Title Let's Have Faith
Contents
(Luke 3:15-17)
Today is the first Sunday of October 3rd. In other words, it is autumn. Fall is everyone's favorite season. Five grains are ripe and there is plenty to eat, and the blue sky and colorful autumn leaves are beautiful. I hope that our faith will also be full and beautiful in the presence of the Lord this good autumn.
The Lord said that the wheat is gathered and brought into the barn, and the chaff is burned with unquenchable fire. The chaff means the unsaved person or the wrong faith, and the wheat means the faith with the assurance of salvation and spiritual maturity. I hope that everyone will hear these words and have faith like wheat.
So, what does grain-like faith look like?
1, Wheat is the faith that longs for the Lord.
1 Peter 2:2 says, “Like newborn babies, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that through it you may grow up to salvation.”
All the saints who long for it will change to the faith of wheat. Simpson, the forest king who owns a lot of mountains, came to know one day a friend from an orphanage with him. Simpson said to his friend, "Can you teach me how to be like me? There are four ways. First, you must go to church with me. Second, never drink alcohol. Third, you must tithe whether you earn more or less." Fourth, whatever you do, do your best in whatever you do. And if you fail, come back to me. If you come back, I will divide the forest I have in half and give it to you."
Hearing this, the friend began to do what Simpson told him to do. I worked hard in the church, got a job in an ironworks, worked hard regardless of money, and paid tithes from my salary. Alcohol was not in his mouth. The owner was so impressed that he opened a branch in New York and entrusted it to him. Finally, it became the number one leader in the ironworks industry. Now you don't have to go to your friends and ask them to clear some forest.
Ladies and gentlemen, a person who longs for this cannot be a success in all things. The grain does not come automatically. Just as it takes a lot of hard work for farmers to become wheat, you must have faith to long for the Lord and live according to the Word.
2. The appearance of wheat is modest.
1 Peter 5:5 says, “You young people, in the same way submit to your elders, and all of you gird yourselves with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Go out on the field. The grain is ripe. Ripe grains bow their heads. This is the face of algok faith. When we are humble, God gives us grace so that we become full of grain. But until humble, it's like an empty shell. So pride is blown away by the wind like chaff.
Once upon a time, there lived a saint who believed well in Jesus, and angels were called by God to give him great power to heal and give sinners the power to repent. Then the saint shook his head and said, “I cannot receive that grace. It's God's work, so how can I do it?" Hearing this, the angel said, "Then what kind of grace do you want?" Then the saint said, “I have one wish.
It is a grace that I can do while I live on this earth without sinning and doing good without knowing that I am doing that good.” Then, there is a story that God gave that humble saint not only the grace to live according to God's will, but also the grace of healing the sick and the repentance of many sinners just by passing his shadow. This is the grace of God's grain given to the humble.
I have a song that I like. This is "Thorn Tree" by Ha Duk-gyu. “There are too many me in me, there is no place for you to rest In me, there is no place for you to rest with vain wishes Inside me, the darkness that I can’t help takes away your resting place Inside me is like a lush thorn forest that I can’t overcome When the wind blows There were many days when the withered branches clinged to each other and cried, and the young birds that flew away exhausted in search of a place to rest were also pierced by thorns and sang sad songs in loneliness and pain when the wind only
There are so many me in me that there is no place for you to rest When the wind blows, the dry branches cling to each other and cry, and the young birds that flew away in search of a place to rest are also pierced by thorns. There is no place for you to rest.” I hope we too will be humble so that I may disappear and the Lord will come in his place. This is the grain, and it is also the way to become grain.
3. Wheat makes the owner happy.
Colossians 1:10 says, “Walking worthy of the Lord, pleasing him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.”
In this verse we see that the wheat is pleasing to God. But the chaff seeks only the pleasures of the world to please himself. The true grain of the kingdom of God lives for the glory of God, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do.
This is the story of Toyohiko Kagawa, a famous Japanese saint. He was born illegitimate and was rescued by an American missionary just before he died of starvation, where he learned the love of Christ. In 1909, he moved to a one-pyeong hut in a new house and slum, where he practiced Christ's love for the poor in a place infested with bedbugs and fleas. When I was short on money, I did random work such as sweeping the chimney. He overcame the persecution of being beaten by bullies and broke his front teeth, built a Sunday school, and when his novel 'Across the Line' became a bestseller, he picked up a tissue and distributed the royalties to the poor.
In 1927, the first Japanese union was established, and in 1929, he was imprisoned for protesting against the Japanese military. “Give yourself.” This is his credo. Although we may not be able to do this, we should be able to follow what pleases God in our lives. This is what the grain looks like.
Dear saints,
May our faith become like wheat. Jesus took the key in his hand and made his threshing floor clear, gathering the wheat into the barn, and burning the chaff with an unquenchable fire. To that end, I hope that you will all have faith to long for the Lord, humble faith to humble yourself, and have faith that pleases the Lord.