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 Sermon > The message of the cross |
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Title |
The Message of the Cross(22) - Eternal Life 4 |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Jn 6:53-55 |
Date |
2005-09-11 |
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[Passage]
[John 6: 53 -55]
"Jesus therefore said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.'"
[Introduction]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Today's passage John 6:53 says, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves."
Although we know Jesus Christ is the Savior of mankind and there is a heaven and hell, we cannot be saved with that knowledge. Even if we call, 'Lord, Lord,' attend worship services and receive titles of position in the church, we cannot be saved just by those things.
The Bible certainly tells us that we can have eternal life only if we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, but otherwise, we do not have eternal life.
So, in the last session, I talked to you about how we are to eat the flesh of the Son of Man. Through eating the lamb by all Israelites at the time of the Exodus, I explained to you in detail how to partake of the word of God.
Today, I will talk to you about drinking the blood of the Son of Man. For a man to keep his physical life, he has to both eat food and drink liquids. If you eat only solid food without taking any liquid, you cannot digest properly. You cannot maintain life without taking in liquids.
We can digest food, and absorb the nutrients, and eliminate waste and poisonous substances with water. It's the same in spirit. As said, "My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink," we must drink the blood of the Son of Man to fully intake His flesh.
Then, what does it mean by drinking the blood of the Son of Man? Through this message, I hope you will understand how to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will not just keep the spiritual meaning as knowledge but possess eternal life by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man.
[Main]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, by the time we conclude today you will sense the meaning of 'drinking the blood of the Son of Man' as practicing the Word with faith. In the last session, I told you that eating the flesh of the Son of Man is to learn the Word of God.
Just as they ate lamb roasted over fire, when we read and hear the word of God, we should realize the deep spiritual meaning and keep it in our heart by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And to fully keep the lamb in our heart, we should not just realize the spiritual meaning as knowledge. The word should be put in our heart by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
To take in the word in the Bible's 66 books is to not only read, hear, and store the Word of God as knowledge, but also to implant it in our hearts.
Then, what is the difference between taking in the word and just storing it as knowledge? What is stored in brain can be forgotten; therefore we are not able to practice everything that we stored as knowledge.
When you memorize Bible verses, if you do not just repeat it only with lips but meditate on the spiritual meaning, it will be implanted in your heart.
If you take the Word into the heart, it will come out in your life as action. So, even if you forget the exact verse with the passage of time, the contents that have been cultivated in your heart still remains.
For example, Matthew 5:44 says, "But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." Just by knowing this, you cannot love your enemy when he does evil to you and persecutes you.
If you have not cultivated love in your heart, you will be hurt in your heart, hate that person, or even pay back evil with evil. But let's think about those who implanted the (essence) of word 'love' in their heart. They may forgot exactly where in the Bible that word is written, but when somebody does evil to them, love and compassion will naturally flow out from their heart.
If you take in the flesh of the Son of Man in the same way, the darkened part of the heart that is stained with untruths will change into the (clean) white heart. If you eat food and drink water, wastes are eliminated and only the nutrients are absorbed. Likewise, to the extent that you implant the flesh of the Son of Man in your heart, you will be filled with truth and the untruths will be eliminated.
If you put love in the heart, hatred goes out. If you put meekness in, anger goes out. If you take in humbleness, pride goes out. When God first created man, man only had a heart of truth without any sins or evil.
But since the fall of Adam, man came to accept untruths one by one in his heart, and to the extent that untruth came in, the original truth leaked out. It can be said that the 'white heart' became 'dirty' and changed into a 'blackened heart'.
But if you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and take in the word of God, truths are implanted in your heart one by one as untruths go out.
Taking in the word of God cannot be done just by strength of man. We should realize the word of God is taken in through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, God's grace and strength are received to cast off the evil in our heart through fervent prayers.
For this, we definitely need our own endeavor in belief and practicing the word of God. This then is drinking the blood of the Son of Man. Just as we need liquid to digest food well, we can make the flesh of the Son of Man completely ours when we drink His blood, which is the true drink.
Even though you hear, meditate, and pray to accomplish the word of God, it is not enough. You must keep and practice the words that say, "Keep this," "Throw this away," "Do this," "Don't do that."
Without practicing the word, you cannot experience God's works. If you do not experience God's works firsthand, you cannot go further in faith but stay in knowledge only.
As James 2:22 says, "You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;" you gain spiritual faith by practicing the word of God you hear.
You do not begin your life in Christ with great faith from the beginning. You first have only faith the size of a mustard seed, but when you show that small act of faith, God lets you experience His grace according to that faith.
After experiencing God's works, you can gain greater faith, and next time, you can show act of greater faith. It's same for all of you. You hear and see God's works through the message and many testimonies, and this is planted in you as seed of faith.
When you rely on God when you encounter problems in your life, and actually show deeds of faith in actions you take, then you will experience God's works for yourself. As you keep on experiencing these little things and recognize them as God's works, your faith grows.
So, when you face a great problem that cannot be solved by men, you can then confidently rely on God. Before the opening of our church, I experienced something great through my three daughters.
When each of my daughters had difficult situations, we could gain greater faith by showing deeds of faith before God. Once, when I came back home from the prayer mountain, my first daughter, who was then an elementary student, had boils all over her body, from head to toe.
If she moved, her skin cracked and she began to bleed.
Once, my second daughter was hit by a truck. The truck driver was shocked and brought the child. Her face was swollen, inside her mouth was badly torn up. She was in a wretched condition.
And one before, my third and last daughter entered elementary school, she bumped into a high school student and fell, and had a concussion. Some people took her to a hospital, and there the doctor told them to take her to a big general hospital.
But I did not take her to a hospital, and she just laid at home unconsciousness. In all three cases, by the worldly view, they should have been taken to the hospital.
If there were cuts by a traffic accident, they had to be sutured.
Also, concussion is a very dangerous thing even if she went to a hospital. But I did not take them to the hospital or apply any medicine to them. I just prayed to and relied on God.
Even when I saw my first daughter who could not move, my second daughter's face that was completely messed up, and the third daughter lying unconsciousness, I had no worry. I only relied on God. I did not ask for compensation from the truck driver. I just told him not to worry because God would heal her.
And surely God worked according to the faith shown. My first daughter was completely healed after the one night I prayed for her. By God's work, my second daughter could eat well because she had no pain, even though her mouth was swollen and badly cut. She also did not miss any classes at school.
Her teacher wrote a letter to her later saying, "I came to believe in God seeing you getting completely healed by God's power in just a couple of days."
God answered for my third daughter, too.
It was Monday when she had the accident. But on Wednesday morning, she miraculously regained her consciousness and she could even attend the Wednesday service. As we acted in faith, my family members and I were able to gain greater faith by experiencing God's works. My neighbors were also surprised and gave glory to God.
It is the same with you. When you give your tithe with faith, you experience God's blessings, so next time, you can sow with greater faith.
God tells us to love even our enemies. So, when you forgive and show acts of love toward him with faith, love will come into you little by little. If you keep on trying, all hatred will go out from your heart, and you will be able to accomplish perfect love.
When you believe God's word and act with faith in everything, you will grow up to have the full measure of the Christ and accomplish God's word in your heart completely.
On the contrary, after you have received the Holy Spirit and have faith as small as a mustard seed, if you do not practice the Word, you cannot have spiritual experiences and your heart cannot change, no matter how long you lead your Christian life. Then, you might even lose that small faith and drift away from salvation.
1 John 1:6-7 says, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin."
When you act according to the word of God who is light and thereby dwell in the light, not following the untruths of this world in darkness, you can be recognized as God's children who belong to light and that you have faith to receive salvation.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if you truly have faith, you will definitely act it out. God says if we practice His word, we will be blessed whether we come in or go out on this earth and go into glorious heavenly kingdom.
Also, if we rely on God with faith in everything, He has promised us to solve all problems. If you believe the Bible as the word of God and trust God, you will surely act according to it.
You believe that your thirst will be quenched by drinking water. Then, is there any of you who say you are very thirsty, but will not drink the water that is right in front of you? You will not drink it if you don't believe it will quench your thirst.
Also, let us say there is a several million dollar treasure buried some place at the beach in Busan, and you can have that treasure by walking all the way from Seoul to Busan and bring it back.
If you can be sure of the fact that there is a treasure and that you can really have it, you will be filled with hope and walk all the way, even if your legs are hurting so much walking for many days. You will not go if you do not believe.
In the same way, you confess with your lips that you believe in the almighty God, but you cannot practice the Word because you do not fully trust in your heart.
But please remember that you can be saved and also receive answers and blessing experiencing God's works only when you have spiritual faith with which you can act according to the word.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Romans 10:13 says, "WHOEVER WILL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."
This verse expresses the eternal love of Almighty God who through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ saved sinners who were destined to death.
But some people try to justify not living their lives in the truth with this verse. They say anybody can be saved just by calling the name of the Lord, even if he lives in sins. People are deceived if they hear and believe such a statement to be the truth.
But it is not a verse to justify those who are practicing lawlessness and living in sin. There are mating verses in God's word, so we should understand the verse within the context of its meaning.
If we look at verses 9 to 10 that are above this verse, it says, "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."
Not those who just call the name of the Lord, but those who believe in heart and are justified will be saved when they confess with their lips. Now, what does it mean to believe and be justified?
Romans 2:13 says, "For not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified." It says, not the hearers, but the doers of the Law will be justified.
If you hear God's word and truly believe it in your heart, you will certainly act according to it, and when you do so, you will be justified and be saved. Likewise, those who are justified by believing in their heart will be saved.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we attend church, if we do not eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, we do not have life in us. We should be justified by not only hearing and knowing the word but also by practicing it diligently.
Then, are there any of you who worry thinking, "I do not live by the word completely, so will I not be saved?" But although you do not practice the world completely yet, if you are at the process of trying to live by the word, God will acknowledge you that you have faith to be saved.
It is because, though little by little, you are certainly eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man. Sometimes, you find yourself doing something against the truth. But if you repent immediately and turn back, you still have faith, though only little faith. You will be saved by that faith.
But I think none of you will stay as a child in faith forever. You always hear spiritual messages and experience great works of God, so you should have greater faith than other people.
You should be able to diligently eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man believing and hoping for all the blessings of God promised for those children who go into spirit and the whole spirit.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will diligently eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man diligently, recover the lost image of God, and enter into New Jerusalem.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, next Sunday is the Chuseok holiday (that is the Korean thanksgiving and celebration of the first harvests).
Many of you will visit your hometown. I hope you will be protected on your ways, and you will have happy feast in the Lord. Please be at peace with other people wisely and please God.
If your family is not evangelized, you must never bow down before idols or violate the Sabbath.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will preach the gospel and give testimonies to your family, and spend gracious and peaceful time. |
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