Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁸ Put these words of mine in your hearts and in your soul, and tie them on your wrists as signs and as symbols on your forehead. ¹⁹ Teach them to your children by talking about them when you sit in your house and when you travel on the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ²⁰ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, ²¹ so that your days and the days of your children may be many on the land that the Lord promised to your fathers with an oath, as many as the days that the heavens remain over the earth.

²⁶ You see, I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷ the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, ²⁸ or the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God and you turn away from the path that I am commanding you today by walking after other gods whom you did not know.

Psalm 31

Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit

Heading
For the choir director. A psalm by David.

A Declaration of Confidence

Petition

The Basis for Confidence

Closing Praise

The Power of the Gospel

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes—to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed by faith, for faith,^[a] just as it is written, “The righteous will live by faith.”^[b]

²² This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all and over all^[a] who believe.

In fact, there is no difference, ²³ because all have sinned and fall short of the glory^[b] of God ²⁴ and are justified^[c] freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God publicly displayed as the atonement seat^[d] through faith in his blood. God did this to demonstrate his justice, since, in his divine restraint, he had left the sins that were committed earlier unpunished. ²⁶ He did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so that he would be both just and the one who justifies the person who has faith in Jesus.

²⁷ What happens to boasting then? It has been eliminated. By what principle^[e]—by the principle of works? No, but by the principle of faith. ²⁸ For we conclude that a person is justified by faith without the works of the law.

²⁹ Or is he only the God of the Jews? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, also of the Gentiles, ³⁰ since there is one God who will justify the circumcised person by faith and the uncircumcised person through the very same faith. ³¹ So are we doing away with the law by this faith? Absolutely not! Instead, we are upholding the law.

²¹ Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. ²² Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?’ ²³ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’

Wise and Foolish Builders

²⁴ “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on bedrock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house. But it did not fall, because it was founded on bedrock. ²⁶ Everyone who hears these words of mine but does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—it was completely destroyed.”

²⁸ When Jesus finished speaking these words, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, ²⁹ because he taught them as one who had authority, and not like their experts in the law.