Sunday Worship Service June 1, 2025

Prelude
Call to Worship Psalm 16:2
Hymn JBC # 105 There is sunshine in my soul today
The Prayer Time
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC # 262 Holy Spirit, breathe on me
Offering
Scripture Acts 2:22～31
Prayer
Sermon “Making Known the Paths of Life”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 86 O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Doxology JBC # 679
Benediction
Postlude


Today's Bible passage is from the middle section of Acts 2. The beginning of chapter 2 depicts the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples as they gathered together on Pentecost, the Jewish feast of thanksgiving for the harvest.
For the service next week (June 8), we will celebrate the event of the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, descended upon Christ's disciples.
The event of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, is also the event from which the Christian Church is said to have been born.
　The disciples, upon receiving the Holy Spirit, began to speak about the great works of God in the languages of the various nations at that time.
The Christian church today is also commissioned by God to speak and tell of the great works of God to the society we find ourselves in and to the reset of the world.

The day of Pentecost marked the beginning of the Church's work of speaking and telling of God's great works and of God's love and grace.
Today's passage is a continuation of Peter's sermon, which he delivered to the many people gathered at Pentecost.
Let us start with verse 22 of today's passage.
22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.

　The first thing Peter says here is that "Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God.”
　The fact that “the man accredited by God,” the One equal to God, was a Nazarene was difficult to accept for the Jews listening to Peter.
Nazareth is a small village in the region known as Galilee in the north of Israel. This was where Jesus grew up.
　According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born in a Jewish town called Bethlehem.
　When King Herod, the king of the Jews, heard the news (from the scholars (magi) from the east) that a new king had been born to replace him, he tried to find the child.
However, when he was unable to find the child, King Herod had all the boys in the area of Bethlehem under the age of two brutally killed.
　To escape Herod's slaughter, Jesus' father Joseph took his wife Mary and baby Jesus and fled to Egypt.
　After Herod's death, Joseph and his family returned to Israel, but the Bible says that they came to live not in Bethlehem, but in Nazareth in Galilee. (Matthew 2).
Nazareth was a small village in Galilee, despised by the rest of the region. This can be seen, for example, from the following passages in the Gospel of John.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 43, Philip (he became one of the twelve disciples later) meets Jesus.
Philip believes that Jesus is the Son of God and follows Him. He also tells his companion, Nathanael, about Jesus.

But then Nathanael said to Philip, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there? (no way)” (John 1:46)
At the time Jesus lived, the village of Nazareth was looked down upon and despised by people from other places, even in Galilee.
　But Jesus, the Son of God, grew up in Nazareth by God's design and came to be called "Jesus the Nazarene.”
　　Nazareth, which to the human eye was thought to be a place where nothing good could come out of it, became a very special place where the Son of God was chosen by God to grow up as a man.
　We may have the same feelings of contempt and discrimination that the Jewish people of that time had toward Nazareth toward something (or someone) today. That is a part of the sin of man.
However, let us remember that what is despised by others is considered precious in God's eyes and is used in a special way, so let us recognize and repent of the sin of discrimination and prejudice in our hearts.

Peter tells there that Jesus of Nazareth did the works of God but was killed on the cross for the sins of men.
Peter goes so far as to say, “you…put him to death by nailing him to the cross.” (v. 23), stating that Jesus was crucified for the sins of all men, including Peter himself.
　Peter then says that Jesus, who was crucified and killed, was released from the agony of death and resurrected. Peter strongly stated the resurrection of Christ.
Why was Peter so convinced of this at that time?
First of all, Peter himself had met the resurrected Jesus. He was also convinced by the words of the Bible at that time.
Peter quotes a psalm of David from the Old Testament book of Psalms and continues.
Let me read you verse 25 of today's passage. This is a quote from Psalm 16.

25 David said about him:
“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

This “the Lord” is the Lord God. And this “Lord” is Jesus Christ, Peter affirms. Namely, Jesus is the Lord and God.
　”I saw the Lord always before me." – with this words of psalm by David, Peter would have recalled the days when Jesus was with him.
　I imagine that Peter was remembering that if Jesus had been only a man, he would never have had that sense of security and peace.
　There was a time when the disciples boarded a boat with Jesus and rowed out into the lake, and there was a violent storm that nearly sank the boat.
The disciples were afraid, but when Jesus rebuked the wind and the lake, the storm stopped. Peter may have remembered how Jesus calmed the storm too.
　If the Lord is with us, we will never be shaken.
　For no storm, no matter how fierce, has the power to bring us to our knees before the power of the Word of the Lord Jesus.
　No matter how difficult or unpredictable a situation may be, let us first give the situation to the Lord God, Jesus, and let Him sustain us.
The Lord will sustain us ~ Let us trust in this promise from the Bible.

Let's read verses 27~28.

27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’

　I believe that Peter himself was experiencing spiritually coming to life as he spoke these words.
　We can say that Peter was once spiritually dead. When Jesus was alive, Peter had great hope in Him, but when Jesus was finally arrested, he abandoned Him and fled.
　He completely stumbled once in faith and died spiritually. But by meeting the resurrected Jesus and being encouraged by His words, Peter rose again and experienced spiritual resurrection of himself.
　And it was revealed to Peter that Jesus is the “path of life,” the way to eternal life with God through which all people pass, just as the psalmist had said.
　The path to true life was also shown to us by Jesus. Jesus himself is the way.
　Nothing can deprive us of the joy of being with God and His grace as long as we walk the path of life that is Jesus Christ.
If we stay in the presence of God, if we persist on the path of life that is Christ, we will always be filled with joy.

　Let us walk together in faith on the path of life in Jesus Christ revealed to us through His Word.
　Let’s read verses 30-31 and the passage quoted from Psalm 16:10.
　30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.

　This was promised through the words of the Psalms of David. The One who would be born as one of David's descendants would be born as the true King.
　And although man, in his sin, would kill Christ on the cross, Christ would not remain in the realm of death.
　The person who was spoken of in David's words was Jesus of Nazareth, as Peter was convinced of that and he clearly stated so.
This person Jesus, being God Himself, lived as a human, suffered a painful death for the sins of humanity, and was resurrected.
Jesus did not remain dead, but was resurrected, just as it was prophesied by the Bible that he would not remain dead.

Here, let us return to verse 22 from today's passage.
It says that God performed various miracles, wonders, and signs through Jesus, proving that Jesus was indeed sent from God.
　　Let us also open our hearts and keep our eyes on the many miracles, works, and signs that the resurrected Jesus is doing today.
Isn’t it a great miracle (God's grace) that having the same faith, we are called together by Christ and can worship together in this way.
Let us recognize the work of the great God through our hearts, and be enlivened by the power of Christ the Lord.
No matter how difficult our circumstances may be, no matter how hopeless our lives may seem, the Lord Jesus Christ who has risen from the dead, as he will never be left dead, will always sustain us.
The Lord is always with us. Therefore, we do not need to be afraid or upset. Let us live each day of this new week, relying on and clinging to the Lord.