Tag Archives: Gospel

The Whole Cake

[There is no video of the service for 6/11; the text of the sermon follows.]

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Have you ever wondered about that saying, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too?” Obviously, in one sense, you have to have the cake in order to eat it. But the saying reminds us that once we’ve eaten it, we no longer have it. We cannot both keep it in front of us and eat it. It is one or the other: you can eat it, but then it’s gone. Or you can leave it sitting on the table in front of you, but then you don’t get to eat it.

Paul is telling us that we cannot have our salvation cake and eat it too. We cannot earn our salvation and have it given to us. It is one or the other: either we can and must observe the law perfectly in order to receive what God promises us, in order to inherit eternal life; or it is a free gift promised by God, which we receive purely by faith.

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2019 Wenatchee Rally for Life Remarks

[delivered on January 19, 2019]

Good afternoon. I am Pastor Timothy Winterstein from Faith Lutheran Church in East Wenatchee, a congregation of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Thanks, Gene, for inviting me. What a great privilege it is to be with you today, as we pray and trust God in Jesus Christ as our only hope in life and death.

I am six years younger than Roe v. Wade, which means that I and my younger siblings have always lived under its death-shadow. I was probably 10 or 12 when I saw a picture in the newspaper of the Washington March for Life in Olympia, where I grew up. I remember asking my mom, “What is abortion?” and from that moment on, there was no doubt in my mind that legal and unlimited abortion was a tragedy unlike nearly any that we have seen in this world.

The question for us gathered here and around the country this weekend, as we approach the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, is not whether that event is a nearly unfathomable disgrace and stain on the fabric of the United States of America—we have no doubt about that—but what to do about it.

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