For Cody Norton Tune: Let us ever walk with Jesus Sanctify us, holy Father In the truth – Your Word is truth; Holiness is in no other, It must come from Your own mouth. Only Christ, your Word from heaven Gives to us Your love and name, Frees us from all sin and shame; In our baptism we were given All that He has done and said – With His flesh and blood we’re fed. Sanctify us, Christ, our Savior, You are all our holiness; You, despite our bad behavior Clothe us with your righteousness. From your wounds the truth   More…

Tune: FAR, VERDEN, FAR VEL (The Sun Has Gone Down, Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 574) My Savior still lives, And I too will live in the peace that He gives; Within me no sin has the strength to remove The truth of His pardon, the pow’r of His love; My Lord is arisen, now death must retreat To utter defeat – Christ’s work is complete. Come near, sinners all, Christ stands in our midst to lift up all who fall, To bind what is broken, to heal what is ill, To pardon transgression through God’s gracious will; Sin, death and the   More…

Maundy Thursday; John 13:1—11 Faith Lutheran Church – Wylie, TX 28 March 2013 – Pr. Mark Preus Today we celebrate the night our Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed into the hands of sinful men, the night He instituted the sacrament of his body and blood for us Christians to eat and to drink. The biggest problem all the other protestants have with the Lord’s Supper is that they don’t believe Jesus’ words that he spoke when he instituted the sacrament of the altar. They don’t believe that the bread Jesus gives us is also given us as his body, and   More…

In writing something about birth control, I enter into a battlefield in disarray. There are personal issues hidden beneath many’s opinions on the matter, and there is often guilt, real or imagined, in the consciences of many Christians as they think about this important and personal issue. And yet the issue is public, just as marriage is. It involves the basic doctrines of our common creed. It is time we take steps to gain consensus. If I may suggest a different approach, instead of arguing about so-called “exceptions,” or hard circumstances, where most of our conversation on the matter has   More…

In death and love I caught her, when her life was held by her hate; I found her in the water, and I drowned beneath her weight.     The guilt that she had was heavy –     was enough to flood all the earth –     yes, it was enough to levy     the wages of sinners from birth. In death and love I caught her, by her unbelief so bound, that when her Maker sought her, she didn’t want to be found.     She couldn’t seek and find me;     she could only choose to leave;     To her, my wrath defined me –     her wrath   More…

The Epiphany of our Lord – Matthew 2:1-12 Faith Lutheran Church – Wylie, TX 6 January 2013 – Pr. Mark Preus When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We learn a few things from the coming of the wise men. First, we learn what brings them to worship Christ. Second we learn how they worship Christ. First,   More…

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. In Shakespeare’s classic tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Juliet laments the fact that Romeo belongs to her family’s rival family, the Montegues. ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By   More…

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I wrote this hymn with two men in mind. First, my father, Pr. Rolf Preus, who was my pastor who absolved me in the divine service throughout my youth and taught me what the absolution is; second, my first father confessor, Pr. David Kind. Thank God for His faithful ministers. The tune is Ich Sterbe Täglich (I Come, O Savior to Thy Table) until someone writes something better. Come, you who feel sin’s heavy burden, For Christ’s ambassador is here. Receive from him your Savior’s pardon, That covers shame and ends all fear. Lord, may Your absolution   More…

Here is a hymn I wrote for my congregation.   A Hymn on the Sacrament of the Altar composed for Faith Lutheran Church, Plano/Wylie, TX Tune: LSB 513 or TLH 605 The Word of Christ is spoken, And angels bend to see How hearts, once bound and broken, Are set at liberty. For Christ, the Lord of Glory, Proclaims His death again; No doubt can dim the story That pardons all our sin. With bread and wine are given Christ’s body and His blood; The earthly hides the heaven As flesh encloses God; The right hand of the Father Is   More…

Dear fellow citizen who promotes same-sex marriage, I don’t expect to convince you of anything, since you do not see purpose or order in nature, and whenever it will be pointed out to you, you will deny this order because of anomalies or because you find it incredible that nature could refuse her blessings to extra-marital or perverted sex. When I point out that marriage is for children, you will point out that some marriages don’t have children.  When I point out that nature obviously did not intend the acts of homosexuality, you will point to the anomalous behavior of   More…

The Healing of the Paralytic Trinity 19 – Matthew 9:1-8 Faith Lutheran Church – Wylie, TX 14 October 2012 – Pr. Mark Preus We need to hear the forgiveness of sins. We can’t get it on our own. It’s not some knowledge that we figure out. It’s revealed only by the Holy Spirit. Once you have it your flesh wars against it. The world laughs at it and goes on her merry way. The devil attacks it and tries to wrest it from your conscience. We need to hear the forgiveness of sins. I learned that from Jesus. He taught   More…

We live in a culture of death. Everybody hides it. They hide their destruction of life beneath the pleasures of sex. They hide the murder of their loved ones beneath the supposed mercy of ending pain. They hide the murder of innocents under the guise of just retaliation. But the culture comes from people, and we are those people. In the midst of life we are in death. God is justly displeased with our sins. The end of those things of which we are now ashamed is death, and we feel still the desires for them in the pride, the   More…

Another question came in using our “Ask a Pastor” button on the top of the sidebar. We are getting several questions coming in using that method, and we hope it helps other readers who may have similar questions. It’s also good for discussion.   Lutherans speak of infant baptism as the very moment in which the child is “saved.” My questions are these: 1. Is it possible for the Holy Spirit, even by the Word, to engender faith in a very young person prior to baptism? 2. Is it possible for a young one to resist the Spirit at baptism,   More…

Another question came in using our “Ask a Pastor” button on the top of the sidebar. We are getting several questions coming in using that method, and we hope it helps other readers who may have similar questions. It’s also good for discussion. This one, for example, had many of our pastors stumped as to what they really felt about the question. Could you address ‘minced’ oaths? (wikipedia) What makes an exclamation a violation of taking God’s name in vain? Are ‘oh my goodness’, ‘gosh’, ‘darn’ things we ought not say?   The Second Commandment and “Minced Oaths.” minced oath:   More…

Trinity 11 – Luke 18:9-14 Faith Lutheran Church – Wylie, TX August 19, 2012 – Pr. Mark Preus Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar   More…