Sure Foundation Lutheran Church

We have a habit of taking simple things and making them complicated, and our own salvation is no exception. In this message from Sure Foundation Lutheran, we look at Paul's plain summary of the gospel: confess that Jesus is Lord, believe that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved.
We'll talk about the things we try to add to grace: cleaning ourselves up first, finishing what grace started, depending on feelings, or doubting that grace could cover our worst sins. We'll also talk about the cost behind it. Salvation is simple, but it wasn't easy. Finally, we'll look at what it means that believers "will never be put to shame," and why passing this message on doesn't require perfect words. It only requires telling others what Jesus has done for you.
Scripture: Romans 10:9–15

“Why will you die? … Repent and live!”
In Ezekiel 18, God speaks to His people who are struggling with the consequences of sin and wondering whether they are being treated fairly. But God turns their eyes away from blaming others and toward their own need for repentance.
The message of Ezekiel 18 is sobering. We are sinners who deserve judgment, and no amount of outward behavior, self-improvement, or worldly experience can cleanse us from our sin or give us a new heart. We cannot make ourselves righteous before God.
But God does what we can't.
He gives us a new heart and a new spirit. He cleanses us. He forgives us. He gives us life—not because we have earned it, but because He is the giver and we are the receivers.
That truth is beautifully pictured in the baptism of Mallory, where God gives what we could never earn: forgiveness, new life, and a place in His family. And that same gift continues to be given to us through God's Word, Absolution, the Lord's Supper, and the blessing.
God is the giver. We are the receivers.
So, dear Christian: repent and live. Not by trusting in your repentance or your own righteousness, but by clinging to Christ and receiving the righteousness He freely gives.

Some things you would never say out loud. You'd never admit you hate the grace of God. Jonah never said it either, but it was buried in his heart all the same.
In this sermon on Jonah 3-4, we look at why grace can feel so unfair. We walk through three stories: the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20), the Prodigal Son and his older brother (Luke 15), and Jonah's anger when Nineveh repented. Each shows how self-righteousness and unforgiveness make us resent grace for other people.
But there's good news. God's grace isn't fair, and that is the best news we could hear. We deserved punishment, and Jesus took it on the cross so forgiveness could be given freely. God cares for all people, including our enemies, and calls us to rejoice with the angels over every sinner who repents.
In this message:
Why Jonah ran from Nineveh
What the vineyard workers and the older brother have in common with Jonah
How unforgiveness and self-righteousness blind us to grace
God's patient confrontation of Jonah, and his heart for all people
Why "unfair" grace is good news for us
Scripture: Jonah 3-4, Matthew 20:1-16, Luke 15:11-32
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On average, we speak about 16,000 words a day. What would happen if you got a report at the end of each day breaking down exactly what your words accomplished — how much built people up, and how much tore them down?
In this episode, we dig into Ephesians 4:29–32 and Paul's command to get rid of "unwholesome talk" — literally, rotten or spoiled speech. We trace that rotten speech back to its root: a heart marked by bitterness, rage, anger, and malice, and why Paul says this kind of speech grieves the Holy Spirit, whose work is to build unity among God's people.
But the good news isn't that you need to earn your way to redemption by fixing your words first. You've already been sealed for redemption through Christ. From that identity as a forgiven, grace-filled people, our speech can become something different: a means of grace to everyone who hears it. We close by looking at what it means to be "kind and compassionate, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" — and how that kind of forgiveness restores, refreshes, and builds up.
Scripture referenced: Ephesians 4:29–32; Ephesians 2:19–22

What's your process? We all have one — an order to how we get things done, even if we've never written it down. In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus outlines a process too for how to love a brother or sister caught in sin.
Vicar Little walks through Matthew 18:15–20, showing how this passage sits between two crucial ideas: the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 to rescue the 1, and Jesus's command to forgive not seven times, but seventy-seven times. In the middle sits this process — not a formula for confrontation, but a God-given way to love a fellow Christian sinner (which, by the way, is all of us).
We need to be honest about how easily we get this wrong — dismissing sin as no big deal, pawning off hard conversations on someone else, gossiping under the guise of concern, or turning correction into a chance to feel morally superior. But this process only makes sense once we take sin as seriously as the cross does. Jesus never treated sin lightly, and he loved us enough to bear its full weight himself — so that even the process of confronting sin becomes an extension of his love, aimed always at winning back the one who's wandered.

We all carry expectations of God, and if we're honest, they're often more transactional than we realize: I've done my part, so where's my reward? In Jeremiah 15:15-21, the prophet accuses God of being a "deceptive brook" — a spring that failed him after years of faithful, costly obedience. It's a raw complaint, and a mirror for our own hearts. In this message, we trace why God doesn't answer Jeremiah's accusation with an explanation but with a call to repentance and a promise of restoration — a promise made good for us only through Jesus, who lived and suffered in our place. God doesn't deal with us in ledgers; he deals with us in grace. And that grace equips us, steadies us, and makes us strong to carry our own cross until the day suffering ends for good.

If you have to attempt to justify yourself, you probably already know that you are lacking in some way. An expert in the law came to Jesus with a question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" To which Jesus turned the question around on him, "What does the law say?" But after this expert repeated the two-part summary of the law (love God and love your neighbor), something in him knew that he was lacking. So, he asked, "And who is my neighbor?"
What follows is one of the most well-known parables in all of the Bible. It challenges us to see that the love that God requires is perfect and not restricted to a certain type of person. When we see this perfect standard of love, we know that we fall well short of it. However, we are convinced from Scripture that what we couldn't do, Jesus did perfectly for us. And that is the gospel!
Join us as we dig in and apply this text from Luke 10:25-37.

A different kind of sermon this week — more teaching-focused, but still full of gospel. We dig into the doctrine of Predestination (Election): what it is, what it isn't, and why it matters. Drawing from Romans 8, Ephesians 1, and 2 Thessalonians 2, we address the common misunderstanding of double predestination, affirm that Christ died for all people, and unpack the "Golden Chain" — foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified — as the believer's anchor of assurance. This doctrine isn't meant to breed pride or false security; it's meant to comfort the sinner who grieves their sin with the truth that salvation was never about how tightly you hold onto God, but how tightly he holds onto you.