「恵みを与えようとあなたを待つ神」 十一月第二主日礼拝 宣教 2024年11月10日
イザヤ書 Isaiah 30章18〜26節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. I thank the Lord for the opportunity to worship with you this morning. It has been getting much colder in the mornings and evenings recently, so we have put out the stove at our house. However, it seems that this week we will have some warm days with temperatures as high as 21 or 22 degrees Celsius. It is difficult to keep in shape these days, and colds and flu seem to be prevalent these days, so please take care of yourselves. I pray that your health will be protected and let us remember and pray for each other.
Quick Announcement. Today we are given the opportunity to pray for the blessing of children given to each family and church. Let us pray together for blessings on the children so that they will grow up healthy and protected by God every day. Now, the parents of missionary Nick Scott will come to Japan, and his father, Pastor Alan Scott, will deliver a message at the morning service on the 17th. His son, Missionary Nick will be interpreting for his father. Please come and join us next Sunday.
Well, last week I began a new series of messages on the theme “God Who Waits for Us”. Indeed, Christmas is a time to rejoice and celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, sent by God, and there is a four-week period of waiting and anticipation for His birth called “Advent”. This year, however, I would like to emphasize that God is waiting for us rather than us waiting for the birth of our Savior.
When I was thinking about how I could best convey this concept to you in an easy-to-understand manner, the word “compatibility” came to mind. Which means “Two are in love with each other”. This may be a memory that you may not want to recall, but have you ever experienced “one-sided love” in your life? That is, you love someone one-sidedly, but your feelings do not reach them, and you feel sad or your heart feels constricted. Have you ever had such an experience?
Today, not only my family is here, but also my sister and niece, so when I tell them about these things, they later say, “Oh, Uncle Shin, let us hear about it!” I really don’t want to talk about it, but I did have a crush on someone when I was in high school. Also, I don’t know what my wife will say if I tell you this, but it was much, much before I met my wife. When I was younger, I was still slim, and I remember a girl crushed on me for short amount of time. So I can relate and talk a little about “unrequited love” in a sad way.
How about you? Do you have any memories of having experienced unrequited love that you would call sweet and sour, or sad, or heartbreaking? Of course, there may be some of you who are currently experiencing unrequited love. I believe that the earnest desire, wish, and prayer of those who have unrequited love is to be in love with someone they like very much.
In fact, God is the same way. God wants to be in love with us. He created us, loves us, and continues to provide us with everything we need to live. God wants us to be aware of His presence, to receive His love, and to be in love with Him. Yet many of us are unaware of God’s love and do not love Him, see Him, or talk to Him. But God is patiently waiting for us to realize His love, to turn around, to love Him, and to live our lives asking Him to do everything for us.
Upon hearing such a thing, one might say, “Oh, the Christian God is a stalker? That’s disgusting!” and may be surprised and suspicious, and think that it is safer to distance themselves from religion and stay away from it. It is a shame, because such person may/does not know true love, God’s love. As I said in the Children’s Message, we do not know the truth of how much God loves us, how we are protected and kept alive under His wings.
So why does God not give up on us? It is because we are moving in a direction we should not be heading. To put it another way, those who live their lives without God are heading toward the edge of the abyss. The image is like the picture on the screen. From a young age, instead of asking God for blessings, they are trying hard to satisfy their own hearts by seeking more wealth, social status, and happiness than others.
Now, this morning’s message will be based on Isaiah 30, verses 18 through 26, and normally it would be better to start reading from verse 1. However, this morning I wanted to concentrate on the words of verse 18, so I have chosen to begin with verse 18. Today, I would like to give you a brief historical background of the book of Isaiah, and how the one nation of Israel was divided into two kingdoms, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.
Later, Israel in the north lost the war against the Assyrian empire and went into captivity, but the Assyrian empire came close to bringing Judah in the south under its control. God expected Southern Judah to ask for His help, but instead of asking for it, they went down to Egypt, formed an alliance, received the protection of Pharaoh, and tried to resist the Assyrian empire on their own. They suffered greatly because of this.
God says this to Southern Judah through the prophet Isaiah in verse 15: “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling”. Southern Judah has made a mistake in judgment. It will suffer for it.
But what does verse 18 say? “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” The word “therefore” is used two times here, but the word “yet” seems to be better.
In other words, God says this to us. “You are in constant trouble and suffering because you make mistakes and do not rely on Me but on your own strength, but I still love you. I am waiting for you to give you grace. I am waiting for you to give you mercy. I am the God of justice; blessed is everyone who waits for me. I love you. I love you, and I love you, and I love you. Love Me”. In other words, God invites us to “be in love with Him”.
Will we still continue to try to obtain the happiness we desire and idealize, relying only on our own strength, saying, “No, I don’t want to follow God, I don’t love God, and I don’t want God’s love?” Will they continue to work? In this society where injustice is rampant, do you intend to fight your way through with only your own strength, wisdom, and hard work? When you are young, you can work hard until you collapse. However, youth and physical strength do not last forever. There will come a time when you will realize your own weakness.
Would you ask God for help only then? That may be possible. But the wisest thing to do is to have a stronghold while you are young. Believe in God and rely on Him. In other words, receive God’s love from a young age and rejoice in the fact that you are being kept alive in God’s love. This is the ultimate “compatibility/ mutually in love one another” that God gives us, and it is the power to live.
What wonderful things will happen when you are in love with God? Verse 19 says, “You shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you”. Verse 20 says, “And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher”.
Verse 21 says, “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left”. Jesus Christ, the Word of God, speaks powerfully to our hearts and encourages us, and the Holy Spirit leads us powerfully. In verse 22, we are told that we can surrender to God the idols we have been holding on to, that is, the money we have been relying on, our strength, and our careers, and live. We are told that we can surrender our idols, our money, our power, and our careers to God and live.
Verses 23 and 24 say. “And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork.”
When we love the Lord God and surrender everything to Him, not only will our hearts be transformed and we will not feel pressure, stress, or worry about what others think, but our actions will also change as our hearts are transformed, and we will bear abundant fruit, making our lives richer and more blessed than ever before. We are promised that our lives will become richer and more blessed than ever before.
Verses 25 and 26 are full of difficult words, but a simple refrain is that God will completely free and heal your heart from all suffering and clinging with His love. It is a promise that your parched heart will be moistened with God’s love and your hungry heart will be filled with God’s word of love.
God is waiting for us to open our hearts and accept His love, to give grace, mercy, salvation, peace, and hope to each of us. God’s love is right in front of us, so we don’t have to wait any longer. When we accept God’s love today and thank Him for it, we are made blessed by His love. So let us believe and receive God’s love.