Bethel Lutheran Church

05/22/2026

C. S. Lewis once said:
“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
That’s the problem.
Modern Christianity is often marketed like a self help seminar with worship music in the background.
Come to Jesus and your life will get easier. Come to Jesus and you’ll always feel good. Come to Jesus and you’ll be comfortable.
But Jesus never promised comfort. He promised a cross.
Christianity will wreck your pride. Confront your sin. Kill your flesh. Call you to forgive people who hurt you. Call you to stand for truth when culture hates you for it.
It will also give you something a bottle, a drug, money, s*x, success, or comfort never can:
Truth. Purpose. Redemption. Eternal life.
Christianity is not about making bad people feel better.
It’s about making dead people come alive

05/15/2026

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After the Ten Commandments, you start to feel the weight of it. Not just what God requires, but how far short you fall. Not just outwardly, but inwardly, where the Commandments press into what you fear, love, and trust. And if that’s where things stopped, Christianity wouldn’t be good news. It would just be a clearer way of showing you the problem.

But it doesn’t stop there. The Creed shifts the focus completely. Up to this point, the question has been what God requires of you. Now the question becomes what God has done for you. And that changes everything, because the Creed is not about your effort, your progress, or your ability to hold your life together. It is about God acting.

“I believe” is not you declaring your commitment. It is you confessing what is true, whether you feel it or not, whether your life reflects it perfectly or not. The Creed pulls you out of yourself and fixes your attention on what God has done and continues to do.

The Father creates and provides, not in theory but concretely, your life, your daily bread, everything you have. The Son redeems, not in general but personally. He has acted to save, to forgive, and to claim you. The Holy Spirit gives and sustains faith, not as a vague force, but through the Word, through the Church, through the forgiveness of sins.

This is not your story about reaching up to God. It is God’s work from beginning to end, for you. And after everything the Law exposes, the last thing you need is more pressure to fix yourself. You need something outside of you that does not shift when you do.

That is what the Creed gives you: not what you must become, but what God has already done and is still doing for you.

04/26/2026

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Sermons, Articles, and Notes from Rev. Dr. Matthew Richard

04/24/2026

What a joy and blessing we have in the Historic Liturgy of Church. Bethel unabashedly adheres to that liturgy.

04/09/2026

Happy Birthday to this monster man killer Bobcat.

04/07/2026

From Martin Luther: "Therefore, let no one add this detestable and fatal little word 'why' to God's commands. But when the command is certain, let us obey at once without any argument, and let us conclude that God is wiser than we are...Therefore let us crucify this baneful 'why', and let us say: 'Glory to God, who alone is wise...'"
Luther's Works, Vol 3 "Lectures on Genesis; chapters 15-20. p 172-3.

04/02/2026

Holy Thursday service @ 7pm
Good Friday service
Easter Breakfast @ 8:30 am
Easter Divine Service @ 9:30am

02/01/2026

1 Cor 1:18-31

01/25/2026

Acts 9:1-20

01/18/2026