Title: Say All the Words of Life
Contents
Acts 5:12-26 “Speak all the words of life”
Seeing the early church, where people in desperate need brought beds and blankets to the apostles, think of our church today.
Rather than being praised by the people, isn't it a modern church to be recognized and praised within the church? The number of members of the Korean church is decreasing day by day. Isn't it a feast for the wealthy in the center of megachurches, where we socialize with people who fit our tastes in the church? However, the church is not a place where believers gather and fellowship with each other, and it is not an object of service. The church is ultimately a community of faith that exists to serve the world. Jesus lived a life that emphasized this to his disciples. Therefore, any act of ignoring the world and speaking of faith in the organization of believers is a life of lame faith.
Clergy, church leaders, lay people, and all believers must focus on serving the world.
“Serving the Workers” . I hope that our community will be more concerned about how to serve the world well in the world than with the words “serving the church”. Only then will we be able to become a church community that is praised by the world.
The chief priests and the Sadducees all had their hearts full of envy, and they caught the apostles and put them in prison. Still, an angel of the Lord opens the prison door at night and gives us an opportunity to go out and preach the word again. Although the powerful religious leaders of that time tried to block their work by force to protect their position, they could not stop the work of the Holy Spirit. Who are the high priests and the Sadducees? Aren't we the best religious leaders of the time? Aren't these people who need to hear the people's groaning and heal the painful reality of life (the sick, poor, demon possessed, and weary of life) and spread the hope of heaven? They hampered the ministry of the apostles, fearing that their position would be shaken. But they could never interfere with the work of the Holy Spirit.
If Jesus was an elite-oriented gossipist, he would not have been with the fishermen, the sick, and tax collectors in Galilee at that time, but would have called the competent officials in the Roman government, which is in the heart of the Roman Empire, as disciples, and also would have evangelized Rome first. In order to rationalize our pride and to fit Christian doctrine into our own existence, we apply the Word as our center and force it on others.
But the teachings of the Lord are not so. I went to Mongolia for 1 week last August. I visited Mongolia for the purpose of reviewing business and missionary accessibility, the appearance of the Gobi Desert, and the possibility of afforestation projects. Genghis Khan, who ruled the world in the 13th century, was named by Time magazine as the greatest leader of all time in 1995. He actually left a surprising lesson for the people of Mongolia. NOMAD has left the philosophy of life as a legacy to the people. It is said that he did not build a tomb. He famously said, “He who builds a city will perish, and he who builds a road will prosper.” They live ready to leave at any time four times a year. It was a biblical life that showed the example of a stranger's life. In today's sermon, I see religious leaders constantly building their fortresses. On the other hand, I think the life of the apostles is the life of those who create new paths.
Is the Korean church building castles now? Or is it the image of a community paving a new path? Today, we must make our church community a new way without building a castle. It's been really hot this summer. As the hostages of the Saemmul Church are released, the heat is fading away and autumn is coming. Now we will suffer the aftermath. People around the world criticize the Korean church community a lot. Have we not been too indifferent to the world in the past? Have we not built our own world and lived in it, measuring our success?
Without the identity of the church community and a new paradigm of mission, the Korean church will not be able to move forward any further.
- Like the apostles and church leaders in the text, we must not show a divided image within the church.
- You must think deeply about God's will for the Korean church and pray.
- We need to humbly look back at our Christian history and look back at how much influence it has had on the nation and the world. (In Korea, 30,000 martyrs were bled in the early days of Catholicism)
- How many young people have been sacrificed in the struggle for democracy to this day?
- Today, we need to look back at what kind of mission the Korean church has been aiming for, which is to send out the world's second missionary.
- How much pain and cross have we been carrying out missionary work? will have to look back. Did not each church show off their tax by sending out missionaries based on quantity?
- Corruption and corruption (government officials and corporations) now that the environment is livable. Public officials who spend their government budget on negligent and private affairs, the show-off party of the wealthy, and the stigma of the Sex Republic are all examples of the world Christians should serve. You have to go into it. But now, I am worried that we are building our own castle like a remote island in the middle of society.
The church cannot stop them and they are becoming secular. Because everyone pursues Christianity without the cross.