Sunday Worship Service July 21, 2024

Prelude
Call to Worship 1 Peter 1:5
Hymn JBC # 61 Morning has broken like the first morning
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC # 2 Come, Thou almighty King
Offering
Scripture Jeremiah 31:1～9
Prayer
Sermon “They will be my people”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 19 Love divine, all loves excelling
Doxology JBC # 674
Benediction
Postlude


Today’s passage, Jeremiah chapter 31 verses 1 to 9, starts with the words “At that time,” declares the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people.”
“At that time” refers to “the end of the world” or the “last days”, that is conveyed through the Old and New Testaments.
The Bible tells us that this world that God created will someday come to an end.
When the Bible talks about the “end times” or the “end of the age”, we probably have terrifying images in our heads of a time of destruction.
What does Jesus say about the end of the world? Jesus talks about this in Matthew chapter 13 from verse 36 onwards. Jesus says:

At the end of the age, just like weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire at harvest time, “they (*angels) will weed everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace” (Matthew 13:41~42)
At the end of the age, the wicked will be separated from the righteous, and thrown into the blazing furnace. (Matthew 13:49~50)
Hearing these words from Jesus, we must think that the end of the world will be terrifying. We start to wonder “will I be seen as a wicked person and thrown into the blazing furnace?”, a terrifying thought.
However, we know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for us for the forgiveness of our sins.
We also know that the Bible says that for anyone who believes in Jesus Christ, they and their household will be saved. (Acts 16:31)
At the end of days, judgement will belong wholly to God (God will pass judgement). This means that as humans, we do not get to decide who is saved and who is not at the end of days.

When we hear this message from the Bible that there will be judgment at the end of days, I hope while we feel a sense of urgency, I hope that we also go forward feeling hope in the certainty that we have salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
　Today’s Bible passage comes from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, starting at chapter 31. Jeremiah is the name of one of the prophets.
According to the account in the first part of the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah was called and started his work as a prophet during the reign of Josiah, King of Judah.
　Jeremiah served as a prophet for approximately 40 years, until the time of the Babylonian captivity when Kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon and many Israelites were taken as captives to Babylon.
In Jeremiah chapter 1 it says that the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and he was appointed by God to serve as a prophet.

In Jeremiah chapter 1 verses 4 to 5 it says:

4 The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

　God says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you”.
God is the one who knows us, even before He formed us in our mother’s wombs (before we were born).
None of us know ourselves before we were born. We don’t choose when we are born, where we are born, or into what family we are born.
But, God knows all these things. More than just knowing these things, it would be more accurate to say that we are born into the world (at a certain time and place) according to His design.
There are some people who don’t believe this, who believe that people are just born into the world by chance at a random place and time.
However, those who have come to know of God’s creation through the Bible cannot think like that. For those who have come to know that Creator God gave us salvation through the Son Jesus Christ, we do not believe that we are born into this world by chance.
Just as God set Jeremiah apart to be a prophet (a person who receives the word of God and shares it with the people), we can believe that God also has a special plan for each and every one of us now.

We each of us have a calling given by God. What that calling is varies from person to person.
There may be people who think “No, there’s no way that God has a special plan for someone like me”.
But, even just being born into this world, living and breathing as flesh and spirit is an amazing thing in itself.
When you think about the movement of the earth and universe governed by all its intricate laws and systems, and about the precise functions that go into making our bodies work as living beings, just the fact that we are alive is a marvel in and of itself.
Looking at either one of these things, the systems of earth and space or the precision in our bodies, I think it is perfectly reasonable to think that God the Creator exists.
　I also think it is reasonable to think that the God who sent his son Jesus Christ to earth would have everlasting love for each and every one of us, and a special plan for each of our lives.

　Jeremiah was called by the word of God to stand as prophet, but even so, when the word of the Lord first came to Jeremiah, he was hesitant at first.
He said “I do not know how to speak; I am too young”, and tried to escape from God’s calling. (Jeremiah 1:6)
In Exodus, when Moses was told “You will lead the people of Israel out of Egypt”, even he tried to escape God’s call many times.
Perhaps when we are called by God, when we feel the responsibility of what God is calling us to do, we might think that “there’s no way I can do that”, and we might hesitate.
But, if the God who made us is the one who is calling us, let us take up our courage and start walking the path that God has set before us.
We can do this, because God will provide us with all we need. And, if that is God’s will, it will not be done in our own strength, but God will be sure to work in ways beyond our own capabilities.

In this way when we believe in God, not in ourselves, and serve the workings of God, through these works, God’s glory is revealed to the world.

We want to rejoice in being used by God in that way.
For about 40 years, Jeremiah served as a prophet, bringing the word of God to the people of Israel (or more precisely, Jeremiah was active in the Southern Kingdom of Judah).
However, the people of Israel ignored Jeremiah’s words and disobeyed God. They did not heed God’s warnings, worshipping idols dedicated to other gods and turning their backs on God.
In the end, because of the Israelites sin, because of their rejection of God, the kingdom was destroyed, and many people were taken away to Babylon.

It is said that today’s passage, chapter 31, was written in this kind of context.
The Lord God continued to deliver severe warnings to the people of Israel through the prophet Jeremiah.
In the Book of Jeremiah, it records that the Lord said things such as “I will thrust you from my presence” (Chapter 7, Verse 15) and “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people” (Chapter 15, Verse 1).
The Israelites ignored God’s warnings given through the prophet Jeremiah and rejected God. The result of this was the destruction of the kingdom, and the people being dragged away to another kingdom.
And yet, even with this God did not abandon the Israelites entirely.

In today’s passage Chapter 31, God says (through Jeremiah) “At that time, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people”, proclaiming that “the hope of God’s salvation is not lost”.
At that time (at the end of the age), God will be the God of all the families of Israel. This is to say that God will become the God of everybody in the world.
And in the part “and they will be my people”, the term “they” means all of us, each and every one of us.
This means that at the “End of Days” as set by God, He will become the God of all people, and all the people will become His people.
This is God’s grand plan, or it could be called a great vision of God Himself.
When God’s word reaches the world, and people believe in God through His word, God will become the God of all people, and all people will become His people.

With this, the differences we have now in our world such as countries, regions, ethnic groups and races, these will come to mean nothing. That is, all of us will be united as one world as “God’s people”.
The foundation for this kind of a world coming to pass at the end of days is, as written in verse 3, God’s love. That is to say, God’s everlasting (eternal) love.
God’s love is an everlasting (eternal) love, an always unchanging and unconditional love.
For us as people, no matter how much love we hold, human love inevitably comes with conditions. No matter who we are, we cannot love unconditionally in the literal sense of the word.
This because there is always some kind of reason as to why we are able to love someone. It might be because they’re family, because they’re a friend, because they are a good person. It is because of these reasons or conditions that we are able to love people.
However, God’s love is an unconditional love that is everlasting (eternal). A love that does not disappear even when we sin.
The God of the Bible is a loving God, who wants to forgive the Israelites and forgives us no matter how much we sin and wants us to turn back to Him.
Today’s passage shows the hope that in response to the love of God that forgives us and calls us back to Himself, people will “repent and return to the love of God”.

Verse 6
There will be a day when watchmen cry out
on the hills of Ephraim,
‘Come, let us go up to Zion,
to the Lord our God.’”

While raising this chant together, let us go up to God together, giving thanks that God has forgiven our rebellion and our sin.
The act of joining together in worshipping God like this is one of the ways that we go up to God.
Every week as we join our hearts together, listening to the word of God together, singing praise, thanking God, uniting in prayer, I believe it could be said that we are “going up to God”.
The “End of Days” will, at the time appointed by God, surely come to pass. And in the end of days, the day where the hope of God becomes a reality will also come to pass.
In this sense, even now that the salvation of the Son Jesus Christ has been clearly revealed to us, we are already in faith experiencing the beginning of the hope of the end of days being brought to life.
Believing in the salvation of Jesus Christ, praising the name of God together in worship, we are already experiencing the hope of the end of days that is God’s plan.
Let us walk together in faith, believing in the Kingdom of God that is the completion of the end of days, remembering the blessing of becoming part of the people of God, and that the good news of Christ would be shared with the world through us.