Bible Study: Hebrews 2:1-18, September 30, 2015

A Bible Study taught by Pastor Lewis Polzin on Hebrews 2:1-18 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on September 30, 2015. This Bible Study will help to lay a foundation for the sermon that is preached the following Sunday. Play the audio by clicking here.

Sermon Audio: James 5:13-20, September 27, 2015

A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on September 27, 2015 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on James 5:13-20. The text of this sermon may be found by clicking this link and you may play the audio of the sermon here.

Bible Study: Job 29:1-30:31, September 27, 2015

A Bible Study taught by Pastor Lewis Polzin on September 27, 2015 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on Job 29:1-30:31. Play the audio by clicking here.

Sermon Text: James 5:13-20, September 27, 2015

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from the Epistle of James, the fifth chapter:

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. 

Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,
     James is heartily concerned with the end of time, when Jesus will return and raise all who believe in Him into eternal life.  That’s everything that’s going on in this chapter.  James closes out his letter by giving us instructions on how it is that we should prepare for that end.  And we should, all of us, from the very youngest to the very eldest, be walking through this life to prepare for our end.

     We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that our Lord would deliver us from evil, and we know that as we pray that prayer we are asking that our Lord would give to us a blessed death, a death in which we are confident that He will fulfill His promises and take us to be with Himself in heaven, waiting until the resurrection from the dead.  This is what we should all desire.  We should all desire such a blessed end, and we should use all that God has given us to prepare for that.

Bible Study: James 5:13-20, September 23, 2015

A Bible Study taught by Pastor Lewis Polzin on James 5:13-20 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on September 23, 2015. This Bible Study will help to lay a foundation for the sermon that is preached the following Sunday. Play the audio by clicking here.

Bible Study: Job 27:13-28:28, September 20, 2015

A Bible Study taught by Pastor Lewis Polzin on September 20, 2015 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on Job 27:13-28:28. Play the audio by clicking here.

Bible Study: James 3:13-4:10, September 16, 2015

A Bible Study taught by Pastor Lewis Polzin on James 3:13-4:10 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on September 16, 2015. This Bible Study will help to lay a foundation for the sermon that is preached the following Sunday. Play the audio by clicking here.

Bible Study: Job 24:1-27:12, September 13, 2015

A Bible Study taught by Pastor Lewis Polzin on September 13, 2015 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on Job 24:1-27:12. Play the audio by clicking here.

Sermon Audio: James 3:1-12, September 13, 2015

A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on September 13, 2015 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on James 3:1-12. The text of this sermon may be found by clicking this link and you may play the audio of the sermon here.

Sermon Text: James 3:1-12, September 13, 2015

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from the Epistle of James, the third chapter:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so…

Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,

     Our tongues do marvelous things.  They speak words whose beauty declares truths of the world we have never seen or heard before.  Consider this poem by Oscar Wilde:

Requiescat by Oscar Wilde
Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow. 

All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust. 

Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew. 

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.

     Wilde here writes of a deep love for his sister who tragically died of illness.  Though, when we hear it, perhaps we were taken to the graveside of one we love.  This is the power of words.  They transport us to a marvelous place, where we hear words we have always known, transporting us across the vast chasms in our mind to wherever it is the words take us.

Sermon for The Vigil of Repentance in Remembrance of the Victims of Abortion, September 12, 2015

This sermon was written for The Vigil of Repentance in Remembrance of the Victims of Abortion, held at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on September 12, 2015. You may find out more about this service, and all of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's efforts in the protection of the unborn by clicking this link. You may also play the audio of this sermon by clicking here.


Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

My dear friends in Christ,
     Our Lord tells us, through His servant David, in the 139th Psalm, that our Lord is intimately involved in the forming of life, even from the moment of conception.  But it goes further than that.  If our Lord knits together every boy and girl formed in their mother, He has also guided even the process of conception, the making of this tiny human person.  It doesn’t matter how this child came to be, this child is beloved by God, whose sin, that original sin we have all inherited from our first father, Adam, that child’s sin was paid for by the death of Jesus Christ.  Every single person, whether a single second from conception or the oldest living person, whether the world esteems them valuable or able to contribute to society, whether they lay in a hospital bed forever, every single person is valuable, loved by, cherished by, redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ, for the blood of Christ was spilled for them.  And thus they should be valued by us.

     But, we have failed our Lord and we have failed our neighbors in our care towards those for whom Christ died.  In our many sins, we have failed.  But today, we recognize that we all have been negligent in our duties to protect those who are the least among us.  The least among us are those who will not receive the life given to them by their Creator but are killed through methods devised by wicked humanity.  The least among us are those who are suffering from the grief and shame of having an abortion.  The least among us are even those men who have had their children killed, even who have encouraged their children to be killed, and who are even now suffering under their grief.

Bible Study: James 3:1-12, September 9, 2015

A Bible Study taught by Pastor Lewis Polzin on James 3:1-12 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on September 9, 2015. This Bible Study will help to lay a foundation for the sermon that is preached the following Sunday. Play the audio by clicking here.

Sermon Audio: James 2:1-10, 14-18, September 6, 2015

A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on September 6, 2015 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on James 2:1-10, 14-18. The text of this sermon may be found by clicking this link and you may play the audio of the sermon here.

Sermon Text: James 2:1-10, 14-18, September 6, 2015

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from the Epistle of James, the second chapter:

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it… What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 

Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,

     A man was walking in a forest one day.  And as he went, he noticed that all of the plants were dead.  Not one thing was alive.  The grass had withered, the flowers had drooped, even the trees were reminiscent of old ghostly bones cropping up from the ground.  It was not beautiful where he had expected beauty.

     Then, as he left the forest he found a field, and realized things were greening up again.  But, as he proceeded, he saw that on one side of him, everything was a primary color.  All the reds, blues, and yellows that you see were on his left.  All the mixes, the greens, browns, purples, oranges… they were all on his right.  And as he looked at them, he realized there was no beauty there either.

     He had expected to see things the way they should be.  The way you look upon a forest and expect to see the deep colors of life, with tracks on the ground, overgrown bushes, the signs that there is something staring back at you from within.  Or the way you look out at a prairie field in the sunset, with every color in the world staring back at you, nothing clashes, everything goes together and matches perfectly with the sun and all of its hues.  But the man saw death, and he saw division, neither one the way things were supposed to be.

Bible Study: James 2:1-10, 14-18, September 2, 2015

A Bible Study taught by Pastor Lewis Polzin on James 2:1-10, 14-18 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on September 2, 2015. This Bible Study will help to lay a foundation for the sermon that is preached the following Sunday. Play the audio by clicking here.