God’s Masterpiece

(Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21; Ephesians 2:1-10)

2021. 3. 14.

Yonsei University Church

<Introduction>

I would like to thank Senior Pastor Dae-Sung Lee and all of the alumni who invited me to the Sunday worship service of Yonsei University today and let me share the Word of God. I pray that the university council will awaken the young people and the Christian intellect of this era, and that they will be able to fulfill their mission to bring the Gospel to the university and society.

We are having the feast of Lent now. I believe that more than ever, it is time to remember the love and death of the ransom, and the power and life of the resurrection that Christ showed on the cross.

The Rise of Christianity, a history book that analyzes how Christianity, a community of small and powerless people, became the dominant religion in ancient Roman society. He gives an example of the terrible epidemic that occurred in Rome, especially in 165 and 251, which touched many of the Christians of that time by caring for and rescuing their sick neighbors with the love of Christ, without fear of death in the plague-torn Roman society. And eventually made them convert to Christianity.

The plague that occurred in Rome in 165 is also called “Plague of Galen” after the doctor who recorded the disease, and also called “Antonius’ plague” after Emperor Marcus Aurelius at the time. It was a terrible disease that spread through soldiers returning from the war and lasted for 15 years, killing one-third to one-quarter of the Roman population at that time. During the epidemic, people in fear of death deserted cities and villages and fled, and their loved ones were ill and neglected, and when they died they could not bury their bodies, and the streets were flooded with corpses. Existing religion, philosophy, science, and the military, law, and political system that symbolized the power of Rome were helpless in the face of this disease. However, only Christians were not afraid of death, kept their place in life, cared for the sick around them, and delivered hope and comfort to people. Indeed, due to the dedicated care of Christians, the mortality rate fell significantly, and the survival rate, on the contrary, increased. The devotion of Christians was understood by people as a miracle, and many of those who survived came to believe in God. Stark argued that the epidemic situation not only served as an opportunity to testify of the truth of Christianity, but that the growth of Christianity would not have been so dramatic had it not been for the epidemic. In other words, the plague that devastated Roman society became a decisive moment in the growth and development of Christianity.

What made the difference in behavior between Christians and Romans? Because Christians believed in the resurrection, they did not consider death to be the end and were able to be bold before death. Rather, they believed that the eternal life of the glorious kingdom of God awaits after death. Therefore, they did not feel miserable about those who died while keeping their faith, but rather remembered them gloriously and longed to meet them again in the kingdom of God. In addition, because we believed in the love of the cross of Christ, it is a Christian to walk boldly on the way of the cross, taking care of our neighbors in distress with love, imitating Christ who saved us by giving our lives and our sins and death. No religion or philosophy in Rome taught people at that time to love their ill and dying neighbors at the expense of their lives. For Christians, it was God's command to love God and to love their neighbors, and it was the content of the holy life they should pursue. In the crisis of the epidemic of Roman society, when society was not functioning in front of the fear of death, the faith in the resurrection led Christians to live a life of caring for their neighbors, and healed and saved those dying of sickness and the collapsed world. .

I believe that the love of Christ's cross and the hope of resurrection are the essence of faith that Korean churches, which are struggling with today's coronavirus pandemic, must reflect and restore. In addition, in order for the church to be reborn as God's holy tool to save the world, and to fulfill its mission of saving lives by rooting in people's hearts again, it is necessary to restore the power of love and service in the Gospel of Christ.

<Expository Scripture Reading>

Ephesians 2:10 proclaims that we are “the work of God”. It means that God's skill is felt and revealed to us. The Apostle Paul's confession is that we are reborn in Christ in the image of God to do the good things that God is pleased with, and to live in a world full of sin, death, and suffering, revealing the glory and grace of God.

However, we did not live a life that revealed the glory of God from the beginning. Ephesians 2:1 says that we were people who had died in transgressions and sins before. Like the words of 2:2, they were full of transgressions and sins, living according to the trend of this world, rebelling against God's will, and living unrighteously, and under the control of Satan, who took the power of the air to corrupt and unrighteous people. It was existence. He points out that we were unable to live according to God's will, but to live according to the lusts of our flesh, so that our lives were corrupted and ultimately, we were unable to escape the wrath of God.

It is easy to empathize by thinking a little bit about how a life of living according to sins, desires, and hurt feelings devastates, corrupts, and destroys ourselves. If anxiety and worries, hatred and anger, desire and frustration dominate us, we will not be able to enjoy God's grace and peace on this earth for a single moment and live in the kingdom of God. It is difficult to control and control the inner feelings and psychology that cause even seemingly intact people to collapse in an instant, but overcoming the problem of sin that suppresses and destroys the soul is absolutely impossible with our own strength. So we absolutely need God's grace.

The power to save our broken feelings and broken souls and to heal us fundamentally comes from God. God's power to save us is none other than God's limitless mercy and great love for us. Ephesians 2:4-5 says: But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:7 says “in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” This is the gift that God has given us. God's grace and love saved us from dying. And it is God's will for us that we who have received this precious gift go to the world with the abundance of God's love and grace to save those who are dying under the power of sin and death.

As in Ephesians 2:6, it is a miracle that a person who died of sin and transgression was raised in Christ through the love and grace of God. It is an indescribable miracle that we can go one step further and exert God's love and grace to the world and become a channel through which the kingdom of God is realized on this earth as God's work. The work of sinners being reborn as righteous, healing of corrupt and desolate lives, death of being restored to life, and the transformation of hellish reality into God's kingdom every day, every moment, are the events of salvation that God has accomplished for us.

In today’s Old Testament reading, Numbers 21:4-9 records the death of the Israelites who complained that they did not have enough food and drink with God who freed them from slavery in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land. The incident of Israelites' death by a fiery serpent in the wilderness symbolizes God's judgment in Israel's complaints, resentment, and disobedience to God's Word. However, this event did not end with God's judgment and the destruction of Israel. When Israel convicted of sin before God and repented, God made a fiery serpent through Moses and attached it to a pole, giving them the promise of salvation that anyone who sees it will live. Numbers 21:9 records that Moses made a bronze snake according to God's word and attached it to a pole, and that those who were bitten by the fiery serpent came to life when they looked at the snake made of bronze.

The snake made of bronze by Moses, which comes to life when people look at it, symbolizes God's salvation. The copper serpent did not save Israel, but God raised them, and the copper serpent is a sign of the promise that symbolizes God's grace to love and save them. Israel was saved not by a copper serpent, but by the promise of God's grace there. Therefore, the copper serpent is different from the idol of the golden calf that Israel made in the wilderness. The copper serpent was a work of God that reminded us of the fiery serpent that was the result of Israel's sin and the suffering of death that resulted from it, and the grace of God who loved and saved them to the end despite their disobedience and iniquity. It was not an idol, it was a sacrament. The sacraments are a sign of promises that lead us to live according to God's Word by embodying God's grace as a visible symbol. The sacrament is the symbol of grace that connects the sinful world with the kingdom of God, mediates our sin and God's grace, and transforms death and judgment into life and salvation. For Israel, the bronze snake was the sacrament of salvation.

The Reformer Martin Luther criticized the sacraments that were misused by the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. He emphasized that the magic of the sacraments does not save us, the priest's power to preach the sacraments does not heal us, but that the word of God's promise contained in the sacraments saves us. He argued that the true sacrament is the incarnation of Jesus Christ, who came in human body to forgive our sins and save us. He emphasized that the death and resurrection on the cross of Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the work of God's salvation with the whole body and transformed us into life, is the true sacrament we must believe and follow.

In John 3:14-15, Jesus likened himself to a copper serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, and said, “The Son of Man must be lifted up”. The rite of the copper serpent was the sacrament of Christ's death and resurrection on the cross. The events of Jesus' cross and resurrection show God's great love and grace to love this world and give him his only son, and whoever believes in that Son will not perish but have eternal life.

Summarizing the texts of the Old and New Testaments given to us, the copper serpent raised by Moses in the text of Numbers was a sign of God's grace to save sinners. And Jesus Christ confirmed and realized the grace and love of God who saves us through the death and resurrection of the cross. The text of Ephesians that we are the work of God is that we are the sacrament of God for the salvation of the world. In other words, today's Bible text contains the message that we must experience the love and grace of God who saved us, and further testify and express that love and grace in our lives, and live as the temple of God that saves people and heals the world.

<Application to Life>

Dear brothers and sisters, the great plague that struck Rome in the first and third centuries took people's lives and drove them to the horror of death. But Christians testified of God's grace and love in this dark and terrifying world. Their sacrificial love proved the truth of the Christian faith as intensely as martyrdom. The power that Christians have been able to overcome the fear of death and care for their sick neighbors is because they fully believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross. In the image of Christians who imitate the love of Christ and take care of their neighbors without saving their lives, the Romans were moved by the love of Christ and came to God willingly.

In today's society, when we live as the body of Christ and live as the sacrament of the kingdom of God, the work of salvation in which the people who are suffering from diseases and sins will be healed and the earth will be restored. I pray that God's work will lead to me and all of you living in this land and a Korean church.