Title: He Cried (June 6)
Content span id="writeContents">Text Word: Genesis 42:24~25
At the morning prayer meeting last week, I gave you a message about the parables of Jesus. When Jesus spoke, He spoke many parts of His words in parables. This morning, I told you about the fig tree. The key to this parable is the word about the end times.
But when I told him that the fruit of the fig tree is sweet and good, but it can be eaten even when it is not ripe, the fruit of the fig tree in the backyard of our church was suffering. Almost half is gone. That's not the point.... Those who caught it today must repent.
One of the butlers had an embarrassing incident one day. When I went out and came home, a thief came in. When they ran into a thief, the thief covered his face and ran out in a hurry. I looked at it while sweeping my heart in surprise, and no matter how urgent the thief was, he dropped his phone and went away. I tracked down the phone owner... How in the world could this happen? The cell phone owner was his beloved cousin. It was so amazing. Should I report it or not... You came to me crying and crying.
“Pastor, how in the world could this be? What should I do?”
I told the butler about that.
“When the butler came to visit me, didn’t my heart to forgive already prevailed? If he had not forgiven him, the deacon's steps would have gone to the police station... Looking at the steps to the pastor, the deacon's heart is already forgiving him.”
“I have to forgive, I have to…” I was angry, embarrassed, and so surprised… I saw how I couldn’t control those tears.
Human beings maintain many human relationships from the moment they are born. Parents and children meet, brothers meet, friends meet, couples meet...
In our lives, we live while maintaining this relationship of encounter. A meeting between parents and children can be a comfortable and good meeting, or a meeting between siblings can be a happy meeting. But unfortunately, our lives are not all that smooth encounters await us. Whether between parents and children, between siblings, between husband and wife, we are living in a lot of tension in our lives.
I think that in today's meeting with the brothers, in the stories of these brothers who should be happy, the tears of one man are the tears we shed today.
20 years ago, they were brothers who loved each other so much. Twelve brothers were living with their father. Among the 12 brothers, the son whom his father Jacob loved was Joseph. No matter how much he favored his son... The other sons wore solid clothes, but Joseph, the eleventh son, wore colored clothes. It was pathetic because his mother died after giving birth to Joseph, so his father's love was even more special.
So Joseph was dressed in colored clothes, and the meaning of the color of this clothes seems to express his life. The other brothers lived their lives simply, but Joseph, like a colored robe, had a color of tears, a color of trials, and a color of pain. It can be seen that he lived a life of various mottled appearances, like colored clothes.
Joseph, who had many dreams, was always the object of jealousy by his brothers. The brothers were jealous of this Joseph, who was loved so much by his father. Later, they threw him into the pit of death to kill him, and sold him to Egyptian traders. Joseph made a very bitter complaint to his brothers in the pool of death. I want you to live just once...
No matter how much he begged, the brothers did not pretend to listen. Even though they were brothers of the same blood. Eventually, it was sold to a Egyptian merchant, and Joseph was sold to Egypt as a slave. Despite such adversity, by the grace of God, he became the prime minister of Egypt.
Looking back on the past, the wounds his brothers had inflicted on him were too great. It was the most unbearable painful relationship among human relationships. It's been 20 years since I've seen such hyungs. He himself becomes the prime minister of Egypt, and the brothers meet as they come to Egypt to beg for grain because they have nothing to eat due to famine. The brothers never dared to imagine that the younger brother they had abandoned would become prime minister. But Joseph recognized his brothers at a glance.
How angry must you have been when you saw the faces of your brothers? How could the accumulated anger explode? But Joseph said in the Bible that he went into the bedroom and wiped away the tears that were flowing by himself without anyone knowing.
As we go through life, there are sure to be tears that flow secretly. It is a story that clearly there are tears that other people do not want to see. The tears that Joseph shed in the bedroom were not the tears of pain 20 years ago when he was sold to his brothers, but the tears of faith.
It was not their fault that my brothers sold me, but today God just sold me through them to make me the prime minister of this country.
If we reinterpret the same environment with faith, it will be a blessing, but the problem is that people of faith do not try to reinterpret our situation like this. What is the difference between us and the world?
If we feel and think the same as others in the world, we are not people of faith. The people of God need the wisdom to reinterpret them through faith.
When they later found out that the brother they had sold was the prime minister, they were gloomy. All that remains before them is death. Considering what they did, they deserved death. What did Joseph say to his brothers while they were trembling?
“Don't worry, brothers. Don't be afraid. You did not sell me, but God brought me here.”
You are saying that the heart of living with injustice in your heart and revenge for the injustice is not the heart of Christ. Big or small, we all live with this kind of pain. Sometimes, there are people who cannot forget the wounds that parents inflicted on their children and suffer from pain. Some people are heartbroken because of their brothers. There are undoubtedly some people who live with this kind of pain even in marriage.
At that time, like Joseph, you must become a person of faith who can shed hidden tears and hidden tears. This is because only when we have these tears can we maintain the true and right relationship of faith in our lives. Because he hurt me, I also hurt him, because he insulted me, I cursed him, and because he abandoned me, I also forsake him.
Later, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. To his frightened brothers, he shows the tears he has revealed. People's tears sometimes have the power to move people's hearts more than any other words. If it is said that the tears of people of the world are emotional tears that bring about a momentary movement of the heart, then the tears of people of faith are showing us the great image of sublimating everything to faith beyond the emotional dimension of the world. because of.
A butler's younger brother has been disbanded. I gave birth to a child, and the nurse's face was dark. It was later revealed that she gave birth to a deformed child. How amazing would the mother be? The happiness of holding the newborn son in my heart was only temporary, and how wonderful it must have been that a deformed child was born. The mother cried endlessly. Family members came to comfort and wept together. Even more so, the mother was restless, as if it was her fault that her daughter gave birth to a deformed child.
At that time, my father-in-law and mother-in-law came to the hospital. The moment I held my grandson in my chest, I found out that he was a deformed baby. A father-in-law cries as he holds his grandson born with a deformity in his chest. After crying for a while, the father-in-law wept and began to pray.
“God, God, a sad thing has come to our family. Something I don't want to think about has happened. But we believe in God. It's not a sad thing, but through this event, God, thank you for making our family members share our hearts and allowing us to pray. Thank you that this child was not born in another family, but in our own family serving God.”
Father-in-law's prayer deepened even more. After praying, she patted her daughter-in-law on the back and said, “Son, it is neither your fault nor anyone’s fault that a deformed child was born in our house. Clearly, there must be a deep will of God. Let's not view this misfortune only as misfortune. God is the one who turns misery into happiness. Let's empower ourselves.”
The daughter-in-law later confessed that these were the words of love that touched her heart the most among the words she had ever heard after she was born. We must not become the people of the world who face misfortune as misfortune. We must believe that God is the One who makes us happy no matter the conditions of unhappiness. As long as this belief becomes our faith, we can neither be disappointed nor disappointed.
Why did I have to be sold like this for 20 years? Why was my eldest brother born with such a terrible fate that he had to sell me? Joseph became a victor in this way, because he prayed for what God's will is in this life, and also clearly believed in God's power to change his life in this life. This branch is what gave rise to this precious boldness.
Faith brings us great victories. Only those who have the great victory of faith can have this kind of fox. The eye that sees unhappiness as unhappiness is an eye that everyone has. But God has given us eyes of faith. If we can turn our eyes toward the God whom God wants to work through, through other people's misfortunes and our own misfortunes, we can have the same tears as Joseph.
We must have hidden tears that wash away the pain of days gone by and shed only by ourselves, invisible to others. Even though we cannot forgive, we should pray for forgiveness through the tears we shed. And those tears should be expressed as exposed tears. We need to have that kind of image that promises to fill your shortcomings with my tears.
This incident that Joseph cried today is not the story of one man's tears. It is not the story of a man's tears, but the tears of a man named Joseph should be the tears of all of you who participated in this worship service today. Those of you who live with these tears are the ones who God makes great victors and gain the tolerance of faith that only those with great victories can have. I sincerely hope that this kind of life will be yours. We will pray with you.
“Thank you, dear Father. I hope that the tears that Joseph shed will become my tears. Give me a heart to wash away the past days with the tears that Joseph shed alone, despite the anger and injustice that I can't bear. Help me to live a life of comfort, forgiveness, and understanding by confessing that, like Joseph, you did not sell me, but that God worked through you. I earnestly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen."