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Subject 16 : The Gospel According to JOHN

[Chapter 10-1] Stand Firm in the Faith of Believing in Jesus Christ As Your Savior (John 10:1-6)

Stand Firm in the Faith of Believing in Jesus Christ As Your Savior
(John 10:1-6)
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.”
 
 

Jesus Who Performed the Righteous Act

 
In the Gospel of John chapter 9, Jesus opened the eyes of a blind man and there arose much religious discussion owing to this affair. The blind man who met Jesus and obtained good eyesight told the Pharisees that it was rather strange that they did not know where He came from. The Gospel of John chapter 9 verse 30 says, “The man answered and said to them, ‘Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes!’” We must all know where Jesus Christ came from. We were born from our physical parents; our parents were born from Adam and Eve who are the ancestors of humans; and Adam and Eve were born of the Triune God.
Then where did Jesus come from? Jesus Christ came to this world from the Heaven according to the will of God the Father as the Son of God the Father to save the sinners from sin. But after this blind man’s eyes were opened, the Pharisees started dispute and asked this blind man how his eyes were opened. The blind man told them that his eyes became opened after he met Jesus and washed his eyes in the Pool of Siloam. The Pharisees who heard this tried to find fault from Jesus by asking why He did this on the Sabbath if He was truly an upright person. That’s because the day the blind man’s eyes were opened was the Sabbath and the Scriptures recorded that the Jews must not work on the Sabbath. Jews had a resolution to excommunicate anyone who worked on that day. It means that according to the Jewish Law, they ostracized and excommunicated anyone who violated the Law by working on the Sabbath. That’s why the Pharisees were saying that Jesus would not have told the blind man to go wash in the Pool of Siloam during the Sabbath if He had been a godly person.
Pharisees even went to the blind man’s parents and asked them how their son opened his eyes and how he could now see. They said that it was wrong if he opened his eyes on the Sabbath and that the parents who had left such a son alone on the Sabbath were wrong as well. Furthermore, they insisted that Jesus who opened the blind man’s eyes on the Sabbath was also guilty of violating the Jewish Law. The blind man’s parents were in a difficult situation because they also were Jews and it was a significant violation according to the Law for their son to be pasted with clay on the Sabbath. Therefore, his parents just said, “We do not know anything except that our son was born blind and now he can see,” because they did not want to become people who violated the Law. And he said, “But by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.”
Then, the Pharisees asked their son again. They asked him how his eyes were made open on the Sabbath. The Pharisees said that Jesus was surely a sinner who clearly does not follow God’s will, because He opened the blind man’s eyes on the Sabbath.
 
 
Spiritual Consideration of the Sabbath
 
This incident is such a laughable affair from the perspective of our times, but it was a serious incident from the Jewish perspective of the time that Jesus and the blind man and the Pharisees lived 2000 years ago. Jews absolutely do not work from the sunset on Friday till the sunset on Saturday evening because they believe the Law that commands them to keep the Sabbath holy. From the oral tradition, they say, “Even walking a few meters with the needle attached on the clothes on the Sabbath is a violation of the Law.”
In any case, the Jews believed that the people who kept the Law well were the people who followed after God’s will faithfully. Jesus healing the person from his sickness on the Sabbath became a great problem because it was a violation of the religious law at the time. Jesus spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva and put it on the blind man’s eyes and commanded him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. Then his eyes were healed as he washed his eyes in the Pool of Siloam according to Jesus’ command. Jesus clearly did a good job, but that was a wrong thing that violated the Law when seen from the Jews standpoint. Unfortunately, it’s because the day was the Sabbath.
The Sabbath begins at the sunset of Friday and ends at the sunset of Saturday. Today is the Sunday, therefore the period before the sunset yesterday is the Sabbath. Seventh-Day Adventist Church is representative of the denominations that keep the Sabbath literally. There are still many Seventh-Day Adventist Churches in Kangwon Province, Korea. They had worship service for God yesterday that is the Sabbath. They do not have worship service for God Sunday, which is the Lord’s Day. And they have much feeling of pride and superiority in the fact that they are worshipping God on the Sabbath. They say, “Don’t you know that God said He would bestow much blessing upon you if you kept the Sabbath according to the Old Testament and that you will go to the Kingdom of Heaven if you believe in Jesus and keep the Sabbath strictly?”
But that is actually wrong. We must look at the statute of the Sabbath spiritually. The word Sabbath means to rest in comfort. Looking at it spiritually, this word means that the Lord has blotted out all our sins. It means that the Lord blotted out our sins all at once with the Truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit and gave us the true rest in our hearts. In other words, it means that God blotted out all our sins and made us able to go the Kingdom of God. That is the true meaning of the true Sabbath that God has given to us.
Literally, the Sabbath is from Friday evening till the Saturday evening. Those who claim that we should observe Sabbath punctually are wrong in this respect: There is a difference in time between nations according to their longitudinal locations. For example, today is the Sabbath, but the difference of hours between Korea and the United States makes it so that it may not be Sabbath there right now. That’s why the Sabbath cannot be kept literally. To insist on the Sabbath literally even still can be described as the faith of a big frog in a small pond. They can make such claim because they live in Korea. But once they view this matter from an objective point of view, they also can understand that God did not give the Sabbath with such meaning and its true meaning is the remission of our sins.
In any case, the man who now can see after being blind all his life told the Pharisees that it was very strange. He said that it was strange that they did not know where He came from even though He opened his eyes. Let’s talk about this for a minute. From common sense from your understanding, has there been any miraculous work in this world that a physically blind man’s eyes were opened? Some people testify that they saw a blind person’s eyes open when revival preachers or pastors laid hands on a blind person’s eyes. Strictly speaking, however, did the eyes of the blind person really open? Or, did the person’s weak sight become good enough to read the Scriptures after the laying on of hands and prayer? I am asking whether there was still some sight left and it became just a little better.
There are some ministers who say during the worship service that the Holy Spirit is entering through the window from the west. And such ministers tell the people to clap their hands and so forth to welcome the Holy Spirit because He is coming into the chapel at the moment and they do so. They also say that the Holy Spirit has healed many people now. There are many people in the world who follow the Charismatic leaders and their claim is like that.
When we read the Book of Acts chapter 2, it records that on the 50th day after Jesus died on the Cross, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’ disciples as if the tongues of fire were separated while they were praying, and they became filled with the Holy Spirit from that point on and started preaching the gospel to the people vigorously. That’s why the Day of the Pentecost implies the Holy Spirit to most Christians. And pastors of the Pentecostal Church sometimes say during the worship service that the Holy Spirit is coming in through the window on the west and ask their congregation to clap their hands toward Him, and they sometimes also say that they have the power to bring a dead person back to life. I don’t know if you have ever seen a pastor who does such a thing. Though you may not know much, you may have heard of this or seen a poster. Maybe you have seen a poster that shows those people healing the sick people.
Then, did they really open the eyes of the blind person? I believe the mighty works and the miracles performed by Jesus who is God. But I don’t believe the so-called miracles of the Christian sinners who have not even been born again. And I see people falling backwards when the charismatic pastors lay their hands on the sick and they speak in tongues. Interesting thing is that the person that fell backwards speaks the same tongues as the pastor does. And the person gets up and says that he can see the Bible even without the glasses. I also know this because I saw the videotape that shows such a weird thing. The person was not totally blind from the beginning, but he wore the glasses because he had bad eyesight. But now he says that he can see after the Holy Spirit healed him. Some person says that his lame legs have become normal after receiving the laying on of hands and prayer. Then he suddenly gets up and runs around praising God. Are such things true? Korean Christians believe such things because they are emotional, not intellectual.
There was a minister from abroad that came to Choonchun City to hold a revival meeting. And the poster for the meeting said that even the leg that became short by accident could become long if the minister laid his hands on the leg. To put it simply, they are claiming that in the instance where one leg has become shorter than the other leg, the shorter leg can become long again if the pastor laid his hands on the leg. Could that really happen? There is such a thing as the psychotherapy. Of course, for milder depressions, certain forms of psychotherapy do work well. But, spiritual swindlers deceive people using a kind of psychotherapy. Let’s say, for example, I put on a show here and claim that the Lord says that He will heal many sick people now in this place. And then I say, “Fire! Fire! The Fire of the Holy Spirit!” and cause all kinds of commotion, and the feelings of expectation of the crowd is triggered. That’s because people have such a thing called the crowd psychology. Once the crowd psychology is active, I say, “I want you to put your hands on the place that is hurting.” And you feel as if the sickness is healed when you believe that your sickness will be healed when I pray to God. Like this, people with headache, stomachache, and the people with spinal cord injury perform the self-hypnosis according to the crowd psychology and feel that they are healed when such healing ministers pray for them. And when they ask the people who have been healed of their sicknesses from God to get up, many people here and there get up and clap their hands. And the people who haven’t experienced the healing miracle take all the responsibility for nothing happening and say that the sickness was not healed because they did not have faith. This is so hilarious.
The person whose eyes had been opened from blindness asked the Pharisees whether they knew from where Jesus came. Jesus was the true Savior and God who came from Heaven as the Son of God the Father. But the Pharisees did not know where Jesus came from. That’s why the blind man was harassed by the Pharisees as soon as his eyes were opened. The blind man said to the Pharisees, “I believe in Him. Do you also believe Him?” And the Pharisees emphasized the fact they were the disciples of Moses, saying, “You may be His disciple. But we are the disciples of Moses.”
You will go to hell if you are disciples of Moses. Moses had to just look at the Land of Canaan but he could not cross the Jordan River. That’s all Moses could do. Moses can only take us to Jesus Christ but he cannot take us to Heaven. Only Jesus can take us to Heaven. And the blind man was eventually excommunicated because he said that he was a disciple of Jesus. To be excommunicated means that he was cast out from the Jewish society.
Jesus heard the rumor that the Blind man was excommunicated and asked the man, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” And the blind man answered that he believed in Him and asked who Jesus was. And Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” Then the blind man said, “Lord, I believe,” and bowed to Jesus.
The important thing is whether we believe in God’s Son and whether we believe that He is the Savior who came to this world as God’s Son. The faith that understands such things is very important. Where did Jesus Christ come from? He came from God the Father. The person who had his eyes opened after being blind from birth believed Jesus as the Savior. And Jesus said in conclusion, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains” (John 9:41). This means that many people who say they see are blind because they do not believe in Jesus, but those who know themselves as sinners will be able to see and receive salvation by believing in Him. Jesus ended His Word like this and gave us “the Parable of the Shepherd” from John chapter 10.
 
 
Jesus Is the Door of the Sheep
 
Jesus said in John 10:1, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.” This is the parable that illustrates Him. Jesus said that those who go into the place where the sheep are gathered together by climbing over the wall instead of going through the door are thieves and robbers; and the one who goes through the door is the Shepherd of the sheep. John 10:3 states, “To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”
Jesus says that He is the door and the doorkeeper of the sheep. It means Jesus is the door to the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus also said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” and, therefore, no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven without going through Him because He is the door to the Kingdom of God. No one can become a child of God except through Jesus. And anyone can enter the Kingdom of God after being cleansed from sin through Jesus and becoming a child of God.
Jesus is the door and the doorkeeper of the sheep. Anyone who has nothing to with Jesus cannot enter through that door. No matter what religion a person has believed or what good deeds he has done, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven without believing in Jesus. The doorkeeper of Heaven is Jesus and how can we go in without going through Jesus? That’s why we need to have a deep relationship with Jesus. That relationship means that we need to have the experience of receiving the remission of sins through Jesus Christ. Only those who have relationship with Jesus by understanding and believing that Jesus really took all our sins upon Him, that He died in our place, that He kept us alive, and that Jesus saved us, can enter the door of the Kingdom of Heaven.
John 10:6 from today’s Scripture passage says, “Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.” Pharisees do not understand. They do not understand the things Jesus is talking about, the work He did to open the eyes of the blind, the reason Jesus said that He also does not judge the woman that was caught in the act of adultery. They do not understand because they are carnally minded. It’s really easy when we look at the Word from the Gospel of John chapter 10 verses 1 to 6.
A sheepfold is usually made by implanting posts in the plains and there is a door. They put fence around the place with the posts so the wolves or any other wild animals could not enter it and the owner used the door to bring the sheep in and out of the ranch.
Sheep cannot live with any other wild beast. The sheep are put together only by themselves because sheep do not have the strength or physical means to fight against wolves, foxes, or wild dogs and therefore will be eaten up by them. They sometimes put a few shepherd dogs inside sheep pen but they do not harm the sheep because they are trained. The sheep must be protected because of such characteristics. This is what this Word is saying. How plain is that?
John 10:1 says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.” The Lord spoke gently but also spoke with strong emphasis by illustrating the false leaders with words “a thief and a robber.” Isn’t this obvious? And the Lord says the one who goes through the door is the Shepherd of the sheep. The Lord came to this world for us and He was nailed to the Cross and died on the Cross after taking all our sins by His baptism received from John the Baptist and entered through the door of the Kingdom of Heaven by resurrecting from the death. Jesus came to this world and took all our sins upon Himself through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, preached the gospel Word for three years, was nailed to the Cross at the top of the Hills of Golgotha, and He said, “It is finished!” as he died on the Cross. At the very moment, the curtain in God’s Temple was torn down into two from top to bottom. The curtain embroidered with Cherubim was woven of the blue, red, purple thread and the white fine linen, and it was weaved together so thick that even four horses could not rip it apart by pulling its four corners. But the curtain of the Temple was torn apart into two when Jesus died on the Cross.
As the Lord came to this world and said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me,” Jesus was born to this world to take our sins upon Him. Jesus took all the sins of the world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, died on the Cross, and was resurrected from death to save us from all our sins. Jesus Christ entered the Kingdom of Heaven where God the Father is by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist, dying on the Cross and being resurrected in three days. Therefore, now, whoever believes in Jesus as the Savior who blotted out all his sin can enter the place God the Father dwells as Jesus did.
The doorkeeper of the Kingdom of Heaven is also Jesus. Jesus personally became the door of Heaven and made it so that we could receive the remission of sins and enter Heaven if we believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And He said, “And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Every sheep recognizes its master well. There are many among Israelites that are devoted to the stock farming, and the livestock follow the shepherd when he goes ahead of the herd. A really interesting thing is that all the animals, whether they are horses, goats, or sheep, follow after the owner when he goes ahead of the pack playing the pipe. We wonder whether the animals would really follow after the owner well or whether some of them will go astray to the side. But I saw it with my eyes and the animals really do follow after their shepherd because they will die if they don’t. So the tourist put on the same hat and the clothes and plays the pipe and go ahead of the pack like he was the owner, but the animals do not follow him.
Jesus said this from this perspective because He already knew the characteristics of the sheep. Those who really know Jesus follow after Him. Those who know that Jesus is their Savior, that He is the Son of God from Heaven, that He is our Savior, that He has completed the gospel of the water and the Spirit, follow after Jesus.
But those who do not know Jesus do not follow Him because He is not their Savior. Here, the Word from John chapter 10, verses 4 and 5 says that we believe in Jesus with out hearts and follow Him if we really believe in the Lord as the Son of God from Heaven, if we believe that He is our Savior, and if we believe that He blotted out all our sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. That’s why those people are in God’s Church listening to God’s Word, doing the work that pleases Him, and rejoicing in His Word. But the people who are not, the people who do not understand Jesus correctly do not follow Jesus.
In the first half of today’s sermon, I preached about receiving salvation by believing in Jesus and that Jesus is the Son of God from Heaven. From this point, I will end the sermon with the word about how we can really follow the Lord with faith.
 
 

How Should Our Faith Be in Order to Follow Jesus?

 
If our faith is going to follow the Lord, we can only follow Him through the gospel of the water and the Spirit and by nothing else. We need to have the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit if we want to receive salvation from the Lord and go to Heaven. It is possible for all of us to go to Heaven only by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Romans 7:4-6 says, “Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”
If you and I want to receive salvation from sin by believing in the Lord, then we need to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and if we want to follow after the Lord, then we need to follow Him just by faith. When you look at only your physical state, you could never follow after the Lord. It’s because you are constantly tripped up by yourselves and stumble. You could never follow the Lord in that physical state. And when we just look at ourselves, it is hard to say that we are people who have received salvation because we are weak and we have so many shortcomings. It’s because we constantly are ensnared by sin and our shortcomings.
If you want to receive salvation from all our sins and we hope to have the faith of the righteous before God, then you must have the faith of believing that the Lord came to this world and blotted out all your sins through the baptism He received from John the Baptist and His blood on the Cross. You need the absolute faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit if you wish to say that you will enter the Kingdom of God because you do not have any sin conscientiously even though your flesh is lacking. As such, you also need the gospel of the water and the Spirit even in following the Lord. You can never follow the Lord if you just look at your flesh. You cannot follow the Lord even if you wanted to because you are too weak and you give up too easily being bound by your shortcomings. Therefore, you need to follow the Lord by faith that believes in Him thoroughly.
Romans 7:4 says, “To Him who was raised from the dead,” and it means that we can do God’s work by going to Jesus Christ and receiving salvation and believing in Him. Though we have shortcomings, we can do God’s work by going to Him through the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We cannot follow Him no matter how much Jesus guides us and tells us to follow Him if we do not have faith. Can we follow Jesus without faith? No. We believe that Jesus Christ has blotted out all our sins by receiving the baptism even though our flesh is weak, that Jesus Christ entrusted the righteous work to us and gave us the ability and the faith to do the righteous work even though our flesh is weak. Even though we are not qualified to do the righteous work by ourselves, Jesus blotted out all our sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit so that we can bear fruit for God. We can do this by believing in the righteousness of God. This is possible only through faith. Even after receiving salvation from sin, the only way we can follow the Lord is through faith. We cannot follow Him without the faith of believing in God. Also, no one can receive salvation without faith. Therefore, faith is more essential than any condition of your circumstance.
The Scriptures say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31). Believe in God’s Word. God spoke so much of faith, saying “Do you believe in the Son of Man? Do you believe in the Son of God? Do you believe that the Son of God came to this world in flesh? It shall be done according to your faith.” The faith makes us receive salvation, follow God, make us do God’s work, and bear fruit. Do you believe? Therefore, we must follow the Lord with faith. When we follow the Lord without faith, we look at our weaknesses and shortcomings and the self that is less adequate than others and begin to question whether we can do God’s work when we can’t even take care of ourselves. If we look only at ourselves, we are prone to shrink back to destruction. It means that we fall into the deep mire spiritually. Do you understand? That’s how it is.
Romans 8:6 says, “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” There are many times when we become a hostage of our own fleshly thinking. What happens when people who are not born again are consumed with the fleshly thinking? From fleshly thinking, they can only wonder how can there be no sin when they commit sin every day. So they say, “We do have sin in us, don’t we?” That’s because they only look at themselves. Because they do not look up the will of God and because they do not know what the Lord from Heaven has done, they say, “How can there not be sin in us? All those who say there is no sin are heretics. There is none righteous, not one. How can you say there is a righteous person before God?” They are like this because they have fallen into their own thinking.
The Bible clearly says, “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” To be spiritually minded is to think of the things God has done. Although we are people who cannot help but go to hell because we are so lacking like this, the Son of God came to this world and took all our sins over to Himself at once by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist. And then He carried the sins of this world to the Cross and died on the Cross and resurrected from death in three days. Jesus went up to Heaven in this manner and consequently wiped away all our sins.
We often fall into fleshly thinking even after receiving salvation from sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And we do such things as we are carnally minded and become discouraged. And our perspectives become narrow and we begin to be shriveled up. We will eventually die when we become entrapped into our own weaknesses. To be carnally minded is death. When we become carnally minded, we fall into the weakness and begin to have a question whether the gospel of the water and the Spirit is correct, whether my work is more important than God’s work now, and whether I can just ignore the reality when I am like this and the situation is like this, whether the Lord actually did save me or not considering the fact that I am so weak and lacking and my reality is drowning in misery. This will lead us to destruction in the end.
But turn around and be spiritually minded. The spiritually minded like to think of the things that God has done. What did God the Father and Jesus do for you and me? John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The Son of God saved us by coming to this world and taking all our sins over to Him by receiving the baptism and resurrecting from the death after carrying the sin to the Cross and shedding blood and dying on the Cross. He took all our sins over to Himself through the baptism. That He received the baptism means that the sins of the humanity were transferred over to Him. Then it means that sins of you and I were also transferred over to Him. And He shed blood on the Cross and died. He took our sins over to Him by receiving the baptism on His body and brought us back to life from the spiritual and physical death by shedding His blood on the Cross as He said; and it means that and made us able to do the righteous work of God by believing in Him who gave up His body according to the Law.
Now, we must do the spiritual work by faith. To do so, we must be spiritually minded by faith. We have received the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, but we must not become stagnant in that faith. The spiritual thoughts and fleshly thoughts always visit you and me. Such thoughts come to us every hour and every second each day one after another in turns. We think of fleshly things one moment and the spiritual things the next moment. In other words, we think of God’s work one moment and then the fleshly work the next moment. Even the person who believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit does not think of the spiritual things all the time or think of the God’s work all the time. Even while doing God’s work, the righteous also can be addicted to watching TV dramas; some sisters also may look at some good-looking guys on television and think they are fine. Some ministers even drool at the sight of pretty actresses on television. When I ask one of them if he really likes the pretty woman that much, then he says that he’s just looking. But he has already fallen into the fleshly thought.
But, then, is the person who is asking that question not fallen into the carnal thought? No, that’s not the case either. Everyone is prone to fall into fleshly thought. We are just comparing ourselves with one another trying to figure out whose faith is stronger and whose is not. There is only one absolutely righteous Being, and He is God, but humans are comparing each other even though they are all alike in God’s eyes. While the spiritual thought and the fleshly thought take turns coming up in our thinking, we are comparing one another and saying this person is better than the other. We are beings who are carnally minded soon after being spiritually minded. That’s why we can do the God’s work only through the faith by confirming our salvation from sin through the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We do the righteous work of God through the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God has given. We can enjoy the spiritual and physical blessing only by faith. We must become strong and firm people through the faith even though we are always lacking.
Although we live in this world and we have both the spiritual thought and the fleshly thought in our weak flesh, we must always think of God’s work more than the fleshly thought and live with the spiritual thought by making it our signpost in our lives. Otherwise, if we go astray too far with the fleshly thought, it will be difficult to follow God even though we have received salvation. Those who have received the remission of sins must look up to the spiritual work more often. They must look toward God’s work. We must always look at the salvation God has given to us and live with faith. We can be steadfast by doing so. We can become the strong people even though we are weak. We can be freed from ourselves through faith even though we are weak. Romans 7:6 says, “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” That we should not serve in the oldness of the letter means that we should not understand and believe the Word literally.
We must be freed from the curse of the Law and our weakness by believing in the righteousness of God. We can be freed from God’s curse only through the faith. We have become free from our weakness and Law and the judgment of God by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and by believing in the Lord. Therefore, we who believe in the righteousness of God are able to live a new life. The Scriptures say, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” We just have to think of the spiritual work, that is, God’s work, and look toward the things God has done for us. Therefore, we can always follow the Lord continuously without having the thread of the spiritual thought being broken.
The Lord said in John 10:4, “And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” Didn’t our Lord go before us? He blotted out all our sins by coming to this world and receiving the baptism and dying on the Cross. Then, didn’t the Lord come to this world and has completed our salvation perfectly? The Lord came to this world and received the baptism and shed blood to blot out the sins of all the souls and give us the salvation. Then, didn’t He save us from all our sins? That’s why we could follow the Lord only through the faith in our Lord. You can follow through the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit even though you have shortcomings personally. We have received salvation by believing in our Savior Jesus Christ and we have become the follower only by believing in God’s love and the salvation He has given to us.
We must listen to this gospel even though we have received the remission of sins by hearing and believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit because we are prone to fall into the fleshly thinking. That’s why you must always think and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We must confirm and believe the gospel of the water and the Spirit and do such things. Our hearts become clean when we come to God’s Church and listen and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit through God’s Word. It is true that the sin is blotted away once we have received the remission of sins, but we must always face the gospel of the water and the Spirit if we want to keep our hearts clean.
Mind becomes filthy when it falls into the fleshly thought. That’s why we need the gospel of the water and the Spirit even more. In conclusion, you and I can stand firm by looking toward the Lord and believing in Him even though we are weak. For this, we must always ruminate over the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We can always follow the Lord through the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and God’s Word. God blessed us the born again who are so weak like this. Our God blessed you and me as the blessed people before the presence of God. We must be the people who look toward the righteousness of the Lord as often as we can with the understanding that we are weak. We have sought after the fleshly things and followed after the fleshly things more often until now, but we must be the people who think of God’s work more often and follow it. Do you understand?
And the people who have much fleshly thinking also must not do God’s work too much. God’s work must be entrusted to people who are spiritually minded for it to be accomplished effectively and be blessed. Not just anyone can do God’s work. Not just anyone can do the work of preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit throughout the world. We must look toward the Lord and follow the Lord even more by believing the Lord’s Word.
We often fall into our own weaknesses, but that’s why we need to think of spiritual things even more. We must stand firm by believing in Jesus Christ through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. I want you to look toward the Lord who has become our Shepherd and follow Him.