Then, what does the message of the Cross mean here? “The message of the Cross” here means that we must absolutely pass over death once in order to go to the Kingdom of God after receiving the remission of sins by believing in God. In other words, it means that every sinner must absolutely be in the status of a sinner first to be born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. How can we become sinners? We can be sinners by realizing our own nature before the Word of God. The Scriptures say that we become sinners because we are beings that cannot live according to God’s Law.

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We can apply this passage to both the physical and spiritual aspects of our lives. While we are living on this earth, we should refrain from inviting the rich and treating them to a dinner. That’s because the rich can repay us, and once they repay us, our hospitality is all rendered in vain. So whenever we spend money or treat someone to a dinner, we should do so for those who cannot repay us. How can we spend our money on those who cannot repay us? We can do this when we spend our money for the gospel. For instance, we’ve spent a lot of financial resources to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, but has anyone repaid us to thank us? No, that hasn’t happened.

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My fellow believers, if we are to become the disciples of the Lord, we must first know three things. Our Lord said, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). To become a disciple of the Lord, we have to do likewise. Our Lord tells us directly what we should do, if we are to follow Him.

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Have you had a good meal? I don’t know why it’s raining so much in this heat. I am very glad that you are all living out your faith so well. I am glad to see you like this without having faced death. As we lead our life of faith, we really don’t know when we will die, but there are many people who aren’t thankful for their lives. Is today better than yesterday? Is your heart feeling happy and thankful today, too?
Yesterday, we were a little tired and fatigued for it was our first day of arrival here. Anyway, I am glad and happy to be seeing you all at this summer discipleship training camp. I hope and pray that we will be having a wonderful time all through this meeting by sharing God’s grace that is revealed in His Word.

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Today’s Word of the Lord is a metaphor in which a king of a certain nation is thinking about whether or not the nation can stand against an invading army of twenty thousand with just ten thousand soldiers in a war. The Lord tells us that if the king comes to find that it is impossible to win, then he should try to make peace as quickly as possible. While the enemy is still far away, the king should be making peace with them, lest his kingdom should be ruined. By using such a metaphor, the Lord says, “So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.” Through the metaphor, the Lord is telling us what we must do in order to become His disciples.

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In Luke 15 that we read today, there are two parables: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. The Lord here is speaking through two parables; one is speaking of how much joy the Lord had when He, the Master, found one of a hundred of His sheep which had lost its way. It’s speaking of how tiresome and difficult it is for Him to find a sheep that has been lost and that it is a very joyful thing to find it. God is powerful, but I can’t describe how difficult it is for Him to find a sheep that has left His house as it wanted. My fellow believers, finding one lost sheep is such a joyous thing that all the people in the village gathered and had a feast.

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My fellow believers, how are you?
Our God looked for sinners who were poor in body and spirit. In today’s Scripture passage, He said, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:12-14). What was the reason that the Lord said this? That’s because if you invite the rich and treat them to food, they will repay all of it and you won’t have any reward to receive from God. Through today’s Scripture passage, we are able to know that our Lord loves and saves the insufficient and weak more than the great and those who are well off.

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I am sure that everyone at God’s Church is quite familiar with the passage about the prodigal son and heard it at least once or twice. Although we are all very familiar with this passage, today at this hour, I would like us to give some more thought to what God is saying to us in His Word and what kind of grace He has shown us.
Let’s turn to Luke 15:11-12 together: “Then He said: ‘A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood.”

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