Sunday Worship Service October 6 2024

Prelude
Call to Worship Psalm 103:8～9
Hymn JBC # 626 I gave My life for thee
The Prayer Time
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC # 213 Tell me the story of Jesus
Offering
Scripture Luke 13:6～9
Prayer
Sermon “A fig tree that does not bear any fruits”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 81 God, our Father, we adore Thee!
Doxology JBC # 674
Benediction
Postlude


In today's scripture passage, Jesus told a parable. It is a parable, so it is not an actual event. The point is that there is a message that Jesus was trying to convey to His disciples through this story.
The words of the Bible are timeless and carry God's message to us today. Therefore, there is a message that God is trying to convey to us through this parable of Jesus today.
Since this is a parable, let’s listen to Jesus' words while using our imagination too.

Let us read verse 6 again.
　Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.
A man planted a fig tree in his vineyard. When you think about it, would you ever wonder, “Why would someone plant a fig tree in his vineyard?”
Why did he plant a fig in the vineyard? In fact, this seems to have been a common method of fruit cultivation in Judea at that time.

　In a modern orchard, one would plant many of the same kind of fruit in the same place, such as only grapes, or only figs or only oranges in one place, to grow and harvest the fruit efficiently.
However, at the time the New Testament was written, about 2,000 years ago, it was common practice in Israel to plant figs and various other fruit trees too in vineyards.
Grapes can grow upward by becoming entangled with other trees. This was also the reason why fig trees were planted in vineyards.
Figs had a role in the vineyard other than producing fruit. The presence of fig trees helped the grapes to grow.
When we imagine a vineyard in Israel with a variety of fruit trees, we can imagine a colorful (if somewhat chaotic) scene of various fruits growing in support of each other, each with its own character and role in a same place.

Even though the location is a vineyard, there are many different fruit trees planted within it, each fulfilling its own role. And they support each other.
Does this not remind you of our church? Doesn't it give us hope that the church could be like that?
We believers, especially in a church called by God, can respect each other's individuality, appreciate our differences, support each other, and rejoice in the fact that each one of us is specially loved by God.
In the vineyard, the Master (i.e., God) planted a fig tree with a special thought.

Each of us is a fig tree, or a pomegranate (Zaku-lo), or an apple, or any other variety of tree, but we desire to take care of one another as equally valuable humans loved by God, just like fruits planted in the same place by God's plan.
The owner who planted the figs in his vineyard naturally expected that the figs would eventually bear fruit, and he waited for a long time for the fruit to become abundant.

However, for three years, the owner kept coming back to the fig tree, hoping that it would bear fruit, but it never did.
It takes about three years for a fig tree to bear fruit after it is first planted.
Therefore, I imagine that the fact that the owner kept coming to the fig tree to look for fruit for three years means that it had been six years total since the fig tree was first planted.
This shows how patient God is and how earnestly He wants us to bear the fruit of faith.

　　What does the fruit of our faith look like? In another New Testament passage, Galatians 5:22-23, we read:

the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control - these are the fruits of the spirit, the fruits that believers are said to bear through faith in Jesus Christ.
Joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control - these are all attributes of God that Jesus Christ Himself possessed in abundance.
If we have received joy and peace through Jesus Christ, we can also acquire tolerance and kindness to others, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (control of our own desires).
Are we bearing such fruits of faith? Can God look at us and find such fruits of faith in us?
　“Fruit” provides nourishment (food for life) to others. Therefore, the fruit of faith that we should bear should nourish other people.

　We want our existence and our church to produce abundant fruit of faith in Christ so that we can nourish those around us and the community around our church.
We have joy in Christ. We have peace through Christ. Let us bear these fruits of faith in abundance, and let us pass them on to others.
　For three years, the owner of the vineyard kept coming back again and again to see if there were any fruits, but in the end he could not find any.

The owner says (verse 7):
‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

　“This fig tree is not producing any fruit at all. It is just a wasteful use of the soil. Cut it down."-When we think the fig tree here is the believers ourselves, it seems that God is very cruel.
But we must know how patiently God waited for us to bear the fruit of repentance before He said, “Cut it down.”
In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, we read the following words of God. The parable of the grape illustrates how God loved His people (the Israelites) with a deep love.

(Isaiah 5:4)
What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?

God is love. God is the One who loves and cares for us with infinite love. And true love can be harsh when necessary.
Because God is true love, He is also the one with the severity that is necessary for us. As recipients of God's great love, we must know that God also has the authority to judge us harshly.
When God said “Cut down this fig tree”, the man who took care of the vineyard said (verses 8-9)

8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
'Leave it alone for one more year. I will dig around the tree and fertilize it. Please wait one more year.” This gardener, which desperately begs his master to wait one more year, represents Jesus Christ.
In this way, Jesus is offering intercessory prayers and petitions to God the Father in heaven on our behalf for our forgiveness.
This is what this gardener is saying. “I will do all I can. I will not only water the tree, but I will dig around it and fertilize it. In that way, I will thoroughly take care of this fig tree, giving it EVERYTHING it needs so that it can grow.”

Do we believe that there is One who generously gives us everything we need (for us to fulfill our respective missions and roles and grow in faith, to bear the fruits of faith) in such a way?
　As I reflect on myself now as a pastor, I could not help but be acutely aware that all that I truly need has been and continues to be given to me.
　When I decided to dedicate myself as a pastor, I made my own decision based on God's calling “I will give up everything and go wherever God tells me to go, I will preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to people.”
But before I could give anything up, God had actually prepared and provided everything I needed for me.

God had already prepared a church where I would be allowed to serve as a pastor, and He had given me everyone who would welcome me and respect me up as their pastor.
　He had already given me a wonderful church building in a wonderful place (long before I came). There is nothing I did on my own.
　There are many countries and regions in the world where people are not free to have faith in Christ or to evangelize. There are many missionaries and evangelists in those places who are serving the ministry of Christ's mission risking their lives.
　Now I do not have such serious restrictions and persecutions related to the ministry and pastoral work. I realized that in many cases I had forgotten how blessed I am to have each of these things.
With so much of God's grace, with everything I need given to me, I was reminded that if I did not bear the fruit the Lord desired of me as a Christian and as a pastor and evangelist, I would be cut down, and God had every right to do so.

　God, in His infinite love, patience, and great plan, has put us in our places.
In each place where we are placed, we can surely bear abundant fruits of faith through the love, mercy, and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
　The fruit of faith and the fruit of the spirit that we bear will also spiritually enrich and animate others with whom we share our lives, and will be our way of communicating Christ to them.
　Let us give thanks to God who gives us all blessings, let us stay connected to God, and let us bear the abundant fruit of faith.