Sunday Worship Service June 16, 2024
Prelude
Call to Worship Colossians 2:7
Hymn JBC # 33 Lord, the light of Your love is shining
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC #523 Jesus loves me!
Offering
Scripture Judges 2:6~15
Prayer
Sermon “The generation that disobeys the Lord”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 102 Marvelous grace of our loving Lord
Doxology JBC #673
Benediction
Postlude
Today we will listen to the Word of the Lord God together from a passage in the Old Testament book of Judges.
The book of Joshua, which precedes the book of Judges, describes how Joshua, son of Nun, who succeeded Moses as leader of the Israelites, led the Israelites into the promised land of Canaan (conquering the land).
Moses' role was to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, where they were living in slavery, and to lead them to the land of Canaan.
And after Moses' death, Joshua succeeded him and led the Israelites into the land of Canaan.
Moses led the journey through the wilderness, and Joshua served as the leader in acquiring the Promised Land of Canaan, thus each of them carried their own roles.
This shows that Moses and Joshua were each given different roles.
The work of Moses and Joshua also teaches us that the Lord's promises are fulfilled across generations and through various workers.
We too, by faith, can believe that we are living in the Lord's plan that transcends our own thoughts and sense of time.
In God's plan, some people will take on leadership roles, some will take on supporting roles, and the list goes on and on.
However, we who serve together in the work of faith, with hope in God's promise and the realization of God's kingdom through faith, are all equal as God's workers, and our work is remembered before God.
Our church activities are also supported by the various volunteer efforts of many people. Last year our church lived under the theme “Give your service with love.”
As always, let us continue to live our church life together, being thankful for the different gifts we have each been given and offering each other's gifts to the Lord God.
Today's passage, Judges 2:6, begins with the sentence, “After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to their own inheritance.”
Joshua's important role as a leader was to encourage the people of Israel, give them God's strength, and send them out into their own work.
Those who believe in God are sent by God to their respective places in the world.
At the end of our worship service we have a “benediction”. The benediction is a request and prayer given by the church's representative for that day (usually the pastor), that with God's blessing, each and every one of us will be sent out to our respective places with God's encouragement and strength.
We come to church to worship the Lord God. We praise God in worship and receive His Word. Then, after receiving God's blessing (the benediction), we are sent out to our respective places.
We live a life of faith centered around worship on Sunday (the Lord's Day), in which we are sent out from the place of worship with God's blessing into our own lives and then return to worship together again.
As a pastor (Sakai), it is my sincere hope that each and every person who gathers at the church (including, of course, myself as the pastor) will receive encouragement from the Lord's Word and the Lord's abundant blessings through the service, and will leave church with hope, saying, “Let's take another step out into this new week.”
Today's passage describes how, after Joshua's death and the deaths of everyone from his generation, a great problem arose in the generation that followed them.
Let’s read verse 7 from today’s passage.
7 The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.
The Israelites served the Lord during Joshua's lifetime and even after his death, as long as there was a generation that had witnessed the great work the Lord had done for Israel.
As long as there was a generation who had actually seen God help them during their journey through the wilderness (for example, the miracle of the Lord raining manna from heaven in the wilderness so that the Israelites would not starve), the people believed in the Lord and served Him.
But what happened to the generations after those generations died?
Let’s read verses 11-12.
11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger
Baal, as well as Ashtoreth mentioned in verse 13, were gods believed in in the Canaanite region. They seem to have been worshipped by the people of Canaan as gods of fertility (abundant harvest).
The generations of Israelites who followed Joshua and his generation tuned away from the Lord who led their ancestors out of Egypt, guided their journey in the wilderness, and even conquered the land of Canaan.
Why could they not remain faithful to their God?
The first thing we want to keep in mind is that faith is not something that is automatically passed on or handed down to the next generation without any action.
The new generation of the faithful will have heard and been taught many things about the great works of the Lord from the previous generation.
I imagine that the previous generation prayed for the generation that followed them and continued to tell the new generation about God's work.
However, the new generation must take the faith in the Lord that they inherited from the previous generation and make it their own by their own decision.
Faith is a gift from God. God's grace is also abundantly given to us. However, it is up to each of us to decide whether or not to accept this grace of faith from God and whether or not to believe in God.
God has given us the free will to choose the path of faith in Him of our own accord.
If we did not have that free will, we would be like robots before God, simply reacting and acting without thinking, following God's commands.
In the second chapter of Genesis, God caused the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to grow in the center of the Garden of Eden.
And God said to Adam, the first man, “Take from every tree of the garden and eat. But never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For if you eat of it, you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17).
Why did God make something grow in the Garden of Eden just to say, “You must not eat this”?
If God was going to say “don't eat it,” then surely it shouldn't have made in the first place.
However, in order for people to trust in God and obey His commands of their own accord, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was indeed necessary (so that people would not become mere robots before God).
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was necessary in order for people to believe in God of their own will, choose their own faith in God, and enter into a personal relationship with God.
And God's command, “Do not take it and eat it, for if you do, you will surely die.” was also necessary for our faith.
Our faith is to trust in God of our own will, believe in Him, and live in obedience to Him. Among the Protestant denominations, we Baptist churches have always placed particular value on a person's own voluntary confession of faith.
We hope to encourage and support one another to continue to cherish and abide in the faith that we have inherited from previous generations by our own free will.
The reason the generation after Joshua abandoned the Lord God and served Baal and Ashtoreth may have been because those gods were believed to bring fertility (abundant harvest), which probably seemed attractive to the people.
“What is the point of believing in God?” If the answer to this question was “an abundant harvest” or “visible success in this life,” it may be easy to understand and appealing.
And inevitably we can be drawn to such things, which are seemingly easy to understand and that can have the effect of enriching and entertaining us.
However, other than the true God, nothing can truly protect and support us. As people live their lives, they will face various difficulties and hardships.
It is only through the protection of the Lord God and the power of His Word, which the Bible conveys, that we can face difficulties, hardships, or critical situations.
The Word is our true strength because the Word is always with us and it is through the Word we can be sure that the Lord is with us.
In today's passage, we read that the Lord was angry with the Israelites who abandoned Him and followed other gods, leaving them to be plundered by their enemies.
It means that the Israelites, having abandoned their faith in the Lord God, had no real power to stand up to their enemies.
This is because faith in the Lord God and the power given to us through His Word are our true strength and our greatest weapon to face difficulties and enemies that threaten our faith and lives.
Finally, I would like to conclude my message with a long quote from Ephesians 6:10-17 in the New Testament.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Our Lord God encourages us to trust in Him, and be strong in His power.
Let us put on the whole armor of God, God's Word, and His truth, so that we can stand against the evil one.
We do not need to fear anything in this world because the great God generously gives us His power through His Word.
