Title: How We Became the Church
Contents
How did we become a church? (Philippians 2:5-8)
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
6 Although he was in the original form of God, he did not consider equality with God to be robbery.
7 Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and became like men.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross.
I.
i.
Today we are having a service to commemorate the 8th anniversary of the founding of the church.
Eight years ago, God poured out a special dream for the evangelization of Indonesia to about a dozen Korean believers.
So, about a dozen Koreans and Indonesians gathered together and began to worship.
This was the beginning of our church.
Now some of us who started this church at that time are sitting for a few minutes.
As such, our church was started for a life of practicing and witnessing the gospel of Christ, transcending nations and races.
So, especially today, Indonesians and Koreans are gathering together for worship.
God is always pleased with the worship of his people.
But I believe you will be especially pleased with this worship service today.
ii.
I felt really good while preparing for the church inauguration service.
I thought there were not enough chairs in the chapel to offer a combined worship service, so I raised all the chairs downstairs to the top.
Then there was a problem downstairs this time.
There are no chairs to sit on during mealtime.
However, I couldn't afford to buy a new chair.
So we all decided to stand and eat.
It was inconvenient, but it was an inevitable choice.
We apologize for any inconvenience at mealtime today.
Some say, we need to expand the church quickly.
So someone says, you don't have to. Let's worship in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Another says: Let's expand the restaurant first...
Others say The children in the nursery are noisy and disturb the worship service.
All of these are issues that need to be resolved, but if you think about it, it is a very happy problem for the church.
This is because they are all problems caused by church members lining up.
This is because the problems arise because the church is revival.
Last week, 99 people attended the Korean worship service and 33 attended the Indonesian worship service.
We are not targeting the number of church members.
However, it cannot be denied that God's work of revival is revealed through numbers.
It is not just that the number of church members is increasing.
We know stories of people being transformed through our church.
I recently had the experience of talking about the changes and revival of our church for 5 hours, but couldn't finish them all.
As the church revives, the lives of the members are also improving.
Of course, there are still believers who have difficulties.
I hope that they will be able to endure the difficulties well and enjoy the grace of solving the problems.
But what is certain is that the saints will definitely be blessed because our church exists.
More people will be blessed than they are now.
You will enjoy greater blessings than you are now.
Because God is a God who wants to bless us.
I came here 3 years ago from now.
During the 5th anniversary worship service, I held the inauguration service together.
I have heard and know how many tears and sweats our members shed for the church before I came.
As a pastor, I only found out later, but
Our God directly heard and watched the tears and prayers shed for the gospel in this church.
I haven't missed any, and I still remember them all.
The reason our church is reviving now is because of God who remembers the tears and prayers that are accumulated in this church.
Thinking of all these things on the 8th anniversary of the founding of the church, I am grateful and grateful.
II.
i.
But there is a real reason we can truly rejoice in the founding of the Church.
Because we are all children of salvation.
Not long ago, a district manager visited Korea and bought a Bible for the district member.
The member of the district didn't even have a Bible of his own because he had just believed in Jesus.
How happy the saint who received the Bible as a gift...
I liked it so much that I decided that I had not read everything I had read through the Bible, and that I would read Genesis 1 again with my own Bible.
But then the saint said this.
?쏻ho knew I would be so happy when I received the Bible?
In the old days, when I did not know Jesus, I would have been very upset when I received the Bible as a gift.
Now that I am a person of Jesus, it is an expression of how happy I am to receive the Bible as a gift.
Everyone, are you happy with the founding date of the church?
It is proof that you are now Jesus' people.
That is proof that you are God's people.
Yes, today we are all God's people, so we give thanks for giving us this church.
Like the saint who confesses that the Bible is such a good gift
You should know how wonderful it is to rejoice that we have this church.
ii.
The truth is that we are not qualified to share in the glory of being the church.
Our souls are just scarred.
Greedy, sinful... If we look closely, there are many scratches here and there.
You fail, you get frustrated... So you hate others, you hate yourself...
We tried to get up several times, but we fell more often.
The foul and disgusting smell cannot be removed from us.
We are all sinners.
But how did we become God's people?
Today the book of Philippians tells us that.
It is because of the heart of Jesus toward us.
6 Although he was in the original form of God, he did not consider equality with God to be robbery.
7 Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and became like men.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross.
There is someone who has pity on us, who have no possibility at all.
Some have heard the groans of vomit as they collapse and die.
There is someone who looked at us and said, ?쏧f it?셲 not me, it can?셳 be him.
our Jesus!
Jesus emptied himself for us and came down to earth in the form of a servant.
And he died on the cross.
It was the death that took the place of your death and mine.
Jesus has chosen us.
Because we were too weak.
He chose us because he knew that there was no possibility for us.
iii.
Matthew 1, the first chapter of the New Testament that announces the age of Jesus.
The New Testament first introduces the genealogy of Jesus.
Who begets whom, who begets whom...
However, there are names of women that stand out in the genealogy.
Tamar, the daughter-in-law and wife of a man,
Rahab the prostitute of Jericho,
Ruth, a Moabite woman whose husband died young and without sons;
Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, who was pregnant with the king at the time despite having a husband.
What they have in common is the fact that they are all poor people.
These are people who are poorly qualified.
As a woman and a foreigner, I have a problem by nature.
As a widow without a husband or son, the marriage failed.
As a gisaeng, my job is immoral.
She is a filthy, lewd woman who deceived her husband and committed adultery and eventually killed her.
But through them, Jesus Christ was born.
If the genealogy of Matthew 1 starts backwards from Jesus, they are all chosen by Jesus.
So there is an important message from the first page of the New Testament.
The genealogy of Jesus accomplished through the ?쐏oor people??of this world.
iv.
We are all poor people.
There is a weakness in birth.
There are problems at home and in relationships.
We also have weaknesses in our profession.
My naughty character, temper, and immorality make us more appalled.
In terms of qualifications, our father, who will love us the most, is not enough to lift up his right hand and bless us.
But God takes the hand that was placed only on the firstborn?셲 head and places it on our heads.
And he blesses us.
God abandoned his firstborn son, Jesus, and chose us instead.
Bless us in the name of Jesus Christ.
So we are now the people of Jesus who can rejoice in the founding of the church.
Therefore, our church is not actually the 8th anniversary of its founding.
Our church had already begun when Jesus forsook his heavenly throne and came to this earth.
No, it has been our church since the time God decided to love us before the foundation of the world.
III.
Therefore, if we have any work to do now, do not forget this redeeming grace of Jesus Christ.
We live in remembrance of the grace that has called us to a gloriously glorious church.
A grace that we cannot even dare to dare.
The vitality of the church depends on how much we remember this grace.
When we do not leave the seat of this beneficiary, God will continue to raise up the work of salvation through our church.
He will bring together poor souls who have no possibility like us and join them in the joy of God.
We celebrate sacrament meeting today.
The amazing event of love that called us to the church.
I hope you will remember that love and that grace, and be more determined to live as a person of Jesus Christ.
Merciful Lord, thank you for calling us into the Church.
Thank you for the grace that has led you this far.
We praise you for the grace that makes us a partaker of the glory of God.
The Lord who saved us from destruction and made us His church.
Help us to realize that grace more and realize the church.
Help us to see a greater work of salvation through this church to which we belong.
Praise God for His amazing grace.
I pray in Jesus name.