The Leaving of the Holy Spirit (Acts 7: 1-8) by Pastor Yang-Jae Kim
We are 100% sinners, so there are some things you must leave to achieve spiritual maturity. Today, lets think about the leaving of the Holy Spirit, which we must leave every time with the face of the Holy Spirit. If God makes the Holy Spirit leave,
First, God is omnipresent.
With the face of an angel and with the voice of brotherhood, Stephen spoke to those who wanted to kill him as 'brothers and fathers' (v. 2). And God criticized their belief of being the chosen people by saying that his presence and love are not only in the temple in Jerusalem and Israel but everywhere. Therefore, God exists anywhere beyond time and space, and it is pointless that we boast about our pedigree of faith or bloodline because God can be seen as the God of glory to anyone. Thats why we can pray for relatives in Africa. For those driven by good education and social authority in a world like Mesopotamia, God can be seen as the God of glory to anyone. All human beings are created and loved by God whether they are saved or not. So we must pray and evangelize.
AQ1 Do you believe that God is present in unimaginable places? Where could that be?
Second, God tells us to leave home and our relatives.
Without leaving, you cannot go to the Promised Land (v. 3). It would have been difficult for Abraham to leave because of the great Ur civilization of the Chaldeans. In other words, we cant leave our alcoholic parents or our perfectionist parents. We dont leave them whether theyve got a lot of money to rely on or dont have any money so that we can look down on or hate them. We must leave our parents except to walk in partnership with our well-believing parents. In order for parents to go to heaven, we must look at them objectively. However, when we are in glorious Mesopotamia and eat and live well, we do not hear any of it, so God gives us an order to train us, and we must obey. At the beginning of his public ministry Jesus first order was to be baptized by John, and his final order was to die on the cross. To leave home and our relatives is to give up our vested right of both spirit and body.
AQ2 What or who are your people that you are not leaving? Do you not leave because they are your favorite? Or disliked?
Third, we leave when our father dies.
Abrahams father was named Terah. It means delay. In the end, he worshiped idols and hindered Abrahams way. The phrase 'parents should be viewed objectively' came from here. Because of the human mind, Abraham could not leave unless God killed Terah. If you dont see it through the history of redemption, this sermon may seem strange. But Abraham did not leave well in the first place. Despite Gods promise, he met the Lord here and there many times as he was in conflict with his faith. Life goes on, and we have to give up all we care about one by one. The important thing here is 'God sent him' (v. 4), and he did not leave by himself. In the Bible, there is nothing we do ourselves in the history of redemption. We must look at the Bible in the light of redemption history so that ordinary people can interpret their lives. Only then will our lives change. The Bible is not about great people, but about the sinners redemption history.
AQ3 What has been moved after the death of the father?
Fourth, you might not see anything even if you leave.
Abraham left because God command him to leave. He moved with no inheritance (v. 5). He left with no child, having to walk believing Gods promise. So, we constantly hear ourselves saying, 'I am deceived, nothing has been accomplished after I believed in Jesus.' The promise is not an inheritance, but the invisible kingdom of God. To fully believe this promise, we must live as a stranger and be a slave. Just as Abraham left to sire his promised descendants, our children must be slaves in Egypt and wait for the end. (v. 6-7). Even if you cry out for your son, your mind needs to be changed to hoping to have spiritual and promised offspring. If you go to church and do not read the Bible as redemptive history, you will not receive any real promises. Therefore, if you hear the word that your child must suffer and that leads to a promised child of blessing, you will have the faith and life that the world will not be able to handle.
AQ4 Does the world give up on you because of your faith? Or do you give up on your faith because of the world?
Fifth, the conclusion of departure is having a spiritual offspring.
Believing in the Bible does not give us faith, but God has given us faith with infinite grace. Abraham became the father of Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs. We might be worthless, but if we believe in God, he will bring us spiritual children together (v. 8). As I had Quiet Time with God, he kept me going through things that didnt work for me, showing me that God himself was the reward. In thirteen years, God gave me one person, which was my husband. After thirteen years, and when my husband was sacrificed like Abrahams son was circumcised, the number of people increased exponentially. The first is so hard, but there must be a leaving to have the first son. You must walk in faith, walking in the invisible, and be trained to listen to the words of suffering as words of blessings. Anyone who can give birth to one person can give birth to 10,000 people. To have one person should be the goal of your life.
AQ5 Do you like a strong son like Ishmael? Or do you long for weak but spiritual Isaac?
This is a community confession. A church member who is an assistant community leader at church, a team leader and a doctor, went to church to find a Christian woman to marry even though he had no faith. While he was preparing for his wedding, he slept with a divorced coworker who got pregnant. Still, he decided to go ahead with the wedding. At his wedding his pregnant coworker distributed notes to everyone revealing his affaire, and his bride called off the wedding that day and broke up with him, and he had to resign since everyone knew about his affaire. Being frustrated, one day he went to the Easter service and heard how Jesus endured shamefulness as the king of the Jews because it was the way to save us and lead us to God. He admitted all his sins and confessed. After that, every time he was doing Q.T., he thought that he had to get back together with the mother of his child despite all she did to him. As an application, he called her five years later and told her he wanted her to get baptized and marry him. I think this application is the leaving of the Holy Spirit from this world. I believe that such a thing as this will save a country, a family and a company.
