Title: Reach out your hand / 2005.6.19.
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Mark 3:1-5, Matthew 9:35
Among the things Jesus did in the world, he summarizes three important things and says:
Jesus went through all the towns and villages
Teaching in our synagogue, preaching the gospel of the kingdom,
Healed every disease and every weakness. Matthew 9:35
He taught, preached the gospel, and healed. That is why there are countless stories of healing in the works of Jesus.
1. a person with dry hands
Today's text is one of them. One day, Jesus was preaching in the synagogue. But on the other hand, there was a man with a withered hand. The phrase 'dry hands' means that the hands are paralyzed. The Lord had pity on the man. And he decided to heal him.
Because that day was a Sabbath, the Pharisees were also watching to see if they could heal the sick on the Sabbath. So Jesus first said:
Doing good and doing evil on the Sabbath,
To save lives or to kill, which is right? 3:4
The Lord raised the man and said, When he said, “Is it red?”, vitality entered the dry hand of the man who had not moved so much, and he was soon restored and moved.
This, of course, was healed by the power of Jesus. But when I looked carefully at the words, it was like this.
He said to the man, "What is it?"
He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 3:5
What does this mean? He was healed by the power of the Lord, but it means that there was obedience that the person reached out to the word of the Lord. The power of God works only through the channel of faith.
This man reached out an unreachable hand to the words of Jesus. Before, it was the unreachable hand, the immovable hand, the dry hand. It was a hand that I wanted to move so much, but it didn't move as I expected. But this time, following Jesus' words, he reached out his hand, and God's miraculous strength appeared and he was completely healed, and his hand moved in the same way as he had thought.
Jesus is the Lord of healing. I pray that the Lord's healing grace will be with you as well.
2. A person with dry hands
It is unfortunate that the hands of our bodies are so dry that they do not move as we wish, but there are times when our hands in life become dry. If you have a right thought and do not put it into practice, your hands are dry. There are times when we make a good plan and think countless times that we will do it, but we miss the right time and miss the opportunity. Because your hands are dry. If you make up your mind to do something good for someone but put it off the next day, that is a symptom of dry hands. It's because I thought, but my hands aren't moving as I thought.
Among the books recommended by our church, there was a book called 'Beautiful Companion'. This is the story of a son going to church and encouraging his father to lead a religious life like that, but after putting it off the next day, after his son died on the Jungfrau train in Switzerland, he wept while reading the diary, and only then did he accept Jesus and believe. If he had accepted Jesus earlier, if he had gone to church together with his son earlier, how happy his son would have been... His father, who was strangled by that thought, was deeply buried in the book. When your hands are dry, you only have your mind, but your body does not move as you think.
There are times when our hands are dry like that. I need to pray. We must evangelize, we must serve, we think a lot, but in reality, we do not pray and do not evangelize. Because the hands of the soul are dry. You have thoughts, but your hands don't listen. Because the hands of the spirit are dry. I have to tithe, I have to tithe, and sometimes I spend a year, two years, ten years, twenty ten years. Isn't it because they have thoughts but the hands of the spirit are dry?
As we hold on to the hand of the Lord who is always reaching out to us, I pray that you will be healed and restored to become saints who lead a life of joy.
I read that a company specializing in consultants classifies people into four types in relation to companies or organizations. There are player type, spectator type, cynical type, and ghost type.
First of all, the 'player type' has a positive mindset and a lot of energy at the same time, so it makes the surroundings bright and warm and creates an atmosphere of hard work. The work they pursue usually results in success, and even if they fail, they do not get frustrated and try to achieve greater success by experiencing failure. Although the downside is to be expected, an organization with a lot of these people is bound to come alive, whether it's a for-profit or a non-profit organization. In church terms, it refers to a person who lives with a sense of mission and vision.
The second human type, the 'spectator type', has a positive mindset, but lacks practical skills and does not achieve great results. It is comforting to say that it does not harm the organization, but it is a person who leaves regrets in that it does not significantly contribute to the development of the organization. This type of person is usually not afraid of being kicked out of the job, but it is said that it is difficult to promise job preservation if the wind of restructuring blows. In church terms, it can be said that it refers to those who just quietly worship and go.
On the other hand, the 'cynic type' is a style that always sits in a corner, complaining about the boss or criticizing the organization's policies, and eventually steals the motivation of others. So that's twice as damaging to the organization. The first is the harm of not fulfilling one's share, and the second is the harm that blocks even those who want to work. Although they have a lot of energy, they always have a negative mindset, so their energy is also wasted on negative things. Churches may have these types of saints. These are people who talk a lot and do nothing. Often times, they gossip at hard-working people, making even the hard-working people lose their motivation.
The fourth is the 'ghost type'. In fact, the word 'walking corpse' was so bad that it was changed to be a ghost type. He has a negative mindset and no energy at all. That is why it is said that he is a person who has no motivation and no hope, and lives on his salary. It's a miserable life.
But what's important to this analysis is that people are not born into one of these four categories. People learn that way as they grow up, or they push themselves into situations like that. Therefore, by learning and motivation, a cynic can turn into a player at any time, conversely, today's player can become a spectator tomorrow, and even a ghost type can become a player in an instant.
Which of these four types do you consider yourself to belong to? The point at which these four types diverge from each other is that they have ideas, but they find differences in how they are put into action.
Dear saints, have you made up your mind to share the gospel with someone? Don't be with dry hands, please tell me now. Have you decided to do something good for someone? Please do so as soon as possible. Were you moved by the Holy Spirit to do something for the Lord? I hope that you will open your hands and become a faith that acts immediately.
3. The hand that saves lives
The hand of the Lord is the hand that saves lives. The works of life, joy, hope, and grace have always appeared where the Lord's hand reached them. So, even on the Sabbath, he was able to do the work of saving lives.
However, if you look closely at the text, you can see the appearance of the Pharisees whose hands are intact, but both hands in their hearts are dry. According to verse 2, rather than listening to the words in front of Jesus who testifies of the word, he looked for something to complain about and watched whether he healed this withered hand or not. is. And these people who do such negative things in many things would be said to be cynical people with dry hands.
Who are the Pharisees? We have a very bad image when we say 'Pharisees'. All of them are considered bad people, formal people. But the Pharisees were actually very zealous people. They had a passion to keep the law that God had given them without making a single mistake. So, as I tried to keep it literally, I had a blind spot that I could not read the meaning contained in it. There is a saying called non-verbal text. Literally, it means that the true meaning is unknown.
It is very dangerous for us to read the Bible, but only to read the literal meaning and forget the spirit of the word behind it. This is so-called literalism. It is to lose the will of God and keep only the letters. For the most part, literalist beliefs create self-righteous beliefs. The belief that only one's own faith is perfect is called self-righteous faith. In the Pharisees, we can see such self-righteous faith. They did so because of their staunch literalistic beliefs.
During a sermon titled 'Living Faith' on Sunday, May 29, I asked why we Christians should be kinder, more devoted, more peaceful, and more passionate than the rest of the world, but why can't we? . One of the reasons is because of the self-righteous belief that comes from this literalism. Because he has lost that spirit and only the letters remain in his head, he is committing the mistake of 'eating the ephemera and swallowing the camels whole (Matthew 23:24)'. Such a strange phenomenon comes because we are stingy with the love, devotion and service we have to do while keeping the rules that we shouldn't do this and that we shouldn't do that.
Saints, look down on your hands of faith. Isn't it dry? Isn't obedience's hand curled up? Aren't the hands of gratitude dry? Have not the hands of prayer withered? Aren't the hands of service hardened? Aren't the giving hands dry? Although you have made countless decisions, is there really nothing you couldn't do because your hands were dry? Do you not live with the words of 'the heart is willing, but the flesh is weak' (Matthew 26:41) like a song in your mouth?
Today, as he extended his hand of grace toward us, We pray that we will become the hands of all of you who receive God's blessings by boldly putting out our hands in faith before the Lord.
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