1. Grace comes for every foolish, self-absorbed sinner, for every “Nabal,” and announces that there is one who has already taken it upon himself to shoulder all of our wrongdoing, paying the price for it through the sacrifice of himself.
  2. Christ Jesus brings his word and presence to where you are and he is even willing to do so through the likes of your personally present pastor.
  3. 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.
  4. Tim wanted everyone to know to the deepest part of their being that they were justified by Christ alone.
  5. This is the Christian word: grace. Such grace is found only with this Lamb who is also our Shepherd.
  6. Luther's emphasis on the need for sinners to have preachers who can provide them with the comfort and support they need for their faith in Jesus Christ and life is as relevant today as it was in his time.
  7. Jesus cries on the cross for us. He suffers and cries and dies in our place. He is forsaken by his father so we don’t have to be.
  8. The drama of Scripture is about God renaming us by bringing us into his image-bearing family once again. And it would take “a name above all names” to accomplish it.
  9. This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
  10. If the season of Lent is a journey, Holy Week is the destination.
  11. What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
  12. Unprompted, without any warning, for no reason at all, without any instigation say, "I love you." And that will wash over your parents like a beautiful absolution.