Korean Text
▶The cross is Love
The essence of the Cross of Jesus Christ is more of Love than Suffering,
So the movie had a tight close up on Jesus being whipped, being crucified under extreme pain,
If 'the Suffering of Jesus' is what comes into your mind first when you think of the Cross, then you are misunderstanding the whole shape of the Cross of Christ.
There is something more important than suffering, hardship and sacrifice in the Cross. Jesus' heart was filled with something greater than suffering, hardship, pain and sacrifice when he had been carrying the cross.
The essence of the Cross is a passionate love for us. The Cross of Christ is sign and manifestation of love of God toward us. He wanted to show us His love through the cross, not His suffering. This is the theme of this sermon.
"So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her." Gen. 29:20
Jacob served Laban as a servant there. He had worked 7 years as a servant to take Rachel, whom he loved. This means that he was pleased to take his hardships and pains as a servant because his heart was filled with a passionate love for Rachel. So that 7 years passed away quickly like several days. This is the power of love. It has people willingly endure any kinds of pain and hardship.
The more passionate love is, the more pleased you take the hardships and sufferings.
Jesus was pleased to take the terrible cross because he had a passionate love for us in him. The cross of Jesus was rather a passionate love toward us than just enduring suffering and nothing.
Where does the superhuman love of mother come from?
It is kind of a replica of the love of God. Through our parents' love, we could be able to feel and taste of the love of God.
Where does a mother's strength to work all the day out in the workplace come from?
While a mother has this passionate love in her, she can feed the entire family and have nothing for herself, and work hard even to the point that her nails get be worn out.
If our hearts are filled with the love of God, we will have the power to carry our cross voluntarily with joy and pleasure.
▶The second son took all his portion of inheritance and went away to a distant country. He spent everything he had and was hired to feed the pigs for his living, then he returned to his father's house wishing to be one of his father's servant. He is a son who is to be stoned by the people. But his father offered a feast to welcome the prodigal son. When this son was returning, the father ran to him from far away and hugged him and kissed him. He had the best clothes prepared for him and had a feast on a calf.
How was the father able to do this?
▶The reason we live an unhappy life - it's because we can't feel the love.
God did not spare his only son to love and save us, however people cannot feel it, so that people maintains his unhappy life continually.
This is a story showing God's love, the love of the cross of Christ.
A mother raised her baby in the night duty room while working in a textile factory in Korea. She breastfed her baby from time to time in that room in break time. One day a fire broke up in the night duty room in a winter season.
This baby grew up and went to school, and was being treated as 'an outcast' among his friends. When they insult him "your mother is the pockmarked face like the moon's surfice, right?", then he was speechless. So as he came home, he threw a tantrum to her mom asking "Why is your face pockmarked?"
One day the child saw an old picture of his mother, and he found it was fine.
This was a story explainging love of Christ on the cross.
People who could not accept the unconditional grace and forgiveness of God live an unhappy life. While not being loved, not knowing the grace of love, daily living is a lifelong unhappy burden. These people can not offer unconditional love to others since they themselves have not experienced it, and do not know what it is.
However the person who have accepted the unconditional grace and love of God, they share it voluntarily to others. By sharing, he feels the power of love and feels happy again and more vividly.
Experiencing of the 'love of man' and 'love of God' makes a good circulation relationship and develops to know each other deeper. If a man is full of dissatisfaction - he is actually dissatisfied with love.
Let us not say 'There is no love in this world'. or neither 'I haven't been loved'.
A man who do not feel the love and grace of God will live in dissatisfaction and despair all his life, but a for man who has felt this love, this love becomes his hope and life.
No matter how desperate his situation is, people can live if he has a hope.
▶By sharing the love of the Cross, we feel once again His great love.
▶Unconditional Love for the sinners
<<People today do not know and understand the true love well.
A sister was looking forward to her marriage and she met this guy from a famous Medical School in her church. They served the church together, and had a relationship and talked about marriage. But after they talked about their marriage, there was a demand from the man's side.
The future MD, the bridegroom's side demanded more baldly. The apartment unit for the new couple must be more than 165m², and even demanded for a building to open a clinic. They said, "My son is a doctor, and he graduated from a famous Medical School, shouldn't you be doing this at least?" (Not all Medical School graduates are like this.)
Not to take advantage of this man's future as a doctor. She loved him personally, but had to break up with him because she wasn't capable of preparing an apartment unit and a building for hospital.
These days people see each others' backgrounds and get married to the person who has a similar background. In these times, it is harder for us to feel the unconditional Love of God.
But the love of God is different. It is unconditional. He doesn't love me because I love Him. He doesn't love me because I am distinguished, well-educated or because I am in a very favorable condition.
The Lord loved me when I was very ignoble that nobody accept me, even when I was still wandering in unforgivable sins. And He still loves me.
Even when I was not even worthy of any kind of love, He loved me.
For example, think about an enemy who swindled you and gave you an unforgivable damage. When you have to hate your enemy, and he deserved to be in prison, God paid for his sins and made His son pay for these sins.
<<Crisis of a family makes their love more sincere.
Dear father whom I respect and love,
I called you this morning but I miss you again. I hope my vacation comes quickly so I may visit Korea to eat Dwenjang soup cooked by mom. Now that I live here away from you, I feel how much Dad and mom love me. I pray for your health. Mom, please overcome your cancer quickly. Dad, please take good care of your health while you are working. It's good that you're moving your house after I return to Korea. You know I can't let the two of you do everything. I will go and take care of everything, do not pack your things and leave them,,
Whose son would not be this lovely?>>
It is just a man made fiction, a story.
A father used to brag on his distinguished and charming son as the other fathers do.
It's not because the son achieved something great, but it is because he is a his very son.
As you know, a pigpen is notorious of its stinks so that people usually bypass far around the pan, by the way, one day after a long agony, the owner of the pigpen decided to love his stinky pigs, those pigs which are dirty, ugly and full of muck! He made a big decision to save these pigs. And then the father, the owner of the pigpen asked a proposal to his only son.
"My beloved son! Let's save these miserable pigs. I hope, you must become a pig! Then get into that pigpen full of muck, and live with those pigs. And what's worse, you have to be killed trampled by those pigs! This is the only way to save those pigs."
I, being a father, can never send my son into a pigpen. I would rather kill the pig, than to kill my son and save the pigs. But God did it.
Do you feel this love of God? You can't even give one of your many sons, but God gave His only Son.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made,
There is a beautiful story, a story about the Savior's love
We think the Cross of Christ, first of all, something a suffering.
And when we take our cross on our back, we understand it something painful, at first glance.
The movie 'Passion of Christ' which I watched weeping several years ago,
The movie 'Passion of Christ' which I watched weeping several years ago,
expressed the Cross of Jesus as something very suffered, and it described the Cross of Jesus as a tremendous pain and curse.
So the movie had a tight close up on Jesus being whipped, being crucified under extreme pain,
and suffering.
Therefore the movie has reminded people of Jesus' suffering when they think about the Cross.
Yes, indeed the cross is suffering, hardship and sacrifice in its essence, however it is not the primary point of the Cross.
If 'the Suffering of Jesus' is what comes into your mind first when you think of the Cross, then you are misunderstanding the whole shape of the Cross of Christ.
There is something more important than suffering, hardship and sacrifice in the Cross. Jesus' heart was filled with something greater than suffering, hardship, pain and sacrifice when he had been carrying the cross.
The essence of the Cross is a passionate love for us. The Cross of Christ is sign and manifestation of love of God toward us. He wanted to show us His love through the cross, not His suffering. This is the theme of this sermon.
We know that this passionate love turns all the hardships of the cross into joy and satisfaction in His heart.
"So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her." Gen. 29:20
Jacob served Laban as a servant there. He had worked 7 years as a servant to take Rachel, whom he loved. This means that he was pleased to take his hardships and pains as a servant because his heart was filled with a passionate love for Rachel. So that 7 years passed away quickly like several days. This is the power of love. It has people willingly endure any kinds of pain and hardship.
The more passionate love is, the more pleased you take the hardships and sufferings.
There was a passionate love of a father for his son, after being denied 24 times from his son, the father visited his son again for the 25th time to the prison. Finally the son accepted his father's love toward him.
Jesus was pleased to take the terrible cross because he had a passionate love for us in him. The cross of Jesus was rather a passionate love toward us than just enduring suffering and nothing.
Where does the superhuman love of mother come from?
It is the father and mother's love in families where we can find the love of God, love of Jesus and the love and grace of the Holy Spirit most.
It is kind of a replica of the love of God. Through our parents' love, we could be able to feel and taste of the love of God.
Where does a mother's strength to work all the day out in the workplace come from?
Where does her strength to have nothing but a scoop of rice and spend a day come from?
Where does her strength to wash the clothes by the stream in cold winter come from?
They come from the passionate love a mother have in them.
While a mother has this passionate love in her, she can feed the entire family and have nothing for herself, and work hard even to the point that her nails get be worn out.
Even when her husband gets mad and children make her worry, even as she wakes up in the middle of the night crying because she misses her mother who passed away, she can carry her cross of suffering because she loves her children.
If our hearts are filled with the love of God, we will have the power to carry our cross voluntarily with joy and pleasure.
Repeat after me, "Let us fill our heart with the love of God"
▶The second son took all his portion of inheritance and went away to a distant country. He spent everything he had and was hired to feed the pigs for his living, then he returned to his father's house wishing to be one of his father's servant. He is a son who is to be stoned by the people. But his father offered a feast to welcome the prodigal son. When this son was returning, the father ran to him from far away and hugged him and kissed him. He had the best clothes prepared for him and had a feast on a calf.
How was the father able to do this?
It was because his heart was filled with the love for his son.
Father did not hesitate to make effort and sacrifice, and give everything nice and precious to his stinking son because he had in his heart the passionate love for his son. It was not a pain, rather a pleasure for him.
▶The reason we live an unhappy life - it's because we can't feel the love.
(Rom.8:32) "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"
God did not spare his only son to love and save us, however people cannot feel it, so that people maintains his unhappy life continually.
This is a story showing God's love, the love of the cross of Christ.
A mother raised her baby in the night duty room while working in a textile factory in Korea. She breastfed her baby from time to time in that room in break time. One day a fire broke up in the night duty room in a winter season.
Turning down everyone's withhold, the mother went into the fire and saved the baby. But because of this incident, she got burned and her face got pockmarked. Her face and body had a severe scar because of the burnning.
This baby grew up and went to school, and was being treated as 'an outcast' among his friends. When they insult him "your mother is the pockmarked face like the moon's surfice, right?", then he was speechless. So as he came home, he threw a tantrum to her mom asking "Why is your face pockmarked?"
One day the child saw an old picture of his mother, and he found it was fine.
He asked the story behind his mother's face, and finally knew what happened that made his mother's face pockmarked. After then, whenever he saw his mother's pockmarked face, He realized that everything (either good or bad) are grace.
He is now rich or poor, it was grace that he is still living.
Otherwise he had passed away on that day, since the fire broke up.
He is now handsome or not, tall or short, it is not a really matter for him.
Because he could had died on that day.
Now when he see his mother's pockmarked scar, it is not a shame anymore, but is is the mark of love and grace from his mother. His present living is nothing problem when he feel the love of his mother that saved him from the furnice of fire with the cost of his mother's scar.
He is now rich or poor, it was grace that he is still living.
Otherwise he had passed away on that day, since the fire broke up.
He is now handsome or not, tall or short, it is not a really matter for him.
Because he could had died on that day.
Now when he see his mother's pockmarked scar, it is not a shame anymore, but is is the mark of love and grace from his mother. His present living is nothing problem when he feel the love of his mother that saved him from the furnice of fire with the cost of his mother's scar.
Poverty, difficult environment and mother's face, everything were a complaint for the son before he understand his mother's love, but after knowing that his mother saved him risking her life, he felt the love and grace in his heart. And all the present situation of his life is fine and OK when he think that he was saved from the furnice of fire.
This was a story explainging love of Christ on the cross.
People who could not accept the unconditional grace and forgiveness of God live an unhappy life. While not being loved, not knowing the grace of love, daily living is a lifelong unhappy burden. These people can not offer unconditional love to others since they themselves have not experienced it, and do not know what it is.
However the person who have accepted the unconditional grace and love of God, they share it voluntarily to others. By sharing, he feels the power of love and feels happy again and more vividly.
In short, a man feels happy by accepting the love and forgiveness of God,
and by sharing them, he feels happiness double portion of it.
Experiencing of the 'love of man' and 'love of God' makes a good circulation relationship and develops to know each other deeper. If a man is full of dissatisfaction - he is actually dissatisfied with love.
Let us not say 'There is no love in this world'. or neither 'I haven't been loved'.
This situation I am in, the way I am right now, everything is God's grace and love.
A man who do not feel the love and grace of God will live in dissatisfaction and despair all his life, but a for man who has felt this love, this love becomes his hope and life.
No matter how desperate his situation is, people can live if he has a hope.
Then where does this hope come from? It comes from the love Jesus has shown us on the Cross. He died there on behalf of us because he loves us. That is why we feel the happiness in our lives and share the love that springs out from within us.
▶By sharing the love of the Cross, we feel once again His great love.
So when we look around us, this is very evident.
There are those individuals/communities/nations that give and share their posessions regardless of their own economic status. Materially, emotionally.. they care about their neighbors, and worry about them. Even when they have their little budget, they help others. Because the love of the God fills these individuals and overflows in them out. However those who know the Christian faith, and the Love of the Cross as merely a knowledge, never cares others around them.
▶Unconditional Love for the sinners
"While we were still sinners" Rom. 5:8
"when we were God's enemies" Rom. 5:10
Ro.5:8. But God commendeth his love toward us, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
:10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.
<<People today do not know and understand the true love well.
A sister was looking forward to her marriage and she met this guy from a famous Medical School in her church. They served the church together, and had a relationship and talked about marriage. But after they talked about their marriage, there was a demand from the man's side.
The future MD, the bridegroom's side demanded more baldly. The apartment unit for the new couple must be more than 165m², and even demanded for a building to open a clinic. They said, "My son is a doctor, and he graduated from a famous Medical School, shouldn't you be doing this at least?" (Not all Medical School graduates are like this.)
Not to take advantage of this man's future as a doctor. She loved him personally, but had to break up with him because she wasn't capable of preparing an apartment unit and a building for hospital.
It feels bitter to hear this story. Although they love each other, without love, the love breaks. This love will be thrown away when one gets diseased. This love will be dumped away when one fails in life.>>
These days people see each others' backgrounds and get married to the person who has a similar background. In these times, it is harder for us to feel the unconditional Love of God.
But the love of God is different. It is unconditional. He doesn't love me because I love Him. He doesn't love me because I am distinguished, well-educated or because I am in a very favorable condition.
The Lord loved me when I was very ignoble that nobody accept me, even when I was still wandering in unforgivable sins. And He still loves me.
Even when I was not even worthy of any kind of love, He loved me.
"While we were still sinners" Rom. 5:8
"when we were God's enemies" Rom. 5:10
For example, think about an enemy who swindled you and gave you an unforgivable damage. When you have to hate your enemy, and he deserved to be in prison, God paid for his sins and made His son pay for these sins.
<<Crisis of a family makes their love more sincere.
My 18 years old son, who studies in America, sent me (the preacher) this commendable e-mail.
Dear father whom I respect and love,
I called you this morning but I miss you again. I hope my vacation comes quickly so I may visit Korea to eat Dwenjang soup cooked by mom. Now that I live here away from you, I feel how much Dad and mom love me. I pray for your health. Mom, please overcome your cancer quickly. Dad, please take good care of your health while you are working. It's good that you're moving your house after I return to Korea. You know I can't let the two of you do everything. I will go and take care of everything, do not pack your things and leave them,,
Whose son would not be this lovely?>>
It is just a man made fiction, a story.
A father used to brag on his distinguished and charming son as the other fathers do.
It's not because the son achieved something great, but it is because he is a his very son.
As you know, a pigpen is notorious of its stinks so that people usually bypass far around the pan, by the way, one day after a long agony, the owner of the pigpen decided to love his stinky pigs, those pigs which are dirty, ugly and full of muck! He made a big decision to save these pigs. And then the father, the owner of the pigpen asked a proposal to his only son.
"My beloved son! Let's save these miserable pigs. I hope, you must become a pig! Then get into that pigpen full of muck, and live with those pigs. And what's worse, you have to be killed trampled by those pigs! This is the only way to save those pigs."
I, being a father, can never send my son into a pigpen. I would rather kill the pig, than to kill my son and save the pigs. But God did it.
This is the love shown through the cross of Jesus Christ.
God has sent His Son who wasn't just in US but in the glorious throne of heaven to this sinful world.
God has sent His Son who wasn't just in US but in the glorious throne of heaven to this sinful world.
Do you feel this love of God? You can't even give one of your many sons, but God gave His only Son.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry.
There is a beautiful story, a story about the Savior's love
Love which has left the glorious heaven, to save a sinner like me.
The people can not understand it.
God’s love has been poured out into our hearts... Rom. 5:5
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