Title: Wrong Zeal for God!
Contents
Sunday day sermon
Text: Romans 10:1-15
Title: False Zeal for God!
Paul at one time, too, was so full of zeal for God. At that time, he treated the believers in Jesus as heretical, arrested and imprisoned them, beat them, and persecuted them. After realizing how zealous he had been believing in God, he came to write the same words as today in order to awaken his people who were serving God with the same zeal as he did later.
If Paul is at this level, it goes without saying that the Christian life of today's Christians living under the Holy Spirit is not wrong to say that everyone is running before God with false zeal. If we compare Paul's beliefs when he was Saul before he was born again as Jesus, and the beliefs of Christians today, it can be quickly confirmed that there is no difference. Therefore, those who are zealous for God today will notice that they cannot keep up with Saul's splendid history and zeal at that time.
As Paul reveals his splendid history in Philippians 3, Paul was circumcised on the eighth day after he was born according to the customs of the Jews. One of the tribes, the tribe of Benjamin. According to the orthodox Hebrew, he was a Hebrew among the Hebrews, and according to the law, he was a Pharisee among the Pharisees considered most righteous at the time. Even judging by his academic background, he was from Gamaliel, the most prestigious school of his time. In addition, with his zeal for God, he persecuted countless churches that believed in Jesus at the time (this alone shows how zealous he was for the Judaism he believed in at the time), and even judging by the law, he believed that he was without blemish. there was
But when he met Jesus, he realized that everything he had been doing until now was not for God. He was drawn by his own greed and tried to promote his own righteousness. In the end, he followed the will of the devil who was ruling him and Jesus was the Son of God. Realizing that they were persecuting believers, you can see them confessing without hesitation, “I am the chief among sinners.” Then Paul said, "Whatever was useful to me, I count it all as loss for the sake of Christ, and I count all things as loss, because of the noblest knowledge of Christ my Lord! I lost everything for him and count it as dung, so that I might gain Christ and be found in him.”
So, what about Christians living under the Spirit today?
For Christians, Christ has never come to anyone as a Spirit. Nevertheless, Christians all mistake the Holy Spirit for the Spirit of Christ, and everyone believes that Christ is in their hearts. As Christians mistake the Holy Spirit for the Spirit of Christ, automatically Christians are thinking about salvation just like the table they received.
That's why everyone thinks that salvation has already been received, so if there are people who slander or gossip about Christianity in such a way that they want to go to heaven and accumulate a lot of rewards, go to them and stare at them like they're going to kill them, and let's avoid idolatry. In a sense, if the government erected a statue of Dangun under the purview of raising the pride of a single nation to the people, it would sneak up in the middle of the night and destroy it. Also, the more people gather in a chapel or a place that recognizes one's own goodness, the more zealous they become, the more loyal they are to serve.
As mentioned above, Saul was also a zealous man with the same thoughts under the law before he was born again as Paul. However, today's Christians mistakenly believe that they have been born again with the Spirit of Christ after receiving the Holy Spirit, and are acting like Saul under the old law. In order for Christians to become like the apostle Paul, all of them must be born again of the Spirit of Christ to act like Paul. Otherwise no Christian could represent Saul's life. Although Christians today say that they can imitate Saul to some extent in appearance, no one can reveal the essence of Saul through Christ.
If they really believe in the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ, they are doing things that are completely inconsistent. First, if they believed in the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ, they no longer had to be taught by anyone. Because the Bible clearly says that the anointed with Christ need not be taught by anyone else because Christ is the Teacher. But, even though Christians have Christ in their hearts, don't they listen to others if they still want to receive good instruction from others?
The second wrong thing is that, unlike the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ is the one who came into the heart of man as the master of man. Therefore, those who have Christ cannot do anything on their own accord. In 1 John 3, it is said that those who have the seed of God cannot sin, because Christ came as man's Lord and cannot cause him to sin again and lead him to death. However, if you look at the Christians today who mistake the Holy Spirit for the Spirit of Christ, even though they claim to have the Spirit of Christ, if it is ten, if it is ten, or if it is one hundred, then all of them live according to their own will. mean?
If there is a person who claims to have received Christ in this way and still lives a life that is clearly inconsistent, but still boasts that he has the Spirit of Christ to the end, then it is clear that such a person is thoroughly deceived by himself. If it goes too far, such a person must have been determined to be abandoned because the devil has already taken over it.
For Christians, it is only now that God wants to send the Son of God before the Christians because the deadline that God has promised not to send his Son has come. However, if there are people who say that they received the Spirit of the Son before the Son came, it is clear that such a person is either mistaking the Holy Spirit for the Spirit of Christ, or is being deceived by himself.
From now on, it seems that we must believe in Christ, who came as the Spirit, know God properly through him, and be zealous.