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Collegedale Korean SDA Church

Kurt Osena

Dying Daily

Across my burden gladly bearing, he bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art.

I started to tear up a little bit as they were playing.

This week I was driving to Hamilton just to run an errand.

There was a song that was playing in the radio.

It's a song called, How Deep the Father's Love for Us.

I don't know if some of you know this, but when I drive, there are times where I like to sing.

But if I get a little embarrassed, I stay quiet.

But since I was alone, in my car, I started singing that song, How Deep the Father's Love for Us.

I remember I was just driving, I start to tear up.

I was like, wait a minute, why am I tearing up right now?

But as I'm singing this song, I just start to cry.

And it starts to become so overwhelming that I have to pull over in the front of Lowe's department store, and I'm in the middle of the parking lot, and I'm weeping to myself.

And I'm like, what is going on right now?

But there was this overwhelming conviction that Jesus loves me and at the end of the song I don't know if this if this was just specifically for me, but at the end of the song there were these words, it was a prayer of commitment to Jesus.

And it was basically the prayer went, I don't remember the exact words, but if I were to summarize it is, if you want to commit your life to Jesus, just ask Him to come in and He will deal with your sins.

And after I prayed that simple prayer, as I read through it, I felt another overwhelming experience.

I felt an overwhelming experience of peace.

When you think about the cross, when you think about the closing scenes of Christ's life, when you think about the gift that the Father had given to this world in his son Jesus Christ, does that bring conviction to your heart?

Does it stir a love in your heart for him?

My hope and prayer is that as a result of this message that you may contemplate the cross, and it is my prayer that the cross will make a difference in your life this morning if it hasn't already.

But before we begin let us go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer as we begin this morning's message.

Our Father which art in heaven, we thank you so much for this blessed Sabbath morning.

We thank you so much for the Son that has appeared.

And Father, when I look at the Son, it reminds me of the Son of your Son, Jesus Christ.

And oh, how it warms my heart to think about Him, Father.

Oh, how it warms my heart to think about him father oh how it warms my heart to think about his willingness to give his life on my behalf and on behalf of my friends here this morning.

Father this morning I pray that as we enter into this moment of spending time in your word, it is my sincere prayer, Father, that you would fill this place with your presence.

It is my sincere prayer, dear God, that you would not only fill this room, but that you would fill our hearts with the Holy Spirit.

And I pray Father that as we go through the pages of Scripture, as we read your precious and holy word, it is my sincere prayer, dear God, that you would bring conviction to our hearts.

And it is my sincere prayer that you would help us to value the cross of Calvary and what Jesus had done for us.

Father, may we value Jesus as our savior, as our friend, and our king.

And dear God, I pray that as we leave from this place, that the words that are shared from the scriptures may be in our minds and our hearts, even throughout the rest of the Sabbath, even throughout the rest of our lives.

I pray, Lord, that we would always keep you at the forefront of our minds.

Please bless us this morning we pray in Jesus Christ's name.

There are times I like to go to this used bookstore.

If you go to McKay's Bookstore, for a pastor like myself, it's amazing.

You go into this bookstore and they have this huge Adventist section, right?

And I love to go there just to pick and choose different books and to build my library.

I have not read through the entire book yet, but I have started it this week, and it has been a tremendous blessing.

And I'm on the first chapter, I haven't really got too far, but the first chapter is about early Christians.

And as It's obvious in the title, this book is about martyrs.

It's about people who have sacrificed their life for the cause of the gospel.

And there's this particular individual, his name is Polycarp, and he was an early Christian, And he gave his life for the truth.

It was very interesting, as I was reading through his story, he had this dream, this vision, 3 days before he actually gave his life.

And in this vision, he found himself, or he saw himself sleeping on a pillow and as he was sleeping on this pillow all of a sudden the pillow went in flames as he was sleeping upon it.

He woke up and he realized that God was trying to speak to him.

He recognized that that vision, what it meant, was that soon and very soon, he was going to be burned at the stake.

And so for those 3 days as he was thinking about that, sure enough, after the 3 days had had on the third day, I believe, or second day, I can't remember, but there was a group of soldiers that came for his life, came to take him and bring him to a stadium.

And so he was on his way to the stadium And he finally gets to the stadium full of all these people.

And all the people were saying, hey, we need to take his life, sacrifice his life.

And so they were saying that he should be given up to beasts.

But Pauly Carp knew that even though they were screaming that his life should be given to a beast like a lion, he knew in his mind that God had already told him that he was going to be burning, he was to be burnt on a stake.

And so he kept that in mind and sure enough what ended up happening is the crowd, instead of offering him to a beast, they started to shout that he be burned at the stake.

And so, there were some soldiers and a group of people that came in and they prepared the stake, they prepared all that is necessary in order for his body to be burnt.

And if I can just read the experience that he had gone through, in the middle of that stadium, I believe that you would be blessed as much as I was when I was reading through it.

This is found in page 24 of this book, Fox's Book of Martyrs, but it goes on like this, when they would have fastened him to the stake, he said, leave me as I am, For he who giveth me strength to sustain the fire will enable me also without your securing me with nails to remain without flinching in the pile Upon which they bound him without nailing him.

So he said thus, O father I bless Thee that Thou has counted me worthy to receive my portion among the number of martyrs.

It says, as soon as he had uttered the word, Amen, The officers lighted the fire.

The flame forming the appearance of an arc as the sail of a vessel filled with wind, surrounded as with a wall the body of the martyr, which was in the midst, not as burning flesh, but as gold and silver refining in the furnace.

We received also in our nostrils such a fragrance as proceeds from frankincense, or some other precious perfume.

At length, the wicked people, observing that his body could not be consumed with fire, ordered that the confector to approach and to plunge his sword into the body.

Upon this, such a quantity of blood gushed out that the fire was extinguished." Isn't that incredible?

Here's this man who gave himself for the sake of the truth, gave himself in the name of Christ.

We see that the presence of God was there.

That even though his life perished, we saw that God had favor upon this man.

And you know, as I'm reading through these these stories of the book of these martyrs and thinking about how they gave up their life for Christ.

Because I think about my life and I think about how dedicated and how consecrated I am to Him.

And you know, to be honest with you, oftentimes I think about myself and I see that I fall short.

And you know, when we think about these martyrs, we think that this is the ultimate sacrifice.

You know, it was interesting, I was at GYC.

How many of you guys went to GYC this year?

There was 1 moment, I believe this was Sabbath afternoon, and there was a plenary session.

And in this plenary session, there was a man who was sharing his experiences in the Middle East.

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Dying Daily

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