St. Paul's Lutheran Church

St. Paul's Lutheran Church Founded in 1842. The mission of St. We welcome you! Here, the message of Jesus is preached, taught, and shared each time we are together. or Thursdays at 7:00 p.m.

Paul’s Lutheran Church is to enthusiastically share Christ as Savior by nurturing a strong church family and by reaching out with Christ’s love to the community. Jesus said, “Come to Me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Our congregation is a hospital for sinners who are in need of the forgiveness, grace, and peace of Jesus. Join us in person for worship Sunday's at 9:3

0 a.m. Our address 3932 MiCasa Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46237. Can't join us in person? We live stream Sunday's service on YouTube. Search for St. Paul's Indy.

05/28/2026

Expressions of Faith
Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord
LSB 497
Verse 1 (Read 1 Corinthians 12:1-3)
Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord, with all Your graces now outpoured
On each believers mind and heart; Your fervent love to them impart.
Lord, by the brightness of Your light in holy faith Your Church unite;
From ev’ry land and every tongue this to Your praise, O Lord, our God, be sung:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

We hear about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and rightly so. But we don’t always hear about the greatest gift the Spirit gives; the gift of faith. The gift of faith is the vessel by which the other gifts are given. We cannot believe in Jesus apart from the Spirit. The Spirit works through Baptism and the Word to create faith. Everyone owes their salvation entirely to God, from the death and resurrection of Jesus to the creation of faith by the Holy Spirit.
In the gift of faith, the Spirit unites all believers into the one, true Church. The Church is the assembly of believers. All believers embrace the Scriptures as God’s Word and are united by the Spirit in the teachings of God’s Word. The Spirit creates faith in each believer, and unites them all in the faith; the teaching of God’s Word. This is the gift the Spirit gives to each and to all believers.

Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord, with all Your graces now outpoured
On each believers mind and heart; Your fervent love to them impart.
Lord, by the brightness of Your light in holy faith Your Church unite;
From ev’ry land and every tongue this to Your praise, O Lord, our God, be sung:
Alleluia, Alleluia! Amen.

05/27/2026

Expressions of Faith
Holy Spirit, Light Divine
LSB 496
Verse 5 (Read 1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
Holy Spirit, all divine, dwell within this heart of mine;
Cast down ev’ry idol throne, reign supreme, and reign alone.

The Temple in Jerusalem was the place where God dwelt in all His fullness on earth. When Jesus was conceived in the womb of His mother, He became the Temple because He was the location of God’s presence on earth. Where is the Temple now?
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 6, says that we, believers in Christ, are the temples of the Holy Spirit. He dwells in us, by faith, that we may be renewed and strengthened in faith, and that we may show God’s love to others. He sanctifies our simple contributions, that they may be wondrous to those who receive them. He grants us the grace to see true wealth in the grace He gives to us, and shares through us. He assures us that true power is found in His ability to use the simple message we share to transform lives. He teaches us that we don’t have to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to know the presence of God, because He comes and makes His home in us by faith. We therefore pray this simple prayer.

Holy Spirit, all divine, dwell within this heart of mine;
Cast down ev’ry idol throne, reign supreme, and reign alone. Amen.

05/26/2026

I wrote this trilogy to celebrate Trinity Sunday. It later became part of my guitar liturgy because I couldn't come up with a decent tune for the Gloria in Excelsis.

05/26/2026

Expressions of Faith
Holy Spirit, Light Divine
LSB 496
Verse 4 (Read John 14:25-27)
Holy Spirit, joy divine, cheer this saddened heart of mine;
Yield a sacred, settled peace, let it grow and still increase.

Peace is a word that echoes and resounds. But for too many people it rings hollow. People seek to sigh to the core of their souls, but how is it possible to be content amidst the discontent of this sinful world?
Peace is not simply the absence of conflict, but the wholeness that comes from faith in Jesus and His promises. Being made whole, we have peace. That wholeness comes from Jesus’ taking of our sins on the cross, and being dressed in His righteousness. This is the work of the Spirit in us. He brings us that forgiveness and righteousness. He confirms them in the promises of God’s Word. He conveys them in the blessings of Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar. He makes the promise reality. He lives in us, by faith, that we may be whole in Christ, and confident that what Jesus came to do is actually ours. This wholeness in Christ is the assurance the Spirit gives, that we may heave the heavenly sigh of true peace. By faith, He grants us the grace to live the words of Psalm 4, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” In that peace we live, and pray.

Holy Spirit, joy divine, cheer this saddened heart of mine;
Yield a sacred, settled peace, let it grow and still increase. Amen.

05/25/2026

Expressions of Faith
Holy Spirit, Light Divine
LSB 496
Verse 3 (Read John 16:1-15)
Holy Spirit, pow’r divine, cleanse this guilty heart of mine;
In Thy mercy pity me, from sin’s bo***ge set me free.

Guilt and shame have nearly gone out of our vocabulary. Modern commentary assures us we have nothing to feel guilty about. Guilt is seen as a psychological disorder. Shame, used widely to accomplish certain societal goals of the past, is no longer mentioned, let alone dealt with. The problem is that, while guilt and shame go unmentioned, people experience them every day. Far too often people are forced into the loneliness of guilt and shame because our society is incapable of truly dealing with them.
One of the chief roles of the Holy Spirit is to deal with guilt and shame. We cannot ignore them, nor their cause. We are sinners, and must deal with that reality. The question cannot be whether to deal with guilt and shame, but how. The Spirit brings us the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection, to assure us in our guilt and shame. The message of the Spirit is that we are guilty (Law), but our guilt has been borne on the cross of Jesus (Gospel). The Spirit doesn’t ignore our guilt and shame, He overcomes them through the forgiveness won for us by Jesus’ death. He lifts our guilt and shame as He assures us that Jesus’ suffering and death was for our sins, and we have been dressed in His righteousness. We live each day heaving the heavenly sigh of forgiveness, our burden lifted and our shame turned to the joy of salvation. In this confidence we pray to the Spirit.

Holy Spirit, pow’r divine, cleanse this guilty heart of mine;
In Thy mercy pity me, from sin’s bo***ge set me free. Amen.

05/24/2026

Expressions of Faith
Holy Spirit, Light Divine
LSB 496
Verse 2 (Read John 15:26-27)
Let me see my Savior’s face, let me all His beauties trace;
Show those glorious truths to me which are only known to Thee.

How do we know whether something is of the Holy Spirit? Anyone can claim to have the Spirit, but how do we judge whether it is true? We go to Scripture to see what the Spirit has promised to do. Jesus, in John, said He would send the Spirit, and that the Spirit would testify of Jesus. The chief task of the Spirit is to bring Jesus to us and us to Jesus.
The Spirit brings us forgiveness, accomplished by Jesus’ death on the cross. The Spirit creates faith in us, and that faith clings to what Jesus did for us. The Spirit renews that faith each day, that we may be assured of God’s promises to us in Christ as we live our days. The Spirit calls us to show the love of Jesus we have received, and empowers us to do so. The mystery of God’s salvation, promised in the OT Scriptures, has been revealed to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the Spirit daily renews our faith in Him. There is no other path to God than Jesus. So the Spirit brings us Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Thus we pray.

Let me see my Savior’s face, let me all His beauties trace;
Show those glorious truths to me which are only known to Thee. Amen.

05/23/2026

Expressions of Faith
Holy Spirit, Light Divine
LSB 496
Verse 1 (Read 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24)
Holy Spirit, light divine, shine upon this heart of mine;
Chase the shades of night away, turn the darkness into day.

If you haven’t actually watched the dawn, I encourage you to do so. It begins as a dim glow on the horizon. As it grows, the light pushes the darkness away. Finally, the sun actually appears and all darkness is swept away. It is a lesson in the power of light.
We are born sinful, full of the darkness Satan sows. Into this darkness comes the light of God’s grace. The third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, brings us that light. The glow of Jesus’ incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection pushes the darkness away. Jesus swallowed the darkness of sin and death, and the Spirit brings the light of the Gospel into our hearts and lives. The uncertainty of sin is dispelled by the light of forgiveness, fanned into flame in us by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit kindles the flame of light and warmth in us, assuring us that the risen Christ is the Sun of Righteousness that has swept away the darkness. As we experience each day, dawn and dusk, we live in the confidence that Jesus has ushered in the eternal day of heaven that we have as a present possession, and a sure promise. This confidence of faith is continuously renewed in us by the Spirit of God. We pray this prayer in the confidence of His presence and power.

Holy Spirit, light divine, shine upon this heart of mine;
Chase the shades of night away, turn the darkness into day. Amen.

05/22/2026

Expressions of Faith
A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing
LSB 493
Verse 6 (Read Revelation 5)
O risen Christ, ascended Lord, all praise to You let earth accord:
Alleluia, alleluia!
You art, while endless ages run, with Father and with Spirit one.
Alleluia, alleluia! Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

We live lives of beginnings and ends. Most of what we see and experience here begins and ends. We begin at conception, and many assume that death is the end. But our beginning as beings, and our beginning as members of the kingdom of heaven comes from the one who has no beginning and no end. Jesus was conceived in His mother’s womb and became flesh, but He has no beginning and no end. By paying the price for our adoption, Jesus has joined us with the eternal, Triune God. What is mortal is now eternal.
Our praises to God on earth are for all the blessings, body and soul, that He has bestowed on us. He became one of us to bring us to God. He did this by living a perfect life in our place, suffering and dying in our place to atone for our sins, and rising and ascending to prepare that journey for us. We may not be able to see what is beyond this life, but we know it is there, because He is there, and has prepared a place for us there. So we praise the timeless one, who came into our time to give us eternity with Him. We sing our praise, now and forever.

O risen Christ, ascended Lord, all praise to You let earth accord:
Alleluia, alleluia!
You art, while endless ages run, with Father and with Spirit one.
Alleluia, alleluia! Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia! Amen.

05/21/2026

Expressions of Faith
A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing
LSB 493
Verse 5 (Read John 20:30-31)
Be now our joy on earth, O Lord, and be our future great reward.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Then, throned with You forever, we shall praise Your name eternally.
Alleluia, alleluia! Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

We tend to think of ourselves as having two lives; the one here on earth and the one in heaven. Owing to the stark differences between the two, it is easy to see them as separate. But we actually have one life that continues in two places. That is what John is referring to in the last two verses of John 20, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah), the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”
The life Jesus came to give us begins, not simply at birth, but at rebirth in Baptism (see John 3). That life is lived by faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is a life lived in the joy of salvation. That joy is the unspeakable elation of our praise, and lifts and sustains us in time of sorrow. Our faith is empowered by the Spirit to receive God’s grace, and to express itself in Christ-like love for others. We walk through the valley of the shadow of death, confident of God’s grace and the promises accomplished in Jesus’ death and resurrection. This life does not end at our death, but transitions to eternity in heaven. There our life will be lived in the fullness of joy Jesus prepared for us. The fact that it will be so different from this life leads us to assume that it is an entirely other life. But it is not. It is the life into which we were born by God’s creative hand. It is the new life into which we were baptized. It is the life we live here, and the life we will live in heaven.

Be now our joy on earth, O Lord, and be our future great reward.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Then, throned with You forever, we shall praise Your name eternally.
Alleluia, alleluia! Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia! Amen.

05/20/2026

Expressions of Faith
A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing
LSB 493
Verse 4 (Read Acts 1:1-11)
“You see Him now ascending high up to the portals of the sky.”
Alleluia, alleluia!
“Hereafter Jesus you shall see returning in great majesty.”
Alleluia, alleluia! Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Think about what they saw. They saw Jesus’ miracles, many of which modern medicine can’t do today. Some of them saw Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. They saw Lazarus raised, and the crowds respond with the splendid scene of Palm Sunday. They saw Jesus arrested, tried, condemned, crucified, and buried. They saw Him after His resurrection, and they saw His ascension.
We know these truths by faith, without actually seeing them. But we will see one thing with them; His return in glory to raise the dead, and to take the saints, body and soul, into heaven. Because we live in the Spirit’s testimony of what they saw and heard, we will live the day of resurrection and the fullness of joy in heaven. As surely as He did what they saw, He will return to take us with Him to heaven. We will see it! We will live it eternally!

Lord, when Your glory I shall see and taste Your kingdom’s pleasure,
Your blood my royal robe shall be, my joy beyond all measure!
When I appear before Your throne, Your righteousness shall be my crown;
With these I need not hide me.
And there, in garments richly wrought, as Your own bride shall we be brought
To stand in joy beside You.

05/19/2026

A song of tribute for Memorial Day

Address

3932 Mi Casa Avenue
Indianapolis, IN
46237

Telephone

+13177874464

Website

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