「何をするにも、主イエスに対してするように」一月第四主日礼拝 宣教 2026年1月25日
コロサイの信徒への手紙 Colossians 3章23〜24節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. I am thankful we can worship together this morning. These very cold days continue. Let us remember and pray for those living from Hokkaido to the Japan Sea side, who are enduring great hardship due to heavy snow. Today marks the start of Cooperative Mission Week, which runs through February 1st. Among the churches affiliated with the Japan Baptist Convention, there are 15 churches in Hokkaido and 9 churches stretching from Aomori in Tohoku on the Sea of Japan coast to Matsue in San’in. Simply attending worship this morning must be a significantly difficult for them. Let us pray for the protection of all these churches. Prayer is the first step in cooperative mission.
Now, I ask your forgiveness as what I am about to share is jumping the gun, but yesterday evening we held a preparatory meeting for the gathering titled “Worship Attendees’ Meeting” scheduled for next month on February 15th. We are planning this meeting not only for church members but also for those attending Okubo Church’s worship services, so we can think together about the future of Okubo Church. A formal invitation will be sent out next week on February 1st. I sincerely hope to have a frank and earnest discussion with everyone who attends Okubo Church’s worship services about the church’s future five and ten years from now.
Last July, our Okubo Church celebrated its 60th anniversary. However, your pastor feels a sense of crisis about whether we will be able to offer thanksgiving worship to God for our 65th anniversary in five years and our 70th anniversary in ten years. I want to share this sense of crisis with you. Some of you may think, “This is hopeless. This pastor lacks faith. Since it’s a church of Christ, God will surely protect it. Worrying is just a sign of unbelief.” However, many churches that should be the body of Christ are rapidly aging and declining. Many churches now hold worship services with fewer than five people each week, with total offerings under 2 million yen or even under 1 million yen. Your pastor is someone who has witnessed multiple churches merging into one, or dissolving and disappearing, leaving the site where the church once stood as vacant land.
However, if we change our perspective, crisis becomes opportunity. If we now unite our hearts and work together, God will surely protect and guide us, help us grow, and enable us to become a church that bears abundant fruit pleasing to God—a church that serves this land. Now is the time for all of us who worship at Okubo Church and receive its blessings to consider the church’s future together, pool our wisdom, and work to strengthen the church’s structure.
Please don’t say such sad things as, “It doesn’t concern me. It isn’t my problem. I can’t even see three or four years ahead.” Listen to the words of Jesus. Think more about your neighbor than yourself. There are still many people in Japan who need forgiveness of sin, salvation of their souls, and God’s love. We pray that through this church, people will continue to encounter Jesus, receive God’s love, and live by it for the next 10, 20, 30 years. We earnestly ask for your cooperation. Please join us for the worship service and the meeting after lunch on February 15th.
Now, this morning, let us listen together to God’s and Jesus’ desire and will for us, as expressed in Colossians 3:23—“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters”—and the latter part of verse 24—“since you serve the Lord Christ.” What these two words from the Apostle Paul have in common is this: no matter what happens, keep your focus on Jesus. Keep your attention fixed on Him.
In our daily lives, we interact with many different people. Among these interactions, we sometimes build blessed, wonderful relationships, while other times we encounter relationships that just don’t work out no matter what we do, becoming strained and complicated. This happens in schools and workplaces, within friendships and families. It occurs among neighbors and in communities, and it might even happen within churches. It’s a rejection reaction, an allergic response: believing the problem lies with the other person, not oneself; seeing oneself as the victim and the other as the perpetrator; developing aversion; and closing one’s heart, refusing to engage with that person.
Have you ever had that kind of experience? People have different personalities and backgrounds. How many people have you crossed paths with whose outlooks and values differ from your own? We have an almost instinctive tendency to avoid those with different values. It’s troublesome to engage with them. We perceive it as a burden on our minds to worry or suffer, and a waste of time.
However, in the various situations we encounter in daily life, we inevitably interact with such people, and this will likely continue. So what should we do? Should we become hermits? After all, the world contains both good people and those who seem inconvenient or disadvantageous to us. Therefore, we avoid associating with such people. We keep interactions to the bare minimum. We refuse to live alongside them. But is it truly okay to perceive situations as inherently disadvantageous to ourselves? Is living this way truly God’s will?
When such relationships aren’t working well, there’s something missing. It’s not something lacking in the other person, but something lacking in us. That something is Jesus Christ. We focus only on the person we don’t get along with, failing to see them through the lens of Jesus Christ. Even I, who says this, am a weak person. I often focus only on the other person, failing to see them through the eyes of Jesus. I have this weakness of seeing the person before me as inconvenient.
Where should I take this weakness? Where can I find peace? The answer is Jesus Christ. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) Jesus always invites us. Going to Jesus means focusing only on Him. We become so captivated by Jesus that we forget the faces of those with whom we have strained relationships. We focus on Jesus. Through this Jesus, our hearts are tended to, filled with love, strengthened, and made gentle. Jesus’ words transform and fortify our hearts. Jesus blesses us with a heart to love, a heart to “serve” God and people like Jesus did, a “servant’s heart.”
To live with this Jesus, what we need first is to believe in Him as our Savior. It means believing in Jesus, dying with Him to the sins of this world, and living with Him in the life of resurrection. When we do this, the Holy Spirit constantly guards our hearts. This is what the Apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Colossae, encouraging their faith. Last week’s message encouraged us: “Put off the old self with its practices, and put on the new self, created in God’s image, and be renewed day by day.”
Paul encourages us, saying, “Since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above.” These “things above” refer to what belongs to God in His kingdom—the eternal life God grants us. In chapter 3, verse 24, Paul writes, “You know that you will receive the inheritance from the Lord as your reward.” When we hear the word “reward,” we tend to think of something returned as the result of our own efforts or deeds. But that is not the case. Eternal life is not something we receive based on our own striving; it is a gift of grace given through God’s unilateral love, mercy, and kindness. To be certain of this, to rejoice in it, and to offer thanksgiving in advance is faith itself—and it is what pleases God’s heart.
Colossians 3:12-16 says, “Since you have been chosen by God to be holy and to be loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with one another and forgive each other if anyone has a grievance against another. and forgive one another freely, just as the Lord has forgiven you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” In verse 17, it says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Whatever you say or do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. This is the encouragement we first receive within the church, the body of Christ. And we are further encouraged to live this way in all our relationships in the world where we live. Whether at home, at work, or in every circumstance, as verse 23 of chapter 3 this morning says: “Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly, as working for the Lord Jesus, not for human approval.” This is the encouragement we have.
It is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who give us this encouragement and help us live in this way. With daily help from the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, let us serve others with love and patience, just as Jesus loved us. Let us pray together with one heart that our church may become such a place.