July 31st, 2005 at 1:55 pm
I visited Trinity Lutheran in Rock Springs this morning. Their service is at 9am, which in our household is a perfect time.
I had done some scouting around town and reacquainting myself with the area, realizing that Mapquest had plotted the location of the church incorrectly. I suspect their information is a couple of years old, and rather than admitting it can’t find a location, it tries to make a guess. I did use some grid tricks learned from my internship with the KCMO Sidewalks division of Public Works to find the place. The church has been under construction for some time, and the congregation met in the basement rather than in the incomplete sanctuary. They had been meeting in a Rock Springs Fire Department building. When complete, though, it should be a beautiful church.
The service was Matins, this time from LW, p. 208, with Hymn #8 Te Deum Laudemus.
The sermon had a high ratio of Law to Gospel, but that can be understood in the light that the pastor preached on Exodus 20:17, the last (one/two) of the Ten Commandments. The pastor was completing a series of sermons on the Decalogue.
Again, transcribed to the Palm and thus incomplete, the sermon went something like this:
The First Commandment, “I am the Lord your God…you shall have no other gods before me” (v. 2-3), establishes our relationship with God, that God should have our hearts. The Ninth and Tenth Commandments establish that the world should not have our hearts.
We are not sinful because we started to sin, but because we are sinful from birth, as noted in Psalm 51:5 and 58:3. Whatever we do, it is the sinner in us doing it (he cites several activities in which he the sinner does them). We realize how sinful we are by trying to keep the Law. In no way can we stop our sinning. Before a sin is committed, it is already conceived. One need not have sexual relations outside of a marriage to commit adultery (Matthew 5:28).
The world lies to us. Satan tells us to give into our desires. Out of this sin grows our hatred of God. We seek to tear down God and put ourselves in His place.
Our only hope is to listen to the Lord. The Lord tells us, “I am the Lord your God”, regardless of what our sinful nature has to say about it. Even though we are not faithful, He is (2 Timothy 2:13). There is no sin too big for God’s grace. We can choose to reject God, or we can choose to live in Christ, who reminds us that we are His.
The sermon closed with everyone praying Psalm 51:10-12.
Bible class was held after worship, based on Romans 6.
The congregation was a friendly group, and most stayed for the Bible class. Upon hearing that I was from Halliburton, they wanted to know when I was moving. 
The Pastor gave me a hand-drawn map to the new Halliburton facility here. It’s huge; maybe it deserves a picture.
I hope what I saw was a glimpse of the future for a new church in Pataskala. That would be very cool.
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