We have been thinking again and learning from the words what our church's purpose is. Now let us review what we have learned; to go out into the world making people disciples of Christ, then build up a family of God having new people inside and baptizing them. The third one is to teach them what we have been taught by Christ. The fourth one is to love and wait on our neighbours. And today, this morning, we have come to the most important one; to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.

In today's scripture reading, one of the teachers of the Law came to Jesus and asked a question. Jesus referred to the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 6, vv.1-9, and replied to his question. As you may know, these words of God were given to the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land. Whether or not they would be blessed depended on how well they observed the commands of God.

Even today, Jews put something on their foreheads in which those commands are written. "The Lord our God is one." -- This is our confession of faith. In the commands of God, this comes first. There shouldn't be any gods before Him, whom we love with all our hearts, souls, minds and strengths. From childhood, Jewish people are taught this by their parents, so it became a routine to recite these words. So, Jesus re-taught them to love God with all their hearts, souls, minds and strengths.

St. Paul testified that to live is Christ, and to die is Christ (Ph.1:21). One of the Japanese pastors who has been well used, and is now over 80 years old, once said that to be a Christian and to live with Christ is much more than being given billions of yen. It can not be compared to anything that seems very valuable to us.

And our confession of faith reflects on observing the Sabbath, which eventually keeps the temptation of Satan away from us -- well, often we imagine Satan as something that has an ugly face and looks terrifying. However, once in a while, Satan tries to approach us with the features of angels; it might be your hobbie, children, families, businesses, or even your boyfriends or girlfriends. Being very cunning, Satan works through all of these. "Oh, it's such a fine day today. Let's go to the beach instead of to church." Or, "It should be much better to do business today than to go to worship just because it's Sunday!" -- To worship our Lord on Sundays represents our faith in Christ, and it's our priority! Some pastors used to say that in Japan there are far more Martha's than Mary's. Martha's are much more absorbed in waiting on people, troubling themselves in doing earthly works. But a few Mary's long to lie down beside our Lord and listen to Him. There are some special Greek words that show a special love for God (I can't pronounce them well enough, but) one Greek word that refers to worship means to love and kiss Him. Another word is to respect and glorify Him. How lovely these meanings are!

We do pray and sing to Him. But, do we really do so with all of our heart and soul? Well, to be honest, some of you here might be thinking about other things instead. Things like: "What shall I eat or make for lunch today?" or "That person has a nice dress on today. She sure has many nice clothes." or even "Oh, Pastor Hirota's hair looks terrible!" and so on. But, God demands that we concentrate on Him, worshipping Him with all of our hearts, and minds. Remember the story of the worship that Abraham offered to God; in Genesis 22. His worship finished with blessings. How gracious it is that the blessings of God reach down through our families.

In worship, we are to pray with our hearts, sing with our strength, and give our offerings with love, so that those who haven't known Christ yet would find the true love and Spirit of God in our worship, and eventually be joined to our congregation. [True belief and worship should give birth to more of the same in others.]

Translated by Junko Okamoto - Edited for the Net by Shido
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