St Timothy Presbyterian Church in Toronto: Sermons

Mark 4:25-34

Due to technical difficulties, the Worship Video & Worship Audio are unavailable this week. Sorry for this inconvenience!

How wonderful it is for us to gather here together and worship God.

Jesus said,

Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. (Luke 13:29)

If this is not the Kingdom of God, what is the kingdom of God?

Believers gather together, eat together, share our love with each other and worship together.

God sent us into this cold, cruel, and selfish world but he didn't leave us alone. He gave us this spiritual community through which we experience love and encouragement.

That was how the early Christian community lived.

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47)

Small kingdom of God was created.

Jesus tells us about the kingdom of God today.

We can learn two things about the Kingdom of God through Jesus' teaching. These two are connected.

First, verse 27.

The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. (Mark 4:26, 27)

He does not know how the seed grows. That's what the Kingdom of God is like.

We don't know exactly how the Kingdom of God grows. The kind of change God makes within us is not visible to us. It's a mystery, hidden to us.

Don't be discouraged because you cannot see the change. You may not see it but change is happening right now.

You don't see God's work but God works. Not in your own terms but according to God's will.

Do your best and leave the result in God's hands even though you don't see the change right away. That's what faith is.

The kingdom of God is not something that I can make.

It is what God makes. It is not made by our own power and ability.

It is established by God's power. We don't know how the kingdom of God is established.

When I first started the ministry at this church, I had a dream about inclusive community. That's why I didn't put the word Korean in our church name.

I wanted this community to exist not just for Koreans but also for all those who believe. I wanted this community to be a place where everybody is welcomed and loved.

Now we see its fruit. I don't know how it happened. It is what God gave us.

We have to experience changes that God grants to us.

Life is more than our own decisions. Life is more than doing what we want.

So many things happen in our lives. God uses all these things to mould us, shape us, renew us, and bring about changes within us.

God gives us peace, joy, hope, and the heart to love. It is what God does in our lives.

The second, verse 32:

yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. (Mark 4:32)

The kingdom of God grows to become big so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.

Becoming big does not refer to the quantity but the quality. Your heart becomes big. This community becomes big in heart so that it can accommodate all people.

That was the pain the early Christians had to go through. To become big, they had to overcome their own tradition and the law. Their own culture.

It was painful to let go of things like culture that was like their identity. Culture was so deeply ingrained in them and so letting go was a growing pain.

I said before. To become big, you have to be ripped apart.

Only when you are ripped apart, you can become big. Being ripped apart is painful.

I hope that our heart becomes so big that we can even embrace our enemies.

I pray that this community becomes big so that we go beyond our ethnic identity and become truly a spiritual community.

The Kingdom of God!

The post What the Kingdom of God Is Like appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.

Psalm 23

Due to technical difficulties, the Worship Video & Worship Audio are unavailable this week. Sorry for this inconvenience!

Today's psalm is psalm of King David. This is perhaps most famous psalm from the Bible.

It's so beautiful.

It has given peace and comfort to so many people throughout the ages. It still does.

The Lord is my shepherd. It's such a famous line. A comforting line.

I shall not want. With God as my shepherd, I will truly lack nothing.

How comforting that is. What peace that gives us.

In all of your striving, you can rest in the knowledge that God is your shepherd and will provide everything you need.

David came up with such beautiful imagery because he had intimate knowledge of what a shepherd did.

Before he became famous, he was a shepherd.

In his settled life, he tended to his family's sheep while his older brothers were off at war.

He took his flock beside still waters. He warded off creatures trying to eat them. He knew the peace of still waters.

These experiences became images he drew upon later in life. Because later in life, his life was very unsettled.

The prophet Samuel came to his town and anointed him as the future king of Israel. The problem is, there was already a king of Israel – Saul, the first king and monarch of Israel.

To be anointed king of Israel when one already exists is a politically seditious act.

This anointing thrust him into an unsettled life. But he lived out an empowered life with confidence in God.

With that confidence, he took on Goliath when no one else would, and he conquered him. Just a boy compared to this giant and armed only with five smooth stones and unshakeable faith, he killed the enemy's champion.

That made him a hero to his people, but struck the ire of King Saul. He became a marked man.

As David's exploits grew, so did Saul's fury and mistrust. Saul began plotting against David.

It got to the point where David had to flee. He had to survive with support from villagers wherever he went.

He was a fugitive for years, eking out survival while remaining in hiding.

When King Saul finally died, he was crowned King of Israel.

But his life didn't get any easier. There were so many problems.

Political factions he had to deal with. Loyalists to Saul he had to contend with.

He had many sons with different wives and women. There was competition among them.

One of his sons raped a half-sister. That half-sister's brother, Absalom, was filled with rage. He demanded Justice from his father, David.

David, having a soft heart for his sons, couldn't give that justice. So Absalom took matters into own hands and killed his half brother.

He was young, strong and handsome. He began to amass power for himself. He challenged his father and forced him to flee from Jerusalem.

Absalom was eventually killed in battle as David fought back. But David was devastated by this loss and never fully healed.

David sinned and sought forgiveness. He was full of life. But that full life contained more than its fair share of sorrows. He loved, he lost.

He was a man after God's own heart.

His greatest dream was to build a temple for God.

He began plans for it but couldn't do it, because his whole reign was spent in wars and battles to defend and expand his kingdom.

This is the life context in which he wrote the most beautiful and famous psalm.

He did not write it in peaceful and settled circumstances. He wrote it in the midst of many troubles and stresses.

He faced so many challenges in life. He was not a pure man.

But through all of this, he found rest. He found rest in the goodness of God.

His experience of God’s goodness sustained him and empowered him through all of his ordeals and trials in life.

My friends, life in this world is so difficult.

All our days we are faced with trials and worries, fears and anxieties. Every day we have new things to contend with.

Jesus was filled with worry for his disciples as he prepared to leave them.

This was part of his final prayer:

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. (John 17:14-16)

Living in this world is hard enough. But for followers of Jesus, we have the added burden of living in this world in a state of permanent tension.

We live in this world and have to survive in it, but we don't belong to it. We belong to the world of God. We try to live according to the values and ways of God's world.

Living in this world brings its own troubles. But trying to live in it while being of a different world is even more difficult.

That is why our Lord was crucified. His way of life could not survive in this world.

We are sent as a scattered church into a world that does not love us. It is a hard journey.

Which is why we need the empowerment we've reflected on this weekend.

What we need in all our toils is rest. Our rest is in the goodness of God.

God who leads us beside still waters and restores our souls. God who fills our cup and lets it overflow. God who protects us in the darkest valley.

We have our God who gives us this rest so we can be sent back out into the world.

Jesus did not send us out unequipped. He sent us out with peace.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

After Jesus was crucified, the disciples hid behind locked doors. They were scared and didn't know what to do.

Many times we feel like hiding behind locked doors because we don't know what to do.

That's when Jesus appeared to them

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. (John 20:19-22)

Jesus does not send us out alone.

He sends us out with peace and the power of the Holy Spirit. That peace is our rest.

Peace is not the absence of troubles.

Peace is the power to live with our troubles and not be overcome by them

Peace is finding rest in the goodness of God.

God had given us this gathered church. He has given it so we can find rest in this world. To be empowered and sent out with peace in our hearts.

I love this community of faith. I love each of you. Some of you I know better than others.

But you are all my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this weekend. It has been a great joy to be called as a pastor for you.

God's goodness led me through all of my own difficulties and challenges in life to bring me to this blessed place of ministry.

I have been so filled and blessed with God's goodness and mercy through this ministry.

You are my family. My spiritual family.

I understand what Jesus said when his mother and brothers were looking for him.

Who are my mother and my brothers? And looking at those who sat around him, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. (Mark 8:33-34)

Every day, every week, I pray for you. I feel God's burning desire and love for you.

You are God's precious children.

God loves you. God does not send you out into the world alone. God sends you out with his Spirit.

God will be with you. God will take care of you.

May this community be a place of rest and blessing for you so that you can go out as empowered people.

May you always find rest in the goodness of God.

The post Rest in the Goodness of God appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.