August 20, 2023 Sunday Worship Service

Call to Worship Isaiah 58:11
Hymn JBC # 80 Father, we love You
The Lord’s Prayer
Offering
Scripture Luke 3:23~38
Prayer
Sermon “The beginning of Jusus’ ministry”
https://youtu.be/srX5_klNX2s
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 230 On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross
Doxology JBC # 672
Benediction

In today's Bible passage that we’ve just read, the genealogy of Jesus Christ is recorded. It starts from Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus Christ, and goes back to Adam, the first man, and then to God.
The first chapter of Matthew's Gospel also contains a genealogy of Jesus Christ. However, the genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew begins with the words "the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham". And it begins with Abraham and ends with Jesus (in the order of the old age to the new age).
The genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew showed that Jesus Christ was a descendant of Abraham, whom the Jews revered as their great ancestor (said to be the father of their faith), and of the great King David.

However, the genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew also records that "David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife" (Matthew 1:6).
It refers to an event described in the Old Testament book of 2nd Samuel, chapter 11. David, who became king, had an affair with a beautiful woman named Bathsheba.
Bathsheba had a husband named Uriah. Despite this, David had relations with Bathsheba, and she conceived a son.
David recalled his soldier Uriah (Bathsheba's husband), who was on the battlefield, in an attempt to cover up the fact that he and Bathsheba had a relationship and that Batsheba had conceived his son.

David tried to get Uriah to return to his house (Bathsheba's place), but Uriah refused, saying that he alone could not go home to eat and drink or sleep with his wife when his master and his friends were fighting at war.
Eventually, David ordered Joab, the commander of the army, to "leave Uriah at the front line of the battle and retreat, leaving him there to die in battle. Uriah was killed in the battle (it would be still fair to say that Uriah was killed by David).
David then took Bathsheba as his wife. David even took the life of a man who had been a faithful soldier to hide his sin, and then took the beautiful woman who had been his wife as his own wife.

The first child born to Bathsheba died early. The next child born to Bathsheba and David was Solomon. (Solomon became king after David, had enormous wealth, and completed the temple in Jerusalem.)
The genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew does not say that "David sinned. However, the genealogy clearly conveys the fact that even the great King David sinned greatly as a man through the record that "David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife"
Into this human genealogy of sin, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who had no sin at all, was born (not through the relationship between the two man and woman, but through the Holy Spirit) as the son of Joseph and Mary.

Unlike the genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew, which begins with Abraham and is written in the order of new generations, the genealogy in Luke 3 begins with Jesus and goes back to the older generations.
Also, the next name after David is not Solomon, but Nathan, David's other son. There are some other parts that are different from the genealogical names in the Gospel of Matthew.
Various interpretations and explanations have been attempted to explain the difference, but there seems to be no clear answer.
Therefore, rather than trying to read into these genealogies strict historical facts (such as the exact enumeration of names), I think it is important that we first receive the main point that Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Lord, was indeed born into the history of the human world.

The first part of today's passage (verse 23) says, "Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry"
What is the significance of the age of 30? The third verse of the fourth chapter of the Book of ‘Numbers’ in the Old Testament says, "Those who can work in the tabernacle (the place where God appeared and spoke to Moses) are between the ages of 30 and 50”
　According to the custom of the time, a person had to be about 30 years old before he could do any work in the service of God. It may have been thought that the experience gaining from the accumulation of about that aging were necessary to serve God.
Jesus, too, was preparing himself for the time when he would eventually be able to do missionary work publicly, while learning the hardships, difficulties, sorrows, joys, and pleasures of living as a human being following the customs of the time, as well as through learning the work of his father Joseph (a carpenter).

Perhaps Jesus would have wanted to begin public missionary work sooner, if possible.
If he had started his missionary work earlier, from more younger age, he must have been able to tell many more people about the Kingdom of God, heal many more people of their illnesses, and save many more people from their sins.
However, I imagine that Jesus also spent some time (years) as a human being, learning and gaining life experience to prepare himself for the great mission ahead.
We, too, may need to take time to prepare, learn, and gain experience if we want to accomplish something.
Skills and experience are not things that can be acquired quickly. It is sometimes hard to keep a constant effort over a period of time. However, the experience and skills that are gained over such a long period of time will be useful in the future.

If you are a student or someone who have just started working, if you are preparing for something toward your future dreams and goals, or if you are in the process of acquiring the experience and skills necessary to achieve them, I hope that you will believe and hope that your diligent efforts will be rewarded.
Or you may be troubled that you do not understand the meaning or significance of what you are doing. However, I believe that you can trust that what you are doing now, in the place where you are placed, and faithfully performing the duties given to you, will never be in vain.
And another thing we can learn from the sentence "Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his ministry" is that "there is a time (timing) that God has prepared for us."
When “the time" comes, we will stand up with courage of faith. We are urged by God to do so by faith.
It may be a new decision of faith in God. It may also be a time to start something new, or to put into action what you have been preparing for.
When we are given the conviction, the prompting by faith, that "now is the time," we are able to stand up courageously.

If I may speak of my own experience, such promptings by faith were certainly given to me when I decided to leave my life as a company worker and go to seminary to become a pastor.
And that decision was not made by me alone. Supported by my own family and above all, my brothers and sisters in faith, the members of my church, I believe that God's will became the will of the entire church and they encouraged my heart.
In terms of age, I was exactly 40 years old at the time. (By the way, according to the Old Covenant rule of "from 30 to 50," I should have retired from ministry by now!)
There were times when I wished I had made my decision a little earlier, but I still believe it was the best timing God had in store for me.
We may never fully know what God's will is or when God's timing is.
Even so, in order to know God's will as much as possible, to know God's appointed time, and to be able to make important decisions accordingly, we would want to cherish our life of faith in the church, where we pray together (with open hearts), read and share the Words together.
　At the age of 30, Jesus began his public ministry. It was a big decision for Jesus, and one that required a lot of courage.

　　But Jesus was the Son of God. As a human being, Joseph was his father, and from Joseph, too, Jesus must have learned many things (including his work and skills as a carpenter). In this way, Jesus lived as we do.
　But Jesus was the Son of God. This means that Jesus was equal to God. The genealogy in today's passage ends with the sentence, "～the son of Adam, the son of God."
This last point, "the son of God (“reaching to God” in the Japanese version)" also differs significantly from the genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew.
This genealogy in the Gospel of Luke is a testimony that Jesus is connected to human history, that He was born as a man and lived as a man, and that He is the Son of God and the One born with a special mission.
After living, learning, and experiencing life's many things and following the customs of his time, Jesus began his public ministry of service to God at the age of about 30 years old.
Jesus made that big and decisive decision (to begin public evangelism) as the Son of God, as receiving both God's love and love from others (family members).
Sometimes we, too, have to make important (and sometimes difficult) decisions in our own lives.

At such times, we can receive great support for the decisions we make by believing in God, by being connected to God, and by being associated with the Church, the temple of God, the body of Jesus Christ.
Because we are human, there are times when we cannot know or follow God's will and we make mistakes. Therefore, we need to have an attitude of repentance, always turning to God.
But at the same time, in our daily lives and in our decisions that we make daily, there is Jesus Christ, God become man, who is now with us as spirit. Therefore, we can be rest assured.
Let us live in true peace with Jesus Christ. Let us also serve as believers in the mission of the Kingdom of God and the work of the Gospel ministry that Jesus started and continues to do.