Title: Let's Be Neighbors (Luke 10:25-37)
Content Let's become neighbors (Luke 10:25-37) - Missionary Ahn Byung-ho
[Luke 10:25-37]
I hear a lot about the church these days having a hard time. There are many people who are heartbroken because of the relationship between the church and society. What's the matter? The purpose of God's establishment of the church is for the world. There is something we say when the church is having a difficult time. That's right, let's go back to the early church. When we think of the early church, we often think of the Jerusalem church, but at that time, there was not only the Jerusalem community. The representative communities at that time were the Jerusalem community and the Qumran community. The two communities worked hard to get together, prayed fervently, and loved fervently. 100 years later, the Jerusalem community has become a community that shakes the world, but the name of the Qumran community is hard to hear. What could have made that happen? If there was a difference between the two communities, it was their interest outside the fence. The power that makes the church die and live is mission. It is about whether there is love towards the outside of the fence.
At the same time, there are things we have to overcome. It is selfishness. In the modern world, how can we not think about economic problems? At this time, the way I and others can live is to go out. Does it look like a loss? Go ahead. You will hear the sound of life reviving the world. Why does God consider mission so important? John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
God loved the world. Do you not pray to love only me as you live your life of faith? There are two reasons to love the whole world.
First, because there is the image of God in it.
Many people are destroying the image of God. You need to recover this. Among my favorite hymns, I like the hymn, “The image of God in the form of a brother is beautiful, I will love you and serve you because you are the precious child of the Lord.” Can everyone you meet meet with this heart? Then you are a missionary. I would say that we need to redefine the concept of a missionary. Even when they go to school, they say that the mission is to discover the image of God and to restore the image of God. And I hope that the movement to restore the image of God takes place within the church. This is what a mission-centered church looks like.
Second, Jesus died on the cross for him.
It is not a cross that was carried for me. This is the cross I bore for you. Up to this point, things are going well, but it's hard to say to someone you hate and hate in your heart. If you meet someone with a burden in your heart today, I hope that you will be the ones who say that you love them in the image of God. It's an important story. Jesus died on the cross for the people we meet today. This means that I am not the only one living there. that we can live together. Hallelujah.
The Korean church was a church that loved and practiced its neighbors. However, we see the transformation into a selfish church. A wall began to form between the church and society, and people who were heartbroken because of the church began to appear. This wall must be broken. I pray in the name of the Lord that not only your church will be renewed with the missionary passion that ignites the Church of Love, but that all Korean churches and churches in their home countries as well as all churches in the mainstream society will be broken.
Next year will be the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean church in Pyongyang in 1907. However, the Korean church has a world record. Missionary Underwood stayed in Japan and prepared for missionary work. I wanted to learn Korean, but there was no way to learn it, so I wanted to get a Korean booklet. Missionary Underwood had several plans to go to Korea to do missionary work, to preach Jesus, and to translate and distribute the Bible. He first looked for a book to learn Korean, and the book he got was a booklet of the Gospel of Mark translated into Chinese. He was startled. Now, there are specialized mission agencies that translate the Bible, and there are places that only translate the Bible professionally. It was the first time after Jesus.
There is one more thing. Missionary Underwood came to Korea and worked in a hospital, and his heart ached because he could not do his missionary work, and he was praying to God to build a church. He was telling Underwood that one day a person who came down from Hwanghae Province had completed all the preparations for baptism, so he was eagerly waiting for the missionary to come and baptize him. It is a church that has not established a church and has already completed preparations for baptism through self-study before the missions began. If not the first event after Jesus, what would it be? We have already sown good seeds. Missionary Underwood sent an honest letter stating that the Holy Spirit had already sown the seeds and that he would only reap. It is a record that will go down in the history of Christianity.
The most important missionary spirit begins within me. What if a hedgehog hugged you saying it loved you? The more you hug, the more painful it will be. So first we have to beat our hearts. The attitude of the heart to missionary is really important. He told the young man who came to Jesus to love God and love his neighbor. At that time, the concept of a neighbor was very strict. He was talking about his own people, his own family.
The young man asks Jesus a question. Who are your neighbors? Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan. This parable alone is a great blessing. The motive for this parable is the answer to the question of who is your neighbor. There is something more important than the parable of the good Samaritan. Verse 36 says, “In your opinion, which of these three will be a neighbor to the man who was struck by a robber?” In the question of who is the neighbor, Chen is talking about this side and the other side. That's not what Jesus is saying. Neighbors don't look outside. It just comes out of my mind. That is why today's sermon is titled, "Let's not find our neighbors, but let's become our neighbors."
Please don't judge your neighbors. He is telling us, will you become neighbors? Look at the natives. In the world's largest Christian country, 2% of the indigenous people remain unreached. Are you going to be their neighbour? Many people live around us. All of them are our neighbors. The Lord is asking us. Can you be their true neighbor today? This is the beginning of the love movement for the kingdom of God. I pray that the Church of Love will receive the Lord's grace and have a wonderful history of becoming a neighbor wherever they take the grace they have received. Be your neighbor.