around with BB guns to put pockmarks in people’s windshields. And so people would stay up late trying to catch these young ne’er-do-wells, and cops began being on the lookout for these bands of boys causing all these problems. Other people thought that it was because there was nuclear fallout coming down and landing on the windshields and causing these pockmarks, so people began to panic that maybe there’s nuclear fallout falling on Seattle. And so people started going around with Geiger counters. There was a guy on the police force, and I’m guessing he was probably one of the least popular guys on the police force, right? ‘Cause he’s one of those contrarian guys. He didn’t go along with the crowds and the rest of his police officers looking for these ne’er-do-wells. He thought maybe there’s something else going on here. You know that guy. When you say something and everybody agrees on it, it’s, really? Usually not a very popular guy. And so what he decided to do when his beat came up, he wasn’t gonna walk around the driveways. He decided to go check out the new car lots. And guess what? No pock marks on the windshields of the new cars. What everybody had noticed and began thinking was some sort of massive conspiracy was just the normal wear and tear on an average car with probably less advanced glass technology than we have now. It’s as if everybody would’ve gotten panicked over the northern Wisconsin rust epidemic on cars. It just happens, right? It doesn’t mean people are going around putting rust on your cars. It just happens. It’s one of the most well-documented cases of mass delusion. And there are many examples of mass delusions, many examples of mass psychosis. There have been documented examples of entire countries of young women having a laughing epidemic. There are examples of werewolf panics in medieval Europe. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the masses around us can be and often are massively wrong. Paul saw this. What did he call the masses of people around him? A crooked and twisted generation. What about Ezekiel? Ezekiel looked around him and found a generation that too was massively wrong. It was the saying that he quoted, a saying that seemed to have been common in his age, that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and their children had their teeth set on edge. Evidently, it seemed like many in his generation were blaming their problems on the generations that had come before. Instead of honoring father and mother (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermon-3-biblical-patterns-of-womens-service/), they disregarded and disdained father and mother. Instead of taking personal accountability for the problems of their household and for the problems of their city and their nation (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/sermon-the-blessing-of-the-nation/), they blamed the ones who had come before them. That wasn’t the only problem that Ezekiel called out. Ezekiel also called attention to the sexual immorality of the people around him. And in addition to this, Ezekiel also focused in on the idolatry of his generation, of the people who ought to have been God’s people. They were practicing syncretism. Maybe they hadn’t rejected the one true God, but they mixed in with the worship of the one true God, worship and beliefs associated with other false foreign gods. They all point in the same direction, the people said. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Can you think of an age in which generation is set against generation? Can you think of an age marked by mass sexual immorality? Can you think of an age in which people are practicing and believing in syncretism, picking and choosing the religious beliefs as if from a spiritual smorgasbord? Boy, does that not sound familiar. We as Individuals Stand Under God’s Law And even as Ezekiel called out people from this mass, this massive delusion of their time, so also God calls us. And this is an individual call. Because if we will turn away from the mass delusions of the masses around us, this means then we as individuals must reckon with our own individual sin. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/daily-repentance/) that he had committed, he shall surely live. He shall not die. Now, on the one hand, there is the call there to repentance to understand that we are not going to be reckoned before God’s judgment seat en masse with the great masses of people, and that as we do so, we will not be reckoned according to the opinions of the masses, but rather according to the law of God. That is the beginning of repentance: to understand that we as individuals are held accountable to the righteous commands and demands of a righteous God. And that call is as pertinent today as it was in the day of Ezekiel. Yes, to consider ourselves accountable to a righteous God means that we may face rejection from the generation around us. This may mean that people might consider us to be strange and alien in our time and in our place. The Lord Redeems Us Individually But brothers and sisters in Christ, even as we understand and acknowledge that we are held accountable to God’s righteous expectations individually, there is a promise as well. That even as we are individually reckoned, yet also by the work of God in Christ Jesus, we are individually redeemed. Yes, the scriptures say that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. The work of Christ Jesus is universal in nature insofar as His righteousness covers over all sin, but yet not all belief. And the promise of God is this: that we have been redeemed not only collectively, but also individually. You see, the saving work of God consists in our individual calling and election. Before the foundation of the world, God wrote the names of all His people in His book, in the Book of Life. To those that he called, he also sent the Holy Spirit, who by the message of the gospel has converted the heart to individually trust and believe in God and in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. The Light of Christ Within Us And by means of the sanctifying work of God, this individual sanctifying work, therefore the light of Christ, his righteousness has come to shine in our hearts. The righteousness of Christ dwells within us. That has a righteousness and a glory that is going to shine with greater and greater brilliance as we are transformed from one degree of glory to the next. And we await with great thanksgiving for that glorious day when no longer the shade of sin that still hangs around us on account of our sinful nature will no longer be, but instead nothing will inhibit the glory of God as it shines from us and out of us, reflecting God’s glory even as it shines upon us. And yet until that day, the glory of Christ yet still dwells within us. And while it may be muted and shaded by our sinfulness, it yet still shines. And my brothers and sisters in Christ, my encouragement to you this day is to let that light shine. Don’t cover it up. Don’t try to just fit in with the masses. But instead, let it shine in the midst of this crooked generation. One last story. Back when I had the great blessing of studying abroad, there were many of my fellow classmates who wanted to try to not appear to be American. They thought that if they looked American maybe they might get taken advantage of or picked on or something like this. And so they would sew Canadian flag patches—what would you call it—on their backpacks and that sort of thing, try to pawn themselves off as Canadian. I knew that people would take one look at me and say, “That’s a corn-fed boy from the middle of America.” There was no hiding it, and let me tell you, there wasn’t. You could walk down the streets, and the shop callers would all call out “American, American.” In fact, they usually could pinpoint exactly where you were from. At that time, I lived literally right on the border of Texas, and so they’d say, “Yo, Texan.” I said actually, I’m one mile from Texas, is my legal address. All right? Couldn’t help it. It just shined forth. My brothers and sisters in Christ, you belong to a nation far more distinctive, far more brilliant than the United States of America—or even, doesn’t Texas consider themselves to be a nation too, something like this?—even more brilliant than Texas. You belong to the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus. You belong to a kingdom which has no beginning, which has no end. Do not try to cover that up, but rather instead let the glory of Christ shine in you as you conform yourself not to this age, but to the age to come, that you allow your opinions to be formed not by the masses around you, but rather instead by the holy scriptures. Whether moral or spiritual, let your light shine. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. <p>The post Shining with the Light of Christ [Sermon] (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/shining-with-the-light-of-christ-sermon/) first appeared on Saint Peter's Lutheran Church (https://doorcounty.church).</p>

3. 

   22 Sept 2026

   Daily Repentance [Sermon]

   Sermon Title: Daily Repentance [Sermon] Sermon Text: Isaiah 55:6-9 Sermon Summary: The proper time for repentance is today, not years past or some future date. God invites us to daily confess our sins and covers us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson Liturgical Date: Pentecost 17, Proper 20 A Calendar Date: 2026-09-20 Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, 316 W. Main St., Forestville, WI 54213. 920-856-6420. Saint Peter’s serves Sister Bay (https://doorcounty.church/communities/sister-bay-wi/) and other area throughout Northeast Wisconsin. The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI: TRANSCRIPT In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You may be seated. Today we heard from the prophet Isaiah, “Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, and to our God for He will abundantly pardon.” And on the basis of this passage, we’re going to be taking up the theme that the proper time for repentance is today. Not sometime off in the future, not far off years ago, but rather instead today. A Pickup Truck Full of Rust Back in college, as many of you know, I had my dirt bag white water rafting guide days. And one summer I was getting ready and making the preparations for when I’d be guiding out west in Colorado. The place where I was gonna be guiding out west didn’t have a bunk house for the guides, and so we had to kind of provide our own arrangements for sleeping. And so I went and I looked around the community and I found a Dodge D-100, a 1989 Dodge D-100. You know, this is just before they transitioned to that more rounded body. It was still the boxy body, classic look. But what really set this pickup truck apart from just about any other that I could find, it had an eight-foot long bed. And for a six-foot long guy, that was the perfect size for me to live out of the back end for a summer, and that was my plan. I was literally going to use the bed of the pickup truck as a bed. Now, I ended up not needing it there. I found a literally one-room shack with no electric and no water that I lived in for the summer. So a bit of an upgrade over what I was looking to. But anyways, I still had this pickup truck. And as I was driving out west to Colorado from where I went to school in Indiana, I drove through Topeka, Kansas, where my granddad, a jack-of-all-trades farmer, lived. And my granddad saw the pickup truck and about lost his mind ’cause it was full of rust. He couldn’t stand the sight of that rust. And so he took me into his shop, handed me an angle grinder, and started showing me everywhere he wanted me to knock the rust off that vehicle, on the bumper, on the doors. And on the doors after I knocked that rust off the vehicle, he gave me a can of white primer, and he said, “Okay, go ahead and put this primer over it. Unfortunately, the day is getting short and I don’t have any top coat, but when you get out to Colorado, make sure you buy some top coat.” So across the country I go, out to Colorado in my baby blue pickup truck with white spots on the doors there. It looked like I was driving the sky there, like clouds in the sky. Off I went out west and, you know, I had a good intention. Yeah, when I get there, I will go ahead and buy that top coat. Friends, do you think I ever bought that top coat and painted over those white primer spots on my doors? No. It stayed that way for a few years until I finally sold it, and what was absolutely predictable happened, right? Eventually, the rust stains started showing through again, and eventually, well, I had big old holes in my doors. The Corrosion of Sin I’m here to tell you that we have a corrosion far more serious than rust on the side of a door. And that corrosion that we all have is the corrosion, the corruption of sin. And on the one hand, we might be like 21-year-old Chris Jackson and say, “You know, I’m gonna take care of that at some point in the future.” The fact of the matter is that the time to address that corruption, that corrosion of sin, it’s not at some ambiguous point in the future, but instead it is now. And that is the point that Isaiah was making to the people of God in Jerusalem about 2,700 years ago. Isaiah was telling the people of Jerusalem this: Now is the time to repent (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermon-on-repentance/). Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. What Isaiah was saying is this: You may think, people of Israel, that you have time to lay aside your sin. You may think that you have time to get rid of all those idols that you are hiding or maybe not even hiding but rather instead putting in full sight on your rooftops. You may think you have time for that. And you may think that you have time to reform your business practices by which you defraud one another. Instead of using your business to serve one another, instead you are using it to defraud one another. You have time to reform those practices, but the time is now. You don’t know about the future. The Day to Repent Is Now And brothers and sisters in Christ, that is a message as pertinent today as when it was first preached by Isaiah so many thousands of years ago. And that’s a message that we as well need to hear. Oh, we may think that we have time to lay aside whatever our besetting sins are. Maybe this is the abuse of alcohol. Maybe this is lust. Maybe this is greed. Whatever it is, we may think that we have time, but the fact of the matter is that the Lord has not guaranteed the next day, let alone the next breath. This was driven home recently to me and my family. Right now she didn’t end up going, but right now my wife’s classmates from high school are celebrating their 20th anniversary of their graduation with a reunion. And an email went out pointing out the fact that of her class 20 years ago, these are people still in their 40s mind you, but of their class 20 years ago, 30 people in her class have already passed away. And as a 46-year-old man, I look around and it seems like every other day I hear about a guy my age that’s drawing his last breath. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the day to repent is now. Not far off at some future date. But rather, God calls each of us to daily confess our sins. We’re gonna talk about that a little bit more in a minute. To daily confess our sins, and God, who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In other words, if we confess our sins, God will in fact remove that rust from us far better than I could with that angle grinder, and God will cover us over with something better than an automotive top coat. But instead, He will cover us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. A righteousness which he earned for us through a holy life that he lived for our sakes, and an atoning death that he died for our sins. It Is Never Too Late to Repent Now on the other hand, there may be some of us present who know that their days maybe are a little bit more numbered than others, but who think that the opportunity for repentance has far passed. Maybe the years have grown long and the sunset is in view. And we look back upon our lives, and all of a sudden we understand how we have failed to do as God has commanded, and we think that maybe there is not time to get right with God, and that time has passed. And to this we have this beautiful parable that the Lord Jesus Christ preached. The parable of the master of the vineyard, this generous master who gives to all of his workers equally, whether they came in the cool of the morning or as the day was waning, he gives to each of them the same reward. And so it is with our God. Whether we have come to Christ as an infant, as Leighton was just baptized, or whether we come to Christ at late age, God’s grace and mercy remains the same. And it is able to cover over all of our sins (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/office-of-the-keys/). And so my message for you is this, is that repentance is not something that we ought to have done far back years ago, nor is repentance something that we can delay for some future date, but rather instead, the proper moment of repentance is right now (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/sermon-three-reasons-to-repent-today/). And this applies for each and every one of us. A Life of Daily Repentance I’d like for you to open up your hymnals to page 325. Page 325. So this is the Small Catechism, which, in a great blessing, is included in our hymnals, and on page 325 we have the Small Catechism’s discussion of the sacrament of holy baptism. And on the right-hand column, down towards the middle of the column, there’s the fourth part of the teachings regarding the sacrament of holy baptism. And it asks this question, “What does such baptizing with water indicate?” I’d like for you all to read the answer along with me. “It indicates that the old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” This is a beautiful representation of the Lutheran teaching regarding repentance. There are some Christians who teach that repentance is maybe a one-time occasion in your life, or maybe something if you backslide that maybe you do a few times, or maybe even once a year when the revival season comes around. For those who have this viewpoint, repentance is an infrequent activity. There are other Christians who maybe believe that repentance is a little bit more frequent. Maybe repentance is something that you do every few months or every month, and they maybe have a little bit different understanding of what repentance is in the first place, but repentance, once again, is an occasional thing. But as Lutheran Christians, we believe that the entire life of the Christian is a life of repentance. That every day, yes, we are called to reckon with our sin, to examine our lives according to the law of God (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/sermon-dying-with-regard-to-the-law/). According to the Ten Commandments, we are called to examine our words, our deeds, and even more importantly than our words and our deeds, the motions of our minds and the affections of our hearts. And if we are honest, we will see that daily we fail to keep God’s holy and righteous commands and demands and the law. And some people may think, “Well, what a miserable thing to do, Pastor Chris. Why in the world would you think upon your sins on such a daily basis?” It’s because on the other side of this is something so precious, so beautiful, and such a blessing. That as we said, if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will in fact forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness day by day. And so brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the true reason why repentance isn’t just something that maybe ought to have happened years ago, and maybe not something that we wait to happen into the future. But instead, God invites us to daily, today, repent of our sins so that we may have the assurance that we have His grace and mercy to life everlasting. Praise be to God for this. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. <p>The post Daily Repentance [Sermon] (https://doorcounty.church/news/sermons/daily-repentance/) first appeared on Saint Peter's Lutheran Church (https://doorcounty.church).</p>

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