Title: Life that pleases God
1 Thessalonians (4) Life that pleases God (1 Thessalonians 2:1-4)
< Don't be swayed by the crowd >
When Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey a few days before His crucifixion, a large crowd followed Him from front to back and shouted, “Hosanna!” and cried out (Matthew 21:9). At that time, the crowd saw Jesus as the Messiah and expected independence from Rome. But Jesus did not move as the crowd expected. Jesus, oddly enough, was not interested in the crowd. Even when a large crowd followed the miracle of the Five Byeong-Eye, the crowd left the Lord like the ebb when he said, “Seek the bread of heaven rather than the miracle bread!”
When the Lord did not do his own thing, the crowds turned their backs, and eventually the Lord was arrested, tried, reviled, and even whipped by the Jewish and Roman soldiers in authority. When they saw that kind of suffering, the crowd thought, "That's not the Messiah at all!"
Finally, his disappointment at Jesus, whom he considered the Messiah, turned into anger, and he said, “Hosanna! Praise him!” turned into a cry of “Crucify him!” in a matter of days. A crowd like that can turn a man from king to death row in a matter of days. So, don't be swayed by the crowd. “People” are good, but “people” are bad. I'm nice when I'm alone, but when I'm in a group, I curse and I don't know how easy it is to act deviant and deviant. If you are swept away by the crowd like that, you are brave enough to sin.
People have an instinct to belong to a group, so they either want to be like others or want others to be like themselves. So they fear bullying and do any cruelty if they can satisfy their sense of belonging. Eventually, in the process, they lose their identity, values, and morals, and move according to the will of the crowd and the majority. After all, the most intense spiritual battle in life is the battle between ‘crowd-centeredness’ and ‘self-identity’. In that battle, your identity must win.
The original will of Jesus does not fit well with the will of the crowd. Therefore, to truly follow Jesus, you must be good at rejecting crowds and multitudes. If you do not like the rejection and choose the will of the crowd instead of the will of Jesus, your relationship with Jesus will fade from that point on. Even now, the crowds constantly go the opposite way to Jesus. Crowds view the majority as supreme, venerate power and splendor, and sometimes force their leaders to go the wrong way.
"Life that pleases God"
The modern age is an era in which the power of the crowd has grown. The wave of fashion is scary. How can you live a life that pleases God without getting lost in that situation? Above all, we must focus on the goal of the gospel (verses 1-2). The Apostle Paul called the preaching of the gospel a mission entrusted by God (verse 4). So, rather than please people by saving souls, we will only please God. As such, do your best for the mission of saving souls.
Once upon a time, Alexander the Great revered the philosopher Diogenes and said he would grant him one thing he wanted. Then Diogenes said, “Give me a piece of eternity!” The great king said through a messenger that he would not give it. Then Diogenes said. “Go and tell the king. Tell him that you want to know why you are so busy trying to conquer what world without giving you a piece of eternity.”
Be busy saving souls more than anything else. All wealth, status, and honor are in vain unless it has to do with the matter of saving souls. Do not put blessings ahead of the mission of saving souls in your life of faith. Reliefism, which clings to visible blessings, is never pleased with God, and a crisis will surely come to such faith someday.
The goal of the Christian life is not a blessing, but a mission to save souls. If that point is not clear, Christianity is no different from superstition. Of course, God also gives blessings, but blessings are not an end but a secondary product. The real greatest blessing is fulfilling the mission of saving souls. When a blessing precedes the gospel, that blessing is no longer a blessing, and that faith soon stumbles. Do not deviate from the goal of saving souls. Then the wanderings of life will end.