St Timothy Presbyterian Church in Toronto: Sermons

Psalm 27

Fear is our biggest problem. We all have fear. We are very familiar with fear. Fear makes us powerless and when we are trapped in fear, even the things that we used to do so well, somehow we cannot do very well. And when fear takes confidence away from us, when you see life with the eyes of fear, life looks difficult. We only see problems in life. So with your eyes of fear, if you see yourself, you see only weakness and also incapability. When you see other people with eyes of fear, they look like they are enemies rather than friends. So that’s what fear does. But we all know that fear is not necessarily all bad. It is an inevitable reality, but sometimes fear is good too. Proverbs said: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 9:10 NRSV). So that fear makes us recognize who we are and also makes us humble. Of course here, the word “fear” does not mean phobia, it’s the other respect. But fear is needed to make us humble. And also when we have fear, we can prepare ourselves for the danger that is coming towards us. So fear is not always bad. And also, fearlessness is not always good. Some people think that fearlessness is good, but fearlessness is not always good.

Courage is not fearlessness. People misunderstand that. Courage is not fearlessness. Getting rid of fear in our lives, from our system, is not the solution for life. We can never do that anyway. But getting rid of fear is not our life goal or is not the solution for our lives. People run away from reality to get rid of their fear. So sometimes they drink, they take drugs, even religious zeal is used to get rid of this fear. They try so hard to get rid of this fear. But I wonder whether we need to do that. Do we need to get rid of this fear? Is it our goal? I don’t think so. And all of these things we try, they may help us to forget our fear, but it doesn’t get rid of fear within us. We don’t like to live with fear because it is not a good feeling to always be fearful. It torments us. Sometimes people pretend that they have no fear when they have lots of fear. When I used to bike with Grace when she was really young, one day we went out and then we were biking together and then all of a sudden that this huge, scary, dog started chasing after us. So we stopped and I covered it, the dog. And then I looked at my daughter Grace, and then she looked at me and said: “Were you scared?”. So I replied “No! I’m wasn’t scared!”. Of course, I was so scared. She probably saw the fear in my face and that’s why she asked. So pretending that you have no fear doesn’t help.

Danger is always around us. That means fear will it always be around us and within us. But just because fear is around us, that doesn’t mean that we need to be trapped in fear. So it is one thing to have fear within you, it is another thing to be trapped in fear. The reason we let fear completely sabotage our life and let it oppress us is because we focus on fear. Fear is around us, but when you start focusing on fear, that fear will sabotage and will paralyze us. We make ourselves afraid of fear. When we look at today’s Psalm, “When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh… Though an army encamp against me” (Psalm 27:2 NRSV), So war was around. The enemies were surrounding him. He was surrounded by this tremendous crisis. He was in a situation where fear was waiting to devour him up, but they’re in the midst of all this dangerous and fear, this is what he confessed: “Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.” (Psalm 27:3 NRSV). He did not let fear come into him and conquer his heart, so that his life will be may be paralyzed. He didn’t let fear do that. Even though he looked at the fear all around him, he did not focus on fear to let fear control his life. It was in front of him, it was at his back, it was on his right and left, but the fear somehow cannot conquer this person’s heart. I think that’s what’s important. Fear is there, but whether that fear conquers your heart or not. The secret of the Psalmist was this. Listen to what he said: “One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4 NRSV). In other words, he looked to the beauty of the Lord. He didn’t focus on fear, but he focused on the beauty of the Lord. Then, when he did that, he received this wisdom.

He said: For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock (Psalm 27:5 NRSV). That insight became reality to him. Before, fear kind of scared him, but now God, “he will hide me in his shelter”. That kind of confidence is not “brain knowledge”. It is not a concept. It is something like power within him. He had this power to be able to understand that God is with me. God is strong and God’s strong hand are holding me. He had that kind of confidence at that moment. In other words, he overcame fear. He didn’t let fear conquer him. He conquered fear. I think that’s what’s important. Focus. Where do you focus on? Fear or on God? When you focus on God, then we’ll get this insight and we will get confidence.

Yes. Fear will be always with us and it is important for us to confront our fear instead of running away from it. Rather than turning our face away from fear, we need to confront fear, but do not focus on fear, but focus on God. In life. There are things that you need to focus on and there are things that you need to just look at. For example, sorrow, guilt, hatred, anger, fear, worries and anxiety. They’ll always be around you. Don’t pretend that you don’t have these. These things will be always around you, but you just look at them. You don’t focus on them. These are the things that you just look at, then they’ll pass by. If there is worry, fear, anger, if you just look at them, they pass by. But things like love, forgiveness, faith and hope. These are the things that you don’t just look at them, you focus on them. You focus on these things and these good things will start changing you and transforming you

This is what the Psalmist said: Come, my heart says, seek his face! Your face, Lord, do I seek.” (Psalm 27:8 NRSV) This is what we need. When you are filled with fear, seek God’s face. You don’t need to be so scared of our fear. Be comfortable with fear, but seek after God’s face. Focusing on God, that’s what meditation is. Every day, you meditate. Meditation is to focus on God, so that all the negative things that are happening in your life, you don’t get swayed and swamped by these things, but you get confidence, strength, and true power within you. Confidence in life is not something that you can gain by will. “Okay, from today, I’m going to be confident!”, you can’t do that! Confidence has to be built up within you. When you focus on God, that confidence will be built up within your heart. The Psalmist confessed: “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14 NRSV). Waiting means confidence. Even though your situation is not very good, you can wait because you have confidence that someday you’ll be able to overcome your hardships. To not fear your fear. Seek God’s face. You’ll be alright in God’s hands. I know it is very difficult right now, but you’ll be alright.

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Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Everything that is around us is beautiful! The birds are singing and spring is coming, so it’s nice to remind ourselves how beautiful it is, how grateful you are and how we should always be thankful. It is very important to understand that everything that is happening in our lives is somehow connected with God. This is very important. It’s not just a theory, it is our faith statement. Everything that is going around in us is connected with God. It is a perspective, to see what is happening in our lives. You can say, and a lot of people think that whatever is happening in our lives is random events. It just happens. Nothing to do with anything else, just random events. 

You can see it that way, but Israelites, somehow they didn’t see it that way. Very special people from a long time ago, they never saw it that way. They never saw whatever that was happening in their lives as just random events. It is a built-in somehow in their nation. It is built-in their consciousness in their existence, in their soul! Everything that happened in their lives was connected with God. That’s what they believed. They had a particular perspective on their history. There were like this since Abraham. Somehow God started something with Abraham, but ever has ever since Abraham, the whole nation somehow had this consciousness that everything that is happening in their lives is connected with God. The consciousness that their history and God’s promise were intricately related, intimately intertwined! So they didn’t see it as “There is God’s promise and there is history!”. No, they didn’t see it that way! Somehow God’s promise and their history are intricately intertwined, connected! You cannot separate it! Somehow. I don’t know how they had this kind of consciousness, so I am almost envious. Is he ingrained in them? They don’t even have to try. It’s just there, in them. You can see that clearly into today’s scripture passage. As they reflected on their history, they saw that God was very much part of it. They recognize that they were just wandering Arameans, nomads! Nobody is significant. They were just wandering from one place to another place. A very small group of people, riding horses or whatever, there was just wandering Arameans! But somehow, they believe that God made them a great nation! This is what they say: A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.” (Deuteronomy 26:5 NRSV). Somehow, these wandering Aramaeans, insignificant people, God made into a great nation. It’s like how we’re just Korean immigrants, but somehow God blessed them.

And when they suffered oppression from the Egyptians, they also believed that it was God who brought them out of that bondage and let them enter into the land flowing with milk and honey. Everything that is happening in their lives, somehow God was there! Let’s read: “When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Deuteronomy 26:6-9). It is not they who decided. “Life is too hard here. Let’s go to another land!”. That’s not what he did. God brought them out of Egypt, they didn’t even know where they were going! But somehow God brought them out of Egypt and then let them enter into the land flowing with milk and honey. They don’t see it as their decision, they don’t see it as something that they did! It was God who did it. Very particular view about history. God is right there, very much in their history and they regurgitated that history over and over and over again! They created festivals, sacrifices, and worship and every worship, every festival, they remembered and they reminded themselves of what God did for their ancestors. Why would they regurgitate their history and their past so much? Because somehow they turn their memory into their confession!

Memory was not just a memory, but memory into their confession. When they said that God liberated their ancestors from the bondage, they also implied that the same God would liberate them from their own bondage. So the memory of their ancestors is turned into their confession that God will also bring them out of bondage. Very smart people. Even when they were in Babylonian exile when they lost their land, their lot, they lost their nationality, their temple, they lost everything! They were in Babylonian exile and even there, they continuously celebrated Passover. What is Passover? Passover is celebrating God who brought them out of Egypt. Even during the Babylonian exile, they celebrated Passover, the memory of their ancestor’s liberation! But they didn’t just remember, that memory was a dangerous memory! That memory was that God will bring us out of this Babylonian exile too! The same God will do that. That’s what they confessed. So memory became confession. Memory became faith! It is all to do with faith ingrained within them. They effectively remembered their past, the history of salvation and liberation, so for them, history was not in the past. History was right there. History is not just gone. History is living alive right now, right here

In their celebration, the gap between the past and the present has become nullified. There’s no more gap between the past and the present. It is just an event. Is that event in the past? It is just an event. To God, temporality is not that important. When it happened is not that important. They understood that kind of God, whether it happened 2000 years ago, 4,000 years ago, it doesn’t matter! It’s just an event. That’s what’s important. Not when it happened. The gap has gone. In their celebration, past, present, and future, all come together as one event. The event of salvation. Salvation in the past becomes salvation now. Through the eyes of faith, they saw God who was in their history. Through the eyes of faith, they saw that the same God was working in their lives now. That’s what faith is. Faith is not about your emotion or your action. Their faith was built-in their existence. Everything in their lives, they saw it in that way. Their faith was based on their historical evidence. God was good, and God is good, and God will be good! They just firmly believe that even now they still believe that. Through the eyes of faith, you can see that our lives tonight depend on random happenings.

We are not the victims of random events that are happening in our lives. Yes, lots of random things happen in our lives, but underneath there is one thing that is constant, that is God’s constant care. God takes care of us. God will never leave us alone to be victims of our random circumstances, and believing in that is faith. Faith is not how you feel about God. Faith is not about how spiritual you are. Faith is about God who will ultimately deliver us from our bondage. Today’s the first Sunday in Lent. During the Lent period, we remember, as I said, we remember the dangerous memory. We remember the cross. The cross was imposed upon Jesus. Death was imposed upon Jesus, but even the cross could not kill Jesus. Even death cannot kill Jesus, because God was there. God brought Jesus from the bondage of death and when we remember that, we also believe that the same God is working in us right now.

No matter how difficult life may be, we are not just victims of random happenings in our lives. The same God who worked in Jesus is working right now in me and in you. This is what Saint Paul said: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead…” (referring to the past) “dwells in you…” (referring to the present), “he who raised Christ from the dead will…” (referring to the future), “give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11 NRSV). In this short passage, past, present, and future are all together one event: resurrection. That’s what we are celebrating during Lent.

Believing that gives us tremendous power and confidence. We are not scared of our sufferings anymore. We do not let our present sufferings define our lives. We always have hope because God is with us. In the same chapter. Saint Paul said: ” I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” (Romans 11:18). That is faith! Present suffering is not compared to the glory that will be revealed in the future. The same God who worked in history is working right now with you and will work with you until the end.

Believing all that is faith. Faith that is ingrained within us. God has been good, God is good, and God will be good! I hope that we have this built-in face. This built-in faith is God’s gift to those whom God has chosen. It is not something that you can cultivate. It is not something that you can decide! It is not something that you can learn. It is just a gift from God. As God gave that gift to these Israelites ever since Abraham, God gave us that same gift, the gift of faith. For those who have this faith, you don’t make life. Life who will be open to you. Life will open up for you. You don’t have to create life. Life’s door will be wide open for those who have this faith. I hope that your life becomes open rather having to struggle to make life. I hope that your life just opens up for you. For those who believe, life will open up. Have that faith, have that trust. 

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2 Corinthians 3:12-18

Freedom is very important for our meaningful existence and that’s why freedom is very, very precious. It is something that we should hold on to. We should never let go. We should never take it for granted. This freedom is something very precious and every single person has a right to live with Freedom. When we look at our human history, you can see that it is a history of struggling for finding that freedom. People who are oppressed by those who have power and privilege, they had to fight for their freedom. For that freedom, people died, People shed their blood and people sacrificed their lives. Freedom did not come easily. When you look at the book of Exodus, it is a story about Israelites finding freedom from the bondage of Egypt, and as you read the story, you realize it’s not very easy to go through that journey of freedom and to ultimately find the freedom.

Last Friday was not March 1st, it is the hundredth anniversary of the Korean Independence Movement. For Koreans, March 1st was a very important date. 1919 March first Koreans were occupied by Japanese, and lots of people came out on the street protesting that no one country has a right to invade and exploit other countries because they have more power. They believe that so they cried out for freedom, risking their lives. They all came out of the street and cried out for freedom because the believed that doing that is a protest against people who take others’ basic human rights. 33 people signed the declaration of independence, out of 33 people, 16 people were Christians, and out of those 16, one elder is the great grandfather of one of our congregation members in KSM. And also, that was what my father did in the latter part of the Japanese occupation during his study of law in Tokyo.

He came over to Korea during the summer and he went to the village and educate the village people, how important this basic human right was. And ultimately he went to China and fought against the Japanese regime and declared the independence of Koreans, and he was arrested and he was taken to the prison in the southern part of Korea. And he got two years and six months of the sentence of imprisonment and he was freed when the Second World War was over. That is the cost of achieving freedom. During the March 1st protest, 7,500 people were killed and 47,000 people were arrested.

Jesus also came to give us freedom. Jesus saw the condition of the people who are in deep bondage. He came to free us from that bondage and that wasn’t easy either and there was cost. Jesus gave his life for the freedom he fought for. Saint Paul said today, now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Wherever Jesus is, wherever the spirit of Jesus is, there is freedom. And Paul experienced that freedom in Christ. When he was in Judaism, he didn’t experience, even though he did a lot of religious things, he didn’t experience that freedom. But when he met Christ, when he found Christ, he found freedom in Christ. Where there is freedom, there is no fear. That’s what freedom does. Freedom is almost like freedom from fear.

So wherever there is freedom, there is no fear. St Paul talked about the veil today. He said many people still had that veil covering up their minds. And I was wondering what that veil was. When Moses went to get the first 10 commandments, he took a long time. So a lot of people were impatient and they were scared without their leader. So they coerced Aaron to make a golden calf for them. And Aaron was scared of the people because they were so strong. So he made the golden calf for them. The people are scared of their vulnerable situations. So everybody was scared. Everybody was filled with fear. Aaron and also the Israelites; everyone. So they built the golden calf hoping that this golden calf gives us some security. So they were dancing around the golden calf. As Moses was coming down, he saw them dancing around the golden calf and he threw his tablets, 10 commandments and broke them. And the second time he went up to get the 10 Commandments. As he was walking down and called out people to read the 10 Commandments, his face was filled with glory because he met God, and the people were scared of that light because they have the sin of building up the golden calf.

So Moses covered his face for the sake of the people so that they could come and listen to what Moses had to say. The veil indicated the fear of the people. He put the veil because people are scared. But Paul is saying that that veil same veil is still on their minds. They are still filled with that fear. This is what he said. To this very day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their mind. Paul saw that they still lived in fear, and then Paul declares now the veil is removed in Christ. This is what he said. When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Jesus removed that veil by forgiving them. He took away that fear from people. When you are in Christ, you have no more fear because fear is taken away, removed by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul articulated this differently in Romans. He said, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you to not receive a spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear, that’s what slavery does. You don’t have a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption when we cry, Abba, father. So many people still live with fear. Fear makes people timid. Fear paralyzes them. Fear takes away freedom from us. Fear is like a veil covering our minds. You don’t need to live anymore with fear. You don’t worship God and all the good things because we are scared. If I don’t do it, God will punish me. You don’t do that because of fear. We do that because we experience God’s Love, God’s grace, God’s abundant blessing. That’s why we do good things. That’s why we worship God. The different motive of worshiping God.

This is what John said. There is no fear in love. The perfect love casts out fear for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. Because God removed the fear from us. We can now experience true freedom. Not because of the weather’s good but because Christ removed that fear from us, now we have freedom. Freedom is the power, the power to live your life with courage and boldness. Freedom gives you tremendous empowerment. Don’t let life challenges intimidate you. You are God’s beloved children. You are in God’s, strong hands. Be Free from your worries and anxieties. Seek the truth and that truth will set you free. That is a message Jesus came to proclaim and that is a message Paul is proclaiming to us today. Listen to the word of God. Be Free in Christ and live out for justice fearlessly, boldly, courageously.

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Luke 6:27-36

As Edward read today’s passage. Today’s passage is such a hard one. I can think of two major reasons why this passage is so hard for me. First of all, this passage is about love. Love is not easy. When we were young, we would like to think that love is easy, but we are getting older. We realize love is not an easy thing. We find ourselves here and there in our life not being able to love others, especially the more we know about true love and about our true self. We confess that it is so difficult to simply love. Secondly, it is such a hard passage because it asks us to love our enemies, not those who deserve our love. No, not those who may not deserve our love, but not posing any threat to us. No, but those who directly inflict harm upon us.

This is why today’s passage is so difficult and challenging. Someone said to me that even though today’s passage is hard, we as believers should try to love our enemies. I understand where that saying is coming from, but my question is what do we want to achieve or prove by doing that and who will benefit from it? The love Jesus talking about in today’s passage is shaking the ground of our belief system. In verse 27 Jesus says, do good to those who hate you. In verse 28 bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. And in verse 29 if anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also and from anyone who takes away your coat. Do not withhold even your shirt.

The way we have learned from this world is totally opposite. We would hate back to those who hate us. We would co curse those who curse us first. We will not pray, but raise our voice and swear at those who abuse us. If anyone strikes us, we would strike back harder and get even with them, we think this is how we should live. And we take this as the wisdom of life. It is so hard for us to understand Jesus’ words on loving your enemies. We are preconditioned and almost disarmed, not being able to love others. I had to wonder why Jesus said such words and I had to struggle with Jesus’ words. In the meantime, I came to understand just a little bit. It’s like an opening. The love Jesus is talking about is different than the love we know and we practice. Those two are very different in a different dimension. Our love is very much conditional. In other words, we treat well to those who treat us well, we love back to those who love us first. It’s almost like a business give and takes. The transaction is happening in the name of love. It’s like one hand washes the other. If I get something from you, I will love you.

That’s why they love we’d know and practice is conditional and limited. Such attitude reminds me of the concept we learned from the previous KSM happiness seminar. Actually ESM at the summer retreat we learn and meditate on this relationship. It was about the relationship based on Martin Bubas book. I endow. There are different kinds of relationships we have with others. For example. First of all, it is called its relationship. Some of you may remember this, what this relationship is we view and treat the other as far as the relationship will provide benefits for us. We maintain that relationship just for that purpose. If other treats me well, then I will treat that person well. If the other person does not treat me well, I do not go more or less with that person. Whereas there’s another relationship called I thou. The word thou is a respectful way to call you a long time ago.

I don’t think nowadays people use that word anymore. This thou relationship exists. Not for my benefit but for the other person and for the relationship itself. When we have this kind of relationship with others, our lives will be totally different. Our life will become abundant. We’ll be able to see things from that relationship. We understand other people much better where we value the other person, respect the other person and the relationship itself where we have the kind of attitude, our life will be totally different. The love Jesus is talking about is totally different than the love we know and practice in our life. Look at how Jesus exposes our limited and calculative love that is in interaction with others. For example, verses 32 to 34 days, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.

If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you for even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you even seen as lend to sinners to receive as much again. Our love is conditional and so limited, but Jesus is teaching us the love that is unconditional, unlimited and not holding back. The love in today’s text is in Greek. You know this word very much, agape. This love doesn’t mean romantic love, liking or even friendship. What it does mean is a whole-hearted, unreserved, unconditional desire for the wellbeing of the other. That is what agape means. If our love is self-serving, the love Jesus is presenting is self-giving. That is emptying oneself for others. Isn’t that what our God’s love is?

As our praise team sang that song, God gave his only son to us. This is the love that God has for us and for this humanity. The world we are living is teaching us the self-obsession itself. Love is the only way, so at most, we take care of our immediate family and close friends, but that’s about it. To those who we do not know, we tend to treat them as enemies automatically being overly defensive. We are more than ready to strike back if anybody would strike us. When we look around the world, we see so many conflicts and hostility and revenge and retaliation become common phenomena. But my friends do not realize very important truth in all this. If we keep building the walls in the name of protection and naming the others as enemies, we will all fall into destruction, racism, elitism, and nationalism and so on will not save very few winners. That’s illusion and delusion. The whole world will crumble down knowing our reality and condition. God gave us agape to save us. Apostle Paul discovered God’s love, this love through Jesus Christ, and he said this, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life? Love your enemies. Why? Because God loves us who were enemies to God before.

And today’s verse 35 further reflects our God whose love knows no limits but love your enemies. Do good and lend expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great and you’ll be children of the highest for he’s kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God is so kind to even the ungrateful and the wicked. God’s love is so radical beyond our understanding. Oh God, please set us free from the bondage, misunderstanding, and selfishness, and enlighten us to see things clearly. We pray. When I was meditating today’s passage, one verse caught my eyes. Until now we think love is action. Love is a verb word, but now I understand that it is deeply rooted in our existence and identity. Verse 36 says, be merciful just as your father is merciful.

Now we understand. We used to think love is all about actions and that’s why we haven’t experienced our true love. Our love is always conditional and limited. We love others just for our own sake. But when we realize that the ability to love is rooted in existence, who we are before God, we will bring our life towards the journey to become a person of love. We can start this journey of becoming a loving person a new. In God who is love and God who is the source of everything will change us and from that changed person, the love will overflow touching the souls of people on his ways. There are no barriers. There are no limits because it’s God’s love overflowing from that changed person. Last Sunday we had YF retreat in the Hamilton area, six young families with little ones. I don’t know how many babies, so many babies attended and with the help from pastor Sunny, April, Hannah Lee, Megan Park, and Caitlin Chung, we were able to have meaningful time without, you know, taking care of the babies. We can fully engage in sharing and discussion and just open up our hearts during the group discussion time. One member in our group share that he’s desperately in need of personal journey, spiritual journey with two little ones. His life is out of tune with reality and he doesn’t even know what his wife is going through and how she would feel about the current life situation and so on.

So I shared with him this, when we become a stranger to ourselves, we will not be able to understand others. And I drew this diagram and further explained what we all need to do when we take this personal journey to God daily and have a genuine relationship with God, not conceptually. We will discover oneself in God’s heart and at that very moment, we will be able to understand others as well and build a meaningful relationship with others. If you want to have a genuine relationship with others, do not ignore the relationship with God.

First God and then the others will follow. That is the spiritual principle and I believe love works in the same way. Love works in the same way. Love as activities has limits and it’s superficial and inconsistent, but those who walk towards God in their personal journey will become the person of love. God’s love will change that person. God’s love will go into that person and filled with God’s love and from that point on they will experience how true love works in their life. And I want you to experience that. Create a time and space just for God, just for God. You have to have that selfish moment for yourself and bring yourself to God in prayer or by meditating daily inner voice, it may seem not much, but my friends, everything begins in that small step. You will definitely change you and me.

Let us become a merciful person. The answer lies not in doing but in becoming. Let us become a loving person by teaching personal journey ever closer to God. When we are closer to God, who is love, God will make us personal love. Only then will we live out the love in our life, such love. We’ll make our relationship beautiful. Such love will build up, build up our family. Don’t worry. Give yourself to God and walk that journey to God will empower you. God will set you free. God will fill love in us, and finally, such love will save us all. Thanks be our God who loves us unconditionally. Amen. Let us sing.

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Jeremiah 17:5-10

Thank you so much to the choir for that beautiful anthem. Thank you all so much to the praise team. What a blessing. The gift of music is a real blessing. There are some ways that can only speak to the heart that certain forms like music can. So we’re so appreciative of the music ministry in our church and it’s so wonderful to see all the Hi-C kids with us today. We had a great time skating around the rink in the outdoors and it’s just such a joy to see our youth laughing and having a good time and it’s really great to see all the college and university kids back from reading week. I’m really looking forward to that Korean barbecue here next week. We got that inspiration from the KSM C&C because they were grilling all this meat one Sunday and I began drooling as the smells oozed out into the fellowship hall. So I was like we need a piece of that too. That’s going to be fun. Today there’s the young families retreat with all the young children and the parents. Then next Friday, the women’s group and also the men. 

So all ages, it seems like there are things going on and that’s, that’s a true blessing, isn’t it? There’s abundance in this community. I feel truly blessed and my prayer and my hope is that each of us here can find some sort of blessing from this community. Cause I think that’s how God wills it. And so with that word and theme in mind: blessing. I want to reflect today on a life of blessing. In today’s passage, we see a contrast between the two types of life. A life that is cursed and a life that is blessed.

A life that is cursed is one that has no life. You know, the imagery that Jeremiah uses, they all convey the lack of water, which in the ancient Middle East was the very source and enabler of life. So a cursed life is one that’s like a shell, but it has no life. A blessed life, on the other hand, is one that is full of life. It’s the life that can’t be taken away, even during dry spells. And there is fruitfulness.

As I started to reflect on this passage, I saw that this passage really emanated, it’s sprung forth from Jeremiah’s own life and experiences. This is almost like it was a confession or a declaration of the kind of life that he had lived and what God called Jeremiah when he was just a youth. We don’t know exactly how old, but when God called him he responded, Oh God, but I don’t know how to speak. I’m only a boy. But God’s response was this: do not say, I am only a boy for you shall go to whom all send you, send you and you shall speak whatever I command you. So this was Jeremiah’s calling. It was to go to speak and speak he did. This guy, he spoke truth to power. That’s what he did. He spoke out against a system and the people running it that enriched those with power and abused those who are weak and without power.

And he was especially harsh toward the religious establishment that ran the temple. You know, you’ve got to understand what the significance of this temple is. People believe that the temple is where actually God resided. Like God actually resided in a temple. These religious leaders, I guess they were a little smug maybe because since God resides here and we are in charge, we’re justified to do what we need to do. And Jeremiah, he unmasked the hypocrisy and the fact that they were making life more difficult, especially for the poor and weak because they impose all these requirements that made life very difficult and they enriched themselves. And so Jeremiah, he would always warn about the coming destruction, doom and gloom. Well, do you think people like to hear this kind of thing? Do people like downers? No. All this speaking, it didn’t endear him to the ruling classes.

Jeremiah, he suffered tremendously during his lifetime. And the book of Jeremiah goes into a lot of details. I mean he was placed in stocks. Do you guys know what stocks are? It’s when both of your feet are bound in those wooden boards. So it’s like you can’t move. And so what does that mean? To see you publicly humiliated? People laugh at you and he was put on trial by priests who wanted him dead. They wanted the death sentence. How stressful is that? Right? He was at one point, banished from the temple because he kept on speaking out against them and now the temple is the center of their community to be banished means you don’t belong to this community anymore. This guy was chased down and hunted and had to go into hiding. He was arrested, beaten, and imprisoned more than once. He was placed under house arrest. And one time he was thrown into muddying cistern, like little pool at the bottom and left to die until someone out of pity rescued him. This dude had a hard life.

And throughout the book, we can see the deep anguish that he goes through in moments of great suffering. I mean, he felt at times betrayed, tricked, and duped by God. He said this at one point, your words were found and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart. He’s talking about his initial calling. There was excitement, joy, but now why is my pain unseizing, my wounds incurable, refusing to be healed? Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook like waters that fail and he goes on further to say I have become a laughing stock all day long. Everyone mocks me and at his lowest moments, he even regrets being born into the world. Cursed would be the day on which I was born the day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed. Why did I come forth from the womb to see toil and sorrow and spend my days in shame? Those are strong poetic words, aren’t they? He struggles and suffers. He loads his own existence and he is ready to give up like why do all of this? But just when he’s at this point, there’s something in him that stirs and he says this. If I say I will not mention him (he’s talking about God) or speak any more in his name. Then within me, there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary with holding it in and I cannot and so he doesn’t hold it in. He carries on. He speaks. Jeremiah, he lived through the greatest crisis since his people had settled into the land of Israel. You know after they left Egypt with Moses and all that, they settled in cause at this point now this is after the time of King David and Solomon and their glorious peak, but now this new empire from the east mighty empire, Babylon, they came in and they crushed the Judah, right? The land that Jeremiah was living in, they destroyed the three things that gave the people their sense of identity and security. We talked about this at the college, right guys. Their monarchy, their temple and their land. God had promised King David that his line would endure forever and this would be a sign of God’s power and protection. The temple, I’ve already mentioned. This is where God himself resided and the Land God had made this promise to their forebear, their ancestor Abraham, that I will give you this land. But now they’re all gone. In fact, Babylon took the ruling classes, the leaders of society, and deported them to Babylon to live as exiles. Where was God? God had seemed to abandon them.

But into this void, Jeremiah spoke, he was transformed from a prophet of doom and destruction to a prophet of comfort and hope. You know during the hard years of exile in Babylon, people were trying to make sense and meaning of this like experience they’re going through. And at that time, the words of Jeremiah gave them hope and a new vision for their path ahead as a people. So when I began this sermon, I identified the two types of life, right? That illustrated this passage, the cursed life and the blessed life. And my main question was, what is the blessed life?

In the context of Jeremiah’s life, I mean, I realize that you know, a life of blessing. It’s not one in which our circumstances are always good and you know that we’re experiencing abundance even though you know, we have an abundance here, but that’s not necessarily always a life of blessing because we can see that in the ups and downs of Jeremiah’s life. And so what I realized is this, a life of blessing is a life of calling. Jeremiah lived a life of calling. I mean it was so difficult at times, but in the end, he could say that he lived a blessed life because he lived a life of calling. What does it mean for us to live a life of calling? Is it a job? Is it what I do? You know, in my lovely ministry with Hi-C, we talk about this a lot because I know these kinds of questions are at the forefront of their minds. In human history, one of the most horrific tragedies in the history of humankind was the Holocaust during World War II. Never before or since has there been such a planned, efficient, ruthless and systematic killing of people on this scale.

And among the prisoners of the concentration camps, there was a psychiatrist named Victor Frankl and he documents what he and others went through in these concentration camps in a famous book called Man’s search for meaning and life in these prisons. I highly recommend this. It was one of the most dehumanizing ordeals one could face. They were stripped of everything. I mean literally, but also especially their human dignity. And he saw how people can become like primitive animals in this kind of context. But he concluded that all of this did not take away his belief that ultimately there is meaning in life and that this meaning can enable one to endure any situation that is thrown at the person. 

So this is what he said. We had to learn ourselves and furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We need to stop thinking about the meaning of life and instead to think of ourselves as those who are being questioned by life, daily and hourly. What matters is not what we expect from life, but what life expects from us. What does life expect from you? This I believe is what a calling is. It’s our response to the question of what life expects from us. What life expects from us is different for each person. And it also differs from moment to moment. So it is specific and unique to that moment for that person. For Jeremiah, there are moments when life expected him, so generally, his calling was to speak, but there are moments in life that expected him to speak harshly to people in power. There are moments when he to speak tenderly, to give hope, and yes, there were times when life expected him to suffer and Victor Frankel lived through tremendous suffering and he said this. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task, his single and unique task. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden. What is your calling? What does life expect from you at this moment?

Is this something that we kind of figure out with our brains and our logic? Is it a rational thing or is it just kind of an impulse that we feel at a moment and feel inspired to do? No, I believe that this is something that must come from the core of our existence. The deepest part of our being. In other words, from our heart. It’s only from our heart that we can hear the calling of life itself. But Jeremiah has great insight. He says in today’s passage, the heart is devious above all else, it is perverse who can understand it?

The heart is devious and perverse and the heart is hidden. That’s why we can’t understand it. And it’s why no one else can really understand your heart either. In my marriage and being a parent, I don’t know, to be honest, there are things that kind of trigger me in different ways. I don’t know like words will come out of my mouth, right? Or certain things will make me react a certain way. Do you guys know what I’m talking about? Like if you’re married or your parents, I’m sure you know. Like I don’t know where they come from. They come from a place in my heart, but honestly, I don’t really understand.

The heart is devious above all else. It is perverse and can you understand it? But if you can’t understand your heart, then how can you discern what life is expecting from you? It's sort of an impossible task, isn’t it? But thanks be to God that Jeremiah discovered this truth when he spoke the words of the Lord. I the Lord test the mind and search the heart. It is our God who tests our minds and searches our hearts. This is the spiritual journey to seek out the God who searches our hearts. And this is what it means to trust in God. To be like a tree planted by water. What is life calling you to and what is life expecting you from you at this moment? Maybe there’s someone you need to reconcile with. Maybe there’s an area of pain, uncertainty, or healing that you need to attend to.

Maybe life is calling you to let go of your anxiety as the choir sang and place your trust in God. In our prayers and our thoughts in each moment of our reflection, let us ask God to search our hearts, to reveal what is hidden, to disclose the deepest thoughts and desires that we have. I believe God will reveal, God will disclose what is in our hearts. And as that happens, we will begin to discern what life expects from us, our life of calling, and that a life of calling is truly a life of blessing. Let us sing together.

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Luke 5:1-11

Rev. In Kee Kim:

Thank you choir. Theme of today’s story is the fish, so I want to talk about the fish today. Peter and John and James were partners in business and they were all fishermen. Their lives were centred around the fish. If they catch a lot of fish, they feel good and they feel confident and they feel happy. Their lives depended on the fish and fish was very much connected with their identity. In their minds there was always the thought of fish and by fish their existence was almost defined. Fish was everything to them. Do you have that kind of fish in your lives? We do. It can be our jobs, our children and even ourselves. We dedicate our whole self for this, our time, our passion, our talents and everything, but also because of fish. We worry, struggle, we go through pains and we get discouraged because it is so important to us.

You don’t stay up all night for things that are not that important to us because it is so important to us, we worry and sometimes we spend all night worrying about it. We struggle and many times we get discouraged because we don’t have enough. We see Peter who was really discouraged because of fish all night he tried, but he cannot catch much. He was so discouraged that he didn’t care about anything else. Nothing mattered to him. When you look at the story, the whole crowd, the whole bunch of people gathered together just to listen to Jesus’ word, but Peter, he didn’t care. He was just was washing his net. I don’t think he even mattered to him, and Jesus saw Peter from up far and he saw Peter being quite discouraged. Jesus understood his discouragement. That’s our Lord Jesus. He knows how we feel so well.

Deep inside our worries, our fear, our anxiety, our pain, our discouragement, and our failures. He knows all of ourselves, all about ourselves, and Jesus saw Peter too and his discouragement, but he didn’t leave Peter alone. Jesus chose his boat almost intentionally. Jesus came to where Peter was. Luke five three says he got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and Jesus told Peter to put the net out into the deep water. Verse Four says, when he had finished speaking, now he’s going into real business. After he taught the crowd, he really wanted to reach out to Peter after when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch. Peter did it and indeed caught a lot of fish. There I got stuck. Yesterday, a whole day until late at night, 11 o’clock and then I went to sleep and this morning I got up at 4. Why? I asked myself, why did Jesus do that? I was wondering, I mean, clearly he was not Jesus ultimate purpose to help Peter catch many fish. That was not Jesus main ultimate purpose in the end, didn’t Peter Leave everything to follow Jesus? Why did you let him catch so many fish when ultimately in the end he will just give up, throw away everything else and follow Jesus. Why did Jesus do that? When you look at verse 11 when they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him. So this was what I struggled with.

But when I reflect on, I found one thing, I realized that there was a change in Peter after he caught so many fish. Before the fish was his life goal and his everything. He lived for fish. He was always thinking about the fish, and he confirmed himself and his identity through the fish. But after catching so many fish with Jesus’ help, the fish became something else to Peter, he saw something different in the fish. The face of the fish changed. In another way, he realized that fish was God’s blessing. There was God’s gift. He was not something that he worked so hard to get it, but he was just purely simply God’s blessing and God’s gift. He realized that was what Saint. Paul confessed, wasn’t it? Whoever did inner voice this morning.

This is what St Paul said for I am the niece of the apostles unfit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Church of God, but by the grace of God, I am what I am and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them. Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. That’s what St Paul realized and now was what Peter realized. As soon as Peter realized that the fish was God’s gift, something wonderful happened, he was able to let go of his attachment. When he thought that this is what I worked for and this is what I got, what I achieved, he can not let go. But as soon as he realized that that was just purely God’s gift, him blessing, he was able to let go, and ultimately he was able to leave everything and follow Jesus.

Then I understood why Jesus helped Peter catch so many fish. Made me realize that the fish is God’s gift and God’s Blessing. You don’t become enslaved to it does matter how much you have. Doesn’t matter how many fish you may have, you will never be enslaved to. When you realize that that is God’s gift and blessing, you can experience the true freedom. If there is a lot, you’re just thankful. If you don’t have much, that’s okay. You become totally free from that. Peter experienced the overflowing grace of God through this incident. One boat was not enough and he had to call for help from his friends and two boats filled with the fish and then almost sank. This is what Luke describes, so they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them and they came and filled both boats so that they began to sing. That’s what blessing looks like. Blessing is always overflowing, is beyond what we can imagine. He experienced the abundance of God’s grace. That is true happiness. I believe that that is true happiness, that the fish itself will not give you the happiness, but when the fish comes to us as God’s gift him blessing, then God’s abundance, then then that will give the happiness.

Peter found God’s grace in the fish. Fish was not fish, just fish anymore. In that fish, there was God’s grace. That is the secret of happiness. We all received so many things. When you look back, you are tremendous blessed. Some of our members who are doing very well working downtown, they come to me and say reverend, I don’t deserve all this. I really don’t deserve all this. I don’t know how I got all this, but I don’t deserve this. You’re right. You’re right. God, we have so many things and when we realize that’s God’s gift, your life will become abundant. He wasn’t just your effort or ability.

That was God’s gift. If you don’t realize that you become enslaved to it. Only when we realize that it is God’s wonderful gift, we become filled with gratitude. We not only enjoy them, but we become so free that we don’t become attached to them. You can share, you can let go. You can hold it so tightly just for yourself. You can let go and share the blessing with others. God wants to bless you and bless you abundantly. But if you take God’s blessings for granted or take it with your greed, you’ll become very unhappy person.

Jesus knew that Peter would find God’s grace in the fish. Ultimately, Jesus knew that. That’s why he was able to bless him so abundantly, unlimited blessing because Jesus knew that Peter will not ruin his life because of those blessings and ultimately Peter left everything and followed Jesus. Christian life is possible when we experience God’s grace. Leadership begins when we experience God’s grace, Jesus wanting to call Peter and make him disciple leader, but first thing Jesus did was to let him experience abundant grace of God. The true leadership begins when you experienced the abundant grace of God. He was able to freely follow Jesus, my friends. There’s nothing for you to worry about. God will take care of your needs. God will bless you abundantly, but know that that’s God’s blessing and gift and live freely sharing your blessings, blessed life with others, and there’s nothing for you to worry about. What you shall eat while you shall wear because God will provide all your needs. More than you need sometimes abundantly. Let us sing together.

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1 Corinthians 13:1-13

And Olivia especially appreciates that you follow the lectionary and choose the songs that are right on the lectionary. It really helps worship coherent and together. So today we’re going to reflect on love. Love is the most beautiful thing. That’s what love is. Wherever there is love, there is beauty. There’s no such thing as love being ugly love is always beautiful. Reading to this passage, we realize how clearly saint Paul articulated the beauty of life. I often quote this passage at a wedding. Wedding is not like a worship service like here. Wedding is a place where a lot of nonbelievers come. They don’t go to church. They don’t believe but they come to the wedding. But when I quote this passage, it moves them. They all see how beautiful love is. Whether you are believers or not, whether you believe or not.

That’s the power of love has, it has the power to everyone because that is the power of love. There’s the only thing that makes human being’s complete or perfect. There’s only one thing that makes you complete or perfect, and that is love. It is not your faith. It is not your degree. It is not your devotion is zeal for life. It is not your moral or religious rashness. It is love that makes us complete. And it is love that completes the work of God’s salvation that began within us. First Corinthians chapter 13 verse nine to 10 says, for we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes, in other words, when the love comes, the partial will come to an end.

When love comes everything becomes complete. And at verse 11 he says, when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. It doesn’t mean that you get older and you put an end to childish things. I see a lot of old people who are really, really childish like myself. But when love comes, you become an adult. You put away childish ways and childish thinking. That’s what love does. Makes you grow up, makes you deep and verse 12 says, for now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then we’ll see face to face. Now I know only part then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. It opens our eyes. So when there is love, your eyes open and you start seeing things before you saw only dimly, but now you see like face to face. You look around and you see, you understand life. You see life when there is love.

When you look at this passage you can see that Paul realized that the only thing that makes everything perfect was love. Love completes the partial and love comes. The partial will come to an end. Love perfects a child to become an adult. When love comes, you put away childish ways. Love makes us see perfectly. When love comes, you will see face to face. Last week we examined the problem of the church at Corinth. The problem of division. I mean this love chapter came from that context. Seeing the division in the church. Paul emphasized the importance of unity. Saint Paul said, instead of alienating the weak members and the inferior members by embracing them, he said to achieve the Union of the church the only way to achieve the unity of the church is to embrace the inferior members, the weaker bodies. Not alienating them, not cutting them off.

Then he finished chapter 12 with these words, but strive for the greater gifts and I will show you a still more excellent way. That is the last verse of Chapter 12 and he goes into chapter 13 and talks about this beautiful articulation of love. Saint Paul realized that there is only one thing that can solve human problems and he wanted to teach them and teach us. There’s only one thing that can really solve human problems and that is love. The answer to the problems of this world is hidden in love. Nothing else. I mean the choir said God’s mystery. Love is God’s mystery. This is beautiful, a mystery hidden in love.

Love will open our eyes to see clearly what we could see only dimly. Last Monday and Tuesday, we had a funeral and the family is here. My condolence and God’s comfort may be with you. A dear friend left us now. After the funeral, Monday and Tuesday and on Friday I had a Bible study and one of the members who came to the Bible study said, the president of Korean Association in Toronto as she’s only 63 or something like that, she all of a sudden passed away. And then the next day, early morning prayer and after the prayer and we had a conversation and one of them said, Reverend, the death comes like a current or a wave. So I told him death comes in three. Always when I hear one death and I hear two other death and so we talked about death the whole throughout the week I was kind of absorbed into this thinking of death.

And after that conversation early in the morning on Saturday, I came to my room and I call this family, the husband and wife, very old couple and they didn’t come to church for some time because they were sick. So I called them just to see how they were doing and the wife told me, reverend life is so hard and difficult. I have so many problems with my liver here and there. I go to emergencies all the time and she said, I just wish to die without pain. I wished to die without pain. She’s so much in pain.

After the phone call, I sat in my chair and thought about death. Is death the end of everything. There’s no more after that. Once you die, is it finished forever and ever and ever. Never again. No life. Is really the death, the end of life, the end of everything. Big Human problem, death. How do I solve this problem? And then I realized that the problem of death can be solved only by love. Only by love. Everything ends. But love is eternal. There is a key there. Verse Eight says, Love never ends, but as for prophecies, they will come to an end. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will come to an end.

Everything will end, but love will never end. Once a lawyer came to Jesus and asked him, Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus asked the lawyer, what is written in the law? What do you read there? And this is what he said. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself. He mentioned love, love God, love neighbour. That was his answer and this is what Jesus said. You have given the right answer. Do this and you’ll laugh. You go and love and you will live.

There’s no other solution. If you love, you will live. John understood the secret of love. He said we know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. We have passed from death to life. Whoever does not love abides in death. They’ll remain in death, but if you love you will live. You all heard that same Paul emphasized faith. The only way to be saved is through faith, but he only said that faith because he was explaining to them, it is not by keeping the law, you will be saved by believing in Jesus Christ. That you’ll be saved, but to him, love is higher than faith. This is what he said and now faith, hope and love abide. These three and the greatest of these is love. Greatest. This is love. Faith is included in love. Verse 70 says it bears all things love, Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. God sent Jesus Christ to this world and he died for us while we are yet sinners. All these things were God’s expression of love and to show us what love is, Jesus summarizes all the commandments with one word, love, love, nothing else. That’s what matters. Love will save you. Love will give you eternal life. When you love, you will see that you are living even though you die. I think that’s the secret.

Well, Hi-C probably you don’t think about death that much but when you come to my age once in a while you think about death, but I believe that that is a solution. When there is perfect love, there’s perfect confidence and assurance. Love is the most beautiful thing. Love is the most important thing, but love is the most difficult thing. You can see people who have lots of faith around us, we can see people who live with hope around us, but for me, I rarely see people who live with love. I’m sorry to say it, but I rarely see people who live with love, including myself, very rare, but the key to life is hidden in love. At the end of the world, the scripture says the love will disappear and I see that human beings are so self-centred and only think about themselves. There is no more love around us. We talk about faith without love. What is faith? What is faith with without love? We talk about being good, but what does being good without love?

Because love is in the center and the most important thing. Only love can save you, just because you believe that there’s a heaven somewhere. That kind of sentiment will not save you, just because you believe in Jesus Christ. You go to heaven. That formula will not save you. The formula will not save you. Only love. Through love faith becomes complete. Think about it.

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1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Our last few weeks and including next week. I think the lectionary focuses on the Corinthian church but as you know, very well there were a lot of problems at Corinthian church. Their strong division among members within the Corinthian church. Corinth is like a Toronto Metropolitan City, very affluent kind of city. So because of that, there are a lot of other problems too. And also a lot of divisions. There is the first division you can see is that the division between the rich and the poor there’s a strong division between these two people. Two groups of people. The rich people were more flexible with time. They can finish the work anytime they want, but poor people, they cannot afford to do that. The masters said you work until searched and searched for an hour.

They have no choice but to work until late. So at that time, they’re communion. The communion is not like us. We are just taking a piece of bread and a line. But at that time, communion is part of the communal meal together. So whenever they gathered together and then they did communion and also meal together, but the people who came who are rich, they could come early and they eat up all the food and then some of them even got drunk. But by the time when the poor people came, there was no more food left. So, Paul was really advising them when you want to eat a lot, do it at home instead of doing it at church. So, when we read chapter 11, when you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper for when the time comes to eat.

Each of you go ahead with your own supper and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What do you not have homes to eat and drink in or do you show content for the Church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? Why should I say to you, should I commend you in this matter? I do not. Commend you. So Paul was quite upset, seeing the kind of prejudice or the division that was happening between rich and poor that was associated with economic division, but there was also political division. Some followed Paul and others followed Apollos and others, Cephas. Peter is the greatest disciple and they followed Peter (Cephas) and still others said that we are the pure ones. We are following Christ only, Christ alone. So there is a list of four divisions within the church.

There was a political division and as I mentioned to you last week, there was a spiritual division because of gifts. Our gifts are given to serve rather than to brag about, but they were bragging about their gifts. My gift is better than your gift and I’m more spiritual than you. I’m deeper than you. And all kinds of problems occur. And that there is a kind of judgmental attitude with the gifts. And so there was a spiritual division because of the gifts of the spirit. And then in addition to all that, there were moral problems, all kinds of moral problems. In this context, Saint Paul emphasized the unity of the church. The church has to be one. He said this, for in the one spirit, we are all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free. And we are all made to drink of one spirit.

He was emphasizing on the unity of the church. You know, Saint Paul was a pharisee. Pharisee was cream of the crop of the Jewish system. They were the leaders. They were the elites politically, spiritually, and every way. They were the elites of the Jewish system. He was part of Pharisees. So Paul knew all about the Jewish system and he was immersed in the Jewish mentality. For Jewish people, the unity or the purity of a group comes from not embracing them, but by cutting them out. If there are any people who are impure, who are not, who don’t fit in the group, what they did was they cut off these people. And in that way, they maintain the unity and purity of the group. That’s why they did not allow the blind, the lame, the lepers, the sick, and the sinners to come into the temple.

They were will not able to come into the temple and worship God because they don’t fit in their definition of purity. And that’s how they maintain the unity and the purity of the group. Once Peter and John were going up to the temple and there was a beggar who was lame from birth, he asked for money and Peter said to him, I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk. As soon as he was healed, he stood and began to walk. Do you know the first place he went to? Not his own, not his friends, but the temple because he always desired to worship God in the temple, but he was always outside of the temple. Every day he was sitting there not just for begging for money, but also he was there desiring to enter into the temple. When can I be fit to go into the temple and worship God? He was sitting everyday reminded that he was not welcome. He cannot go in there. So as soon as he was healed, when he was complete, when he was like anybody else, he went into the temple and worshiped God, X three eight jumping up he stood and began to walk and he entered the temple with them walking and leaping and praising God.

When Saint Paul was very familiar with this mentality to keep the unity and purity cut out anybody who doesn’t belong to this category. So there were a lot of people who are cut off from that. But when you read Paul’s letter, you can see that Paul changed. Today, we read it. He’s a completely different person. This is what he said. On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And those members of the body that we think less honourable, we clothe with greater honour and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this, but God is so arranged the body giving the greater honour to the inferior member that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. That’s a very, very different from the Jewish mentality of keeping the unity very spiritual, very Jesus centred.

The world will not know this kind of thing. The worthiest power-oriented, the people who have power, they have the right to be in the center of it. People who don’t have the power they get excluded. But Paul’s idea here is a very different less honourable member will be treated with greater honour instead of alienating the weaker members and the inferior members by embracing them. He said to achieve the unity of the church, but God’s has so arranged the body giving the greater honour to the inferior member so that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members have the same care for one another. There was a way of Jesus’ ministry instead of alienating the people who are alienated from society, Jesus embraced them and spend time with them. Once a woman came to Jesus and she started washing Jesus’ feet and then people around her said, why does Jesus leave her alone? If he knew what kind of woman she was, he won’t let her dare touch him, but she just let it, let her touch him. Jesus said to Simon when I walked in, you didn’t even give me the water, but she washed my feet with tears. Jesus mentality was very different.

One of the themes of our church is to be in solidarity with the weak and the vulnerable. That’s our theme. That’s what we are pursuing. That’s a value we have. Jesus was very strong against those who the power and oppress the weak with their power, but Jesus was very understanding with the weak and the vulnerable. We have the temptation to side with the powerful. Power attracts so many people. We like to be popular. We like to be honoured by people. We want to be influential in the midst of it all. If you forget those who are neglected, who are voiceless and who are rejected and alienated, we lose Jesus’s perspective. Jesus said this in his parable, then he will say to those at his left hand you are cursed, depart from me into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels for hours hungry and you gave me no food.

I was thirsty and you gave nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me. Naked and you did not give me anything sick and in prison and you didn’t have to visit me. Then they also will answer, Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you? Then he’ll answer them. Truly, I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And this will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. We need to be always mindful of those who are weak and vulnerable around us. That is what makes a community a beautiful community. We have encountered sad news about Sherry tomorrow is her funeral. I still remember her.

Every time when she comes to church from the parking lot to the Bible study, it takes 10 minutes minimum. Somebody goes there to pick her up, 10 minutes, drop her off, 10 minutes. She comes here 10 minutes to come in, 10 minutes to go out. She came almost every Wednesday to the Bible study. She wasn’t able to speak at the Bible study. But these friends, At least they want her to hear the good news, hear the message, even though she cannot express herself they want her to be comforted by the message, the weaker body you guys took good care of her. And I thank you for that. That is what church is. Church is not a place where the healthy, strong, popular, only those people gather together. Church is a place. Where people who don’t fit, who are struggling, who are poor, who have lots of problems. They are welcome in the church and we should take care of them with greater honour and respect and love. That’s how church is different from any other organization in the world. That’s what church is.

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1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Thank you for the beautiful anthem. The spirit is the gift given by God. When Jesus left this world, Jesus left, sent the Holy Spirit as the gift. The disciples were very anxious when Jesus left. There were a lot of persecutions and oppositions and animosity and hatred and disciples didn’t know how to take that, so they were quite worried and anxious and Jesus said this to the disciples do not worry. I’ll send you the spirit as the gift and that spirit will be with you. That is in John Chapter 16 verse seven nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away for I do not go away if I do not go away. The advocate meaning the Holy Spirit. The advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. So Jesus promised the spirit and spirit actually came to us as the gift and the spirit is with us. The spirit guides us and the spirit shows us the way and what to do. The spirit empowers us because we have the spirit. We can live a spiritual life. This spirituality is to recognize that the spirit is within us and have fellowship with the spirit and that is what spirituality is in everything we do. We should be always aware of the presence of the spirit within us.

Whenever we talk with Spirit, sometimes we kind of have a kind of reluctance because he’s not visible. And also some people abused the word spirit in a very bad way. So it is really sometimes we have this reluctance to talk about the spirit. Spirit is not limited to those who are very, very spiritual and special and mystical and in a high level of religiosity. The spirit is not just limited to those chosen elite spiritualists. Spirit is with those who call Jesus as the Lord. When you say that Jesus is the Lord that means you have the spirit within you. Today’s passage verse three says, therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says, let Jesus be cursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit, without the Holy Spirit. You cannot say that Jesus is the Lord.

So when you say that Jesus is Lord, the spirit is with you. As a spirit resides within us. He doesn’t just reside within us, he works within us. Moses shapes us and builds us up. So we need to let ourselves be led and moulded by the spirit. You’re not on your own. You’re not alone. You don’t have to deal with all your problems, all by yourself. The spirit is within you as spirit guides you each and every step of your life. One thing at a time, one day at a time, the spirit guides you step by step and also spirit gives us gifts, gifts of the spirit. You can call these gifts as a special ability to do God’s work. It is the ability given to you to serve people and Saint Paul lists these gifts utterance of wisdom, utterance of knowledge.

He calls even faith as one of the gifts, healing the working of miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirit, various kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues. As you see the list of it, this is not the whole exhaustive list there in other letters. Saint Paul said, there is a gift of teaching and gift of hospitality, but in this list, he put a gift of tongues at the end because the gift of tongues caused so many problems at our Corinthian church. And it brought division in the church because of a Keith of tongues. So he kind of put it at the last in the list. These gifts, I know what you decide. It’s not what you decide. Okay? You see the list. I like that gift. I want to have that. You can’t do that. It’s not something that you choose. Is that something that you decide, the spirit who knows you the best, the spirit chooses that gift for you, spirit gives you that gift. You’re just a recipient of those gifts. You don’t choose actively, the spirit gifts you. That was verse 11 all these are activated by one and the same spirit who allots to each one individually. Just as the spirit chooses. Spirit certain gifts for each person. Then you have to know your gift and serve with that gift. When you serve without having that gift, sometimes you can cause problems.

God gave each person at least one gift. You need to discover your gift and serve God with the gift given to you, and this gift is not for your own benefit. This gift is given to you for other people. St Paul calls it common good verse seven, to each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. You are given gifts not to dictate other people or to boast about yourself, but to serve for the common good. The serving attitude should be based on all the gifts. Before you receive gifts, you should ask for the humility of serving attitude before you receive gifts. Otherwise, these gifts can be fairly well abused. So you have to have this serving attitude and humble attitude before you receive these gifts. And on that attitude, the gifts are given.

In that sense, gifts are like the fruit of the spirit. Fruits are different, but in the sense that they exist for other people their saying. When a tree is healthy, fruits come out. So fruits and tree are connected. So when the trees are healthy, the fruits come up, but those fruits do not exist for the tree, these fruits for other people to enjoy. In the same way, a person, when a person is spiritually healthy, the fruits come out and also gifts are manifested. But these are not for yourself. These are for others to be enriched. These are for others to be ministered.

When a person is not healthy spiritually, the fruit will not come out and the gifts can be abused. Instead of the gifts being used for the common good, they can be abused to cause division and confusion. And that was what happened at Corinthian church. That’s why Saint Paul was very cautious in talking about the gifts of the spirit. I mentioned that the leadership retreat, Corinthian Church, they had a problem with the gift of tongues. Tongues are something that’s not really a language, is tongues are just out of the spirit. You started speaking in tongues and then they started saying that I have the tongue so I’m more spiritual. I’m spirit to you. I’m more spiritual, I’m better than you. And all kinds of problems and difficulties arose and Saint Paul by principle, the order of the church and piece of the church takes priority over the gifts. So don’t speak tongues in public worship unless there are people who can interpret tongues. Don’t speak tongues. He just made a rule because gifts can be abused and it caused a lot of problems, division and confusion. Even in today’s scripture passage, when you read all these things, go home and read it again. You’ll see how much he emphasized unity. He constantly talked about the same spirit, same God. For example, verse four to six. When you look at it as an example. Now there are varieties of gifts but the same spirit and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

This year’s theme is leadership. I don’t know. Jonathan, how you got all this wisdom of leadership. You didn’t even come to the retreat next year. You don’t need to come. You already know everything. This year’s theme is leadership. To be a good leader, we need the help of the spirit. You cannot be a good leader on your own. You have to be connected with the spirit. As we reflected at the retreat, one of the most important qualities or characteristics of the leadership is discernment and discernment is not possible without spiritual transformation. When we are connected with the spirit, when we are being transformed by the spirit, then we get the discernment.

When we are connected with the spirit, the spirit will help us in every aspect of your life. Saint Paul said in his letter. Likewise, that’s Romans. Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we art, but that very spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words and God who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the scenes according to the will of God. The spirit helps us. We will discover our gifts and humbly use our gifts for the common good, but ultimately it is God who will work through us. It is ultimately God who works through you and accomplishes God’s own purpose. As verse six Saint Paul said, it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. You have gifts but it is God who activities all of them and then uses all these gifts to achieve God’s purpose. We are just humble servants. Whatever is given to me that proportion, we do our best but God will activate all of them together and he will work out his own purpose, so have confidence in God. You cannot do everything, but if you are faithful to do what you’re supposed to do, then God will activate all of these things for God’s common purpose and for our common good. May God bless you with the spirit. May God bless you with the gifts of the spirit. 

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Isaiah 43:1-7

Thank you choir, every week it is a blessing to listen to your beautiful anthem, let us thank them again. Life can be very hard. Is there anybody who can say life is really easy for you? When I said that to Korea in KSM and we are service, good for you and they laughed a lot, I mean that’s a joke. Life is easy. That is a joke. Life can be very hard. Most people experience hardships of life. That doesn’t mean that we are unhappy. Just because life is hard. That doesn’t mean that we are unhappy. Just hard. Everyone deals with some kind of problems and challenges. Sometimes, these challenges are too much for us to deal with. Overwhelming and these problems often don’t come to us one by one. When we are ready for the next one, they don’t warn us. They just come like waves one after another without having breathing space. They just come to us. Jesus’ life was hard too.

Jesus was not an ordinary man you know people who are ordinary, they can get along with everyone. You know, they can live kind of comfortably. But people who are really extraordinary or some very special, they have a really hard time because they are unique. And Jesus was a very, very unique person. And Jesus’ message was very different from other scribes. The scripture said. And also people said, your message is very different from other scribes. So people who were in power, who possessed the power at that time, who wanted to control their system, they really did not like Jesus.

You know, people can be quite cruel if you don’t like each other. You don’t just leave. You don’t like them. You just, you do something. I think, either. I mean, they try to trap Jesus and plotted conspiracy against Jesus and they even tried to kill Jesus because Jesus’ idea was different and different from what they wanted. You know, when you read John, when Jesus raised dead Lazarus, in that same chapter, last verse says, they started plotting against Jesus and they planned to kill him. When Jesus raised Lazarus, they planned to kill him. Wouldn’t Jesus sense from people’s eyes? When people hate you, when people tried to kill you, you sense that violence in their eyes, from their face. Jesus sense that all the time, not just one person from a lot of people, even if one person hates you, it’s hard to bear.

You know, whenever you see them is hard to bear. But when so many people had that kind of eyes, that kind of face to Jesus, Jesus had a difficult time. So I cannot say that Jesus had an easy life. Jesus’ life was hard. St. Paul was the same too. He was a Jew. But after meeting Christ, he changed many people. Many Jewish people thought that Paul was trying to destroy the national and religious identity of Jewish people like a circumcision. You don’t have to do it. So people really hated Paul’s message and they try to kill Paul too. Like as they try to kill Jesus. How difficult it must have been for Paul to go through life’s challenges. And then once in a while, you encounter Paul’s struggle and difficulties. So when you read his letters, one of them is from Romans. He said I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish.

Unceasing anguish that like come like waves. Every morning he wakes up with his anguish, his anxiety, anguish in my heart for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people. My kindred according to the flesh, like what he’s saying is I don’t hate my people. I love my people, but they misunderstood Paul tremendously. That’s why Paul is saying this. Moses also lived a very, very difficult life having to deal with people’s complaints and dissatisfaction. He gave so much. We’re going to talk about this a little more at the leaders retreat, he gave so much and yet people just complained and they’ll still be dissatisfied with him. All the great people went through life’s hardships. So when your life is hard, please don’t get discouraged. You are not alone in this. I visited a person at an Etobicoke general last week.

I tried to talk to her and she spoke something, but I couldn’t understand a word that she was saying. She was weak and she couldn’t really articulate. So I tried many times, but I couldn’t really figure out what she was saying. So I kind of, as much as possible, I try to listen to her. And in the end, I prayed for, she has a very difficult time walking. For us, going to the washroom, it’s just a matter of choice. I just go wash up before her just to go to the washroom. That itself is an ordeal. Every day she goes through that.

She said, reverend, why is life so hard? Why is life so hard? Yes, life can be very hard. And last week I met a person and their counselling was going through a divorce and finalizing their last moment. And he told me too, reverend is life gonna be like this continuously? What I’m feeling right now, is it going to be over? Is it going to be over after some time or is it going to continue? Life’s hard. And I met some KSM members last week and they told me about the relational problems within the church and how much hurt they give to each other and all kinds of problems. You know, just last week, whoever I met, all these problems there they were struggling with and then when I listened to all of them, what could I do? There is nothing for me to do. And that really made me helpless and their problems weighed down on me and it really kind of oppressed me in some ways. Yes, life is hard.

But because life is hard, we cannot run away from our problems. I’m temporary, we should do that. We can do that and we should do that. We should take off our eyes from our problems. Sometimes we need rest. We need to forget about all our problems. We don’t need to talk about problems all the time. So yes, sometimes we need to stay away from problems even though the problems just come to you, even if you don’t invite them. But sometimes we need to rest from problems. So that we can have the strength to deal with.

But we can never run away from our problems. You have to deal with them. Isaiah said today when you pass through the waters when you walk through the fire, he emphasized this worth through. Yes, we have to pass through life’s hardships. We have no choice. There is no way around. There’s no return. You had to walk through it, pass through it. We have to confront our problems. No choice. We wish that the problems may just disappear, but that is just always wished. They won’t just disappear. You have to pass through the waters. You have to walk through fire. That is courage. We need the courage to walk through it, but Isaiah also said, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. That’s a promise. That’s what Isaiah said. Yes, you have to walk through it, but when you walk through it, I’ll be with you and the fire will not consume you. That is something that we need to hold on to, the promise. God will be with you when you pass through the waters. You shall not be burned when you walk through fire.

You need faith to walk through your problems and that faith will make you stronger. You will come out of the fire stronger. You can handle bigger challenges in life, not only you become strong. Also, you’ll get this wisdom to be able to see the treasure of life. There are many lessons that we need to learn from life, but after many lessons are hidden and these lessons, you can only learn through the hardships, so free. So not only you become strong, but you have this wisdom to be able to see the treasure of life. Don’t run away when the waves come at you. Go edit. You’ll be able to swim through the waves. You’ll be able to even enjoy the waves. God is with you. There is nothing for you to worry about. You are in God’s hands and you are precious in God’s sight. God said you are mine. You’ll never be deserted. Deserted you are mine. No one can touch you. Nothing can harm you.

You don’t need to numb yourself with painkillers to deal with your suffering. That’s what people do, numb their nerves. You don’t need to numb yourself to deal with your pain and suffering. Real spirituality is not to numb your pain and suffering. When Jesus was on the cross, they tried to give this vinegar to numb his pain. Jesus refused it.

Real spirituality does not numb your nerves and numb your pain. The real spirituality makes everything come alive and even the suffering comes alive, but when suffering comes alive at the same time, the grace comes alive too, and you experienced the powerful presence of God’s grace. Suffering will only strengthen you. When you believe that God is with you, you’ll be more loving. You’ll be more joyful. You’ll be more hopeful and you will be resilient. If I perish, I perish. Ester said, if I perish, I perish. That is courage. That is the confidence and that kind of confidence and courage only come from faith. May God be with you all the leaders. You need this courage and strength and that’s what leadership is all about. 

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