Title: Go ahead and sit at the end!
Contents
Sunday day sermon
Text: Luke 14: 7 - 11
Title: Better Go and Sit on the Horseshoe
The Israelites had a great sense of superiority that they were God's chosen people, and this led to national pride, and they did not know how to bow their pride to anyone. Because they lived according to the law, they knew and lived as the best example of serving God.
But they should have realized their sin through the law. They did not realize their sins through the law, and they only developed a sense of superiority by stating that they had lived by keeping the law. So how arrogant they must have been, and in the name of keeping the law, they committed murder without hesitation. These things get worse as you go up in the ranks.
The more people in the leadership, the more they wanted to be treated and treated as belonging to the elite of the world. As a result, they always wanted to sit in a high position, and they wanted to always show their dignity in the market or on the street and to stand out as a person respected by people. In a word, they had a strong intention to make a living in the world by selling the name of God.
So did God really teach them to do this?
It can be seen at a glance that they have served God with the mind of the flesh, without understanding the deep will of God. Even today, this reality is being reproduced in the people who live a religious life in the flesh. This phenomenon increases as you go to a larger church, and it gets worse as you go to a higher level of leadership. It can be seen that these people do not reveal the true Lord, but that they are blinded by their self-interest and try to satisfy their greed.
But what is the Lord saying in today's text?
If you really think that you have been favored by me, then in this world you are to be humbled. And isn't it saying that if you want to receive greater grace, you must humble yourself even more? The people of Israel, who received grace before any other nation, did not appreciate the grace they received, and instead acted arrogantly and disrespectfully, eventually leading to destruction.
The Israelites were grateful for the grace God had given them in the first place, realized their sin through the law, and rather humbled themselves. It turned into this fire.
We must realize the lesson here that the condition of being chosen is not to be regarded as my righteousness. Being chosen by God is definitely a good feeling. However, you have to be grateful for your choice and learn to be more humble, because if you act as if you were chosen because you are good at being chosen, rather than being chosen, you may cause greater anger.
When we realize that nothing is due to our righteousness and only act according to the will of the Lord, on the contrary, the Lord will grant us greater grace.
We need to reflect deeply on the meaning of today's text. -Amen-