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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
With an Unchangeable Heart |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
1Jn 2:24-25 |
Date |
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In church, the body of Christ, there are many positions as pastor, elder, senior deaconess, deacon or deaconess. These are not given by men, but by God the Creator. When we fulfill our duty faithfully, God loves us and we will be held in the more honorable positions in the Heavenly Kingdom.
However, if we neglect our duties, we disregard not man but God and so God will blame us for that. Now then, let us look into how we can fulfill our duty well and thus become the pillars of church.
1. To fulfill the God-given duty well, we should have an unchangeable heart.
It is necessary to have a constant, truthful heart. In other words, it is to keep the heart of the beginning constantly under any circumstances. Only this is what is perfect before God. So 1John 2:24-25 says, "See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us-even eternal life." What one has heard from the beginning means the word of God in the Bible. God wants us to keep them and become perfect.
So it is same as keeping the truth and appreciating the grace we have received. But if our heart changes, God will blame us and take our duty away from us. So Revelation 2:4-5 says, "Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."
We should keep in mind that God wants us to have an unchangeable heart. We should fulfill our duty even to the point of death until Jesus comes again.
2. In what respect do we have to have an unchangeable heart?
1) We should have a steady heart in our relationship with God.
When we first met God and received His love and grace, we listened earnestly to His words and learn about sin and righteousness and judgment. Also we learned why God has cultivated us on earth. In addition, when we repented our sins and received the Holy Spirit as a gift and were forgiven all kind of sins, we were filled with the love of God and felt like flying to the sky.
But as time passes by, some believers tend to lose their joy and grace. When they began their religious life, they were devoted and obedient to God’s word. So they would offer even their lives for God. But when they come to take an important duty, they will say to themselves, ’I will take it easy and rest for a while.’ or ’Why should I live a hard religious life like this?’
Why then do they change? It is because they neither changed their heart perfectly with God’s word nor depended on God, but sought their desires. So God leaves His children alone to be tested and become perfect. You should check how unchangeable your heart is.
For example, we can learn some lessons from David who was recognized as the man of God’s own heart. He had big faith enough to rescue his sheep from the mouth of bear or lion. He confessed his faith, "the battle is the Lord’s(1Samuel 17:47)" before Goliath at whom all Israelites were terrified. And he could kill Goliath at once. Many Israelites praised him highly. Later, King Saul envied him and tried to kill him. Although David got hungry and thirsty and was driven away, he could escape from Saul. His followers also threatened him. He had to leave his country and depended on a foreign king. He acted like crazy to save his life.
But he kept his faith before God under all the circumstances. Although he was in danger, he praised God and only depended on Him. At last, God made him King of Israel and promised that Jesus would be born in his descendants.
Likewise, we must have a constant heart to be recognized by God and get to the honorable position in Heaven. Even when we are persecuted for Jesus, there is no reason that our gratitude and love for God should change if we remember His grace by which He saved us and has kept us so far.
Israelites saw the ten disasters on the Egyptians and the Red Sea divided into two. But as they complained against God, they could not enter the promised land and were perished in wilderness. So we should keep that in mind and have bigger faith(Philippians 3:13-14).
2) We should have an unchangeable heart in relationship with our shepherd on the Lord’s behalf.
A shepherd teaches God’s words to his flock of sheep and helps them to have faith. So he is more intimate with his sheep than anybody else. This can be seen in the relationship between Paul the Apostle and his sheep. In Early Church, he did many signs and wonders with the power from God and preached the Gospel. He even wrote to his congregation, "If you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me(Galatians 4:15)".
But when he was arrested, some people left him. 2Timothy 4:10 says, "for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia." He prayed for his sheep who had kept their faith. For example, he wrote about Priscilla and Aquila in Romans 16:4, "They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them."
3) We should keep the promises we made with ourselves.
We also should keep the promises that we made with ourselves. For example, Daniel kept praying three times a day even before death. Although he didn’t make an oath to God, he kept it because he had already made a promise with himself.
When Daniel, by the favor of the king Darius, was about to be set over the whole kingdom, those who hated him made a plot to kill him. It was that anyone who would pray to any god or man for thirty days, except to the king, should be thrown into the lions’ den. Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. As a result, he was put to lion’s den but the lion couldn’t do any harm to him because he had trusted in his God. So it is important to keep what one promises to himself in heart. And it is more important to keep what one promises to God than to anyone or himself. Ecclesiastes 4:5 says, "When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it." Psalm 15:4 says that we should keep our oath even when it hurts.
If we make a vow to God, it means that we want to offer something special to God. So when we keep it, God blesses us with bigger thing. But if we don’t keep it, it is to spurn the mighty God and commit sin before Him. That’s why Matthew 5:33-36 tells us not to swear at all. Therefore, realizing God’s grace who gave us our duties, we should fulfill them faithfully. When we try to do so, God is pleased and gives us His grace and power and prepares the glorious rewards for us in His Heavenly Kingdom.
Dear brothers and sisters, when each of us fulfills his or her duty with unchangeable heart until Jesus comes again, we will be able to help with the accomplishment of the Kingdom of God. In addition, all of our hard works and devotion will be rewarded with good things in the eternal Heavenly Kingdom. So I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that all of you will fulfill your duties with faith and give glory to God to the full. |
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