Preparing for Worship - June 11, 2023

The psalm is Psalm 119:65-72, one of 22 eight-verse portions of this psalm. The author knows that the Lord has been “good” and has “dealt well” with him. He had been going “astray,” but the Lord had “afflicted” him in some way that drew him back to His Word and the value of His law, “better than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” (In the next portion of the psalm, Psalm 119:75, the psalmist even says to the Lord, “In Your faithfulness, you have afflicted me.” You can hear more about this psalm in this week’s podcast study, also.)

In the Old Testament lesson, Hosea 5:15-6:6, the Lord is also being faithful to His Old Testament people by allowing them to have “distress” because they had gone away from Him and His will for them. He says that He will go away from them, until they admit “their guilt” and “seek His face” again. The people seem to “return to the Lord” after He has “struck them down” and “torn” them, but the Lord knows that their “love” is only temporary, like a “cloud” or “morning dew” that quickly “goes away” as soon as their troubles lessen, with the Lord’s help. The Lord “slays them” by His Words through the prophet Hosea and says that He really desires “steadfast love” (mercy) and their continuing attention to “the knowledge of God,” instead of insincere “offerings and sacrifices.”

Jesus quotes from this Old Testament lesson in the Gospel lesson, Matthew 9:9-13. Jesus had just called Matthew, one of the hated “tax collectors,” to be His disciple. Matthew followed Jesus and invited other people who were considered to be more notorious “sinners” to join them for a meal.  Religious leaders, the Pharisees, criticize Jesus for associating with such “bad” people. Jesus said that He had come for those who were “sick” and knew they were “sinners,” and that the Pharisees needed to learn what God meant when He said through Hosea, “I desire mercy (steadfast love from people) and not" simply outward “sacrifice.”

Paul was teaching, in the Epistle lesson, Romans 4:13-25, that everyone is a “sinner” and that the Law of God brings “wrath,” exposing our sins and showing that none of us keeps the Law perfectly, as Abraham and the psalmist knew, though they tried to do the right things. Abraham was “counted righteous by faith” by trusting that “God was able to do what He had promised.” The same is true for people “of many nations” - all those who “believe in Him, (the Lord) “who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” It is through the Great “Physician,” our Lord, that we are “called” and brought to saving faith, too, not by our efforts.