Title: Prove Yourselves
2010.8.22 Sunday morning service sermon
2 Corinthians 13:4-5 ‘4. Although Christ was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God, and though we are weak in him, we will live with him by the power of God toward you.
5. Test yourselves and prove yourselves whether you are in the faith, do you not know for yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, otherwise you are rejected' - Amen.
Knowing who you really are is not only very important for living your life, but also very important knowledge that determines your eternal life after death. It is said that modern people have lost their ego. If you leave it alone in the chaotic passage of time, you will lose your self-esteem. We are not. Since it was said in Christ to <confirm yourselves>, we want to know how to be sure of the self who lives by faith in the Lord.
1. You must first understand how sinful human existence is.
The reason God sent His Son into the world and created the church is to make them realize that life is a sinner and believe in Christ. Teaching how to eat well and live well is not the fundamental reason for the existence of the church.
Text, 2 Corinthians 13:4 “For Christ was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. In Him we are weak, but we will live with Him by the power of God toward you.”
Even though Christ Jesus was not a sinner, He was treated as a sinner for our sins and died on the cross. But God brought him back to life. In this way, instead of only portraying yourself as doing well in Christ, you must first humble yourself like Christ and fully realize that life is a sin in order to gain life and become happy.
The great people and those who received grace in the Bible are people who humbled themselves before God and regarded them as sinners and weak beings.
Moses said in Psalm 90:10, “Our years are seventy, and if we are strong, we are eighty years, but their pride is only toil and sorrow, and they go quickly, and we fly away.”
David sees life as Psalm 103:15, “A man’s days are like grass…”
1 Chronicles 29:15 ‘The stranger, shadow…
Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:19, “...there is no superiority of man over the beast.
Job 25:6 ‘…a man like a maggot, a life like a worm…’
Job 9:2 “...how can a man be righteous before God?”
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”
When Saul, the first king of Israel, was arrogant and jealous and harassed him several times to kill David, his son Jonathan protected David. However, Jonathan's son Mephibosheth was five years old when his father and grandfather died, and his nanny dropped it while he was carrying it, leaving him crippled. Because he was a descendant of a royal descendant, he went far away to live in seclusion, lest he would receive wrath from King David. But David had no intention of avenging revenge and sought the Jonathan family. To repay the friendship and love of his friend Jonathan by finding it slowly, he found his son Mephibosheth and met him.
2 Samuel 9:8 "And he bowed down and said, "What is this servant, that you look after me like a dead dog?"
When Jesus was on his way from Galilee to the border of Tyre, when a Gentile woman named Syroboniges pleaded with her to heal her demon-possessed daughter, the words the Lord intended to make him confess the truth of his faith were very shocking.
Mark 7:27-28'27. Jesus said to them, "Let the children eat first. It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 28 The woman answered and said, "Surely, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs that the children ate."
The Apostle Paul of the New Testament was superior to all the apostles because he was a man who denied his existence even more, controlled his body, and tried to be humble.
1 Timothy 1:15 ‘…I am chief among sinners’
1 Corinthians 15:8 “The last one born of infertility…”
1 Corinthians 15:9 “I am the least of the apostles…”
Ephesians 3:8 “I am less than the least of all saints…”
In Romans 7:15,18,24, etc., the Apostle Paul shows a truly human and sincere image of lamenting and suffering for his contradictory and sinful appearance. So he was an apostle who was full of power and spiritual.
2. We must confirm the existence of the sainted self
Although people teach people, they cannot teach them that they are sinners, so they cannot solve the problem of salvation. You must come to the Lord Jesus. The question is, have you been saved by attending church? I can't say for sure. Were all followers of Jesus an apostle? There was also Iscariot and Judas to be rejected.
If you go to church, you are called a member. However, if you know God and live your life with faith, you are called a saint. Then how do we know the existence of a normal saint?
2 Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves and prove yourselves whether you are in the faith, do you not know for yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, otherwise you are rejected.”
Here, the word to test, peiravzw, means to confirm by scrutiny, which means an experiment in which a metal is forged to distinguish the real from the fake. In that way, you must confirm your existential belief.
That's why I asked you to prove for yourself that Jesus Christ is in you, otherwise the outcast, ajdovkimo (ajdovkimo") means inappropriate, unauthenticated, unacknowledged.
Confirmation of one's own existence in life requires two processes.
1) You must know that you are a sinner before the Word
If you do not hear the word of God and realize that you are a sinner, no matter how much you go to church, you cannot be saved.
Romans 3:20 “Therefore, by the works of the law no flesh is justified before him, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
Since it is said that the law is the knowledge of sin, the law does not mean that we can be saved, but that we know sin as sin. So He also gave us a way to deal with our sins.
2) You must come in the Lord Jesus Christ
As it is said in verse 5 of the text, if you are in Jesus Christ, you will become a living person. What it means to believe in Jesus
Galatians 2:20 “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. I live by faith in the Son of God.”
French philosopher Pascal. 'There are only two kinds of people. One is a righteous man who thinks he is a sinner, and the other is a sinner who thinks he is a righteous man.”
Do you know the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Stepmom looking in the mirror Mirror, mirror, who is the prettiest in this world? So I was angry that the magic mirror was Snow White.
In our Bible, the Word and the works of God are compared to a mirror (James 1:23, Jude 1:7). The mirror-clear words teach that you are a sinner, but to force yourself to say no is to deceive yourself.
We must not only be believers in our own name in the presence of a God who lives today and still works as He said, who has no darkness and who dwells in the light, we must become actual, existential saints. It is only through coming before the Lord Jesus, on your knees, and confessing that you are a sinner, so that the spirit and the body can live and receive grace.
I pray that you believe that the continuation of a life of daily repentance, of testing and confirming self in front of the mirror-like word every day, is sanctification and sanctification is the reward of heaven.