We ask God to make the Scripture fresh, encouraging, and convicting to us as we sit under its ministry.
From Psalm 127
Loving Father, we sit at your feet as your beloved children. We quiet our hearts now, and open our ears and our minds to your instruction. Impart your wisdom to our souls, so that our lives might become your own heritage of faithfulness and care, and so that our work and our rest might sing together in harmony of your truth and grace, which are ours together in Jesus, your Son and our true Wisdom from above. Amen.
We reflect on the Psalm of the Day and use it to examine our hearts and minds, leading us to confession of our sin.
Our psalm today is considered a wisdom psalm. It teaches us how to avoid being fools and to shape our lives according to God’s world and God’s Word.
What’s the foolishness we’re meant to avoid? Verse 2: anxious work. Agricultural societies worried about whether they’d have enough food to eat. They were tempted to force a plentiful harvest by overworking and underresting. We typically don’t have food shortages. But we have significance-shortages, especially in our work. And we foolishly think we can work our way toward significance. Instead, we burn out. The psalmist says that it’s vain: which means it’s both pointless and it’s an indication that we are self-absorbed.
We need to repent of our foolishness–our sin of trying to do do do more in order to be more.
Let’s pause for a moment to ask the Lord to search our hearts, and to bring to light the ways in which we have toiled anxiously for a significance that can only be found in his loving care.
We confess our sins together and ask God’s forgiveness for Jesus’ sake.
We confess, O Lord, that we are absorbed with ourselves and our significance both in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others. We scramble to secure the approval of our bosses, our co-workers, our spouses, our peers, and our children by anxiously striving to become worthy through the work we do. This is foolishness and sin, and we repent. Help us remember that you build us a house and a home by your grace; that you watch over our lives and guard our steps. In your love and grace, forgive us, and permit us to enter into your rest, through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.
Children of the Living God: Good news! Though you have added to your anxiety the guilt of your foolish sin, the Lord is prepared to release you from both! By his love and grace alone, in Jesus Christ, you may enter into his rest, forgiven and refreshed. Because of his tender care and watchful eye, you can sleep secure in his grace. Go forth with your burdens lifted off your shoulders! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Ruth Pfister, Organ
Glory be to the Father
And to the Son
And to the Holy Ghost
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be
World without end. Amen! Amen!
During our current series, our New Testament lessons are selected to complement the study of the Ten Commandments.
Matthew 15:1-11
15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’”
10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”