Sunday Worship Service August 25, 2024

Prelude
Call to Worship Revelation 1:8
Hymn JBC #104 There shall be showers of blessing
The Lord’s Prayer
The Lord’s Supper
Hymn JBC # 513 Walking in sunlight, all of my journey
Offering
Scripture Malachi 3:1～6
Prayer
Sermon “Behold, I will send my messenger”
Prayer
Hymn JBC #134 Sing them over again to me
Doxology JBC # 676
Benediction
Postlude


The theme of our church this year is “Standing on the Word of the Lord”. The Word, the entire Word of God (the Word of the Bible), supports and gives us life.
God still speaks to us through the Bible. Through the Bible, God speaks to us the Word of life.
We wish to experience and enjoy all of God's Word (the Bible) which supports us, and so starting from April of this year, we have been trying to cover the entire Old Testament and New Testament in our worship service messages.
However, only a very small portion of the Bible can be covered in a worship service message.
Therefore, I hope that you will be nourished in the richness of the Word by reading the Bible yourselves every day, by becoming familiar with the Word at prayer meetings, Sunday school, and so on, and by sharing the Word with others.

Today's scripture passage is from the Book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament.
The Old and New Testaments are connected. Specifically, both the New Testament and the Old Testament are the Word of God, and both are about Jesus Christ.
Although Jesus Christ does not appear directly in the Old Testament, He Himself often quoted from the Old Testament.
In Jesus' time, the New Testament did not yet exist, so the Bible that Jesus read and quoted from was the Old Testament as we know it today.

　 The fact that Jesus also read the Bible, memorized its words, and quoted them at important times reminds us again how important the words of the Bible are to us.
When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, He resisted the devil's temptation with the words of the Bible.
In this way, Jesus showed us by His own example that it is only by the Word of God that we can face great trials and tribulations.
We will face many trials. We want to store up the important Word of God, the Words of the Bible, in our hearts on a regular basis so that we can face trials with the Word of God and be given the strength to live through the Word of God.
It is our hope to stand on the Word of God and walk by it each day. We want to receive guidance from it when we are lost or troubled. In this way, throughout our lives, let us become familiar with the Word of God and live our lives supported by the Word of God.

We don't know exactly when the Book of Malachi was written. However, it is believed to have been written during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, which is the time period that the Book of Nehemiah was written in which was shared for our worship service message last week.
This was around 450-400 BC, about 100 years after the Jews were allowed to return from captivity in Babylon.
After returning from exile, the people of Israel, under the leadership of leaders such as Ezra and Nehemiah, rebuilt the temple and the city walls.
But it seems that their faith had once again drifted away from God. The Book of Malachi is full of harsh words from the very first chapter.
For example, in chapter 2, we see that even the priests who served God in the temple did not fulfill their responsibilities and disobeyed God's commands. We can see that the offerings were not made as required and that sincere worship was not taking place.

Malachi 2:17, which comes just before today's passage, says:

You have wearied the Lord with your words.
“How have we wearied him?” you ask.
By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”

We can see that there were widespread feelings among the Israelites that “it is better to do evil, that it is more fun to live as one pleases, that there is no God of judgment”, and so on.
Today's passage speaks words of hope to the people of Israel, whose hearts had become so far removed from the Lord God.
The words are that the Savior they had been waiting for, the Messiah, is coming.

Let's read verse 1 of today's passage again.
1 “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

These words foretell what will happen in the future as seen from this time. The messenger that is referred to in “I will send you my messenger” is John the Baptist, who appears in the Gospels.
Jesus Himself quoted this passage from Malachi when He said, “He is John the Baptist” (see Matthew 11:2-15).
For Jesus, John the Baptist was a special person. It was John the Baptist who baptized Jesus.

Jesus was equal to God and had no sin at all. Therefore, He did not need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins like we do.
Despite this, Jesus voluntarily accepted baptism, even though it was not necessary for Him, and showed us how to live as one who believes in God.
It was also a matter of lowering ourselves thoroughly (humbling ourselves). Since Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was baptized, we are taught the importance of not being proud before God or people, but of bringing ourselves low and acknowledging our sin as revealed through Christ.
The messenger (John the Baptist) was responsible for preparing the way before the Lord Jesus Christ. John the Baptist's role was to point people to the Lord Jesus Christ, show that it is in Him that God's salvation and forgiveness is found.
John the Baptist had a special role in baptizing Jesus, but God has also entrusted us Christians and the church today with the same role of pointing people to Jesus Christ.

Do our Christian lives, our church, point to Jesus Christ? Is Jesus Christ glorified through our worship?
Are we not actually desiring to have ourselves or our churches be praised? This must not be the case; it is Christ who must be glorified through each of us and our churches.
When non-Christians come to our church, will they be able to understand that Christ is the one being glorified?
Let us all unite in making sure that the way each of us lives and our church gatherings point not to us as people, but to Jesus Christ.
In today's passage, we are told the news of hope that the long-awaited Savior is coming. However, in verse 2, we read, “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?”

The people of Israel were waiting for the coming of their Messiah, a strong leader who would use military force to free Israel from foreign domination.
But today's passage tells us that when He comes, no one will be able to withstand Him.
Verse 3 says, “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.”
He says that the Savior is the one who removes our sins (defilement) like washing away impurities, and even the sons of Levi are no exception.
Levites were priests who served God in the temple. Even priests, without exception, were sinners who were unclean and could not withstand God's judgment in that state.
Even the priests, who were probably respected by the people as those who were close to God, were, without exception, sinners and needed God to remove their sins.
The various accusations of sin listed in verse 5 may seem like things that would make many of us think “Well, I have not done anything that bad.”

But no one can prove utter sinlessness before the accusation of God, who is completely sinless and completely pure.

Again, everyone is a sinner, which means everyone needs forgiveness from the Savior, Jesus Christ.
Today's passage tells us that the Savior that the Israelites had longed for was in fact the One who would bring severe judgment upon them. What did the Israelites think when they heard this?
And how do we hear these words now?
Should people simply be afraid and tremble at this, and should we also simply be afraid? Not at all. Let's look at today's verse 6.

6 “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
The fact that the Lord does not change means that His word is unchanging and eternal. Isaiah 40:6-8 says the following.

(Isaiah 40:6～8)
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”

And God says, “You will not be destroyed.” In another passage, Ezekiel 33:11, it says:
11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’

God does not want anyone to perish or die spiritually, but rather for us to receive salvation through Jesus Christ and new life in Him through His Word.
The Word (the Bible), which conveys God's desire and message, is with us. Let us believe in the words of the Bible, stand firm in the words of the Bible, and receive true life.
The Word came into the world as a human being, Jesus Christ. The Savior came down to this world as a human being just like us.
Let us live our days of faith, rejoicing and thanking God for the blessings of the new age and new life brought to us by Christ.