Luke 17 11-19 2006 notes

Sadly, we are apt to treat the means of grace as shabbily as God's gifts for this world. It is hard to believe that we would let ourselves be distracted when the Lord was saving our lives for eternity, which is what He is at work to do in His Word and Sacraments. Yet rather than listen for the forgiving Gospel in the sermon, we may be thinking about how terribly the Lions will do this afternoon, or whether or not the turkey will be cooked. You may greet the Lord's Supper on Sunday morning as an inconvenience that only extends the length of the service-grumbling about a feast that joins heaven and earth together as the risen Christ visits His people! And when was the last time that we thanked God for our Baptism, when He washed away our sins and made us His holy children for the sake of Jesus? It is by these means that the Lord has saved us from eternal judgment and delivered us to eternal life; yet we often take them for granted as we focus on worldly things.