This sermon unpacks Luke 16 by connecting the parable of the dishonest manager to the prodigal son, showing Jesus’ shocking critique of the Pharisees and his invitation to trust God’s character. Rather than a moral license to lie, the story urges sinners to bind God to His promises and receive mercy through Christ’s merits.

It calls believers to rely on God’s promises in baptism and the sacraments, to live sacrificially for others, and to hold Jesus to his word as the source of eternal hope.

This sermon unpacks Matthew 7's imagery of healthy and diseased trees to show humanity's fallen state and Christ as the only truly Good Tree who fulfills the law. Using Psalm 26 and Peter's sermon as a lens, the preacher identifies David's words as messianic, pointing to Jesus' perfect obedience, suffering, death, and resurrection.

Believers are invited to be grafted into Christ through baptism and the Lord's Supper, sharing in His merits and suffering so that their lives bear good fruit in response to Him as The Good Fruit. The message emphasizes reliance on Christ, not self, as the source of true righteousness and hopeful union with God.

This sermon traces Mark 8 and 1 Kings 20 to show how Jesus defeats the serpent’s power, miraculously provides for the hungry, and establishes God’s garden even in enemy territory.

Contrasting Adam and Ahab’s failures with Christ’s perfect mercy and provision, the message calls believers to receive Jesus’ gifts of His perfect obedience in our place, sacrificial death on the cross, and provision of Himself as the Bread of Life, and then to live as stewards of the garden he plants in the world.