It being Summer, we have much longer day time. Some of you may have a fun time even after eating dinner. When I was a boy, I used to go swimming after supper. I enjoyed my boyhood so much! Summer is full of great events; swimming, camping, walking, even traveling...

Looking at the sunset sometimes fills me with the desire to go on a journey. Now, I wonder how many times I have felt like this towards the church. How often have I felt like going to the church sanctuary just to pray to the Lord, and fellowship with Him? In today's reading, we find such a wonderful and faithful confession: "How lonely is your dwelling place!" There are some reasons behind these peculiar emotions -- in the time of the Old Testament, only priests could enter into God's secret sanctuary; the very inside of the Temple. Read verses 3 and 4. The writer of this Psalm deeply envied those who could live in God's house, even the swallows and sparrows who lived there. [Though written for the sons of Korah, this writer was very likely King David. And in the Book of Isaiah, we can find this marvelous confession by God: "..I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake." Is.37:35. God deeply loves those who deeply love Him.] Probably, as we look at the work of the Levites, and the priests, who lived in the Temple, we would conclude that the work was hard. However, the writer knows something special -- that, even with the troubles, to be in God's house is such a blessing. If we are in God's hands, we can receive God's strength.

Reading today's passage, I was struck with how much some people loved the House of God. The writer confessed that he even wanted to be a doorkeeper [, or doorman].

The writer proclaims "How lovely! How beautiful!" Now I wonder, do we really feel this way when we think of our church? There are lots of beautiful visible things in and around the church building. The other day, a pastor who visited me, encouraged me saying that our church has such a nice sanctuary. Things in the church are beautiful; flowers are arranged every Sunday, benches, piano, organ, pictures on the wall.. they are all beautiful and lovely things that attract us to this church. To some, they may be a motivation for coming. There should be good visible things in the church as well as good invisible things. People are some of those invisible beauties. Our personalities or characters should be beautiful, having the perfume of Jesus. We always want to go back to a lovely place. And the opposite is also true!

One time, I was supposed to have dinner with my wife and daughter at a famous place that was purported to service delicious food. But, I was very late. The owners of the restaurant were furious, and my wife and daughter felt their hostility until I finally arrived. The food was great, but because of the attitudes of the proprietors we would never like to go back there again.

As a Christian, who leads worship services, I strongly feel that we need to prepare in many ways. We need to prepare spiritually and physically [and emotionally] to have "a good worship time", of course with the help of God's Spirit, so that new comers will feel like coming again the following week.

As I mentioned, a pastor visited me. This was last Friday. We now have a couple from his church attending. He shared lots of things with me, one of which was that everyone really loves to come to church on Sundays, as well as on other days of the week. Even when they are working at companies, they give their pastor a call to ask about Sunday worship services. They are unified in offering worship together to our Lord. Let us think about the relation between a mother and her baby. The baby cries so much harder when its mother gets upset with it, scolding. Since he or she loves his mother the best, it is worse to be scolded by the one he so deeply loves. Well, we are all imperfect. [We often cannot help our bad attitudes.] But, let us come up to the Lord to receive what we need [today is also communion sunday] so that loveliness and beauty can also come out of us and flow to the people who are around us.

Let us keep praying for one another.

Translated by Junko Okamoto - Edited for the Net by Shido
For another sermon see: Oita Evangelical Christ Church
For all sermon indicies see: cHaPeL nOaH sErMoN iNdEx