Title: Great People, Great Church
Contents
Actually, I'm not very good at expressing things like the title today. In fact, if you ask, 'Is our church a great church?', you're probably thinking, 'Ah... not yet...' to have that hope. But we need to rethink what it means to be great and where the standards are.
People usually think of numbers as a measure of greatness. The world is too weak for numbers. Whether he was 150cm or 170cm tall... But the great people in human history had absolutely nothing to do with height. It is called the era of diet wars. 250 calories in a cup of coffee mix, 30 calories in a tangerine... I memorize and carry around. But great life and weight have nothing to do with it.... The lottery lottery confuses people's values. But we should not confuse the rich with the great. The Lord said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven...
(omitted)... The first word of today's text is as follows. "character! Israel! Listen!” Few parts of the Bible begin with this strong emphasis. Why should I emphasize this... I thought there was a huge new word coming out after that. But again, it was the same thing. In a nutshell, “obey God’s word well…” No, you are emphasizing everything you know like this… Then I was surprised again. “...a righteous great nation...” Or a great country? Israel is a really small country. Numerically and by land area... It appears as a great nation in the New Standard Version.
In fact, the text is more surprising because it is an exclamation sentence.
“Who is a great nation indeed! Every time we cry out, God is near... Who is the great nation! To have such righteous rules and regulations…” The Bible correctly teaches us that numbers or abilities are not the standard of greatness. A great people is a people who serve God who always answers every cry, and a people who have the righteous word that God has given them.
Little children play games. There are dozens of number cards 0-9 in the room. “Pick up these cards and make a big number.” At the teacher's words, the children diligently pick up numbers. What numbers would you pick up? 9, 8, 7... At least 5 or 4 or so. However, one child slowly collected a bunch of zeros, neither rushing nor looking at the others. He then holds a one-character card. When other children said ‘998’ or ‘987’, this child showed it. '1,000,000'...
Don't fall for the tricks of numbers. It seems plausible just looking at the numbers you see right away, but numbers never have a future. Because numbers are not future shalom, numbers are not true shalom. It's not a great people, a great church, or a great life because of the numbers... (omitted) Nevertheless, we do not realize our greatness. Because the neighbors don't approve. The text also says that “we must keep his word and do it” so that other nations will recognize them as a wise people and great people. Obedience is a great manifestation of God's wisdom. Regardless of what we realize, we are a great people. Enjoy!!