Title: Workers of Faith!
Contents
Sunday day sermon
Text: Hebrews 11:17-40
Title: Workers of Faith!
There are many believers in the Bible.
The workers of such faith were recorded in the Bible, not to brag about them, but to show what kind of environment and what adversity they ran with faith. Those who have seen and realized that God is alive and that God's word will come true only when they believe in God more than themselves and rely on the word and put it into action. In doing so, he becomes more and more trusting and dependent on God.
However, on the contrary, no matter how many people of faith are listed in the Bible, if I do not accept them as faith, they become the bread of the picture. It means to accept it as faith, how did the people of faith overcome such circumstances and adversity? to learn the process. If I learn the process of how people of such faith have lived, I will be able to examine my own environment. The circumstances may be completely different from those recorded in the Bible. My current circumstances may be better or worse than them. But the most important thing here is not the environment, but belief. This is because, if there is a certain belief, the environment can never hold me back.
However, it is not always easy to first believe. Faith never happens by chance, and when I hear the word of God and put it into action, the word is experienced by me so that I can feel in my heart that God is alive. How can I believe that God lives, if I do not rely and obey? Those who have not experienced these words and say they believe that God lives are mostly those who believe that God lives in theory. These people are like building a house on sand, so when the wind blows and floods occur, the house will collapse at once.
Faith is giving up on yourself and trusting and following someone who is greater than you and more than you. So, it is more important to examine yourself first in order to have faith. What kind of being are you? I must first know what to do, will I believe and follow God? Or will you not believe it? Because the issue is raised. The logic that one must believe in God unconditionally without these things is absolutely not convincing to himself. I should be able to convince myself, but when I can't convince myself, why am I doing this all the time? I can't shake my doubts. If you do that, speaking from the pulpit and being told to obey, you will inevitably end up being dragged around in everything. If you live a religious life where you are inevitably dragged along, how would the hearts of those who are dragged be terrifying? Even if you don't want to do it, you say you're going to hell, so you have to do it, and if you quit again, you'll get a bigger punishment, so you can't stop, you can't do this, you can't do that, and you're really going to die.
Then why! Have you come across this problem?
That is, the problem arises even though humans do not know themselves well first. That means you don't know what you are. He has been thoroughly deceived by an evil spirit, knowing that man is noble, man is full of knowledge, man is good, man is beautiful, man is soft, and that man is dirty, ugly, evil, and greedy. Because they are completely unaware of it, human beings are infinitely tolerant of themselves. When I tell people who live in this way of thinking to believe in God, I say, ‘Yeah! That's a good thing!' They only say they believe on the outside, but on the inside they don't believe it at all. no! It's not that I don't believe it, it's probably that I don't feel the need to believe at all.
How dangerous is it to say that man is not aware of himself? So, if you want to believe in God well, you must first know yourself well and live a life of faith. The best way to know yourself is that you can never know who you are. It is the same principle as not being able to see any object in the dark. So, you need to get the light first. When you are illuminated by light in the dark, even if you cannot see right away because you have been accustomed to the dark, but as time passes, you can see things vaguely. They say that they cannot know who they are, but after a while, humans will also be able to know who they are.
It is no exaggeration to say that the life of faith begins only then. After living all your life in darkness, you will see the light for the first time in your life, and you will be confused at first. But living knowing that darkness is everything, there is also such a light! After realizing that, this time a hump about light arises. This is like when people living in a barbarian area where civilization is cut off were brought to them with a computer that could be called the flower of civilization, they at first thought, 'What is this for? The emotion is 'Ah! Besides us, there are other people somewhere in this world!’ How do they really live? However, when they see the products they are using, they yearn for the world of civilization, saying, 'It's different from ours!' will be.
Then, each time the darkness of one's own darkness is removed one by one by the light, the shame and pain of the body will follow, but gradually you will come to like the light more, and eventually you will have a desire to put off the darkness and live in the light. . That is faith in God. When I live in darkness, I have lived knowing that darkness is the best and that only darkness is everything, but after the light came in, I came to know that darkness is the dirtiest place, the ugliest place, a place of curses, death, and pain. After that, I started to learn about light, and I came to know that light is the cleanest place, a place of life, and a place of peace and rest, contrary to darkness. Now that he has tasted the light, there is no reason to hesitate any longer. I want to run towards the light as soon as possible. This is the true form of the life of faith, standing before the Lord through faith.
The workers of faith in the Bible were able to run to the light in this way. None of us will be able to move forward to the light without following these steps. Through the light, one must realize what kind of existence he is, and the person who realizes himself is why I am! I must be able to convince myself that I should run to the light. If you can't persuade yourself, you will have no choice but to be persuaded by yourself. Those who feel they can convince themselves enough can now run to God according to their personality (style).