SO SÁNH ĐỂ SỐNG ĐẠO 1

Kinh thánh: MA-THI-Ơ 12: 38-42

Câu gốc: 1PHI-E-RƠ 1: 15 – Nhưng, như Đấng gọi anh em là thánh, thì anh em cũng phải thánh trong mọi cách ăn ở mình.

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MAKING COMPARISON TO LIVE A CHRISTIAN LIFE 1

Bible: MATTHEW 12: 38-42

Main verse: 1PETER 1: 15 – But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.

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– As we can see in the Bible, when God taught us with His words, He more than often used comparison method to convey His commands or promises.

– When God promised to Abraham to increase his descendants, God used dust of the earth and stars on the sky to compare to the numbers of Israelites in the future:

GENESIS 13: 16 – I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.

SÁNG THẾ KÝ 13: 16 – Ta sẽ làm cho dòng dõi ngươi như bụi trên đất; thế thì, nếu kẻ nào đếm đặng bụi trên đất, thì cũng sẽ đếm đặng dòng dõi ngươi vậy.

GENESIS 15: 5 – He took him outside and said: Look up at the sky and count the stars, if indeed you can count them. Then He said to him: So shall your offspring be.

SÁNG THẾ KÝ 15: 5 – Đoạn, Ngài dẫn người ra ngoài và phán rằng: Ngươi hãy ngó lên trời, và nếu ngươi đếm được các ngôi sao thì hãy đếm đi. Ngài lại phán rằng: Dòng dõi ngươi cũng sẽ như vậy.

– When God rebuked the Israelites as they turned away from Him and worshipped idols, God also compared other nations with Israel:

JEREMIAH 2: 11 – Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all). But My people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.

GIÊ-RÊ-MI 2: 11: – Có nước nào thay đổi thần của mình, mặc dầu ấy chẳng phải là thần không? Nhưng dân ta đã đổi vinh hiển mình lấy vật vô ích!

– This rebuke is a lesson for us nowadays, because there have been too many Christians who turned away from God and abandoned their faith in Jesus Christ for very small reasons that even unbelievers never considered them as causes that could make them changing their idols.

– If we sat down and tried to count those reasons that made Christians abandoned the faith, we would need an hour or so to list all of them. It is an evidence to prove that many Christians, more than often, had not have strong enough faith to keep them following the Lord Jesus Christ to the end.

– So instead of focusing on building churches, fame, wealth and many earthly things, we as children of God should focus on building our faith in Jesus. That is one of the reasons that make us encouraging each others to read the Bible every day and study it thoroughly all of our lives.

– God even used animal’s behaviour to compare with that of the Israelites:

ISAIH 1: 2-3 – Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth! For the Lord has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, My people do not understand.

Ê-SAI 1: 2-3 – Hỡi các từng trời, hãy nghe; hỡi đất, hãy lắng tai; vì Đức Giê-hô-va có phán rằng: Ta đã nuôi nấng con cái, trưởng dưỡng chúng nó, song chúng nó dấy loạn nghịch cùng ta. Bò biết chủ mình, lừa biết máng của chủ; song Y-sơ-ra-ên chẳng hiểu biết, dân ta chẳng suy nghĩ.

– When God made that kind of comparison He meant the Israelites sometimes behaved worse than animals by turning against God to worship worthless idols. We Christians should be careful and do not forget God, our Lord and Master.

– Even unbelievers know of that kind of respect to a Higher Being that they have this saying: Remember the one who planted the tree that we ate and appreciate the source of water that we drank. We Christians must do better than them in remember and respect our Lord God.

– Most importantly, God let us know that He will compare unbelievers with those who thought they were God’s people (including Christians) to judge who is good enough for His kingdom:

MATTHEW 12: 41 – The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now Someone greater than Jonah is here.

MA-THI-Ơ 12: 41 – Đến ngày phán xét, dân thành Ni-ni-ve sẽ đứng dậy với dòng dõi nầy mà lên án nó, vì dân ấy đã nghe lời Giô-na giảng và ăn năn; mà đây nầy, có một người tôn trọng hơn Giô-na!

– According to the Lord Jesus Christ, the people of Niniveh were more receptive to Jonas’ messages than the Israelites to the Lord Jesus’ ones. And also according to Jesus, on the Judgment day, if the people of Niniveh were not allowed into the Kindom of God, those Israelites would not be admitted, too, although they were God chosen people.

– So, we Christians should be carefull, because if we were not receptive to the Bible teaching more than the people of Niniveh and did not repent when the messages of Good News were preached, we would be in danger of being refused to enter the kingdom of God on Judgment day.

– For God and the Lord Jesus Christ never change, so the standards that He applied for the Israelites will be the ones that apply for Christians, too, because we are God’s children.

HEBREWS 13: 8 – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

HÊ-BƠ-RƠ 13: 8 – Đức Chúa Jêsus Christ hôm qua, ngày nay, và cho đến đời đời không hề thay đổi.

– Therefore, God wants us to live with higher standards than unbelievers’ ones, because He will compare our lives with the ways unbelievers lived in this life:

EPHESIANS 4: 17 – So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

Ê-PHÊ-SÔ 4: 17 – Vậy, nầy là điều tôi nói và điều tôi nhân danh Chúa mà rao ra: ấy là anh em chớ nên ăn ở như người ngoại đạo nữa, họ theo sự hư không của ý tưởng mình.

– For example, Christians must take care of our own families and love them better than the way unbelievers take care of their own, because if we did not, we could not receive the reward that was refused to unbelievers. In other words, if unbelievers loved their people but still could not received the eternal life, how could Christians receive it when we did not love our families more than them?

1TIMOTHY 5: 8 – Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

1TI-MÔ-THÊ 5: 8 – Ví bằng có ai không săn sóc đến bà con mình, nhất là không săn sóc đến người nhà mình, ấy là người chối bỏ đức tin, lại xấu hơn người không tin nữa.

– We will study more about love in light of this principle, but for concerning to the above verse, there is the need to state that in reality sometimes our family members do not like the way we love them, especialy true in those families that have members who have not yet believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

– Because we love our families and the unbelieved members or those who are still infants in Christ, we usually invite them to God or to change the way they think, the way they live in order to be blessed by God or to be better in this life, but more than often we were misunderstood, even being rejected or outright hostile to.

– In cases like that, please do not be disappointed, upset or loosing patience, the other thing we can do is to pray for them and pray continously, persistently. With our faithful prayers, God will work in their hearts and someday they will turn back to God and believe in Him.

– There are lots of examples of those who came back to God after many years of opposing to Him and the belief in Jesus Christ. So, there are many ways we can love a person. We only need God to show us the way we can love others succesfully according the truth in the Bible.

– Thus, when we know that God will compare our lives with those of unbelievers in order to judge the faith we have in Him, so we Christians should use this method to guide the way we live and do things in this life. In other words, we must be better than unbelievers in every aspect of our lives, to glorify God and to satisfy His demands upon us.

– To conclude, as we know that God wants us to live a holy life according to the standards in the Bible, we must satisfy that demand, there is no bargain or negotiation for this way of life:

1PETER 1: 15 – But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.

1PHI-E-RƠ 1: 15 – Nhưng, như Đấng gọi anh em là thánh, thì anh em cũng phải thánh trong mọi cách ăn ở mình.

– As we also know that from the time on Earth to the Judgment day God will compare our lives with those of unbelievers to see if we lived a more holy life than them, we should tell Him our intention of obeying His command and ask Him for help to achieve it. Otherwise none of us can be able to satisfy God:

PSALM 37: 5 – Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this.

THI THIÊN 37: 5 – Hãy phó thác đường lối mình cho Đức Giê-hô-va, và nhờ cậy nơi Ngài, thì Ngài sẽ làm thành việc ấy.

– May God be please with our obedience to live the life He wants us to, and bless us with strength and determination to achieve it, and may God reward us accordingly in all our days on Earth. Amen.