Pastor Chris Brademeyer’s Podcast

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!

Blessed Are...

Our Lord Jesus, ascending a hill, a mount, sat down and began teaching His disciples. What followed is arguably the most famous of His speeches, the Sermon on the Mount. In particular, the section that has since come to be called the Beatitudes which we read today, are among the most familiar and yet most misunderstood passages in all of Scripture.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit... Blessed are those who mourn... Blessed are the meek…” I think it is a fair assumption that many of us find these words family, poetic, and even beautiful. But if we stop and think about them we ask a simple but needed question, “How are people suffering these things blessed?”               
Poor, mourning, meek, persecuted; none of that sounds like a blessing! And yet Jesus declares them blessed. He speaks these words not as advice for how to become blessed, but as a description of what His kingdom looks like and what it means to belong to Him. The Beatitudes describe the reality life of faith, the life that flows from Christ’s righteousness, and the life that clings to Him even when suffering in weakness.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

3P1S Special Episode: Who is God's Israel?

In this special episode of the Three Padres and a Shepherd Podcast, we step into the theological deep end and ask a bold question with special guest Rev. Harrison Goodman: Who is God’s Israel? Is the modern nation of Israel the fulfillment of God’s promises? Are Christians obligated to support the reinstatement of Old Testament sacrifices in Jerusalem? And how do we rightly understand God's ancient people - the Jewish people—especially in light of Romans 11?

3P1S Episode 20: The Theology We Sing! Discerning Good Christian Music

In this episode, we are diving into "The Theology We Sing! Discerning Good Christian Music." Not every song is created equal. Some proclaim Christ, others... well, not so much. And so, why do we sing, and how do we discern good Christian music from bad and shallow music? How do we analyze the true from the trendy? Does it matter what we put on our lips in worship?

The Kingdom Ours Remaineth

Five hundred eight years ago, a monk with a troubled conscience took a hammer, a piece of paper, a deep conviction that the Word of God must not be silenced and nailed a list of  95 theses on the church door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Martin Luther didn’t set out to start a movement or to divide the Church. He simply wanted clarity. He wanted the pure Gospel. He wanted the certainty that sinners are justified by faith alone in Christ alone apart from works, apart from indulgences, apart from human merit.
And what followed was not the peace and comfort that one would expect from the pure proclamation of the Gospel, but conflict and turmoil. The Reformation may have been intended as  a polite academic debate, but it led to a period of violent upheaval, both spiritually and politically. The Gospel was restored to its proper place in  a world that had long been held captive by human traditions and self-righteousness.
This should have come as no surprise. Hostility to the Gospel on the part of the world was nothing new. We might think the Reformation is behind us, that such battles belong to history books. The Reformation wasn’t just a 16th-century event. It is the daily reality of every Christian. The same Gospel that set Luther free is still under attack today. And this is precisely what our Lord Jesus describes here in Matthew chapter eleven.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!