「御心に沿って謙遜に生きる」 九月第五主日礼拝 宣教 2024年9月29日
ヤコブの手紙 (James) 4章13〜17節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. I am blessed and thankful to worship with you all this morning by God’s mercy and invitation. Although some days are still humid, the mornings and evenings have become much chilly. Some days it is hard to decide whether to wear short sleeves or long sleeves, but please take care of yourselves every day.
Now, in October starting this week, I will be giving the message for the first through the third Sunday services, but on the morning Sunday service on the 27th, Missionary Nick Scott will be giving the message. I will be giving the message at a special revival service at Yurigaoka Christ Church in Kawasaki that day, so please remember both of us in your prayers. In addition, for the evening service on October 13, Pastor Masato Gushiken, pastor of Grace Worship Church in Okinawa, will come and give a message. The praise team and the testimony team will be coming too, so we are looking forward to a great service with a lot of excitement. As much as I would love to come and worship with you in the chapel, I know it will be difficult to just attend the morning service. Please attend online.
Today, a joint service of Japanese and Korean churches will be held at 3:00 p.m. in this chapel. The youth and college students from Tokyo Global Mission Church located near Shin-Okubo Station will visit Okubo Church, and we will offer praise and worship together. Yesterday, the praise team practiced for more than 3 hours in the chapel, and this is the first time for the youth of Tokyo Global Mission Church and Okubo Church to have a joint worship opportunity given by God. I am very excited. Anyone is welcome to attend, even if you are not a youth. About 35 college students and young adults from Tokyo Global Mission Church alone are expected to attend. We hope that from this new meeting, the circle of blessing will expand and the blessing and joy will spread to many churches in the union. Please pray for us.
Since June, I have been sharing the Word of God for four months on the theme of “Seeking and Living God’s Will,” and this will be the last time I share the Word of God on how God wants each of us to live. As a short announcement, I am preparing to give a message next month in October on the theme of stewardship, how it is God’s will that we use the blessings we receive daily from God.
Now, in our search for God’s will, Psalm 143:10 was the verse that was shown until last week as the passage for this morning’s message. It goes like this. “Teach me the art of doing Thy will. You are my God. Lead me to a land of rest by your gracious Spirit”.
However, after careful consideration, I think that we have learned more than enough from God to do His will in the past four months of study. However, we need to be reminded from time to time because we keep forgetting. There is only one “art” of doing God’s will. There is only one way to do God’s will, and that is to listen daily to and obey Jesus Christ, God’s Son, whom He sent to us as our Savior. That is all.
If we simply obey and follow the words and teachings of Jesus, who is God’s love, rather than the lustful voices and selfish opinions that pervade the world, we will understand God’s will and we will be given the wisdom and strength to do His will. However, because our will, belief, and faith are so weak, we are in constant need of God’s mercy. In this situation, what we absolutely need is humility. We need to trust in God and live daily asking the Lord for help and guidance. No matter what happens, whether times are good or bad, we must keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, listen to His voice, and be obedient to His words and commands.
The entire fourth chapter of James was presented to us as the concluding verse of our series on “Seeking and Living His Will,” and we have just read the last section, verses 13 through 17. This morning, I hope that we will listen to God’s will as it is presented in verses 1 through 17. Earlier I said, “Whether times are good or bad, keep your eyes on Jesus”. In our lives, there are good times and bad times. We have already experienced enough of that. When everything is going well, we are in a happy mood. There is almost nothing to complain about. In English, it’s like being in “run-run mode”. Everything is going as I wish and plan.
However, life is full of peaks and valleys. When we least expect it, hardships suddenly appear, and we may spend days of anguish and conflict, as if we have entered a long tunnel. It is not only in our own minds. When we look around society, all we see is slander. When we look around the world, all we see are conflicts and wars.
Everyday we wonder why such tragic things are repeated by the hands of human beings. In today’s information network, the information we hear is quicker and more accurate than in the past. If there is a pitfall, it is only the concealment and manipulation of information by the government and the mass media. All that is reported day after day is the progress and results of various forms of competition.
In verse 1, James says, “What causes fighting and strife among you? Is it not the ‘lusts’ that you contend with within yourselves that is the cause?” In the next two verses, he says, “You desire and do not get, and you kill. And you desire and do not obtain, but contend and fight,” aptly pointing out our sinfulness.
In the latter half of verse 2 and verse 3, he says, “The reason you don’t get it is because you don’t ask for it, and the reason you ask for it and it is not given to you is because you ask with the wrong motive, with the intention of using it for your own enjoyment”. James says that the reason people ask and are not given is because people are asking with selfish motives, completely ignoring God’s will, because they have the spirit of using it for your own enjoyment.
But to begin with, the destination of our desires is different. Many of us seek blessings from the finite resources of this world. But the source of blessings we must always seek is God, who has infinite love, care, and plans for us. We are not to pursue our own pleasure, but to always seek through Jesus to live in a way that is pleasing to God, who is the source of our life.
We must heed the warning in the second half of verse 4, “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” Verses 5 and 6, especially the second half of verse 6, contain an important statement: “Or do you think it doesn’t make sense that the Bible says: “God will dwell in us, and we will dwell in him. ‘God so deeply loves the spirit that he has caused to dwell in us that he is jealous for it and gives us more abundant grace. And so it is written, “God is an enemy to the proud and gives grace to the humble”. God gives grace to the humble.
Therefore, in the following verses 7 and 8, we are admonished as follows. “Submit yourselves therefore to God and rebel against the devil, and he will flee from you. Then God will draw near. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you who are of an inflexible mind”. Verse 10 is so important. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you”. God’s desire and will for us is that we fear Him and live in humility before Him.
Verse 11 tells us that it is not God’s will that we speak evil of others or judge others based on shallow thinking, while verse 12 clearly states that the Lord God alone is the only God who is able to save us or to destroy us.
The question we must always ask is, “Who are we?” Who are we? Without God, our Creator, the God of love, and without the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross, how can we rightly accept ourselves with gratitude and joy as those who are in accord with His will? We cannot.
Therefore, we need to heed Jesus’ words in verse 14: “If we try to live without the love of God and of Jesus, we are but a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears. If we try to live without the love of God and Jesus, we are “but a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears. Therefore, we should honestly say, “If it is the Lord’s will, I will live long and do this or that. We need to continue to remain in God’s will as we connect with Jesus.
In believing in Jesus as our Savior and connecting to this Jesus, we are able to connect to God in His mercy and to continue to abide in Him who is the source of love. And in that abundant love, we are able for the first time to love God and Jesus with all our heart, mind, and strength, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and to receive the joy of loving one another for the first time.
Will you live in God’s love or will you continue to live in self-love? What is God’s desire? God’s desire is that we live humbly according to His will. But what is the reality? Verses 16 and 17 say, “In fact, however, they are proud. All such pride is evil. It is a sin for a man to know the good he ought to do and not do it.”
If there is pride in our hearts, let us repent of it before God this morning in this place and surrender our arrogance to Him. Then, let us be renewed by Jesus’ words and become people who live in God’s love. That is God’s will for us.