Title: Happiness and Existence (Romans 8:1217)
Content everyone! Which country is the happiest in the world? It is Bangladesh. However, I think this evaluation is problematic from a Christian point of view. Because Bangladesh has a higher happiness index than other countries. This is because if you look at the religious distribution of Bangladesh, 88% are Muslim and the rest are Hinduism. Islam and Hinduism believe in fatalism. They accept their economic destiny as God's will.
Everyone! What religion is Islam or Hinduism? Their religion is idols. unrealistic That is why the happiness index for them is only a fiction.
We consider another happiness index. That is, the happiness index does not belong to possession. If the happiness index is owned, the happiness index of the United States or developed countries should be the highest. However, the fact that the happiness index of developed countries, which owns a lot of things, is not so high compared to underdeveloped countries, proves this.
Everyone! Why? Do wealthy developed countries have high suicide rates? It was because he lost himself because he became obsessed with possessions.
Let's take an example. Let's look at the sentence 'I have what'. The subject of this sentence is ‘I’. However, if we emphasize the word ‘what’ here, ‘I’ is alienated. Losing the 'me' Because we are obsessed with one, we cannot see the others. For these people, the country's identity is found in 'I am what I have'. And in it you find happiness, joy, and success. If you lose something at any moment, you end up taking your life easily because there is no meaning in being 'I'.
Everyone! It's not 'what' that matters, it's about 'me' In other words, it is not the possession that matters, but the existence.
We are not beings who live by values of possession, but beings who live by values of existence. Living happily and well is not in the value of possessions. It is in existence value. To believe in Jesus well does not mean that the value of possessions increases, but rather that the value of existence increases. Therefore, if you want to live happily, you want to live by recognizing the value of your existence.
Author Kenneth Hildebrand put it this way:
We often believe that happiness is hidden in the things we can have or the things that money can buy. We believe in happiness in a big house, fancy clothes, an expensive car, or a piggy bank with a lot of money in it.
We believe that happiness is where there are expensive vacations and expensive leisure activities. But that is a huge mistake.
If we have material or money, we can get some comfort. But that's not true happiness. Because true happiness lives and breathes within us.
Because true happiness depends not on what we have, but on who we are.
Yes. Our happiness lies in knowing who we are and the value of our existence. Today's text explains our existence value in three ways.
First, they are children of God. We have the value of being the children of God.
Both here speak of our changed status in the legal aspect. Adoption means becoming a son in the middle, not a child of the family from the beginning. And the process of becoming an adoptee is not without any tests or standards. The adoptive parents are just qualifying. For example, if you go to an orphanage, choose one of the children, and say, 'I will adopt this child, you will become an adopted child. It is the one-sided favor of the one who adopts the child, not because the child is successful and has passed some tests. This is grace.
According to Roman law at the time, adoption had several meanings. First, being adopted means that he now gives up all the rights of his old family and enters into a new family and new order. To admit that we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior means to give up all the rights we once had. This means entering a new order led by the Holy Spirit from the right to live as I please.
Second, being adopted means that you have the status of a new father. It doesn't matter if it's paper or yangban. When a nobleman adopts, he becomes a nobleman according to his father's status. No need to ask about the past. Originally, Emperor Nero was the adopted son of Emperor Claudius. He becomes an adopted son and takes over the throne when his father dies. The moment we become children of God, we enjoy the right to be children of God, not slaves to sin.
Third, if you adopt an adoption, you are now completely freed from the obligations of the old family (V12). Here, the expression ‘debtor’ appears. In the old days, when a father died while carrying the light, his children had to pay the debt from generation to generation. But if he enters the son's adoption in another house, everything becomes null and void. This is a two-way system. We were children who lived in debt to sin. But the moment I became God's adoption, I was set free from all of them.
Fourth, they live with their stepfather and are now bound by new obligations. He has to cut ties with his former father and share his destiny with the father who adopted him. This is the Christian identity, the value of existence, and the natural principle of adopting God.
the second expression. are children of God
This speaks to our status in terms of family relationships. My Father is God and I am the Son of God. The most important thing in a father-son relationship is love and trust. The father loves the son and the son trusts the father. Because we are children of God, we can call God “Abba, Father.” ‘Abba Father’ means ‘Dad’. We can call God 'Dad'. The word 'dad' contains confidence in the love of a father.
The titles of ‘Father’ and ‘Dad’ are different in their approach. My father seems distant for some reason and I feel like a fearful being, but I feel a sense of 'dad' friendliness.
I had a wife who was a devout Christian. She told her husband and son to believe in God, but the two of them were undecided. Because the husband was an atheist, and the son did not yet know what religion or beliefs were.
which sunday.
The wife forced her husband and son to go to church and prayed for the family.
"Dear Heavenly Father, blah blah blah blah blah"
Then the husband followed his wife and started praying.
"My dear father-in-law, this way~ that way~"
The son suddenly followed his father in prayer.
"Dear Grandpa, Amen."
Everyone! When we pray to God, why not use the expression “God the Father” sometimes instead of the word “Father”? God is my father. We must find our existence value in this.
The third expression is ‘heir’.
This is speaking in terms of the future. “Heirs” here means heirs. We are the heirs of God's inheritance. But we don't really feel it. This is the same feeling that only children born in a chaebol family feel. This child is unaware of the blessings bestowed upon him. But as you grow up, you will realize how blessed you are. In order to live with the skin feeling that I am God's heir, growth must be a prerequisite.
The inheritance God will pass on to us is more than we can imagine. The Bible refers to this as 'glory'. It is simply impossible to express this glory in the language we humans use. This is because human language recognition and expression are limited. Many scholars, many poets, and many men of God express this glory, but in reality all these expressions are but one part. It is impossible for us to express this glory. All I have to say is ‘Hallelujah’.
Everyone! There is one thing we should thank God for here. It is that the Holy Spirit Himself testifies of the privileges given to us and the value of our existence. The Holy Spirit assures us. The Holy Spirit Himself reassures us when we are sometimes weak and doubtful and tormented about all this has been given to us.
Saints! Where is our existence? It is in the adoption of God. are children of God. are in the heirs of God. So, now we have work to do. It is to develop our existence value into actual value. Real value refers to ‘usefulness’. It means living according to one's existence value and exercising one's abilities. See the parable of the talents. The master gave his servants a fair value according to their abilities. Among them, the servant who received 5 talents and the servant who received 2 talents used their abilities to increase their actual value. And the owner praised them.
We are people with spiritual values. Now we must prove this value in our lives and increase the actual value so that God can use it usefully. We must raise our spiritual ransom.
How can we live a happy life by increasing the value of our existence? To be led by the Holy Spirit (vv12-14), to be led by the Holy Spirit means to live a life following the Holy Spirit. It is to follow step by step. (DDR)
suffering with Christ. Both of them live according to the circumstances of the house they live in. The glory of the house is my glory. My father's suffering will soon become my suffering. The Bible is telling us. “You must suffer with him in order to be glorified with him.”
Happiness doesn't come from what we have. We are already happy people. The value of our existence itself is the source of the happiness we seek. Let's live this happiness. I hope that you will live by raising your value to the actual value that God is pleased with.