Title: Strive to work (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12)
Strive to work (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12)
It's a good time to work. Humans are created beings to work. I am healthy by working. You get the form by working. You get pleasure from working. I feel rewarded by working. In the end, people who work are happy. But what's the problem? It is being lazy. I'm getting lazy and trying to stop working. What will come as a result? Various diseases come. You lose the taste of living. poverty comes. There is a famine in life.
People have a misconception about work. One is to think of not working as a blessing. It is a blessing to not work and to play and eat, and to not go to the military and drop out is a blessing. It's a blessing to go to college without studying. You think that being rich without effort is a blessing. But look at these things. It is unhappiness for yourself and unhappiness for others. These wrong thoughts have only made our faith a faith of ups and downs. If you pray, you are expecting blessings to fall from heaven even if you do not make any effort. The concept of blessing is wrong. Please let me live a good life even if I don't work. Be safe while driving the car. Please continue to live a debauched life and stay healthy. Will that prayer be answered?
It is a blessing that God has given us work. There are several factors that make us happy, one of which is being healthy. The taste we live, the taste we eat, the taste we feel, whoever owns all these things is a healthy person. You have to be healthy to feel happy. An unhealthy person does not know the taste even after serving a supreme feast. I don't know how to be happy. It's all just annoying. Even if you buy me good clothes, I don't know if it's good. Even when you see flowers, you cannot feel beautiful. You must be healthy. So happy. However, being healthy is not just about being healthy. The body must be healthy, the mind must be healthy, the mind must be healthy, and the mind must be healthy. Moreover, the soul must be healthy. That's what makes you happy.
A healthy person like this is happy when there is something to do next. A healthy person has nothing to do and sits idle. You may be able to do that for a day or two or a month, but if you play like that for a year or two, you become a helpless person. All of our members are more developed, more capable, and more wise when we use them. However, if you let all these members rest and rest, they will gradually decline.
These days, I sometimes play tennis with a few of our assistant ministers and butlers, but this doesn't work. It may be due to age, but the most important thing is the decline in function. that's lazy. If I had continued, I would have been able to show great skills. But I didn't. It has become powerless. If you stop working like this, you will not develop as a person, but will become incapacitated and become an asshole. They have the same hand and others can't do it, so they're two heads. Even if you become a little tall in the world, don't become a spiritual head. If you do not know God, do not hear God's voice, do not know what God's will is, and do not know God's work, you are unhappy.
Another factor that can make you happy is that you feel rewarded for what you do. Work is hard work for those who are not satisfied with what they do. A person should do something worthwhile. If you do something worthwhile, you won't get tired even after staying up all night. No matter how difficult it is, there is joy. So you are happy with it. You have to think about the results too, but the results aren't all that important. Working itself is a joy. Work is happiness. Such a person looks beautiful and precious both at home and at work.
Lastly, if there is one more thing to say, there must be an object of love. I mean, who is this for? But if what I am doing now works for the person I love, then I am happy. How happy would I be when I said I was working for someone who was not worth giving my life to? This is the happiness that Paul felt, and that of Stephen, who did not lose his smile even though he was stoned to death. Do I have such happiness? I wish you such happiness.
?쏽ou can?셳 depend on things because your faith will decrease. You can?셳 because you can?셳 become a wife who sells your husband. A child who grows up by selling his father will become like an asshole.
Therefore, it is impossible to depend on others, both religiously and socially." My wife is not a mother, but she raised the children of her ex-wife, who had no father, through all the hard work she had to do.
What would be a blessing? Do you sit still and play? Korea is the country that sells the best extinguishing agent in the world. They are all sitting and playing. work diligently Why do you need an extinguishing agent? Because I ate and didn't work, I just sat down to play? It's full day and night, so bring an extinguishing agent. Look at the people who work in the countryside. Where is the bird to eat the digestive aid? When you return after eating, you will be hungry. Do you eat rice or small? Besides, I eat breakfast, I eat new rice, and I eat six times a day.
The Bible says: You will eat according to your toil.??You will eat according to your toil. That's a blessing. Don't try to get it without effort. It is a thief from God's point of view. It is a blessing to work hard and have. God allows you to enjoy it when that happens. What you have without hard work is what you have, but there is no blessing in enjoying it. So everything flows like a river. God blesses us and makes it ours through our hard work. It's not from dropping a bundle of money anywhere, it's from our sweat and hard work.
The Thessalonian Church, which is the background of today's text, is a particularly exemplary and zealous church among other churches. But there is a problem with this church. We wait for the Lord's return, we do not work, we wear white clothes, we sit quietly, and we wait for the Lord. That is why Saro Paul said, 'Waiting for the Lord's return is not like that. You should work, act, evangelize, and wait like that, not just sitting and playing and waiting in complacency'.
Today's text is summarized in three parts. 'Work quietly, do your work, work with your hands.' First, work quietly. ?쏝e quiet??(verse 11), which means when it comes to work, do not grumble, do not complain, do not turn around and mumble, do not work, work quietly, do not become irritated and work. When I am assigned a job, I am quietly fulfilling my responsibilities. Does it matter who sees or not? It is doing your own thing. If you are a housewife at home, you are doing all your work as a housewife. If you are a husband, you are doing everything as a husband. But they grumble, grumble, and mutter at night about what they are so dissatisfied with. This is not what God's people do. God's people should do anything with pleasure. When I do it with pleasure, it is a blessing to me.
In a village there was an old man who mended shoes. This man had neither learned nor possessed, but he was sincere and sincere. When guests arrived, they did not forget to smile and fix their shoes with great sincerity.
Then people started spreading rumors, and many people came, this time opening a shoe store. This time, when they made the shoes with all their heart, countless people flocked to them, and the old man became rich. One day, people around me asked. What's the secret to success? Now you don't have to make your own shoes, so why do you make them yourself? The old man smiles and answers. I never tried to get rich. I was just trying to do my best for tomorrow with a happy heart. And the customers who come to our shop are people who come to try on the shoes I made. So I can't quit and more importantly, I enjoy this job. Not making shoes is as good as dead.
The second is to do your own thing. ?쏡o your own thing??(verse 11). But if I don't do what I have to do, someone else will do it. If someone else does tomorrow, I'm living on someone else's. Eating someone else's food is a beggar. Is it just beggars to get around and eat? It is also a beggar to eat what you have not worked hard for. If you eat while not working, you are a thief. Because I eat other people's food, because I'm eating other people's sweat. That's why 2 Thessalonians 3:12 says, "Eat your own bread." I have to work and eat my food.
The final lesson is, ?쏶trive to work with your hands??(verse 11). work by hand Take a look at the characters in the Bible. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob????All are workers. Shepherd. They are all hard-working people. Moses was also a shepherd, and King David was also the original shepherd. Elisha is a farmer with cattle. Jesus was a carpenter until the age of 30. Paul, too, is a worker in the business of pitching a tent. It is said that the inventor, Edison, was engrossed in his research by sitting in the laboratory for 18 hours at times, missing mealtime. He worked so much all his life, but here is the record he left behind. "I never worked. I just enjoyed everything."
There is probably no one who does not know Dosan Ahn Chang-ho. This person's educational background is a 2nd year dropout of a rural simple middle school. While he was in the United States, he got to clean an American house for a dollar an hour. Seeing Mr. Ahn Chang-ho cleaning the house, he is sweating profusely as if he is doing his own housework and works non-stop. I've never seen anyone so diligent as you when the owner gives you a cup of tea after work. And he gave me an extra 50 cents an hour. Strive to work with your hands. It's a good time to work. I hope that you will be diligent, not lazy, zealous, serve the Lord, be faithful in your work, and eat the fruits of your labor.