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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
Sinful mind(3) - Sinful Mind(3) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
2Co 10:3-6 |
Date |
2002-07-21 |
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[Introduction]
Dear congregation,
[John 6] shows that many of Jesus' followers left Him. Since the beginning of His public ministry, He performed many wonders and miraculous signs and innumerable people followed Him believing Him to be the Son of God.
In [John 6] He fed more than 5 thousand people with five small barley loaves and two small fish, and walked on the sea right after that time. Many people were surprised at the sight of two miracles and followed Jesus fervently for the purpose of more fleshly benefits.
However, Jesus didn't intend to give them fleshly benefit but spoke about the deep spiritual message that are not easy for them to understand. That is, Jesus said that He is the bread of life that gives the eternal life and no one can gain eternal life unless he eats His flesh and drinks His blood.
This message was too difficult for the crowd to understand. They regarded Jesus only as a man who was born by the unification of a father and a mother. But He said, "I came from heaven. I'm the bread of life. No one can live eternally unless he eats my flesh and drinks my blood." Jesus' message was confusing and embarrassing to the crowd because they thought of His message according to their sinful mind.
So [John 6:66] says, "66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him." His followers couldn't accept Jesus' spiritual message because of their sinful mind even though they had seen a great work of the power of God. At first they followed Jesus for their own benefit but after all abandoned the will of God and left Him.
The rest of His disciples trusted in, obeyed and followed Jesus to the last because they didn't think of His message by their own sinful mind but accepted His message by the control of the Holy Spirit. Even when His message didn't agree with their own opinions, they tried to trust in Jesus And accept his message.
Later those faithful disciples could perform the work of His power and became His witnesses after Jesus' ascension.
This principle is the same case to you today. In fact, you have seen or heard uncountable and astounding works of the power of God until now. And you have received many promises of God for accomplishment of all His plan. God has promised the construction of the Grand Sanctuary and World Evangelization even in the establishment of this church, and the outlines of the promises are being formed.
You must be main workers who accomplish the promises of God. So please get rid of your sinful mind and demolish all your arguments. And please try your best to become men of spirit. If you become men of spirit, you will understand the heart of God who is spirit, know the secrets of the spiritual realm and enlarge the kingdom of God. Powerfully. In this way you can do great things for the Lord in the last days.
May you all get rid of every sinful mind that remains in you and be accepted as spiritual children through today's message, I bless you in the name of the Lord!
[Body]
Dear congregation, Dear church members, brothers and sisters, Dear congregation, members who are attending the service through satellite all over the country, branch church members, branch sanctuary members, Light and Salt Mission members, Restaurants Mission members, all the members who are attending the service through the Internet all over the world, Sunday school children
In the previous time, I explained what the sinful mind is, why the sinful mind is hostile to God and how the sinful mind leads you to death.
You will be controlled by Satan and think according to your sinful mind to the extent of the measure of your untrue knowledge. And you will not have the spiritual faith to the extent of the measure of your sinful mind.
Without the spiritual faith, you cannot obey the command of God that doesn't seem to be agreeable with your knowledge. Of course you cannot experience the work of God without your obedience. Also, you must remember that you cannot obtain the result of promises that God promised to carry out if you disobey Him with sinful mind.
As an example, God commanded Moses to lead the Israelites and escape from Egypt. And He promised that He would lead the people to the land of Canaan that honey and milk run through. He mentioned the beginning and the end to fulfill His plan for Israelites. But He didn't say in detail what hardships would wait for them, how they should overcome the hardships or how they should fight against strong Canaan dwellers. He wished they would march their way by spiritual faith in each time they met the hardships.
Because they thought according to their own sinful mind whenever they met hardships saying, 'We cannot enter there because of this or that.' they could never obey the command of God, 'Conquer the land of Canaan.' They would have been led to the promised land very easily by God if they had trusted in God and obeyed the command of God. They should have obeyed God constantly to the last when God commanded them to enter the land of Canaan.
Bu the first generation of Israelites were not faithful to the promise of God. They continued to complain about each hard situation because of their own sinful mind. They complained to Moses in each hard situation and some of them protested Moses, the man of God in doubt. For those reasons, they couldn't enter the land of Canaan.
On the other hand, the second generation of Israelites trained themselves to get rid of their sinful mind during their way of wilderness because they had seen their parents and elders disobedience and sufferings. They could enter there even though they met many hardships like their parents or elders.
Dear congregation, God searches for him who enjoys obeying whatever He commands by spiritual faith without sinful mind. God fulfills His plan through such obedient man. Unless you get rid of every kind of your sinful mind, you will not obey just as God commands, nor keep commands of God understanding the heart and will of God in their inner heart. Only he who has got rid of every kind of his own sinful mind can enjoy the measure of faith that pleases God.
Let's think about an example. A king has several princes. The eldest prince is supposed to succeed to the throne. The eldest prince has been trained to succeed to the throne from his childhood and prepared himself for the throne. He was confident that he would govern the nation well.
One day he hears what the king said unexpectedly. He heard that the king had said, "I think the youngest prince is young but has a good disposition and nature for a king. I hope he will succeed to my throne."
The eldest prince cannot understand why the father king said so. The eldest prince thinks the youngest is very young and has not been trained for the throne. The youngest doesn't look more qualified to him. Instead, he finds many defects from his younger brother rather than proper qualifications.
If you were the eldest prince, what would you do? You would act differently according to your attitude for the king.
If you neither trust him nor respect him, you may blame him saying, 'Father is surely aged. His judgment is no longer trustworthy.' And you will insist on your legitimacy neglecting your brother and thinking, 'The youngest is very young and not ready for the throne. He doesn't know how to govern the nation. He cannot become a good king.'
Let's suppose that you conceded the right of throne to your youngest brother. However unacceptability and displeasure remain in you. Maybe you think, 'Well, I'll watch him whether he will take good charge of the duty.' In this case, you will not please God although you conceded the right of throne to your brother.
On the other hand, you would show the opposite aspect if you were good-hearted man. You would surely love and trust in your father. You would enjoy his command. You would assent to king's decision saying, "My youngest brother has good merits if father said so. It would be better for him to be the next king."
You would concede the next throne to him. You would not think, 'He has several defects. I will watch and check how he will govern the nation.' Rather you would try to help him.
You would not show off your faculty before him even if you have better knowledge and ability than he does. You would use such better knowledge and ability in helping the youngest brother to become good king.
You would not make an excuse of disobedience because you trust in and love your father. Naturally you would try to be helpful to fulfill the saying of your father.
This is the same case to your faith. Sometimes God commands His children to do what seems impossible to do. You cannot obey His command if you think about the command according to your sinful mind. Or your inner heart doesn't agree with His command because of your sinful mind even if you seem to do the command by action.
The sinful mind wraps your mind like a hard cover and hinders you from understanding the will of God. But if you get rid of your sinful mind and have trust in and love for the Father God, you can understand His heart and will by the work of the Holy Spirit.
[1 Corinthians 2:10-11] says, "10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. 11The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God." The Spirit makes the will and heart of God known to him who is loved By God.
In this way, you can know how to obey the will of God wholly and to fulfill His plan wholly in the wisdom and understanding that the Holy Spirit gives you if you are led and controlled by the Spirit. As a result you can bear abundant fruits of obedience.
Therefore, you must remember that God rejoices greatly and uses you for His kingdom when you have got rid of sinful mind and enjoy obeying His will wholly.
Dear congregation,
What will you do to get rid of every kind of sinful mind?
Above all, you must try your best to get rid of every kind of evil and march toward the measure of spirit. And you must change your untrue knowledge into true knowledge. That is to say, you must immediately throw away what you have thought is right when you find that it is against what God teaches to be right.
On the other hand, you must not memorize spiritual knowledge just in your brain. If you have much knowledge in your brain but don't act by the knowledge, you may get arrogant or criticize others. You must write the knowledge on the tablet of your heart and act according to the knowledge to make it your true knowledge.
For example, one person 'A' gets angry with other person 'B' who hates and bothers person 'A'. The person 'A' heard the word of God, 'Love even your enemy.' He kept it in his memory. And he began to think to himself, 'Until now I have not been right. I thought it is right to revenge my enemy. But the truth tells me that I should love him who bothers me.'
Then, has he become a spiritual man who can love even his enemy? Not at all. He is not a spiritual man who is accepted by God because he confesses his hatred. Some confess their wrongness and pray to God, 'Please forgive me, Please help me to love my enemy.' But they still insist on their own ways of thinking and prejudice that are against the truth in spite of such confession.
Thus, you must change your heart in spirit and act the word of God. You must make up your mind to get rid of what you have been against truth in order to become a man of truth, namely a man of spirit. You must repent that you have not loved your brothers and that you have been wicked. You must repent of your sins with heart-breaking tears and turn your way back to the truth.
Apostle Paul said, 'I die every day.' In the same way, you must determine not to commit those sins again in such a firm resolution and struggle against your sins to the point of shedding your blood.
When you pray and fast for the goal in such attitude, you will surely receive the strength and grace from God and take off every kind of evil and sin. And you will get filled with the word of truth, 'Love even your enemy.' It can be called, 'You are a spiritual man. You have true knowledge.'
Accordingly, whenever you learn all kinds of true knowledge and change your heart according to such knowledge of truth, all kinds of untrue knowledge will be thrown away and your heart will be filled with all kinds of true knowledge. You will no longer have such untrue knowledge in your heart like hatred, quarreling, jealousy, envy, arrogance, anger, adultery and so on.
Even beginners or newcomers will listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly and will not act by the sinful mind if they try their best to obey the word of God. The sinful mind arises through untrue knowledge that remains in your heart. So you will never think by sinful mind if you have no untrue knowledge.
Likewise if you have no sinful mind at all, you will think only according to spiritual mind, listen to the voice of the Spirit, be led by the Spirit and experience the works of God.
Dear congregation,
Secondly, you must always try to fill your memory with spiritual knowledge to become a spiritual man who has got rid of all sinful mind.
You must neither judge nor condemn others with sinful mind. Nor you must see or hear anything according to your own untrue ways of thinking. You had better treat them only by truth.
So you should check whether you say or hear something in truth or not and whether you treat others in goodness, love and truthfulness or not. In this way you should change yourselves into truthful men constantly.
What is your heart like when you are blamed by others before many people?
If you are blamed because you are wrong, you should be thankful and turn back your way. And you should bear up under sorrows believing that God the Father watches all things even when suffering unjustly. You need not be sorry for the reproach if you believe in God.
If you entrust everything to God in thankfulness, problems caused by misunderstanding will be solved and your harm be changed into the blessings. As a result your heart will be filled only with peace and joy.
Then, how about your response to reproach of the Father? The Father God reproaches or admonishes you because of His love for you. So you will not lose the grace or fullness if you trust in God.
However, man of sinful mind is confused or distressed because he thinks according to his sinful mind when he is reproached. Sometimes he is discouraged or disappointed at himself thinking his defect or weakness. Even he hates blamer. He complains, 'How did he pit me to shame before many people?'
If you may have such wrong mind, please get rid of it at once and change it into true mind. And you should always keep untrue thought off away from you by thinking only affirmative things in joy and gratitude.
What do you think when you are alone?
I meditate the word of God or think about the kingdom and righteousness of God. God says in [Psalm 1:2], "But they delight in doing everything the LORD wants; day and night they think about his law." So I enjoy meditating the word of God and praying to Him.
Otherwise I recall faithful servants and weak members thinking, 'How shall I give them strength?' I don't judge or condemn them by the law but accept and pray for them in their place.
I often have worries for the kingdom of God but my heart is filled with peace and joy always. Worries about the kingdom of God are different from fleshly worries. Sometimes I enjoy myself without any thinking.
In fact, you cannot enjoy yourself without any thinking if you have much sinful mind. You are reminded of many things even if you try to enjoy idling without any thinking. you can enjoy yourself in nothingness without any thinking if you have got rid of every kind of sinful mind.
Therefore, please think only according to the truth whomever you meet or whatever you do. Then, every kind of sinful mind will be gone from you and you will listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly and obviously.
[Conclusion]
Dear congregation,
[Luke 13:30] says, "And note this: Some who are despised now will be greatly honored then; and some who are greatly honored now will be despised then."
It doesn't matter in God's kingdom who accepted Jesus Christ first, who knows more about the word of God, who is higher, and so on. It is very important how deeper measure of sanctification you have entered, how more you have got rid of your sinful mind, how much you have resembled God, and so on.
Such spiritual men can listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly and be led by Him exactly. And they can go wherever God commands, do whatever God commands and bear fruits that God planned for. So God uses such spiritual men as the tools for the Kingdom of God.
Thus, you should not only proclaim, 'I will become a worker of the Lord and evangelize the world in this last days. I want to be one with the Shepherd and to perform the work of the power.' And you should not only have the fervent heart for the Lord.
If you still live in the darkness and carry sinful mind, you will never be used by God. Today is the last days of human cultivation. Really you should become spiritual workers of the Holy Spirit, not sinful workers.
Please discard your position, your knowledge, your career, your theological background and so on. And please check your heart in the light of the truth of God. Let's not forget that we should get rid of every kind of evil and sin.
You should demolish all your arguments and get rid of even a fragment of your sinful mind. Then, you should surrender yourselves wholly to the word of God.
I hope that you will be able to shout, 'Lord, Here am I. Send me!' when God says, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?
Therefore may you be sent around the country and the world to make blazing works of the Holy Spirit by His power, in the name of the Lord I bless you! |
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