Serving Schedule

If you are unable to keep your scheduled serving day, please contact the church at least a few days before the service so there is time to find a replacement. Thank you!

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 68th Regular Convention is July 29 through August 3. Pastor Carlson, along with a lay delegate from our circuit, will be attending the convention and representing St. Paul’s and our circuit. The convention is in Milwaukee, WI at the Wisconsin Center/Arena.

Pastor will spend a little time at the next quarterly voters meeting detailing the convention and provide for you a list of matters which will be voted on.

To keep up with the convention timeline, to read the overtures, and to learn about the various candidates who will fill positions nationally, please visit LCMS National Convention – The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Also, please pray for safe travel for all who are preparing to head to Milwaukee in late July.

SCRIPTURE: When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” – John 8:7

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This woman was caught in adultery and was in dire need. This was no joke, not to her, not to Jesus, and not to her accusers. Mosaic Law was clear and she was judged: “Stone her to death.” She wasn’t looking forward to this most painful and drawn out punishment…who would? This woman was seized with fear, and outside of a man scribbling in the dirt, she had no hope of acquital. How surprised she must have been when this Jewish man, this rabbi, stands and says, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

All sinners, even like this woman, are the ones who belong to the kingdom of Christ. Jesus doesn’t want those sinners who refuse to admit they are sinners! Such sinners think that, because they’ve not sinned in some earth-shattering, notorious way, they’ve not murdered a person or robbed a bank or lied under oath, that they don’t really need God’s help all that much. They look at their days and say, “I’ve not done anything evil, I obeyed my manager, I prayed, I hugged my wife, thus God will be merciful to me.” Such people might even invent sins! Yes, they might even come up with their own sins which aren’t sins at all, just so they don’t have to confront the REAL sinning in their hearts.

Self-invented sins — which aren’t even sins — are silly. God has no compassion or concern for our made-up, silly sins. The sins He forgives must be REAL sins, such as not fearing, trusting, or believing in God and placing Him first in one’s life; not loving the neighbor; not honoring the marriage bed; not speaking well of the neighbor; not praying; not abiding in Christ or listening to sermons; not doing what the Law of Moses commands. Real sins really break God’s law, and no one can ignore these sins. These are the sins that really need God’s forgiveness and not meaningless forgiveness. In fact, if we think we have to ask for forgiveness for every little thing we do or say, such that we must make up sins, then what are we really believing about true sinning and the Law? But as with the woman caught breaking the 6th commandment and caught in adultery, real sins require real forgiveness. And we must guard against such sins for they are destructive and truly vile. But know that it is also to real sins and the sinners who commit them that the Gospel reaches out!

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“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

— St. Jerome (AD 342-347)

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