Preparing for Worship - July 23, 2023

The Scriptures this week emphasize that our Lord is the only True God, and that though we face many problems and troubles in this life, He will care for us and will finally take us to everlasting life and peace. The certainty of this is stressed in the Old Testament lesson, Isaiah 44:6-8. Our “Lord” is our “King” and our “Redeemer,” and “there is no god besides Him.” He is “the First” and “the Last.” He has always existed and always will. He is always our Rock, and we need not fear. We can be witnesses to His faithfulness, as His people.

In Psalm 119:57-64, the psalmist says that “the Lord is his portion.” He trusts that the Lord will be gracious and keep His promise to him, given in His Words, even though “the cords of the wicked” may “ensnare” him, at times. He will “turn to the Lord’s testimonies” and “be a companion of all who fear the Lord” and praise Him and “His steadfast love,” in worship.

In the Gospel lesson, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, Jesus tells the parable of weeds sown by an enemy among wheat in a field. The field is the world, and in it are “sons of the Kingdom” and “son of the evil one.” For the sake of not endangering God’s people, the evil will not be “rooted out” until “the harvest,” “the end of the age,” by the angels of the Lord. That day will come. The evil those who follow the devil, will be “thrown into a fiery furnace” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The righteous, who trust in Christ, “will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father." Again, Jesus says, “He who has ears, let him keep on hearing” the “Word of the Lord.”

Paul reminds us in the Epistle lesson, Romans 8:18-27, that “in this eternal hope we were saved” already by what Christ has done for us and by “the Spirit” who has brought us to faith in Christ. We already have “the firstfruits of the Spirit” and great hope, but we “groan inwardly” because of “the sufferings of this present time,” as we live as “unsaintly saints” (Martin Franzmann’s words) in an evil world, with a “corrupt creation.” Our sufferings, bad as they sometimes are, “are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” in eternal life. We ”wait patiently” for our future in heaven and are grateful that the Spirit prays (intercedes) with us and for us when we, in our human weakness, do not know what to pray for. We “wait eagerly” for the redemption of our souls when we die and for “the redemption of our bodies,” too, when Christ returns on the last day. (See this week’s Bible study for more about this and “the pains of childbirth” that we and the creation are “until now” going through.)