Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
June 28, 2026
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Isaiah 40:8
A PRAYER FOR TODAY: O Lord God, Your Holy Spirit has inspired Your Word to be written and preserved for us, and now it is proclaimed to us. Give us great joy in the salvation it gives us, for the sake of Jesus Your Son. As Your gracious gifts of forgiveness for all of our sin and a promised heavenly home are granted to us in Your Word, lead us to grow in it. As we read, hear, study, and learn the Scriptures, move us in daily repentance of our sin and to renewed love for You and for one another. Dear Father, hear our prayer, because in Jesus we are Your dear children. Amen
IN OUR PRAYERS THIS WEEK: “The sum of Your Word is truth, and every one of Your righteous rules endures forever” (Psalm 119:160)
• Thanksgiving for the continued daily gifts from the heavenly Father.
• For peace and strength from the Lord Jesus for Darlene Segard, Jama Hommertzheim, Marilyn Herren, and all for whom we pray in their days of illness, injury, or affliction.
• For Rev. Matthew Harrison, our synod’s president, for Rev. Justin Panzer, our Kansas District President, and for all workers in our synod and districts, that they would draw wisdom and strength from God’s Word for faithfulness in service to Christ’s church.
FROM OUR LUTHERAN CONFESSIONS: So that we may obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. Through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given [John 20:22]. He works faith, when and where it pleases God [John 3:8], in those who hear the good news that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake. This happens not through our own merits, but for Christ’s sake. Our churches condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that through their own preparations and works the Holy Spirit comes to them without the external Word. (Augsburg Confession, Article V, The Ministry—from Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005, 2006, page 33])
ORDER OF WORSHIP TODAY: LSB, page 184 HYMNS FOR WORSHIP: 587, 685, 582
FRONT COVER: Bible, Latin Vulgate. Ca. 1455]. Biblia Latina. [Mainz: Johann Gutenberg, ca. 1455].
Psalm Reading Psalm 119:153–160 153
Look on my affliction and de- | liver me,* for I do not for- | get your law. 154Plead my cause and re- | deem me;* give me life according to your | promise! 155Salvation is far from the | wicked,* for they do not seek your | statutes. 156Great is your mercy, | O LORD;* give me life according to your | just decrees. 157Many are my persecutors and my adver- | saries,* but I do not swerve from your testi- | monies. 158I look at the faithless | with disgust,* because they do not keep | your commands. 159Consider how I love your | precepts!* Give me life according to your | steadfast love. 160The sum of your | word is truth,* and every one of your just and righteous decrees endures for- | ever. Glory be to the Father and | to the Son* and to the Holy | Spirit; as it was in the be- | ginning,* is now, and will be forever. | Amen.
Collect of the Day Almighty God, by the working of Your Holy Spirit, grant that we may gladly hear Your Word proclaimed among us and follow its directing; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Old Testament Reading Jeremiah 28:5–9
5Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Hananiah the prophet in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD, 6and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the LORD do so; may the LORD make the words that you have prophesied come true, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the LORD, and all the exiles. 7Yet hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. 8The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. 9As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent the prophet.”
Gradual Romans 11:33, 36
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowl- | edge of God!* How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable | his ways! For from him and through him and to him are | all things.* To him be glory forever. | Amen.
Epistle Romans 7:1–13 1
Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. 4Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit. 7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 13Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
Holy Gospel Matthew 10:34–42
34[Jesus said:] “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 40“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 41The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”