Pastor Chris Brademeyer’s Podcast

Repentence is Good

Advent is a season of preparation. It is a season of expectation, of longing, of hope. But Scripture does not speak of preparation in vague spiritual terms, Advent preparation is concrete. It involves repentance. That is why John the Baptist stands so prominently in these Sundays before Christmas. John does not offer sentimentality. He does not point us toward nostalgia or warm feelings. He calls us to repent because the Lord is near.
Malachi foretold this: “Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me.” John is the messenger. Christ is the Lord who comes. And the way is prepared by repentance, a repentance that is not man-made or self-generated, but a repentance that is itself a gift of God.
Today we consider repentance not as something dreadful, but as something profoundly good, good for the soul, good for our relationships, good for our sanity, and good for our faith. And finally, we will see that repentance is never an end in itself. It aims at the Gospel. Repentance clears the rubble so Christ’s entrance and healing can be grabbed onto in Christian faith.
Find out more in this sermon for the Second Wednesday in Advent from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

Steadfast in a Shaking World

Beloved in Christ, human history is characterized by movement. The world moves. Nations move. History moves. Culture moves. People move, often in anxious, restless directions. And the Scripture readings appointed for this Sunday show us the movement of God in history clearly. The prophet Malachi speaks of a day that burns like an oven, when the arrogant and the evildoer will be swept away like stubble, blown and burned, leaving nothing behind. Jesus in our reading from Luke describes signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, roaring seas, and people fainting with fear and foreboding. Everything is shaking. Everything is in motion.                     
And into that world of instability and unrest, the Word of God speaks a single command:Stand firm. Stand fast. Lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near. Today the Lord teaches His Church to stand firm when everything else moves. And He gives you everything you need to do just that.
Find out more in this sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

While We Wait

As I mentioned on Sunday, Advent is the season characterized by waiting. But this is not the kind of waiting we do at the checkout line. It is a holy waiting, a hopeful waiting, the waiting of a people who know Who is coming and what He brings with Him. James tells us, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.” And Matthew tells us of John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord through repentance.
Both of these readings ask a simple but profound question: How should God’s people wait? Not with servile fear. Not with boredom. Not with distraction or apathy. But with trust, patience, and repentance. And this is what we learn in Advent: that the waiting of faith is not empty. It is expectant. It is active. It is shaped by the Lord who has come, who still comes, and who will come again.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

3P1S Episode 22: The Law for You Too; Exploring the Practive of Self-Examination

Episode 22: The Law isn’t just for the unconverted or the guy next to you in the pew. It’s for you, the Christian, too. But why? Why is the Law still preached to those who are in Christ. Isn’t the Gospel enough? The answer is simple: the old Adam hasn’t been reformed—he has to be drowned daily. And for that, you need the Law to expose the sin that still clings, so that you can be driven again and again to Jesus. Now, we’re not talking about rummaging around in your feelings. That is not maturity. Instead, mature Christians learn to use the Law rightly - as a mirror to see the truth. But keep in mind, they don’t examine themselves to condemn themselves, but to confess what is wrong—and let Christ deal with it. In this episode, we cover the topic of Self-Examination and Repentance.

Wake Up

Advent is a season characterized by waiting, but not all waiting is the same. We are not talking about regular, boring waiting in every day life like waiting for a doctor’s appointment or waiting in line at the grocery store. Advent is marked by an expectant kind of waiting like a family waiting for the knock at the door when a loved one returns home for the holidays. It is the waiting of longing, the waiting of hope, the waiting that says, “The Lord is coming. Any moment now.”
Our readings today all teach us something simple, but needful: Wake up! Your King is at the door! That is to say, Advent is marked by three waitings. One was fulfilled with the birth of our Lord Jesus over two thousand years ago when Jesus came in the flesh. The second is fulfilled today when Jesus comes to us for forgiveness and salvation through the Word and the Sacraments. The third will be fulfilled when Jesus comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead, that is, when He arrives again at the end of time.
Find out more in this sermon for the First Sunday in Advent from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

Recognize the Giver

Real thankfulness is never vague or abstract. The Samaritan leper does not come back simply to express a general attitude of gratitude. He returns because he has received something real from Jesus. He saw his skin restored, the disease destroyed, and that his life was given back.
True thankfulness always has an object. More specifically, it clings to someone specific. One cannot be, in the most basic sense, thankful in general. No, thankfulness requires an acknowledgement of both the gift and the one who gives that gift. In the same way, Christian thankfulness is not simply “having a good attitude” or “being positive.” It is recognizing concrete gifts from the hand of God and returning to the Giver with appropriate thanksgiving.
Thankfulness is specific and concrete. You are thankful for something such as a blessing received or a  gift given. And so the Samaritan returned, fell at Jesus’s feet, and gave thanks because he knows exactly what Christ has done for him.
Find out more in this sermon for Thanksgiving Day from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

The Last

   “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?” For what do you wait? Are you even waiting for anything? I pray that you are all waiting for what is described in our readings for today: the new heavens and the new earth and our return to Zion – the kingdom of heaven. God has not revealed much to us about what our eternal life with Him will be like, but we do get a glimpse of its joys. Consider the poetic imagery from the prophet Isaiah, as he describes the creation of new heavens and a new earth. In this new creation, there will be gladness and joy. There will no longer be the sound of weeping or cries of distress. Death and injustice will be no more. You will enjoy the fruits of your own labor. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together. None shall hurt or destroy in God’s holy mountain. All things will be perfect, peaceful, just, and right. We really ought to meditate on such joys of eternal life more often, and they should be the thing which we wait for, which we expect and look forward to.
But on this last day of the church year before the beginning of Advent, the season which focuses on the coming of our Lord Jesus, there is another immensely important thing that we should remember and contemplate: before the new heavens and the new earth comes judgment. The time of judgment will be swift, and it will be without warning. So now, hear this warning of your Lord: “Watch.” Dear Christian, you must be prepared, lest, like a thief in the night, the bridegroom comes and you are put out into the outer darkness for lack of faith.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

The Last Day

When our Lord teaches about the Last Day, He does not speak to terrify His people but to prepare them and to comfort them. Despite what is often portrayed in popular culture, the Last Day, Judgement Day, Armageddon, this day is not a cause for alarm or terror. No, for us Christians it is to be a day of great joy. Here in Matthew twenty-five, Jesus gives us a picture of that Day. For those who have rejected Christ it comes as a threat, but for us Christians it comes as a promise fulfilled and a joy anticipated. “The Son of Man will come in His glory.” The One who died for you, rose for you, forgave you, and baptized you will return for you. Today our Lord teaches us what His return will be like, what His judgment will reveal, and why you Christian saints can face that Day with confidence and joy.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

Destruction

There are some passages of Scripture that seem strange to us at first glance. That is to say, the sayings or events are difficult to unpack without some insight into the historical context. This passage from Matthew 24 can seem like one of those. Jesus speaks of abominations, desolations, fleeing to mountains, and vultures gathering around a corpse. And yet these words were not only meant for people long ago that heard them as the Lord spoke them, but they are also for us, His Church at the present time. Christ is teaching us how to understand the times in which we live and how to remain steadfast in faith until He comes again.
Jesus begins by speaking of the “abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel.” To His disciples, this must have evoked memories of great desecrations, foreign armies that desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, pagan sacrifices offered in the holy place of the Temple, and how God’s sacred place, this same Temple on Mount Zion, was defiled. But Jesus points His hearers forward to an event that would happen about forty years after He spoke these words. That is to say, the fulfillment of this prophecy spoken by Daniel  recorded in chapters nine and eleven of his book, the fulfillment of this prophecy was found in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Roman armies under Titus, the same Titus who would go on to be Emperor of Rome in 79 AD.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

What Faith Holds

Faith is not a vague feeling, a general notion that everything will turn out all right. Faith is not a spiritual pep talk we give ourselves when life gets hard. Faith is confidence in a Person, specifically in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world to destroy sin, death, and the devil.
Faith always has an object, and the proper object is Christ and Him alone. Christian, saving faith clings to Him, not because we always understand how He will help, but because we know He can and will. This is what is shown to us in today’s Gospel lesson. Two very different people, from opposite ends of society, are driven by desperate need to the same Lord. One is an important synagogue ruler. The other is an unclean, forgotten woman. Both find their hope in Jesus, and both receive life from Him.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!