And on sermons…

So, this is drill weekend, and even though Josh is at Camp Ripley, I decided to go to Saturday night church. It is my last weekend where I can pretty much do whatever I want all by myself in my house, and so Baby and I decided that sleeping in on Sunday would be a nice thing to do.

Anyway, so I went to Saturday night church. The Sermon was a “My Changed Life” sermon instead of a “Christ Crucified for my sins” sermon. (For an example of what I mean, see Extreme Theology .) The sermon itself was useful, particularly to where Josh and I are in our lives. It was on raising godly kids, but it was missing something… whose fault is it when your kids sin? (By the way, I did bring this to pastor’s attention… clue me in if he mentioned it on Sunday.)

No, this is a really relevant thing here… and it is foundational to Lutheran theology. (And I’d site Book of Concord which is packed.) Josh and I are dirty rotten sinners. We were raised by dirty rotten sinners, and we’re going to raise dirty rotten sinners. My parents are occasionally asked how they got Becky, HG, and me to turn out so well. I’ve heard them say it was nothing they did in particular, they were just blessed by God.

And that is the key difference between a Lutheran Sermon and an Evangelical Sermon. In a Lutheran Sermon, you’ve already screwed things up; an Evangelical Sermon says how not to screw things up, forgetting that things are going to get screwed up. And Lutherans need to spell out the difference.