Pastor Sullivan's Blog

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. On a certain Sabbath Jesus dines with the Pharisees. The meal isn’t a courtesy. It’s a trap. As they eat they watch Him closely, trying to entrap Him as they usually do. Suddenly a man with dropsy appears. Dropsy is an old term for edema, the retaining of water. Dropsy is usually a symptom of an underlying disease; congestive heart failure, cirrhosis, or kidney problems. This man won’t live many years in this painful condition, yet the Pharisees parade him before Jesus to test Him. They want to see whether or not Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath, the day in which no work was to be done. According to Mosaic Law the penalty for doing any work on the Sabbath was death. The Holy Spirit records the example in Numbers 15 of a man who picked up sticks on the Sabbath. The Lord condemned that man to death by stoning because He willfully violated the Sabbath law. The Pharisees wouldn’t be able to stone ...

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. While most people wouldn’t rebuke the false beliefs and selfishness of their dinner hosts, Jesus isn’t most people. He is God in human flesh. He’s come to bring sinners to repentance, even these Pharisees . The Pharisees misunderstand the purpose of God’s Law. They assume God’s Law is the way they show God how righteous they are. If they do the things God requires, God sees how good they are and rewards them. Because they view God’s Law like this, they are proud, selfish, and contemptuous of others. There just happens to be a man afflicted with dropsy at this meal. Perhaps it was a set up. The Pharisees were fond of putting Jesus in tight spots to see if He would break God’s Law and teach others to do so. They present Him with a third commandment conundrum. The third commandment is: “ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.   Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabb...

Order of Holy Communion - Pg. 15 Hymn # 298 Baptized into Thy Name Most Holy Hymn # 342 Chief of Sinners Though I Be Hymn # 34 My Soul, Now Bless Thy Maker   Introit - pg. 79 Readings 1 Samuel 2:1-10 Ephesians 4:1-6 Luke 14:1-11 Collect for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity Lord, we beseech Thee, grant Thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the devil and with pure hearts and minds to follow Thee, the only God; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. Sermon on the Holy Gospel Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 1)         Jesus teaches us today about the true use of the Sabbath. On a certain Sabbath Jesus enters the house of a Pharisee, a ruler among that sect of the Jews and notices that the Pharisees gathered there are watching Him closely...