「御旨を果たす者の喜び」 九月第四主日礼拝 宣教 2024年9月22日
詩編 Psalms 103編17〜22節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning, it is the morning of the fourth Lord’s Day of September. I thank the Lord for the grace to return as a worshipper to this chapel this morning and to offer praise to God and Jesus with you all. Today is the “autumnal equinox,” but the heat has not yet subsided. I am looking forward to the coming of autumn-like days, but it is heartbreaking to hear on the news that heavy rain has been pouring down and causing flooding in Ishikawa Prefecture, including the disaster-stricken areas of the Noto Peninsula. Today is the 265th day since the great earthquake on New Year’s Day. Some places are still untouched after 8 months and 21 days since the disaster. This week on the evening of the 27th, there will be a charity concert at the Y C of the Wesleyan Holiness Church to support the recovery efforts, and our friend Gong Min will be performing and giving a report on the area, so if you have time, please join us.
We are planning to have a praise service with the youth of Tokyo Global Mission Church, which is located near Shin-Okubo Station on the afternoon of the 29th Lord’s Day, and to have a fellowship afterwards in the first floor hall. Last Sunday, I attended the youth service for the first time, and it was filled with young people who offered praise in high spirits and listened intently to the Word of God. After the service, we will break into 10 small groups to share how each of us received the message that was spoken during the service and how we were led to put it into practice.
I joined a group of four Japanese speakers, and we had a very good sharing. One of them gave a very good testimony, and I am now negotiating with Pastor H to have him share his testimony at the morning service of Okubo Church in the near future. I will be giving the message at the praise service on the 29th. The theme has been decided and we are preparing for it, but anyway, it will be very first time gathering, so please pray to the Lord for blessings that the worship service will be a good meeting and fellowship.
This morning, I would like to share with you a passage from Psalm 103 titled “The Joy of Doing God’s Will” about what our true joy is and what God wants us to do. In English, God’s will is expressed in one word, “Will,” but in Japanese, we use many words, such as “Mikokoro” “Mimune,” and “Negai,” which may be difficult for those who are learning Japanese, but “Will” is what God wants from each of us. How does God want us to live each day?
From June to September, under the theme of “Seeking and Living God’s Will,” we have been inquiring and seeking God’s will from various passages in the New and Old Testaments, and we have heard that ultimately, we cannot know God’s will except through His Son Jesus Christ. And we have learned the truth that we can only do God’s will through faithfully listening to and obeying Jesus’ words. Have you come to understand the will that God has for each of you?
As Romans 10:17 says, “Indeed, faith begins by hearing, but hearing the word of Christ,” as we continue to listen to Jesus’ words, we will come to know God’s will, God’s desire, and we will be able to live according to His will. We do not know God’s will in an instant, but we come to know it as we are gradually transformed through daily listening to and obeying Jesus’ words.
There are certainly some people who see believing in God as some kind of nonsense and waste of time, as if they are robots who only follow God’s commands and waste their lives, and think that the happiest life is to live as they wish and desire. However, such a path is an empty one that will one day come to an end. Looking back on our lives, we can only regret the steps we have taken. However, the path of listening to and obeying the words of Jesus is a path of joy that leads to eternal blessings and eternal life that we receive from God. It is a walk filled with praise.
So how exactly is it God’s will that we live? It is in verses 1 and 22 of Psalm 103: “Praise the Lord, O my soul”. This is called “inclusio,” which means to surround an entire psalm with a single word/phrase. Psalm 103 tells us that it is God’s will for us to live daily praising the Lord God, and gives us a reason and motivation for why we should praise the Lord God.
This morning we will concentrate on verses 17-22. As to why we praise God, verse 17 says, “The mercies of the Lord are upon those who fear him throughout the world, and his works of grace are upon his children’s children. The psalmist praises God as Lord because God’s mercy and His grace are upon those who fear Him and their children. Those who do not fear God are those who do not acknowledge God’s existence and see themselves as the masters and protagonists of their own lives.
In verse 18, it says that those who fear the Lord are “those who keep the covenant of the Lord” and “those who take God’s commands to heart”. A “covenant-keeper of the Lord” is a person who does his/her best to keep and fulfill the promises he/she has made to God. What is the covenant God has made with us? It is that He will protect and guide us to eternal blessings, and that we will trust Him, faithfully do His will, and walk daily with constant sincerity.
From our human side, it sounds like we should always rejoice in the fact that God loves us and love Him with joy and gratitude, which is “praising the Lord with all our souls. To simply live in gratitude for God’s love and mercy, and to continue to receive them, is to praise God, to testify, and to confess.
“Fear the Lord God,” verse 19, means to rejoice that God has sovereignty over all things, that we are alive in His sovereignty and in His hands, and to trust in the sovereignty of a merciful and gracious God. God is sovereign over our lives. Verse 8 says, “He is merciful, gracious, patient, and great in mercy. Isn’t “fear” to be thankful to this God? Because we do not fear God and constantly seek our own sovereignty, wars never end.
Now, verse 20 says, “Praise the Lord, you who listen to His spoken voice and accomplish His Word”. This sounds to be teaching us that listening to the voice of our Savior Jesus Christ and living according to His Word, as I mentioned earlier, is directly connected to praising the Lord God and Jesus. When we obey the words of the Lord Jesus and live according to His Word, we will be given new strength day by day, and we will be made “mighty men of valor,” powerful servants rich in love and compassion, serving God and Jesus and being used to serve those who are placed around us.
Verse 21 says, “Praise the Lord, all ye hosts of the Lord, which serve Him and do His will.” What is important here is that praising the Lord, serving God, and fulfilling His will are not the work of one person, but “the work of all the hosts of the Lord,” or what we call today “the work of the church”. It is important to praise the Lord alone, but God’s will is for us to gather in the chapel or in our homes, as we did this morning, to offer praise and worship together, and to confess the Lord Jesus as the Savior together as the work of the Church, which is God’s will and desire for His Church.
However, we still believe that the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, generosity, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and temperance, which are the fruit of the combination of faith given to each of us by God and the power of the Holy Spirit, are also important. Without the deep and strong connection that each of us has with God in an intimate relationship with Him, the Church, the Body of Christ, cannot be built up.
Therefore, let us always remember what is written in verses 2 through 5, give thanks to the Lord and praise Him. “Remember nothing of the Lord’s provision, for he will forgive you all your sins and heal all your diseases. He forgives all your sins, heals all your diseases, and redeems your life from the grave. He will crown you with mercy and compassion, fill you with good things as long as you live, and renew you young as an eagle.”
Verse 22 says, “Praise the Lord, all that He has made. Wherever the Lord reigns.” This is an exhortation. Created by God’s handiwork, given life, forgiven of sin, and kept alive daily in the Lord’s hand and in the Lord’s grace, we are to “live praising the Lord”. In this new week, too, let us be encouraged by the words, “Praise the Lord, my soul; praise His holy name.