St Timothy Presbyterian Church in Toronto: Sermons

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

John 1:12-16

{Transcript}

Let us hear the word. Second Corinthian chapter 12, verses 1 to 10. It is necessary to boast. Nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a person in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven whether in the body or out of the body I did not know. God knows, and I know that such a person, whether in the body or out of the body, I did not know God knows, was caught up into paradise and heard things that are not to be told that no mortal is permitted to repeat. Actually, he’s talking about himself, on behalf of such a one hour boast.

But on my own behalf I will not boast except of my weaknesses, but if I wished to boast, I will not be a fool for I will be speaking the truth, but I refrained from it so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me. Even considering the exceptional character of the revelations, they offer to keep me from being too elated. A thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this three times, doesn’t mean actually counting three times probably it meant he was praying as much as possible. Three is perfect number, so three times I appeal to the Lord about this that you leave me, but he said to me, “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness, so I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Therefore, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for the sake of Christ, for whenever I’m weak, then I’m strong.” And there’s another passage taken from John Chapter one. This is John’s testimony. It’s not what Jesus says is what John Says in the gospel of John, “but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God who were born not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as a father, son, only son, full of grace and truth. John testified to him and cried out. “This was he, of whom I said he who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me from his fullness. We have all received grace upon grace.” That’s important: “from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.” This is the word of the Lord.

Today I would like to talk about what it means to live a life that is full, abundance life. I do believe that a life has got to be abundant. I mean Jesus Christ came to give us abundant lives. Our life should be full of joy, full of laughter, full of life and full of everything. The life it’s got to be abundant. Life has got to be full, and that was his purpose. Today, John said, “from Jesus’ fullness the grace upon grace came to us Jesus’ fullness” and in John Chapter 10 he said, “I came so that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Jesus came to give us the abundant life, but I don’t think abundant life is just about having a lot. That’s what I thought before. If you have a lot, then you’re abundant I thought. If you have a lot of degrees, if you have a lot of money, if you have a lot of everything, then your life is abundant and I realized how wrong that is. I don’t think an abundant life comes from having a lot. I think we should be awake from that illusion. Look at our lives. We have so much in the modern world, probably in history we never had this much. We have so much. We have abundance, and yet when I look around, can we say that people really appreciate their abundance? Do they really think that they are living an abundant life? Do people say that, “hey, I have enough. I’m content. I have enough.” How many people really say that? Still, people say I don’t have enough. I’m not enough. I mean we have abundance and yet we don’t experience the abundance. It is a very strange phenomenon. You have a lot, and yet you don’t feel abundant at all. We always live with the sense that we don’t have enough.

Some people say that is because of commercials, that we watch everyday. They always tell you that unless you have this thing, your life is not full, your life is not good enough. You have to have this. So even a commercial on the gum, if you buy this gum and chew it, a lot of women will come to you, you know, abundance, whatever. They continuously say that you don’t have enough, you are not enough until you have this thing. They create false cravings.

Whatever the cause may be, I see that many people live with this dissatisfaction much more than ever before. People are not simply satisfied, it’s like having a huge hole within you, deep, dark, huge empty hole, and you feel that that deep dark space and you can never fill it. That hole sucks up all the energy within you and you feel that it sucks the life out of you and it stares at you, but you don’t know what to do with this deep dark space. What John said was very different from this modern life, from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. When you hear the expression grace upon grace, what image comes to your mind? To me, grace upon grace is an image of flowing, overflowing.

It is not the dark empty space that can never be filled up, but the life of abundance, life of overflowing, the image of grace upon grace is not the image of squeezing, life out of you. It is image of life overflowing from you. So abundance life is not possible by having more. It is not about having more. The more you have, the more thirsty you become. Did you realize that? The more you have, the more thirsty you become. That’s what human beings are like.

So there is a flaw in materialism. Materialism tells you, tells you that if you have this, then you will be full, satisfied. That’s not true. That’s a lie. If you have this, your life will be full? No, that’s what materialism says so there’s a flaw in the materialism, so don’t be fooled by the materialism in that way. If you have this, you want to have more, a bigger, better all the time. If you have the best phone right now, you have next year you are waiting for iPhone 7 or 8, 9 or 10, and as soon as 8 comes iPhone 7 doesn’t look that great. You got to have an 8 or 9 or 10.

The abundant life is a sense that you have more than enough. If you have that sense, your life is abundant. If you ever sense that, “what I have is more than enough.” Think about the attitude of people who say that what I have is more than enough and also about the attitude of people who always say “never enough”, who’s more abundant? I believe that the former, the person who has the sense that I have more than enough. When you have that sense, then your life is abundant, but the sense that you have more than enough can never come by having more, then what do we do? Are we stuck? We cannot live abundant life? Because by having more you can never fill it. You can never have that sense. I do believe that is a work of the overflowing grace.

Only when grace comes into you and touches you, when grace overflows within you, then you have this new sense that what I have is more than enough. Grace always overflows. Grace always makes your life full, it gives you the sense that your life is more than enough. The only way that you can fill up that empty dark hole space is with grace of God. In exactly the same condition, when grace touches you, you realize that it’s all right. My life is more than enough. What I have is more than enough. I am more than enough.

St. Paul in today’s scripture that we read, he had a thorn in his flesh and he felt he felt that he’d be better off without this thorn, so he prayed three times as much as he could, but god didn’t think so God did not grant him what he wanted, but instead God gave this. “My grace is sufficient for you.” In other words, it’s enough. My grace is enough. He was exactly in the same position, St. Paul, externally, he still had a thorn in his flesh. Before he received that message or after he received the message, he was exactly the same. He had a thorn in his flesh, but this time he could say, “hmm, it’s all right. I have more than enough and I am more than enough.” He discovered the secret of the life of grace, so my friends. One more thing about grace, abundance and blessings. I said overflowing. It always overflows to other people. That is the nature of grace.

Abundant people always make other people abundant. You become abundant, not by having more. You become abundant by making other people abundant, instead of taking away the spotlight to yourself by giving away the spotlight to other people you become abundant. By just enjoying what you have by sharing, not by having it, but by sharing it with others your life becomes abundant. And blessing, when God called Abraham, this is what he said. When God called Abraham God said to him, “I’ll bless you so that you’ll be a blessing to other people.” That’s what blessing is. That’s what abundance is. That’s what  grace is.

True blessings don’t stay where you are. They always overflow to others. Abundance in life is not in what you have. Only when you share what you have, you experience the abundance of life.

Some people went to women’s gathering and some of you came to me and told me, my goodness, I live in a small well, I didn’t know the world. There are so many noble holy people who are really working to live their lives for other people. They just give everything. They just give their whole life for other people and some people who took pictures and all that. They were blessed and they donated a $2000, $3,000 for the woman’s gathering because they saw how God is working.

Abundance is in sharing. There’s a church on Spadina and Harbord I told you. That Church owns the land. One generous person gave a donation and from the rent that church received millions of dollars and they do mission with that money. Generosity begets generosity.

The other day I got a call from one of my ESM members and he told me: “Moxanim I’m applying to Moxies and then he asked me if I could be his reference. So I said: sure, yeah, I’ll be your reference” And then a few days later a manager from Moxies called me and he asked me about this guy and I said, he’s a really, really nice guy. He serves our church, is a good member of our church and he goes to Evangel Hall and the manager asked, what is the Evangel Hall? “So, uh, that is, uh, every month we give hot food to the people in the street and and then he goes to Teasdale, what is Teasdale? Teasdale is a food bank. We hand out food and, and we started talking. He said, every year I take my children and during Christmas time I make sandwiches and go out and give out a of food to them. And he and I were talking about, yeah, that’s what life is supposed to be. That’s what human beings should live like. And we’re still talking about that but we didn’t talk about this guy at all. We were just talking about what life should be and how we should live and all that. So I called her and said, did you get a job? Yeah, I got the job. Generosity begets generosity. Abundance does not come from having it, but from sharing it, serving is living. When you serve, you will live.

When you are selfish, you will die. Serving is living, every small cup of water that you gave to a stranger, God knows God knows, let us live a life of abundance.

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John 2:1-11

Throughout our life, we will encounter numerous problems and challenges. Whether they are small or big, we will encounter them. Throughout our life, whether we like it or not, we will experience hardship from those problems and challenges. There is no one who does not have a problem. That is the reality of our life. When I visited members house and listened to their stories, it seems to me that almost every household has its own problems and issues and prayer topics. Health issues, or financial issues, problems in the relationship with their in-laws or children, and so on.

When my kids were little, we used to have smaller problems. I know so many times we went to Sick Kids emergency room because their health was not that strong yet. You know, a little cold became pneumonia and then asthmatic symptoms and all that. But now that my kids are big, we have different kinds of problems to deal with. I shouldn’t share with you at this moment, but different kinds of problems. And the people in the Bible, they have the same issues. I love the Bible because of that. Bible does not pretend. Bible includes the stories of human, the people, as truly human as possible.

Jacob from Genesis talked about his life before the Pharaoh of Egypt in this way. And Jacob said to Pharaoh, the years of my pilgrimage are 130. My years have been few and difficult and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers. We can see Jacob. Jacob saw his life as a journey. A pilgrimage. And that pilgrimage, journey was difficult, not an easy one. As some of you may know, many members of KSM, KSM means Korean speaking congregation ministry, came from North Korea, the North side of the Korean peninsula. Especially during the Korean war in 1950s, I know there are a few from our church who were actually on the last boat that left the harbour of Hungnam, North Korea. The boat carried about 14,000 civilians who left the harbour on Christmas Eve, 1950.

You know that people made a movie about the lives of those evacuees. The movie is called ‘Ode to My Father’ or ‘International Market’ ( ). As they took their lives as sojourners, some of them even came to Canada and settled in. As some of you may know directly who that person is, it will not be an exaggeration that life is full of problems and challenges. But what makes the real difference in life is not in the size of the problems, whether it is big or small, but how we would handle that problem. The quality of our life will depend on how we will deal with the problems in life. People respond to the problems differently. Why not, eh? Some would fall into fear when even a tiny problem occurs to them, they become paralyzed, totally understandable. And some will fall into a temptation of blaming others, as if they are not responsible for the problems. Since Lily’s not here, Lily always blamed me. “That’s your problem.” Oops, it’s been recording… Too late, busy justifying themselves. These attitudes and responses will not help the situation, but worsen the problems.

A psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp once said this, “You cannot control what happens to you, but you can always control how you respond to what happens to you.” I love this saying. It was his earnest prayer for survival. When so many of his friends, Jews, we’re literally slaughtered every day, every moment, it was his cry out to God that he must live. He must continue to live. Even in such a devastating situation. We will encounter numerous problems in life, but there are times when there seems to be no solutions for the problems. Just like the life condition in that concentration camp. There seems to be no hope.

The problem in today’s story may not be so serious, but it could have been so devastating because it would damage the honour of the family who hosted the wedding party. In the context of honour and shame in society, not having enough wine could have been worse than the matter of life and death. Yes, the wine ran out during the wedding party. It is something unthinkable happening to you. By the way, we have eight weddings taking place this year alone, and three are done and five more to go. Do not drink and drive, friends, seriously Uber or carpool, or I think I will drive. But back in Jesus’ time, there were not many other amusements or social events available for the people, especially for those who are farmers or peasants. A wedding was the only venue that they could come, relax and enjoy and drink after long hours of field work.

And the problem was that at such an important time, the wine ran out too early, and it means no fun at all. Sometimes we can solve the problems if we just calm our hearts, take a deep breath and think through it. Sometimes not often. There’s a Korean proverb saying, ‘even though you have been caught by a tiger, you can survive if you are fully alert.’ But we all know very well through our experiences that there are times even we think hard, think through it, we cannot solve the problems. So we become helpless. The problem in today’s text is that kind, something we cannot solve ourselves. The most joyous event in life lacks the wine and it is beyond their abilities and our ability. We can’t just run to a nearby LCBO and grab more wine, they cannot. But my friends, such a helpless human condition is indeed the factor that releases God’s compassion.

Very strange how our God works, such a helpless situation. That is the factor that releases God’s compassion. Thank goodness, and thank God that Jesus was in the wedding party that day. Jesus knew the situation and he turned the water into wine and solve the problem that could have been devastating to many. The author of today’s text concludes the story in this way. The last verse, “Jesus did this. The first of his signs in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.” Today’s story is about the first sign Jesus performed. Being the first sign, it has a significant meaning to it. In the gospel of John, Jesus’ miracles are not described as miracles, but as signs. And sign means it’s symbolizing something else. It points to a truer revelation about Jesus. We are not supposed to see the miracle itself, but see what the miracle tries to reveal to us.

Throughout the gospel of John, John tries to reveal who Jesus was. Unlike the other gospels, Jesus’ disciples, they didn’t get it until the end. But here in chapter two, already, Jesus’ disciples saw it, tasted it experienced it, and all of those things brought them into faith and they believed Jesus. From chapter one, John describes Jesus in this way, “And the word became flesh and lived among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of a father’s only son full of grace and truth.” The word became flesh and the rest of the gospel shows us how the grace and how the presence of Jesus tastes like, looks like, smells like, sounds like, and feels like. And in today’s text, as Jesus turned the water to wine, it shows us that Jesus knows our needs, and he is willing to fill our needs. At the end of John 20, which is considered as the real last chapter of the gospel, John concludes his gospel in this way, “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Red colour life in his name. Jesus, the word became flesh came to the world, came to us to give us life. The fact that he turned the water to wine is to give us life abundantly. It is called the first sign.

The word can mean first, but it has another meaning like primary or foundationally first. Jesus wants us to be filled with life more than anything else in the world. That’s what it means, the first sign. Jesus did not summon us to have a prayer meeting as his first sign. Jesus did not declare fasting as his first sign. But Jesus wants us to be filled with joy and to celebrate life with one another. John says something similar in John 10:10, “I came that they may [you may] have life and have it abundantly.” And when life is overflowing from us, isn’t that joy? Life full forces overflowing from us. Isn’t that joy? Isn’t that love? Isn’t that forgiveness? Isn’t that serving and caring?

When we have this abundant life, we will not lose joy even in a difficult situation. How profound and how abundant the life of Jesus is. I was able to imagine that by calculating how much wine Jesus made, by turning the water into wine. The text says there were six stone water jars, right? I did some calculations. One jar can hold 20 or 30 gallons. So let’s put it as 30 gallons. Okay. And one gallon is 3.785 litres. And what is the size of the regular wine bottle? 750mL. Yes, correct Edward. So with one gallon, we will have about five bottles of wine. And this means six times five. Six times 30 times five times, 900 bottles of wine. God is not stingy. God is not like us. Overflowing! Enjoy it! Have life! Overcome difficulties with that joy. That’s the life I want you to live. 900 bottles, 200 guests. How many bottles?

Abundant grace of Jesus is beyond our imagination. It is crazy. He’s crazy. Extravagant. And his wine was the best wine. This is our Jesus whose wine will never run dry in our life. I was able to have a chance to talk to Rev. Jane Yoon when she was visiting us and as I explained to her what had happened in the past 10 months since she left our church, while I was talking to her, I was able to realize that with God’s grace, I was, the church, was able to come this far. I have encountered unthinkable and unimaginable challenges in and out of this church. But in retrospect, God provided me his grace, the sufficient grace, that I was able to go through the challenges. How much I pray to God for help. How often I bring my fear to the feet of Jesus. “I cannot do this God, I cannot do this.”

Jesus always fills my heart with his life force – the power of resurrection. Whenever I die to my fear, whenever I die to my wrongful desire, I was able to taste his grace, smell his grace, feel his presence here and there. In the past few months through that journey, my faith has grown and has become stronger than before. Sometimes I did not even have the strength to pray to God, but God turned the water to wine, providing sufficient grace to me. I do not deserve such abundant grace. My friends, I do not know what kind of life challenges, problems you’re facing today, but have faith in Jesus who will turn the water to wine. With his abundant grace, he will turn our sorrow to joy, weakness to strength, even death to life.

Look for Jesus in your life. How he will turn the water to wine. The more we taste the grace, the stronger our faith will become. The more we are filled with grace, we will have stronger faith. And because of this gradual maturation or fermentation per se, I don’t know the chemical reaction; we will be able to face life’s challenges with a different attitude. We will know that we will not be able to deal with the problems alone, but we will also know that there is God who is bigger than this universe, and who has compassion for us. He will strengthen us with his life force. Jesus is full of mercy and compassion. Because of his compassion, even though it wasn’t his time, it wasn’t his time at all, but he turned the water into wine. Because of his compassion, he will fill our needs and fill our hearts with joy and abundant life.

Eventually, Jesus died on the cross, pouring out his blood, all his blood, to give us eternal life. Please, have faith in Jesus and go through the challenges of life with this life force he has given us. When abundant life is overflowing, joy will be overflowing and it will enable us to embrace sorrows and suffering that are from the life challenges. Try not to get rid of sorrows or suffering, but with greater joy, embrace the sorrow and suffering and walk right through them. Whenever you encounter problems, please pray like this, “Oh God, run through your wine in my life, so that joy can embrace sorrow and continue to live this life abundantly.” May God turn your sorrow to joy as he will fill your needs with his abundant grace. Amen.

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Jeremiah 33:1-13

Here we have the prophet, Jeremiah, locked up in the court of the guard that was in the palace of King Zedekiah. Now King Zedekiah was the King of Judah, meaning Jeremiah wasn’t taken as a hostage. He’s not in an enemy’s courtyard. He is taken hostage and imprisoned by his own people by his own King. So what was his crime? He was charged with treason and insurrection because he’s been delivering difficult harsh messages to the King and the people. He spoke of the words of God’s judgment, condemnation regarding social injustice and adultery to the people. He forcefully, he desperately pleaded for them to repent, turn on their evil ways and return to God because they had forgotten who they are. They have forgotten who God is and that they had forgotten that their responsibility is God’s covenant people and his message of repentance changed the message of doom that Judah will fall and will be besieged and will be taken into exile by the Babylonians and people despised it.

As a result, he was shunned. He was beaten and he was rejected, but he continued to proclaim. He continue to deliver God’s difficult message. Can you believe it? Not just once, but for 40 years, he had to deliver this message to the people, and he didn’t stop until he was confined in jail – and even then he’s still proclaiming. And now everything that he had proclaimed was happening in Jerusalem. Babylonians were a few miles outside of Jerusalem and the city’s about to be besieged within days, they will be taken as captives into exile, they will be separated from their family, everything they had; all their possessions would be taken away. Their future had become uncertain and unknown. And they thought all along that they had it right: we have the right religion, we have the temple. There’s no way that Jerusalem will fall, they thought, but now the whole nation is about to fall before their eyes. And their hearts are starting to melt. They’re turning to panic and they are being paralyzed by fear.

And at such time as this God’s message came to Jeremiah, and right away he makes a note of people’s wickedness that resulted in sin. Sin runs its course and it will have consequence because God’s anger before sin is real. But mentioning sin related to suffering however, I think it’s important to note that not all suffering is result of personal sin. We try to explain suffering in a very simplistic way, sometimes we lay the burdens on ourselves and we especially try to do that to other people. And instead of leading them towards God, we make them turn away from God with that extra layer of guilt.

God alleviates our shame and guilt 

Going back to today’s text, in this particular case, through Jeremiah, God had warned them and now they’re facing their inescapable fall. But when we look at the text, it says in this particular dark and chaotic time, God speaks the message of healing. From Jeremiah chapter 30 – 33 is flooded, if you really look carefully, with message and image of healing and restoration. God says I’m going to bring it to recovery and healing. I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security. I will restore, I will rebuild, I will cleanse, I will forgive and there will once again be joy. There’ll be praise, there’ll be glory before all the nations of the earth who shall here the good that I did to them. At this climatic moment of national crisis and despair, why is God speaking the message of hope?

God is light in the darkness 

So knowing that, yes, it’s very difficult right now, and it’s scary. But because I see that light, because I think tomorrow will be better than today, I will continue, I will persist, I will come out of this tunnel. That’s what hope does to you. And that’s what the hope that God breeds into our being. It is when, not in our head, but at the ontological level, at this core of your being of where you form who you are; your values, that’s hope rises. And when hope rises, your thoughts change completely. It was dark. It was black, but you start to see, you start to think differently. You start to see new possibility that you’ve never saw before. That’s what hope does, and your feelings change. You can do this and without even knowing it, you’re moving into action. There’s courage. There’s willingness to walk out of the tunnel because you know that tomorrow, the future, is better than today.

This past year, while I was studying counseling down in the States, I was introduced to vast number of difficult and different psychopathologies. I was fascinated and many times appalled at how much people are suffering in this world, in ways that I never knew existed or thought was possible. And in all my counseling classes, over and over again, the professors/pastors would tell me: before you learn any technique, before you try to apply any methods, there are some things that you have to do. Number one is: first, you gotta have compassion. You gotta have compassion, unconditional positive regard, and absolutely no judgment. There cannot even be a tint of judgment in you that they experience. And most importantly, as a counselor, even if they can’t see it, you have to believe that they can change. You have to believe that no matter what condition they have, what kind of situation they are in, that they can change. And that is when your compassion and your belief that there is a new possibility in this person gets transferred. The change starts to happen because for many people, amazingly, that first encounter may be the first time they ever been validated. They heard their voice. They felt the warmth.

God is hope

That one person who does need to strive, doesn’t need to put an effort in to see your strength, your beauty. They just naturally see it. They recognize this: your strength and beauty that sometimes you yourself don’t even see. Whose voice during your midterms or your finals says “it’s okay, you’ll do fine. You can do this.”, And that voice just calms the panic and storm rising inside of you. It is the voice and the presence of our mother, our grandmother, who believes in you. Who always sees a new possibility in you. They remind us of our God again, who never seizes to see the new possibility in us and in our life.

Hope brings change 

May God bless us so that we may always rise with hope. May we always see new possibility in every, in every and any situation that we are in, and may God bless us with faith to see and to believe so that we can live out God’s radical hope, and we can see the great and hidden things he hasn’t planned for us.

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John 9:1-39

What does it mean to live a good life?  I mean, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, we don't just want to exist, but we want to be able to look back and say, yes, I lived a good life.

So what does it mean to live a good life?

Is it about creating circumstances that society and the people around us consider as good? Or is a good life something beyond and apart from our circumstances?

And who decides what a good life is and who gets to experience it?

When we read today's story, the actual healing of the blind man takes up only a small part of it. The bulk of the story is about the man's conflict with his neighbours and authorities. As I read it over and over, I began to see that what lay at the heart of these conflicts is a power struggle about who could define what it meant to live a good life.

In Jesus' time, living a good life as a Jewish person meant to live in a right relationship with God as part of God's people. Being in a right relationship with God meant making sure sin was removed from one's life.

Blindness. One was born blind because of sin. There was no cure for blindness. It was a permanent fact. Therefore, being blind meant that sin was a permanent part of who you were. This meant that you could never be a part of God's people and had to be separated from God's community. This is why the blind man had to sit and beg, on the periphery and margins of the community.

So according to the prevailing beliefs of his community, he could never live a good life.

But then Jesus comes and turns the prevailing view of blindness on its head:

Neither this man nor his parents sinned; (rather) he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. (John 9:3)

Jesus provides a radical new interpretation of the man's circumstance! He is not blind because of sin. Which means that he could live a good life after all. Which also means that he no longer needs to be separated from his people. Sin is no longer a permanent part of who he is.

But those around him could not accept this new interpretation. They couldn't get out of their old mindset. To his neighbours, this man was a sinner – that was the only they had ever seen him and knew him.

And so they bring him to the authorities who define and interpret what a good life is. The Pharisees define for the community what it means to live a good life and who can live it. They say that being born blind means that you were born with sin. But this man poses a threat to that belief. His mere presence threatens their very credibility and legitimacy. If the Pharisees are wrong about this belief, then how can they be right about other definitions of a good life?

And so they question this man and try to get him to change his story. When he refuses to do so, their true views come out, and they exercise their power to get rid of this threat:

They answered him, You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us? And they drove him out. (John 9:34)

As I reflected on what it means to live a good life, I started to realize just how much our definition of a good life is defined by others and attached to how accepted we are by others.

To survive in our society these days, we need to be acceptable to the people and organizations that are going to pay for our bills. Being accepted by these people and organizations requires various things: some require good grades, others require good experience, others require ability to work well with others.

We live in a fiercely competitive world and society. I can see this at play intensely among our young people. In our Hi-C, I see so much pressure to take the right courses, get high grades, win awards and make good impressions. This pressure continues on into university. I know for our College Group folks – welcome back! Especially for those who finished first year, I know that it was like nothing you experienced before – the amount of work, the level of competitiveness, all the smart people who have congregated. Welcome to the rest of your life! Cause after that, young adults try to establish a career. Once you have children, the worries shift to them, to ensure that they too can survive and thrive in this competitive society.

Without realizing it, we have come to define a good life as our ability to survive and thrive in our economic system. And don't get me wrong – we need to survive and function in this world. We can't be naive about that.

But I ask myself: is surviving and thriving in our economic system what defines us as human beings? Are we simply cogs in this great machine that can spit us out at any time? Is the meaning of our existence simply to exist and survive?

And then we have the expectations of those around us. Our families and our cultures define what it means to be a good son, a good daughter, a good father and a good mother. To meet these definitions is what it means to live a good life.

Many of us saw our parents struggle to establish a foothold here in Canada. We saw their struggles, their lack of esteem in this society and their sacrifices. The expectations placed on us and that we placed on ourselves was to validate these sacrifices. The way to do that was to thrive in our economic and social system. So we made these things the purpose and drive of our existence.

But what happens to us when our lives revolve around survival and meeting the expectations of others?

First, our sense of well-being becomes very dependent on our circumstances. We work so hard to create circumstances that are considered to be part of a good life. If we don’t achieve those circumstances, then we either work harder, or become resigned to living a life that is not as good as it should be.

If we have achieved circumstances considered as good, we work hard just to maintain them.

The underlying emotion behind all of our thoughts, choices and actions is fear. Insecurity. We fear not living the good life that others have defined and that we have uncritically accepted.

But here's the thing: the longer we go on living in fear – fear of not living the good life – we lose touch with ourselves and who we actually are. We become jaded and fatalistic, thinking that this is just the way life is. We become numb. We become numb because we have not defined for ourselves what a good life really means to me. And so while I am trying to live out the definition of a good life that someone else has laid out, it is not authentic to who I am. I do not have personal ownership of this good life because it's not something that I have created. But if I let go of this definition of the good life that I've adopted, then do I know what a good life really is?

For all of his life, the blind man was told that he was born in sin. He could never live the good life. He was separated from his community. He could have been resigned to his fate and even been very angry and resentful.

But then he heard the voice of Jesus offering a new possibility and a new way of looking at his circumstances. And here, against all odds, he began to believe in the possibility of a new reality. He began to think to himself: Maybe I am more than one just born in sin! Maybe there is hope for a good life! Maybe I am not predestined to live out my days separated from God! Maybe, just maybe, my life has some worth after all!

This belief in new possibility began his journey.

Here's the thing, though: he had no idea at first who Jesus was. He did not have some big religious experience that cured his blindness. When his neighbours first asked him how he received his sight, he simply said this man Jesus . When they asked him where he was, he did not know. But as the man becomes more confident in a new definition of a good life, his knowledge of Jesus grows. When the Pharisees first asked him who he thought Jesus was, he said he is a prophet . When he is interrogated by them a second time, he declares that Jesus is from God .

This new reality was not necessarily a happy ending for him. In the end, he is driven out of his community.

But it is here, alone and rejected, where Jesus finally appears again. He seeks him out, finds him and reveals his true identity to the man. At this point, when the man has come to grips with who he is, he sees Jesus face to face, confesses his belief in him and worships him as his Lord. The man has lost everything else but found real life in Jesus.

In church, we often think that we need to have this great relationship with God or have this great religious experience to begin a faith journey.

But today's story teaches us that the faith journey really begins with a belief in new possibility.  

Martin Luther King Jr helped lead a movement that transformed America and inspired much of the world. At the beginning of this movement, however, things looked bleak. Although they were 100 years removed from slavery, their conditions were still oppressive and grim and the whole system was stacked against them. But there was a deep yearning for a new possibility.

In his very first speech as a leader, he articulated the sentiments of black Americans:

And you know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time. We are here, we are here this evening because we’re tired now.  

And thus began one of the greatest movements the world has seen.

To really begin our faith journey, we need to come to grips with ourselves and say that we're tired. I'm tired of being defined by my circumstances! I'm tired of letting others define who I am! I'm tired of allowing others to define for me what a good life is! I am more than my circumstances! I have the power to define what a good life is, and I have the authority to live that good life!

Our faith journey begins with a protest against the beliefs that limit and numb us. It begins with the belief in a new possibility. In the beginning, just like the blind man, we don't see God clearly or know much about God. But somehow we hear a voice leading us to question the things that have defined us. This is the gentle voice of God. When we heed this voice, God gives us the courage to define for ourselves what a good life is.

Jesus explained the ultimate purpose of this story in the next chapter:

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

Having life starts with seeing ourselves as who we really are. Think about it: we are all so unique and different. We have all had our own life experiences and things that have shaped us. How beautiful is that? We are not machines built on an assembly line, but individuals with thoughts, imaginations, hopes and dreams.

Somewhere on the way, we have forgotten that. Loving ourselves is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in this world, because we are never measuring up to the standards others lay out. But when we begin with the belief in a new possibility, then God opens our eyes and brings us closer to who we are and face to face with God.

My friends, God desires us to live life abundantly. This abundance is not material or circumstantial abundance. It is an inner abundance that springs forth from our awareness of this new possibility and new reality.  

With this abundance, we start to see that we are not limited by our circumstances nor by what others define as the good life. Our abundance comes from the awareness that I am uniquely and beautifully created by God, who knows me intimately and loves me so dearly. It comes from the new awareness that I am precious, special and have have enormous value in the eyes of God, no matter what my circumstances or how well I meet the expectations of others.  

This, my friends, is what life is meant to be. What an abundant life that is!

May God bless you today, and may our God open your eyes to a new possibility and new reality of life and abundance.

Let us have a time of reflection.

Let us come before God, and reflect on our hearts. Have I been living this abundant life? Or have I been letting others define what a good life is for you? How has this affected me? Has it made me numb and devoid of joy?

My friends, God calls us to reconnect with who we really are: unique, individual, beautiful children of God that God has fashioned with love and care. He is calling each of us into a life rich with abundance.

Let us pray that God opens our eyes to a new possibility of life and a new reality.

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John 15:1-11

{Transcript}

This scripture is taken from John Fifteen one to eleven. I am the true vine and my father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it more bear, more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I’ve spoken to you, abide in me as I abide in you, just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you, unless you abide in me, I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit because apart from me you can do nothing.  Whoever does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. Such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples as the father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to use so that my joy may be new and that your joy may be complete. This is the word of the Lord.

Good life is a fruitful life, that’s what I believe that’s what successful life is all about. A successful life is not  how much you have accumulated, or how many achievements that you have made, that’s not what success of life is. The success of life is whether you are beneficial to other people or not. Whether you are fruitful to other people. A fruit is not something that you can see on the outside. It is not quantifiable. A fruit is inequality is something within you. It’s not necessarily what you do, it is more to do with you, what is inside of you, that’s why Saint Paul said about fruit in this way. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

So the fruit as I showed all these, it is inner quality. You cannot see it on the outside. It’s not quantifiable. Generosity, kindness, love, joy, all these things are inner quality. Of course, these inner qualities manifest themselves hourly, because what’s inside, cannot stay inside. What’s inside, always comes out. If you have some problem inside, then it always comes out. If you’re unhappy, you look unhappy, if you’re not healthy inside, then you look unhealthy. So whatever is inside always comes out, uh, on the outside. So when the inner qualities come outside and manifest themselves on the outside, that’s when these qualities benefit other people. It a uplifts other people, it gives them hope, I believe that being able to do that, that’s meaningful life when you’re able to uplift or encouraged people around you, I think your life is worth living.

You’re not just living for yourself, you’re doing all these things for other people. And that’s very important for a human being to live like that. Jesus also said, “you are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. You’re the light of the world, let your light shine before others.” Jesus said, “you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” That means you got to be fruitful. You have to be helpful to other people. That’s what salt and light do, it enlightens other people. But one thing I realized, my friends, you cannot bear fruit by trying to bear fruit. Of course we have to try but, I realized that you cannot bear fruit by just trying to bear fruit.

I realized that it’s not something that you can do by trying. It’s like being humble. You cannot try to be humble, either you’re humble or not. You cannot try to be humble. You look modest and all that, but that’s not really a humility. You cannot try to be humble. Either you’re humble or not. In the same way, you cannot just bear fruit because you want to bear fruit, You try to bear fruit. Being who you are and the fruit you bear cannot be separated. Fruit is a natural result of who you are. That’s what I realized. For the tree to bear his fruit, the truth, the tree has to be faithful to his own existence. The tree does not have to try anything. It just be faithful to his own existence and then it bears fruit. When you’re faithful to your own unique existence, the fruit will come as a result of it. When the right time comes, fruit is not something that you can force to produce. Fruit is a natural result of who you are. You may not be even aware of what you’re doing. You simply did what you naturally do, but you don’t even think about it much, but other people get tremendous encouragement and hope through what you did. That’s what fruit is like. You just lived your life and yet you’ve benefited so many people around you.

You know, there is a condition that determines a good wine and not so good wine. And this condition is called terroir. In French it mean simply means: The land, but in wine, it is the condition or set of all the environmental factors, quality of the soil, the wind, the climate, the  kind of effort the farmer puts in. That’s why they always put the year on the bottle, because on that year, what kind of weather, how much sunlight was there, what kind of wind, was there. Depending on, that year, even though you’re just all same Pinot Noir, depending on the one year, that is it. It can be very, very expensive. Why? It can be very cheap wine. That terrible, terrible terroir, really determines the quality of the wine. What I’m saying is you are the terrior that produces certain fruit.

If I’m not happy, the fruit that we bear may not be very good. You may do a lot of things on the surface, but the work itself is not the fruit. Two years ago, a German wings airplane crashed into a mountain. and all 150 people were killed in the airplane. You know what happened? It was not technical problem. It was not terrorist. This co pilot, he was very, very unhappy and he tried to commit suicide several times, and then while the main captain went out for washroom, he locked the door and he put the altitude to the lowest and he just waited until the plane crashed into the mountain. Just one person’s unhappiness made so many people, not just 150 people who died, but their families, it’s a lifetime impact on their lives, but if we are happy, humble, warm, loving, and confident, then the fruit we bear, will uplift other people in a powerful way. So instead of trying to focus on bearing the fruit, we should build, good, terrior within us. Once we establish a good terroir, than the beautiful fruits will come naturally.

That’s why Jesus said this. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again, does a bad tree bear good fruit. Your existence and fruit are inseparable. They are so deeply connected for each tree is known by its own fruit, fix or not gathered from thorn, nor our grapes picked from a bramble Bush who you are and what fruit you bear cannot be separated so that terroir the producers good wine, that terroir in your life that produces beautiful fruit in your life, question is how do we cultivate? How do we build that terroir in your life? That’s why Jesus said, you have to abide in me. If you don’t abide in Jesus, you cannot build good terroir. You cannot build good terroir by yourself. Only in Jesus will be shaped in the most beautiful way. I do believe that as you abide in Jesus, you’ll be shaped mysteriously. Even the song that we say, he will lift him, lift me up to more than I can be. He can raise me up to more than I can be.

You can be more than you can ever imagine as you abide in Jesus and that we didn’t. Jesus, you have no choice but to change because Jesus is a changing agent, so as you abide in Jesus, and Jesus will change you, God will change you in the way that you can never expect about yourself, so when Jesus could, terroir is established so it is exciting to shape by Christ. I don’t know what I will be like in 10 years. It’s not set how God will use me, how God will shape me, change me, it’s a mystery, but I know that as I abide in Christ, he will shame me beautifully. Same thing as all of you. As you abide in Christ, Christ will shape you little by little. That’s why Jesus said abide, me, as I abide in you, just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. If you don’t abide in Jesus,

you’ll be as much as you try to be, but as you abide in Christ, you will be shaped in the way you can never imagine. Working hard, living hard, and devoting yourself. They’re all good but not good enough. The first thing first, the first thing is to abide in Jesus and his word. Even before Jesus, all the ancestors of faith, they knew about the secret, about this wisdom. Some writer said right in the first chapter, he said, “Happy are those, their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield they are fruit in his season and their lives to now with her in order they do. They prosper in Christ and in his word we become formed.” You can never force yourself to abide in Christ. Abiding in Christ means to enjoy being in Christ.

I enjoy being in Christ every moment. I enjoy abiding in Christ. Just sitting there and abiding in Christ gives us such joy, excitement, quiet time, meditation, be always mindful of Christ, studying the word. We are trying to build a reading program for our church, so weekly we’re going to give you scripture and then a little bit of meditation. You can read it every day already. There’s a bible study group formed, about 10, 12 people gathered together. They read Jeremiah and send emails, their reflection. In reading chapter one, what comes to your mind? What passage strikes you? They write down and they write their own reflection and send it.

You know the lords words you don’t manufacturer. Inspiration, you don’t manufacturer. If it comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t come. That is okay. Important thing is that you abide in Christ, important things, you abide in God’s word as we abide in Christ, we realize that you’re not alone. You are not on an island. You experience that connectedness as you abide in Christ you experienced that connectedness. Once we feel that connectedness, we can do all things, and Jesus said, “if you have a abide in me, my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. He didn’t ask. He didn’t say, ask whatever, he asks, ask whatever you wish as you abide in Christ, what you wish changes.” It’s not money, fame, material, whatever. Those things are not important. As you abide in Christ, what you wish changes. I just want to be with you. That’s how you change as your body Christ. I just want to be with you and that will be granted. What’s your wish is simply to be shaped beautifully by Christ. You wish for a good terroir. He knew that not only you can enjoy your life, but you can make other people enjoy their lives. Is that worth living? You being the kind of person that makes other people enjoy their lives.

I think that’s beautiful. Dream. Whatever you do, you make people enjoy their lives and that is possible. Only terroir within news changed and then fruit will come naturally. You don’t even have to try. Your presence becomes a blessed presence. I hope that all of you live abiding in Christ and then wait to see how God, how Christ will change you. Let us see.

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Genesis 32:22-32

{Transcription}

Genesis 32:22-32

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, Let me go, for the day is breaking. But Jacob said, I will not let you go, unless you bless me. So he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. Then the man said, You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him, Please tell me your name. But he said, Why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved. The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

As I said, sometimes in life, my best is not good enough. What do we do when my best is not good enough? There is nothing more than I can do to deal with my problems and my life. What can I do? If we can deal with our problems, then it’s not a problem anymore. It’s not a problem if we have a solution. So the problem is when you cannot deal with it. There’s no solution, there is nothing that you can do to solve it. So when that happens, what do we do? We feel helpless when the task is beyond our capacity and the problem is too big for us to be able to handle on our own.

We often, we feel this helplessness in our life. Maybe not often in our modern life. We can arrange our life in such a way that we don’t need to go into a helpless situation. We make sure that we can do everything so we don’t fall into a helpless situation. For example, Israelites they’re in the wilderness, they didn’t have food, they didn’t have water and all these things. We don’t experience that. We have everything provided for us. I don’t know whether it’s a blessing or even curse. When we have everything provided for us, maybe there’s something that we will never learn in life, will never discover, but once in a while in your life, you experience this helplessness. You cannot do anything about it. You have no strength, no power, no capacity, no matter what you don’t see any solution to it. What do we do?

I think Jacob felt the same way. His biggest problem, as you know, was his twin brother, Esau. He was an older one, so in a long time ago, the older one was supposed to take the blessing from father, but Jacob deceived his father, Isaac. So he took away the blessing that rightly belongs to his older brother, Esau. And Esau was so angry with Jacob. When your brother takes away what belongs to you, sometimes you can get quite angry. He was so angry that Jacob and his mother feared that Esau might even kill him. So, when he was young, Jacob ran away from home and he had to live with his uncle Laban and there he got married and then he made some money.

He became wealthy, but he didn’t get along with his uncle, Laban, either. So he had to come back home. See on the way home, the first thing that he was thinking about was Esau, in other words, Esau, all his life, he was thinking about Esau. That was his biggest problem Esau was his biggest problem. So when he had to come back, he had to face his biggest problem, his biggest fear in life. And that’s why as soon as he was near, he sent messengers to Esau to see how Esau was doing, whether he was still angry. He wanted to find out. And Genesis writer recorded the incident. In this way, “The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed”

He is coming with 400 men and not by himself. Why does he take 400 men with him? He is going destroy me. If he decided to destroy me, I’ll be in big trouble. Jacob thought. So Jacob, he’s a smart guy. He was always smart guy, very capable person. He could almost anything. So, he divided the people into two groups. Why? So if Esau attacks the first group at least, the second group might be able to run away. That was first thing that he did. And the second thing he did was he prepared a really abundant present for Esau. He prepared 200 female goats and 20 goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milch camels and their colts, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys. He brought all these animals as a present to Esau. And after all that he prayed to God, “Lord, deliver me from the hands of my brother Esau. Please save me.” In other words, Jacob did everything he could possibly do. He did his best. Jacob was that kind of person. He was not lazy. He did not have a defeatist mentality thinking, “what’s the point of doing all of this? I’ll be in trouble. I won’t do anything.” He didn’t have that kind of defeatist mentality. He thoroughly prepared to meet Esau. He prepared for the worst. He did everything. He was comfortable. He prepared all of these things, but he wasn’t quite sure yet how Esau would react. He felt that his best was not good enough.

I did everything, but still, it’s all up to him Esau. There was nothing left that he could do, but there was one more thing that he could do. There was nothing more he could do but there was one more thing he could do. You know what that was? He wrestled. The wrestling was one more thing left for him to do. This wrestling was soul-searching. It is almost like a dark night of the soul. It was a struggle, an inner struggle. It is fighting. It is wrestling. He struggled all through the night. He didn’t sleep at all. This struggle showed the inner reality of Jacob. It was not something that he could prepare on the outside. It was something that he had to deal with internally. He had to truly deal with who he was. He prepared everything, but he had to deal with who he was. This struggle was different from nice religious prayer that he did. It was wrestling, real struggle, his hipbone pulled out of its socket. He didn’t even know it was God that he was wrestling with. And he realized to truly find out who you are there’s no other way but to wrestle with God.

To truly find out who I am, I have to wrestle with God. Because we have hidden ourselves so deeply it won’t come out easily. We don’t even know what’s in there. I realized how little I know about myself. Deep within me, I have hidden myself, that I don’t even know what it is. Until we truly struggle with God we cannot know. Through that wrestling, true Jacob came out, the fighter, the one who always had to win, no matter what. The trickster who, who deceives anyone for his advantage to get what he wanted. He had to face his own demons. He had to face his own real self, regardless of how it was presented, and wrestle with it during the night. Jacob’s ugly, dark reality of his own person had to be faced on that night, wrestling with this unknown figure, who turned out to be God. The message of today, stories like this, you prepared everything, but you cannot beat Esau with your old tricks. That was the message. You divided people into two groups. You give extravagant gifts and presents and you prayed, but with your old self, that trickster character, you cannot meet Esau.

You have to change. This is what I learned. When you face a helpless situation that’s when you need to change. Don’t try to change the circumstances. That’s when you need to change. Whenever you face helpless situations, you need to change and to change there’s no easy way but to wrestle with God. You have to go through that wrestling and struggle. Even though he came out of the wrestling, limping because of his hip he changed. And after he changed he was ready to face his biggest fear. Esau was not just a person, he was the personification of Jacob’s greatest fear in his life. When he changed, he was able to face his greatest fear. What is your greatest fear? What is your biggest fear? If you don’t deal with it, it will continuously paralyze you. You face it only when you change. As you change, somehow your biggest fear does not scare you anymore. As you change your biggest fear loses the power to intimidate you. That’s what I learned. When I change what you once feared does not scare you anymore.

I share this story with a Bible study this morning and it’s about Job. Job was blessed. He has so many children. He has wealth, good health and everything. So whenever the children had a party, he prayed, he gave sacrifice so that if they committed sins, they could be forgiven. He was so religious and everything, but somehow disaster struck him. All his children died. He lost all his possessions his health declined. And his wife told him, “why don’t you curse God and die” and she left. So he was all alone. When he was all alone. You know what the first thing that Job said? What I fear the most became reality. What I fear the most happened to me. What does that mean? All his life he lived with fear, even when he has so many blessings, he lived with fear. Later Job experienced another blessing from God, but he had to go through that night of struggle, conversation, wrestling with God. Job is all about this wrestling. He truly wrestled with God and in the end, he was blessed.

You know what the true blessing was? Freedom. He didn’t fear that anymore. There was no fear of losing anything. He was completely comfortable with himself. That’s a result of wrestling with God. When we change the fear is not fear anymore. Today is the first Sunday after Easter. We celebrate the life, the resurrection. Is death the biggest fear? When we change, even death cannot scare us anymore. We can say, where is your victory Oh, death? So when you feel helpless in your life, realize that’s when you need to change and to change you need to wrestle with God. And know that wrestling will give you the confidence, a power which is unshakable, and will give you strength so that you can face any situation in your life. Be Strong, don’t be wimpy, be strong. If I die, I’ll die. That kind of attitude. If I perish, I perish. With that courage and confidence and power, you can do anything. Sometimes these superficial blessings can weaken you. Make you weak. If I lose this, what if God takes that away? After Job went through all the suffering. He said, “it is God who gave. It is God who takes away. If he takes away. Okay.” That confidence. Don’t turn your blessing into a curse.

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1 Corinthians 15:50-58

{Transcript}

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Today, on this day, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We also celebrate our own resurrection. We do believe that death is not the end of our life journey. We believe that there is resurrection after death. The resurrection is not in the realm of knowledge. The resurrection is in the realm of faith, so I don’t reject everything that I don’t understand. There are a lot of things that I don’t understand in life, but I don’t reject everything that I don’t understand. I believe that there is such a thing as mystery.Mystery is a reality beyond your understanding. It is a reality beyond what you can comprehend with your limited knowledge. I do believe that there is such a thing as mystery and the resurrection is in the realm of mystery, so it is not in the realm of knowledge, it is in the realm of faith.

St Paul also said that the resurrection was a mystery. He said this: “I’ll tell you a mystery. We will not all die, but we will all be changed”. It was a mystery to Paul. He could not explain how resurrection happens. There’s no explanation of how, but that is what he realized. It is in mystery, but he firmly believed that that death was not the final destination. The people who did not like Jesus killed him thinking that death will end everything. The best weapon they had was death, so they believed that if they brought death to Jesus, then everything will be over– end of it. But Jesus’s death was only the beginning of the whole movement. It was not the end of it. The whole movement of Jesus actually began from the moment Jesus died. So Jesus’ death was only the beginning, not the end. Yes, Jesus helplessly died. At least that was what people thought. On the surface, he just died helplessly. But if you only see that picture, you only see half truth. On the surface, on the outside, he died helplessly, but deep inside of Jesus, there was a powerful thing going on. There was conviction within Jesus’ heart and Jesus’ mind. On the surface he looked like a helpless victim, but deep inside there was tremendous conviction within Jesus. That’s the key.

Jesus died totally entrusting himself in God’s hands. He didn’t just die, He died believing that God will ultimately bring victory. That was Jesus’ faith: God will ultimately bring victory. He knew that he himself was helpless, but God was not helpless. Through His helpless death, as He believed, God’s power was released. God’s power, true power was released when Jesus died, the kind of death that Jesus had, that death released God’s power.

So Jesus’ death released the life of God. Jesus died with faith in the power of God’s life. He did not just die, but his death was with conviction. The conviction that the life God had brought to this world will never be destroyed. Life is more powerful than the power of death. And Paul saw that in Jesus’ death, he said, death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, Oh, death is your victory? Where Oh, death is your sting, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus’ ministry was very unique. His ministry was ultimately victory over death. Nothing else. His ministry was not just helping people. Jesus’ Ministry was not just building the church. Jesus’ Ministry was ultimately having victory over death. Nothing in the world can claim victory over death. In that way, Jesus’ ministry was very, very unique. That’s what he wanted to do. Claim victory over death. Even the most powerful power does not have power over death. It will kneel before death in submission. Ultimately, the most powerful power in the world cannot overcome death, but Jesus’ death released the power of life and that life was stronger than death.

That’s why He did it through the cross. There’s no other reason that He did it through the cross because there is no other way to do it without the cross. He didn’t use any power of the world. He didn’t use money. He didn’t use power. He didn’t use fame. He didn’t use popularity. He didn’t use any of that. He only used the cross. All other people expected that Jesus, maybe he will use power in the world. He could do that. He had power to do a miracle.  He did had a lot of power, but he didn’t use any of his power, he chose to cross. Why? Only power that can overcome death is the cross, not any power in the world. That’s what I believe. Life is more powerful than death. Love is more powerful than hatred. Faith is more powerful than doubt. Hope is more powerful than despair.

What is more powerful? Think about it. I do believe that life is more powerful than death. We’ll always have to believe that life is more powerful than death. Love is more powerful than doubt. Hope is more powerful than despair. Faith is more powerful than doubt. So whenever you come across the decision, hope or despair, which one are you going to choose? Love or hatred? Which one are you going to choose? Which one is more powerful? I believe that life, love, faith, hope these things are more powerful. I will always choose these things. These things look weak in the world. People don’t think that these, these are powerful. ‘Love- how come it is powerful?’ They will wonder, but I do believe that these are the ones that release life. That’s why Jesus chose these things and the cross means all of that. The cross is to die with a conviction that life is more powerful than death. St Paul said, therefore that’s the conclusion of the resurrection. “Therefore my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” What you do with love, faith and hope will not be in vain. They will bring the power of life to your life.

Power of this world is not powerful enough. Victory over death. It looks like it is powerful, but it’s not powerful enough to bring life over death. If you follow the power of this world, ultimately you end up with weak power which cannot claim victory over death, but if you take the cross, the cross will bring the true power of resurrection. I would like to quote Jesus’ word lastly. Think about this is lifestyle that Jesus taught us. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour” (John 12: 24-26). That is the cross and in that cross there is hidden the secret power of life. Happy Easter. And on this day, always think about choose life over death, choose love over hate, choose faith over doubt. Choose hope over despair; ultimately God will bring about true resurrection in your life.

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Luke 9:28-43

{Transcript}

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, This is my Son, my Chosen listen to him! When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. Jesus answered, You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here. While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

This is the word of the Lord

We live in two realities, good and bad. There are good times, but there are also bad times. There are times we feel spiritually high, optimistic and we feel like we can do everything well and everything will go all right, but there are also times when we feel spiritually so dry. Not only that, we feel devastated, hopeless and helpless. When things are good, we feel good, but when things are bad, we feel miserable. That’s life. Good times and bad times. We cannot do anything about it. We cannot demand our life to be this way or that way. We cannot just complain because life does not turn out the way we want it to turn out. Unexpected things happen and unpleasant things also happen. Sometimes we are to be blamed for things that happen in our lives, but other times they just happen regardless of us. Things just come to us without any warning. Life is a mixture of two realities; good and bad.

I think the author of Ecclesiastes knew about this very well, this duality of life, or the two realities of life. I think the author of Ecclesiastes knew it very well when he said this; “a time to be born and a time to die.” Interestingly, my son, Joshua’s birthday is the same day as the day my father passed away. One gone, the other came. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and the time to dance. A time to seek, and the time to lose.He knew very well about the dualities of life. Two realities of life. A few chapters later, he gave us this advice, when times are good, be happy, but when times are bad, consider this, God has made one as well as the other. Therefore no one can discover anything about their future. That was the advance of Ecclesiastes.

The disciples experienced this duality of life, even when they were with Jesus. So I realized even if you believe in God, even if you are with Jesus, you experience these two realities in your life. The bad times will not disappear. Good times and bad times will be there even when you’re with Jesus.

The first day they went up to the mountain and experienced something no ordinary human being had experienced. They saw Jesus being totally transformed, dazzling white. They saw the two most famous Old Testament figures, Moses and Elijah, and they heard the voice of God. We’ve all experienced these kinds of things, being spiritually high. They felt like they were in a cloud. They were actually in a cloud. They felt that they could do anything on the way down. It was so good that Peter asked Jesus, why don’t we build tents here and live here forever?

But the very next day, they encountered a very different reality. A dark reality, a harsh reality, a demonic reality. They encountered demons, the devil, darkness. They had to deal with this demonic power and in that experience, they saw that they were powerless, vulnerable, weak. They cannot do anything with their power. The boy was demon possessed. They fell for him, but they could not do anything. They felt totally defeated. The day before they felt victorious, but the day after they feel so defeated. This was what the father of the boys said, “I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they cannot do it.” They cannot do it. They experienced the duality of their reality in just two days. High and low, ups and downs, elated pride and depressing embarrassment.

Reading this and meditating and reflecting on this, I realized that two realities are not really two realities. They are just one reality called life. We cannot have one excluding the other. Good times and bad times are not two separate realities. This is simply the rhythm of life. Notes go up and down, but it is still the same song. Two realities are simply the rhythm of life and it’s one reality called life, but our attitude and our feelings are very different towards our good times and bad times. When good times come, we welcome them. We like it. When bad times come, we ask ourselves why these things happen. Why are these things with me as though that is not part of me, as though bad times should not be there.

We are too sensitive. The disciples did not become true disciples of Jesus Christ just like that. Just because they were called by Jesus, they did not become disciples of Jesus Christ. They had to go through ups and downs, victory and defeat, and through this, they were in the process of becoming disciples. They experienced failures, hopelessness, frustration, misguided expectations, false beliefs, even denial. When you read the Gospel very carefully, until they entered into Jerusalem, they all thought that Jesus Christ would conquer the Romans, so they expected that. “Let me sit on your right hand and let me sit on your hand when you have that power. When you control Jerusalem.” They had a totally misguided expectation and even Peter denied him on this palm Sunday. Until they entered into Jerusalem that’s how they were, but through all that, they became disciples. They did not have a highway of being disciples from the moment that they were called.

The Cross is our dark times. At the cross we feel abandoned. On the cross, even Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Total abandonment. At the cross, we see only darkness. When Jesus was on the cross, the whole world became dark. The whole world. And at the cross we feel spiritually so dry. Even Jesus felt that dryness on the cross, he said, I am thirsty.

So my friends, when dark times come, remember that. That is your cross to bear. Jesus said, you want to follow me? Take up your own cross and follow me. Don’t run away. Don’t turn your face away, but don’t fear either. Just simply take up your cross. The cross will ultimately bring the resurrection. The cross and resurrection are not two separate realities, but one connected reality. Bad times and good times are not two separate realities, but one connected reality.

Some of you may be going through hard times right now. Some of you may go through bad times, but bad times will not stay with you forever. When you take them as your cross, they’ll bring about resurrection. And I also realize this, good times are not the absence of bad times. You have good times, not just because there are no bad times. Good times are a result of how you deal with your bad times. They’re not absence of bad times.

Yesterday I counseled a couple who just went through life’s most difficult time. I was so impressed at how they handled their situations. I was very proud of them and I told them how proud I was. Bad times can bring worse times, but if you take your bad times with hope in God and trust in God, they will not destroy you. When the right time comes, things will be restored. Jesus Christ did not end at the cross. Jesus’ cross came to the empty tomb. That’s the message of the Gospel.

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Romans 7:15-19

{Transcript}

“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

This is Saint Paul’s confession after meeting Christ. In a way, it’s a very strange confession because for us, being good is very important for all of us. Without being good, I don’t think we can live a happy life. If people respect you and people say that you’re good and people admire you. Then you know we have a strong sense of acceptance, respect and worthiness. But if some people think that you’re not very good, morally or spiritually. That you are not a very good person, then it is really hard to live a happy life with that sense that you are not very good. When you look at your life, a lot of it is based on the assumption that you are okay. You may even think that I may not be so religious, but at least I’m okay. I may not be a saint, but at least I’m not a jerk. We have to believe that there is some goodness within us.

When we do something good for other people or for God, we feel good. Why? Because that proves that there is something good within me. So we love doing good for other people because that proves that there must be something good within me because that is important to us to have that goodness within me to continue our living. So, I realized that goodness has its function and that function is to make your life worthy, viable and livable. Our goodness, gives us confidence, worthiness and validation. When we don’t feel very good, we feel shameful, worthless and miserable. For example, when you commit sin, you feel shameful, miserable and worthless. But when we do good things, then you feel elated. It gives certain sense of power. So being good is that important. I realized that goodness has a tremendous function in our lives. Even gangsters among them, loyalty is very important. To them, loyalty is being good. So whatever society you may be in, whatever group you may be in, being good is very important. It serves function to make your life worth living.

We can see that very clearly in the parable of Jesus, about two prayers. One prayer by Pharisee and the other prayer by tax collector. Tax Collector was not very respected at that time. And let me read what Jesus said about the story. “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'”(Luke 19:9-13) You can see very clearly the Pharisee was confident and even had a sense of superiority compared with the tax collector, but the tax collector cannot even raise his head. He felt so ashamed, he felt worthless. Now you see what righteousness does to a person. The righteousness has tremendous power to validate your existence, but when you look at the beginning of the story, as I said, it is like this. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. So it’s not just the righteousness that gives you that sense of worthiness or validates your existence, but it’s your belief of righteousness. You don’t even have to be righteous, but if you somehow psych yourself up or trick yourself, believing that you’re good, believing that you’re righteous believing that you’re okay, even that will give you a sense of worthiness and that will validate your existence. So righteousness or the belief of righteousness has a very important function in your life. You’re being good to other people sometimes because it is ultimately good to you.

It proves that you are good and that sense is very important for your existence. Our parents taught us to be good so that our life may not be ruined. These fear that if we are not good, then your life will be ruined because goodness is very important for you to live your life with a sense of worthiness. If this goodness is destroyed, then your life will be also destroyed. So we make sure that we have some good. You don’t need to go to church, you don’t need to do all this stuff, but you at least need to keep that some goodness within you so that your life may be kept intact, unconsciously or consciously. We always do that so we have that goodness in our bank account. We don’t want that bank account to be bankrupt because I cannot survive without that goodness just even little bit of it.

But if you read today’s story of Paul’s confession, you will find something very, very strange, something very different from all of us. We see Paul’s goodness being completely destroyed or at least Paul’s belief of his own goodness was completely destroyed. Let’s go back to our scripture that we read today. “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:15-19) He could trick himself, but he didn’t trick himself. He saw himself nakedly as naked as possible, and that’s what he discovered. His belief about his goodness was destroyed. He cannot hold onto his own goodness anymore because he realized that there was none.

Only contradiction he sees within himself. People try to live on a list of goodness to have built, no matter how small it may be, but Paul is saying, “I have none, even the good I try to do, I cannot do it.” So some of you who may think that I’m good, think again what that means. The truth is Paul’s life was not destroyed. When his belief of his goodness was destroyed, his life was not destroyed. His sense of goodness was destroyed, but he wasn’t destroyed. This was Paul’s confession. At the end of all the things that he mentioned, this is what he said. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I think Paul found something. He found that he had no goodness within him, but also at the same time he found something else. What would be that something that he found? He found God’s goodness. He didn’t find his own good, but he found God’s goodness, working within him. Not because he was able to establish his goodness, but he saw God’s goodness working within him, and that’s why his life was not destroyed. We call that grace. Paul’s life was not established on his goodness. Paul’s life was was established on God’s goodness. That’s the core of the gospel. Where are you going to establish your life on your goodness or God’s goodness? My friends, within you, God’s goodness is powerfully working. While we are weak, while we are sinners, yet Christ died for us. That was God’s goodness. The goodness that you have built within you is not strong enough to save you or to free you. That kind of righteousness is easily turned into self righteousness and that self righteousness will blind you and make you in bondage. It only makes you feel good like the Pharisee in the story of prayer. What saves us, what frees us, is truly God’s goodness. Only through faith you will be able to see God’s goodness powerfully working within you.

Our goodness is small, and you want to build your life on it, but God’s goodness is as big as the ocean. Where are you going to plant your route in your own goodness? Or in God’s goodness? When you plan your route in your own good, you will live a feeble life. But when you plant your route in God’s goodness, you will experience the abundance of God. I hope that we all experience this grace of God working powerfully within us.

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Matthew 13:3-9

Thank you choir and also praise team. Today’s a full band, so amazing inspirational praise. Thank you. Today’s scripture is taken from Matthew 13:3-9. Hear the word of Lord. “And he told them many things in parables saying, listen, a sower went out to sow and as he sowed some seeds fell on the path and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on the rocky ground, where did not have much soil. And they sprang up quickly since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choke them. Other seeds fell on the good soil and brought forth grain. Some a hundred fold, some 60, some 30 that anyone with ears, listen.” This is the word of the Lord.

Life must have fruit, But I’m not talking about just materialistic result in life. Something that is noble and meaningful for us to pursue throughout our life. What is your purpose for your own life? Jesus says in today’s tax day, if we want to bear much fruit, we must become good soil, first. And it is my prayer for you and I, that we will become good soil and bear much fruit in life.

Well, when I look at myself and others we’ll live our lives as if we do not believe in that. Rather, we live our lives as if there’s no hope in good soil. We bypass that. I wonder what went wrong here? Is it because we concentrate on the result, the outcome, than the cause the good soil. If that’s the case, isn’t this temptation. If we are paying too much attention only to the fruit or the result, and if we are spending our energy and time on the superficial things, we are neglecting the most important aspect of life, which is spirituality. If we are trying to control or make influences only with the results, that is the way of power and materialism, not of the spirit. Becoming good soil is a spiritual matter. The whole process to become good soil and the result of such process is connected, directly connected to eternity. The spiritual world is not to be seen easily, but it bears eternal fruit and he gives true and meaningful influences in our life. Our speech and actions can be heard and seen most of our daily life, but if we spend an invest one hour or even 30 minutes a day for the things of spirituality, our life will be transformed. This is why we must have the spiritual discipline in life, even though it is hard and it takes time.

If we now want to become good soil, we need to know what good soil is all about. As a matter of fact, today’s text doesn’t give us the clear description of the good soil. However, there are a few references from which we can guess the condition of the good soil. If we can examine the different soils and their conditions from today’s text, we will be able to know the condition of the good soil. It’s like the first Psalm. The first Psalm, remember it begins with the three descriptions of those who are not blessed ones. The first psalm and the first verse goes like this, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the companion of mockers.” (Psalm 1:1) In the same way, when we look closely at the three other conditions, than the good soil, from today’s text, we will be able to know about the condition of the good soil.

The first condition is to fall on the path. Path is the road, that many have traveled and the land is hardened. That condition reflects someone who thinks he or she knows everything. That person will not welcome advice from others, let alone the word of God. Such people would always insist one’s opinion and thus be left alone. But the good soul is opposite of this hard path, soft and able to receive almost anything. It is a humble land.

The second condition is to fall on the rocky ground. It doesn’t have much soil, although it is better than the path, the hardened land, the seed won’t survive due to the lack of soil. Jesus explains the condition as follows. “This is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet such a person has no root, but endures only for awhile and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, the person immediately falls away.” (Matthew 12:20-21) Depending on the individual’s attitude of receiving the word of God, we can see varieties, how differently one can overcome the challenges in life. If the word of God stays only in our heads, or if the word of God is entertained only in our mouths, the strength to overcome life’s challenges will not be given to us. Such condition is the condition of the rocky ground. On the contrary, the good soil has much soil where the seeds can take root in it so that it can endure the challenges of life and remain firm.

And the third and the last condition is to fall among thorns. It won’t be receiving the sunlight, which is the crucial ingredient to grow. Even though the seed may spring up because of the soil, it won’t bear any fruit at all. Jesus. Again, he explains the condition as follows. “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth, choke the word and use nothing on the contrary.” (Matthew 12:22) The good soil doesn’t have any thorns in it. It’s like an open space. It will receive the aura of the earth and blessings from the sun and produce much fruit. If we truly look for the fruit in our life, we must become good soil. If we want to have abundance in life, we must become good soil. Thus while have inquired. What good soil is all about that. We must ask ourselves, how can we become good soil? When Jesus explained this parable later in the same chapter, he has shed some lights on the good soil. It goes like this, “But as for a while was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and years.” (Matthew 12:23) You can see that I highlighted it or I didn’t. Sorry. I did it with KSM. Sorry.

So, the word of God, right, has been heard by everybody as the seeds falling on path or rocky ground or among thorns or on good soil. The word of God has been heard by everybody without discrimination. By hearing the word of God, physically doesn’t guarantee the understanding of that. Those two are different things. And the understanding of God’s words will not happen to everyone automatically. This is why Jesus said at the last verse, let anyone with ears, listen. Now who can understand the word of God, not just physically hearing it, but who can understand the word of God? The one who has sincerity, reverence, respect, and love for the word of God will understand it. One’s attitude towards the word of God is like the one who discovered a hidden treasure in the field. He sold all he had and purchased that field. That much of the word of God is so precious to me. Nothing else than anything in this world. That much of sincerity and love for the word of God. The good soil is the one who will receive the seed with openness and humility and give oneself away for the seed to grow. The one who knows that it is the seed of life that will bring about the growth and fruit.

That one knows it is not up to him or her to make the seed grow. Apostle Paul already knew about this and he experienced the same spiritual principle with the Corinthian church. He said, “I planted seed Apollos, watered, but God has been making it grow.” (1 Corinthians 3:6) The good soil is the one who can trust God’s power to make it grow and thus surrender to God. Surrendering is nothing else. But when we, when our hearts become a broken heart, when our hearts become a broken heart, our hearts will become fertile soil where the seeds will grow and bear fruit.

As you all know that our church is sorting out the garbage these days, the garbage that goes into the green bin is called organic. Thank you. Who said that? Thank you so much. Oh, that means you can dump directly to the earth because it will decompose. Do you know the antonym antonym for organic? You don’t know? Oh, okay. That’s right. It’s plastic. Truly. I learned, you know, every day, something new. Plastic, the opposite of huh. And plastic is almost impossible to decompose. I searched it right internet. It takes 450 years to 1000 years to decompose. So we come to understand that this good soil is organic. The soil that dies to oneself, but live for God’s word. If I am still alive, I’m speaking metaphorically here, I will pick and choose God’s words and all that. I am above the word of God. That is the condition of plastic. The word of God is somewhere out there, but not connected with my existence. I must die, so that the seed of life, which is the word of God can grow within me. And this is the secret of becoming good soil.

My friends and this echoes the same spiritual principle. When Jesus called his disciples and set the following, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me unless I die. And unless I deny myself, God cannot be God. In any situations. My friends, I do not know what kind of condition of soil you are at this moment. I will not know by looking at the way you talk and the way you perform, but I hope that you and I will become the good soil. If we are the path or rocky ground or a thorn bush, let us have this desire to become the good soil. If our hearts are hardened, let’s cultivate our hearts with the word of God, taking away rocks and leveling the field. If there are some judgemental attitudes or prejudice, hidden in our hearts, let us remove them one by one. Let’s take a look at our, how our God works in today’s text. Look at our God, how he works. God is sowing the seeds on the path, on the rocky ground and on the thornbush.

It doesn’t matter what kind of condition the ground is. It doesn’t matter if it is efficient or productive. God keeps sowing the seeds. God keeps sowing the seeds, and that is grace to us. And that is good news to us. I want to show you a painting from a Dutch painter, Vincent van Gough. The title is “Sower with Setting Sun”. In the painting, there’s this farmer who keeps sowing, even at the sunset. He reminds me of our God who lavishly and extravagantly sows the seeds, even in the least promising places, just like you and I. Aren’t we are encountering the God whose grace is beyond our imagination and an expectation?

Therefore, my friends let us not give up becoming the good soil. Unseen spiritual discipline, but it has ultimate eternal effects in life. As our God will never give up on us. Let us not give up on ourselves. When we encounter the God who is so patient so generous, what will happen to us? We then realize that there’s nothing good about us or in us, but it is only God who is good because of this realization, we understand the heart of our God, the heart of our good God who wants us to be the good soil and have meaningful life and abundance in life. And then we will have this new desire, more desire to become the good soil, unseen spiritual discipline, but the way we must take, we will take the spiritual journey humbly to become the good soil. Because of God’s grace we will be able to experience the power of resurrection in our life, true power of God, just taking place in our lives.

Now we are in spring. It is the season sow for the plentiful harvest with God who is lavishly generous. Let us become the good soil and harvest a hundred fold or 60 or 30. When we have multiple harvests, we will know that the harvest does not belong to us. It is a gift from God. We realize that there’s no goodness in us. And that the harvest is pure gift from gracious God and such realization is the mark of the deep and mature people who have experienced the power of resurrection in their life. They cannot keep the fruit for themselves, but share with others abundantly and freely. Therefore it is so important that every one of you, every one of you should become the good soil. By God’s grace, when one person is transformed by the word of God, multitude of people will experience the abundance of God. In your daily life, whether it is your home or in your relationship or in your work because of your good soil, may you bring plentiful harvest to the people around you.

That fruit has the seed of life in it. As we receive freely, we give away freely our God who is neither slumber nor sleep will continue to sow the seeds through this church for you and I. It is my joy these days to see the fruit of God’s words present in our community. I can see some members who become so deep through the word of God and bring God’s grace to their surroundings. It is unseen, but we can sense that that upholds this community with generosity, understanding encouragement to each other, sacrificial consideration. It is not materialistic things, but spiritual things, but most powerful and meaningful. I heard that Hi-C March break retreat was a great success. And I heard from Simon and Dave, that they were so blessed by God’s grace, which worked through the students a way they could not have imagined before. We have a great community here and I believe God is still sowing the word of God through this church. So let us have this desire to become the good soil and surrender ourselves to God. So the God can live with us, make seeds, grow out of us so that we can be used for God’s glory.

Amen. Let us sing together and reflect together.