「神による救いの約束を果たすための道」 三月第四主日礼拝 宣教 2025年3月23日
イザヤ書 65章17〜25節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. Guests, welcome to Okubo Church worship service. Welcome back, church members. We also appreciate those of you who attend our worship services online. We are thankful to be able to offer praise and worship together with you this morning.
Yesterday was a very warm day, so I did a little work in the church garden. I observed the plants in the church and was excited to see many new shoots on the hydrangea, lilac, and mukuge. My favorite camellia is also blooming with beautiful pink flowers, which I hope you will see on your way home. I hope the weather will continue to warm up and the cherry blossoms will bloom all over the town, delighting our eyes and hearts.
Now that this year’s Lent began on March 5, this month we are listening from the New Testament and the Old Testament, in no particular order, to what mission Jesus received from God and for what purpose he walked the path of the cross. For those of you who are listening for the first time, let me briefly tell you that we first heard from John 1 that Jesus walked the road to the cross to offer His life as an atoning offering to God, the Lamb.
Next, from Colossians 1, we heard that Jesus stood between God and us in our sins, and that He walked the road to the cross and gave His life on the cross in order to provide reconciliation. Last week, through Psalm 51 in the Old Testament, we heard that Jesus went on the road to the cross to create a clean heart in our hearts.
This morning, we hope to hear from Isaiah 65 that, through the connection of the word “creation,” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, went to the cross to fulfill God the Father’s promise of salvation and blessing to the Jews and Gentiles.
But first, I would like to give a short background on the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 1:2 says, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.” And in chapter 1, verse 4, we read, “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity,offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.”
This Isaiah is a book of prophecy in which God promises to have mercy on those who have disobeyed Him, belittled Him, and abandoned Him, and yet God still promises to have mercy on them, to provide salvation, and to send the Messiah, the Savior, to this earth. And all of God’s promises in Isaiah will be fulfilled through Jesus Christ.
The book of Isaiah tells us that most of the Israelites were disobedient to God, and that God would indeed judge such a people. However, there are certainly people among them who are faithful to God, and God promises to prolong their lives and bring them into blessing. God also promises that He will invite the Gentiles into salvation because the Israelites are stubborn in heart and do not turn to Him in repentance.
To fulfill that promise of salvation, God sent Jesus Christ to earth to complete the work of salvation by raising Him from the dead and resurrecting Him, who gave His life on the cross to pay the price for our sins, whether Jew or Gentile. We need to consider why this work of salvation was necessary, and the answer is only found in the Bible.
In the New Testament, Hebrews 12:14 reads. “Pursue peace with all men and a holy life. For apart from a holy life no one can see the Lord God”. “No one can see the Lord God apart from a holy life”. No one can stand before a holy God while covered with sin or stained by sin. We cannot stand before God unless our sins are washed away and we are made holy by the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, shed on the cross.
Therefore, in order to make us holy before God, Jesus willingly went to the cross and gave His life for us on the cross. We have no power to cleanse ourselves. Only Jesus’ blood cleanses us from sin and makes us holy before God.
Returning to the book of Isaiah, as you read chapter 65, you will notice that in the New Common Testament, God calls those who continue to disobey Him “you/お前たち/omaetachi” and those who faithfully follow Him “my servants,” whereas in the colloquial version, the word “you” is translated with a softer expression. God calls those who continue to disobey Him “you/omaetachi”. I believe that the word “you” was translated in rough language to make people aware of how serious a sin it is to continue to disobey God, but which would you prefer, to continue to disobey God and be called “you・お前” or to obey God and be called “His servants”?
I would like to read verses 12-14 for our reference. “12 I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter, because, when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in.” 13 Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame; 14 behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit.”
Which way of life will we choose, “you/omaetachi” as God calls you or “my servants”? What will you do? We can choose according to our own will. The decision is ours to make. But still, the God of love and mercy extends his saving hand and invites us to “live in my blessing and in love”.
Before each of us makes this decision, there is something to remember. You can brush off the hand of salvation offered by God, that is, the hand of Jesus Christ, and live as you please. But that is the way “you” live in God’s eyes. You will continue to carry the burden of your past, or to put it another way, you will continue to carry the burden of your old self, and you will continue to live on your own, struggling and fighting on your own in the future.
Surely there is a way to live that way. But God did not create you, give you life, and keep you alive so far to live in such pain, suffering, and darkness. You were created to live in God’s love, and God sent Jesus Christ to earth to live in His love and mercy. And to show us how much God loves us, Jesus went to the cross, gave His life on the cross, and washed us clean of our sins by His blood.
Chapter 65, verse 17 says, “Behold, I will create a new heaven and a new earth. And there shall no man remember the things that were in the beginning.” The God of love is creating a new heaven and a new earth through Jesus Christ. Everything will be new. It is also a declaration that from the beginning, that is, from the old, from the suffering of the past, from the fear of sin and death, we will be freed and made alive in God’s blessing.
In verse 18, God says, “Behold, I will create Jerusalem, that is, those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, to be joyful and to leap for joy every day.” In verse 19, God says, “I will make Jerusalem a joy and my people a delight. No voice that cries or shouts shall sound in it again. and in the following verse 20, the blessing is promised of being made alive to eternal life.
In verses 21-23 we are promised that we will be blessed in real life as well, and at the end of verse 23 we are promised that not only those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ as their Savior, but also “their descendants shall be of the family of those blessed by the Lord.” This is a promise that God has promised to bless us. To fulfill God’s promise to bless us, to reconcile us to God, to wash us clean of our sins and bring us into God’s presence, Jesus went to the cross.
He shows us the way to the true peace that God gives us and invites us to live in that peace, as verse 25 says, “The wolf and the lamb graze together, the lion eats straw like the ox, the serpent eats dust, and nowhere on my holy mountain does it harm or destroy”. God promises to bless us. God promises to bless us, and he keeps his promise. All we need to do is to receive that blessing first, and then to make a promise to God. What promises can we make to God in response to His love?
First, let’s face God one-on-one, listen God’s words from the Bible, and then pray and ask God in Jesus’ name. “God, I seek Your love. Help and guide me daily so that I may believe in and follow Jesus as my Savior”. I hope, wish and pray God will answer your prayer.