Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost — August 9, 2026

The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost gathered the people of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Joplin, Missouri around the hardest question a believer ever asks out loud: why? Job asked it for thirty-seven chapters. Peter asked it with saltwater rising past his chin. Pastor Christopher Ramstad preached the answer Scripture actually gives — not a tidy reason, but a hand that reaches down.

Scripture Readings for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

• Old Testament: Job 38:4–18
• Epistle: Romans 10:5–17
• Holy Gospel: Matthew 14:22–33

Sunday’s worship followed the Service of Prayer and Preaching from Lutheran Service Book — a Word-centered order with the Old Testament Canticle (LSB 261), the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, Luther’s Morning Prayer, and the New Testament Canticle (LSB 266). If the shape of a Lutheran service is new to you, our What to Expect page walks through a typical Sunday morning before you ever walk through the door.

So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Matthew 14:29–31 (ESV)

“We Don’t Know — But God Does”

Pastor Ramstad began where Job began: with a man who had everything. Blameless, is how God describes him. Blessed, you might add — seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, servants, sons and daughters, a wife, friends. And then the messengers start arriving, one after another, until the flocks are gone, the servants are dead, the children are buried under a collapsed tent, and Job is sitting in ashes scraping his own sores with a piece of broken pottery.

The advice comes fast, and none of it helps. His wife tells him to curse God and die. His friends assume he must have earned it — come on, Job, what did you do? Pastor Ramstad named the modern versions of that same bad counsel: the vague gesture toward sin in the world, the borrowed language of karma, the confident insistence that bad things happen to bad people. The disciples tried it too, pointing at a man born blind and asking whose sin caused it. Jesus answered with one word that undoes the whole project: neither.

So God finally answers Job — and He answers with questions. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who set the sea’s limits and said this far and no farther? Who commanded the morning? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Job’s reply is the turning point of the whole book, and Pastor Ramstad let it land: I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Not despair. Faith. Job stops needing to be the one who knows, because he has met the One who does.

The sermon’s lighter illustration came from a college-week contestant on Wheel of Fortune whose string of misses became national news — the million-dollar wedge lost on a mispronounced name, a car forfeited on a wrong letter, a tossup buzzed in and blown. Asked later what it was like to be called the worst contestant ever, he said it was one of the greatest experiences of his life. He had, after all, won the episode. Eleven thousand dollars, without ever having the right answers. Sometimes the outcome and the explanation are simply two different things.

Which is exactly where Peter ends up. He knew boats. He had rowed against wind all night. Then Jesus comes walking toward the boat in the fourth watch, and Peter — for all the flack he takes — asks for the right thing and gets it. He walks. And then he sees the wind, and the waves, and how far away the boat is, and the dark water underneath, and he starts down. Pastor Ramstad pointed to the word that answers every why in the passage: immediately. Jesus immediately reached out His hand. Three words from Peter — “Lord, save me” — and the hand of the One through whom all things were made closes around his wrist.

The sermon closed where Job does, restored, and where the church always does. Job’s other great confession — “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25) — is not a guess about the reasons. It is a certainty about the Person. Pastor Ramstad tied it back to the hymn Immanuel had sung a few weeks earlier: take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these all be gone, the victory has been won. Not our victory. Christ’s, over sin, death, and the power of the devil — and in His name, sealed to you in your baptism. We walk by faith and not by sight, because God already has this.

A Rock, a Bowl, and the Font Underneath

DCE Jason Glaskey brought the children forward with a bowl of water and a small rock. The rock did what rocks do. So did Peter, the children decided — and so would they. Then came the turn: the bowl was sitting on a lid, and under the lid was the baptismal font, full of water of a different kind. Jesus reached down and took hold of Peter, and He reaches down in the water of Holy Baptism to wash us clean and claim us as His own. The children prayed it together in Peter’s three words: Lord, save me. More for our youngest members and their families is on our Children and Families page, and our Youth Ministry page has what is coming for grades 5–12.

Hymns and Prayers

The service opened with LSB 971, “There Is a Redeemer” — a hymn that falls outside the numbered pages of the pew edition, so Pastor warned the congregation with a grin that it would be on the screens only, and asked them kindly not to throw anything at their pastor. The Hymn of the Day was LSB 817, “Earth and All Stars,” sung in two parts around the sermon, with Betty at the organ. The congregation departed with LSB 715, “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me” — as fitting a closing hymn as the church year offers for a morning spent on storm water.

Jesus, Savior, pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea;
Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal.
Chart and compass come from Thee;
Jesus, Savior, pilot me.

LSB 715, st. 1

The prayers of the church included the vacant congregations of our circuit — St. Andrew’s and Stockton — as they continue to call a pastor, and a request for more workers in the harvest fields. The congregation also gave thanks for Robert and Becky Wuerdeman as they move to St. Louis, for their years of service here, and for their work on our Comfort Dog Team. Prayer requests are always welcome through our Contact Card.

Questions About This Sunday

About Immanuel Lutheran Church, Joplin, Missouri

Immanuel Lutheran Church is a confessional congregation of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, gathered around Word and Sacrament at 2616 S Connecticut Ave, Joplin, MO 64804. We are the home of Martin Luther School, serving children age 3 through 8th grade. Adults dig into Scripture through LifeLight in-depth Bible study; the whole congregation is fed weekly through Services and Sermons and daily through our devotions. You can support this ministry through online giving, or learn who we are on our About Us page. Jesus Brings Life. Meet Him Here.