1. Confession and absolution offer more than assurance, they gift real and genuine Divine promises.
  2. Finding rest in God when the “what ifs”come calling
  3. How can he say it? How can he say that Christ is after all the entire meaning of life for him, and that death is no real worry?
  4. We know that death does not have the last word in Christ.
  5. The Lord has remembered to help his servant Israel, to fulfill his promises to Abraham and to his offspring forever, not mostly or mainly because of his mercy, but exclusively so.
  6. In that moment of greatest despair, we find the antidote for all our fears. We know we are beloved of God and there is salvation in Christ’s atoning death.
  7. Honest confession brings us into the fatherly care of God where we are always greeted with grace, mercy, peace, love, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
  8. In the tumultuous sea of information, opinions, and ideologies that break over us each day, we hold fast to the anchor of our faith—Jesus, the true prophet.
  9. Everything in Scripture is God revealing himself to his people, you and me.
  10. The Parable of the Lost Sheep bursts through the confines of convention and demands that we embrace the messiness of life and the unpredictable ways in which God's grace and forgiveness operates.
  11. What I desperately needed was not to preach to myself, but to listen to a preacher—not to take myself in hand, but to be taken in the hands of the Almighty.
  12. God wants his word of promise to be the only thing we bank on, the only thing we have confidence in.