「あなたをしっかり立たしめる力」 六月第五主日礼拝 宣教 2025年6月29日
エゼキエル書 Ezekiel 1章28〜3章4節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. It continues to be a hot day, but we are thankful to the Lord that we are gathered here in the chapel this morning to praise and worship with you. We also welcome those who worship online. The heat wave is expected to continue this week, so please be careful not to suffer from heat stroke. We pray for your protection.
I know that there will be days this summer when you will not be able to return to church due to the heat. Although we are very much looking forward to being with you on Sundays and offering worship services every time, we think it is best to avoid coming to church even at the risk of your life. In such cases, we ask that you stay home and worship with us online. However, July is the anniversary month of the church, and we will be offering a thanksgiving service on the 27th, so we ask that you pray with all your heart to be able to attend the service on that day and make preparations for that day’s service.
Yesterday evening, Pastor James Shiroma and members of the mission team from GracePoint Church in Hawaii came to our church to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Okubo Church. They also prayed for Okubo Church’s future blessings. We were reminded that Okubo Church is loved and prayed for by many people, and we were very moved and gave thanks to the Lord.
Children who attended the summer Bible camp at GracePoint Church wrote many congratulatory messages and sent them to Okubo Church, and gave a large donation. Okubo Church is remembered and loved in the prayers of children and brothers and sisters whom we have not yet met. It was as if they were actually experiencing the support of love that existed among the churches in the Lord, as described many times in Paul’s letters. The Lord is with us even in the midst of suffering. I was grateful to be able to experience such grace. The mission team of GracePoint Church will continue to share God’s love and Jesus with the churches until this Saturday, so let us remember them in our prayers.
Well, I have one more prayer request. Today, at 2:30 p.m., there will be a joint praise and worship service for Japanese and Korean young men and women at Tokyo Global Mission Church, and I will be giving the message. I will share with the youth from Psalm 23 and John 10 that Jesus Christ is our Good Shepherd and that it is important to follow His voice and guidance. Please pray that the chapel will be filled with the Holy Spirit and that I will speak the gospel with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit.
June ends today and tomorrow, and we will start the second half of the year 2025 on Tuesday. This past June, we had Pentecost, and I have been giving a message about the work of the Holy Spirit. To conclude the message, we were led to the second chapter of the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. The title of this morning’s message was “The Power to Make You Stand Firm.” In our lives, there are not only days of joy and gratitude, but also days when we are troubled by various things. There may be some people for whom every day is such a troubled day, but there may be many times in our lives when the anguish, sadness, and pain in our hearts are so great that we find it difficult to stand up and move forward on our own. Have you ever had such a painful experience?
But even in these difficult times, the Lord God is near to us, comforting us, encouraging us, giving us rest for our souls, and giving us the strength to stand firm on our own feet. We need to hear from the Bible how God gives us that strength to stand, keep that method in mind, and adapt it in our daily lives. It is His will that we live that way. God wants us to read the Bible daily, apply His Word to our daily lives, and walk with faith and courage.
Now, I need to give you a little background on the book of Ezekiel. The main people of Israel who were defeated in the war against the Babylonian Empire were taken to Babylon as captives and slaves. One of those captives was a 25-year-old priestly egg named Ezekiel.
Ezekiel 1:1-3 states.” In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin), the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar canal, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there.”
Five years had passed since the captivity, and Ezekiel was now 30 years old; 30 is the age at which one is appointed a priest, the age at which one is in the prime of one’s career. However, Ezekiel must have been living a very empty life, living in a land where he had no freedom, watching the river flow in front of his house all the time. But then the heavens suddenly open and the hand of God comes upon Ezekiel. He sees a vision. He sees a strange creature in the clouds. Above the creature’s head he sees what looks like a throne, and on that throne sits a glowing being.
Ezekiel remembers the vision as “like a glorious image of the Lord”. That shining presence was indeed the Lord God. That God appears in the foreign land of Babylon and speaks to Ezekiel. 1:28 says, “Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.”
In the midst of his life without freedom as a captive, Ezekiel had no strength to live, and although he had a desire to serve God in the Jerusalem temple as a priest, he had no hope of being able to do so. To a man who had nothing but despair as a captive, the Lord God gives Ezekiel the purpose of living as a prophet and the power to fulfill his mission.
In these verses, we can hear that God gives us the strength to stand firm even in the midst of suffering, when we are placed in situations where we cannot find hope and it is difficult to stand up, and we can apply the Word of God in our lives. I believe that we can adapt the Word of God in our lives. We Christians here at Okubo Church are alive to share God’s love and to share Jesus Christ. That is the meaning and purpose of our life. Even if we do not become prophets like Ezekiel, Isaiah, or Jeremiah, God wants us to be people who share God’s love daily with people, and live as faithful servants to God and faithful servants to people.
Even if we do not have such power, God will give us the strength we need to live as His disciples. God wants to use us to make as many people as possible aware of God’s presence, to turn to Him in repentance, and to receive His abundant love. That is why we are saved and kept alive today in grace.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, as those who are alive to God’s love, the first thing we need to do is to bow down before God and listen to His voice, to His speaking to us. We need to hear how much God loves not only us, but everyone, and what Jesus did on the cross to save us. When we know God’s love behind Jesus’ atoning death and resurrection on the cross, we are renewed.
2:1 says, “And he said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” He is God. God commands us to “stand on our own feet. What we need to do to stand firm is to obey God’s word. When we decide to obey God’s word, just as the “Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit” entered Ezekiel in verse 2 and he stood up, if the Holy Spirit enters us, we can stand on our own feet and boldly share God’s love and Jesus with others in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Verses 3-7 describe how rebellious, shameless, and obstinate are those to whom we are sent. Our hearts seem to be faint. But God says in verse 8, “But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.” 3:1 also says, “Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” It describes how important it is to read the Bible in our daily lives.
Verse 2 says, “So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat.” Should we just open our mouths and wait for the Lord to feed us? In the case of chicks, yes. But when we are given a certain level of growth, we need to read the Word by ourselves and be nourished by the Word.
Verse 3 says,” And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.” Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.” Before we can share God’s love and Jesus’ words with others, we each need to receive and savor the Word and God’s love. Let us thank God for the power that makes us stand firm: His love, His Word, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who stirs our hearts. Let us be nourished by the Word, helped by the Holy Spirit, in order to share the Word with others.