The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost fell on August 23, one of the green Sundays in the long stretch of the church year between Pentecost and Advent, when the readings follow the life of the church rather than the life of Christ. Through the summer we worship once on Sunday morning at 9:00, with Sunday School and Bible classes afterward at 10:15. From September through May we worship at 8:00 and 10:30, with Sunday School and Bible classes between the services at 9:15. This particular Sunday had two extra things in it: breakfast beforehand, and our teachers installed for the new school year.
Breakfast was at 8:00 in the fellowship hall, put on by the assimilation committee as part of our Time and Talent emphasis. Pastor Ramstad opened the service by admitting he had come down the aisle slower than usual and could not quite say why. “I think it’s those eggs from the Assimilation Breakfast we just ate.”
We used Divine Service, Setting Four from Lutheran Service Book, the red hymnal in the pew racks. It is a sung service — the congregation sings most of its own parts, and the page numbers are announced — and the order stays the same week to week while the appointed readings change with the season. August 23 was a fourth Sunday, so there was no Holy Communion. We commune on the first and third Sundays of the month.
The readings shared a thread, and the hymns picked it up. Isaiah told a discouraged people to look back at the rock they were cut from and the quarry they were dug out of. In the Gospel, Simon Peter says “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and Jesus calls that confession a rock and promises to build his church on it. The Hymn of the Day was LSB 645, “Built on the Rock.”
Built on the Rock the Church shall stand
Even when steeples are falling.
Crumbled have spires in every land;
Bells still are chiming and calling.LSB 645, st. 1
The sermon: what can you give God?
Pastor Ramstad preached on the Epistle, Romans 11:33—12:8, and began where Paul begins, with a God nobody can work out. His judgments are unsearchable, his ways inscrutable. Then Paul’s questions: who has known the mind of the Lord, who has been his counselor, who has ever given God a gift that he might be repaid?
That last question is the offertory we sing every week while the plates go around. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? Pastor Ramstad admitted it puts him on the spot, because by his own account he is not a good gift-giver. He described handing over a box at Christmas, all excitement, and getting back a very carefully managed “oh. Thank you for this.” Most of us know the other side of it too: somebody whose gifts always land, and no way to ever even up the account.
So what do you give God? If we come up with something, isn’t it just regifting?
That is Paul’s point. From him and through him and to him are all things. A few minutes earlier we had confessed the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of everything, which includes us. Nothing we are holding started with us. But the offertory has a second line, and that is the answer: I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:1–2 (ESV)
Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Any of our middle school teachers could tell you that is an oxymoron, because a sacrifice is a thing that dies. That is what makes it a sacrifice. And when Christians talk about sacrifice, we are talking about the cross.
Which is why what came next matters. Jesus did not stay dead. The sacrifice we look at is alive, so Paul is not asking for a contradiction. He is asking us to follow the one person who has managed it.
These bodies were never really ours to begin with: made by God, bought with the blood of Christ, washed in Baptism. Pastor Ramstad noted that the Greek word behind “present” has a military flavor to it, like standing in a line while someone walks down the row deciding whether you are ready. It is an inventory. What were you given, and what have you done with it?
The answer is different for every person in the room, because the gifts are different. Paul lists some of them — prophecy, service, teaching, encouragement, generosity, leadership, acts of mercy — and says to use them. Which is also why none of us can do this alone. A hand cut off from the body does not stay a hand. Pastor Ramstad was blunt about it: cut yourself off from the church and your faith will go the same way, and besides that, the people here need you.
He also said plainly what the church is not. It is not a room where everyone agrees about everything. We will not agree on every decision, or every view of life, or who to vote for, or a ball team. What holds us together is the confession Peter made, spoken with our mouths and lived out with our hands.
The children’s message
Jason Glaskey brought a tool bag to the chancel steps and worked through it with the children. The hammer first, then the measuring tape, the saw, the screwdriver, the level, and the paintbrush for the end, when the work finally gets to be beautiful. Try building a house with only a hammer. You can hit a lot of things and none of them come out well.
Then he asked the Martin Luther School teachers, sitting all through the nave, to stand and turn around so the children could read the backs of their shirts. Preschool. Pre-kindergarten. Third and fourth grade. Middle school, twice. Para, chef, business manager, principal. What would happen if a school were nothing but middle school teachers? The children thought that was very funny, and they had the point before he said it. Children are spoken to directly in nearly every service here; there is more for our youngest members on our Children and Families page, and our Youth Ministry page has what is coming for grades 5–12.
Installing the teachers
Our school faculty and staff came forward first, and it was a long line: teachers, paras, librarians, reading helpers, the cook. They heard that the peace of Christ should rule in our hearts, to which we were called in one body, and be thankful, and Pastor Ramstad installed them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Then he called forward everyone in the congregation who teaches, leads, or volunteers in Joplin’s public schools, and the front of the church filled up again. Same vocation, different building. He told them their labor in the Lord is never in vain. Looking out at all of them, he added, “Mr. Glaskey, I see more than just hammers here.” Then he turned them around to face us, and we stood up and applauded.
Martin Luther School has been part of this congregation from very early on. The school building on Connecticut went up in 1956, twenty years before the church building did, and for those twenty years the congregation worshiped in what is now the school gym. The original cross is still behind the stage.
After the service
Principal Mollie Ramstad had asked us to pray for 85 students this year. Eighty-eight walked through the doors on the first day. Most of the congregation stayed afterward for a prayer walk through the school, classroom by classroom, with the teachers in their rooms telling us what they needed prayer for, and cards in the fellowship hall for anyone who would rather not do the hallways.
The Saturday before, about twenty-two of us spent the morning in the fellowship hall with Rev. John Perling, Director of Mission Services for the LCMS Missouri District, working through Every One His Witness — the synod’s evangelism training for laypeople. It runs on an acronym, LASSIE, and in the announcements Pastor Ramstad went straight to the letter that does the most work. L is for listen. Then listen some more.
Wednesday youth nights are running again, and you can cook or sponsor a meal through our youth meal signup. Everything else coming up is on the events calendar.
If you are looking for a place to worship in Joplin, that is a fairly ordinary picture of a Sunday here: a sung liturgy out of the hymnal, preaching that works through the appointed text, children spoken to directly, and a school full of people this congregation prays for by name. Visitors are welcome at any service, and our What to Expect page walks through the morning in more detail. Prayer requests are always welcome through our Contact Card.
Where do your gifts fit?
Paul’s list of gifts is not a job description. It is an inventory — prophecy, service, teaching, encouragement, generosity, leadership, acts of mercy — and he tells the church to use them. Immanuel’s Time and Talent survey asks the same question Sunday’s Epistle asked: what were you given, and where could it serve? It takes a few minutes, and it is open now.
Read it again this week
Sunday’s texts are worth a second look on a weekday, when nobody is singing and there is no one sitting next to you. Each reading below opens in the English Standard Version, the translation we read from in the service.
- Isaiah 51:1–6 — look to the rock you were cut from
- Romans 11:33—12:8 — the sermon text: a living sacrifice, and gifts that differ
- Matthew 16:13–20 — “But who do you say that I am?”
Three questions from the sermon, if you want something to chew on:
- Paul asks who has ever given God a gift that he might be repaid. Name one thing you are holding that actually started with you.
- A sacrifice never helps itself — the blood was always for somebody else. Where is your work this week genuinely for someone other than you?
- Peter’s confession is what holds the church together, not agreement about everything else. Where have you been expecting other Christians to agree with you on something the confession does not settle?
Luther’s Small Catechism is free to read online from Concordia Publishing House, and two sections speak directly to this Sunday. The Table of Duties is Luther’s answer to Romans 12 — Scripture gathered by station in life, for workers and employers, parents and children, pastors and hearers, which is exactly the “gifts that differ” Paul is describing. And the Apostles’ Creed, which we confessed together on Sunday, is the church still saying what Peter said at Caesarea Philippi.
In the service — Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 23, 2026
| Liturgy | Divine Service, Setting Four (Lutheran Service Book) — no Holy Communion |
| Old Testament | Isaiah 51:1–6 |
| Epistle | Romans 11:33—12:8 |
| Holy Gospel | Matthew 16:13–20 |
| Hymn of Invocation | LSB 839, O Christ, Our True and Only Light |
| Hymn of the Day | LSB 645, Built on the Rock |
| Hymn to Depart | LSB 940, Holy God, We Praise Thy Name (sts. 1–5) |
| Creed | Apostles’ |
| Preacher | Rev. Christopher Ramstad |
| Children’s message | Jason Glaskey, DCE |
| Also in the service | Time and Talent breakfast · Installation and Blessing of Teachers · prayer walk through the school following |
Questions about this Sunday
What is the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost?
It is one of the “green” Sundays in the long season after Pentecost, the half of the church year that follows the life of the church rather than the life of Christ. In 2026 it fell on August 23 and used the Series A readings appointed in Lutheran Service Book. You can see how the seasons run across the year on our sermon series page.
What does “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” mean?
Paul is not asking for a religious performance. He is asking for your actual life, given back in thanksgiving to the God who gave it to you in the first place. Pastor Ramstad pointed out that the Greek behind “present” suggests presenting yourself for inspection, which makes it an honest inventory of what you were given and what you have done with it. It only works because Jesus is the living sacrifice first, dead for our sins and raised again. Our What We Believe page explains our confession further.
Was there Holy Communion on August 23?
No. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper on the first and third Sundays of the month, and August 23 was a fourth Sunday. On those Sundays the service moves from the Prayer of the Church and the Lord’s Prayer to the Benedicamus and the Benediction.
Who preached, and who led the children’s message?
Pastor Christopher Ramstad preached. DCE Jason Glaskey led the children’s message with the tool bag, and Pastor Ramstad came back to it in the middle of the sermon. You can meet our staff and lay leaders on our People Profiles page.
Why does Immanuel install its teachers in worship?
Because teaching is a calling of the church, not a job the congregation hands off. Martin Luther School is a ministry of Immanuel Lutheran Church, so its teachers and staff are installed in front of the congregation that called them. On August 23 we also blessed every member who teaches, leads, or volunteers in Joplin’s public schools.
When does Immanuel Lutheran Church worship in Joplin, Missouri?
Through the summer we gather once on Sunday morning at 9:00, with Sunday School and Bible classes at 10:15. During the school year we return to 8:00 and 10:30 services with Christian Education Hour between them at 9:15. Watch live or catch up any time on our worship livestream page.
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. The whole congregation is fed weekly through Services and Sermons and daily through our devotions. You can support this ministry through online giving, or find out who we are on our About Us page. Jesus Brings Life. Meet Him Here.