Title: Father's Heart (Matthew 10:1-15)
Contents Evangelist Hongjang Kim
When Jesus sees the people, he sees them as sheep without a shepherd. You can see sheep starving and sick when there is no shepherd, and being torn by wolves and lions. However, it is important how you look at these two times. It means that when Jesus looks at the people, he doesn't look at people the way God does. The heart of Jesus is that parents look at their dying children with pain and unbearable heart. Therefore, when Jesus sees the people wandering, starving, and torn without a shepherd, he never sees it as anything else. In the parable of the prodigal son we returned, the word that expresses Jesus' feelings is that [the dead child is alive]. If my dead children return, what can't they do? what would be worth
In the text, Jesus gives his disciples power that no one can imagine. He gives the power to heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. And you send When he tells us to go heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons, his feelings are not the feelings of a doctor who gave birth to someone else's child. When operating in a hospital, the doctor involved in the patient cannot perform the operation. Because you can't control your emotions and you can lose your reason. Even when I had surgery, my brother didn't come in. Why? It's because he's my brother.
Lazarus is dead. Jesus wept in front of the tomb where he was buried. I don't cry in front of other people's children, I cry in front of my own. It is a child I created with some kind of love and indescribable joy, but at the end of the fall, death came, and Lazarus, whom I loved so much, died. You cry in front of it.
Jesus is heartbroken. This is because a new light has begun to shine in the history of human fall and suffering. So you say: “Go ye, and tell them that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” There, the end of the history of suffering is near. It means that the time of reconciliation is near. It is to preach that there is no death, no disease, and no suffering in the kingdom of God. Jesus' heart beats with indescribable emotion and sends it out as a pity for the dying people. Go heal my children, call my children.
When someone else's child is stricken with a fatal disease, we pray, but do not grieve. I don't need to ask my children to pray if they get a fatal disease. Automatic. You can do anything. With this heart, Jesus is sending His disciples to save His people. We need to know this correction.
Matthew 10:8 [Freely received, freely give] means that the kingdom of God will be restored. Was there any business in the Garden of Eden, where it was of all its abundance? At that time, God was the provider of everything. There can be no shortage. But when I left God, all I had in my hand was. So I can't just give mine away. You get one and you give one. You have to sweat to be able to eat. Because there is no provider. Because God is not with us. However, the restored Kingdom of God and the restored Garden of Eden are never bought or sold. It is a give-and-take in love.
Business is not necessary in the kingdom of God. So Jesus drove out the merchants from the temple. The temple is a foreshadowing of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the place where God will be present, and in the restored kingdom of God, a business, a sign of this fall, was taking place. Jesus could not bear it and threw him away. Because the temple typifies the restored kingdom of God, a country where all things abound, a country free from death and disease, and a country overflowing with unspeakable love.
We see Israel split in two again. Matthew 10:11 [When you enter any city or village, find a worthy one among them and stay there until you leave] Shaking the dust off your feet means, in Israel, to enter a holy place, you must first shake off the dust of Sendal. This is to prevent the dust from the world from entering the holy place. In other words, it is a sign that says, “You are strangers who have nothing to do with the kingdom of God.”
Jesus said that I did not come to bring you peace, but to bring discord between the father and his daughter, and between the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law. Unfortunately, even among the people of Israel, those who belong to the kingdom of God and those who do not belong to God are divided.
Today's hymn is the hymn of the Second Coming of Jesus. If you look at the parable of the ten virgins when Jesus comes, you can see that all the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom cannot participate. It is not a number concept that one person is taken and the other is left. One means yes and the other doesn't, but ten virgins is definitely a concept of a number. Five virgins out of ten prepare oil to prepare for the coming of Jesus. Now it's too late to prepare for that. You can realize that the time of Jesus is not far away. However, if we continue to live with the attitude of heart and faith we have lived in the past, we cannot prepare oil.
Looking at these words, just as Jesus sent out his disciples, Jesus is sending us out into the world today. We are going out this morning too. He tells me to go and heal my people, to save my children and to cast out demons so that they may enter the kingdom of God. That is my child. That feeling cannot be compared with anything. What would I not be able to do if my child came back? I prayed when I heard the news. God, if this child comes back, I will do anything. Now, God says, “Do you remember what you prayed at that time? I brought your child, but can you live in front of me like the prayer you said now?” Now is not the time for us to stay comfortably and ignore God's heart. If we do not know the heart of God like this, we are simply falling into the eldest son syndrome.
If you do not know God's suffering heart, you are falling into the syndrome of the eldest son. We need to get out of that eldest son syndrome. You have to realize God's painful heart and go out with that heart when God sends you out today.
When I had surgery a few years ago, they didn't give me pain medication. It was excruciatingly painful. God said, “Your pain will go away in three days. But in Hell, suffering hundreds of times and thousands of times greater than your suffering will continue.” If you see a person who doesn't believe after hearing that word, it doesn't look like a normal thing. It's because you've been through pain. In the name of God, I bless you that our church will restore the heart of God, take the heart of Jesus when he sent us, and accomplish the work of returning countless people to the kingdom of God.