February 9th, 2026
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Pastor Brad has a new email address: pastorbradtrinity@gmail.com
The Crew is Wednesday, February 11th 3:30 pm till 5 pm for all 3rd-6th graders. It will be snow day so bring your snow gear!
Winterfest, February 15th, 1 pm till 3 pm. Sledding, food, games. All are welcome! PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS WEATHER PERMITTING AND IF WE GET MORE SNOW MELT THIS WILL BE CANCELLED. CHECK FACEBOOK FOR UPDATES
Ash Wednesday Worship is on February 18th at Noon and 6:30 pm Baked Potato Bar served by the Confirmation Youth at 5:30 pm.
Lagers with the Lord February 23 at 6 pm at Buckshot’s.
Lent Worship with Holden Evening Prayer starts on February 25th, 6:30 pm. Meal prior at 5:30 pm till 6:30 pm. Our Lent Theme this year is “Your Favorite Bible Verse.”
Youth Service March 8th, 9 am.
There is a new way to give at Trinity: Venmo! You can find us using: @TrinityLutheranBoyceville. If it asks you for a phone number, use 1349
MUSINGS FROM PASTOR BRAD
Isaiah 58:1-12
Shout out; do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they want God on their side. 3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers. 4 You fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? 6 Is not this the fast that I choose :to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.” If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. 12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen
God is ticked off. I don’t know how you can hear our reading from Isaiah and not come away with the sense that God is anything other than a pretty angry God. “Announce to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins,” God says through the prophet Isaiah. Oh, you know something is coming. It is coming and it is coming bad. God is not going to hold back. But why is God so angry? What sins have the people committed? It is this: the people are showing their faith, but they are not living it. In other words, they are being hypocrites.
They are worshipping God, and they want God to notice their worship. Look at our fasting! Look at us putting on sackcloth and showing our humbleness! But they are doing this as an act of self-exaltation and self-centeredness. But that is not true worship. True worship means a focus outward, first on God, and then, if we are truly following the Lord, on the neighbor. And that is God’s point. You talk about fasting, and yet you abandon the poor? You talk about sacrifice and yet oppress others? Then you are not being true to me or true to worship. Notice what God really wants. He doesn’t want their fast or their fake works. He wants them to loose the bonds of injustice. He wants them to share their bread with the hungry, to break the yoke, to fight for the oppressed, to clothe the naked and to care for the homeless. This is a recurring theme across all of the Old Testament. Worship is great, but worshipping the Lord without having that worship mean something in our lives outside of trying to curry favor with God is worthless and meaningless. Following this God means that our focus is not on lifting ourselves up and making ourselves holy. It means knowing that we are sinners in need of redemption, and inspired by the salvation we receive, seeing the world with compassion and empathy because of the compassion we have received. It means taking seriously God’s call to love our neighbor and to let our light shine like the dawn.
The fact of the matter is these words from Isaiah should bother us today. For what made God angry back in Isaiah’s time would make God angry now. We give praises to God and yet ignore the poor and hungry. We demonize the other and turn our back on the oppressed or gleefully join in on the oppression. Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world. We are to be the light so that others might give glory to our Father in heaven. That means that worship is never about us but always about God, and that means our lives as followers of Jesus Christ is always about neighbor. And this Jesus, and this God, always has His eye on the other: the poor, the orphan, the widow, the stranger, the hungry, the homeless, the oppressed.
Let us take a good look at ourselves and who we are: as individuals, as a church, and the people of God. Are we serving ourselves, or are we serving who God calls us and wants us to serve: everyone else? After all, our God sent his only Son to die for us and rise from the grave for us and saves us by grace through faith. In response, may our worship be about him and not us, and may our purpose be about our neighbor and not about lifting ourselves up. For that we can say, “Thanks be to God!” Amen