「神の望みとわたしの望み」 九月第三主日礼拝 宣教 2024年9月15日
詩編 Psalms 40編9〜12節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. I thank the Lord for the blessings we have received this morning and for the opportunity to praise and worship together with you all. How are you doing in these hot days that continue day after day? According to the forecast I heard yesterday, the heat will continue until October. Whenever you go out, I am sure you always use a parasol or walk in the shade of a building or under a tree, but please do not forget to drink water as well. I have been drinking a lot of chilled water and unsweetened tea this summer, but I have been overhydrating and my stomach has started to growl, so I need to be careful.
As I mentioned to the children in the Children’s Message, tomorrow is Keiro-no-hi, a day to show respect and gratitude to the seniors in our lives. Some of you encourage us by saying, “I am still young,” and indeed you are still very young. We thank God for the blessing of being able to worship with you. In particular, I have great respect for the senior members who have faithfully served this church for over half a century since the 1970s, and have laid the foundation of the church. As the church continues to move forward in its 59th year, I hope that we will continue to love God, love our neighbors, and love one another in this church: worship, evangelism, fellowship, and mutual support.
Sorry to make this personal, but my father was taken to heaven at the young age of 53, and if he were still alive and well, he would be 90 this November. I am very interested in what kind of grandpa he would have become, but my daughters and sons are more interested in their grandpa they never got to meet. I sometimes wonder what I would say to my aging father if he were right in front of me, and I think the only words I would say would be thank you. In the same way, I can only express my gratitude to the senior members of our church. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your love and prayers and service throughout all these years. I pray with all my heart that the Lord will protect you daily and that you will walk in His grace.
Let me ask you something out of the blue: do you have a good memory? Do you remember what I said in my message three months ago? I am not accusing you of anything. I am just asking. Please do not misunderstand me. Perhaps you remember vaguely that it was around the time when the series on “Seek God’s Will and Live” began? You may vaguely remember that. However, it is enough if you remember that much.
Then, who remembers the message of six months ago or one year ago? Many of you probably do not. If so, you can rest assured. The reason is that I also had no recollection of what part of the Bible I had delivered a year or a year and a half ago, and I had completely forgotten that I had delivered from today’s scripture, Psalm 40, in May of last year. I was kind of embarrassed to find out a few days ago when I was preparing the PowerPoint presentation for this morning’s worship service. I will be 58 years old next month and my memory is deteriorating considerably, so please pray for me.
Now, without further joking around, I would like to invite you to listen to what God has to say to us. The reason for this is that Psalm 40:7 tells us that God has opened our ears to hear His word. Why does God open our ears? The answer is simple. He wants us to always listen to His word and obey it, to be obedient to it, and to be obedient in faith. Honesty is important. God’s will is for us to listen to and obey His Word and to do His will in our lives.
However, we have our own words in our hearts, and our daily lives are filled with many words and people’s words, and many of us, at a very high rate, give priority to our own inner words and thoughts, or are overly influenced or swayed by the voices and words around us, We get confused, make errors in judgment even in simple things, and as a result, we suffer and suffer from going in a direction that we do not want to go. How about you?
Adam and Eve, the first people God created, sinned and had to live apart from God because they did not obey God’s word, and they had to suffer many hardships. They had to struggle in the darkness. But that was not God’s will, plan, or purpose in creating us and giving us this wonderful life and life. Therefore, in order to rescue us from the darkness of sin, God sent Jesus into the world as the Light of the World, the Savior, and the Word of God that we should always listen to and obey. He sent Jesus into the world as the Light of the World, the Savior, the Word of God whom we should always listen to and obey, so that no one who believes in His Son Jesus as Savior would perish but have eternal life.
In Romans 10:17, the Apostle Paul says, “For indeed, faith begins by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” As he says, “Unless this ear of ours, the ear of faith, is open, we cannot hear the will of God. In other words, even if we earnestly seek God’s will, if we cannot hear it, we cannot do it. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who opens our ears.
In Mark 7:31-37, a man who is deaf and unable to speak is healed by Jesus. Jesus put His fingers in the man’s ears, touched his tongue with spit, looked up to heaven, took a deep breath, and said to the man, “Ephatha” (open). The story goes on to say that his ears opened, his tongue became untangled, and he could speak clearly and freely. It is interesting to note that not only the healed man, but also those who saw the man healed completely, were told by Jesus not to tell anyone about it, yet the more they were told, the more they spread the word. Why is this? Because they were moved by seeing the amazing work of salvation, God’s love and mercy.
The challenge of our faith is to hold on to that feeling of salvation, always refreshing it. It means to abide in God’s love. If this inspiration of God’s love fades over time, we will gradually drift away from Jesus. To live apart from Jesus is not God’s will. Therefore, in order to continue to be moved by God’s grace and to walk daily filled with joy, we need to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, listen to His words, and listen to God’s will through Jesus. This is why church life is so important. Worshiping together, praying together, working for the Lord, and fellowship centered on Jesus, as we did this morning, are the secrets to maintaining the excitement of being loved by God.
In our daily lives, we often experience very painful things that cause us to suffer. Unexpected things can happen suddenly, and we can lose our sense of self and become confused. We may fall into a “pit or quagmire of destruction,” and struggle and suffer. David, the author of Psalm 40, also experienced total darkness, yet he continued to put his hope in God and trust in the Lord. God heard David’s cries and lifted him out of the “pit of destruction and the mire” and set his feet on the rock.
The same thing happens to us when we receive the faith that God gives us through Jesus, place our hope in Him alone, and listen to and obey His words. We receive great mercy and salvation, and out of the joy and excitement of that salvation, new praise wells up in our hearts and we receive true happiness as we praise the Lord. Therefore, as in verse 9, it is important that we first say, “My God, I desire to do Thy will,” and choose to live our lives giving priority to God’s will. David says in the latter part of verse 9 to “take to heart the instruction of God.” This is also important.
When God’s will (desire) and my heart (desire) are combined and made one, that is, when God’s desire for us and our desire for God coincide, what kind of chemical reaction occurs and blessings are added? How about David, who in verse 10 says, “I will preach the good news rightly in the great assembly, and I will not shut my lips”. I believe it is God’s will that we share His love where we live, as we witness His love in our worship, but also in our daily lives, as we are constantly offering worship to God.
Verse 11 is the same in content. It says, “Not keeping the works of grace in your hearts, but speaking your truth and salvation in the great assembly, not hiding your mercy and your truth.” It is God’s will that we boldly share how God has dealt with us through Jesus, how He has led us and kept us alive with grace, His truth, certainty of salvation, mercy and truth, without hesitation or fear, in our own words as we are led by the Holy Spirit. It is God’s will.
As we choose to live in this way, we believe that God’s blessings will be poured out on us even more, and we offer a prayer of thanksgiving. Let us pray and ask the Lord to give us unity between God’s desire and my desire, as we walk trusting in Him.