Sunday Worship Service (1st Advent) Dec. 3, 2023

Call to Worship Jude 1:21
Lighting of the Advent Candle ~ Prayer
Hymn JBC # 148 Come, Thou long-expected Jesus
Prayer Time
The Lord’s Prayer
Offering
Scripture Psalm 27:11~14
Prayer
Sermon “Wait for the Lord”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 492 My hope is built on nothing less
Doxology JBC # 671
Benediction


　Today marks the beginning of the Advent season in the Christian church.
　Advent (taikosetsu in Japanese) refers to the period of approximately 4 weeks leading up to Christmas (3 weeks for this year, as Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday), where we think on Jesus Christ’s birth, feel thankfulness and wait with great anticipation for the birth of Christ.
　Jesus Christ was born approximately 2020 years ago in the land of Israel /Judea. Jesus spread the good news of God’s kingdom to people throughout the land of his birth.
　　Over time many people believed Jesus’s teaching and chose to follow Jesus. It could be said that this changed the way these people lived.
　Believing in Jesus and following Him changes the way we live our lives.

　This is because when we believe in Jesus and follow Him, we surrender control of our lives and the way we live to Him (Jesus Christ).
　That is why, when we believe in Jesus Christ and follow Him, our way of living changes from how we lived before (with ourselves as leaders of our own lives) to living with Christ who is God as the leader of our lives.
　When I came to believe in Jesus Christ as my own Lord and Savior, and made the choice to live as a Christian, of course it is not as though I had a perfect understanding of faith and the Bible.
　　Even so, I understood that believing in Christ and becoming a Christian meant that I would no longer be at the center of my own life, that something sure and certain (that is, the unchanging God) would take the place at my center and guide my life.
　Our thoughts and feelings (perhaps even our beliefs) can change easily and at any time, influenced by the environment and people we are surrounded by.
　With our changeable selves at the center of our lives, as long as this is our foundation, we cannot lead (spiritually) stable, peaceful lives.

However if we place God at the center of our lives, welcome Him and follow Him, we can receive the unshakeable peace of God into our lives. This is because God is an unchanging God.
　Changing from a self-centered life to a God-centered life, that is believing in Christ and walking in His ways.
When we change from a self-centered life to a God and Christ-centered life, we are always seeking to know God’s heart through prayer.
As believers, we believe that God knows what is best for us because he is God, and so we seek to know what is in God’s heart by praying.

For today’s service, as the first Sunday of Advent, I chose as today’s passage Psalm 27 verses 11~14. Psalm 27 is a prayer by David.
David was the King of Israel, but before becoming King and even after becoming King, he was faced with many trials.
As a human, there were times when David made wrong choices, mistakes, and walked down the wrong path. Just like all of us, David was certainly not perfect, and made mistakes.
Surely it was through these experiences that David came to know that the path God directed him to was the right one, that it was the path he should walk both as a King and as a believer.

　The first half of the first verse (verse 11) in today's passage says the following.
　Teach me your way, Lord;
lead me in a straight path
　
There are many other Psalms in which David prays in this same way, to “teach me your way, Lord”.
King David came to be a respected historical figure, revered among the people of Israel. Even among Christians, David is an important figure, a believer that we can learn a lot from in terms of faith.
Even David, revered as a great King and a great believer, prayed to God saying “teach me your way, Lord.”
This is because David believed that the path God would show him would be the best path for him.

Let us also emulate David, becoming people who believe that the path God shows us is the best path for us.
And as we believe this, let us also become people who pray fervently to God asking for Him to “teach me your way”.
By praying in this way again and again, and through the experience of faith that shows us God’s way, we can be assured that God is hearing our prayers.
“A straight path” is the right path before God. For us to walk down the right path before God, God needs to show us that path Himself.
Since God is the one who knows what is right and what is good, we cannot decide for ourselves what is truly right without God’s guidance

　Even if we do things that we think are right for ourselves, we can end up hurting others and having unintended consequences. There are sins we commit even when we don’t mean to.
Because of this, knowing that we are imperfect, that we are always capable of committing sin, we must humbly come to God and pray for Him to “teach me your way, lead me to your path.”

We pray this way on our own, but as a church that is our family in the faith, let us also unite our hearts and pray this way together.
Shall we not pray together, saying “Teach me your way, Lord; lead me in a straight path”?
Believing in our Lord God, and as our assurance grows that the Lord hears our prayers, we come to have hope through faith.
Since God who is Lord hears our prayers, there is nothing more powerful.
Because of this, we are given hope through faith in God. In verse 13, it says the following:

13 I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.

The hope of faith that comes from God is the hope that we will see the goodness of the Lord (Japanese translation = grace of God) in this earth that we live on.
This is the assurance of hope that in this world that God has created, we would see God’s glory and the good things God has given us, that we would understand this and come to live with hope.
Without faith in God, when we focus on ourselves and look at the society and world around us, there can only be a growing dissatisfaction that the world is not what we think it should be.
　However if we look at the world around us through the eyes of the faith in hope that comes from God, we are able to recognize how many are the blessings of God.

　Since the Lord is great and gives us good things, I want us to become people who would never reject the good things God gives us out of self-centered stubbornness.
With the hope of our faith, let us rejoice in the goodness of God that overflows in this land that we live on.
Let me read verse 11 again. “Teach me your way, Lord; lead me in a straight path”

　A long time ago when the faithful David made this prayer, the Lord God answered. Perhaps even David himself couldn’t have imagined how wonderfully God would answer his prayer.
God gifted the world with His Son Jesus Christ, to show all of us our path, the way of life and truth. In this way, the Lord has answered David’s prayer.
Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Just as in David’s prayer, God has clearly shown us His way, the way of truth. He has shown us that the way of the Son of God Jesus Christ is the only true path.
　In following Christ, we must walk the path Christ showed us. Christ is the only right path.
Let us walk that path, moving towards the straight, right path that the One who knows what is best for us leads us to through Jesus Christ.　

Let me read out verse 14, the last verse of today’s passage.
14 Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.

“Wait for the Lord” ~ I took these words as the title of today’s message. With now being Advent, we wait for the Lord with new thoughts and expectations.
Waiting for the Lord means renewing our faith daily, repenting of our self-centered hearts and resolving to change to living God-centered lives.
It is the determination to remove ourselves from our place at the center of our lives, and to welcome Jesus into our hearts.
When we pray this way from our hearts, the Lord will always come to us, and live with us in our hearts.
Let us join our hearts together and pray that Jesus will always dwell in our hearts.
Let us also pray that as Jesus dwells in our hearts, that we would become people who walk the path that Jesus Christ shows us.
Let us spend this Advent season being led by the Lord daily, walking the path of faith and hope that we have in Christ.