Title: Healthy Community (Joshua 1:10-18)
Contents
▶ Sermon Title: Healthy Community
▶ Text: Jos 1:10-18
You want to start the new year with a strong and bold heart. Because the Lord has promised to be with us and to prosper in all our ways, we are admonishing you to be strong and courageous in your heart to boldly keep the word of God, meditate on it, and live as it is.
God's mission is not only personal, but also for national evangelization and world mission, which is also the purpose of the church and what God wants through the church. The most necessary thing for this mission is for the South Seoul Church to become a healthy church. If our church community is not healthy, we will not be able to fulfill this mission. Joshua inspires a sense of community in Israel when Joshua follows God's word to the disciples and tells the people to cross the Jordan River.
Second, in a healthy community, the respect for the leader and the obedience of the members stand out. When Joshua gave a command and the officers heard it and told the people diligently, Joshua 1:16-18 shows their reaction. In verses 16-18, the Israelites were told to obey Joshua completely, and even encouraged Joshua. Because of these people, Joshua's leadership was revived and the community conquered Canaan. It requires a beautiful relationship between leaders and followers. It is a church where the leader delivers the word well, and those who follow the leader respect, obey, and follow the leader well, fulfilling the mission God has given them.
The current problem of the Korean church is that the leader does not carry out the mission of the leader, and the followers do not respect and obey the leader and do not obey the word of God. Currently, the Korean church is doing what it wants, just like in the times of the judges, so the community is falling apart. I hope that the South Seoul Church will become a community where God's will is realized among us because the leader is faithful to his or her duty as a leader and the follower is such a person.
The members of Namseoul Church are sincere people who take care of their work. They are people who do their best in church and at work. But our mission did not end there. I hope that you will not only take responsibility for your own beliefs and life, but go one step further and take care of others. So, as the motto of this year’s Namseoul Church, I decided to “community looking back and going together”. The church is a community of faith, love, hope, and mission. I hope that it will become a church that tries to look back and go together. By belonging to many departments and districts of the church, we want to become a church that not only keeps our duty, but also strives to lead those who do not, so that it can become a healthy and strong church for national evangelization and world mission.
Jesus has called us to be a church community. Psychologist Paul Tournier said marriage and being a Christian cannot be done alone. Look at the geese. When the geese fly in time, the resistance can be lowered by 75%, and the V-shaped movement shape allows the strong geese to take the lead in order to lower the air resistance of the weak geese flying after them. One of the reasons why geese cry while flying is to inform them of their location and to give directions and to encourage and support each other. The geese who fall behind in the flock will stand and be looked after by four fellow geese.
Like the geese's community life, believers cannot go alone on the road to nature. Christians can march in faith toward heaven only when they form a community and go together. Second, we must follow and support the leading leaders in the church community, like geese leading the flock. And like crowing geese, we need to support each other, encourage the fallen saints, and become saints who stay and go together. As Romans 12 says, “Weep together with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice”, I hope that we will become a community that cares for those who cannot but weep among us and cannot be part of the community.
Therefore, this year, we should focus on looking back and going together. The South Seoul Church is made up of about 300 districts. However, there are people who attend church but do not belong to the district. Their hypothetical area is Area 77. The South Seoul Church is running well through District 300, but there are concerns about those who belong to the remaining 77 virtual districts. South Seoul Church is a church that becomes a community that goes with these people. I hope that you will continue to gather in areas that are already gathering well, and work hard to establish areas that are not.
To make this work, we ask for your small cooperation, who have not yet joined the community. If this happens, the South Seoul Church can form a namely formation and carry out the mission entrusted to us by flying in the direction God is calling us. The key lies in building healthy communities. For the purpose of forming a healthy community for national evangelization and world missions, I ask that the lives of the members be focused.