Title: Open Your Mouth Wide
Contents
Text: Psalm 81:8-16
open your mouth wide
In other words, saints are people of prayer. To be a person of prayer means to have dreams and hopes. Our dreams and hopes need to be bigger and wider than ever. How should we have our dreams and visions? If you read today's text, you can read the earnest heart that God wants to bless you. It is God's will that we receive the blessings of Jehovah God. Four things are necessary to receive God's blessing. Let me tell you in detail what those four are.
1. You must have blessed ears.
To have a blessed ear means to listen carefully to the word and obey it. In today's text, God's earnest voice wants to be heard in several places. Verse 8 says, “Listen, my people, and I will testify to you; hear me, O Israel.” Verse 13 says, “Hear me, O my people, and follow my ways, O Israel.”
The modern age is an era of disconnection. People talk a lot and listen little. Now, many saints have lost their sense of inspiration for the Word. However, the first thing God must give before blessing is the ‘ears to hear the word’. I hope in the name of the Lord that we all have blessed ears to listen to God's word with humility and anticipation.
2. You must have a blessed mouth.
In verses 10-11, “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill you.” But the people did not listen to me, and Israel did not want me.” We can see that you want us to open our mouths wide.
In particular, the text reminds me of the scene where the mother bird feeds the young. According to ornithologists, the mother cherishes all her young, but when feeding, she gives first to the young with the widest mouth. God loves all of us, but I believe that God will first bless those who open their mouths wide (in the Bible before that), that is, wide open.
Blessing is good for me to receive, and it is good to receive it first. What is clear is that God blesses those who cry earnestly than those who remain still. Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to me. I will answer you, and I will show you great and mighty things that you do not know.” Ephesians 3:20 says, “To him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” If you do, He will fill you with more than you prayed for. Therefore, pray with your mouth wide and wide open, and at the same time, believe that you have already received it and give thanks in the name of the Lord.
3. You must have blessed eyes.
In today's text, “open your mouth wide” means to have a big dream and a big vision. We must be able to see the hope of tomorrow, the hope of tomorrow, rather than just looking at desperate phenomena with our eyes. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, always proclaimed, “The world is my parish,” and according to his vision, a large Methodist denomination was created worldwide. We also said, “Mapo is our parish, and Seoul and the Gyeonggi metropolitan area are our parish.” At least this level should have a vision of evangelism.
And we must have a missionary vision that “the world is my mission field”. Let's do it. “Mapo is our parish. Seoul and Gyeonggi metropolitan areas are our parish. The world is my mission field.” I hope that you will have blessed eyes by opening your spiritual eyes, I bless you in the name of the Lord.
4. You must have a blessed heart.
We must open our mouths wide (widely), but we must also open our hearts (widely). So, you have to be able to put up with difficult things well, take a loss if necessary, and have a big and wide receptivity that accepts everyone well. God repays us as much as we endure, fills us with as much as we open our mouths, and makes us mature as much as we realize our shortcomings and blesses us. Above all, we must be humble. Humility is what makes grace graceful, and what makes blessings blessings. How can we be humble?
First, you must know that humility is the most important thing.
Second, there must be a bloody effort to be humble.
Third, after making such an effort, I have to realize that I cannot be humble on my own.
Humans instinctively tend to raise their heads when there is something a little different and to be elevated. At that time, we must acknowledge, “I have such pride in me,” and ask for God's grace. We must do our best to be humble. Because God's grace is given to the humble.
Let me summarize and close.
Today, I told you to open your mouth wide. To open your mouth wide means to have blessed ears, a blessed mouth, blessed eyes, and a blessed heart. To achieve this vision, we must act now and try now. October 17th and 24th are the 1st, 2nd, New Life Evangelism Festival. Our Seongsan family has a precious mission. Our blessed ears, blessed mouths, blessed eyes, and blessed hearts must be wide open toward unbelieving family members, unbelieving friends, relatives, and neighbors. I believe that the gates of heaven will be opened and the gates of blessing will be wide open. I hope in the name of the Lord that the big dream and vision of expanding the kingdom of God through this New Life Festival will come true through the evangelism of the Seongsan family.