「わたしたちを待たれる神」 十二月第三主日礼拝 宣教 2024年12月15日
ヨハネの黙示録 Revelations 3章20〜22節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. I am thankful to be able to worship with you this morning. This morning, Missionary Drew Williams gave the children’s message, and I think the children who usually listen to my messages were able to listen to it with a fresh feeling. Thank you very much, Drew-sensei, for your message. I pray that your ministry in Fukuoka will be blessed and used for God’s glory.
Next week, on the 22nd, we will be holding a Christmas service. We hope to celebrate the birth of Jesus with many people. Please invite your family and friends. I will be giving the Christmas message four times in 15 hours, including the morning service, evening service, Christmas concert, and Christmas service at a church in the United States. I have been preparing little by little, but I seem to have caught a cold since the day before yesterday. Please pray that I can fulfill my role well.
As usual, I would like to ask for your “Kanji of the Year” this year, as there are only two weeks left in the year 2024. This year, the kanji for “gold” was chosen because the Olympics and Paralympics were held in Paris, and the Japanese society was abuzz with the problems of backroom money in politics and money-grubbing black-money jobs. I would like to ask you to look back on this year and share the kanji character that symbolizes your year. I am thinking of either “忙Busy” or “焦impatient” as I was sometimes in a hurry to get things done. Please let us know what your Kanji for this year is. I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Now, this Advent, I was led and have decided to hear from the Bible that God is waiting for us, not that we are waiting for the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, and since November, we have been listening together to the Old Testament books of Isaiah, Psalms, and Amos under the theme of “God waiting for us”. What does God want from us? What action is He waiting for us to take? This morning is the last in this series, and I hope we will hear that God wants each of us to open the door of our hearts and receive Jesus Christ into our hearts as our Savior.
Jesus Christ, our Savior, accomplished the work of salvation for us through His atoning death on the cross and His resurrection on the third day. After that, He promised His disciples that he will return again to the earth before He was raised to God’s presence. However, 2000 years have passed since that promise, and many eras have passed since then, but Jesus’ second coming has not yet occurred. Why is this? Was it a lie? No, it was not. The true and sincere Jesus would not lie. Then why?
Two verses in the New Testament come strongly to mind. The first is John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. God loves you and us and wants to give us salvation and eternal life.
Another is 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not delaying the fulfillment of His promise. Rather, He is persevering for your sake, that no one should perish, but that all should repent.” This is the Word of God. God is waiting patiently with love and patience for us to repent and turn to Him so that none of us, who are created and loved by God, will perish. Therefore, the Bible tells us that even now there will be no second coming of Jesus, and we are required to receive God’s love and to believe in and follow Jesus. The Lord is waiting to greatly bless those who turn to Him.
This morning is the last in the series, and just as I was about to share a verse from the New Testament, something happened a few days ago in my recent life that has caused me much regret, and I would like to share it with you briefly.
The other day, when I went to the post office to do some church business and then stopped by my usual flower shop to return to church, I passed by a store that sold used furniture, and I found a chair that I thought, “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for”. I was so excited. I could have bought the chair on the spot, but the money I had at the time was not mine. I took only a photo and left, thinking I would ask my wife’s opinion first. As I was leaving the store, the male clerk tried to sell it to me, saying, “If you don’t buy it now, it will be sold soon,” but somewhere in the back of my mind, I left there thinking, “It won’t be sold that soon”.
As soon as I got home, I showed the photo to my wife and asked her if I could buy it, but she said, “No need”. However, I could not give up, so a few hours later I put my allowance in my wallet and went to the store to buy the chair. But I was just a few minutes too late, and the chair I wanted had been purchased by someone else right in front of me.
I said to myself, “If only I had left home five more minutes, or even three more minutes earlier, I could have bought it! No, it wasn’t my money, but I could have temporarily borrowed it then and bought it! I really regretted it. The clerk, who remembered my face, said, “I told you at that time that you should buy it because it would sell quickly!” Inwardly, I was a little miffed, thinking, “You didn’t have to say that,” but I was the one who didn’t buy it. I was so disappointed because I thought it wouldn’t sell right away.
It took some time for my mind to return to normalcy, but once it did, I was glad that God had given me a very important life lesson. I was able to see once again that it was God’s will, and that the person who bought the chair was the one who needed it, not me.
The same is true for believing in Jesus, everyone. It is better to respond immediately to Jesus’ invitation to salvation. If you hesitate to believe and follow Jesus because of various considerations or because you think you will get another chance, you will miss the chance to believe in Jesus and you may regret it for the rest of your life. In verse 10, following 2 Peter 3:9, we read, “The day of the Lord (i.e., the time of His return) will come unexpectedly, like a thief”. We need to face ourselves seriously and not procrastinate.
God is waiting for us to realize our weakness and sin and turn to Him in repentance. That is why Jesus was born on earth. With love and patience, God waits for us because He wants to bless us and give us eternal life as His children. I ask you to jump into the depths of God’s love so that you will not live in pain and regret for your unworthiness because you are slow to believe.
Now, I was shown that the appropriate verse to conclude this series is Revelation 3:20, which says in verse 22, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the ‘Spirit’ says to the churches.” This means that this morning we are to listen attentively and earnestly to what God is saying to us.
Revelation 3:14-22 is addressed to the Christian church in the town of Laodicea. The town of Laodicea was a very wealthy town with a more developed health care system than other towns, making it a good place to live. However, there were many people who did not feel the need to live more dependent on God because they had everything materially available. Therefore, their faith was neither cold nor hot.
Peter says in verses 15 and 16, “I know your deeds. You are neither cold nor hot. Rather, I want you to be either cold or hot. Neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, I am about to spit thee out of my mouth.” Then, in verse 17, he says, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have no need of anything,’ but you do not know that you are wretched, poor, blind, and naked.” Peter encourages repentance with harsh words, saying that although they are materially rich, their hearts are spiritually poor, but those who are content with their lives do not listen at all.
So Peter entrusts everything to Jesus and writes to the people of Laodicea in verse 20. These are Jesus’ words. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock (at the door of your heart). If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me”. Jesus’ invitation to salvation and blessing. This morning Jesus again knocks on the door of your heart, and the door of the heart of each of us, and asks us to welcome Him into our heart. But do you hear the sound of Jesus knocking on the door of your heart? The busyness, abundance, and exhaustion of daily life prevents us from hearing the sound of Jesus’ knocking. Therefore, you need to get away from your daily routine, put yourself in a quiet place, face yourself, and face Jesus.
Also, this door of the heart does not have a doorknob on the outside where Jesus is. It is we who can open this door and welcome Jesus. Jesus does not force His way into our hearts. He respects our feelings. It is our decision to open the door. If you open the door of your heart to receive Jesus, He says, “I will come in and dine with him, and he with me. By “meal,” he is referring to the celebratory meal, the meal in heaven.
There are many people who live their lives relying only on their own strength, judgment, and intuition, assuming that seeking salvation by huddling together in religion is something that weak people and those who have lost in life do. However, Jesus declares, “He who believes in Him is not a loser, but a winner. In verse 21, He says, “He who gains the victory, I will sit down with him on my throne. Just as I have triumphed and am seated with my Father on his throne. The one who receives God’s love through Jesus Christ is the one who will live in God’s love forever.
God and Jesus are waiting with love and patience for those who recognize that love and turn to Him. The fact that Jesus continues to knock on our hearts shows us that God has not given up on us. Let us believe that He loves us that much, and let us receive this beautiful love this morning. My hope and prayer is that trying to spend the remaining time of Advent listening for Jesus’ knocking.