Saturday prior to Proper 5

[1]

Psalm 119:10 – This passage is the inspiration for the hymn “Let Me be Thine Forever” {LSB 689} The Psalmist’s devotion is first of all to the God of the law and the promises. They have meaning for him only because they are God’s word of life.

With my whole heart I have sought You: Here the psalmist declares his dedication to God, and at the same time recognizes his weakness in being able to maintain such a dedication (Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments).

With my whole heart I have sought You reminds us that Scripture was no mere textbook to the psalmist; it was how he sought and met with God. His heart had gone after God himself: he had not only desired to obey his laws, but to commune with his person.

Let me not wander helps us put in perspective the many claims to purity and devotion in this psalm (and others). They are understood in the light of dependence upon God, not in the sense of self-righteous pride.

The path of purity is that of caution conditioned by the Word of God. This caution is further manifested in the distrust of self, and earnest seeking to be kept in the way of God’s commandments.[2]

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[1] God so loved the world © Ed Rojas, Higher Things

[2] https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/psalm-119

 

Friday prior to Proper 5

[1]

Psalm 119:65-72– This Psalm is suggested for next Sunday. This section from the longest Psalm in Psalter. Using the Hebrew alphabet this section falls under the Hebrew letter “Teth.” The Psalmist encourages the reader to do good as the Lord Himself has been good to him regardless of circumstances.

Be good to me in accordance with Your goodness, even if that means affliction, because Your affliction is good for me; it teaches me knowledge and good judgment from Your law.

God’s word brings benefit from a time of affliction.

(65-66) A prayer of praise and petition.

You have dealt well with Your servant,

O LORD, according to Your word.

Teach me good judgment and knowledge,

For I believe Your commandments.

 

You have dealt well with Your servant, O LORD, according to Your word: This section begins with a note of gratitude. The psalmist finds himself thankful for God’s good dealing toward him, and that blessings have come according to His word.

 

We don’t think about it enough, but it is wonderfully true that You have dealt well with Your servant, O LORD. Think of all the ways God has dealt well with us. He chose us, He called us, He drew us to Himself. He rescued us, He declared us righteous, He forgave us, He put His Spirit within us, He adopted us into His family. He loves us, He makes us kings and priests and co-workers with Him, and He rewards all our work for Him.

According to Your word implies that the psalmist not only knew the promises of God and pled them in prayer (as in verse 49); he also received the promises by faith and experienced them.

 

This should be the life experience of every child of God. We know that God has deal well with us, and we know that it has been according to His word.

Teach me good judgment and knowledge: This prayer for wisdom comes from a blessed life. Having received this well-dealing from God, the psalmist understood the need to live in good judgment and knowledge. The blessings were given to him for wise and obedient living to the glory of God.

For I believe Your commandments: The psalmist wanted God to teach him because he really did believe the commands and words of God. If we really do believe His word, then we should want Him to teach us to live wisely and obediently.[2]

 

Collect for Psalm 119: Lord, you are just and your commandments are eternal. Teach us to love you with all our hearts and to love our neighbor as ourselves, for the sake of Jesus our Lord. [3]

 

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[1] God so loved the world © Ed Rojas, Higher Things

[2] https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/psalm-119

[3] Collect for Psalm 119, For All the Saints, A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Vol. I © 1994 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY

 

Thursday prior to Proper 5

[1]

Matthew 9:9-13 – Jesus came to call sinners back to God. Jesus calls Matthew, a tax collector, to be a disciple and eat with “sinners.” The calling of a despised outcast, a tax collector by the name of Matthew, provides the setting for Jesus’ response to the Pharisees who criticize him for his fellowship with publicans and sinners. His answer indicates that God wants mercy to be shown rather than the keeping of ceremonial observances. As God’s Son, accordingly he felt his mission was to call sinners to repentance. Jesus did not condemn the morally sick but came to them as a physician to heal them.

If God in Christ shows mercy to sinners as demonstrated by Christ’s call to Matthew and eating with sinners, then God’s children are expected to do the same. The Pharisees were not doing this. They looked at sinners in judgment and criticized Jesus for his friendliness to sinners. The religious people were self-righteous and thus just as great sinners as the publicans. They religious Pharisees were more interested in making religious sacrifice than in loving their fellowman who were in need of mercy. [2]

A Prayer for purity– Almighty God unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, from whom no secrets are hidden, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love You and worthily magnify Your holy name.

 

For humility -Heavenly Father, You resist the proud and give grace to the humble. Grant us true humility after the likeness of Your only Son that we may never be arrogant and prideful and thus provoke Your wrath but in all lowliness be made partakers of the gifts of Your grace.[3]

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[1] God so loved the world © Ed Rojas, Higher Things

[2] Lectionary Preaching Workbook Series A, John Brokhoff, © 1980 CSS Publishing, Lima, OH

[3] Collects for purity and humility, Lutheran Service Book © 2006, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis

 

Wednesday prior to Proper 5

[1]

Romans 4:13-25 – Humanity is restored to God by faith. The promise to Abraham came by faith and not by the Law. In chapter 3 Paul stated the cardinal doctrine of justification by grace through faith. In chapter 4 he uses Abraham as an example of one who was righteous by faith and not by the law. If we can be righteous by keeping the law, faith is unnecessary. Since it is impossible to perfectly keep the law, - our salvation rests upon grace alone. The expression of grace is God’s promise; and faith believes in, and accepts, the promise. All, Jew and Gentile, with the faith of Abraham are made righteous.

God the Father longs for his rebellious people to return.  God the Son calls sinners to repentance. Suppose sinners respond? How can he get right with God? They are accepted on the basis of faith in God’s promises, not the basis of their morality. The promise like the one made to Abraham, may seem humanly impossible, but faith believes that God can do anything. The impossible promised is that God will forgive, accept the sinner no matter how bad a sinner he is. Can God transform a life from evil to good? Faith that God can is credited to man as righteousness and on that basis he is restored to God’s fellowship. This faith is based on Christ whose death and Resurrection made access to God possible.[2]

A Prayer for spiritual renewal – Almighty God, You gave Your only begotten Son to take our nature upon Himself. Grant that we, Your adopted children by grace, may daily be renewed by Your Holy Spirit.[3]

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[1] God so loved the world © Ed Rojas, Higher Things

[2] Lectionary Preaching Workbook Series A, John Brokhoff © 1980 CSS Publishing, Lima, OH

[3] A prayer for Spiritual Renewal, Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis

 

Tuesday prior to Proper 5

[1]

– Hosea 5:15-6:6 – God longs for His people to return to Him. He makes an appeal to return to and know God. Like a parent at the point of despair, twice God asks about his people, “What shall I do with you?” Here is another insight into the kind of God we have. He longs to have his people with him in covenantal love and loyalty.

 God has appealed to them through the prophets. He sent judgment to get them to repent. He wants from his people love and a relationship of peace, but they are content to render cheap sacrifices and burnt offerings. Here we find a wooing and pursuing God and a people whose love for God is fickle.

The LORD desires his people to return. We can almost hear some say, “Why go back to God” What good will that do? How can things be any better than what we have now?” These verse point to the goodness and mercy of God. As in the Gospel, God expects his people to show similar love than to observe religious events.

People today as in each generation, need to return to the LORD; to the Christian faith. A wholesale departure from the faith is show by today’s secularism, pluralism, idolatry, commercialism, hedonism, and narcissism. Hoses offers hope for this world.

If we return to God.

1.      He will restore you – V.1

2.      He will revive you – V.2

3.      He will refresh you – V.3[2]

Collect for Proper 5 – Almighty and most merciful God, You sent Your Son, Jesus Christ, to seek and to save the lost. Graciously open our ears and our hearts to hear His call and to follow Him by faith that we may feast with Him forever in His kingdom, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.[3]

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[1] God so loved the world copyright © Ed Riojas, Higher Things

[2] Lectionary Preaching Workbook Series A, John Brokhoff © 1980 CSS Publishing, Lima, OH

[3] Collect for Proper 5, Lutheran Service Book © 2006 Concordia Publishing House. St. Louis

 

Monday prior to Proper 5

[1]

The theme that God seeks sinners is found in each of the three lessons for this coming week. In the Gospel (Matthew 9:9-13) Jesus calls a special sinner, a publican named Matthew, and goes out to dinner with sinners and tax collectors, the scum of society in Jesus day. Hosea in the Old Testament reading, (Hosea 5:15-6:6) calls for us to return to God who desperately seeks us to return. In both these lessons the reason for God’s search for sinners is “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” The Epistle lesson (Romans 4:13-25) explains how we can get right with God – through faith in Christ who made us acceptable to God. Next Sunday we deal with the truth that God longs for His people to be one with Him.

Psalm 50:7-10 - This is the Psalm portion from which the Introit for next Sunday is taken. The antiphon is taken from verse 1, “The Mighty One,” God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.

The title of this psalm (A Psalm of Asaph) tells us that it is the first of Asaph’s psalms in the order of the Psalter. Asaph was the great singer and musician of David and Solomon’s era (1 Chronicles 15:17-19, 16:5-7, 16:7, 25:6). 1 Chronicles 25:1 and 2 Chronicles 29:30 add that Asaph was a prophet in his musical compositions.

The Mighty One, God the LORD: Asaph the psalmist began by referring to God in terms of utmost majesty, using several of the words or names in Scripture to refer to the God who is really there.

The idea is that God has come to Jerusalem to judge the world, and the entire earth – from the rising of the sun to its going down– is gathered for that purpose.

 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent; a fire shall devour before Him: Using reminders of God coming to Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:16-19), Asaph built anticipation for the righteous judgment of God about to be performed. This time God comes to Zion, not Sinai.

In this powerful psalm the imagined scene is a theophany, God appearing in fire and tempest at Mount Zion to summon the entire world to His judgment seat. But if all eyes are on Him, His eyes are on Israel.[2]

Collect for Psalm 50: Heavenly Father, because Jesus your servant became obedient to death, his sacrifice was greater than all the holocausts of old. Accept the sacrifice of praise we offer you through him, and help us show the effects of it in our lives by striving to do your will, until our whole life becomes adoration in spirit and truth; through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.[3]

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[1] God so loved the world copyright © Ed Riojas, Higher Things

[2] https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/psalm-50

[3] Collect for Psalm 50, For All the Saints, A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Vol. I © 1994 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY 

 

Proper 5 - Series A notes (Pentecost 2)

Pentecost 2 – Proper 5
05-11 June 

Hosea 5:15-6:6
Psalm 119:65-72 (v.65)
Romans 4:13-25
Matthew 9:9-13

Almighty most merciful God, You sent Your Son Jesus Christ to seek and to save the lost. Graciously open our ears and our hearts to hears His call and follow Him by faith that we might feast with Him forever in His kingdom; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen 

Matthew 9:9-13

Jesus Calls Matthew

9 Καὶ παράγων ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐκεῖθεν εἶδεν ἄνθρωπον καθήμενον ἐπὶ τὸ τελώνιον, Μαθθαῖον λεγόμενον, καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· Ἀκολούθει μοι· καὶ ἀναστὰς ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ.

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.

10 Καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτοῦ ἀνακειμένου ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ, καὶ ἰδοὺ πολλοὶ τελῶναι καὶ ἁμαρτωλοὶ ἐλθόντες συνανέκειντο τῷ Ἰησοῦ καὶ τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ. 

And as Jesus[a] reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples

a. “He”

11 καὶ ἰδόντες οἱ Φαρισαῖοι ἔλεγον τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ· Διὰ τί μετὰ τῶν τελωνῶν καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν ἐσθίει ὁ διδάσκαλος ὑμῶν; 

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

12 ὁ δὲ ἀκούσας εἶπεν· Οὐ χρείαν ἔχουσιν οἱ ἰσχύοντες ἰατροῦ ἀλλὰ οἱ κακῶς ἔχοντες. 

But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

13 πορευθέντες δὲ μάθετε τί ἐστιν· Ἔλεος θέλω καὶ οὐ θυσίαν· οὐ γὰρ ἦλθον καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλὰ ἁμαρτωλούς.

Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Scripture quotations marked SBLGNT are from the The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition. Copyright © 2010 by Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.