Preparing for Worship - July 16, 2023

The Scriptures this week tell us that the Lord will provide for the growth of His Kingdom and for our own spiritual growth, as well.

The psalm is Psalm 65:(1-8) 9-13. The psalmist, David, knows that “praise is due to God” for the “goodness” we receive in His “house,” His “temple.” This is good news, the Word of “righteousness” and “salvation” and “hope” for “all the ends of the earth.” It is pictured as a bountiful harvest, when the Lord has provided abundant “water” and good “earth” and “enriched” it and “blessed its growth.” The Lord “crowns the year with His bounty, and the creation “shouts and sings together for joy.”

The Old Testament lesson is from Isaiah 55:9-13. God inspired Isaiah to use images from the natural world, as David did in the psalm. The “heavens” are high above the “earth.” God’s “ways and thoughts”. are high above our own, too. As the rain and snow come down to water the earth and help cause things to grow, so God’s Word is sent down from His mouth and accomplishes what He wishes. “It will not return empty and void.” The creation sings and claps its hands in praise of the “name of the Lord” and the “everlasting sign” of His providing care.

In the Gospel lesson, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, Jesus Himself tells a parable of seed being sown and then explains it to His disciples. The seed sown is the Word of God’s kingdom. Some hear it but don’t understand, and “the evil one” snatches it away. Others hear and “receive the Word with joy,” but only for a time, and then “fall away” when trouble and persecution come on account of that Word. Still others hear the Word, but “the cares of the world” and the “deceitfulness of riches” act like thorns that choke out the Word. Some people do hear and understand the Word and bear much fruit of various amounts, though, by the grace of God, as He promises. The problem is not with the seed, the Word of God, but with the soil, Satan’s work and a sin-filled world with many temptations to resist the Word and people’s trouble with hearing and understanding the Word. Jesus says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” How is our hearing of the Word and the hope we have only in Jesus?

The Epistle lesson is from Romans 8:12-17. Paul emphasizes, in this reading and throughout Romans 8, the importance of the Holy Spirit in bringing us to faith in Christ and keeping us in that faith. The Spirit works through the Word of God (and the gift of baptism) to do this. He gives us “life” in Christ and make us “adopted children of God” and “heirs of eternal life.” We can cry out to our Heavenly Father, “Abba, Father,” as His beloved children. We still face times of “suffering” for our faith and temptations from the devil, the sinful world, and our own “sinful flesh; but the Spirit who dwells in us,” (Romans 8:11), along with Christ, will strengthen and protect us through the Word and the Sacraments, Baptism and Communion, connected with that Word.