The pattern of the “here below” is work to build your castle. 40-50-60-70 hours a week are worth it if you have an empire to show from it. However, if we look to earthly things for meaning, we’ll never find it. Things here below are transient. However, when we live as beggars, receiving what God gives from above, we find meaning that lasts for eternity.

Pastor Zach Gebert preached this sermon on October 19, 2019 at the Saturday Family Worship Gathering of Bethany Lutheran Church’s Lynndale campus in Appleton, WI.

Learn more at www.bethanyappleton.org

A perspective from below says that the value of life is indicated by the value of your valuables. Your house(s), your car(s), your toy(s), your spouse(s). But Paul makes clear to Timothy that the value of our valuables is much less valuable than we assume. None of it lasts, and in fact, the pursuit of these things often makes life run out much more quickly than we intend.

So instead, fill your life with things that have true and lasting value: “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.” Find value in the possession of the greatest gift God’s given you: faith that results in eternal life.

Pastor Pat Brown preached this sermon on October 12, 2019 at the Saturday Family Worship Gathering of Bethany Lutheran Church’s Lynndale campus in Appleton, WI.

Learn more at www.bethanyappleton.org

It sounds like a romance movie gone wrong: the love(less) saga of Hosea and Gomer. A man gives up his right to requited love to play an object lesson for God. Yet in Hosea’s cringeworthy repeated choice to love his prostitute wife, we catch a glimpse of love’s true beauty: grace.

We may get hung up in life on the people who deserve our love or don’t, on the love we feel we should be able to expect from others, and on our feelings when we don’t receive the love we think we deserve, but the bigger lesson in Hosea’s story isn’t that we should love the unfaithful (although that’s a lesson), but that God has loved the unfaithful. God has loved you, prostitute wife of your Savior. Let the grace of God you’ve received frame your choices to love others.

Pastor Mark Henke preached this sermon on October 5, 2019 at the Saturday Family Worship Gathering of Bethany Lutheran Church’s Lynndale campus in Appleton, WI.

Learn more at www.bethanyappleton.org

Sometimes our plans pan out. Sometimes they don’t. But God’s promises always prevail. When we see our plans through the lens of God’s promise, how can this perspective from above coach how we deal with frustrations, roadblocks, and even successes to our plans?

Pastor Pat Brown preached this sermon on September 28, 2019 at the Saturday Family Worship Gathering of Bethany Lutheran Church’s Lynndale campus in Appleton, WI.

Learn more at www.bethanyappleton.org