Sunday Worship Service June 18, 2023

Call to Worship Hebrews 11:8
Hymn # 55 Father we praise Thee, now the night is over
The Lord’s Prayer
Offering
Scripture Exodus 1:1~14
Prayer
Sermon “Jacob’s Descendants”
https://youtu.be/nLzBfM6QVzM
Prayer
Hymn # 134 Sing them over again to me
Doxology # 676
Benediction


The Bible passage we have been given today is from the start of Exodus. From now we are going to read together and listen to God’s message from this ‘Exodus’ at a pace of about once per month.
Until now we have been going through ‘Genesis’ one chapter at a time, and listening to God’s message. Genesis begins with the verse,
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The more read these words and think about them, the more we realize how deep their meaning is and how overwhelming a message they hold.

I once heard a pastor say that he was shocked when he had opened the Bible for the first time and found that the Bible started with “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
From the start the Bible declares that God is the creator of the heavens and the earth (everything in the world we live in). In other words, God started everything.
God created this world and outer space in all of its vastness and complexity, as well as all of the creatures (plants and animals) with all of their intricate features and functions. He designed them all.

Even people who do not believe in any particular religion will often admit that behind the world and outer space lies such a greater existence (the greatest existence).
However, the God of the Bible, the creator of all things, still tries to have personal relationships with us, the Bible says so.
The God of the Bible lets Himself be known to us, loves us, and invites us to love and trust Him.
In the Old Testament, especially in the stories of Genesis and Exodus, we can see the Lord God directly speaking to and leading His people.

　God told Abraham (formerly Abram) “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you,” and he left his home country when he was 75 years old.
　I do not think it is common for us to actually hear God’s voice in this manner now. However, through prayer and reading His word, as well as through the work of God’s Holy Spirit, we can hear God’s voice and know His heart.
When we gather like this in worship, the pastor who is preaching is always preparing the message by praying that we can hear God’s voice which we have to hear in this time. I would greatly appreciate it if you all could also pray for this.
I also hope that we can receive courage and hope from God’s word (the words of the Bible), so that we can be like Abraham, who at 75 years old decided to listen to God’s voice and left his homeland with no direction as to where he should go.
Genesis is the story of how God created the heavens and the earth, as well as the stories of the developments of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph’s families. Genesis ends with the death of Jacob’s son, Joseph.

The story that follows ‘Genesis’ is ‘Exodus’. In chapter 1 verse 1 it is written as follows.
1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:

At the end of Genesis, Jacob’s family moves to live in Egypt. One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, was resented by his brothers (Joseph was specially doted (favored) upon by his father, Jacob), who sold him into slavery in Egypt.
Joseph became successful in Egypt, then Jacob and his sons moved to Egypt due to a famine that happened at the time.
Pharaoh (the Egyptian King) gave Joseph’s father, Jacob, and his sons (Joseph’s brothers) permission to live in the best land in Egypt (Genesis 47:6).
The reason Pharaoh gave Jacob’s family permission to live in the best land in Egypt was due to Pharaoh’s generosity and maybe also because Joseph had earned Pharaoh’s trust as his highest official.
Even though the Egyptians and Israelites were different people, through exchanging words and spending time together, they may have been able to understand each other and build bonds of trust.
However, when Jacob’s sons, Joseph’s family, and the generation of all those who first moved to Egypt died, and new generation took over.

In verse 7 of today’s passage, we see that the Israelites had many children and grew vastly in number and power.
　That the Israelites increased in number so much was a realization of what God had declared before too. God told Abraham, “Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them… So shall your offspring be,” (Genesis 15:5)
To these people themselves, giving birth to a new generation and getting strong in number in a new country they have moved was a good thing.

However, their growth in number was a thing of concern and fear to the new king of Egypt, a ruler who did not know about Joseph.
In verses 9-10, the king of Egypt says the following.
“the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
The idea that the Israelites had grown too numerous and had therefore become a threat, as well as the idea that if war broke out, they would become Egypt’s enemies were not things that actually occurred. These were just the imaginations of a single king.
I believe that the reason the king of Egypt imagined this (the reason he believed Israel was a threat) was because he lacked personal connection and dialogue with them.
Even if we call them “the Israelites (people),” they are all different individuals. There are those who are strong and those who are not.

However, rather than thinking of them as individuals, the king of Egypt saw them as “the Israelites” in his head, and therefore began to see them as a threat.
By the way of using the word “the Israelites”, he no longer saw individual existences, and instead placed labels on groups of people and arbitrarily decided the country’s or people’s “image”.
It is easy to fall into saying things like “Japanese people are like this” or “Koreans are like that.” Certainly, to some extent general observations or national characters would exist, but they are not absolute.
These things change depending on how you look at things, think about things, or even just moment by moment. Because we are all different, we must be careful about making broad generalizations about people based on region or country.
How does the Bible teach us to view people (other people)? If we look at the beginning of Genesis, it says, “So God created mankind in his own image,” (Genesis 1:27a).

The Bible says that we are created in God’s own image. If we believe the words of the Bible in faith, then we must view others in this way.
If we look at what it means to be made in God’s image, it is something we cannot fully comprehend, but at the very least, we can understand that they are people that God loves and has a plan for. We are expected to see others as such people.
We are individuals who were created in the image of God and blessed by Him.
In the New Testament age this God was born into the world as Jesus Christ. Jesus gave his whole being, his very life in exchange for giving us true life.

Now we are urged to confirm our very existence and worth, as well as the existence and worth of others by looking at them through the cross of Jesus Christ and to decide to believe in it.
　When we look at ourselves and others through Jesus Christ, we can see that we are all loved and guided by God, regardless of what country or region we are from or what people we belong to.
I hope that through Christ, with Christ as our center, we can accept one another and become a community of faith together.
Returning to today’s Bible passage, the Egyptians forced the Israelites into slavery and hard labor and oppressed them (verse 11). “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites,” (verse 12).
Against God’s will, no matter how much the Egyptians tried to oppress the Israelites, they could not suppress the Israelites growth.
In our walk of faith, if we ask God, trust in God, offer him our best decisively, and if it is in God’s will, then there is nothing in this world that can break us or weaken us.
Even if we need to suffer now, there is nothing that can break the love of Jesus Christ that God gave us nor is there any power in this world that can disrupt God’s plan.
This is the hope and God’s love we receive through faith. We are protected and guided in God’s strong hand.
Through Jesus Christ we are each given faith in God. I hope that we can be thankfully reminded of this and walk each day in faith this week.