The Church that the Father Loves
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January 10, 2016 |
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 Senior Pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee
"For the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth" (Ephesians 5:9).
The church that God loves is the church filled with the children of Light who resemble God who is Light and these children can bear the fruit of the Light. Then what is the fruit of Light and what should we do to become the children of Light?
1. The first fruit of the Light is 'all goodness'.
A beautiful heart is a heart of goodness and free of evil intentions. If you cultivate such a heart you wouldn't have any hard feelings or do anything evil toward anyone. You wouldn't act unbecomingly either in the home or in the work place and you would fulfill your duties without seeking your personal benefit or advantage. You'd be merciful to the poor and want to help others even if it meant sacrificing yourself (Matthew 5:39-42).
If you long for goodness, you will cut yourself off from the evil and untruths of your heart that you previously enjoyed. For example, some of the male members may have liked boxing or other types of fighting sports. Some people feel good when they see one of the players get beaten and bleed or they may curse at the boxers saying they are not good enough. But if you really long for goodness, I believe you no longer enjoy such things now. When you see violence and cruelty, you do not feel good about it. You may even feel bad about it and do away with such things.
Of course, in order to bear the fruit of goodness, you shouldn't just hate evil, but you also need to practice goodness and sacrifice yourself. What is important here is you shouldn't just do good things outwardly but you must cultivate goodness in your heart.
For example, Ruth served her mother-in-law with utmost goodness and love. She did not draw any lines of limitation thinking, "How much do I have to sacrifice before others say I'm good?" It's not that she was forced to do what she did; in fact, she did not expect to receive any reward or blessing for her service. With her love for her mother-in-law she just volunteered to sacrifice herself to fulfill her duty.
When you act in goodness you have to check if you really long for goodness or you practice goodness from a sense of duty. You should discern your motives. You can bear the fruit of Light when you truly long for goodness from the depths of your heart.
2. The second fruit of Light is 'righteousness'.
Generally, a righteous person is able to sacrifice himself for a cause that is good. It is even to give one's life in sacrifice. Those who are righteous are upright, and they do not forsake loyalty and integrity. They do not compromise with unrighteousness or agree with unrighteous people for their own benefit.
Those who are righteous can also grow up quickly in the faith. They easily practice the commands of God telling us to do, not do, keep, and cast away certain things. They take their duties seriously and faithfully fulfill them. They do not compromise with the unrighteousness but keep the truth. Those who hold to righteousness will have the evidence that God is with them.
When Daniel was thrown into the lion's den for refusing to cease praying, God closed the mouths of the lions to protect Daniel. Also, when he ate only vegetables in order to keep from eating anything prohibited by the Law, God was pleased with him. He was healthier and more handsome than those who had savory foods and on top of that, God gave him amazing wisdom and inspiration, too.
However, you should be careful about one thing here. It is good to follow the truth, but you should not create your own forms of righteousness and frameworks. Although Daniel was a captive, he kept the commandments with his life. But he did not look down on or condemn his people who could not keep the commandments as he did. He did not force them to follow his example.
Even though you keep the righteousness with all your life, if you become arrogant and condemn others, then you cannot shine the light of life to others but instead you become burdensome to them. In order to bear the fruit of righteousness, you should not have your framework of righteousness in your sight but God's righteousness. It is important that the fruit of righteousness must be based on faith more than anything else. Your actions become your righteousness when you obey God's word with trust in Him.
It is said of Abraham, the father of faith, that he was justified by his faith in God. Abraham learned about God from his ancestors since childhood. So, even when he did not have substantial experience with God, he immediately obeyed God's command telling him to leave his household, his father's house. From that time on, Abraham's trust in God became deeper as he experienced the works of God. When God said He would give him a son, even when he was too old to have a child, he just believed God. After he begot this seed of promise, God told him to offer him as a burnt offering, but he just trusted and obeyed (Hebrews 11:17-19). God did not explain to Abraham why He was telling Abraham to offer Isaac. As he trusted God perfectly, he could realize the will of God from his heart.
How lovely Abraham must have been in the sight of God! Of course, such trust was not established overnight. Every time he experienced the works of God, Abraham kept it in his heart again and again. He kept on obeying based on that trust, and he realized the will of God more deeply. He could go into deeper level of spirit.
Eventually, he could show his faith in a situation that could not be understood at all by human thoughts. Through this righteousness of faith, Abraham received the blessing to become the father of faith. Through Abraham, I believe you can understand why trust and love are so important in the spiritual flow of this church. I urge you to understand the deep will of God through complete faith and obedience like that of Abraham, and also practice the truth with all your life.
3. The third fruit of Light is 'truth'
To be true is to have no deceitfulness or changing. You'd not break even the smallest of promises. Once you make up your mind, you never change your mind. Even though you don't see the results quickly, you just keep on going forward toward the goal. Only such true people can be acknowledged both by God and men as being trustworthy.
At times you might have been greatly blessed by messages, realized great things and made up your mind to do certain things. If you just kept the grace you had received and your determination, you'd have quickly stood on the rock of faith and entered into spirit. But even if you have not kept the grace you had received, you can just make up your mind once again and bear the fruit of truth. Then you can certainly become a fruit of spirit.
In order to completely bear the fruit of Light, you must have goodness, righteousness, and truth all together. If you are good but lack righteousness, you might look indecisive and foolish. You wouldn't be able to shed the light of truth on unbelievers, but rather you could be ignored or even manipulated. In the faith as well, you can't lead others to spirit or give birth to life without truth because it would not have been borne of spiritual goodness. On the other hand, if you are righteous but lack goodness, it is not virtuous either, and you can't really shed the light of truth.
So now, even though you have the harmony of goodness and righteousness, you must also have truth in you. Even though you at one time cast away evil with earnest heart and practiced righteousness in obedience, if you take in evil again and choose to disobey, you can't harvest good fruit.
Adam was a living spirit. He was free of evil and only obeyed. But, when he chose disobedience with his freewill, he was corrupted to become flesh. In order to get the whole fruit of Light, we have to cultivate truth, so that we can keep on choosing goodness and righteousness with our freewill.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I ask you to bear the whole fruit of all goodness, righteousness, and truth and please God. I pray in the name of the Lord in doing so you will receive blessings when you come in and go out.
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