The Time Is Ripe. Worship: September 21, 2025

The Divine Service is unlike our other activities during the week—in the marketplace, our place of employment, or our school—where we struggle to be “the people of God” amid the temptations and confusing details of living in a world still disfigured by sin, tragedy, selfishness, and death. By our own fault, we daily fall short of our calling as Christians. We are reminded today of the judgment of God’s Law by the prophet Amos against our worry over money and our own needs that distract us from the often-greater needs of others and even our own true need of faith and reliance on God above all. Each day of the week, the demands of the Ten Commandments of God call us back to our need for forgiveness and God’s mercy, grace, help, and love. So, we gather here for Divine Service, that is, God attending to our real needs. We come to repent of our sin and failure, and to receive forgiveness and new life and hope. That forgiveness and hope comes solely from the God who “loved the world” so much “that He gave His only Son” to die for you (John 3:16). We do not have to wait and wonder until the Day of Judgment. By your Baptism into Christ, by His mighty and reliable Word of forgiveness spoken over and into you, and by your connection with the body and blood of your crucified and risen Lord Jesus, you are being delivered from all evil, redeemed, restored, and forgiven for everlasting life in the kingdom of God already here and now.