BUILDING GOOD REPUTATION FOR THE CHURCH

GÂY DỰNG TIẾNG TỐT CHO HỘI THÁNH

Kinh thánh: 1Cô-rinh-tô 2: 12-17

Câu gốc: 2CÔ-RINH-TÔ 2: 14 phần B – Bởi chúng tôi, Ngài rải mùi thơm về sự nhận biết Ngài khắp chốn.

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BUILDING GOOD REPUTATION FOR THE CHURCH

Bible: 2Corinthians 2: 12-17

Main verse: 2CORINTHIANS 2: 14 part B – And maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place

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The Gospel from Protestants came to Vietnam in 1911, but we still have not had a real revival in Vietnamese churches. We have had some small revivals in local churches here and there, but on a larger scale, it’s still absent all over the country. That’s what this topic is going to be about, building a good reputaion for the church.

There are many ways to do that and with today’s main verse, we will consider just one small thing. It’s to manifest His knowlege by being happy with Christ.

The ancient people said that birds will land on peaceful and safe places. If the church is known as a place of happiness and contentment, then more people will be drawn to it. We do not mean that we have to make the church like a carnival to attract people to Christ. What we really mean is that we should show other people that we are always happy when we come into the Lord’s house. That feeling will come if we make sure to follow Him according to His instructions in the Bible.

2CORINTHIANS 2: 14 – Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

According to this verse, we can overcome many obstacles by relying on God’s power to live a true Christian’s life to worship Him on Sundays, read the Bible and pray daily. One of the other victories is overcoming the feeling of being upset when things do not go our way.

Sometimes, Christians come to the church thinking it’s a place where their personal feelings can be satisfied by ministers. If that personal feeling ends up not being satisfied, then sometimes, those Christians don’t want to come to the church anymore. That kind of thinking is the exact opposite to what the Bible says about coming to the church to worship the Lord.

We must know that we come to the church to worship God, not to come to seek satisfaction for us, whatever it is. We must show other religions that we worship the Lord in respect according to instruction in the Bible:

ECCLESIASTES 5: 1-2 – Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.

1CHRONICLES 16: 29 – Give unto the LORD the glory due unto His name: bring an offering, and come before Him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

That is what God wants from us when we come into His house to worship Him.

Let’s think about this a little bit. If we thought that the church should be a place of entertainment to draw people in to the point that we can be as successful as other entertainment companies, then it would be futile because we would never reach that level of success.

If we want to be satisfied, let’s ask ourselves where on Earth we will have a place like that. We cannot satisfy our feelings completely at home, because there are other members in our families. We cannot satisfy our feelings completely at schools, workplaces, in society, in our friendship or in our marriages, because there always others’ feelings too. How can we come to expect that our feelings can be satisfied when we come the house of the Lord? We are not the only member of the church.

That’s why we must be born again by the Holy Spirit before the church can be revived, like what happened on the first Pentecostal day. After the apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, thousands of people repented and believed in Christ. It was recorded in Acts 2, and we should know that our hearts can only be visited by the Holy Spirit when we truly want to please God in our Sunday services according to what God has taught us in the Bible.

When Christians come to the church upset because their own personal feelings are not satisfied, then they have not overcome their own self like what the main verse says. If Christians came to the church with a sad heart, then how can we invite other people to come worship the Lord with us? By not understanding that matter, we preventing the revival of the church. It’s better that all Christians try to please the Lord than trying to satisfy their own personal desires.

The church is not a place of entertainment. The church is quite the opposite because we want to be in God’s Kingdom after passing this life. To do that, we must do the right things first.

We need to understand that we must please God first. Only then will we be happy when coming to worship the Lord in His house. We are God’s children, so the verse in Peter’s first letter is quite appropriately applied to us:

1PETER 2: 9 – But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:”

People cannot see the Lord with their human eyes, but they will know that the Lord live in our hearts when we show to them the true happiness of God’s children, and that will attract many people to come worship God. Do not rely on outside activities to draw people to God, but rely on the power of the Holy Spirit, first in our hearts and then in others‘. People will then come to church purely because of the Lord, and not by entertainment.

We should understand that the church will only be truly revived by the Holy Spirit, not by our own entertainment. The Holy Spirit only works when God is pleased by His children. The church in the time of the Apostles has proved that.

Our happiness comes when we please the Lord, not by satisfying our personal desires:

ISAIAH 58: 13-14 – If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words. Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

The church is a community of many people, so it would be hard if we just want to satisfy all of our personal desires, and because of the different levels of faith in each person, there will always be some disagreements in the church. The best way to help the church to be together as one is to make all of us to understand that we must please the Lord first. We have to change our perception of how to be happy when coming to the church.

Please do not think that a church that grows in numbers first is a revived church. The church at Corinth (1Cor 5: 1) and at Laodice (Revelation 3: 17) were not revived, although they were big in numbers. We must be personally revived first before it comes to the church.

May God help us to change our perception of how to be happy when coming to the church to worship the Lord. May God revive our hearts first so that the church can be revived in the near future. Amen.