Preparing for Worship - July 24, 2022

The Scriptures this week encourage us to pray with confidence as we approach our Lord in our prayers. The Old Testament lesson is from Genesis 18: (17-19) 20-33. The Lord had revealed that He would destroy the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham hoped to have his nephew, Lot, and family spared, though they lived in Sodom.

Abraham asks if it is fair to destroy the righteous with the wicked and bargains with God in prayer about how many righteous people there need to be for the city to be spared. He gets the number down to 10 righteous people, as God is very patient and merciful to him. Sadly, there are not even 10, and we hear later that the cities are both destroyed, but God in His mercy does save Lot and his two daughters, as angels drag them out of Sodom (Genesis 19).

The Psalm is Psalm 138. David knows that God is full of “steadfast love and faithfulness.” God’s Word is true, so he can call upon Him and trust His “ways.” He remembers not only to ask in prayer, but to thank the Lord again and again. David says, “The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me” with His everlasting love.

In the Gospel lesson, Luke 11:1-13, a disciple asks Jesus to teach His followers to pray. As He had already done (see Matthew 6:9-12) Jesus taught again a portion of what we call the Lord’s Prayer, the model prayer for our own praying. We pray to our heavenly Father (v.2,13), glorifying His Name and His Kingdom, and asking Him to keep on giving us what we need, day by day, and giving us the greatest gift, the forgiveness of our sins. As we are forgiven, we ask help to forgive one another and to have help in avoiding and battling temptation. Jesus then teaches us to be persistent and almost “impudent” (shameless) in asking and seeking and knocking in prayer, as little children sometimes do with parents, “Daddy, daddy, mommy, can we?… can we?” As parents who love our children, we try to do the best for them, but we often fail and are “evil,” with a sinful nature. Our heavenly Father gives us the great gift of the Holy Spirit, who brings us to faith in Jesus through the Word and baptism, and seeks to keep us in that faith, through Word and Sacrament.

The Epistle continues readings from Colossians - this week, Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19). When we were “dead in our trespasses…" God made us alive in Christ and forgave us all those sins and cancelled the record of all our wrongs and indebtedness toward Him. All our failings have been “nailed to the cross” along with Christ and forgiven by His death and resurrection for us. We now “abound in thanksgiving” in our prayers and ask the Lord to help us “walk in faith” in Christ and “hold fast to the Head,” our heavenly Father, and “grow with the growth” that comes only from Him.

The alternate Gospel reading for St. James is Matthew 4:3-11, the story of the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness. Where God’s Old Testament people failed in the wilderness and we have failed in our own lives, Jesus did everything right and followed His Father’s will in a perfect way, here and throughout His life. He knew and trusted the Word of God and used it to battle the devil and win victory for us. “Jesus then preached the Kingdom of God” and how we can enter it only through faith in Him, as a gift, and what he has perfectly done for us.