Preparing for Worship - October 9, 2022

The Scripture lessons for this week show us God doing just what He wishes to do - helping people in all kinds of situations. He acts in love for us, too, and we are called to thank and praise and trust Him, in Christ our Savior.

The Psalm is Psalm 111. The psalms often praise God’s Word and teaching. This psalm especially praises God’s actions on behalf of His people. Notice how often His work, His “wondrous works” are mentioned. He is “gracious and merciful” and His work culminated in “sending redemption to His people” in the coming Savior. No wonder, then, that the psalmist wants to “give thanks to the Lord” with his “whole heart” in the “congregation” of believers and to continue to “study the works of His hands” and delight in them. (That’s what we do in worship, too!)

The Old Testament lesson is from Ruth 1:1-19. Naomi and family have moved from Israel to Moab during a time of famine. One disaster happens after another, and Naomi feels that “the hand of the Lord has gone out against her,” instead of His works helping her. Her Moabite daughter-in-law, Ruth, stands in support of her, though, and trusts her God, the God of Israel. She is even willing to go back to Israel, to Bethlehem, with Naomi. God is working for good in all this, and Ruth meets and marries a Jewish man, Boaz. From their family line comes David, who became king of Israel, and much later, the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, born in Bethlehem. (If you want more detail, you can scroll back on the podcast to several lessons on the Book of Ruth.)

In the Gospel lesson, Luke 17:11-19, Jesus, that Redeemer, sees and heals, from a long distance away, a group of 10 people who had the dreaded disease of leprosy, as they cried out with a great prayer, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Only one of the 10, a non-Jewish person like Ruth, came back in faith to give thanks and praise to Jesus, who actually was the Son of God. Only to this man could Jesus then say, literally, “Your faith has saved you,” giving him both physical and spiritual healing.

Jesus came, though, to be the Savior of the whole world, as our Epistle lesson, 2 Timothy 2:1-13 tells us. Paul wishes that Timothy “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus,” as a younger pastor, and then find other “faithful men” who can teach others, too, about trusting in and “remembering Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the Offspring of David” and the Center of the Gospel. Paul is bound with chains, soon to die at the hands of the Romans. “But the Word of God is not bound,” and Timothy and others can still share that Word, so that more and more people, even down to our own day, can “obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” “God remains faithful” to His promises, and “He cannot deny Himself” and His saving plan, available to all people in the world. Through Him, we have come to faith and salvation, and anyone else can, too.