Latest / Trinity Tinley Park Sermon Podcast / "Growing in the Service of Christ" with Pastor Paul Strand | October 17, 2026

Transcript

"Growing in the Service of Christ" with Pastor Paul Strand | October 17, 2026 · Trinity Tinley Park Sermon Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically this weekend for the hundred and sixty-seventh anniversary of this church and school.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Want to reread Ephesians 4.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And God gave some to be apostles like Peter and John.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And God gave some the task of being prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And God gave some the task of being pastors and teachers.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: For one purpose and one purpose only, not to glorify themselves in the title that they held.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: But one purpose to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: To equip all the saints for the work of ministry.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that wherever the saints went, they would carry the work of ministry with them.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And those saints will build up the body of Christ until we as much as possible have attained to the unity of faith, central faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter what denomination you might be, the central foundation of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And until we have come to a fullness of knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, fullness of knowledge pertaining to his promises, to his presence, and to his peace, so that the circumstances of life do not deflect us from what God would have his children be.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're no longer children.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: When you come to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're no longer children.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: You are mature enough in the faith to not have a spirit of timidity any longer, but a spirit of power, spirit of love towards others, and a spirit of self-discipline in your own life.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if 167 years ago those eight families, I don't know whether this was one of their texts.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: If it wasn't, I would have chosen it for them.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one reason they started that church.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was to equip the saints for works of service.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you told those people back then in New Bremen, Illinois what this church would become, all the things it would go through from civil wars to Spanish flues to world wars to Vietnam's to Semineks, if you told them back then that the church would still exist 167 years later, they would say that would not be possible.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: How could God get them through one thing after another after another after another?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then they would sit back and they would say, That's what God does.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's just what God does.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when I'm allowed to be a pastor here, or our teachers here, and we realize that 167 years have been placed into our laps.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if I was a congregant in this congregation now, it would humble me enormously.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It also regenerized me to say if they did it back then, if they went through the droughts of the harvest and there was no food and there was no money to come into this church.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: If we realize what they went through and what all these generations have gone through, we would sit here humbled, and we would sit here with a passion that it shall not end with us, but we shall continue it on for the generations that come.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: That leads me to the second text, Acts 13.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: King David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, he fell on his sleep.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: After he had served his own generation, he died when he was 72.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was king for 40 years.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: He served his own generation as king by the will of God, and he fell on his sleep.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: David, mighty David, shepherd, stone slinger, fighter, giant killer, king, dramatist, poet, prophet.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: He did his best for the people of his time.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then he went and lay down on the southern hill of Jerusalem, and God lifted him to heaven.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was his own generation that he served.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: The people living at his time.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it is unfair and unwise of me to say that it was only his generation that he served.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: We still look at him when he's ten years of age.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And a lion has come and stolen his sheep.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And a bear has come and stolen his sheep.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as a ten-year-old, he knows the presence of God with him.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes after the bear, and he goes after the lion.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he rescues not just one sheep, but all of the sheep, because of the lion and the bear had gotten by with one sheep that had come after another.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I are served by David 2,900 years later, by that story.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if it be not that story, he serves his generation now by what he did when he is fifteen with a gentleman named Goliath.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: When all the other soldiers, 100,000 of them, would not lift a finger to go against Goliath.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: But a boy does, with no weapon save for the fact that God was with him, and so he declared it to Goliath.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: He still serves the generations that follow, you and I included.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: As I've said a hundred times, when we face our own Goliath, he's still serving this generation by the stories of what God has done in his life.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: These days there are four generations to a century.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: In Bible times, there was one generation to a century.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Two hundred generations have gone by leading up to the current time.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe there are another 200 generations to come after us.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: With reference to those in the past, we have no responsibility.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot teach them, we cannot comfort them, we cannot bring God's presence to them, they're gone.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: If we had an opportunity and we didn't do that opportunity, the sin of omission, it's too late once they're gone.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen too many funerals where someone says, I wish I could have shared this with dad.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: But now he's gone.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I hear it all the time.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: With reference to those who have gone before us.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: They are with our Lord in heaven, we pray.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And our ability to touch their lives is non-existent.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: The generations to come, it'd be easy for you and me to say, no responsibility for the generations to come.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: How far from the truth would you be?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: The main point of the message is that which God places us in right now, the environment he places us in.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: You'll only be a senior in high school one time.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: You'll only be a sophomore on the baseball team one time.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You'll only be playing soccer with the seventh, eighth, and ninth graders one time.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: She'll be your locker mate only one time.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be at the university for four years by God's grace, perhaps.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the fraternity or sorority, it'll be a brief two years.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: The metro train you'd you ride on, the neighbors you have, those are the ones that God has placed into our life.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the 20 people that joined two weeks ago, and Lenine Roski and her son Jason, who joined last week, I look at them as being brought here by God.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: When a teacher is dedicated in August, getting ready for the school year, it's like a farmer with a new crop.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: But a farmer with a crop, that's just a crop, you see.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: But when God has a teacher and places students in his or her care, that's far from a crop.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those are human beings, those are children that God has placed in that teacher's vicinity.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the teacher comes to know when they teach long enough that that student there, one student, two students, three students, they might affect the teachers' lives.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: That which we do affects our own generation.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: But Strand be wise enough to preach it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And those listening online and those here gathered, be wise enough to understand it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: That what we do now affects generations to come.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe by our behavior, we'll start influences and activities, good or bad, that shall roll on through the advancing ages by means of our own friends, our own children, our own spouses, our own comrades at work, our own neighbors.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So many funerals, forty of them every year, another forty this year.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Half of them members of this church, half of them funeral director calling, Pastor, will you do this funeral?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I've told you many times I never, never decline.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I figure God wants me to be there for that family and for whoever else might be there who would never step foot in a church or listen online.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: That becomes my generation.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: The people at a funeral service, the person at the gas station who I see every week.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, Vic.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, Vinny.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: The person at the hospital who, when I go and say, I'm here to see so-and-so, they've seen me enough, and I've seen them enough that we get a bit deeper into each other's lives.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you understand that when you form these friendships, they start out small.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Someone at school, you pick up their papers when they drop them because they're bullied.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you pick up those papers and you don't say anything about God or Jesus at that time.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: But when they see that moment of kindness, they are prone then to become closer to you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when the opportunity grows for you not to be timid.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy 1, 7, but to be bold, to have that spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: The eulogy this morning for Nancy Lenz, 64 years of age, handicapped her entire life, living her entire life with her mom, Joanne, and her dad, Mel.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And she passes to heaven five months after her father dies.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: In the eulogy this morning, one of the most beautiful ones I've heard, because you wouldn't think much of Nancy's handicapped, yet the words spoken about her, the fact that she reveled in family gatherings, that she never stopped telling someone how pretty they were, how beautiful they were, how every gift she gave them, she gave it from her heart, and every gift she received, she kept it throughout all these years.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: As I listen to this story, eulogy of Nancy, the last word that was said by that individual speaking about her.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: We should strive in our life to love like Nancy loved and to live like she lived.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm saying about serving your own generation.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't stop with you.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: When someone has touched your life deeply, when love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control has come out.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then you carry it on to the next person.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: There was a young boy on the beach.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: There were a thousand shellfish that had come, starfish that had come up on the beach.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this boy is picking up one starfish after another, throwing it back into the ocean.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: There was a man watching him.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: He said to him, It's kind what you're doing, but you're wasting your time because there are a thousand starfish here.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you throw one into the ocean.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is that?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked at the man and he said, To this one starfish, it makes a difference.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he tossed it into the ocean.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the man began to do the same thing.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nancy might not seem all that much to you, but she reminded me of the people in El Salvador who had absolutely nothing.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the joy that was always in their life, and the young girl who got up at the church service.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, that I woke up alive today.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: These are things I remember.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: They become part of my life.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: The LWML had their conference this past week.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was here at Trinity.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: The theme was Ephesians 4.32.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, as God through Christ has forgiven you.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a little speech there, and I told them a story you've heard perhaps too often.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Story of Bruce Massey when the bullies came.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: The story of Paul Gary 20 years ago in a blizzard, and he stops for a car.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't know who's in the car, it's me.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the African American in three-piece suit who gets out of his car on Interstate 80, gets down on his knees, chains his tire of a 28-year-old white Caucasian.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the young man 20 years ago, who said, Pastor, I'm going to start a Bible study at my fraternity.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: He went to school in this place.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was confirmed in this place.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Don't mention my name in the sermon, because my dad's money is putting me here, and he's not a believer.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if he sees that I'm starting a Bible study, he's gonna yank me out of this college.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tell my story if you want, but don't tell my name and don't tell the college.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Haven't seen him in 10 years.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea where he's at.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the last thing he said to me, Pastor, I started that Bible study in that fraternity that had never had one.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I started with one person.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And now, Pastor, there are 180 fraternity brothers and sorority sisters who are in Bible studies.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying to you is the reason the church exists, the reason a teacher teaches, the reason a pastor preaches and visits is to do the same thing that God has done to us.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can we be everywhere?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Can we pick up every starfish, throw it back into the ocean?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what you can do?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And guess why ten people, twelve people, whatever it is.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wish Mar Bloch was still here.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: He knew all that stuff.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: However, many people started this church, could they imagine the tens of thousands of people, children, and others who have been touched by God's kingdom, and then they go out.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're a missionary, but you're not going to New Guinea or Alaska or El Salvador or Haiti or Africa.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're going out there, taking that which God has produced in this congregation and bringing it out to ever he brings across your path.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Josh Howerton.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's one of those megachurch pastors.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Couple of weeks ago, he spoke to the thousands that were gathered.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, I'm gonna bring you a challenge.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you're living together and you're not married, I would bring you a challenge that that part of your life be consecrated to God.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And on Saturday, such and such a date, I'm going to have a wedding ceremony here.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And as many as you want to come, you come.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And fifty-two couples showed up, and a thousand people were there to watch it.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I mention it?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because the influences that you and I can bring as Christians is beyond your wildest imagination.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: His name was Joshua.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Moses said, Joshua, you're gonna lead him into the promised land.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: God's not gonna let me do it.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua lit him into the promised land.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the years went by and he became ill.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: He was close to death.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: He said to the Israelites, Gather with me at Shechem, the holy place.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: When they gathered with him at Shechem, he preached a sermon, a rather lengthy one.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Covers a lot of verses in the Bible.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he saw some of them nodding off.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he saw some of them drifting away.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: He saw some of them falling asleep.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: He read their body language.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of that message, he said this.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I care what you do, or else I would not be sharing this with you.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: All these years have gone by, and the God you met at the Red Sea, in so many of your lives, He's disappeared.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the gods around you are the gods that you worship.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I will die soon.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say this to you.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what any of you do, whether you believe all of these stories about God are true or false, no matter what any of you do, as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: 1859, those dear people, they served God in their own generation by his will, and they fell asleep, and many of them are buried in our cemetery.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And all the generations that have gone by, and all the lives that have been touched for the kingdom of God.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: What shall you and I do?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you're listening online tomorrow, what shall you and I do?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Closing word.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're singing in prison.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Paul and Silas.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: They've been whipped and beaten.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they're singing in prison.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: They were not given advil or tramadol.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Their wounds were not dealt with at all.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're thrown into prison in the stocks, their raw backs leaning against the wood.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And what are they doing?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're singing.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And who hears them singing, the jailer?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And a short time later the jailer is saying to the two singers, You have served me by serving your Lord.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want what you have.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: How can I have it?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the two singers, Paul and Silas, said to the jailer, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Where will God put you this week?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Will it be a brief encounter that comes and goes like the snap of a finger?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in that brief encounter will you serve God?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or will he give you a second and a third and a fourth chance to do what I should have done, what you should have done in the first place?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Leave this place 167 years later, giving thanks to God for what the miracle he has allowed us to have.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Leave this place with one desire to serve your own generation by the will of God.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you serve it well, then generations to come will be influenced by what you and I do at this moment in time.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, keep us close to you.