May 28, 2023 Sunday Worship Service (Pentecost)

Call to Worship Proverb 1:23
Hymn JBC # 260 Set my soul afire, Lord
The Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Supper
Offering
Scripture Acts 13:42~52
Prayer
Sermon “Filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit”
https://youtu.be/lSmRaAVsCxU
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 363 Lord of the Church, we pray for our renewing
Doxology JBC # 679
Benediction


With what thoughts and desires do we gather at church meetings (worship services)? I think it depends on whether we are Christians who confess Christ as Lord or not.
Even among Christians, if we have a closer look into the thoughts and desires of their hearts, they will all be different.
However, there is a common purpose for which we gather at the Christian church.

　The purpose for which we gather in church is worship itself. To worship the Lord God (the God of Jesus Christ) - that is the first (and it can be said that is the whole) purpose of our gathering in the church.
Worshiping the one and only God while hearing His Word, the Word of the Bible - that is the purpose of us gathering in the church, and worshipping God in this way is the very purpose of our lives too.
The Bible tells us that human beings (and all things on earth) are created by God.
We human beings that are created by God can live the happiest, most fulfilling, and most blessed lives only when we live in a relationship with God our Creator, the eternal God.

The following message is written in ‘Ecclesiastes’ 3:1 of the Old Testament:
　He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart;

　Nothing created is eternal. But the Bible says that God created us so that we, who are limited and flawed, can have a heart that longs for eternity.
Our hearts and thoughts wander in search of something eternal. We seek something eternal that will completely satisfy us, something that will fill our thirsty and empty hearts.
That eternity that we seek has been clearly revealed and given to us in the form of a person, that person is Jesus Christ.

Now Jesus Christ might not be visible, but He is still with us through the Word of Scripture and by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God.
The Word of the Bible tells us that we are welcomed and called into God's eternity and are given eternal life.

Jesus Christ said the following:
　“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24)

Jesus promises (even guarantees) that those who hear His words and believe in the One who sent Him into the world (God the Father) will have eternal life and have passed from death to life without judgment (without perishing).
The eternal God is with us ~ to receive the Word of the God, to praise and worship Him is the purpose of us gathering at church (or even the purpose of our lives).
In Christian churches everywhere, today is the Pentecost service, which commemorates the event known as Pentecost.
In Christianity we believe in the God of Trinity. I think even non-Christians have heard of the Trinity.

The doctrine (teaching) of the Trinity can be very difficult to understand. It is a doctrine that even Christians and even pastors (at least for me) cannot fully understand.
But the Trinity is very important, a fundamental teaching of the Christian faith.
The God that the Bible tells us about is God the Father, the Maker and Creator of the world. And there is also Jesus Christ, God the Son, who came to earth as a human being and died on the cross to forgive our sins.
And then there is also God the Holy Spirit, who comes into our hearts, dwells in it, and convicts us of God's presence and power, even until now.

It is not that there are three separate Gods. All three, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, are all the same one (and only) God. Though it is difficult to explain it logically and theoretically, the God of Trinity is the God the Bible tells us of.
　Just as God the Father and Jesus Christ are not visible to us today, the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit, does not physically and directly introduce Himself as the Holy Spirit.
However, if we can believe in Christ as our Lord, and if we can believe that "God is indeed with us, protecting and guiding us" through the words of the Bible that are spoken and shared as we gather in church, then it is a proof that the Holy Spirit is with us.

And the God revealed through Jesus Christ is the God who gave all of Himself for us and loved us.
Therefore, I believe that if we can gather in a church and if believers there can love one another (cherish and honor one another) in the love of God, it is unmistakable evidence of the Holy Spirit's presence with us.
To put it the other way around, we could also say that if there is no love, there is no Holy Spirit there.
The Holy Spirit will surely be given to us in abundance if we humbly ask for it. We want the Holy Spirit to work in abundance, and we want to be a church that is overflowing with love.

Today's Bible passage is from ‘Acts’chapter 13 of the New Testament. The book of Acts describes how Jesus Christ died, resurrected, ascended to heaven, and how His disciples who received the Holy Spirit preached Jesus’ teachings and the gospel throughout the world.
Christianity was born out of Judaism. And the most significant change from Judaism to Christianity was the spread of the faith beyond the Jewish people to many foreigners (Gentiles).
Until then, it was believed that "God's salvation was given only to the Jews" and that "God specially chose only the Jews."

However, God sent Jesus Christ to the world and a revolutionary teaching that "all who believe in Christ will be saved, regardless of nationality, status, or gender" are now widely spread beyond the borders of the Jewish world.
The start of "world evangelization" is due to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it can be said that for the Christian faith, the Holy Spirit has given people decisive guidance.
Today's passage is a scene of Paul and Barnabas, two evangelists from the early days of Christianity, evangelizing the people in the city of Antioch in the province of Pisidia (located in the present Turkey)!

Paul and Barnabas went into the synagogue on Sabbath. There Paul got up and began to tell a Bible story.
Paul began his narrative with the story of God's deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt (Exodus).
Paul also tells how the Israelites, going out of Egypt, entered the land of Canaan that God had promised them and established their own nation there.
Paul also told the story that King David was born and he ruled the Jewish nation. Up to that point, those stories must have been familiar to the Jews.
However, as times went by, Jesus Christ appeared, and he (Paul) talks about how Christ died on the cross, though without any sin, and how Christ was resurrected from death.

The passage before today's part, Acts 13:37-39, reads as follows.
37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.
38 “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.

Until then, it was believed that a person could be saved and justified (made righteous before God) by obeying God's law that was given to Moses, in other words, through one's deeds.
But, Paul told the people here that no one can be saved and be forgiven of their sins through his/her own actions (by one's own strength).
Paul taught a new teaching that people will be forgiven of their sins and be justified (made righteous) before God by believing in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again. It is a completely new way of salvation.
The people then asked Paul and Barnabas to " to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath" as they left the synagogue, according to verse 42, the beginning of today's passage.
Those who had heard of salvation from God and the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ asked Paul and his colleagues to tell "that story" again.

　I am sure that those who heard it understood that “this is the Word of God that they must always hear over and over again”.
So they did not say, "we would like you to tell us something new and different" but rather, "we would like you to tell us that story again. Because that story is the very Word of God, and the Word that we should always hear”.
　The same Word that we are ought to hear today is the very same Word as it is then, the Word of God.

The Word of God, the Word of Jesus Christ, is something that we must always listen to over and over again, all while being guided by the Holy Spirit.
I hope that we could all join together in prayer so that the Word of Christ may be shared abundantly through the Holy Spirit in order for us to be able to hear His Word correctly.
When we receive the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to move forward and live, even in the midst of trials and difficulties.
In fact, Paul and Barnabas were persecuted and driven out of the region because the Jews envied them as seen in today's passage.
Paul and Barnabas then had to go to another city.
But in the last verse of today's passage, verse 52, it is written:

52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
Paul and Barnabas may have left Antioch with a sense of bitterness, sadness, or frustration because of the opposition and persecution from the people.
But in the city where the Word of the God was preached, new believers in the Lord were surely born, and they were "filled with joy and the Holy Spirit", made anew as disciples of the Lord.
　It means that where the Word of God were spoken believers were born and people received new lives filled with joy as Christ followers and the Holy Spirit.
Our life of faith may often be difficult and we may face opposition from others. At such times, let us encourage one another and live our lives of faith together.
And if the Holy Spirit is at work there, even what we see as a setback, failure, or any painful experience will be filled with great joy and with the Holy Spirit.
We wish to walk the path of faith, earnestly seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to be filled with the Holy Spirit.