Title: Those Who Put Hope in God
Contents .
Sunday, March 22nd Sermon
Those who put their hope in God (Psalm 146:3-5)
Hallelujah!
Let's say hello to each other!
“You did great! Always be happy in Jesus.”
Today, at this time, I would like to deliver a message under the title. I wish you many blessings.
It is said that Dr. Dwight Moody, a world-renowned revivalist and evangelist, always lamented the words of Isaiah 12:2 while he was still alive.
“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and have no fear, for the Lord GOD is my strength and my song and my salvation.”
He said that on the train going to heaven, there are people who ride in first-class rooms and there are people who go in second-class rooms.
It is said that those who ride in the second-class room depend on God only when they are afraid, and those who ride in the first-class always depend on God.
“I don’t know why people don’t buy first-class tickets when the first-class rooms are so good,” he said.
It is not an exaggeration to say that good or bad faith is accumulated according to the strength of trust in God, whether a believer is 100%, 80%, or 50% dependent on God, to measure whether a believer's faith is good or bad. is.
Some people say they believe in God for the rest of their lives, but there are people who believe only in words, believe only in their heads, and do not trust God.
God is pleased with those who rely entirely on Him.
David, who was called “a man after God’s own heart,” was a man who trusted and trusted God completely since he was a shepherd.
He was a man who only depended on God.
However, God also punished David, when David became arrogant and changed his mind to depend only on God, so he ordered a census to find out the number of the army in order to depend on the strength of the army.
He did not repent unconditionally when he was told to choose one of three punishments: a three-year famine, a three-month defeat, or a three-day plague. 70,000 people were to be punished with great punishment.
God hates to depend on anything other than God, and He is even jealous of love.
However, He is the one who gives various kinds of grace and blessings to those who do not depend on the things of the world and live wholly dependent on God alone.
When God led the Israelites to the land of Canaan, it took 40 years for a distance that could have been covered in 10 days.
It was because the people of Israel believed and did not depend only on God, so God was trying to teach them how to depend on God alone.
So, according to Deuteronomy 8:12-14, with the land of Canaan at hand, God said that when the people of Israel entered the land of Canaan and began to live in good houses, increase their wealth, and live well, they gave up all their faith in God and turned away from God. I am telling you to be careful not to forget.
So, who are those who put their hope in God?
It is a person who lives with 100% trust and dependence on God, not 50% or 80%.
God blesses those who put their hope in God and depend on Him.
Psalm 84:12, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord of hosts.”
Proverbs 16:20, “He who pays heed to his word finds good; blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.”
There is a world-renowned physicist named Stephen Walking.
He became physically disabled in his early twenties.
He also contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a bizarre disease, which made him unable to move even in a wheelchair.
Then he became a great physicist who surpassed Einstein.
His wife, Jane Hawking, said:
“If it had not been for faith in God, I would not have been able to live in a situation where my husband’s illness worsened.”
She was able to overcome the difficult situation because she looked at the blessings God would give her instead of looking at her sick husband.
When I was a pioneer church in Busan in 1985, at that time, I received a subsidy of 250,000 won each month from the Seongdong district of the Seoul annual conference.
Two years later, in 1987, I first proclaimed self-reliance to the church.
From now on, I persuaded the members to become self-reliant without any assistance and to become a giving church from a receiving church.
At that time, the number of members of the Gijang-eup Church was less than 10 adults.
At first, the church members were reluctant.
That's because the total amount of monthly offerings at that time was slightly more than the subsidy.
They had to pay the living expenses of the evangelist, but that was what the church members were worried about.
So I said.
In the end, the church members accepted my will and declared independence in the Seongdong region and no longer received subsidies.
Of course, there was a reason why the subsidy was not paid on time due to the aftereffects after the Seongdong district superintendent election, but God gave me the heart to become self-reliant.
Together with all the members of the church, we prayed to God to achieve true self-reliance soon.
I believed in God and prayed, but God blessed the church, so I settled my ministry for 10 years and moved to Cheongju. Hallelujah!
Busan was a poor place for Methodism to develop because it was a barren land. However, he only trusted and relied on God, and he blessed him like this.
According to Ezra 8:21, when Ezra led the Israelites to Jerusalem, he could bring horsemen and infantry with him if he asked King Artaxerxes of Persia. After I set off, God protected me and saved me from all my enemies and from the ambush of my enemies.
Those who depend on God will face tribulation in the world, but God will save them.
It was during World War II.
When France was defeated by the German Nazis, the 290,000 troops who had crossed over to help from England were unable to do so on their own, so they fled to the Strait of Dover to return to England.
Hitler stood idly by ordering the complete annihilation of British soldiers fleeing from Berlin.
At that time, King George VI of England proclaimed a “day of prayer” and the whole nation prayed that day, saying to all England, “Let us pray to God to rescue the British army at any cost.”
After praying, a strange miracle happened.
There was a great storm on the German side that day, so not a single plane could take off, and it rained so much that not a single tank could move.
However, the strait of Dover, where the British were stationed, was so calm and so calm that many ships were able to transport 290,000 British troops to England safely.
After that, all the British people, including the British army, prayed to God in thanksgiving and gained great strength.
Dear saints,
Rather than relying on God, I hope not to depend on the worldly people.
Psalm 146:3-4, “Do not trust in princes, nor in men who do not have the strength to help; for when their breath is cut off, they return to dust, and their plans perish in the same day.”
Please do not rely on wealth.
Psalm 49:6-8, “No one who trusts in his riches, and is proud of his abundance, can by no means redeem his brother, nor offer a ransom to God for him. because it is”
Those who did not rely on God for their own strength, but who depended only on the abundance of riches and supported them through iniquity, God will destroy and uproot them from the tabernacle.
Please do not rely on your own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding...
The story of Tae-seop Choi, Chairman of Korea Glass
This person was the elder of the religious church and the president of Yuri Korea.
Elder Tae-seop Choi was originally from Jeongju, Pyeongbuk, and has been living so hard that he has never had to flee to South Korea when the 6.25 Incident broke out.
Seeing people prosper and succeed in everything Elder Choi did, he said that he was lucky.
Each time, Elder Choi came down south and prayed earnestly to God to lead the way because he did not know what to do.
Elder Choi has dedicated his life to one industry, called glass, and has grown Korean glass into a global brand and a global glassware company.
You yourself say this humbly.
“It’s because I don’t have the skills. Physically, he is not good at doing many things at once. When one task is finished, the next one begins. Instead, they focus on doing their best at one thing. And we insist on being the best in our field.”
Elder Choi said that the business was entrusted to him by God.
So, he said that the entrepreneur should fulfill the mission of stewardship.
“I always say that business is something that God has entrusted to us, so managers must faithfully fulfill their stewardship. It is because of the belief that everything in this world is temporarily entrusted by God.
However, this kind of Korean glass also experienced a huge crisis in the 1970s.
It was a crisis that occurred when copper plate glass entered the glass market.
The two companies produced glass competitively, and eventually there was an oversupply, and the copper plate glass was dumping below cost, disrupting the price market.
Due to this bloody competition, Korea Glass was under financial pressure, and finally it came to a crisis where the company had to shut down.
The financial situation became difficult, and the company could no longer be taken over.
My co-workers are now telling me to go bankrupt.
At that time, Chairman Choi Tae-seop began to persuade people by saying, “Although it is true that we are facing a crisis right now, it is my belief that there is no crisis that is too steep and terrible to cross.”
“There are always difficulties. The question is whether we get frustrated and sit down when difficulties come, or whether we stand up and cry out over those difficulties. Think of the early days. We didn't even know how to turn silica sand into glass. Without knowing anything, I worked with the determination to build a flat glass factory on this land and produce flat glass with my own hands. When difficulties come, let's think about the beliefs we had at that time. Let’s understand the trials we face today as God’s will for us to grow bigger and have courage.”
And Elder Choi earnestly prayed to God for the strength and wisdom to go through that trial.
Finally, Korea Glass overcame the crisis and became one of the world's leading glass companies. Hallelujah!
Dear saints,
I hope that you will always have hope in God and depend only on God.
God will always protect us and help us no matter what difficulties we face.
When you are faced with difficult and difficult things, I hope you will put your hope in God even more. Amen!