Meditations in Psalm 119
“Remember the word to your servant, on which you have caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction: for your word has quickened me.” Psalm 119:49-50 (Read verses 49-56)
Our faith is based upon the promises of God’s Word. Through the Word of God we have been made alive to God – the Spirit of God creating faith in the promises of God’s mercy in Christ, His word of forgiveness and pardon and the guarantee of a place with Christ in His heavenly kingdom. Our hope of heaven rests upon God’s Word of forgiveness, pardon and everlasting life for the sake of the shed blood of Jesus.
Thus, with the psalmist, we pray: “Remember the word to your servant, on which you have caused me to hope.” We ask the LORD God to remember His gracious promises to us and to deal with us in His mercy and grace for Christ’s sake.
And this is our comfort when we are afflicted and suffer in this world. God, by means of His Word of Gospel has made us alive in Christ. We have a sure hope of heaven.
Because Christ Jesus suffered and died for the sins of the world and rose again in victory, we have the certainty that God accepts us in Christ and will not condemn us on the Last Day but grant us eternal life in Christ.
It is as Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death to life” (John 5:24).
And as we suffer affliction in this world, we remember that Jesus also told us: “Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).
LORD, remember the promises of Your Word, upon which You have made me to hope, and deal with me in grace and mercy for the sake of the holy life and innocent sufferings and death of Christ Jesus, my Savior. As you have quickened me through Your Word, preserve me in the true faith unto life everlasting, all for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
“The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from your law. I remembered your judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself. Horror has taken hold on me because of the wicked that forsake your law.” Psalm 119:51-53
The proud, those who refuse to humble themselves before the almighty God but continue to rebel against Him and reject the truth of His Word, deride and mock those who seek to live in accord with God’s Word and His holy commandments.
Thus, the psalmist prays: “The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from your law. I remembered your judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself.”
Though the world may deride us and laugh at us for trusting in Christ Jesus and seeking to live for God according to His Word, yet we hold fast to the Bible and its truths. We do not decline and shrink back from our faith and submission to the Word. Though all may mock us and call us fools for placing our hope and confidence in the shed blood of Jesus, we continue to believe and proclaim Christ crucified and risen again as the only way of salvation for lost sinners.
Though it may appear at times that we are suffering for naught, when we remember God’s judgments of old, we take comfort, knowing that He will fulfill His promises to judge the world with fire and deliver us from all our enemies that we might serve God forever in true righteousness and holiness.
Horror takes hold of us – we are horrified and distraught – over those who forsake God’s Word and continue in unbelief and rebellion against the LORD God. We know the judgment of God which will soon come upon them, and we pray they will repent of their evil ways and turn to Christ before it is too late.
O LORD God, though the world may hold me in derision, yet I will continue to trust in Your Word and hold fast to Christ Jesus, my Savior. Keep me in the true faith that I might not be condemned along with the wicked, who decline from Your Word, but be received into the everlasting joys of heaven for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
“Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. I have remembered your name, O LORD, in the night, and have kept your law.” Psalm 119:54-55
As believers in Christ Jesus and children of our heavenly Father through faith in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, our home is in heaven. We are strangers and pilgrims here in this world and look forward to the day when we go home to be with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
While we await that day, we continue in the Word, reading and studying its teaching and promises that we might be preserved in saving faith and be guided in living our lives here for our Savior.
We heed the admonition of the apostle Paul: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16).
We remember the name of the LORD in the night and hold fast to the teaching of God’s Word, considering our own sinfulness and shortcomings but also remembering the richness of God’s grace and mercy toward us in forgiving our sin and accepting us as His own dear children, all for the sake of the redemption accomplished for us by Christ Jesus.
O LORD God, heavenly Father, while I live here in this house of pilgrimage, keep Your Word in my heart and upon my lips that I may ever take comfort in Your grace and mercy and be guided by Your holy commandments. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Epitome of the Formula of Concord
III. The Righteousness of Faith Before God
STATUS CONTROVERSIAE
The Principal Question In This Controversy
1] Since it is unanimously confessed in our churches, in accordance with God’s Word and the sense of the Augsburg Confession, that we poor sinners are justified before God and saved alone by faith in Christ, and thus Christ alone is our Righteousness, who is true God and man, because in Him the divine and human natures are personally united with one another, Jer. 23:6; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 5:21, the question has arisen: According to which nature is Christ our Righteousness? and thus two contrary errors have arisen in some churches.
2] For the one side has held that Christ according to His divinity alone is our Righteousness, if He dwell in us by faith; contrasted with this divinity, dwelling in us by faith, the sins of all men must be regarded as a drop of water compared to the great ocean. Others, on the contrary, have held that Christ is our Righteousness before God according to the human nature alone.
Affirmative Theses
Pure Doctrine of the Christian Churches against Both Errors Just Mentioned
3] 1. Against both the errors just recounted, we unanimously believe, teach, and confess that Christ is our Righteousness neither according to the divine nature alone nor according to the human nature alone, but that it is the entire Christ according to both natures, in His obedience alone, which as God and man He rendered to the Father even unto death, and thereby merited for us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, as it is written: As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous, Rom. 5:19.
4] 2. Accordingly, we believe, teach, and confess that our righteousness before God is [this very thing], that God forgives us our sins out of pure grace, without any work, merit, or worthiness of ours preceding, present, or following, that He presents and imputes to us the righteousness of Christ’s obedience, on account of which righteousness we are received into grace by God, and regarded as righteous.
5] 3. We believe, teach, and confess that faith alone is the means and instrument whereby we lay hold of Christ, and thus in Christ of that righteousness which avails before God, for whose sake this faith is imputed to us for righteousness, Rom. 4:5.
6] 4. We believe, teach, and confess that this faith is not a bare knowledge of the history of Christ, but such a gift of God by which we come to the right knowledge of Christ as our Redeemer in the Word of the Gospel, and trust in Him that for the sake of His obedience alone we have, by grace, the forgiveness of sins, are regarded as holy and righteous before God the Father, and eternally saved.
7] 5. We believe, teach, and confess that according to the usage of Holy Scripture the word justify means in this article, to absolve, that is, to declare free from sins. Prov. 17:15: He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the righteous, even they both are abomination to the Lord. Also Rom. 8:33: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
8] And when, in place of this, the words regeneratio and vivificatio, that is, regeneration and vivification, are employed, as in the Apology, this is done in the same sense. By these terms, in other places, the renewal of man is understood, and distinguished from justification by faith.
9] 6. We believe, teach, and confess also that notwithstanding the fact that many weaknesses and defects cling to the true believers and truly regenerate, even to the grave, still they must not on that account doubt either their righteousness which has been imputed to them by faith, or the salvation of their souls, but must regard it as certain that for Christ’s sake, according to the promise and [immovable] Word of the holy Gospel, they have a gracious God.
10] 7. We believe, teach, and confess that for the preservation of the pure doctrine concerning the righteousness of faith before God it is necessary to urge with special diligence the particulae exclusivae, that is, the exclusive particles, i.e., the following words of the holy Apostle Paul, by which the merit of Christ is entirely separated from our works, and the honor given to Christ alone, when the holy Apostle Paul writes: Of grace, without merit, without Law, without works, not of works. All these words together mean as much as that we are justified and saved alone by faith in Christ. Eph. 2:8; Rom. 1:17; 3:24; 4:3ff.; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 11.
11] 8. We believe, teach, and confess that, although the contrition that precedes, and the good works that follow, do not belong to the article of justification before God, yet one is not to imagine a faith of such a kind as can exist and abide with, and alongside of, a wicked intention to sin and to act against the conscience. But after man has been justified by faith, then a true living faith worketh by love, Gal. 5:6, so that thus good works always follow justifying faith, and are surely found with it, if it be true and living; for it never is alone, but always has with it love and hope.
Antitheses: Contrary Doctrines Rejected
12] Therefore we reject and condemn all the following errors:
13] 1. That Christ is our Righteousness according to His divine nature alone.
14] 2. That Christ is our Righteousness according to His human nature alone.
15] 3. That in the sayings of the prophets and apostles where the righteousness of faith is spoken of the words justify and to be justified are not to signify declaring or being declared free from sins, and obtaining the forgiveness of sins, but actually being made righteous before God, because of love infused by the Holy Ghost, virtues, and the works following them.
16] 4. That faith looks not only to the obedience of Christ, but to His divine nature, as it dwells and works in us, and that by this indwelling our sins are covered.
17] 5. That faith is such a trust in the obedience of Christ as can exist and remain in a man even when he has no genuine repentance, in whom also no love follows, but who persists in sins against his conscience.
18] 6. That not God Himself, but only the gifts of God, dwell in believers.
19] 7. That faith saves on this account, because by faith the renewal, which consists in love to God and one’s neighbor, is begun in us.
20] 8. That faith has the first place in justification, nevertheless also renewal and love belong to our righteousness before God in such a manner that they [renewal and love] are indeed not the chief cause of our righteousness, but that nevertheless our righteousness before God is not entire or perfect without this love and renewal.
21] 9. That believers are justified before God and saved jointly by the imputed righteousness of Christ and by the new obedience begun in them, or in part by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, but in part also by the new obedience begun in them.
22] 10. That the promise of grace is made our own by faith in the heart, and by the confession which is made with the mouth, and by other virtues.
23] 11. That faith does not justify without good works; so that good works are necessarily required for righteousness, and without their presence man cannot be justified.
Bible Study in Preparation for Sunday
Scripture Readings for Sunday are: Psalm 119:49-56; Ephesians 4:17-32; and Matthew 15:21-28. Please read them in their context as you prepare for worship on Sunday.
The Adult Bible Class is studying St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, at chapter 3, verse 7ff.
Remember to Pray
Remember to pray for our church and for all our members, that none be lost to Christ’s kingdom but that all continue in repentance and be strengthened and built up in the true and saving faith in Christ Jesus through the hearing and study of His Word. We pray for God’s healing and strengthening of our congregation, as well as for God’s help with our church’s financial needs. We continue to pray for all who have been sick or who are suffering among us – for Sam Rusch, who was hospitalized; for Bonnie Hawes, who is anticipating heart surgery; for those who have been absent from us, for our extended families and for believers who are alone and have no congregation. Continue to pray for Lutheran congregations in the Philippines and Japan, for Christians in Nigeria, Haiti and Chile, and for believers around the world who are persecuted or suffering for their faith in Christ Jesus.
Events and Announcements
Monthly Evening Bible Study is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m., Wednesday, August 24. We will be continuing with a study of segments on the reliability of Scriptures from Bible on Trial.
On-line video of worship services can be found at: http://goodshepherdrogers.org/blog/worship-service-video.
Information for bulletins or newsletters may be sent to Pastor Moll by calling him at 479-233-0081 or by e-mail at goodshepherdrogers@yahoo.com.
Psalm 25
A Psalm of David
1 To you, O LORD, do I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, I trust in you: let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me. 3 Yes, let none that wait on you be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause. 4 Show me your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me: for you are the God of my salvation; on you do I wait all the day. 6 Remember, O LORD, your tender mercies and your loving kindnesses; for they have been ever of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to your mercy remember you me for your goodness’ sake, O LORD. 8 Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way. 9 The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth to such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. 11 For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my iniquity; for it is great. 12 What man is he that fears the LORD? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. 13 His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth. 14 The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant. 15 My eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. 16 Turn you to me, and have mercy on me; for I am desolate and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring you me out of my distresses. 18 Look on my affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. 19 Consider my enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred. 20 O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in you. 21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on you. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.