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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
The God who let us gather good things |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Mt 7:11 |
Date |
2003-11-09 |
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Introduction
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
It's the Thanksgiving Sunday today that we should give thanks to God for all abundant harvests God has give for the year.
Let's give thanks and glory to God who has given us overflowing blessings in spirit, finance and body and led our church high above the nations.
Also, I give thanks to all workers who decorated the platform with various crops, fruits, and vegetations. They did with much thank for the abundant harvest.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
We have much to give thanks to God for when we are reminded of this year. Above all, we have witnessed the blazing work of the Holy Spirit and wonderful works performed by the Most High Power of Creation.
When I sent out the original voice of creation, unbelievable miracles have always occurred around the world beyond space and time through Internet TV and satellite TV. Meanwhile, our church's branch churches amounted to two thousand all over the world.
This year we carried out our mission for Dubai successfully, and you could run a race of faith powerfully in the grace and fullness whenever you went through two-week revival meeting and summer spiritual camp.
And at last the 2003 Russia Christian Cultural Festival will be held on this Wednesday. It will be broadcast to all over the world through satellite system and play a crucial part in opening the gate of the gospel of Europe and Northern countries. Numerous people will witness the powerful works of God shown through Manmin and the holiness gospel spread broadly to the entire world.
How can we fathom all thanks in this short time if we demonstrate all them?
So, let's welcome this Thanksgiving Sunday with all our harvests reaped this year and give thanks and glory to God in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit remembering all God's works given to us in person and in church.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
The Bible mentions the three great feasts God commanded the Israelites to keep. They are the Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacle.
Passover is the feast in remembrance of the day when the Israelites escaped from Egypt by putting the blood of a goat or a lamb on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses in order to evade the disaster of death of the firstborns.
Pentecost is also referred to as the Feast of the Weeks or the Fast of the Harvest because they harvested the first fruits on that day. And in autumn, they kept the Feast of Ingathering differently named the Feast of Tabernacle. It was named the Feast of Tabernacle because they commemorated their fathers' life in wilderness and slept for days in huts made of twigs of tree, straws or hays without staying in their houses. Or it was named the Feast of Ingathering because they gathered crops and stored them.
Today's Thanksgiving Day derives from this Feast of Ingathering. Please listen to today's sermon title and repeat: God lets you reap only good things
It is said in Matthew 7:11, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" The Almighty God promises that He will become our Father and gives good things when His children ask.
You can gain something in the accurate proportion to your efforts and pains, but God gives you harvests pressed down, shaken together and rolling over, 100 times, 60 times or 30 times as much as you sowed.
Do you want to enjoy those wonderful blessings spiritually and physically? You will find the secrets how you can reap good harvests according to the law of God through today's message. I pray in the name of the Lord that you may be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither and be prosperous and abundant in everything.
Body
Dear congregation, members who are attending the service through the satellite all over the country, members of branch churches, branch sanctuaries, Light and Salt mission, Restaurant Mission, members who are attending the service through the Internet all over the world, and the children of Sunday School,
You can reap what you sowed. You reap beans when you sow the bean seeds, and it is alike with red beans. And you can reap as much as you sow. Reaping as sown is the law of the spiritual realm and the righteousness of God.
What should you do for the better fruits in the sight of God?
There are three things for it. Above all, you must sow anything with thanks. Your thanks given to God along with offerings testify to your faith in God. God accepts your thanks with offerings, and blesses you to reap as you sowed.
But some people are faithful for the kingdom of God or give offerings to God reluctantly or unwillingly with little thanks. Many of them think, "People expect me to give offerings with this amount because I have this church title or I'm leader of a certain team or I have led a Christian life for these years. However this kind of attitude cannot bring good fruits and still less perfect ones.
That is because it is your faith that you can please God, and your faith is proved through your thankful aroma from your heart.
If you don't have the answer of God or God's blessing has retarded in your business although you have given offerings, you need to reflect yourself.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I have never given offerings to God unwillingly or forcefully. If I had given offerings, saying, "I'm Chairman of the board of the church and Senior Pastor, so I must give this amount of offerings," how much would God my Father be sorry? But actually I was always very thankful for the grace of God, so I made all efforts to give the utmost offerings. But sometimes I felt sorry for not giving much more.
And I have been offering all my time, my moneys, my family and even my life because I love God my Father and sacrificed everything joyfully when God told me to give it. God has joyfully received this kind of aroma from my heart and always blessed me with good measure, pressed down, shaken together and rolling over.
Many of you have been faithful for the Lord in many ways and served God with fasting, prayer or offerings. Nonetheless, I ask you to watch if you lacked thanks to God in all your ways. Haven't you been oppressed by this thought, "I must not fail in sailing forward a spiritual flow aboard the ship "MANMIN" So, I have to go this way by force"? Or have you served the Lord with a torn heart thinking, "I must carry this responsibility of a pastor or a servant, but it's burdensome"?
These kinds of heart cannot please God at all. God receives the aroma coming from each one's inner heart. So, the offerings in thankful heart are very different from those given forcibly and unwillingly. In other words, God gets pleased differently according to the aroma of each one's heart. The different aroma from each one's heart varies not only God's answer and blessing but also dwelling places and glorious rewards in heaven.
Therefore, I hope you find how deep thanks you have given offering with and try to offer the aroma very pleasing to God in all ways.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Secondly, you have to wait for the proper time with faith for the best fruits.
It must take some time for seeds to sprout and to bear fruits after enough growth. Nonetheless, if a farmer dig up the seeds from the land two or three days after sowing seeds without the rules of farming, he surely drives the seeds into death and destruction.
In addition, it takes different time for various seeds to grow and yield crops. Melons or watermelons require about a year but apples or pears require a few years until they produce good yields. On the one hand, it takes much more time for ginsengs to produce yields. Generally, the more time it takes for some seeds to produce yields, the much more joyful farmers are.
It is the same case to the spiritual realm. Some answers of God require short time, but some others require long time. God says in Galatians 6: 9, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
By the way, some people fail to gain good answers because they do not wait for the proper time after they sowed good seeds in the sight of God. In other words, they do not gain good fruits because they do something wrong in a hastening manner although the proper time has not come.
So, you should bear in mind that there is a proper time for the best result in everything and you have to wait for the proper time whether you do your own business or go to office every day or serve the Lord as a fulltime worker.
For example, Abraham heard the call of God at 75, and left his hometown and kinsmen in obedience to God's will. Afterwards he had to wait for 25 years until he gained the son God had promised. As God's covenant, he begot Isaac the son of covenant through the first wife.
For another example, Jacob had to be refined under the training of his uncle Laban for 20 years so that he might become the father of Israel. Only then, did God appear in the dream of Jacob and tell him to return back home.
On the one hand, Moses was tried and refined in a wilderness for 40 years. When God finished his refinement, He appeared in the midst of the divine fire flaming in thistles on Mount Horeb and called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
In the same way, you have to wait for the proper time in carrying out the work of God. You should not be impatient, irritated or anxious about the results of seeds you sowed for God. Nor should you swear or predict poor fruits. All these prove that you do not have enough faith. In brief, you cannot wait for the proper time because you do not believe that God manages and controls everything. As a result, you feel impatient and act according to your own thought apart from the will of God. And you gain the results you have not wanted.
So, you should demolish all kinds of sinful thought and have spiritual faith. Sinful or human thought sometimes seems to be right, but too often turns out to be wrong and obstructive to the will of God. On the one hand, men cannot tell exactly what will happen after a very short time and they cannot perform God-given duty with some realities seen with human strength. Therefore, you must follow and obey the way of God although it looks unsuccessful if you want to be prosperous in everything.
You have the assurance in your faith that God will achieve what He promised to you, and wit for His time. Of course I do not mean it is better for you to lie down the ground under a persimmon tree and wait until a persimmon falls down. You have to keep steadfast in the promise of God and be guided by the Holy Spirit with your heart wide open.
You should not carry out your plan according to your own thought or search for the right way with your own knowledge. You have to pray to God and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
For example, you are praying for God's blessing in your business. If you believe in the power of God and pray, God will undoubtedly give you His answer. Of course God does not give you the answer immediately the moment you begin to ask God. God does not answer until He has made you a proper vessel enough to receive God's blessing.
For this reason, God will first refine you according to His will and bless your soul to get well so that you can become a vessel enough for God's blessing. Then, He will give you wisdom and strength necessary for a great businessman, lead you to the surroundings that are good for business expansion and work good things for you in everything by sending good people to you.
For another instance, a student trusts God and prays that he may enter famous college. In answer to his prayer, God will first give him a good attitude to keep on studying, empower him to cast away idle thoughts and fill him with wisdom that help develop the better way of study. In this way God lets him get qualified to enter famous college to the extent that he studies diligently, and will answer him when the proper time comes.
This is the same case to building the grand sanctuary and accomplishing the world mission. Church main staffs and leaders must neither feel impatient in disbelief nor act according to their own plan. If you church workers continue praying fervently with faith, God our Father will show us His way, prepare our would-be helpers and tell you when you should act on.
If you follow the will of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit and walk courageously in faith, you will surely gain good fruits when His time comes. I hope you wait for the proper time with faith in all your ways, so you gather good crops on earth and store your rewards in heaven.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Lastly, the law of gathering abundant fruits is that you should give glory to God in everything.
You should acknowledge that all fruit you harvested are not from your strength and wisdom but from God's grace, and glorify God our Father. The apostle Paul did that way. He suffered from all kinds of hardships and persecutions for the Lord and His Gospel and testified to the Savior Jesus Christ broadly to the Gentiles. But he did not confess that he did everything with all his efforts and pains. Rather he said that he was the worst of the sinners and like the one born abnormally.
And he confessed in 1Corinthians 15:10, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me."
Paul always remembered the kind of his birth and the grace of God that had give him new life even after he gave great glory to God through his ministry. If you worked for the Lord like the apostle Paul and enlarged the Kingdom of God very greatly, what would you say to God? Would you say, "I did bear abundant these fruits because I prayed with much fasting and have been faithful in everything." Or would you say, "All this is from your grace, my Father."
If you are a person who is truly pleasing to God, you will acknowledge God the Father every moment and moment and give glory to God alone. .
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
What kinds of fruits have you gained this year before God?
Some of you were healed of incurable diseases and some others gained the solution in financial problems. And hardships left you, your family was led to the gospel and this church, and you became elevated in position and came to gain the better salary than before.
Much more, you have received wonderful blessings in spirit.
Some entered the deeper level of spiritual realm with the help pf a fast spiritual flow, and some others performed God's powerful works by becoming united with me the shepherd and gave great glory to God leading many souls to the way of life.
However, you must bear in mind that none of your works are by your own strength and wisdom. All your works are by God's grace. And God has protected each of you with His blazing eyes because you belong to the Manmin Joong-ang Church. And you could receive what you ask by faith through the powerful prayer of the shepherd assured by God Himself.
In addition, you could find yourself and cast away every kind of evil by struggling against it to the point of shedding the blood because of the word of life piercing the spirit, soul, joints and marrows and splitting them into pieces. At last, many of you have been changed into the spiritual beings pleasing to God.
So, it is natural that you should give glory and honor to God our Father confessing that I owe what I am wholly to the grace of God.
Conclusion
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Our Father God gives only good things to His children and at the same time He lets us reap as we sow in His righteousness. When you sow with prayer, you can gain the strength to live according to the word of God and be prosperous in spirit. When you sow with service and faithfulness, you can enjoy good health in spirit and body, and when you sow with the whole tithes and thanks offerings, you can glorify God for God's kingdom and His righteousness.
The way it is said in Psalm 126: 5, "Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy," you can taste the joy of harvest when you sow with tears.
Today God told us three ways to help us reap abundantly.
Above all, you should sow with thanks in everything, and then wait for the proper time with faith. And finally, you should give all glory to God.
Only when you sow anything for God with thanks and sincerity, can you enjoy eternal rewards in heaven in return to your service, prayer, preaching the gospel, offerings, and so on. Besides, can you not only receive God's answer but also gain health, wisdom and honor on earth.
I believe that you commemorate the Thanksgiving Sunday and come to God longing for the more abundant blessings. In the evening service will the Holy Communion held for you. Please attend the communion and experience the grace and strength of the Lord.
I bless in the name of the Lord that you do your best to sow in the hope for the day when you will reap abundant fruits and enter the gate made of pearl with joy and thanks at the final day. |
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