Jesus Christ, The Pride of God

16 Thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you. 17 For Titus not only welcomed our appeal, but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm and on his own initiative. 18 And we are sending along with him the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel. 19 What is more, he was chosen by the churches to accompany us as we carry the offering, which we administer to honor the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help. 20 We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. 21 For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only according to the Lord but also according to man. 22 In addition, we are sending with them our brother, who has often proved to us in many ways that he is zealous, and now even more so because of his great confidence in you. 23 As for Titus, he is my partner and co-worker among you; as for our brothers, they are representatives of the churches and an honor to Christ. 24 Therefore, show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you, so that the churches can see it.

II Corinthians 8:16-24

II Corinthians 8:24: "Therefore show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you, so that the churches can see it.," I am going to speak on the topic "Jesus Christ, the Pride of God."

God, who created the world, created Adam and Eve as the embodiment of His pride toward all things in heaven and earth. Moreover, He created Adam and Eve to be His pride before the angelic world. When Adam and Eve stood before all the things of the creation, all things were supposed to bow before Adam and Eve.

The garden that was created to be like this was destroyed because of the fall of man. In other words, because of the fall, the value of all things could not emerge.

Man, who could have emerged as the center of value of the invisible world, lost his qualifications, and man's position as someone who should have appeared before the creation in God's place and have been glorified as the center of harmony was destroyed.

This being the case, what is the standard God has been seeking until today, 6,000 years after the fall of man? He has been searching for one representative who can represent His heart, represent His Hyeongsang, represent the nature of God, and represent all the creations of the universe of which God can be proud.

Moreover, until now, Jesus Christ has been working hard for the sake of the will. What kind of man was this Jesus Christ, who came 4,000 years after the fall of Adam and Eve? He was the substitute for God's internal heart and external hyung sang.

This is the reason God tried to manifest, through Jesus Christ, the “standard of pride” which He has set as the ideal of the creation. This is the original mission Jesus was supposed to carry out.

Jesus had a grave responsibility to establish himself as the representative of God's heart and Hyeongsang in every aspect of his existence and life. This is how Jesus should have emerged as the substantial body of which God can be proud.

First, God should have been able to boast to all things, and then to Satan, and then to the countless saints. Moreover, God should have ushered in the day of the restoration of the joy and glory God had wanted to attain, centering on Adam and Eve. This was the will of God, who had set up Jesus as the central being.

God had the Israelites build the nation of Israel and sent Jesus Christ, who was supposed to stand before Him. Had the Israelites become one, praised, and received Jesus with a heart of gratitude based on the standard of God's pride, the historical sorrow would not have been prolonged as it has been for 6,000 years.

There was a giant gap between what Jesus saw with his eyes as he emerged as the pride of God and what the Israelites were proud of. In other words, the Israelites, who had been upholding the will of God's dispensation of restoration, were proud of different things than Jesus was in respect to their being the chosen people.

Jesus was proud for the sake of the will of God as he championed the will of God's dispensation of restoration. For this reason, the Israelites faced a situation where they were supposed to forsake what they took pride in as a people before the words and actions of Jesus, who took pride in God's will.

Had they given up what they took pride in and bowed before Jesus Christ, who appeared with a new source of pride for the sake of God's will, would the difficult path of the cross not have stood before Jesus Christ?

The concept of the way of the cross would not have existed in the history of Christianity. Although salvation would have been based on one's attention to the words of Jesus, there would not have been such a thing as salvation due to one's faith in the cross.

Today, in reverence for the death of Jesus, we believe that the power of redemption lies in the cross, but this is not the whole picture. Christians today miss the point.

The power of redemption lies in the words Jesus spoke while he was alive. What we have to understand is that while spiritual redemption is, of course, possible through one's faith in the cross, if people had believed in and lived according to the words Jesus spoke while he was alive, physical and spiritual salvation would have taken place. What must Jesus first take pride in after coming to this earth?

Adam and Eve could not substantiate the words of God because of the fall. They failed to believe in His words. Since man fell and the dispensation history was prolonged for 4,000 years because they did not believe in God's words, Jesus, as the one center, established faith in front of Satan. In other words, Jesus emerged as the king of faith on this earth.

What was the standard upon which Jesus could stand tall as the pride of God?

Jesus came as the king of faith before humanity, who, in the course of the 4,000 years of history, was left without even one person who could be trusted to uphold the will of God. For this reason, God was able to boast about the faith of Jesus Christ.

Many people claim to believe in God, but with that general kind of faith, it is impossible to make the internal connection between the high and the low that is built upon the heart of God.

What is more, although countless saints and sages have come and gone, based on what they believed and followed, one cannot understand the principles of love that lie deep within God.

Furthermore, Jesus tried to take responsibility for the whole process of faith in history, which countless saints had walked through, and to single-handedly put an end to the satanic history. Y Jesus, who was the culmination of the 4,000 years of history, came as the center of the universe and the champion of faith.

For the sake of this one standard, God raised Jesus as the king of faith. Jesus represented the will of God, nd in God's place, taught His words. The words he proclaimed were not the truth of the Old Testament as it stood. His faith was not built on the faith of the Old Testament era.

His belief was not limited to the words and prophecies of the past saints and sages. In other words, he did not have the concept of the Messiah that the Israelites believed in, based on the words of the Old Testament.

To explain the nature of the faith Jesus had, he was the representative of a faith that cannot be found in the Old Testament Bible and which did not exist in history leading up to his time. He had a new type of faith, which had not come into existence until that time in any environment in the world. Consequently, the Old Testament history had to recede before Jesus.

We have to understand that if we look at Jesus with some limitation, then we cannot come to grasp the 4,000 years of history before his coming and his thirty years of life; nor can we grasp the eternal value of his life, which will influence the future eternally.

Moreover, we have to come to grips with the fact that even if hundreds of millions of people are ignorant of the will of God and stand against it, we should have the standard of faith to say, “I will uphold that holy will alone. I will believe what no one else can believe in.”

Only when this is done can Jesus stand as the Savior and the king of faith before humanity. Did Jesus, whom we believe in today, give all the words of truth while he was alive?

If he did not, we need the words that the returning Lord will give us. Although Jesus was the king of faith whom God had sought and who could stand at last, 4,000 years after the fall of Adam and Eve, as the source of God's pride before Satan and the world of creation, because of the faithlessness of the Israelites, God had to hand him over to the enemy.

Therefore, Jesus Christ is to return with the standard to boast before all the creation and to give new words. As the champion and king of faith, Jesus revealed new words that were not in the Old Testament. Those words have been handed down to us as the words of the New Testament.

Since this era is new and glorious and will come shortly, we need to have the kind of faith that can be perpetuated in that glorious era. The hope and faith of Jesus Christ were not on the level of the faith that man had believed in for 4,000 years.

His faith was something that, throughout his life, reached many generations after him. It reaches even to eternity and is the faith that can bring to light the love and goodness that could not emerge then.

Jesus Christ was the king of faith whom history had never seen before and in whom God could take pride. You must also have the same kind of faith as Jesus.

The reason God could take pride in Jesus was that, although countless people had fought with Satan for thousands of years, it was Jesus who was finally able to prevail over him as the victorious king. Accordingly, God was proud of Jesus.

For 4,000 years, countless ancestors before us have come to this earth and have fought against Satan. For the sake of God, who would send the Messiah, countless saints fought with Satan.

However, they could not subjugate him. Although they fought with Satan for 4,000 years, they could not conquer him and bring him to his knees, but when Jesus Christ came to this earth, he finally conquered Satan and made him submit.

He subjugated him with Heaven's principle of love. You have to understand this. What we Christians have to understand today is that the only thing that works in subjugating Satan is the principle of love.

What kind of principle is the principle of love?

Although many people have passed through the earth, Jesus Christ is the only son whom God deeply loved. Therefore, when we look at the thirty years of Jesus' life, there is not one minute of it that does not manifest his filial piety.

His daily life before God was something that could not be taken away even for a moment, at night or in the day, for it pleased God's heart completely. His life was such an example of filial piety that when God looked down, He would say, ay “On the earth, there is no one else but you alone.”

Jesus' singular determination in his heart was such that even if everything in his life was to perish, he was going to live for the sake of God. He had no other desire than to fulfill to the fullest his mission as the Savior of all humankind, even if that meant that his physical body would be neglected.

He had no other desire than that which cried out, “Father! With the destruction of my being, I will become the son of filial devotion, the embodiment of love whom You have sought for 4,000 years, and Your beloved son who can return love to You.”

For this reason, even if hundreds of millions of people insist that Jesus is not God's son, God cannot agree with that. No one can block the power of the father-son relationship that has come into being as the center of heaven and earth and is linked to the love of God.

Even in the lonely place on the hill of Golgotha, where Jesus bore the cross. Jesus knew that God's will dwelt in that place, and he understood well the Father's heart of love, which had been waiting for 4,000 years.

Thus, as long as the Father's will remains unchanged, Jesus' pride as the son who can receive the love of the Father is eternal. Before all things in creation, God boasted of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of the Father's unchanging love. God boasted before the satanic world.

In the 6,000-year history leading up to today, many people have displayed filial piety before their parents. There are many sons and daughters of filial devotion in the bosom of Satan.

Nonetheless, for God to be able to take pride in Jesus and for us to receive God's love as Jesus did, we need to have more value and accomplishment than all the sons and daughters of filial devotion in history within the satanic realm.

Only then can God say, “This is my beloved son,” and then one can become the son of filial devotion who is the only one in heaven and earth representing the Heavenly truth.

When Jesus looked at the multitude from this standard, he was at a loss. Because Jesus' heart was such, he felt that there was a gigantic gap between his values and what they valued. Of his own accord, Jesus prayed for their sake before Heaven.

Satan can be destroyed with the power that comes from the parent-child relationship based on God's love. The reason is that the degree to which many people within the satanic sphere follow Satan cannot even approach the standard of Jesus' love and servitude toward God.

Wherever Jesus appeared with the love of God, it became a shield that was like an iron fortification. So, wherever followers gather, centering on Jesus, they can subjugate Satan.

Jesus could become the pride of God because he combined all the victories and defeats of the ancestors during the 4,000 years and seized the one standard, which he used as his foundation.

You have to think about how Jesus Christ was able to achieve more victorious accomplishments than all the victories of the saints in the preceding 4,000 years altogether, while humanity has conflicted with Satan for 6,000 years.

Moreover, we should be thinking about how our ancestors were victorious over Satan. We should also be in their shoes and think about it. What is God's dearest wish for the saints on this earth now?

It should not just be Jesus who subjugates Satan, but also all the saints of these last days who feel God's love through Jesus' love.

Jesus Christ led a victorious life for thirty years. He avoided that which would not bring victory. Jesus avoided the words that could lead him to failure and could allow Satan to approach.

Although he might appear to some as an ordinary young man in a village, once he took responsibility for the whole, his words, deeds, and hope could place the whole on a victorious foundation.

You stand today on the victorious foundation that Jesus laid down with so much hard work. You are receiving such blessings from Jesus. Now the question is how you can stand on the victorious foundation that Jesus built on the earth and how you can rise higher.

You should understand that Heaven has come down to the earth for your sake, and until you return to Heaven, you should shed tears for the victory.

We should always fill our hearts with God's love. We should feel the love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit and experience the love of Heaven. Although Jesus brought victory on the individual level because he died on the cross, he laid a victorious foundation only spiritually.

We who should consummate the 2,000 years of history must stand on the spiritual foundation of Jesus and, substituting for Jesus' body, lay the victorious physical foundation.

What is more, Satan will challenge it when God proclaims to this earth the new words that can complete spiritual salvation and substantial salvation by stepping over the level of the New Testament. We have the responsibility to take charge of this fight and win it.

By what condition was Jesus Christ able to receive the love of God? Jesus could receive God's love because he had become the prince who takes responsibility.

From his early youth, Jesus worked as a carpenter in Joseph's house, but he was still trying his best to complete his responsibilities. Although he helped with carpentry and contributed to making a living for the family in the house of Joseph, in Jesus' heart, that was only a part of what his life was about.

What is more, while he held great dreams in his heart, he simultaneously fulfilled his responsibility even in the small tasks. You should never forget that this is the kind of man Jesus was.

The whole life of Jesus was spent fulfilling his responsibility and mission. On Earth, he completed the responsibility that would last for eternity. The thirty years of Jesus' life secured on the earth the eternal and unchanging accomplishment of having completed his responsibility.

Therefore, as long as the words of faith of Jesus Christ remain, his life will never be forgotten.

Jesus took responsibility for the historical dimension, not to mention for his generation. Moreover, he also single-handedly took responsibility for the will of God that God had been working to accomplish for thousands of years.

Other than Jesus Christ, there was not even one person on this earth who was willing to take responsibility on behalf of God. You have to understand that he alone completed the responsibility.

While Jesus felt lonely about having to be responsible for the hope of the whole, he also felt a greater sense of responsibility. Jesus' daily life was a time of foundation-laying in preparation for the completion of the responsibility for the whole.

Moreover, in the thirty-year preparation period, the three years of action, and the three days of completion, the only thing that occupied Jesus' mind, his only thought, was subjugating Satan and substantiating God's will on that foundation.

He led a life in which he felt this responsibility to his bones. There was not a moment when Jesus forgot this responsibility.

Moreover, when he was carrying the cross and walking toward the hill at Golgotha, even at the last moment when all the people mocked him and Satan ridiculed him, Jesus' determination to complete the responsibility given to him remained unchanging.

Because Jesus passed through the crisis of the crucifixion with this singular determination, he could resurrect. Furthermore, because he still had the responsibility to organize the disciples who remained on the earth, he came back after he went to the heavenly kingdom and, relying on the power of God, performed the miracle of resurrection.

Even after his death, Jesus was concerned about the disciples who had scattered, and even during the three days in the tomb, he was determined to protect them for eternity. Consequently, he went to the shores of Galilee after his resurrection and searched for them.

We might wonder, from a humanistic perspective today, how he could treat them like that when they had no sense of responsibility. Although they had betrayed him when they faced difficulty right after the resurrection, he went to Galilee and started to fulfill his responsibility.

The character of Jesus, who raised them to be unchanging disciples even when he was going over the hill of death, is an admirable character we should learn from today.

That is not all. We should understand that in addition to his disciples at that time, he was taking responsibility for the countless saints who came after him, and for us, 2,000 years later. The history of restoration is the history of the whole. Because God's will is to save the whole, Jesus has taken responsibility for the whole of humanity.

Jesus does not bear the responsibility for worldly things or for leading a good life. He is taking responsibility for our lives.

Ladies and gentlemen, although there are many difficult things in this world, there is no other task that is more difficult than this because he is bearing the responsibility for life and death.

The believers of today stand at a crossroads that can lead them either to life or to death.

Jesus has the responsibility to pull those who stand on the precarious dividing line, which is like the blade of a knife, over to the life side. Similarly, throughout the thirty years of his life, when he was entering the road of death and at all times, Jesus had the same unchanging heart.

Although human beings might not feel this sense of responsibility and mission, Jesus is at work even now to complete this responsibility, mission, and the will of God.

What should we do today to attend to this Jesus whom we believe in? We should not push all the responsibility onto Jesus. What kind of people should we become?

Jesus took responsibility for the history of 4,000 years, for the people of that time, and humanity 2,000 years after that, so we should also take on responsibility. We should not place our responsibility on the shoulders of Jesus.

What is more, we should be thinking, Father! I finally understand the tribulations Jesus faced as he bore the responsibility for 2,000 years, and I feel grief for Jesus, who is bearing responsibility for our sake and the sake of the world.

It is we, we who are unworthy. Therefore, we should reflect on this and bow our heads before Jesus. As we call our “Lord!” we should feel a heart that is like the melting of our flesh and bones.

Finally, God was able to hold on to Jesus, who was trying to take responsibility for the dispensation of 4,000 years, and say, “You alone are taking on the responsibility that I have to fulfill.” This is the reason that God could trust Jesus and entrust everything to him. God could address Jesus from the position of bearing all the burdens of responsibility.

Just as Jesus stood tall before God, we have to learn to take on the responsibility for the whole. If the task turns out to be difficult, then you should appear before God and Jesus with the mindset, “Please give that difficult mission to me, and say to them,' Please reveal through me Your heart's desire; please show it through me.”

These kinds of people are the ones who will remain in the end. If such a group of people does not come forward, how will Jesus, the only-begotten son of God, realize the goal he has been striving for the sake of humanity for 2,000 years?

If Jesus, the only son of God, who has been putting his life at stake and has been walking the course of responsibility, cannot find people who can take responsibility, then the time has come when we have to pray, “Please allow us to bear the responsibilities of history of the present and the future that Jesus pledged to carry while he was on the cross.”

There have been many times in our lives so far when we have tried to shift the burden of responsibility to God. However, from now on, people must emerge who pray, 'I will take on the responsibility and fight on behalf of Jesus, who has come to the earth as the king of responsibility, representing the aggrieved heart of God over 4,000 years.

Even if the enemy Satan and countless people do not welcome it, I will take on the responsibility in his place and fight on.” Jesus can rest in the garden of peace only when such people step forward.

In the last days today, what we hear are the words, “Who can listen to my appeal for my life?” Nonetheless, who is the one who can listen to the appeal of life Jesus makes, he who has inherited the life of God? God is searching for people who can.

Jesus has been praying for humanity from the right hand of God. The reason Jesus could not rest and had to pray until now is not that Jesus made a mistake.

Moreover, it is not because Jesus cannot go before God. It is all because of us.

Therefore, for the sake of Jesus, who has been working hard for 2,000 years, you should try your best to fulfill the responsibility of life, even if you have to lose your life. Because Jesus passed away on the cross, the responsibility of life remains on the earth. The time that this remaining responsibility of life must be completed is the time of the Second Coming.

The time of the Second Coming begins when someone appears who can take on the responsibility of life. Because he is the one who is carrying the responsibility of life in history and the future, you should join in the final battle and fight on his side.

God wishes to love men by raising them through the Jesus of faith, and through the Jesus of truth. He truly wants to love you all. When we are told today that we should follow the example of Jesus, at least in our hearts, we should be able to say Yes, that is true. If you cannot become such people, then how can Jesus, who could not rest for even a second, take a rest?

Therefore, you should take on these conditions that God has put forth as His pride.

You should establish the conditions that stand as the pride of Jes, us who have gone to the spirit world on the earth. By doing so, you will become the ones God can take pride in.

First, you have to be proud of the fact that you believe in things the world cannot believe in. Then you should be proud of the victory won in the fight with Satan.

You should be proud of the responsibility that you bear in a world where people avoid responsibility.

On that account, the pride of God should reach down to us through Jesus in the spirit world, and it should even extend down to the creation on the earth through us. Only when that takes place can God fulfill the ideal of creation in which He willed to raise men as the central figures before the creation and to take pride in them.

Finally, man and all things can offer bows of gratitude to God, who takes pride in them. Such responsibility for the whole lies on our shoulders.

We who are here today are very unworthy. Our faith is also pathetic. From now on, when men have to fight with Satan, we should pray, “Dear Father, please give strength to humanity so that they can fight and win over Satan. Please guide all of humanity so that they can bear the responsibility.”

Moreover, you should face the enemy as a whole. Fighting alone and prevailing over him, you should be able to say, “God, I offer this joy to you.”

God's suffering and grief will be resolved through people who can show before God that they are taking on all the responsibility of the world and who can proudly show the center that they are taking on the responsibility before the many saints and the world of creation. It is through such people that God's will can be realized. You have to understand this clearly. Let us pray.