「あなたの救い主に出逢う備えをせよ」 十二月第一主日礼拝 宣教 2024年12月1日
アモス書 Amos 4章4〜13節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. Today is the beginning of the month of December. Advent has started today, and the chapel was also decorated for Christmas last week, and this morning one of the candles in the Christmas Krantz was lit. It is very beautiful. We thank the Lord for the blessing of being able to worship together with you this morning. The other day I heard on the news that it is easy to get sick on days with a temperature difference of more than 10°C, and that there will be three or four such days with a temperature difference this week. Recently, not only colds but also influenza, mycoplasma pneumonia, and new type of corona infection are said to be prevalent, so please take care.
Now, the information for this year’s Christmas program has been prepared, and we would like to ask you to remember and pray for blessings on the 22nd for the morning Christmas service and celebration, the evening Christmas service, and the Christmas Eve service on the evening of the 24th. On the evening of the 22nd, there will be The BRIDGE Christmas Concert, the same as last year. I will be giving a Christmas message at the end of the concert. Please invite your family and friends and let’s celebrate Christmas together this year.
Well, the Christmas tree is decorated in the first floor hall. The children really worked hard to decorate the Christmas tree and the nativity, but there was one area that I was a little concerned about, so I have made some corrections. One of the things that noticed me was that they put the two nativity decorations on the left and right side, as shown in the picture. Maybe the children thought it was very nice. Maybe they felt it was gorgeous. The one on the left was purchased at a Christian bookstore about 20 years ago, and the one on the right was purchased in Uganda by Dr. Kuratsuji, a pediatrician dispatched by JOCS to Tanzania, and given to the church as a gift. I was a little concerned about the fact that there are two Jesuses. It is true that there are two sets each of Mary, Joseph, the magi, and the shepherd, but I think it is important to focus on one baby Jesus. So I put one set directly in the reception area and the other set in the sign at the front of the church. The chapel is also decorated with beautiful nativities. I think that by placing one nativity in each place, we can focus on the Infant Jesus.
In regards to focusing only on Jesus, I found an interesting photo the other day that I thought you all should see. This photo shows a street scene in Hong Kong, an intersection at night. In Hong Kong, they have started to install machines that project traffic light signals onto the road surface at intersections at night. The reason for this is that pedestrians are walking around looking at their phones and ignoring red lights, which has led to an increase in the number of accidents involving pedestrians. The same is true in Japan. Many people are walking on sidewalks and station platforms while looking at their phones. It is very dangerous. If you are not careful, you could lose your precious life in an accident. We should focus on Jesus, the Light of the World, and not on our phones, game consoles, or books. Jesus, the light of the world, illuminates the dark places in our hearts and gives us forgiveness of sins, salvation, joy, peace, hope, true purpose in life, and inspiration.
Since last month, we have been listening to the theme, “God Who Waits for Us,” which tells us that God has been waiting to bless us since the time of the Old Testament. We have heard from Isaiah and the Psalms that it is important for us to turn to God and pray for that purpose, this morning and next week, we hope to hear from the book of Amos about what kind of action or faithful behavior God is waiting for us to take.
This morning, I hope to listen to God’s message on the subject of “Prepare to meet your Savior,” and at first I was thinking of the title “God who waits for our return,” but I felt strongly about concentrating on the words of verse 12, “Prepare to meet your God,” so I decided to use the title, “Prepare to meet your Savior.
As I shared at the evening service last month, I who spent my youth in the U.S. still struggle with kanji characters, but until recently I did not really know the difference between the kanji “出会い” and “出逢い”. Looking it up in a Japanese dictionary, I found that the kanji for “出会いencounter” means first contact with a new person or thing, and is used in various situations such as friendship, love, and the workplace, while the other kanji for “出逢いencounter” means a fateful encounter with an irreplaceable best friend, mentor, marriage partner, or colleague, someone who will have a great impact on our life. I learned a good lesson.
Encountering(出逢い) Jesus Christ is not just an encounter(出会い). It is a different kanji. It is a great event in which you are given a fateful encounter with an irreplaceable Savior, and your heart, way of life, and life are greatly changed by God’s love. There are as many ways to encounter God as there are people, and each encounter is irreplaceable and fateful. All of them are encounters of grace that God leads and gives us.
How many years have we celebrated Christmas knowing the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ birth on earth? Or, how many years have we enjoyed Christmas without knowing the meaning and purpose of the Savior’s birth? Enjoying Christmas and celebrating Christmas joyfully are two very different experiences. On the one hand, it is a one-day-a-year event to rejoice our hearts and the hearts of our loved ones. But the other is an eternal celebration of joy that never ceases, where we experience the power of God’s love, where we believe in Jesus, God’s love, and receive him into our hearts and fill our hearts with his love. Christmas is not a momentary event, but a worship service to rejoice in God’s love forever.
Reading through the Book of Amos from chapter 1, we can clearly see how sinful the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah have been toward God. Not only the two kingdoms, but also their neighbors. The northern kingdom of Israel encouraged its people to make pilgrimages to the holy places of Bethel and Gilgal in their own land, even though Jerusalem is a holy place. They changed the worship that should have been offered in Jerusalem for their own convenience.
Verses 4 and 5 say, “4 “Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; 5 offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!” declares the Lord God.” The people think they are offering worship that God is pleased with, but God is not pleased at all.
Today, I think the warning bells are ringing that worship has become a formality, a mere formality of pretense, a service of self-satisfaction, with no gratitude or joy for God’s love, no heart at all, just sitting in a chapel, with the heart somewhere else. I think this is the kind of worship that is being warned. How is your heart today? Are you in the presence of God, rejoicing in His love and giving thanks? We cannot see God, but God is watching our hearts and our attitude of faith. This is a warning that we must be very careful.
But despite such warnings, the Israelites are stubborn. They do not change their minds. They have such stubbornness and arrogance that they do not think it is said about them, they think it is said about someone else. The Jews have the arrogance to claim that they are God’s chosen people, and for the gentiles, including us, once they are baptized and become Christians, they think they are fine, and they do not bear the fruit that God demands, and they are lazy and do not repent.
To break down such stubbornness and arrogance and to encourage repentance, God gives five warning signs to the Israelites. The first is the food shortage mentioned in verse 6. God has “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places.” This is because there is nothing to eat, the teeth will not become unclean. The second warning is the extreme weather in verses 7 and 8. The rain falls where it is not needed and where it is needed it does not fall, so the fields wither and the people starve and dry up.
The third is in verse 9, where plants are given diseases that cause them to wither and die, and swarms of locusts devour the harvest. The fourth warning is about pestilence and war in verse 10: “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses.” Finally, in verse 11, God warns of plagues like the one that once destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in an instant. These warnings are all in the past tense, but they are prophecies for the future, urging us to repent today because God’s word is sure.
These five warnings may apply to us today. God is waiting for us to turn to Him with these warnings. There are other serious social disparities. There is social injustice and immorality, discrimination and exploitation of the poor, and idolatry that tries to fill the heart with material things. Many false religions have also emerged to mislead people. But what does the last word of these warnings say? Five times it is written, “yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord.”
The alarm bells are ringing so clearly, and the warnings are so tangible, yet we neither hear nor see them. This is our human weakness. It cannot be. Verse 12 says, “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” The words, “Prepare yourselves to meet your God,” mean that God is coming to judge and you should wait for Him. To put it in a radical way, these are harsh words that tell us to wash our heads and wait.
God, as verse 13 says, “For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!” Certainly, God is a holy and righteous God who hates iniquity and unrighteousness. But more than that, he is a God of love who loves us sinners. He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to deliver us from the darkness of sin. He came into the world not to judge us, but to save us. He walked this earth and died on the cross, bearing the full penalty for our sins. He was born to die an atoning death for us. God commands us to prepare to meet your, my, and our Savior.
Those of you who have not accepted Jesus as your Savior, please pray and prepare to meet your Savior this Christmas. Those of you who believe in Jesus as your Savior, prepare for the promise that He will come back to earth to meet you. That is what God wants us to do and is waiting for us. Let us prepare our hearts.