Title Remaining Opportunity
Contents
♡♥♡ Opportunities remaining / Romans 11:13-21
*** Introduction
What would you do if you had 24 hours left to live?
A lot of things will come to your mind all of a sudden. Still, you will be hesitant about what to do first and what to do. However, this assumption will one day come to a real moment. Most people just don't know about that moment.
Did you hear a lot about the last Daegu subway disaster? A girl said that she suddenly got a phone call from her best friend and heard her last voice saying, “I think I am going to die, pray for me.”
If only he had known what was going to happen in a few minutes, no one would have been left on the subway. Because we don't know what will happen in just a few seconds, we don't know how much life we have left now. So Moses, the man of God, says in Psalm 90:11,12, “Who knows the fear of the wrath of the Lord, and who knows the fear of the wrath of the Lord? Teach us how short life is. So that we may live wisely.”
The revival sign ‘R. A. This is an anecdote when Pastor Tory held an evangelism meeting in Brighton, England. A Saint who was helping with the meeting went to a nearby restaurant for dinner before the evening meeting. To the waiter who takes the order for his meal and delivers the food, I suddenly thought, 'I want to tell you about Jesus.'
But soon, “What about me… ” As I thought about it, the gaze of the people around me became conscious and I felt ashamed, so I shook off my thoughts and ate. After finishing the meal, I came out, and I thought to myself again, “Shouldn’t we still be able to preach a word?”
So I stood in front of the restaurant, waiting for the waiter to come out. After waiting for a long time, the waiter did not show up. After a while, the restaurant owner came out and asked, “Who are you waiting for?” The saint said, 'Waiting for the waiter who helped him with his meal a while ago.' Then the owner said, "The waiter just committed suicide on the second floor."
Our life is like this. You have no knowledge of your own life or the lives of others. If the saint had known that a waiter's life was only a few minutes, he would not have hesitated so much. So are you and me. Have you been putting off preaching the gospel to your loved ones and friends, thinking that you still have a lot of time left? Or are you neglecting your own work with the complacency of 'There is tomorrow'? The words of this text warn against the carefreeness caused by our ignorance.
First, let's look at the background and overall meaning of the text.
In this parable, ‘true olive trees’ and ‘stone olive trees’ appear. The ‘true olive tree’ is the ‘Jewish people’, God’s chosen people, and the ‘stone olive tree’ is the Gentile nation, the ‘Roman Church’ and we are today. However, some of the ‘true olive tree branches’, God’s chosen people, did not bear fruit properly. God cut off the branch that did not bear fruit, and instead cut the branch of the stone olive tree and grafted it onto the trunk of the true olive tree.
The branch of the stone olive tree grafted onto the true olive tree was no longer a stone olive tree. Since it receives the sap from the root of the true olive tree, it has become a true olive tree from the moment it is grafted. This did not happen because the stone olive branch was good or produced excellent fruit, but it was pure love and grace of God. Then, the grafted branch must bear true olive fruits from now on.
However, there was a fear that the grafted branch would fail to bear fruit as it failed to think of God's grace, boasted of its elevated position, and acted proudly. The Apostle Paul warns that if a grafted branch forgets its position and fails to bear fruit, it will be mercilessly cut off. God did not spare even the original branch because it had no fruit, so there is no need to say more about the grafted branch.
These words contain important truths that are directly related to our lives. Let's consider some of those important truths.
1. We need to know where we are.
We are not the ‘chosen nation of God’ as the Church of Rome was. To the Jewish people, God's people, we are strangers. In other words, we are 'stone olive trees'. However, the Jewish people, God's people, did not accept Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They rejected the gospel and crucified Jesus Christ to death. They rejected the essence of Jesus Christ, the true olive tree, and dried up. Let's look at John 15. Sections 1,2.
“I am the true vine, and my father is a farmer. The Father cuts down every branch that does not bear fruit, and trims the one that bears fruit so that it bears more fruit.”
Says. Although the Jewish people were a chosen people, they withered away by not accepting Jesus as their Savior. In verse 4, “Let ye be in me and I in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides on the vine, so apart from Me you cannot bear fruit.” A dry branch, of course, could not bear fruit. The dry, unfruitful branches were cut down, and Gentiles were grafted in their place. The gospel of God is directed to the Gentiles.
You and I are lucky children, happy people. Originally, it was a useless stone olive tree, because it became a true olive tree due to the unbelief of the Jewish people. In other words, we have become children of the kingdom of God. Romans 8:15 says, “You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, so we cry, Abba, Father.”
Therefore, we must not forget that it is the pure grace of God that we have achieved this great happiness. Ephesians 2:8. “It is purely by the grace of God that you have been saved through faith in Christ. Even your belief in Christ is not of your own volition, it is a gift from God.” So we should always be grateful for this one fact alone.
2. We must hold fast to Jesus Christ.
There is still a single persimmon tree left in the field under our church, but a few years ago there were a few. Among them, the branches of three young persimmon trees were cut and grafted into the persimmon tree. However, the grafting technique was not yet good, so the grafting was not done properly. Eventually it dried up and all uprooted and thrown away.
The reason for this is that the grafted branch did not attach properly to the stem. In order for a grafted branch to bear good fruit, it must first be firmly attached to the main stem. This is because you can receive the essence of the stem. If it does not receive the sap of the stem, it will gradually dry up and die.
Verse 21 says, “If God did not spare the original branches, neither will He spare you.” In order not to go back to the old state after being abandoned, we must firmly cling to the original stem, Jesus Christ. To be firmly attached to Jesus Christ is to trust and become more like Jesus.
Nowadays, with advances in medical technology, when a part of a person's body becomes ill and cannot be used, it is removed and a healthy tissue is transplanted. In addition to organs, almost all human tissues such as skin and bones are transplanted. However, when transplanting human tissue, the most important thing is whether the transplanted tissue adapts to the transplanted body or not. If the transplanted tissue does not adapt to the body, it rots and has to be cut out again.
A pastor now has a bone rotting disease, cut off the rotten bone a while ago, and is waiting for a healthy bone to be transplanted and attached. They said that if the transplanted bone does not adhere to the original bone after 3 months of transplantation, it will rot. Then I was told that I had to have surgery again.
Just because you live a long life of faith doesn't mean you automatically become like Jesus. You must read the Bible every day, which contains the secret to becoming like Jesus, pray without ceasing to have fellowship with Jesus, and strive to put the Word into practice. Only then will your faith in Jesus grow and you will become more like Jesus.
Is it easy to pray? It's never easy. It is easy to have time to watch TV, to shop, eat out, and go for a walk outside, but it is not so easy to find time to pray, read the Bible, evangelize, and serve. It is difficult to make time for fellowship with God. Although we ourselves are stingy toward God, we have a great expectation that God will give us good things. This is exactly what is not grafting and rotting.
We must strive to hold fast to Jesus Christ in this way because we do not know how many opportunities we have left.
3. It must bear fruit.
Why would a stone olive branch be grafted onto a true olive tree? That's a stupid question, isn't it? The reason for grafting is to expect good fruit. If there are no fruits, cut them immediately. Needless to say, if the grafted branch is not the original branch, expecting good fruit, it is cut off if there is no fruit.
What kind of fruit should a Christian bear? The fruit a Christian must bear is fundamentally spiritual, but it must be manifested in real life. That is, you must be a Christian in your life.
First, the mind must be in Christ. Because every action of a person is based on his own thoughts. Life is the expression of thought into action. So the Lord said that the tree was known by its fruit. Matthew 7:16-19.
“Just as you can tell a tree by its fruit, you can tell them apart by their actions. How can you eat grapes from thorns? How can you eat figs from thistles? In this way, good or bad of a fruit tree is distinguished by its fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. A tree that produces unedible fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Just because a tangerine tree claims to be a citrus tree does not make it a citrus tree. A citrus tree is a citrus tree when the fruit that bears in the fall is citrus. If the fruit is a dandelion, the tree is a dandelion tree.
Christlike thoughts are words of love and understanding rather than words of criticism. Correct criticism is to suggest alternatives and put them into practice first. Criticism without an alternative is a shortcut to mutual ruin. Galatians 5:15 says, “If you bite and eat of each other, be careful lest you perish one another.”
Christlike thinking sets an example rather than coercion and presupposes love. It is the way of life of Jesus, who silently set an example by teaching the right way rather than rebuking them despite the many mistakes and betrayals of the disciples.
We have to live this way because we are the Lord's people, and we do not know how many opportunities remain. If we long for the eternal kingdom of God, let's follow the Lord who is ahead of us. Since we are grafted people, I pray that you will become beautiful people of faith who imitate the Lord while not forgetting that we must stick to the Lord and bear fruit.