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 Sermon > Sunday Evening Service |
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Title |
God''s Love - 4-Missions United Devotional |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
1 John 4:16 |
Date |
2015-08-02 |
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[Passage]
[1 John 4:16]
"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
[Introduction]
Dear brothers and sisters, today, we are offering a United Devotional Service for the Young Adult's Mission, Canaan Mission, Light and Salt Mission, and Student's Sunday School.
Let us give all thanks and glory to God the Father who has blessed us to have this devotional service. I also give thanks to all the devotees who have prepared for this service with your heart, mind, and soul.
Dear students, young adults, Canaan mission, and Light and Salt mission members, who do you think loves you the most in the whole world?It is almighty God the Creator. He created your eyes, nose, mouth, hands and feet. He cherishes you more than the whole universe. He wants to be responsible for your life. He wants to give you anything you ask. He is our Father God.
If you dwell in His love, there is nothing to fear and nothing you will be short of. Even if your family background is no better than others and your parents cannot give you many things, if you just dwell in God He will fill all your needs. Even though you don't have a high degree of intelligence, education, knowledge, money, or any background of value, God will take care of you if you completely rely on Him.
Today's reading passage 1 John 4:16 says, "We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."Do you really understand His love?You may think you understand because you heard and learned so much about it.
But the depth of understanding is different from person to person. I hope you can feel deep in your heart as to why such a great heavenly Father loves you,who is such a trivial being, so much. If you feel His love, that happiness and joy cannot be compared to any happiness of the world. It can't compare with any worldly friends, worldly pleasures, TV, money, boyfriend or girlfriend, social power or anything else.
If a pearl merchant finds a most precious pearl, he will sell all he has to buy this pearl. In the same way, those who understand God's love can forsake all worldly things to gain His love. Just like a thirsty deer pants for water, you'd want to know more about God's heart. Because you have experienced the happiness and joy given in God's love, you'd want to live the kind of life that God desires of you.
Then, we can dwell in God and God can dwell in us. Namely, we will live in the truth, and to that same extent, God will be with us and give us answers and blessings.
I pray in the name of the Lord that this love of God will fill you completely, and God will take care of you at each moment of your life.
Dear devotees and other members,
The love of God the Father is first of all, the love to wait for us to change.
From Luke 15 we can understand what father's waiting is like. A man had two sons, and one of them received the inheritance in advance and went to a distant country. He probably had a dream to become successful in a new place.
But the reality was harsh. He was not successful at all. But rather he indulged himself in dissipation and wasted all his fortune. When there was famine in the land, he could not even get the feed given to pigs.
Now he began to think about his father. He thought, "In my father's house, even the servants have enough food, and I am starving to death here. I should go back home."Of course, he could not expect for his father to forgive and accept him. He asked for the inheritance money even before his father died, and he wasted all of it in dissipation. He couldn't help but be ashamed.
Seeing him return to his father being in such a poor condition, he might just drive him away saying, "I knew this would happen!"Perhaps he could have just erased his second son from his mind thinking, "I have my first son who is faithful and obedient. I will forget about the prodigal second son."
But the heart of the father was completely different from what the son thought it would be. The father gave him the inheritance money because he demanded it so vigorously, but since the day the son left, the father was not at comfort a single day. He always had concerns about his son, worrying about where he was and what he was doing, and whether he was healthy, and whether he wouldn't be harmed by any evil people because he had a lot of money.
He looked out to the way out of the village every chance he had, and waited for his son to come back. He would have waited not just for a couple of years but even for ten years. The problem was not about what kind of wrong the son did, but just because it's his son, he couldn't give up on him.
He was not waiting for him to scold him for his wrongdoings. He was waiting to take off his old and dirty clothes and put the best of clothing and shoes and even precious stones on him. There was alsoa big party to be thrown for him. And since the son had returned home, his attitude about what he had must have completely changed from that of the past. Before, he took for granted all he was able to eat, that he wore, and all he enjoyed.He is now full of thanksgiving. Also, he wants to make up for what he had done to his father, and he searches for things to do that can please his father. Seeing this son, the father will be comforted and feel happy, too.
Dear devotees, our Father God has been waiting for you and me since the beginning. He waited for us to accept Jesus Christ, receive the Holy Spirit and change.He waited for us to eventually come to understand the heart of the Father, too. When we change into true children, what God wants to give us is New Jerusalem.
God the Father is still waiting for us. He is waiting to share the glory of the beautiful kingdom of heaven that He made with all His wisdom and power. I urge you in the name of the Lord to be borne as the fruit of God's waiting.
Dear devotees,
The love of God the Father, secondly, is the love to endure fora long time until wechange.
In His waiting is earnest hope. He can endure to the extent of His earnestness. To endure is not just sitting back and waiting for the things to turn out the way you want them to. But endurance must be accompaniedby the equivalents in effort and responsibility.
As God has been cultivating human beings, He has suffered from so much sorrow and pain.One of the believers said he began to lament as he was reading the book of Exodus and Numbers. He said he couldn't understand how people could complain so much against God and worshipped idols even though God showed to them such great power. But another believer said, "Deacon, it is not just sons of Israel, that's what we were before we changed," and he couldn't argue.
True. It's not just the sons of Israel that they forsook the love of God even after experiencing great things and receiving so much grace. Anyone whose heart is not changed by the truth would do the same. Yesterday, they praised God who had parted the Red Sea, but today, they complain about not having water to drink. In any hardship, they soon complain, and if they don't get their answers to prayers quickly, they lose all the grace they received.
The reason why the people could not go into Canaan Land directly was due to their unbelief. Knowing that fact so well, they didn't like the fact that they couldn't go into the land right away. They didn't want to wander around in the wilderness, and that is why they put the blame on God and others.Just like the people who wished to go back to Egypt, you might also try to find reasons to take the worldly things again.
If your fullness of Spirit is not as much as before and if things of the world come into your sight, you first have to look back at your religious life. You have to check whether or not your fervor for casting away sins has cooled down; or whether your worship and faithfulness have become mere formalities.
But in many cases, if they lose the grace, they easily put the blame on others or the circumstances rather than looking back at themselves. They do not dare to directly complain against God, but they secretly have hard feelings against Him.
In such moments, if there are people like Korah, they pay attention to them. Because they want to go a way that fulfills their desires, they listen to the words of the wicked people. They want to believe the words of temptation rather than trying to follow goodness.
Even though they experienced one hundred miracles of God, if one thing does not agree with their thoughts, they completely forget about the one hundred miracles. Even if they remember, they just think it was coincidence. This is the attribute of flesh.
It was not just the sons of Israel but all souls during the course of six thousand years of human cultivation. Sometimes God had to let justice be served like in the cases of Noah's flood or Sodom and Gomorrah. If there is foot-and-mouth disease or avian flu going around, we cannot save the animals.
In spiritual sense, if the sin reaches a limit, no other chance can be given. But even then, God does not easily punish us saying, "I've given you so many chances and I can't help it."Even when physical parents have to punish their children with a rod, their heartsare broken. And how greater would God's mourning be when He sees the souls going the way of destruction?
Also Romans 8:26 says, "In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."When the believers are too weak to live in the Light, the Holy Spirit also suffers with groanings too deep for words.
When God sees His children who committed sins and suffer from tests and trials caused by Satan's accusations, He suffers the pain with them. Such pain has been stored up in the heart of the Father for thousands of years. As 2 Peter 3:15 says, "and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation," because of the love of God who has endured all those pains for a long time, there are countless fruits of heavenly kingdom.
Dear devotees,
God's love is, thirdly, the love to believe that we will change.
The reason why He can wait is because He believes His hopes will be fulfilled.
The farmers cannotsow the seeds if they don't believe there would be great harvest. You give birth to children because you believe in them. God began human cultivation because He believes in us, too. He fulfills the providence of human cultivation even though there was betrayal of Lucifer and disobedience of Adam, and even at the cost of giving out His only begotten Son on the cross. It's because He believes in us.
Jesus could take the cross because He believed in us. If you invest all your life savings in a certain business, it means you believe that business will be successful. If you think it could go wrong, you cannot invest all you have.
Just before Jesus was arrested and hung on the cross, the Holy Spirit once let me know in inspiration what Jesus prayed during the short time in confinement. "One loves but lacks understanding. Another one has a fragile heart and sheds many tears. Still another one has weak faith and many thoughts. Yet another has upright heart which can be easily broken...they will go their respective ways with their love for Me, each in his way of martyrdom, his way of joy, or whatever way You, Father wish for them."
The disciples that were left in this world had various kinds of weaknesses. But Jesus believed that they would change and even be able to become martyrs. That is why He could just commit them into God's hands and take the cross with joy. The Lord is preparing your heavenly houses because He believes in you as He believed in His disciples. Until He meets us there, He doesn't even eat or enjoy any party, but He is just interceding for you and me.
[Conclusion]
Dear devotees and other members,
Colossians 1:6 says, "which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth."Just as the Father and the Lord believed in you and have endured for so long, I also believe in you. I see with the eyes of faith that the students, young adults, Canaan mission, and Light and Salt mission members and all other members will go into spirit and whole spirit.
I could endure during all these years because I never doubted that so many souls would come forth as fruits of New Jerusalem at this end time. This faith, hope, and waiting will not change until the Lord comes back, and the Father will surely fulfill.
And I hope you will all remember this fact. You have the Father who believes in you.Even in the moment when you fall, He lifts you back up again saying, "It's alright, you can do it." You have the Lord who believed in you as He took the sufferings of the cross. You have the shepherd who will lead you to whole spirit and other members who will help each other.
When you remember this fact, you will be able to ride on the flow of whole spirit and become God's true children. I pray in the name of the Lord that you will become precious workers who fulfill the providence of God at the end time to bring forth many more fruits all over the world. |
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