Such an important message to us all.
Just because I’m in a rather foul mood, I will add that read the article / sermon, and I went to St Matthew Lutheran Church website. And once again became annoyed with the glib, smart aleck, and sarcastic style of preaching that has overtaken the LCMS. I find it offensive and disrespectful. Even though I was born and raised in the LCMS and my ancestors were Lutheran since Luther, and I totally agree with orthodox Lutheran theology, I am not going back until this popular culture nonsense ends.
Things sometimes look different in print than they are communicated in person. Irony might come over poorly, as one example. Be careful that the set of presumptions acquired from life scenario A is not carried over unexamined to scenario B — that your own unspoken answers are not themselves the glib or inappropriate thing. That’s one way Satan deceives the brethren. Truth or falsity does not consist in the style which clothes it.
I’ve seen this problem in the Baptist world. I’d not be at all surprised that the same devil with the same tricks attacks the Lutheran one. All believers are being tested for sincerity over superficiality. It’s not easy for me to release the superficial. It looks like the important thing. But that’s just how decades of satanic lies got me, in my fallenness, to think. And those lies were grievous and give us occasion to mourn before the Lord. Being tricked isn’t a happy experience. It’s a grievous one.
Maybe another lcms church around you has better sermomns.