Sunday Worship Service April 28, 2024

Prelude
Call to Worship Romans 13:8
Hymn JBC # 10 We have come into His house
The Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Supper
Hymn JBC # 81 God, our Father, we adore Thee!
Offering
Scripture Exodus 20:1~17
Prayer
Sermon “Ten Commandments”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 523 Jesus loves me!
Doxology JBC # 671
Benediction
Postlude


　Today's Bible passage is from the Old Testament book of Exodus, chapter 20, "Ten Commandments”. In this passage, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, the most important and central of the biblical laws.
　A "commandment" can also be rephrased as a rule. Generally speaking, there are rules that are called laws in our society. There are also rules in sports, games, etc.
Thanks to rules, we can maintain order in our social lives. When we make promises to each other and live by them, it makes our life-together easier for each other.

　We follow the rules when playing a sport or game, so we can enjoy that sport or game fairly with each other.
　However, from time to time, there are people who are willing to break the rules to succeed, or to beat their opponents.
　To those who make money without obeying the law, if they are found to have broken the law, (in principle) they can be severely socially punished
Even in games, if you are found to be breaking the rules, you may be penalized in some way, and it would not be fun in the first place to play games breaking the rules.

So what is God's law for?
We would like to think about that by looking at the first part of the Ten Commandments.

1 And God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

At the beginning of the Ten Commandments, God reveals who He is. First, God says, "I am the Lord your God.”
God is the "Lord" in the sense that He is the Maker of the heavens and the earth. God is the "Lord" in the sense that He is the One who controls everything in our world, even our lives.
God is the "Lord" in the sense that He is the Sovereign Lord of all, the One who takes the initiative of everything.
And that One says “I am the Lord, your God”.
The Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth, says "I am your God" and "my God" for each of us.

The Lord God loves each of us infinitely and declares to Moses, to the Israelites, and now to each of us, "I am your God.”
Of course, God is also "our God.” None of us has a monopoly on God's love and grace.
But God wants to have a special personal relationship with each of us too.
I believe this is made clear by God's declaration, "I am the Lord your God.”
We who now hear God's voice through the Bible are sure that “He is my God” and also invited into an intimate relationship with Him.

In the Gospel of John in the New Testament, Thomas the apostle, who met the resurrected Jesus, says the following.
Thomas was not present when the resurrected Jesus first appeared to other disciples.
Thomas said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)
The resurrected Jesus appeared to that Thomas too. And Jesus told Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Then Thomas said, "My Lord and my God!" and he believed in the resurrected Jesus (John 20:28).

Struck by the infinite love and kindness of the risen Jesus toward him (Thomas), Thomas was able to confess, "This is indeed my Lord and my God.”
　In today's passage from Exodus, God first declares from his side, "I am the Lord your God.”
This means that even if we do not believe it, that God's words, "I am the Lord your God," are valid and true.
　God is my Lord and my God because He Himself has already decided so.
The only question is whether we will believe and obey that God's call or not.
We believe God's voice that says, "I am the Lord your God," and hope to live according to that voice.

And after (saying) "I am the Lord your God," God says, "who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
God is the Lord, "my God," who brought Israel (each one of them) out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, through his actual actions.
The God of the Bible is the one who takes action for the salvation of His people.

When we read the Bible and come into contact with God's Word, and when we live our daily lives through the words of the Bible, we can know that there is indeed a God who takes action on his own initiative.
In each of our lives of faith, we believers go through various difficult and challenging experiences, but each time we experience that we are saved and rescued by God.

I believe that all of us have had many difficult experiences since the spread of the COVID-19 virus and during the pandemic, like suffering from the infection itself, or being affected by various other COVID-related consequences.
Especially for a church that valued coming together as we did, the restrictions placed on our ability to gather forced us to make some very difficult decisions at times. (Even now, that's not over yet.)
But I believe that God's protection was surely there, and that God was with us in those times. In the midst of so much uncertainty, we human beings may make wrong judgments and make mistakes in many ways. No, I am sure we have (made mistakes).

But we can be confident that the Lord God, who led the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, is still with us and will deliver us out of any difficulty we face.

In the New Testament, Paul the evangelist describes his experience of God's deliverance from various difficulties as follows:

We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many. (2 Corinthians 1:8~10)

We believe and hope by faith that the God who delivered the Israelites from Egypt and Paul from various dangers of death will also deliver us today.
We also learn to "not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead," in the midst of our difficult experiences.

Today's verse 4 says, "Thou shalt not make for yourself an image in the form of anything," referring to the sin of "idolatry," in which we humans make gods out of things that are not gods, even images we have made ourselves.
　We are to believe in and worship the one true God who delivered the Israelites from Egypt and who through Jesus Christ has delivered us all from sin.
Let us always be humble and live our days of faith, worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ alone with all our heart, mind, spirit, and strength, so that we may never take our eyes off the One whom we are to worship, the God of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is not possible to cover all of the Ten Commandments in today's message. However, I would like to conclude by sharing our thoughts on the "Sabbath" commandment in verses 8 through 11.

Verses 8 through the first half of verse 10 are as follows:

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work,

As for this Sabbath commandment, its subject and center is also God. It is based on God's work of creation that we are to work six days of the week and not to do any work on the seventh day.
In verse 11, it is written “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Since God created the world in such a way, we are to follow God's work of creation and work for six days, and on the seventh day, as the Lord's Sabbath, we are to completely set apart for the Lord and stop what we are each doing (work).
Out of the Ten Commandments, I believe that this one about the Sabbath is the most difficult commandment to keep, especially for us living today.
In a world where it is valued to "do something (worthwhile) all the time", I think it is very difficult to completely doing nothing at all on one day of the week, to stop what we are doing and to give everything to the Lord only.

But as we live in such an increasingly busy world, where we are asked questions like, "What can you do?" and "How capable are you?”, we learn more about the importance of the Sabbath commandment and we come to know more the love of God through this commandment.
　That means that our value has nothing to do with “what we can do (what valuable or profitable things we can do)”.

Our value is that we were created by God, who created the world and is still has sovereign over it.
Our value lies in the fact that God's Son, Jesus Christ, laid down His life for us on the cross.
Our joy in life is to live in the grace of knowing that God our Creator is "my God" and that He knows me and I am known by that God.
The joy of our faith is that God's salvation hand, which delivered and led the Israelites out of Egypt, is now extended to us too.
As we remember God's infinite works of salvation and grace, we hope to continue to learn that each of the Ten Commandments is a "commandment of life that keeps us alive and a commandment that communicate God’s love to us.”