Happenings

Sermons by Pastor Walter Snyder plus announcements, articles, videos, and anything else that doesn’t fit Ask the Pastor or the Luther Library.





14 May 2016

Funeral Sermon: At Home in the Lord

Preached on Psalm 28:7-8
The Funeral of Catherine Marie “Cathy” Potter
14 May AD 2016

Title: At Home in the Lord (MP3 Audio)

Psalm 46:11 Summary: Since Adam’s fall, humankind hasn’t been where it’s supposed to be — spiritually, mentally, and physically, we come into the world at odds with ourselves, each other, and the Lord.. God wants to bring us back into His presence. He works through the Holy Spirit to call us to Him. He employs His Word, Baptism, Communion, Absolution — the fulness of the Gospel — to make us His and to keep us safe.

Yet we still live in a fallen Creation, full of storms and struggle, of disaster and death. Even more than we need shelter from the elements, we need protection from the evil within and the evildoers without. And we certainly must be shielded from the assaults of Satan.

Over and over, the Psalms call us to enter into the Lord’s protection. Here, He tells us that He is our “strength” and our “shield.” The “saving refuge of his anointed” is the mighty “fortress (Psalm 46:11)” of all who believe in Him.

He will keep us safe through our deaths and into life everlasting. In the Resurrection, we will have no need for the protection of a fortress but the Lord will still be our dwelling place. Christ spoke of this when He told the disciples of the “many rooms (John 14:2)” and promised that He was going to prepare a place for them. He has also prepared a place for us and will raise us up to live in the eternal home of God’s presence.

In this life, He is our home away from home. Yet by faith, we are already home and will remain there forevermore.

Text: The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.

The Lord is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed. Psalm 28:7-8

Scripture quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Audio: Click to hear the MP3 of At Home in the Lord

NB: A few people have had problems trying to play the inline audio with Windows Media Player. If this occurs, you can either change to QuickTime or another default browser player, copy and paste the link directly into a selected player, or download it to your computer, where it seems to work regardless of which player. Several folks have suggested VLC Player from VideoLAN.

Other Readings: Psalm 23; Job 19:23-27a; Romans 8:28-39; John 14:1-6

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