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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
How to Meet God(2) - How to Meet God (2) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Proverbs 8:17 |
Date |
2013-02-17 |
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Passage
[Proverbs 8:17]
"I love those who love Me; and those who diligently seek Me will find Me."
Continuing from the last session, let us delve into what the Bible says about how to meet God.
In the last session, I talked about how much God is worthy of our love and how much we should long to meet Him.
God created heavens and earth and all things in them. He is the true God who cannot be compared with any idol.
He is alive and He answers the prayers and earnest supplications of people.
Furthermore, He is full of loving-kindness and compassion.
When He sees His children suffer from diseases or other problems, He wants to save them.
He delights in giving good things to us, and He wants to give us bountifully, pressed down shaken together and running over.
The fact that He gave His only begotten Son as a sacrifice to save mankind proves this love of God.
Ladies and gentlemen, have you met this good God?
Here, meeting does not only refer to the first encounter that we have when we accept the Lord.
It refers to all the moments of experiencing the works done by the hands of God.
Then, how often do you meet God?
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will all meet and experience God, and moreover become His children who walk with Him.
Main
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, viewing audiences, the most fundamental and important thing for meeting God is that you should earnestly want to meet God.
It is just as today's reading passage Proverbs 8:17 says, "I love those who love me; and those who diligently seek Me will find Me."
God loves us above all else and He seeks us first. However, God will not coerce us to open our hearts so He can come in and meet us.
He works according to His justice, so He can come into our hearts and meet us only when we willingly open our hearts.
It is just as written in Revelation 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me."
And our longing to meet God will become earnest when we are poor in spirit.
Matthew 5:3 says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
To have a 'poor' spirit, first of all you have to free your heart of the things that hinder you from seeking God such as worldly pleasures and meaningless desires.
Then, you will have an earnest desire to meet God.
Also, when you humbly seek God, He can come upon your heart.
But most people become poor in spirit only when they face difficulties.
If you have a problem that cannot be solved by any worldly measures, I hope you will rejoice and give thanks.
This is the best opportunity for you to be able to earnestly seek God and meet Him.
Psalm 40:2 says, "He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm."
Isaiah 55:6 says, "Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near."
And thankfully, it has become much easier for you Manmin members to meet God.
It's because He has already surrounded you with the original light and He has issued forth the original voice.
The original nature of God is love.
For this reason many of you are feeling and realizing the love of God through the original light and voice.
And you repent of your past sins and cleanse the perennial stains of your heart so you can receive answers and blessings.
Above all, you have greater hope for New Jerusalem.
Anybody can meet God this way.
It's because the original voice is increasing the earnestness in your hearts.
Now, you can meet God only if you just show even the least bit of effort in your personal deeds.
It is much the same as being able to get as much sunshine as you want, but only if you just go out in the open during the day.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we can meet God when we have a strong desire to meet God.
Also, the stronger the desire, the more greatly you can experience the love of God.
If you have earnest heart, now you have to go to the places where you can meet God.
God dwells in the light, the truth, goodness, and justice.
Therefore, we can meet Him when we go into the midst of those characters.
Now I will tell you about the four ways to go into the midst of those characters.
First, you can meet God through the 66 books of the Bible.
In the hymn "Yes, Jesus Loves Me!" it is sung as follows:
"Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so."
The Bible tells us who God is and what His will is for mankind.
It especially tells us about how much God loves us.
Through the Bible, we come to understand these things, and to that same extent our faith in God grows up.
For example, new believers hear about the sacrifice of the Lord and they come to confess their sins and repent of them.
They accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and accept God as their Father.
It is as said in Romans 10:17, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ."
The reason why you come to the church, which is the body of Christ, and learn the word of God is to meet God through the word.
And as you read and hear the Word, you can meet God only when you practice the Word.
As you obey the word of God telling us to do, not do, keep, or cast away certain things, various life problems will be resolved, and blessings will come upon you.
Of course, knowing the word of God literally or just as knowledge does not guarantee meeting God.
The Bible has been written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so we should understand the true meaning with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Then, the Word will be living and active, and pierce into the division of our soul, spirit, and even joints and marrow.
In order to receive the help of the Holy Spirit, we must pray.
Therefore, the second way for God's children to meet God is prayer.
If we earnestly pray, we will be inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we will understand the heart and will of God contained in the Word.
Also, we will be given the power to follow the word of God.
Above all, prayer is the direct communication channel through which we can meet God.
Prayer is not a monologue.
It is a conversation with God.
When His children pray, God hears them and touches their hearts or gives them realization and understanding.
This way, we can communicate with God the Father.
Namely, we can have personal fellowship with God.
Moreover, if we pray according to the will of God, He will answer us in accordance with the law of justice.
Through these occasions, we can certainly meet and experience God.
And earnestness is again something very important when we try to meet God through prayers.
We know what the blind man Bartimaeus did to meet Jesus.
He cried out as said in Mark 10:47, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
When other people rebuked him to be quiet, he raised his voice even more.
It was because his desperation was so great.
Many prophets also cried out in their prayers.
Jesus also prayed with all His strength and His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.
God is leading you to the rock of faith, sprit, and whole spirit very quickly with the original light these days, and I believe you are more desperate than any other time.
If you cry out with such an earnest heart when you pray, you cannot have any idle thoughts or drowsiness.
Thus, when you pray, I hope you will pray with all your heart and cry out with the determination that you will certainly meet God.
In doing so, I hope you will be able to meet God personally in your lives.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and viewing audiences, third, we can meet God through praises.
Suppose you just went back home from work, and your children sing a song of encouragement for you.
Not just your ears but your heart also will naturally be focused on their song.
Similarly, when His children lift Him up with praises, God's heart, eyes, and ears are set towards His children.
God is very pleased with praises.
It is just as Psalm 69:30-31 says, "I will praise the name of God with song and magnify Him with thanksgiving. And it will please the LORD better than an ox or a young bull with horns and hoofs."
This is the reason why we are filled with joy and emotions when we sing praises.
In the Bible, we can see that the fathers of faith also offered God praises from time to time.
One of the most significant of these figures is David.
David enjoyed singing praises when he was tending the flock alone or when he was offering sacrifices to God as the king.
God loved this David and was with him all the time in the praises.
The praise sung by David also contained the power of light.
When David played the harp, the evil spirits that were afflicting Saul went away.
In 2 Kings 3, Elisha was moved by God and received God's word when the minstrel played.
You can also meet God who is in the praises.
Sing each part of the lyrics with all your heart as if you were praying.
God will come to your heart.
He will tell you that He loves you and lets you feel the spiritual realm in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Especially the Manmin praise songs given by God Himself let you feel the heart and love of God and purify your heart, too.
Brothers and sisters, how can we not praise God who saves us and leads us to the kingdom of heaven?
It is something that we naturally have to do, but when we praise God's goodness, love, and power, He shows His love back to us.
Therefore, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will meet God everyday through praises.
Brothers and sisters, viewing audiences, we can meet God, fourthly, in worship services.
The forefathers of faith beginning from Abraham to Isaac and Jacob in the Old Testament times communicated with God through sacrifices.
King Solomon met and experienced God of wisdom and from whom all blessings flow, by giving one thousand sacrifices.
Those sacrifices are equivalent to the worship services in the New Testament era.
In John 4:24, Jesus says, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
God is spirit.
It means we can meet God who is spirit, if we worship in spirit and in truth.
Simply stated, worshipping in spirit and in truth refers to worship offered with all our hearts in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Whether in official church worship services or in small group services, we can meet God just by worshipping well, and it's a great blessing.
Furthermore, worship service contains all the other passageways to meet God, namely, the Word, prayer, and praising.
Grace will come upon us from above when we worship with all our heart in spirit and truth.
We will be overflowing with hope for Heaven, peace, and joy.
What happens after you worship God properly?
You are full of the Holy Spirit, so indescribable joy flows out from your heart, and you feel your body and mind are so fresh.
This is the evidence that you have met God who is the source of life and peace.
If we keep this kind of grace well in our lives, we can always feel God who is with us all the time.
We can meet God every day.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, viewing audiences, we can approach where God dwells through the word, prayer, praising, and worship services.
Namely, we can go into the midst of light, truth, goodness, and justice.
Cornelius, a Roman centurion in Acts chapter 10 is one of the persons who experienced this grace.
The Bible says this about him, "a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually."
He actually prayed to God, practiced goodness as in the word of God, and diligently sought God.
So, God sent the great apostle Peter to the household of Cornelius.
Through this meeting, Cornelius met God dramatically although he was a Gentile.
He accepted the Lord and received the Holy Spirit and was born again as a true heavenly citizen.
Namely, his life of diligently seeking God guided him nearer to God.
If we reach the perfection of light, truth, goodness and justice, we can not only meet God but also we can walk with God.
Enoch was such a person.
God not only met Enoch but walked with him for 300 years for God loved him so much.
God then took him to His side.
Enoch was caught up to Heaven without seeing death.
Wouldn't you want to be the same kind of child of God?
I hope you will long to meet God the Father, to walk with Him every day, and to dwell near Him forever.
The original light and the original voice are right here with you.
It has become so much easier to meet God.
Therefore, you can just show the minimum deeds of your own.
But there are still some people who are trying to find some other special way to meet God other than the things explained above.
But you should remember that the most important things are the most basic things.
You should not neglect the basics just because they are so fundamental. So then, why don't you just put your focus on the above four things?
Then, you will have deeper fellowship with God.
I pray in the name of the Lord that all of you will quickly come forth as true children and walk with God on this earth, and then dwell with God forever in New Jerusalem. |
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