Nov. 16, 2025 | Word Out!
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Sermon – Pastor Dan Peterson
Rekindling Your Faith
November 16, 2025
READINGS
First Reading: Malachi 4:1-2a
1 See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2a But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.
Second Reading: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
6 Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the tradition that they received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not irresponsible when we were with you, 8 and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you. 9 This was not because we do not have that right but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11 For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13 Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.
Gospel: Luke 21:5-19
5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, [Jesus] said, 6 “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
7 They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” 8 And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray, for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.
9 “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes and in various places famines and plagues, and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
12 “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance, 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and siblings, by relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
Sermon:
Grace to you and peace from God, the source of life, and from Jesus, who is that light and life in the world. Amen. Today’s message: Rekindling Your Faith.
Question: On a scale of one to ten, how passionate are you about your faith?
You don’t need to give me a number out loud, but I just want you to ponder it on a scale of one to ten. How passionate are you about your faith?
If the number you give yourself is low, how accordingly might you rekindle your faith to boost that number?
I’ll return to this question at the end of my message. But for now, I simply want you to remember what number you give yourself, from one to ten.
Now I want to start with a confession, and that is, when it comes to our second reading for the day, which occurs every three years, I dread this moment in the lectionary. I absolutely dread it. And I’ll tell you why. This reading, this passage, is often the basis for people today to complain about so called “moochers.” It gives people an opportunity to scapegoat, demonize and vilify the poor without knowing their circumstances. Consider verse 6. The author writes, “Keep away from believers living in idleness,” or again, verse 10: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat today.” These verses, again, are used to judge others without knowing their circumstances, and that is why I dread preaching on this text. People often read it out of context and apply it judgmentally to other people in our day.
So, what is the context of Second Thessalonians? Well, we know from clues in the text that this was a later letter attributed to Paul written near the end of the first century, when Christians or believers were becoming indifferent with regard to their faith due to their conviction that the second coming of Christ was just around the corner.
The problem was that they became complacent; they became idle. And their reasoning was this: If Christ and His return is just around the corner, why should I do anything? Why should I work? So the problem—and now I want you to remember this, first your number, and then next: The problem here in Second Thessalonians is not simply people who are too lazy to work; it’s people, because of their belief in the Second Coming, who have become idle. Their problem is indifference. Remember that.
When we turn to the Gospel reading for today, taken from Luke 21 we have a different problem. Yes, these are folks who also are living under the conviction that Christ’s return is around the corner, and that is why they asked the question of when and what signs will occur when the temple will be destroyed. Unlike the audience of 2 Thessalonians, who are indifferent, these people want certainty.
These people want certainty. Consider verse 7 of our Gospel reading. They asked him, that is Jesus, “Teacher, when will this be and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”
So on the one hand, the Thessalonians: indifference. On the other hand, the audience of Luke’s Gospel, seeking certainty.
Now, when it comes to the predicament, that is to say, the uncertainty of the time, there is a lot of parallel between what our readings have to offer and what we’re experiencing today. The world around us is, like theirs, uncertain. Some of you may recall this passage I read from a commentary last week. “Paul and the Thessalonians sometimes worried about a religious Apocalypse, where angels and demons clash with one another and the universe hangs in the balance.” We might not worry about this particular problem. In fact, I’m willing to bet that nobody here at sleep or before sleep, goes to bed thinking about what’s going to happen with regard to the religious Apocalypse and the war between angels and demons. (If you do think about that, please see me after the service. I’d be very curious to know more.) So, we don’t think about it in that way, but we do have potentially world-ending issues in the news related to ecological disaster, AI threats, economic collapse, and nuclear warfare. So, like our siblings in Christ of the first century, ours too is a time of uncertainty. We may not think about it in the same terms, but we still, as people of faith, face these challenges.
And so my question for each of you now is this, how, as people of faith, do we face such uncertainty, and how, if necessary, in the process, do we rekindle that faith and bump that passionate faith score up from where it is presently? Let me take each question in turn.
First, how, as Christians, do we face the uncertainties of our time?
The answer to this, I believe, is to focus on the good news. That is to say, to live by the gospel. One of Cantor Kyle’s professors used to say, “I’m told that Lutherans have a nose for the gospel.” They know where to look in Scripture, where to look in music, what to seek in a worship service when it comes to the good news, which is God’s mercy in Jesus Christ for each of us, but also the assurance that no matter what, God accompanies us in our lives.
When you look at the Bible, you will notice that almost always, whenever there is a threat—or in Lutheran language, something that shows us our sin, how we fall short— there was almost always a promise, which is to say, something that shows us our salvation, reassurance that God does not abandon us.
We see that, for example, in Malachi 2 from our first reading, which says at the end, “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” What a beautiful image. That’s good news. For those of you who revere my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.
We see the same thing with regard to threat and promise in the Gospel reading. Jesus says, “Before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you.” There’s the threat, but then the promise: “This will give you a chance to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance, for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict”. There’s the promise. And again, the threat: “you will be hated by all because of my name.” But then the promise: “but not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance, you will gain your souls.”
Promise is God’s last word.
Threats are temporary. Promises are forever.
How then do we define the gospel? Well, as I suggested, at its broadest, it’s trusting that God is near. The good news is that no matter what God was, is and will be present. God never wavers from standing beside those who revere God’s name.
That’s from a commentary. But don’t take the commentator’s word for it. Go to Psalm 23 the most widely-read Psalm, if not, indeed, piece of literature, in the entire Old Testament. What does it promise? “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—there’s the threat. What’s the promise? “for you are with me.” That’s the good news.
Or again, Romans 8:38-39, where we are under threat from all these various powers, to which God says “nothing, not even death, can separate you from my love in Christ Jesus,”— there is the promise. Or again, the Gospel of Matthew, all 28 chapters. (Now I’m not going to go through each chapter and verse. Don’t worry. I know I have to keep it brief. We have a congregational meeting after the service.) Let me just say this: that entire text is bracketed with a promise. And do you know what that promise is? What is the name given to Jesus at birth? Emmanuel, which means God is with us.
And what are the last words of the Gospel of Matthew that come from him? “I will be with you always to the end of the age.” An entire Gospel bracketed with gospel, bracketed with promise that no matter what, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. That is good news. That is the promise by which we live in the face of all the uncertainties that dot the horizon of our lives.
So how, assuming we agree that God is present and near to us, how then do we rekindle our faith, if we find that we’re running sort of on empty? How do we kick those numbers up, as I said at the outset?
Well, return with me, if you will, briefly to those two readings. I mentioned our second reading for today and the gospel in our second reading Thessalonians. The problem was indifference, indifference. So now I want you to imagine a spectrum: On this side we have indifference.
On the other extreme, we have Luke 21—the problem there was certainty. So, certitude and indifference. That’s a binary that faith—the kind that’s interested in rekindling its passion—seeks to cut right down the middle. So what word might go between indifference on the one hand and the other extreme of certainty on the other? Well, let me propose this: Expectation.
Expectation is the key to rekindling your faith. To rekindle your faith, practice expectation.
Learn how to look for the resurrection, as the Nicene Creed says, every day. Recognize that each day, as Luther says, “through the waters of baptism, you have an opportunity to be reborn and try again.” Tap into the experience of the women at the empty tomb, according to Mark, which I preached on a week or two ago, who were certain of the outcome that Jesus, the man they followed, the man they provided for, the man who was promised to be the Messiah, ended in a horrific death, the outcome of which seems certain… Suddenly they discover an empty tomb, they’re told to go back where they will meet him in Galilee, and their world is blown wide open. Out of certainty, they were suddenly opened from a closed future to an unexpected future.
That moment, I think, is most important when it comes to understanding faith as expectation. It’s joining those women at the empty tomb, who are told in that moment, return to Galilee, and there you will find him. So they leave in awe and wonder, full of expectation, expecting the unexpected. They’re on the lookout for one of my mentors in seminary called “the hidden and surprising ways of God.”
So how do we rekindle our faith to match theirs? How do we find ourselves excited and passionate about what we believe?
One answer comes from a member of Queen Anne Lutheran Church who happens to be a parent. This is the answer she gave. My kids, she told me, were probably five and seven at the time. Every morning dropping the kids off from the car in the school’s car line, I would ask, sometimes yell, “Look for Jesus today!”
Now, if you put a one in front of five and seven and imagine they were teenagers, this would be a great way to embarrass them, wouldn’t it. “Look for Jesus today!” as they get out of the car.
But I think at five and seven, what a rich, perfect time to ask a child that question, or to invite them into a faith of expectation, which, by the time they get to high school, will be more a part of who they are, without you needing to yell that at them, after they’re dropped off for school. I love this “Look for Jesus today.”
Then this parent continues, at pick up I ask them where they saw Jesus today.
Their answers varied on any day, recess, obviously; lunch line lady, not so obvious. Classroom, nature, helpful friends, teachers, staff; you name it. This parent concludes,
“I think this daily ritual is such an easy way to center ourselves, multiple times per day, regardless of our age. Lord knows, I am looking for Him and experiencing Him all the time.”
Now, if that isn’t a way to rekindle your faith, I don’t know what is. Practice expectation, whether you are 5, 55, or 85. Be on the lookout for the hidden and surprising ways of God.
Don’t just “be Christ to your neighbor” is the answer. Practice expectation by seeing Christ and looking for Christ in your neighbor. Look, as the Jesuits of the Catholic tradition say, for God in all things. These are all ways of saying, “expect the unexpected.” Cut the middle path between indifference and certitude, and in so doing, you might, with the help of the Holy Spirit, rekindle that passionate faith for which you seek.
Okay. Let’s return and close now by going back to our opening question: On a scale of one to ten, how passionate are you now, or might you be, in the week to come about your faith?
You know there’s only way, one way to find out. And this parent knew that better than me: you have to practice. You have to look for Jesus. You have to be Christ to your neighbor, but more importantly, you must seek Christ in your neighbor. In so doing, may your faith become a passionate one, filled with neither indifference nor certitude, but expectation.
And all God’s people say “Amen.”