Title: God Will Be pleased with you.
Contents
God will be pleased with you.
Isaiah 62:1-5
Yesterday, I looked at an Internet daily newspaper and saw a contrasting article. The article at the top was titled [The Endless Challenges and Impressions of Dr. Yoo-sun Jeong's Mother and Daughter on the Pulpit of an American University Overcoming Cerebral Palsy Disorder], followed immediately by the article titled [Suicide of the Mayor of Gwanak-gu].
Professor Yoo-sun Jeong, who has been teaching assistive technology at George Mason University in the United States for four years, is the first person with cerebral palsy to receive a doctorate degree in the United States. It was a story that gave hope to people by overcoming all obstacles and living proudly as a mother of a son and daughter named Harbin and Yebin. “Looking back, all the stumbling blocks that held onto my ankles seem to have become stepping stones in my life,” said Dr. Jung. On the other hand, the mayor's wife, who committed suicide, suffered from insomnia and depression when her husband was indicted without detention while being investigated by the prosecution on charges of bribery and abuse of power. And in the end, it was an article about suicide by poisoning.
Despite the incomparably different degrees of pain between the two, depending on the person who faced the pain, severe pain became a stepping stone for some to rise up, while for others, even a small amount of pain became a stumbling block and fell.
Like his confession, God loves us and me. He loved us until he gave his only begotten Son. And he has a detailed plan for us. If you look at the book of Isaiah, which we continue to meditate on on Sundays this year, we can see that God has a plan for the Jewish people. He chastises those who have fallen and departs from God and makes them go into Babylonian captivity, but in the end God tells them that He will free them from the Babylonian captivity. As we saw in chapter 61, he said that the day will come when we will surely rejoice and rejoice in the Lord. And through today's text, he says, "Your God will be pleased with you." Let's read verse 5 together. “As a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you, and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God be pleased with you.”
Although it seems that you have been abandoned, you have lost everything, and you seem to have completely failed, God is telling you that He will be pleased with you. So are we today. We are the joy of God. We look at the person next to us and say hello. “Deacon, God is pleased with you.” “Saints, God is pleased with them.” “Son, daughter, you are the joy of God.” “My God is pleased with me. Don't ignore me.” “The God of the children of our saints is pleased with the children of our saints.”
1. God is pleased with us (4,5).
We are people who believe in God as our Father. You are a child of God. They are people who please God no matter what my circumstances are. Here, ‘you’ refers to the remnant of the people of Judah who are being held captive in Babylon. I lost my country. Deprived of political and economic freedom. These are the people who live in captivity. Some of them may have lost their parents in the war. There will be some who suffer from diseases in a foreign land. There will be people who live with indescribable pain as children with disabilities. There must have been people who were all old and without hope. You might have thought that you had been abandoned by God and found yourself in such a miserable situation. But our God will be pleased with them. How do you say you are happy? The bridegroom rejoices as the bride rejoices. They were outcasts who had already lost their virginity. Even so, God said that he would be happy like a virgin bride who was married for the first time by putting all the past behind him. God's delight in us is expressed in the parable of a wedding.
So, how does God call Judas?
See verse 4. If you look at the joint translation for better understanding, the joint translation translated it like this:
[I will never again call you a "forsaken woman", nor will I call your land a "pumpkin". Now I will call you "My Love," and your land "My Wife." Because Yahweh loves you and will be the owner of your land. (Isa 62:4)]
There is something called self-concept. 'Self-concept', a conceptualized image of oneself, develops through childhood and adulthood. 'I am a good person.' 'I am loved' 'I am abandoned' 'I am ugly.' It refers to what you think and feel about yourself, such as 'I can't be'. How this is decided makes a lot of difference in your life. We are people who are pleasing to God. Our children are also people who become the joy of God. You should not live negatively, underestimating your own conditions. You have to go beyond yourself to see the future. You must see me through God's eyes and see your children through God's eyes. There is a story like this.
Once upon a time, there was a fisherman who lived on the banks of the Ganges River in India and made a living with nets. As I returned home after a hard day's work, I thought, 'How great it would be to become rich'. Then a leather bag full of small stones was stuck at the tip of the foot. He took a stone out of his pocket and started tossing it into the river. "When I get rich, I'll live in a big house." Said the fisherman, he threw a stone. Then he took out the stone again and threw it. “I have to eat seafood and seafood with my servants.” He kept throwing until only one last stone remained. As the fisherman was about to throw the last stone into the river, the moonlit stone shimmered strangely. It was only then that the fisherman realized that the stone was a very precious gem. Sometimes we don't know ourselves and the values we've been given. We are like jewels. They are those who please God. You must have faith. Sometimes God can give you a big stone to make you cross a mighty river. Don't just look at the stone and complain.
Our Jesus says, “According to your faith let it be done” (Matthew 9:29). “Woman, great is your faith, it will be done as you wish” (Matthew 15:28).
It means that people's lives are made according to their beliefs. If you put skepticism, despair, discouragement, doubt, complaint, dissatisfaction, and criticism into your heart, you become such a person. But if you put hope, beauty, encouragement, courage, and enthusiasm, your life will be rich and full. God says “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
The land of Judah where they live