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https://www.princeofpeacecrestwood.com/

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church- Crestwood, MO, 8646 New Sappington Road, Crestwood, MO (2026)

06/02/2026

A devotion on judges, shepherds, and salvation:

John 10:1-21

Imagine that you’re on trial for murder, a crime you are most certainly guilty of for the purposes of this illustration. The judge has all the evidence of your profoundly evil act in front of him and he’s about to issue his judgment and sentence you to death. So just as he’s about to utter those words of condemnation, your brother bursts into the courtroom and runs to your side and says to you, “don’t worry.” Then, looking at the judge, he says, “your honor, I have decided to take my brother’s place. Find me guilty. Condemn me and set him free.”

So that’s what he says and you feel profound relief burst through your heart and music begins to swell to a glorious crescendo, and then the judge looks at your brother and says, “Uh, no. Get out of my courtroom, you lunatic. You don’t have any authority to take his place on death row. Your brother is guilty and I’m not punishing anyone else for his crime.”

In the end, a substitutionary sacrifice has no value if the judge does not authorize it. As kind as your brother’s offer to save you is, it’s not worth anything if the judge hasn’t permitted him to offer it. And this is why it’s important that Jesus tells us, in the Good Shepherd narrative, that He has authority both to lay down His life and to take it back up again. It’s not just that Jesus loves us and is willing to die for us. It’s that His Father, the Judge, has authorized Him to be that sacrifice. God the Father has given His Son the authority to die in your place, to take the punishment you earned, to destroy your sins. And in the same way, because Jesus has no sin of His own, God the Father has given Him the authority to rise on the third day because death has no authority to hold him.

And so, in all of this, you can feel the relief burst through your heart, and every day you can hear the song of the angels swell to a glorious crescendo in your ears. You can hear all of this without the fear that the record scratch or the rug pull is coming. The Judge has already accepted the substitute, the sacrifice. He has already poured out His wrath towards your sins upon His Son at Calvary. And He has already declared you innocent and worthy to be His own child forever through the power of Christ’s resurrection, the very one He authorized to accomplish this. Be at peace. You are innocent. You are declared righteous and set free, free to be a child of God. You are justified through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

06/02/2026

Yesterday's devotion on obesity, blindness, and the righteousness of God: John 9:24–41

If you have any sort of bodily affliction or abnormality or even just a minor difference of the body, one of the harsh realities of life is that you’re always just one outburst of anger away from someone using that against you. So Woman A is overweight and often laments this to her friend, Woman B. But Woman B tells her, throughout the years, “stop it, you’re beautiful. You’re amazing. Don’t ever say that about yourself.” But then Woman B decides to leave her husband for another man, and Woman A tells her that she’s turning away from God and harming her family. So how does Woman B respond? Something along the lines of, “just because you’re fat and can’t do any better than your husband doesn’t mean I should stay in my bad marriage.” So it is if you have an unpleasant birthmark, if you’re paralyzed, whatever it may be. The very afflictions people would tell you they’re praying about, they’ll use those against you the moment they believe you’re standing in between them and the righteousness they want to have.

We see this in our reading from John this morning. Everyone knows that this man was born blind, and they know his parents, which means they have a good amount of familiarity with him. So surely the Pharisees have prayed for a man like this, a man bearing a terrible burden from birth. Surely they’ve made big displays showing how much compassion they have for men like this. But when he laughs at their unbelief and ultimately scorns them for refusing to believe in the Savior who showed His divinity by performing this miracle on him, the Pharisees lose all that compassion. If this man is going to insist that they believe in Jesus, then his blindness is fair game. And why should they listen to some disgusting sinner whose blindness-from-birth reveals what a worthless soul he is?

But this is not how Jesus sees you in your afflictions. When He sees the brokenness of your flesh, the afflictions of your body, and when He sees the sins in your heart, He does not quietly make a record of them so He can shove them in your face the moment you get in His way. In fact, when you stood in His way, when you opposed Him with your transgressions, He went to the cross to destroy those sins forever. He eradicated them with His blood. So He will never shove your vile words and thoughts and deeds into your face because He Himself has erased them from His own memory.

Likewise, in His resurrection, He has sworn to give you a glorified body, flesh that will never be corrupted by the effects of your own sin or simply by the fallenness of this world. The Lamb of God who was without blemish laid down His life and picked it back up again so that you could receive a body without blemish, without affliction, without shame. The Lord who chose to see us all as His beautiful brothers and sisters, He will grant you that perfect, glorified body on the Last Day and you will never feel the fallenness of sin in your flesh again. And He will do this all because Jesus didn’t see you as someone who stood between Him and the righteousness of God. He saw you as someone who needed the righteousness of God. And so He stood between you and the Father so He could take His Father’s kingdom of righteousness and place it into your hands.

05/27/2026

A devotion on projection and forgiveness:
Luke 22:47-71

“Projection” is a term that psychologists use for a curious form of human behavior where Person A accuses Person B of doing or thinking the things Person A is actually doing or thinking. For example, if a man has a guilty conscience about having committed adultery or giving himself over to lust in some way, he will often accuse his wife of having adulterous intentions when she’s just friendly with another man. Adulterers project adultery onto everyone else. Addicts see addiction in everyone else. Liars always think everyone else is lying. That’s projection.

And in our reading from Luke today, Jesus calls out the projection of the men who come to arrest Him when He says, “have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? WHen I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” In other words, Jesus is ultimately saying, “You could have taken me into custody in broad daylight, but you’ve come under the cover of night because you’re not really concerned about my supposed blasphemy and false teaching. You just want to strip me of the honor I have in the eyes of the people. And ultimately, you want to rob me of the glory I have as the only begotten Son of God. So the reason you’re armed like you’ve come to capture a violent thief is not because I’m a robber. It’s because you are.” Wretched projection, indeed.

But thanks be to God that He gave His sinless, spotless Son to die for those who treated Him as a robber. And thanks be to God that Jesus Christ freely gave Himself to us, when we tried to steal from Him.

Once, in our sin, we were the robbers, beating Christ viciously with our transgressions in an attempt to take away His authority over us, trying to rob Him of the right to control our lives, trying to rob Him of the right to tell us that we lost sheep in need of His arms. But when we tore Him to pieces with our swords and clubs, when our sins became the very nails pierced into His hands and feet, Jesus Christ used the blood He shed to melt the weapons out of our hands, to heal those who hacked Him apart. There, from the cross, Jesus used the very divine authority we tried to steal from Him to forgive us, to restore us, to clothe us in His love, and to take us in His arms. The Savior who had nothing but love for us in His heart projected His love onto our faces. And because of this, when the Father looks at us, He doesn’t see the faces of robbers and thieves. He sees the faces of His beloved children. Blessed projection, indeed.

05/26/2026

A devotion on earthly glory vs. true glory: Luke 22:24-46

Throughout the earthly ministry of Jesus, His disciples are constantly arguing among themselves as to which of them will be the greatest in His kingdom, which of them will have the most glory, the most honor, the greatest position of power in the presumed earthly reign of our Lord. And here in our text for today, the disciples are doing this again, on the very night of our Lord’s betrayal. It’s all quite amazing. The disciples have now heard Jesus speak numerous words about His rapidly-approaching crucifixion. They’re witnessing His increasing distress, His agony wafting into the air that is already thick with the hatred that the Pharisees and Chief Priests have for their Lord. And yet, they simply can’t make sense of any of this. This isn’t enough to pull their thoughts away from earthly glory.

And so we see something vitally important about the Christian faith. It doesn’t matter how much you are surrounded by Christian stuff, Christian ideas. It doesn’t matter how much you hear the word of the Scriptures or how much time you spend in Christian churches. If you don’t have the Holy Spirit, all of those words will bounce off of your ears.

So pray for a greater measure of the Spirit. Pray that God would take not His Holy Spirit from you. Cling to the Spirit who has pierced through your earthly-glory clogged ears and blessed you to believe in the true kingdom of Christ. And do all of this by looking to the cross of Christ. If you want glory, if you want honor, if you want the praise of God Himself, look to the place where God gave you everything. Look to the cross. In the wounds of Jesus Christ, see the glory of God pouring out upon you. Gaze upon the blood of your Savior and there you will find the crimson fibers that your Father wove together as the robe of honor placed around your shoulders. If you want the praise of God look to the place where God destroyed every sin that prevented you from possessing His kingdom. Look to the place where God washed you in His favor and love, the favor and love that gave you the right to be praised as His beloved child.

05/11/2026

A devotion the absurdity of wanting heaven without Jesus: Luke 15:11-32

When the older brother confronts his father about the feast of joy he’s thrown in honor of the prodigal son’s return, the older brother laments that, after all these years of faithfully serving his father, his father never even gave him a young goat that he might celebrate with his friends. Again, and quite notably, with his friends. Not with his father. And with this little detail, the older brother reveals the wickedness of his heart. He wants his father’s glory, but not his presence. He wants the splendor his father produces, but doesn’t want his father anywhere near it. He wants to be praised for his obedience, but doesn’t want the love of the one he obeyed.

And in this, we see a perfect depiction of the absurdity of unbelievers who get angry at the notion that they must have faith in Christ in order to have eternal life. It might sound perfectly reasonable to their own ears when they say, “why shouldn’t I be able to go to heaven just because I don’t believe in Jesus? Why should I go to hell just because I’m not a Christian?” But if we use terms that describe what heaven and hell actually are, we begin to see the insanity of the request. Heaven is being in the presence of Jesus. Hell is being apart from Him. Likewise, belief is ultimately wanting to be near Jesus, to receive His righteousness. And unbelief is wanting to be far from Him, wanting your own righteousness instead. And so, saying “if I’m not a Christian, why should I go to hell” is ultimately saying, “I don’t want to be near Jesus, but why should I be far from Jesus? Why can’t I be near His righteousness but not get close to it?” Just like the older brother in the parable, such people want the glory of God without the presence of God.

This request is nonsense. If you want the Kingdom of Christ, you have to want Christ. And if you don’t want Christ, then you’ll get what you desire and all the suffering that comes from being separated from Him. So if you want eternal life, despair of your own righteousness. Quit believing the lie that you’ve earned a goat and a celebration with your friends. Leave your pride behind and walk into the kingdom where the fattneed calf has been slaughtered and where your Father’s love is radiating. Walk away from your sins and into the arms of your God. Beg for the blood of Christ to clothe you and cover you, and your Father in heaven will show you that it is already the robe around your shoulders and the ring on your finger. Stop lingering outside the feast. Come inside and live forever.

05/08/2026

A devotion on Jesus and His enemies wanting the same thing: Luke 13:18-35

In a strange sort of way, those who want our Lord dead and our Lord Himself very much want the same thing. They both want Him dead. And on top of that, they both want the blood of Jesus to place the favor of God into His enemies’ hands. But, of course, each side wants that blood to accomplish this in very different ways.

As the Pharisees show when they tell Jesus, “get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you,” they ultimately want Jesus dead because they want Him out of their way. They want Him gone so He’ll stop humiliating them in arguments, stop making them deal with the horrifying thought that all of their stringent adherence to the Law hasn’t made them worthy of eternal life. But if Jesus is gone, if He runs away or, even better, if He’s put to death, then He won’t stuff that wretched idea into their heads anymore and they can resume having confidence that they’ve earned the favor of God.

And yet, that favor is exactly what Jesus wants to give them, which is why He won’t be bullied by their threats of violence. Oh, Herod wants to kill Him? Well, if that’s true, Herod can get in line. He’s not the only person that wants Jesus to shed His blood. And the first person in that line is our Lord Himself. He came for this purpose, to forgive the sins of even His bitterest enemies upon the cross, at the right time, in the right place, in fulfillment of the Scriptures. Jesus came to give the righteousness of God to those who could never have earned it through His dying breath, no matter what their deluded minds and hearts told them.

Those who have no hope, those who were violently thrashing about as they drown in condemnation, even as their violent thrashing pierced the hands and feet of our Lord, that’s who Jesus came to save. Those are the ones whose hands Jesus wanted to pry open and give them the favor of His Father, the favor no sinful man could have earned but that our Lord purchased with His own blood. That’s why Jesus died for Herod, the Chief Priests, the Pharisees. And that’s why Jesus Christ died for you.

05/06/2026

A devotion on families in conflict and the faithfulness of Christ: Luke 12:35–53

If you’ve experienced deep and destructive family conflict, the kind where relationships are severed and affection is completely lost, the harshest lesson you’ll learn is how fickle man’s love is. Parents will simply cut off love for their children and vice versa. Brothers will completely cease to love their sisters and vice versa. People that cherished you for an entire lifetime will simply walk away from you the moment it is no longer in their interest to love you.

Now, when this happens, it’s common for people who have received this cruelty to conclude that those who walked away must have never really loved them in the first place. But, by and large, I think this is the wrong takeaway. It’s not that they never loved you. It’s that they always loved something more than you. And generally speaking, the thing they loved more was their own righteousness, the idol of their own supposed goodness and superiority, superiority that meant they should never have to experience discomfort because of you or apologize to you or show too much mercy to you, whatever it might be. And because this idol that they loved more refused to coexist with you, you were thrown out of their lives.

And so, when Jesus tells us that He has not come to bring peace but division, that He is going to set mother against daughter and father against son, He’s talking about the consequences of believing His Gospel, not the purpose of the Gospel itself. Jesus has, of course, come to give us peace with God and with each other. But that peace will require us to forsake the idol of our self-righteousness, to let go of the lie that we are good, holy, sacred people on account of our own works. And when Christians believe that we are worthless sinners who have no hope apart from Christ, those who hope and trust in the idol of themselves will often hate us with a hate that trumps the love of family. They will often choose their idols over their flesh and blood, walking away from those they should cherish. Sometimes they will even sprint with weapons and violence towards those they are supposed to protect.

But when you experience this, don’t despair. Because Jesus will not walk away from you. He will not abandon you. The Lord who abandoned His very life upon the cross to save you will come to your rescue. He will cover you in His righteousness. He will claim you as His own. He will give you the strength to endure the persecution of this world and He will lift you up into the perfect family when He lifts you up into paradise on the Last Day.

05/01/2026

A devotion on faces and our Father:
Ephesians 2:19-22

Salvation is never faceless. When God gathers saints into His kingdom, they are never just masses of people stumbling in like crowds swarming the gates of Disney World as the park opens for the day. Even though Jesus tells Peter he will become a fisher of men, He tells him this to describe the size of the harvest, not the relationship our Lord will have with His faithful. To understand that, we have the sheep and shepherd metaphors. Likewise, when Jesus gives us the wedding feast parables where the master crams his festival hall full of seeming random passersby after the initial invitees reject the invitation, the point is not to teach that God will fill His kingdom with any unknown soul who wants in. It’s that He will give salvation to the gentiles who look like random nobodies in the eyes of the unbelieving Jews, those who deem themselves special but don’t want the special feast.

So, in the end, salvation is never faceless. God always knows every wrinkle on your face, every hair on your head. He knows the source of your every tear and knows how to dry them all. As our reading from Ephesians tells us, you are not a stranger or an alien, but a fellow citizen of the house of God. You are not just a random entrant into the kingdom. You are part of the Lord’s very deliberate construction, placed on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, placed where you are for a reason and a purpose, even if you can’t always see or perceive them.

The same Lord who spoke with Moses and Paul sees you, loves you, cherishes you as His own. You are not a cog in a machine or a body in a crowd. You are the precious saint of His kingdom, individually won by the blood of Jesus Christ upon the cross. You are God’s own child. And He is your loving Father.

04/16/2026

A devotion on tax-collecting thugs and our salvation-giving Lord:
Luke 5:17-39

Tax collectors in the days of Christ’s earthly ministry had a rather bad reputation. First, tax collectors were known for being rather thuggish. They weren’t accountants as we might think of them, but more along the lines of mafia goons, shakedown artists who would often use threats of governmental power and violence to extract from people more than they owned. And second, those who worked as tax collectors worked for a foreign power that was imposing itself on your nation, preventing you from being independent. They were oppression lackeys, to put it simply. And so, for the Jews who hungered to see the kingdom of David restored, you can see why being a tax collector, especially being a Jewish tax collector like St. Matthew, was such a reprehensible thing. You’re a bully and a traitor.

And so, it’s a fitting thing that Matthew (or Levi as Luke calls him here) finds salvation in Jesus Christ, the gentle and faithful Savior. When the Pharisees grumble that Jesus is eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners at Levi’s home, Jesus responds by telling them that it’s the sick who are in need of a physician, not the healthy. And so Jesus gives all who run to Him the healing of His righteousness.

When we have been cruel and imposing, when we’ve used whatever power we have to make people feel small and helpless, Jesus came to us brimming with the power of God, but power that He used not to destroy us, but to save us. When we were like tax collectors extracting money that didn’t belong to us, Jesus gave us the free gift of His salvation. He allowed lawless men to open His veins and He gave us the priceless treasure of His righteousness.

When we lived in service of idols, when we made ourselves soldiers in the war against our God, Jesus Christ gave us His faithfulness by giving up His life for us upon the cross. And rising again on the third day, He showed us that we now had the right to leave behind our days of tax collecting for Rome and live forever as faithful children of His Kingdom. Tax collectors made apostles, sinners made saints. That is the mercy of Jesus Christ, our crucified but risen Lord.

03/25/2026

A devotion on forgiving those who know not, even as they know: Mark 15:1-15

When Jesus cries out from the cross, “forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,” it’s hard to understand how this could true because, well, the chief priests and the scribes most certainly know. The chief priests and scribes have seen Jesus perform numerous miracles that prove he’s the Messiah, but they don’t want Him to be the Messiah, so they still hand Him over to Pilate. They certainly know the words of Isaiah 52 and 53, which prophesy of the Suffering Servant who will give up His life in place of the people, and they hear Caiaphas say that it’s better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish, and yet they still want to be the ones shedding the blood of the suffering servant they refuse to recognize. And when Pilate asks them if they’d rather release Jesus, who has done nothing wrong, or Barabbas, a murderer, they demand that Jesus be condemned in His place. Here, during the time of the Passover, they’re seeing the promise of the Passover Lamb set before their eyes, the innocent Lamb dying in the place of the guilty sinners. And yet, they still want to be the ones who shed the blood of that Lamb. How can these men steeped in the Scriptures not see what is right in front of them? How can they really not know what they’re doing?

The answer is, of course, found not so much in the mental or psychological state of the chief priests and scribes, but in the heart of Jesus. Why does our Lord say that these men don’t know what they’re doing? Because He sees them as slaves to sin, torn apart by a vicious beast named Satan who has devoured both their hearts and their minds, so that seeing they can’t see, and hearing they can’t heart. And so His goal is not to destroy them, but to destroy the beast who devoured their understanding. His goal is to crush Satan by covering even His fiercest enemies in His blood and giving them the right to see Him properly–not as a threat to their earthly glory, but as the source of their heavenly glory.

And so it is for you. Even when you knew full well what you were doing when you gave yourself over to sin, even when you were a fully willing participant in every transgression that shoved the nails into Christ’s hands, our Lord saw you not according to your own will, but according to His good and gracious will, according to His merciful heart. He chose to see you as a slave to the devil He had come to kill. And having killed the beast, Jesus Christ now invites you to rise to new life from the waters of His forgiveness and live forever in His arms.

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church- Crestwood, MO

06/02/2026

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Monday	9am - 3pm
Tuesday	9am - 3pm
Wednesday	9am - 3pm
Thursday	9am - 3pm
Sunday	9am - 12pm