Title: Glory of God/Romans 1:21-23
Thousands of people are living day to day with a sense of serious weakness and incompetence.
However, please believe that God's power and divinity are greatly revealed through our weaknesses. Even in situations of failure and setbacks, the power of new creation and resurrection is revealed to those who believe. What kind of faith should we Christians have?
1. Faith that praises God
God is to be praised. No one can say, 'I do not know God,' because His eternal power and divinity are clearly visible and made known to all creation.
The problem is not praising God. It is not giving glory and thanks properly. Today's text points to this sin of people.
“Knowing God, neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks” (Romans 1:21).
The reason why the people of the world do not know that God's power and divinity are visible in all things is that they do know that they are arrogant and do not glorify God. You can't make excuses. Because they know God.
Here, the word ‘glorified as God’ is used to mean ‘to honor someone with a right opinion’.
Giving Manmin an opinion like, 'Ah, our God is powerful, He is truly God, and He is the only one who can truly save us' is what glorifies God and is right with God. It is a job to return opinions and correct glory.
Also, ‘glorify Him as God’ means ‘glorify Him as God’ (to glorify Him as God).
“The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD (Job 1:21). You should say, "Thank you."
Faith that praises God! May this belief be our faith. The movement to cross the Red Sea and start anew with this faith of praise is the Exodus Movement. We must work to bring the nation out of Egypt through this Exodus movement. May our Lord have faith that He will surely deliver us from this trouble, from affliction, from sin, and from frustration like Job. Rather, praise the Lord who is in control of all this. please elevate it.
2. Faith to understand God
We need to think about the difference between ‘knowing’ and ‘understanding’.
I know my deceased father. I know he is my father. I also know his date of birth. I know some of his character. I know his career. I know, but I always feel that how much I understand you is a different matter.
While I was moving, I found a very old letter while organizing my belongings. After seeing many letters from my father to me, I took out one of them and read it.
I went to Geumma to receive second-year training at the Nonsan Training Center again, but my father didn't know about it, but after knowing it, he sent me a letter soon. In that letter, my father wrote a message to say hello to the company commander, platoon commander (without knowing who he was), and superiors. As I read that letter, I was able to understand Father's caring love again. But once, he said this to me.
Some of your superiors may read this letter from your father to you, and I am writing this letter with this in mind. I think it's more effective to help you by sending a letter to your father expressing his gratitude indirectly to them than to ask them directly.
As I read this letter with those words in mind, I could understand that it was filled with the love and consideration of a father for his son. Knowing and understanding your father are two different things in some ways.
It is necessary for us to understand God. Knowing God's power and divinity, but failing to understand His heart, but rather darkening His understanding, is our sin. They are people whose understanding of God has become like an empty can. Therefore, we cannot understand God's heart and His love. Know or don't know. They say, 'God is love,' but in reality, they do not understand. In other words, I don't feel it. This is the meaning of the text.
It is intellectual pride rather than intellectual ignorance when it is said that “their thoughts become futile.”
"God? Ah! It is intellectual pride in judging God by saying, "I know, I know." As we do what we do, we commit things that have nothing to do with the heart of God's will, feeling, and compassion.
But God is good. Please start with faith. I hope you will be kind to each other and tolerant of each other.
3. Faith to love God
God has the glory of incorruption. The beauty, prestige, and glory of man, beast, and worm decay. But the glory of God and His glory, especially the glory of His love, is eternal. That's why we love God's love. But as you will know, God, Himself, is love. It cannot be expressed in any love. Shakyamuni, Muhammad, Confucius, none. Love, which is the essence of God's divinity, cannot be expressed by anyone, anything, or anything else. All of these are just idols. that's disappointing. that is rotting.
The love of humans, the love of animals, and the love of insects all decay. But God's love has an incorruptible glory. This unchanging love, which we cannot express with the lusts of the flesh and the lusts of animals and insects. This is the meaning of the text.
“He has exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for images made in the image of corruptible man, and of gold and scum” (Romans 1:23).
Instead of glorifying God's love, the unchanging love he showed us through Christ, when he poured out all his water and blood on the cross, he asked, 'Why do we serve in the world of sin and lust buried in the flesh as if it were the highest glory?' is speaking. Believe that the Lord loves you yesterday, today, and forever. Please believe in this very love. If you do, that love will always show the incorruptible glory.
The glory of love that loved and healed the sick 2,000 years ago, that unchanging love that fed the hungry, and that love that pityes and calls people who are wandering here and there like sheep without a shepherd in tribulation is still uncorrupted even now. Please believe in what appears to you.
That love will help us. The glory of that love will be revealed as it is. Look at the cross. Please see the glory of that love. And please believe me. That's it.
It is to believe in this unchanging 'light of love'. I pray in the name of Jesus that you will be given strength by believing in the love of the Lord who spares everything for us, and that you will be given a new day of victory that rises in the world like the sun rising with power at dawn. Amen.