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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
The Lord of Love - 2014 Christmas |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Romans 13:10 |
Date |
2014-12-25 |
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Scripture
Romans 13:10
"Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
Merry Christmas!
Every year when Christmas is around the corner, you get buoyed up by hope and happiness like a child expecting a gift. This happiness is not because of fancy lights on the streets or joyful songs. It is because of the gift of Christmas that God the Father gave us.
God gave us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as a gift. He also made a promise with us with that gift that whoever accepts Jesus as his Savior will be saved. No matter how good a fleshly gift is, its joy cannot last forever. But the gift of Christmas that God gave us gives us new joy every year.
The reason is because every year as our faith grows up, the hope for Heaven becomes bigger and that the grace and blessing we enjoy in the love of the Lord becomes more abundant. I pray in the name of the Lord that you may fully enjoy this gift of Christmas that the Father God gave you.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
You know well why God the Father created men. It was to acquire true children. Just as parents of the world want to share love and happiness with their children who look just like them, God created men in His own image.
To acquire true children, however, requires a process called 'cultivation.' That is, because of sin, man has to experience the relativity of evils through situations caused by disease, death and sorrow. Even the saved souls must make many efforts and persevere until they go to Heaven.
This process of cultivation isn't difficult only for men. The Triune God managing this cultivation also have endured a lot and worked very hard as well. If God had no love, He would not have allowed for the sacrifices for the cultivation of mankind.
And, if the Lord and the Holy Spirit didn't have love, they couldn't have carried out their God-given duties. It was love itself that the Lord was born on this earth, and everything He did on this earth was also love.
The Scripture says "love is the fulfillment of the law." As written, Jesus fulfilled the justice of the law with perfect love by giving up His life. Today, we will look at the kinds of love our Lord gave us in three aspects. Through this message, I hope you will understand once again with your heart just how precious the Christmas gift is that you have received.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
First of all, the Lord of love completely sacrificed Himself for us.
Through the 'Message of the Cross,' you learned the four qualifications of the Savior. Number one, He must be a man. Number two, He must not be a descendant of Adam. Number three, He must have power. (In the spiritual realm, power comes from having no sin.) Since Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, He had no original sin, and He lived by the law of God without committing any sin. So, He has the power to save sinners.
The fourth, the most important and above and beyond the previous three, He must have love. To redeem sinners and save them, He must sacrifice Himself. Without love, He cannot sacrifice Himself for sinners, and He cannot overcome such terrible sufferings. Since Jesus loved us, He took the cross.
The fact that the Word became flesh and came to this earth in itself was already a great sacrifice. He locked His omnipotent and divine nature into the form of a low and obscure creature, and He lived on this earth just like men. For us, He lived such a harsh and poor life of hunger and thirst and often without sleep or rest.
Finally when the time came and He took the cross. He managed all sacrifices in silence. People spat on Him and insulted Him. The thorns of the crown pierced into His head. Scourging caused His flesh to be torn apart revealing His bones. He was nailed through His hands and feet. But still Jesus did not try to avoid or elude the punishment. He didn't even care about the insult of being hung naked like a criminal and mocked by people.
Jesus is the precious Son of God. He had no reason to suffer as much as He did and He was surely able to avoid it all. If He had wished, He could have immediately come down from the cross and stood before the people with His majestic and glorious appearance. He could have called for the host of heaven, more than 12 legions of them, and destroyed the evil people who stood against Him. But He silently took the suffering and died because it was only such a sacrifice as this that could save you and me.
Brothers and sisters,
For the saved people like us, Christmas is such a happy and cozy day. However, 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born, what was going through the heart of God the Father? He knew well of the future glory the Lord would receive, but He also knew what kind of terrible suffering the Lord would take prior to it.
While He did not taking His eyes off of Jesus for 33 years, He had to feel the sorrow of the things forthcoming. When Jesus was finally hung on the cross, the Father suffered so very greatly watching His Son, Jesus.
When His loving Father had to turn from His Son, the Son was sad and lonely. But the heart of the Father was far beyond description when He had to ignore the suffering of His beloved Son although He could have helped. As you can see, God the Father also made great sacrifices to the point of giving up His only begotten Son for us.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
The second aspect of the love of the Lord is the love of giving up everything.
Jesus took all the sufferings and sacrificed Himself to the point of giving up His life while giving us only the good things. Those parents who truly love their child don't care about their wealth or their toil. While working so hard and giving up things they could have, they only think of how they can give the best of things to their child and how to help their child lead a better life.
Jesus also did just this as well. He was not born in a good bed in a fine home, but instead He was laid in a manger. It was to become the food of life to the sinners who are less than animals. He didn't look for a good house, good clothes, or good food.
He walked around with no place to lay His head. He put on rough and shabby clothes, and He often starved and prayed. It was to redeem us from poverty and to make us rich. He constantly walked to places here and there with no time to sleep or rest because He wanted to show the love of the Father to people with no hope and to plant the hope of Heaven in them. It was to save them from the problems of diseases, weakness, and demon-possession.
"My beloved sons and daughters that I formed in My own image, don't be poor and don't be sick!" Jesus showed such a heart of the Father as this to people. He gave up the glory that He enjoyed as the Son of God. He gave up His body, heart, time, and possessions – even his life itself.
When He was hung on the cross and ignored by God because it was the moments when He was redeeming mankind from their sins, He couldn't even call His beloved the Father, "Father". In those moments for us to be forgiven of our sins and helped to be able to dwell in the love of God, He gave up the intimacy with His most beloved Father. It is because of this that we can enjoy health, wealth, wisdom, honor, and all the blessings as we dwell in the love.
And He in the end He will present the dwelling place in Heaven to us. The Lord said in John 14:2-3, "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also."
Right now, Jesus is not eating anything. He is interceding for us. He is also preparing places for us in Heaven. In giving up all things, He allows for us to enjoy all the best things – this is the love of our Lord for us.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Thirdly, the love of the Lord bore the perfect fruit as the evidence of the love.
Our Lord said in John 12:24, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." The sacrifice of blameless Jesus saved countless souls.
Whoever listens to the gospel and accepts the Lord can receive the Holy Spirit and be saved. As these souls who received the Holy Spirit and get saved follow the desire of the Holy Spirit and diligently walk in the truth, they can come into spirit and whole spirit. And they finally become the true children that God wants, and they reach the most precious places. This is the perfect fruit that God desires.
But remember this! He opened the way of salvation for all mankind, but not all of them will become the perfect fruit. They heard the gospel and were saved, but if they stop in the middle or strayed onto a wrong path, they will have nothing to do with the Lord again. Only those who walk the path till the end can pass through the gates to salvation. They will pass not only one gate, but many gates, and they will eventually enter the 3rd kingdom of Heaven, or best of all, New Jerusalem.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." When we didn't know the Lord, He loved us first, and He bought us with His precious blood. Instead of the punishment of being burn in the fire and sulfur of hell, He prepared the eternal Heaven.
And when we seek in the name of the Lord, He answers the wishes and desires of our hearts. What do you offer to the Lord of such love? When I discovered this love of the Lord, I wanted to give everything to the Lord; my strength, my will, my heart, my mind, and my life. To accomplish the providence of God the Father, I went through fire and water. I wished to pay for the sacrifice of the Lord's hanging on the cross with bearing of good fruits.
In addition, I didn't spare anything for the flock that the Lord entrusted to me. I didn't discriminate against anyone. Everyone is so precious that I wished to give up everything I had for them. I didn't want to spare for myself even a little bit of the grace that the Father gave to me.
I didn't begrudge the words of God's revelations, but I received them at the risk of my life for more than 7 years. I didn't think I should be the only one who can manifest the power of God only because I received it after countless fastings and prayers. I didn't want to enjoy or hide the spiritual realm just because I got through it after uncountable sufferings. When God showed me New Jerusalem, the best dwelling place, I didn't wish to go there alone.
The love that I received, the blessing that I enjoyed, the power that I manifested, the glory and promise of Heaven that God showed me; I wished only to share all of it with you any way I could. And so, for those long years since I founded this church, I've never let go of my heart for the souls – not even for a moment. I've never forget my earnest wish to lead my entrusted flock into spirit and whole spirit – not even for a moment. I have risked my life and run this far to accomplish the providence of God for this church.
Brothers and sisters,
What about you?
As the love of the Father and of the Lord urges you every day, are you diligently taking Heaven by force? As you don't seem to achieve your desired goal quickly enough, are you disappointed and tired? Do you ask yourself, "Can I do it? I don't know what to do."
Only for you, the Father gave up the most precious one – His only begotten Son. What else could it be that the Father cannot sacrifice? Why will He not give you the grace and strength that can change you when you long for spirit and seek by faith? May you always remember the love that the Father and the Love gave us, and surely come out as the fruit of whole spirit, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, I pray! |
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