Worship Helps for Lent 2

Artwork: Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Artist: J.J. Tissot

Worship Theme: "It is God's will that you should be sanctified" (I Thessalonians. 4:3). What if we have ignored God's call to holy living? God says to examine ourselves, repent of our failures, and ask for his forgiveness. Yet we never do any of those three perfectly. We must confess that, as an old prayer says, "we have no power to defend ourselves." So how can we not end up among those who permanently reject God's rescue? Only by God's constant grace in Christ. In his mercy God even used Jesus' rejection by his Jewish countrymen to put Jesus on the cross. Rejoice doubly, then: Christ did not reject his Father's will, he died for you. In Christ God will also keep you from rejecting him.

Old Testament: Jeremiah 26:8-15

⁸When Jeremiah had finished saying everything the Lord had commanded him to say to all the people, then the priests, the prophets, and all the people seized him and said, “You must die! ⁹Why do you prophesy in the name of the Lord that this house will be like Shiloh and that this city will be desolate with no one living here?” All the people crowded around Jeremiah in the House of the Lord.

¹⁰When the officials of Judah heard about these things, they came up from the king’s house to the House of the Lord and sat in the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s house.

¹¹Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death because he has been prophesying against this city, as you heard with your own ears.”

¹²Then Jeremiah said to all the officials and to all the people, “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the things that you have heard. ¹³Now reform your ways and your actions, and obey the Lord your God. Then the Lord will relent and not bring about the disaster he has pronounced against you. ¹⁴But as for me, look, I am in your hands. Do with me whatever seems good and right in your eyes. ¹⁵But you can be certain of this. If you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on those who live here, for it is true that the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing.”

1. It's seems impossible that God's people should want to kill his servant just for speaking his Word.  How did it come to that?

2. If the Jews shaped up outwardly, would that make them deserve not to have God bring the disaster on them he had threatened?

Epistle: Philippians 3:17–4:1  

¹⁷Brothers, join together in imitating me and in paying attention to those who are walking according to the pattern we gave you. ¹⁸To be sure, many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. I told you about them often, and now I am saying it while weeping. ¹⁹Their end is destruction, their god is their appetite, and their glory is in their shame. They are thinking only about earthly things. ²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven. We are eagerly waiting for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹By the power that enables him to subject all things to himself, he will transform our humble bodies to be like his glorious body.

^4:1So then, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, in this way keep standing firm in the Lord, my dear friends.

3. Paul points out how unbelievers think and live. How do such descriptions serve as a blessing for believers like us?

4. Our citizenship is in heaven, soon Jesus will come down from heaven. How do such mercies help us resist temptation?

Gospel: Luke 13:31–35  

³¹In that very hour, some Pharisees came to him and said, “Leave, and go away from here, because Herod wants to kill you.”

³²He said to them, “Go tell that fox, ‘Look, I am going to drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal. ³³Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, because it cannot be that a prophet would be killed outside Jerusalem!’

³⁴“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I have wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! ³⁵Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you will say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

5. Even though repentance and faith are works of God, why can't those who lack repentance and faith blame God for that?

6. At the end, Jesus warned that Jews of his day would not see him as he really is until he came in glory on the last day. How did Jesus' warning serve as a call to repentance and faith?

Answers:

1. Jeremiah's warnings that Jerusalem and the temple would be a desolate ruin and his call to repent attacked their pride. They responded with death threats.

2. Giving up outwardly what the Jews didn't want to give up inside could not have spared them from God's wrath. God sees inside. He demands that we be holy from the inside out. If the Jews had let go of their pride and looked to God's grace for their standing before him, they would have desired righteousness and abhorred sin. Then by grace, for Jesus' sake, God would have spared them.

3. A believer, when he sees flagrant displays of sin, is appalled. When we are in the middle of a temptation, we may not see how bad sin is. But when we see that sin in others, the Bible's descriptions of sinners help us ask ourselves, "Is that really what I want to be like? If I persist, won't I end up where they will end up?"

4. Picture an engaged couple, so in love with each other than they give no thought to anyone else's attractiveness. That couple looks forward so much to the thrill of being together in marriage. In the same way, we are engaged to Jesus, to spend eternity with him. The more we ponder his love for us and what living with him face to face in his eternal kingdom will be like, the more we will want to please him and thank him now. No one else comes close.

5. God works through his Word.  The reason some lack repentance and faith is they hardened themselves to the Word rather than give up their favorite sins or their pride.  However, rather than simply pointing our finger at the Jews of Jesus' day, we need to examine ourselves.  Are we doing what they did? Or in danger of that?

6. The Jews ought to have been terrified at the thought of seeing Jesus coming again in glory on the last day. After hearing the testimony of the Old Testament and of Jesus' teachings, and after seeing the evidence of his miracles, they had to know that Jesus coming in glory to judge them was more than a possibility. If they had cried out, "Lord, make me ready for that day," he would have sheltered them under his arms. (Some Jews did repent later.)

Putting your faith into action

On this second Sunday in Lent, the message of Scripture is sadly and even painfully clear. In our world today—with mass media, super-powered communication devices, instant news flashes of crises occurring in every corner of the earth—we are living in the Information Age. We reflect upon the daily crises which bombard our television and computer screens. We see the seemingly hopeless situations in which some men, women, and children are placed and ask ourselves “Why?” We look at the leadership under which these crises occur—in foreign countries, in our country, in our towns, and in our families. With a touch on the Internet, we can communicate with people we will never meet and “listen” to their life stories. We may not “hear” the true pain and hopelessness they may feel. We may not “hear” that they have not yet realized that “their mind is on earthly things” or that “many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” Do we use our God-given time to really listen? Do we take the time to share that “we eagerly await a Savior,” that we believe in the Risen Christ of Easter? Do we “stand firm in the Lord?”

A reading from the Book of Concord for Lent 2

1] Of Repentance they teach that for those who have fallen after Baptism there is remission of sins whenever they are converted 2] and that the Church ought to impart absolution to those thus returning to repentance. Now, repentance consists properly of these 3] two parts: One is contrition, that is, 4] terrors smiting the conscience through the knowledge of sin; the other is faith, which is born of 5] the Gospel, or of absolution, and believes that for Christ's sake, sins are forgiven, comforts 6] the conscience, and delivers it from terrors. Then good works are bound to follow, which are the fruits of repentance. – Augsburg Confession, Article XII, Of Repentance (paragraphs 1-6)

434  Lord, You I Love with All My Heart

1  Lord, you I love with all my heart; I pray you ne’er from me depart;

With tender mercies cheer me.

Earth has no pleasure I would share; Heaven itself were void and bare

If you, Lord, were not near me.

And should my heart for sorrow break, My trust in you no one could shake.

You are the treasure I have sought; Your precious blood my soul has bought.

Lord Jesus Christ, My God and Lord, my God and Lord,

Forsake me not! I trust your Word.

2  Lord God, ’twas your rich bounty gave My body, soul, and all I have

In this poor life of labor.

Lord, grant that I in ev’ry place May glorify your lavish grace

And serve and help my neighbor.

Let no false doctrine me beguile; Let Satan not my soul defile.

Give strength and patience unto me To bear my crosses willingly.

Lord Jesus Christ, My God and Lord, my God and Lord,

Forsake me not! I trust your Word.

3  Lord, let at last your angels come; To Abram’s bosom bear me home

That I may die unfearing.

And in its narrow chamber keep My body safe in peaceful sleep

Until your reappearing.

And then from death awaken me That my own eyes with joy may see,

O Son of God, your glorious face, My Savior and my Fount of grace.

Lord Jesus Christ, My prayer attend, my prayer attend,

And I will praise you without end.

Text: Martin M. Schalling, 1532–1608; tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1827–78, alt.