St Timothy Presbyterian Church in Toronto: Sermons

Galatians 6:7-10

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.

Today I’d like to reflect with you on certain aspects of life. St Paul said, “do not be deceived”. And last week we meditated on Paul’s life. Paul had deceived himself for all his life. He really thought that he was living a good life but you know, he was just reacting and responding to people’s kind of, a reaction to him. So he thought that, okay, this kind of life is a good life. So he lived that life and it. But spirituality is just coming to yourself coming to your naked self. That’s what spirituality is. Most people are too scared to come to ourselves because we have a lot of weaknesses and shortcomings and ugly things, so we don’t really come to ourselves. So we hide it so that people don’t see that and people react to us with attraction. So, without realizing it, we are deceiving ourselves.

Paul did that same thing in his own culture during his time, whatever people admired was different from what we admire, but he did all the things that people admired and then he thought that he was living a really good life. And then he met Christ and all of a sudden he came to himself and then realize that, hey I didn’t see myself deep within, and then I was deceiving myself, and when he discovered himself as naked itself, that was what he found. And I share with you, “I do not understand my own actions for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate”. Wow. What a revelation, I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate”, that’s kind of a conflict that we all go through.

Sometimes we don’t understand our own actions and we should not deceive ourselves as a human being. Then you’re not living your life. You’re living somebody else’s life. I wanna live my life, you know, I don’t want to live somebody else’s life. I don’t wanna live my life to please other people. That doesn’t mean that I just want to live to please myself, that’s not what I’m saying. I want to live my life, authentic life. Whatever it is, it may not be perfect, but it’s my life. I want to claim back my life, not somebody else. In the beginning, there was a difficulty I tried to live my life and then they tell me, “Oh, you’re a minister. You’re supposed to do this and that”. No, I don’t want to do that. Right? I want to live my life.

I think ministers should live the most authentic life, as a minister. So we shouldn’t deceive ourselves. Who you are, who we are, both strengths and weaknesses, our bodies are very honest. For example, when you eat irregularly and unhealthy food and don’t do any exercise, soon, your body will tell you, this is what’s going on. The body’s very honest. You cannot deceive your body and our spirit, our soul is honest too. Our soul is not really something material. The soul is beyond your physical body. What gives you meaning and joy in life. That’s what soul is. Just by having a body, you can not experience joy and meaning and. The soul is there. It’s invisible but it is there to enjoy the fulfillment of life. The soul is not that kind of thing. Soul is invisible and immaterial, but gives you the joy.

You know when God created heaven and earth creation story, actually what is really important is the last day, last day is not the day of rest, It’s not just a day of rest. Last day he created two things. One blessing, the other sanctification. In other words, he created all the material things on the last day, he sanctified all these material things that those things may come alive. Same thing, our body. Our body may be good, but when our soul is not good, our life cannot be enlivened. So if you don’t take care of your soul, then your life cannot, even if you’re healthy physically, your life cannot really enjoy the freedom, joy, and meaningfulness and abundance. You know, we know this story very well, a disciple, a disciple came to his master, the master told him and seeing him, “hey, there’s a war within you between worldly desire and your desire for God” and a disciple asked which one will win and the master said, “whatever you feed that will win, whatever you feed”. If you continuously feed worldly desire that will win. If you feed godly desire, desire for God, that will win. That’s why Saint Paul said in verse seven, “do not be deceived. God is not mocked for you reap what you sow”. whatever we constantly think about that will shape who I am. thinking is very important. Whatever you think about all the time that will shape who you are, so whatever we feed will grow and win. So in verse eight, Paul said, “if you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh, but if you sow to the spirit, you will reap eternal life from the spirit”. So if you are continuously, think about negative things, you’ll become a negative person. If you continuously think about dark things you become, your life will become dark. when you’re continuously judging other people’s weaknesses and shortcomings and all that, then you will become a judgmental person. Whatever you think will shape who you are.

We say that what you eat is what you are, but actually what you eat is not what you are. What you think is what you are. Whatever you think continuously, that makes you who you are. Paul said in another letter “finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there’s any worthy of praise, think about these things”. Think about these things. Think honourable, beautiful, godly, pure. These thing, positive things, things we think about when everything was wrong, you still think about and everything will be all right. Things will turn out all right. If you’re continuously think, you become a very positive person. I do believe that life is good and life is beautiful. If life is not good and life is not beautiful, why do you live? If life is not good, why do you live? If life is not beautiful, why do you live?

I do believe that life is good and life is beautiful and I have to continuously think about that and I think people are beautiful. All of you beautiful, even though you have shortcomings, I think you’re a beautiful. If i do not think you’re beautiful, why am I here? Right? we think about these people are beautiful, but if you start thinking that these people are all ugly, then all your relationships will go wrong. We have to continuously think about good things. hope. when you always hope for and meditate on beautiful life, your life will become beautiful, but the important thing is constantly repetition. Just because of your exercise, your body will not get better any better. Just because you had healthy food for one meal, your health will not be restored. Continue. make a habit. That’s why Bruce Lee said this, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”.

Whatever you do continuously, if it is an important thing, then make a habit. Make repetition, continuous repetition. Spiritual journey is creating these repetitions. Spiritual journey is finding good habit, and then you keep doing that. We have to make a good habit of living a spiritual life. if health is important, then make a habit of doing exercise. If a deep connection with God is important, we make a habit of doing prayer and meditation. If your understanding of the truth is important, we make a habit of the study of studying the word of God. If you keep doing that, you will learn about the truth. Even the will of God you cannot understand the will of God. understanding god’s will it will not come overnight, but when you continuously tune yourself into God’s will, Then ultimately you’ll be able to hear God’s will. you know, as much as we try to make changes, sometimes we get frustrated and disappointed because change does not happen easily and fast. That’s the nature of change. Change never happens easily. Change never happens. Fast change that happens fast, may not be real change. The nature of change is never fast and never easy. I do believe that change is always possible, but the nature of change is always slow, always difficult, always invisible. change is invisible. You don’t see change within you. Other people see the change in you.

Paul said “Whenever you sow you reap”, and if we take that negatively, we think that if you commit sin, you’ll be punished. Whatever you sow, simple things, you will reap the punishment. We look at it only negatively. We are good at doing that, but that’s not really what Paul is saying. Let us consider another letter of Paul what he said about sowing and reaping is a first Corinthian chapter 15, 42 to 44. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a physical body. It is raised a spiritual body. If there is this physical body, there is also a spiritual body”. we have a lot of contradiction within us because we are weak. We know they’re whatever we sow will reap, and yet we don’t sow beautiful things because we are weak.

It’s not because we don’t know it, but because we are weak, but we experienced God’s grace who raises the opposite of what we sow. we sow the perishable that God raised the imperishable. I do believe that that is God’s grace. You reap whatever you sow. I don’t think Paul is saying you will get a consequence of sin. Well, I think that his promise, if you sow justice, you don’t see it fulfilled right away, but ultimately you’ll see justice being done. when you sow beautiful thing in your life, it will not be wasted. ultimately you will reap the beautiful things in your life. I think that is a promise of God, so to not get discouraged, let us sow what is beautiful in your life? Ultimately, you’ll see the fruit of it. Even unbelievers, they do that kind of thing. Lead believers, we never give up. We never get disappointed. We’ll keep going, keep sowing the seed of beauty and ultimately the pod will be able to reap. I think that’s a life lesson for all of us today.

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1 Corinthians 3:18-20

Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,

He catches the wise in their craftiness,

and again,

The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,

We have researched and concluded the study of Mark last Friday and we made a conclusion of what Mark was trying to get across. And this is a little bit of application of what we discovered as a result of our study together for last six weeks. We truly explored how the author, Mark, how he saw Jesus and how he presented the Gospel. This is a real application in our lives. What we learn in Mark and how it works out in our daily living. St Paul said to not deceive yourself. I realized that we can deceive ourselves. We think we’re honest to ourselves, but without even realizing it, we can deceive ourselves. That’s why Paul warns to not deceive yourself. Similarly, Socrates also said, know yourself. He probably said that because it is difficult to know ourselves and difficult to know that I’m not deceiving myself. These philosophers and St Paul said to not deceive yourself know yourself.

I think the spiritual journey is the journey to fullness. Spiritual journey has two parts. One is to get to know God, but another part of the journey which is equally important is to get to know yourself. So spiritual journey is also to discover yourself, to find yourself. If you just emphasize one without the other. For example, if you emphasize only on God, you become fanatic. You don’t know yourself. If you emphasize only on yourself rather than God, then it becomes too devastating. When you discover yourself, it can be quite devastating. So spiritual journey is both getting to know God and also getting to getting to know yourself. That was a spiritual journey of Saint Paul. He lived his life deceiving himself. He didn’t think that he was deceiving himself. I don’t mean that he lived a double life. No, he thought he lived one kind of life, but he was actually deceiving himself. He didn’t know who he really was. He thought he did. He thought he did. How many of how many of us are like that? We think we know, but sometimes we may continuously deceive ourselves.

When he was awakened to himself, he saw what he was like before and this is what he thought he was: “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the self,” I translated flesh into self because that’s what it meant. “If anyone else has reason to be confident in myself, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews as to the law, a Pharisee as to zeal, a persecutor of the church as to righteousness under the law, blameless”. That was almost like a formula for him. See, if somebody asks him who are you, then he would have answered with this. If somebody asked you, who are you, then you may have certain things or which school you graduated from and who’s your parents are. It was the clothes he wore, but it wasn’t him. Clothes hanger cannot mistake who it is by the clothes it hangs. We wear different clothes, but they’re only shells and not our true identity. Paul lived all this life thinking that his shells were from him. In that way he deceived himself.

But one day he discovered that he was doing that. Many of us don’t even discover that many of us live our lives without really knowing who I am and then just die. But Paul discovered the truth about himself. I think that is amazing. That’s great. Then, after he discovered himself, this was what he said: “I regard them as rubbish”. They are the ones that we just read. He was a Pharisee and all these things. He regards them as rubbish, useless to define who I am. All those things are useless to truly know who I am because shells come just like you change your clothes every day. His righteousness comes and goes. He thought he was righteous, but he wasn’t righteous. He was persecuting God’s people. He thought that that was a righteous thing to do. Morality comes and goes. Everything that we have, shells come and go. He wasn’t able to go beyond the shells that he wore was able to see his inner self. Not many of us can do that, but he went on the shelves and he was looking yet himself and this was, what is it?

I do not understand my own actions for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. he saw his own contradiction. I’m a man of contradiction, not a man of integrity. I’m a man of contradiction. He discovered, so Paul’s testimony is very different from the testimonies that most of us here are used to hearing. I used to be bad. I used to smoke, I used to drink. I used to do this and that, but now after I met Christ, now I don’t know all of those things. I’m good. But Paul’s testimony was exactly opposite. I thought I was good. I thought I was living faithfully, living a righteous life, but after I met Christ, I realized that I’m a man of contradiction.

A very opposite testimony that you hear. When he was not awakened, he didn’t have any struggle, he thought he was doing very well He lived not his true self, but the self he wanted to put on. He wasn’t himself. He lived the life that he wanted to put on, but ultimately he had the courage to admit who he really was and embraced his struggle and boldly let us know his struggle and I’m thankful that Paul did. If Paul shied away from it, then we would not have known who we really are. Like Paul said, that great man, the man who founded Christianity, he boldly courageously said what he was inside. Now we have confidence.

We also struggle with our shortcomings, our weaknesses, and our own darkness. It is very hard to admit that. It’s much easier to hide them than confronting them. It is much easier to do this or that to confirm that I am okay than admitting our helpless and sometimes hopeless reality of our true self. We paint a beautiful picture of ourselves and try so hard to live that picture, to live out that picture, whatever does not fit that picture, we throw away or we hide them away and in the process of doing that, we’re not being true to ourselves, we are deceiving ourselves. We become a stranger to ourselves. Sometimes you look in the mirror and see yourself. Who are you? Who are you? We become a stranger to ourselves. When you don’t feel at home with who we are, there’s a huge gap between the image that you put on and what is going on inside.

The spiritual journey is to learn to see our inner self-accepted and embrace our honest struggle. In spirituality, we are achieving a condition where we can say it is all right not to be perfect. It is all right not to be the person my father or my mother wants me to be. It is all right to have our own brokenness. You don’t need to deceive ourselves. We think we’re smart enough to deal with our own inner contradiction, but be careful as you try to deal with your own inner contradiction, with your own wisdom as you may create a deeper contradiction in yourself. Saint Paul said, he catches the wise in their craftiness and again, the Lord. Lord knows the thoughts of the wise they are futile. When Paul discovered his own inner contradiction inside, instead of dealing with it with his own wisdom, he turned to God like a fool. He’s simply turned to God instead of using his brain to deal with his own contradiction. He just turned to God and as he turned to God, Huh? He discovers something else. Not only his inner contradiction, but something else starts appearing. You know what that is? God’s grace. God’s grace. When he saw his true self with that, he saw God’s grace. That’s why this he said this, by the grace of God, I am what I am. He found that grace to make him who he is. Not who he pretends to be that grace gave him the power and the empowerment to be who he is.

He discovered God’s grace. Not only his self-contradiction. God’s grace gave him the courage. My friends. It is really, really hard to see our darkness, our weakness, our selfishness, our pride with our bare eyes. It is really difficult to admit that and see that. That’s why even though we are weak, we pretend that we are strong. Even though we are insecure, we pretend that we are very confident. Even though we are selfish, sometimes we have to pretend to that we are generous. Even though you’re not righteous, we have to pretend that we have everything together. But with grace, we don’t need that protection. I’ll want to tell you the most important truth for you not to forget ever in your life. The most basic thing about the true wisdom is that I cannot save myself. I cannot save myself. That is the most important truth that all of you have to remember the rest of your lives. People have a hard time accepting it. Theoretically, they may agree, but they don’t truly accept this. The moment they see nakedly that they cannot see themselves, they become devastated.

The moment people realized that “I cannot see myself,” they get devastated, they’ve fallen into deep despair. Only God’s grace can lead us to the wisdom to know that we cannot save ourselves. That’s what Jesus showed on the cross, that’s what Jesus showed on the cross. People at the bottom, Jesus, why don’t you save yourself, if you’re the saviour? And Jesus simply said “I cannot save myself,” and he died on the cross and he showed to the world, we human beings cannot save ourselves and our Saviour showed that. That is a message of the cross. That’s a big difference between Superman and Jesus. That is the difference in the Gospel of Superman and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus simply died on the cross. Embracing his own vulnerability, embracing his death.

But you know what happened when Jesus did that, God’s power was revealed. When Jesus did that God’s power was manifested and that power raised him from the dead. Jesus did not save us with his own power. Jesus simply shows that we human beings can not save ourselves and he was faithful to the end and in God’s power saved all of us. He showed how important it is for us to embrace our own vulnerability. That cross that showed the ultimate vulnerability of the human being released the power of resurrection. Nothing else could release the power of resurrection. Power of the cross was not the power of Jesus, nor the power of any human being, but the power of God. And Jesus died on the cross and then Paul knowing his own spiritual journey, knowing his own contradiction, he captured what Jesus did so sharply and let us know, and this is what he said. “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-24)

Foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. He understood the power of the cross. Oh, my goodness. How did he do that? Jesus simply died on the cross but how did St. Paul come out with this theological insight? Truth, because he himself went through that journey. So, my friends, when you embrace your vulnerability, you’ll see God’s power. When you run away from your vulnerability, you’ll forever live with that vulnerability, but when you embrace your vulnerability, you’ll be able to see God’s power. You won’t be devastated when you’re in a vulnerable situation. Don’t feel too sorry for yourself. God’s power will be manifested. There’s another confession of St. Paul related to this message. Once he went up to the third heaven, I don’t know what third heaven is, and Paul himself does not really know. I don’t know what it is, but somehow he was caught up in the third heaven, almost like paradise.

So he experienced the power of the divine. Immediately after that experience of going up to the third heaven, you know what he experienced? He experienced the thorn in the flesh. And St. Paul said, Satan gave me this thorn. He prayed three times to get rid of this thorn, but God did not get rid of that thorn. And there he understood this wisdom and this was what God gave him. Let us hear what is said. “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10) Whenever you are strong, you will be weak. Whenever your week then God is strong and you will become strong. The people who pretend to be strong, they are not strong. They have a tremendous insecurity. They don’t deal with their vulnerability and insecurity. That’s why they pretend to be strong, so on the surface of you see strong people. They are not strong people rather they are weak. All the bullies, they are the weakest of all. Real power comes when we are weak. My foolishness is God’s wisdom. It is alright to be a fool. Be a fool for Christ.

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Exodus 4:10-17

1 Corinthians 15:9-10

{Transcript}

But Moses said to the Lord, O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. Then the Lord said to him, Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak. But he said, O my Lord, please send someone else. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him. Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs. (Exodus 4:10-17)

For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:9-10)

Today I was really impressed by the coffee house community hour. I saw the potential of this community, what we can do when we gather our resources together and our spirit together. I think we can do so many amazing things. So I really am thankful for the people who organized that. Also I thank you for the spirit of generosity. I sensed that yesterday, the spirit of generosity. You know, as you put some of your talents and resources together, we can build this community very well. Many people I would like to thank. Marcelo, thank you very much.

It was a generous gift of your arts. At first, you know at the fundraising, thought it wouldn't get sold very well. But his art, everything was sold and I bought one. I’m amazed at the how you do that, how you do things like that, is it in your brain? It just boggles my mind. I don’t even know how to put on that tag to put on the wall. You gotta help me. So I was quite impressed by that.

And then today, we are ordaining three elders, Chris, Michelle and Simon. You are going to define new way of looking at Jesus, looking at church. I think you will define new way’s of doing ministry, not just within the church, but outside of the church. It will bring justice, peace, and also great love of God in a very fresh, new way. I’m very, very looking forward to your leadership for the church. We have nine elders and these are the pillars who will make a difference. Not only in this church but outside for the world. So I’d like to invite all the elders, including three new elders. Stand up for a moment. Can you stand up, please?

What is missing? Oh yeah, me too. Okay. These nine people are the ones that you have elected to be your leaders. I am really thankful for their generosity and contribution to making this church a church that defines new history, church that defines new ministry, the church that defines new humanity. I hope that all of us are all together so that we can build. This is a life that God has painted. That is a kind of life that we are going to promote, not the life that world has painted. We have been blinded for so many years. So these are the people who do that. Thank you very much.

Leadership is very important. So for that sense, I'd like to share with you about leadership. I chose two people who are the people who made the difference, who define new ministry actually. They are Moses and St. Paul. These two people are not just leaders who maintain, they were not managers who just maintain what is going on, but they’re the ones who brought about new history. Moses brought about new history about Israel, taking them out of Egypt. St. Paul built a church and he was the one who started a new kind of movement. Some people say that Christianity actually began with St. Paul because Jesus never wanted to build new religion in a way. Jesus came to us to teach us about what life should be. St. Paul kind of translated Jesus’ teaching into church’s understanding, so he wrote a half of the New Testament.

So he was the one who defined a new ministry. Then also Moses, same thing. So we even think that, for Moses, the Messiah will be like Moses. So these two people I’ve chosen to think about are great leaders. Big people who have influenced, who had a profound influence on many, many people in history. Not just in the church but in history. These two people, when I look at their leadership, it is strange both of them didn’t fit. They didn’t feel that they fit for the ministry. Moses said this “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past, nor even now that you have spoken to your servant, but I’m slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Moses didn’t think that he was fit for the ministry. St. Paul said exactly the same thing, “For I am the least of the apostles unfit to be called an apostle.” These two great leaders felt that they were unfit for the ministry. Then seeing that I realized that Christian leadership is not about my ability or my confidence in my ability. That’s what I realized. Ah, Christian leadership is different. Yes, God wants to bring about changes in the world through the leaders, but not using their capability necessarily.

God uses more of their humility than capability. As Christian leaders, we don’t display our own power, strength and ability. We display God’s power, God’s strength and God’s wisdom.

We don’t have brilliant ideas or power to do what God wants to do. We often feel overwhelmed. Every day I feel overwhelmed. Every moment I feel unfit for this huge giant work that God wants to do through the church. That’s how I feel almost everyday, so we don’t have within us that capability to do that. Then how does God work to achieve what he wants to do, what he wants to achieve? This is what I realized. God works by changing the leaders themselves. That’s how God works. God works very powerfully, transforming each leader and through that transforming power, he transforms others. That’s how God works. Moses was weak, he felt unfit, he cannot speak, he was ineloquent, he felt. But God works through him with a tremendous transforming power. Same thing with St. Paul. God works through St. Paul with his transforming power. Whoever wants to be the leader has to go through this kind of change through the transforming power of God. They are the leaders.

Sometimes, some people misunderstand that our leadership, oh, you know, I work hard, but because I’m a leader now, I don’t need to change. I got to go out and then change other people. That’s not how Christian leadership works. Christian leadership, as we become leaders, we change more and more and more and through that, change occurs. So change is contagious. When I change, my family changes. When I change, my community changes. When I change, the society changes. When I change, the world changes. I may not be able to change others, but I can change. We’re not here to go out and change other people. No one can change anybody else. Only when I change, they change. If parents change, children will change. Don’t try to change your children when you don’t change. Some people say this ridiculous thing, I don’t go to church but I want you to go to church. I don’t come to church for my sake, I come to church for my children sake. It doesn’t make sense. When we change, people around me changes.

We have Alex here, remember Alex? He once came to TBS, Tuesday Bible study. We were talking about the theology and all that, and this was what he said, and we were all amused and pleasantly surprised by the wisdom of that… “Trying to change somebody, when you yourself don’t go through that change, is violence.” How true that is. He’s right here. Person that gets that wisdom. Try to change somebody when you yourself don’t change, is violence. How much of violence we commit. That’s what Pharisees did. They didn’t want to change. Then ultimately they try to change other people and ultimately killed Jesus.

There's an old gospel song which I used to sing all the time, so we’ll sing it after the sermon. It’s Me, O Lord'. The words go like this, It’s me, it’s me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my mother, not my father, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. It’s me, not anybody else in need of prayer. I think last week, you know, I speak so much these days so I don’t know where I spoke something. Probably here, I think I said that. I said, “You know, being happy is a moral responsibility.” Yeah, being happy is a moral responsibility. When I’m happy, others become happy. When I’m unhappy, we make everybody else miserable.

When I change, other people change. When you come home, when you have a bright smile, you make everybody else smile. But when you come home with all this frown, you come home and everybody, all of a sudden, it becomes so dark and depressed. So being happy is a moral responsibility. Change, whatever change happens within me brings about change in other people. Instead of trying to make changes, we let the grace of God work in me, so that same grace may work in other people.

This is what St. Paul confessed, “But by the grace of God, I am what I am and His grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them – though it was not I, but the grace of God that is within me.” Real change happens when grace of God works. Not when I work, only when grace of God works, then real change happens.

We all feel that we are not good enough. As I shared on Friday, we live in the culture of scarcity. As somebody said, the first thing we say when we wake up is “I didn’t get enough sleep” and the last thing we say as we, as we hit the pillow is “I didn’t get enough done”. As soon as you wake up, until you die, we are not enough. We live in the culture of scarcity. We are thankful because we are changing by the grace of God. We are good enough, you’re good enough, by the grace of God. Michelle, Simon, Chris, you are good enough, by the grace of God. You may feel that I’m unfit for the ministry, but you’re good enough when there is God’s grace. All of us are good enough when God’s grace works within us. That is a spiritual leadership and that kind of leadership only can bring about change deep within a person. We are not interested in institutional change. We are interested in the change of the soul of each person and I’m very thankful for the leadership in this church.

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I was thinking, what is the most important thing to remember for ourselves? What is the most important thing that we need to continuously remind ourselves with? I think the most important and also the most beautiful thing is that we are the beloved. That is an unchangeable fact we are the beloved. I think that is the most important thing for us to remember. A lot of relational problems. I realized that happens because we don’t have this understanding that I am the beloved, so whenever people criticize me and all that, it triggers that I am not beloved. That’s why we react and that’s why we get angry. That is how important it is for us to remember, accept and believe that we are beloved and then you know when I see a lot of shootings and all that. Behind it all I see they are struggling with the fact that they are not beloved. They are crying out for the attention. I mean deeply ingrained that I’m worthless. I’m not beloved, and this will be an experience in the world that we live in. It is hard to experience that I am beloved in the world that we live in. Whenever we experienced failures, we translate that into “Oh I am not beloved.” Whenever we experienced rejection again, we feel that we are not a beloved and whenever we don’t do very well, then people love me because I don’t do very well.

And that is the kind of experience that we always have every moment, every day. So it is hard to believe that I’m the beloved. Once I had a meeting and then there was a man in front of me, and then from the first moment, I saw him. His face showed me that he was very angry and all throughout the meeting I could see the man so angry and I was wondering how difficult it must be for him to always live with that anger. All, his energy will be wasted for that anger. Whenever we are reminded that we are not beloved, we get angry. We are angry with the people who remind us that we are not beloved. That’s why so many people cannot take criticism well because criticism affirms that we are not beloved, so we become sensitive to criticism. A situation where we feel unwanted and rejected some tinge of the sign that I’m not welcome, I’m rejected. I’m not wanted, then all of a sudden we overreact to the situation.

We are scared of being unwanted. We don’t have to be popular, but we don’t want to feel unwanted. That gives us a constant struggle to fit in. Not just young people, not just teenagers. Everyone. You know when I talk to older people sometimes I talk to them, I play with them. And then they tell me to thank you, but I didn’t do anything. Why did you thank me? You know you play with the old people. I mean, they feel that nobody welcomes the old people. So from young to old, they are all scared of feeling unwanted. You don’t have to be popular, but at least we want to feel wanted. But I realized that nobody in the world can validate that I am the beloved.

Nobody, no group in the world can validate that I am the beloved more often people and the groups, they validate that we are not beloved. If we expect that from people or from the group or from the world will get disappointed and will become very unhappy. The more we try, the more we become enslaved to the need for the approval and the acceptance of people. While I was writing this sermon, I was thinking about Goins (Blue Jays player) and how bad it must have felt that triggered the whole thing. I didn’t watch the game, but I read it in the news. How could he do that? I mean, I love that guy. He’s my favorite (Baseball player). The kind of comment that he made, was very humble. “It is I who made the mistake and I have caught those kinds of balls many times, but somehow that happened.” When Bautista (Blue Jays player) said: “What confusion, I don’t understand what you’re talking about”. I didn’t appreciate that. I felt for Goins (Blue Jays player) that evening, and also I felt for Elvis (Baseball player) even though because of his mistake we won the game. They must have felt so bad that evening. The more we expect love from people and from the world, the more we will be disappointed and we will be enslaved to their validation and I don’t want to be validated by them.

I realize it only from the source of love. I can validate that I am the beloved. Then what is the source of love? Today’s scripture says, this love is from God, and then John begins with this beloved. He assumed that beloved, let us love one another. He calls us beloved, and then he says later, love is from God. That is a source. God is the source. Going one step further, he says, God is love. He just defines who God is. God is love all about God is love. There’s nothing else but love. That’s what God is. That’s who God is. God is love through. Through love, God created this world and with love, God has led us and because of his love, he saved us. Every movement of God begins with love. That’s who God is. We have so many distorted images of God, but God is love.

That’s what John proclaims and that’s what I want to proclaim. God is love. Today’s scripture summarizes the work of Jesus Christ as what? As the manifestation of Gospel love. This is what he said, Gods love was revealed among us in this way. God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. The fact that Jesus Christ came to us was also the revelation of God. Nothing else but the love of God. Jesus’ life was the incarnation of Gods love. Jesus was not just word becoming flesh, but the love of God becoming flesh. And John in chapter one, he said the word became flesh, but in chapter three he said that Jesus is the incarnation of God’s love. In this way, he said this: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life”. The fact that Jesus Christ came to us was Gods love for the world. So the fact that we are the beloved cannot be discovered by other people, but only from God. As we deeply meditate on God’s love, we will discover that we are the beloved.

As a matter of fact, I believe that every conclusion of our prayer should be I’m the beloved. Every prayer when we come out and say “Oh, I’m the beloved”. Jesus Christ lived his life very, very busy. He had so many things to do every day. He was so tired at the end of the day and so exhausted. So he went up to the mountain and then in the mountain he prayed, and then what would he receive at the end? In the end, he received that. You are the beloved. When Jesus Christ first began his ministry, what was the voice that he heard? What was the only voice he heard before he began the ministry, it was hearing this voice that he went into the ministry? This is the voice that he heard and the voice came from heaven. You are my son, the beloved. That is the voice he heard. You are my son the beloved, hearing that voice he began his ministry.

The very basic thing that we have to first affirm to live our lives meaningfully is that we are the beloved, not just with our brain, not just with our heart, but in our gut. At the gut level, we have to know that we are the beloved. We have to build our lives on this unchangeable, immutable fact. The world constantly challenges us. Prove that you are the beloved. The world always tells us, prove that you are the beloved. What is that? What does that voice prove? That you are the beloved? That is the voice of temptation. As soon as Jesus heard the voice, you are the beloved. The next thing Jesus heard was from Satan in the wilderness, a temptation. And Satan said if you are the son of God. In other words, prove that you’re the son of God, the beloved. That’s the voice of Satan. That is the voice of temptation. You don’t need to prove that you are the beloved. Stop trying that. You don’t need to prove that, accept it and believe it. When you’re able to accept and believe that you are the beloved than the whole thing changes.

You know, when we understand that I am the beloved. Something amazing happens. You know what happens when I say that I am the beloved and I realized that you are the beloved too. When I deeply understand that I am the beloved. I understand that you are the beloved too. That’s what love is. recognize and realize that you are the beloved. That’s what love is. That’s what loving one another means. Loving one another is not doing something for someone, but just to recognize you are the beloved too and that recognition only comes when you really know that you are the beloved. So this is what the Scripture says, beloved, he already assumed, beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. It’s not an order, but it is a matter of fact, as we know that we are beloved, we can also know that you are the beloved too and that is to love one another. Then we realize love is flow.

Love is not just a feeling. Love is doing something, but you know, love is not just a verb. Love is not an adjective. Love is not a feeling. Love is not doing. Love is simply a flow. When you experience love and get absorbed into the love of God, that love just flows down to the neighbor and that truth who told us, Jesus Christ told us in the Old Testament, there is one verse that says, “love your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind. Love your God. That is the most important commandment,” it’s called Shima. It was the most important commandment in the old testament and so you put that word on your forehead, on your wrist, and on your doorstep. Everywhere. Love your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. Love your neighbor, You don’t even see where that is in another context. Just love your neighbor and Jesus. Put these two together and love your God and love your neighbor. That is the most important thing in your life. No rabbi taught that no rabbi did that. They were all in the Old Testament, but Jesus was the first one who put it together. Saying that you love God then it naturally flows into love with your neighbors.

I believe that knowing that you’re the beloved is a moral responsibility. Once I said in the happiness seminar or a retreat, I said, being happy is a moral responsibility because when you’re happy, only when you’re happy, you can make others happy. When you’re unhappy, it makes so many people miserable. So I think these are moral responsibilities. When you’re happy, you make other people happy. When you’re unhappy, you make other people unhappy. Whenever I see shooting they’re so unhappy and they make so many other people so unhappy. Make them miserable for the rest of their life. Not just one or two hundreds of people. Thousands of people were affected by their unhappiness, so being happy is the moral responsibility. Knowing that I’m the beloved is the moral responsibility. When other people criticize us and pinpoint our weaknesses and darkness. When we know that we are beloved, we don’t need to overreact. We don’t need to respond with such sensitivity. How people treat me. Criticism and nasty things they say about me. I don’t need to respond if I know that I am the beloved, but when I don’t know that I’m the beloved, then we’ll react to that.

That’s why when we know that I am the beloved, you can even love the enemies. That was the only secret to love your enemies because they don’t fire off that I’m not beloved. They can’t do that. I will never let enemies do that for me. I’ll never let enemies tell me that I’m the beloved, so when I know that I’m the beloved, I can even embrace the enemies. That’s the most important thing in your life. When you know that you’re beloved, you can be strong. You can overcome your failures, you can overcome your rejections, you can overcome your shortcomings because you are strong. We Christians are strong because we know that we are beloved and we are strong and we can overcome all kinds of situations even when a bad situation happens in your life. That’s when you say to yourself, I’m the beloved, not when things are okay when bad things are happening in your life, that’s when you say to yourself that I am the beloved. To be, to believe in Jesus Christ means to believe that you are beloved because for God loved you, that God sent Jesus Christ, so believing in Jesus Christ can be translated into believing that you are the beloved. Believing in Jesus Christ is not an abstract concept. Concretely if you know that, and believe that then you believe that you are the beloved. Be Strong. You’re loved by God.

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Habakkuk 3:17-19

Though the fig tree does not blossom,

To the leader: with stringed instruments.

Happy Thanksgiving. It’s a wonderful day. What beautiful autumn weather. You know I was reflecting on Thanksgiving and I realized that we don’t give thanks when things are going alright. We give thanks when things get rough and tough and life gets entangled. Strange isn’t it? But that is real Thanksgiving. Why is that so? Because Thanksgiving is not our response to our situation, but our response to God.

Today, the Prophet Habakkuk said, “though the fig tree does not blossom and no fruit is on the vines, though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no hurt in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” Was he gone mad? No, he was not mad. He knew the essence of Thanksgiving. If he thought that Thanksgiving was his response to his situation, he would not have been able to say that. How could he say that? How could he be thankful when he lost everything. When he didn’t have anything.

So we realized, I realized that Thanksgiving is our spiritual response to God, not our human response to our reality, and that is what Thanksgiving is. When you look at St. Paul, after believing in Jesus Christ, he lost everything. He lost his family. He lost his fortune. He lost his status. He lost his position. He lost everything. He became nobody. He even said that “I have become a laughing stock of the world.” He lost everything, and yet he said, “give thanks in all circumstances.” Wow, there must be a secret there, “give thanks in all circumstances.” All these disciples of Jesus Christ, after meeting Christ, they lost everything and yet their hearts were filled with Thanksgiving. Henry Nowan, who is a Catholic priest who used to teach at Harvard University, said when he was at Harvard, he was filled with complaints about his life. But when he came to Toronto, in the northern Richmond Hill, a debrief community, he lived with people who had mental and physical challenges and then he said he was filled with Thanksgiving. He learned what it meant to give thanks. When he was at Harvard, he couldn’t do that, but when he was in that situation, he was able to do that.

I used to go to New York quite often for speaking engagements and then at one retreat I heard a story about this youth pastor. This youth pastor didn’t have much money and then a congregation member gave him the car she used to use, but it was an old car so it broke down quite often. One winter it broke down, so he went out and tried to fix it. During that time you could fix it, now its more difficult, but you used to do that. So he ran out to fix the car, but there was another car, a woman driving, and then she skidded. It was in the winter and it hit him. So he was in between the two cars, against his car and her car. But she was so scared and shocked, so she pulled out but skidded again.

But unconsciously she did that about three or four times and his leg was not just broken but shattered. So they all felt bad and on the day of his surgery, they had to cut off his leg. On the day of his surgery all the congregation members came out and with tears and all that and while he was going in his hospital bed, he said, “Don’t cry, let us sing. God is so good, God is so good.” In that circumstance, he gave thanks, he gave the prayer of Thanksgiving, not because he doesn’t have that one leg anymore, but because in spite of that there is God, because of God. That is what true Thanksgiving is. Thanksgiving is not our human response to our situations, but it is a spiritual response to God. So I put the sermon title as “Condition for Thanksgiving”, but there’s no condition that you cannot be thankful for, in all circumstances, we can be thankful for. The only condition that I can see is a condition inside of us, within us, whether we have that or not, either we can give Thanksgiving or not. I think that is faith and spirituality. Faith we have inside of us and the spirituality we have inside of us. They are the conditions for our Thanksgiving and then I realized that Thanksgiving is not what you do once in awhile when good things happen to you, Thanksgiving is a lifestyle.

It is your attitude towards life, not because we feel like being thankful, but we give thanks because that’s who we are. We are people of thankful hearts. Our thankful circumstances do not bring thankful hearts, but our thankful heart brings thankful circumstances. Let me say that again. Our thankful circumstances do not bring thankful hearts. Our thankful heart brings thankful circumstances. Often it is not our best circumstances that destroy us, but it’s our attitude towards the best circumstances that destroy us. Some people after bad experiences or bad circumstances, they come out stronger. They come out greater, they come out wiser. But for some people because of bad circumstances, their life becomes ruined. So it is not just bad circumstances, it is our attitude towards the bad circumstances that either destroy us or lifts us up.

Even in our best circumstances, we should be thankful. When difficult situations come, many people worry about the future and soon fear traps them and they respond to situations with anger and frustration and they become very negative and they become worse because of that attitude. But when we respond to our bad circumstances with thanksgiving, we’ll be able to keep the positive attitude and nothing can destroy us. Even though I may not have any of those, my circumstances can never destroy me. When we build a strong spirituality, we can be strong. Being strong does not mean to have strong muscles. Being strong means to be thankful in all circumstances. Thanksgiving opens up our lives and breaks the bad cycle. That bad cycle is a cycle of complaint.

Complaining is a habit. Thanksgiving is a discipline. If you just habitually do things, you will always complain, but Thanksgiving is discipline, spiritual discipline. The only thing that can break the habit of complaining is Thanksgiving. That’s why we need to discipline ourselves to learn to be thankful in all circumstances so that we can break the cycle of dissatisfaction and complaint in our lives. Mary Jo Leddy, in her book “Radical gratitude”, said “In gratitude, the vicious cycle of dissatisfaction with life is broken and we begin anew in the recognition of what we have rather than in what we do not have. In the acknowledgment of who we are rather than in the awareness of who we are not.” Gratitude is the foundation of faith in God, as the creator of all beginnings, great and small. We have to break the cycle of dissatisfaction. Complaining, dissatisfaction and all these things are poison to our spirit.

People who live with a complaint, they live with poison and it is. It poisons our spirituality. It poisons our spirit. As long as we continue our lifestyle of a complaint, we can never build spirituality. We can never build a good Christian faithful life. The more you complain, the more you become enslaved to your dissatisfaction. Not because people complain, not because there are good reasons to complain, even when there’s nothing to complain they make up reasons to complain because it has become a habit in them. The best way to deal with that is to give thanks intentionally. From small things to big things, learn to be thankful. There are so many things to be thankful every day, every moment. There are so many things to be thankful. So I said in a Happiness seminar “Get a journal, the Journal of Thanksgiving. Every day write down five to seven items to be thankful. Just simple. Just get a journal every day. Write down, write down five to seven things that you are thankful for that day.” In that way, you can discipline yourself to be thankful. When you start being thankful, amazing things can happen in your lives. When you continuously complain, you will run into the deeper and deeper darkness. But when you give thanks in all circumstances, every day, the joy will come back. You will experience the beauty of life, the beauty of people and friends and the beauty of the world.

Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for being here.

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John 15:9-15

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 you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

It’s wonderful to have friends, friends are beautiful gifts from God. Without friends, I don’t think we could have survived in this cold and rough world. Because of friends, we could overcome our loneliness and because of friends, we had laughter and joy. In this tough life, we spend so much time with them and have so many experiences we cherish. Some of them are very crazy things to do. When we were sad, they comforted us and when we suffered, they suffered with us. When we are happy, they share the joy that we had and deep in their heart they truly were happy for us. Having friends is probably the most precious thing in the world. And because of our friends, our family, our life has been full and meaningful. So my friends, try to make as many friends as possible. There will be good for your life and if you have good friends, don’t take them for granted.

Cherish them and in this community, make some new friends. Forgive one another, accept one another, understand each other and embrace one another. In doing that, slowly you will feel the friendship and then you can build the friendship. The Christian life is simple. The Christian life is nothing but being a friend to other people. You become friends with other people. That is what it means to live as a Christian. They don’t have to be like me. They don’t have to share my views, they don’t have to have the same hobbies as me, age doesn’t really matter. The race doesn’t matter. We can be a friend to all kinds of people. Think about it, consider other people as your enemies and consider other people as your friends. If you see somebody and if you see that person as a stranger and as an enemy compared to if you see somebody and you take them as your friend, your life will turn out very differently. When you see other people as your enemies, you will become hostile and defensive, and I don’t want to be hostile and defensive in the world. That’s not the way for happiness. When you’re continuously hostile and defensive to other people, you don’t become happy. You don’t look happy. Your face doesn’t look happy when you do that. But when you take other people as friends, there’s a warmth around you.

No one is perfect, no one. As you get to know them, you see their weaknesses and their shortcomings. If you look at them apart from far away they look good, but when you become friends, you go closer and closer to them and then you see all the ugly things too. Shortcomings, weaknesses, you know. If you reject them because of that and turn your back against them because of their weaknesses and shortcomings, we will never be able to make friends. We’ll never be friends with other people. There’ll be no friends left for us. We have to learn to accept their weaknesses and embrace them. I think that’s higher wisdom. You accept their weakness and their shortcomings and embrace them. I think that is higher wisdom. Less wise people will always look at negative things about other people, but smart people, the positive things and negative things they embrace. That’s how they live a positive life. That’s why they make so many friends.

Isn’t that what love is all about? If you love somebody that is lovable what good is it? Anybody can do that. Who doesn’t love Encarnacion and who doesn’t love Bautista? Who doesn’t Love David Price these days? Everybody loves them. Everybody loves them, right? So if you love somebody that is lovable, anybody can do it. But if you’re able to love the unlovable, I think that is true love. That’s what the definition of love is, love the unlovable. When Jesus loves us, I don’t think Jesus sees the lovable quality within us, and that is not the reason why he loves us. I believe that Jesus sees everything inside of us, all our weaknesses, shortcomings and ugliness within us even. And yet he loves us. And often I think that that is a miracle. God loves me even though he sees all about me and he still loves me. That’s a miracle. In that way, love is a miracle. That is Jesus’ love. Look at how he loved Judas, knowing that he would betray him.

The most beautiful scene is the last scene, the last supper. Jesus took the bread and gave it to Judas, knowing that he would soon go out and betray him. He did not reject him. Even at the communion table, he gave the bread to the person who will betray him. That is love, that is love, allowing him to betray him. That is the kind of love Jesus showed. Today Jesus calls us as his friends. This is what he said, “I do not call you servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my father.” By saying that we are his friends. Jesus brought down all the barriers and the walls that exist between God and us. Now he considers us as his friend. He embraced all our shortcomings and weaknesses and calls us his friend, not because we became lovable and worthy all of a sudden to be his friend. He just accepted us and loved us and considered us as his friend. I think that’s a radical statement. Jesus, as God calls us as his friend,

Then Jesus told us about the greatest love and this is what he said, “no one has greater love than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” That is the ultimate love you can do for your friends, and we Christians believe that Jesus did that for us. Jesus showed how precious we are through his death. That’s what love is. Love makes a person precious. When you’re loved, you feel appreciated. You feel preciousness. That’s what love does. When you love somebody, you make that person so precious. If you hate that person, you make that person so miserable and low, but when you love somebody, then you make that person very precious. Making somebody so special and precious, and I believe that that is love. That’s why proud people or self-centered people can never love. Because no one is more precious than them, no one is more special than them. They refuse to make any other person as precious as they are so they can never love. They refused to consider others as precious. Jesus refused to call us as his friends. Now we relate to Jesus, not as a servant, but as a friend.

You know, we have this fear of rejection, so we try so hard to be in. Nobody wants to be rejected. Kids who bully other kids know this fear very well, so they bully others by rejecting them, by isolating them, by excluding them. There’s an expression popular among kids, “FOMO” and that is the fear of missing out. “Oh, so and so was invited to the party. How come I’m not invited? Oh, it looks like they’re going somewhere to eat. How come they don’t ask me to go?” That’s the fear of missing out. That’s why people want to be popular so that they can be accepted everywhere.

Strangely, people criticize Jesus, saying that he was a friend of sinners. He was a friend of sinners. Jesus was indeed a friend of sinners. He chose to be a friend of sinners. He chose to be a friend of the people who nobody wanted to be friends with. We should not limit our friendship to the people we like and the popular people, we should extend our friendship to those who are alone and on their own. Our life will be richer. In my ministry. I like to be a friend to the people I minister to. Probably that was my philosophy from the beginning without realizing it. When I do visitations, they treat me like a friend and I appreciate it. Last Thursday I had dinner with an ESM couple and I feel like I met old friends and had dinner. It was a nice restaurant downtown, where only celebrities go. So I said, that’s the restaurant only celebrities go to and then she said, “you’re the celebrity.” So we had a beautiful dinner. They are the ones who during their university time dated together and you know they came to my house because the movie was at seven o’clock and we still had 45 minutes to kill, so they just dropped by my house. So all kinds of people came to my house and then we are all friends. That’s how I have done ministry. There are people who might have known me for more than 30 years here, even before I became ordained. They were there and they are still here.

They are like good friends. It is important that we become friends with each other and that’s what Jesus wants. Jesus said, “as I have loved you, love one another.” We should break down the walls between us and restore our friendship. Many, many people live in loneliness. We all feel existential loneliness. God gave us this community and it is important that we go beyond our boundaries and build our friendships with each other. We should overcome our boundaries of cultural gap, age gap, language gap, and become friends by accepting each other. You don’t have to be the same age to be friends. You don’t have to have the same cultural background to be friends. You don’t have to have the same financial status to be friends. Especially to those who don’t have many friends in this community, we need to extend our hands, our friendship. We need to reach out. I hope that the newly elected elders exercise reaching out, extending the hands of your friendship to the people who come to our community. Instead of remaining in our little circle, we should open up our circle and go out and reach out. They can be friends you have known for a long time, but you may find a new friend too.

One of my good friends are more than 20, 30 years older than me, they are my golf buddies. Well, I’ve been playing golf with them for, I don’t know how long, they are like my friends, the age doesn’t matter. The culture doesn’t matter. When we have a friendly attitude to other people, our life will change and we can expand our experiences.

A lot of times the reason we cannot make friends is that we are the problem, not them. Maybe we have too much hurt, pain or anger to have friends, to have a friendly attitude to others. Remember, Jesus became friends with you and he wants you to reach out to others and make friends and be their friends. Make God bless you with your journey. As you make new friends all the time. Go out and make good friends in your life as Jesus was your friend. Let us sing together.

There have been many friends, who have supported us and who have been with us all our lives and now Jesus is our friend.  Maybe sometimes we rejected our friends sometimes we turn our back against them because we saw their shortcomings and weaknesses. Let us pray that we may a have a big heart to embrace all kinds of people as our friend.

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Today I want to talk about a fruitful life with you. Today’s sort of a Korean harvest, Thanksgiving. And I chose this text because in the season of fall, everything is very beautiful, it’s the harvest season. And I want to talk about that with you. We all want to achieve such life, the fruitful life, just like the tree from Psalm one, Psalm one verse three says, “They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.” Who doesn’t want this kind of blessed life. We all want this kind of blessed life, fruitful, abundant, and we want to share a lot of things with one another. But in reality, my friends, we do not take the path that leads to a fruitful life.

Think about it. Think about it for a second. Why is that? Is this because of the temptations written in today’s text, like the cares, riches and pleasures of life? Or is this because we do not even realize our blindness, and just follow the patterns of this world? Jesus showed us what kind of life is a fruitful life today. And I want you and I to hear the voice from Jesus today, and follow the path Jesus showed us. Jesus said a fruitful life is possible only by God’s word. In other words, if we want to live a fruitful life, there is no other way than the spiritual life. Fruitful life or abundant life as John prayed, is not based on how much we have in terms of materials. Rather, a fruitful life is based on how much the word of God is rooted in our life. Because there’s freedom and abundance in those who live their life according to, or by God’s word.

Past Friday, we had the first session of the Friday gatherings, and there we studied Mark chapter 11. We had about 30 people, and I encourage you to make time to come and study. We learned that the temple Jesus saw, and the same temple people saw, or the disciples saw, were different. Why is that? Because they had different perspectives and expectations. The outside walls of the temple were coated with gold and all that, but inside was hollowness. And nearby, there was a fig tree with many leaves, but when Jesus and his disciples approached the tree, they couldn’t find any fruit in it. And it resembles the emptiness of the temple, the symbol of the religion of that time. And I truly pray and hope that, what we want to achieve in this life is the fruitful life, by the word of God. Even though such life is not easy, it is the only way to a fruitful life. Even though such life is not easy, it is worth it. Look at our text today. No wonder among the four different kinds of soil, only one soil has received the seeds, and produced fruit. What a waste, and how difficult it is to produce fruit in life.

Today’s story is written in other gospels too, such as Matthew and Mark, but both Matthew and Mark have this particular ending. It goes like this, “They will bear fruit, 30 and 60 and a hundred fold,” but not in today’s text. Luke, gospel of Luke, it goes like this, it’s a different ending. Let me read it for you, “But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.” The gospel of Luke has a different kind of ending. Whereas, Matthew and Mark have, you know, that 30 times, 60 times and 100 times. I was thinking about this. Why, why so different? Especially in the gospel of Luke, and as I meditated on this last verse again and again, and more and more, I realized there is a secret to the fruitful life. Being in the good soil, meaning when they hear the word of God, they hear with an honest and good heart. It’s not an ethical kind of condition. It is beautiful. It’s virtuous. Their condition of heart is so beautiful.

This is the first key to the fruitful life. Not many of us have this kind of attitude. When we come to the word of God, when we hear the word of God, and we think that, “Ah, I figured out everything,” then the condition of the soul will be like the path where many people have trodden. With prejudice, we may absolutize our views. If then, we cannot expect change or growth. Far from receiving the word of God, the seeds, we would even spit it out. No wonder the birds ate it up. But those with honest and good hearts, they will not impose their views on others. But with openness, in terms of relationship, in terms of conversation, in terms of questioning, with openness, they will seek truth in all matters. Second reason is this, not only will they hear the word with an honest and good heart, but also they will hold it fast to their hearts.

I like this expression, hold it fast. The original word for hold fast is in Greek, “Katecho,” and it has a meaning of keeping in memory. So not just physically holding something, but you make sure to keep something close to your heart. That is, katecho. Hold it fast. Even though the word of God may be like the size of a mustard seed, you received it. You take care of it, and you take it closely to your heart. That is what katecho means. A few years ago, during the Bible study, Rev. In Kee came, explained what will happen in the study of the word of God. There are three different levels or stages. And first there is an intellectual level. This is the level where one could take some words or concepts or principles from the text, but they will just stay on the surface level. That will not change us. Then, there’s a second level. It is called the spiritual level, where one could come up with the spiritual message as one further meditates the text. When you meditated, reflected, and then, when a spiritual message comes up, you cherish that. You take it, but that’s not enough, that will not transform us. That will not change us. The third level is called the sacramental level, meaning, the word of God becomes flesh. It becomes so real, alive. It touches our core of existence.

When I was doing, a couple of years ago, early morning prayer reading, I was reading one of the Psalms. And then as I read the scripture, you know what happened? I felt the scripture starting to read me, not me reading the Bible but the Bible, reading me. And I felt so overwhelmed by that experience. Wow. The word of God is real, the word of God is like God seeing me, looking at my heart condition, and guiding me and leading me. That is our goal. We are not just staying in the intellectual level, in the satisfying level, but more, from head to chest, chest to belly the core of our existence. And that will influence us. We’ll be so confident that, you know, because of the word of God living in us, giving us wisdom so we can have different perspectives on how to deal with the issues and challenges of life.

The last key to bear fruit is this, with patient endurance. This is the most important key to the fruitful life. Without endurance, the word of God will not take root in us. If you pick and choose the word of God and the teachings from the Bible, according to what we like to hear or what we do not like to hear, we will not be able to reach that goal, that stage. But when we struggle with the word of God, and we stay with the teachings, not running away from it, even if it is hard to understand or painful to obey. That is the right journey. That is the journey of endurance, and such process is like tilling the ground, cultivating the ground. When you sow, when you want to sow your seeds, what would you do? You have to till the ground, so that seeds can take root in it. In the same way, while we go through perseverance, our hearts will be cultivated. Without struggle, the soil will not be cultivated, only after the soil is cultivated, the seed can take the root in the soil. When we go through this time of endurance, spiritual discipline, you know what will happen?

We will be changed without noticing that. When you’ve reached a certain point, and when you look back in your life, your spiritual journey, then only then you realize that, “Ah, I have come this much.” You go through that endurance, your spiritual journey, and discipline. And then, when you reach a certain point, and look back and only then you realize how different of a person you are, “Oh, I have changed so much. Not only have I attained the knowledge of the word of God, but my character, the insight, and my heart condition have changed as well.”

Today at the KSM service, there was a special performance by the flute class. You guys get to see them during Christmas concerts, annually at least. Some of them, as you may know, are almost 80 in their age. And none of them have professional musical training, but they meet every Wednesday and practice and practice for five, six years. And today they sounded so good. I would imagine there must be a time when they faced obstacles, but they never gave up. One elder complaining, his finger’s so big that he couldn’t, you know, close that hole, but he did not give up. They came to the church and practiced and practiced. I see the harvest today. Wonderful harvest. When we spent our time and energy on certain things, we will harvest from it. Definitely, right? But how about spiritual life? Spiritual life is the base foundation of our existence, but how much time, energy, and effort do we put into that? If you do not go through that endurance, resilience and struggle, how can you wait for the harvest.

Speaking of change and growth, there’s one particular change I want to talk about right now. The old self has died, so that the new self could have been born. New thinking, new attitude, and new hope will come, only when we go through this radical change. Then we will dream a dream, we never would’ve dreamed before. We’ll have this strong desire to live according to God’s will. This is possible when our old self dies, and when we experienced the new birth. You know what compost is, right? Compost? Online dictionary defines compost as this: compost is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. It is not a chemical for fertilizer. Everything organic has been decomposed, and will be used to enhance the growth of the plants. In order to be compost, any organic matter must be decomposed. If it resists to be decomposed, we cannot use it for fertilizer. Something like plastic, so hard to decompose. You get the picture right?

When we received the word of God and struggle to understand the meaning of it, not only will we experience the cultivation of our souls, but also we will be changed and become the good soil where the seed can take root and bear fruit. In this sense, perseverance is a spiritual thing. In our perseverance, we will always seek truth. In our perseverance, we keep moving forward, to the light. Through this spiritual discipline, we’ll be able to deal with more difficult situations, and overcome them. Martin Luther King left us with so many inspirational words, but this one is relevant to today’s message. “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” If our goal in life is the commitment to find life in God’s word, we must move forward to such a goal, no matter what. You don’t have to explain to anyone why you cannot do this. If this is the way we must take, we just have to do it.

My friends, this fight, we don’t have to fight alone. This fight is not really up to us. We have our God and we have one another. Today’s story is called the parable of the sower, not the parable of the soil. According to the gospel of Matthew, the same passage, it says it. It is the parable of the sower. Hmm. Interesting. Why not, the parable of the soil? And I realized the story, the message is about God, not about us. When God sows the seeds, God will not mind where the seeds fall. When God sows the seeds, God will not complain why the condition of the soil is as such. Why you are like the path people have trodden, God, doesn’t ask. Why you are like the rocky ground, God, doesn’t question. Why you have thorns in you, God doesn’t mention that. But keep sowing the word of God, so generously so freely. To our God, there’s no concept of waste. God’s economy is totally different than ours. Our Lord would keep sowing the seeds as if he would wait and wait and wait to see, even just a tiny piece of land in us that can receive the seeds and bear fruit.

The patience of our Lord for us is much, much greater than our own patience to be cultivated by the word of God. This gospel of Luke is known for that. It is a very inclusive gospel. We have beautiful stories in the gospel of Luke, such as Zacchaeus. He repented, he shared his life, his resources with one another, poor people. And there is also the temple story, a Pharisee prayed and boasted about his self righteousness, but the tax collector, not even closer to the temple, pounded his heart and said, “Lord, I am a sinner, have mercy on us.” In the eyes of the author of Luke, God’s grace and love is huge. Big enough to include everybody. Whether you think of yourself as the path, or the thorny ground, or the rocky ground, don’t give up. God’s patience is greater than our endurance. God will wait and wait and wait.

So my friends, take courage, and get up, and take the path to the fruitful life. Sooner or later, we will become good soil by God’s grace, and we will bear much fruit in our life. I want all of us to take the path to a fruitful life, and experience God’s abundance. Look at ourselves, even if our church is small, and our life can be small to our perception, the abundance that God will bring to us will surprise the world. We’ll be enormous to the eyes of the world. This is how our God works, and we want to be part of God’s great work. And that’s why the church gives priority to the study of the word of God, not just intellectual, not just spiritual, but sacramental, being with God, tasting the goodness of God, and a deep, genuine relationship with God. God has been so great to us. God has used us to bless others in this world. My friends, let us keep seeking the truth and keep moving forward to the path of fruitful life. And when God gives us harvest, let us use that to bless further, the people around us.

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1 Kings 19:1-8

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. I have had enough, Lord, he said. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.  Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, Get up and eat.  He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.  So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

Stories From the Bible

These days, I don’t follow the lectionary. The lectionary is what the world churches use. It is a system of the collection of the scripture passages to preach every Sunday. They just give scripture passages. For the last 23 years at this church, I followed the lectionary, but from July this year, I have decided not to follow the lectionary. The reason was that I wanted to experience the moment where the world we live in meets the word of God, the scripture. I want to capture that moment where what I experienced in life, meets what I experience in the scripture, I want to capture that moment. The scripture that God gave to me this week was the story of an angel who took care of the Prophet Elijah. Just before this story, Elijah fought with Baal Prophets, the false prophets on mountain camel, he fought off 450 false prophets all by himself.

The Prophet Elijah

Elijah was a powerful figure in Israel’s history. When you talk about prophets, it is Elijah. He was a representative person of the prophets. He even brought down fire from heaven, but after this, the King Ahab’s wife, Jezebel was very angry because she was the one who brought all these false prophets to Israel, and she was angry that Elijah killed them all. She was wicked and she wanted to kill Elijah, and that’s what it’s captured in first two verses of scripture that we read today. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel both sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them, by this time tomorrow. Elijah was a strong man, very strong man, but strangely, this threat caused great fear in Elijah.

He was filled with fear. He was terrified with fear. He got all kinds of challenges all his life and he was fine to deal with them and overcame all these challenges, but this time, this threat really paralyzed him and made him so tremble with fear. The writer of First Kthe ings recorded in this way. Then he was afraid, he got up and fled for his life, but he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die. It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I’m no better than my ancestors. He’s saying, enough is enough. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take my mission anymore. I can’t take my work anymore. I’m done. Just kill me here, I can’t go on. I realized that is the true face of us human beings, we human beings are weak. We think we’re strong, but we are very weak. We can pretend that we are strong. We can pretend that nothing affects me, but when we really come down to the bottom of it, we are very vulnerable, fragile, and weak. That’s why St Paul described us as earthen vessel, that can be easily shattered and broken.

The Touch of the Angel

You know, at times we feel like we can do almost anything. I can deal with all kinds of things. I have so much confidence that I can do all things. But when we fail, sometimes we feel like we can do nothing. I just don’t have any confidence to do anything properly and effectively. We lose all our confidence and say we’re completely surrounded by worries and anxiety. Even about life we feel that way. Can I go on with my life? You know, that’s who we are. Elijah was not an exception, but Jesus was like that too. He, during his ministry, he talked about his suffering and death all the time. He always said that I’ll be delivered into the hands of the leaders and then they will kill me. He just spoke about his suffering, spoke about his death as a matter of fact. But the night before he died, all of a sudden he didn’t have that confidence.

That’s why he asked God, can you take this cup away from me if you can, if you will? I can not take it. Even Jesus said that. I think that showed the true nature of us human beings. To Elijah, who was paralyzed with fear, an angel appeared twice. The first time, the angel touched him and said to him to get up and eat. You know, touch is a very affectionate word. I don’t know whether an English word will capture that as clearly, but in Korean, there is the word . means touching with affection. So the angel came and touched him, and when he got up, there was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate it, but he could not get up. So he lied down again and slept. The angel appeared to him again a second time. That’s what God does. When we cannot get up the first time, God will send another angel, twice, three times, four times. Until we get up, God will send another angel for us to get up. The angel told him, get up and eat, and the next phrase is very important: “otherwise the journey will be too much for you”.

You are not Alone

You have roads to walk! You have dreams to fulfill! You have work to do! If you don’t get up now, you won’t be able to finish your journey. You will give up in the middle of it. You’ll sit on it! Elijah got up and for 40 days and 40 nights, he went to Horeb, the mountain of God. As we take our journey, sometimes we feel like giving up.

We have a spiritual journey to take. A beautiful journey to take. Sometimes when life becomes so hard and too difficult and challenges are beyond our ability to handle, sometimes we just say, God, enough is enough. I can’t handle it anymore. I’ll just sit here and whatever. Sometimes we feel like that. That’s when God sends us angels, not necessarily angels with wings and the white robe. The angels come in very ordinary people. They don’t even know that they are angels to us. They give us strength and courage to continue our journey. When we are tired and drained, they give us what we need. What Elijah needed was not truly the bread or water. That’s not what he needed. What did he need? What Elijah needed was to not be alone. Bread and water are just signs, but by sending water and a bread, God showed Elijah that you are not alone.

I’m with you. You’re not alone. I’m with you. God simply assured Elijah that he was not alone in that journey. Later, Elijah was complaining that I’m the only prophet that is left and I just don’t know what to do, and this is what God said. We didn’t read it, at the end of chapter 19, this is what God said: yet, I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed, and every mouth that has not kissed him. By saying it, he told you that he was not alone. There are 7,000 more people who are like you, and also I am with you.

The Angels All Around You

When you’re heavily burdened, when you’re surrounded by darkness, and problems are too big to handle. When you’re tired and drained, when you feel helpless and hopeless with life, God sends an angel every time. He never fails it. As I look back, I’m sure there were many, many angels who helped me. You are where you are because of these angels in your life. These angels helped you, encouraged you, supported you, empowered you sometimes and helped you. Not necessarily, they gave us big help, big money or big things, maybe very small things. They may be even strangers that you never saw  again, or the people who are always with you and are always with an encouraging smile, encouraging words of encouragement. They may be your friends or maybe your parents, they may be your church members. God sends these angels to tell us that life is not just darkness. Life is not just misery. Life is not just cruel. They show that life is beautiful, that life is worth living, and through these angels we realized that life is worth living and life is beautiful. This week, that’s what I realized. I realized that there had been many angels in my life. They get nothing from me, but they helped me, encouraged me, and they were very kind to me. Who am I, that they are so good to me?

Acts of Kindness

Just this week I got an email from somebody that I haven’t met for 25 years or so. You know, I don’t even go into Facebook. I don’t use Facebook. It’s there, and my face is there. That’s why it’s Facebook. And this woman sent me an email and then she said, oh you’re a reverend and oh, do you remember and all that. And this is an old lady’s daughter. And then she was telling me that her mother is still praying for me. The mother went through the cancer and she survived and she’s still praying for me after 25 years. She made beautiful for me when she was here. And then the daughter lives in New Jersey and the other one lives in Maryland and they sent me just to say hi, but she still prays for me! Why? Last Thursday, in the morning, you know, one of those days when you wake up gloomy, you wake up sad, you wake up kind of like “Oh gee”. Thursday was one of those days. I woke up and I went to the dry cleaning to pick up my dry cleaning, whole full load of clothes in. And then as I enter into the dry cleaning, a woman went “Hi!”. She was so glad to see me. “Hi!”, with a bright smile. So we were talking and it was so great just to chat and talk.

And when I tried to pay, she said, let me take care of this. This is my gift for you today. Why? She doesn’t even know me. And why did she do that? Why do human beings do that? Why is she so kind? And then, I was thinking about all the angels in my life. And that’s how the motive of this sermon theme came. All the angels in my life. And on that same day, in the evening, my wife went to Ghana to attend a conference. So I dropped her off at the airport and came back to church and work a little bit, and then I got to cook so on the way I went to the Korean grocery store. I was in the lineup and this woman in front of me looked behind and said “Hi!”. So I said “Hi!” back. I mean, I don’t know her very well. I mean, I met her a few times before doing some activities. She’s not a member of our church and I don’t really know her. And then she said, let me take care of your groceries, and then she paid for me. The same day, twice! Wow! What a treat! But why? Why do people do that? When we look around, there are many angels. Really. There are many angels.

Helping Those in Need

Of course, the world is not like that all the time. The world can be a quite cruel place. We all feel sympathetic for the Syrian refugees. In Germany, people came out with a big sign, “Welcome to Frankfurt”. When I saw that, there were tears in my eyes. Why are people so kind to those who can just be a bother to them? Who can even be dangerous? But on the other hand, there is also a reporter like the one who kicked the young refugees, and the same woman tripped the father who was running away with his son. The reporter was fired and the man who was tripped and fell and he got help from a nice guy in Spain. The guy was the president of private soccer school and then he heard the interview of this man who was tripped and then realized that he was a soccer coach in Syria, so he wanted to help out. So he called a Spanish newspaper he wanted to find out his whereabouts and he found it. He was in Munich. So he chose one student from his school who can speak the Arabic language and sent him to Munich with all the money and then he took him to Paris and to Barcelona and Madrid, and he paid for all the travel, living expenses until he got a job. What a nice guy. Do you know what his name is? Miguel Ángel! When I read that the article, wow, it was perfect for my sermon! It is true that this world is full of violence, cruelty, coldness, and problems, but among them, there are angels, as we met so many angels in our lives, let us be angels to each other.

As we look around with intention, we will have many opportunities to be angels. As we are conscious of angels around us, our life becomes brighter. On Thursday, after that experience, when strangers come or when people come, is it another angel? Or you know, my life becomes brighter. But when I see them as enemies, we become hostile. As we see angels in each other, our life changes, but as you see enemies in each other, your life become hostile. See angels in each other and be angels. Sometimes don’t you wonder because I’m sad, because I’m unhappy, because I’m miserable, I make other people also sad, unhappy and miserable? That’s not what we Christians are supposed to do. And I saw some people doing that. For what are you doing that? God calls us to be angels to each other. Let us live our lives. Probably they are angels in your life. Let us thank God for them and also let us also be angels to the people around us.

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Philippians 3:10-14

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Time is Constant

Time always flows forward, never backward, and time never stops. It always moves forward. Within time, there is content and events. Time doesn’t just go, there is content and events that are happening. Time also does not move randomly. Time has its own flow towards fulfillment. Time always moves towards fulfillment. It doesn’t just pass by, it always moves towards fulfillment. The philosopher Mircea Eliade said, How do I understand time? Is time just going around and around for 365 days? Is it just the same January? Is it the same on Sunday?  Is it going around and around at the same place? Or is time like a linear line from A to B, just moving along? He discovered that time is just like a spiral that turns around but it is still moving forward somewhere. Time is still moving around and around, but it doesn’t stay at the same place. It moves toward a certain goal; a certain fulfillment. If time is like that then our life has to move forward as well. Our life cannot just go around and around at the same place. Moving forward means that you are pursuing something. Life that moves forward  means you are pursuing something in life.

What is sad is not that you have failed to reach your goal.  What is sad is that you don’t have a goal to reach, that is what’s sad. Sometimes we fail in fulfilling our dreams and goals, that’s part of life. But the fact that we don’t have a goal to achieve, that is truly sad about life. What kind of life is that? Life without a goal to reach is just like a life on hold, just staying still. We should all have a certain goal to reach.

Saint Paul said in verse 14: “I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus”. That was Paul’s attitude. He pressed on towards the goal. Paul lived with a clear sense of purpose in his life. To him, life was not just living to him. Life was calling. He came to this world to do this, and he pressed on towards that goal. I wondered what that goal was for Paul so I went back to verse 11, and this was what Paul said: “If somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead,” that was his goal. He wanted to attain the resurrection. Attaining resurrection was Paul’s goal in life. And I don’t think Paul meant resurrection in a narrow sense of the word, for example, a dead person coming alive. That’s a resurrection, but I think he has a broader sense of the word. To him, the resurrection was not just a dead person coming alive. To Paul the resurrection meant that everything comes alive.

When you look at Paul’s theology, it is mainly focused on resurrection. It was your life coming alive. So you don’t acquire resurrection after you die, you attain resurrection right now in the present time. You can experience the power of resurrection, not when you die, but instead right here, where you are in the present time.

Let us look at verse 10. He said: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection”. I want to know now, not later. I want to know the power of his resurrection now. In Paul’s mind,  resurrection is what’s happening right now and he wants to know that power.

So to Paul, the resurrection was not just a phenomenon of a dead person coming alive, but the power that enlightens our whole existence. When the power of resurrection comes upon us, everything within us comes alive. You come alive. When the power of resurrection comes upon us, every cell of our body comes alive. My rational comes alive. My consciousness is awakened. My soul dances with joy and aliveness. That is the power of resurrection. Only then, when the power of resurrection comes upon us, does our life move forward. We cannot make our lives move forward. When the power of resurrection comes upon us, it pushes us to move forward. When we sail through the storms and challenges of our life by our own strength, we become drained. We become tired and give up. We cannot move forward. I need a power within me that energizes my life to move forward. That’s why I see so many people with dreams and visions when they were younger, but they were disappointed once too often, and they get discouraged and they feel powerless, helpless and hopeless. And then in the middle of their lives, they give up on their dream. I had that dream, but not anymore. They just coast along.  

Dreams and Visions

Yesterday I had a visitation and a man said “I probably  earn 10 times more than you. But I need a dream. I need a vision. I need meaning in life”. That’s what we need. But when we experience so many failures, we give up on our dreams. I’ll just maintain the status quo as long as there’s no problem with it and I’ll be satisfied. I just want to live my life like this until I die. We give up our dreams. They’re satisfied with maintaining the status quo. Do you want to finish your life having your life on hold? No.

In my life, I want to do something that of which I want to do. I have to do something that is meaningful. No matter how difficult that may be, it’s what I want to do with the life given to me. I don’t want to just live it. I want to think about what I want to do with my life. I cannot just be satisfied with false satisfaction. This is what Saint Paul said: “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to make it my own. I press on towards the goal”. If the power of resurrection works in us, we are not fooled by the false satisfaction and the false destination. We have yet to arrive at our destination. We know that an oasis is only a temporary place to enjoy, but that is not our final destination. You have to move forward. You have a journey to take. You can’t just stay there enjoying temporary pleasure and temporary safety. People who prepare for marathons don’t just prepare themselves for the beginning of the marathon or the middle of the marathon. Everybody will be able to run well in the middle, so runners prepare for the last 10-20 minutes  and give their whole effort. Olympic swimmers don’t prepare for the game in the middle. Everybody swims well in the middle, but in the last 10th of second, they work so hard.

What is your goal? What is your dream? You probably used to have one – did you give up on it now? I don’t even know what my goal is. We need to really think about what we’re living for. For the last journey, we have to give our best effort. What’s done is done, don’t look back. You have a journey ahead of you to take. You have a road ahead of you to walk. Saint Paul said: “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward. What lies ahead, I press on”. Forget the failures or fear that you have and start fresh from today. Think about what you want to do with your life and pursue that dream, press on towards that goal. If that is a holy dream it will be better, but even if it not a holy dream, whatever it is, set a goal and live towards that.

Passion from Christ

We all have different goals and different callings of life. Please, don’t give up. Don’t get settled down with just maintaining the status quo. Let the power of resurrection work in you. Then you will have courage that the power of resurrection will work in you. The way you see your life will change. You will have energy, vision, passion, excitement, even for the tiniest things. I don’t know how we get that but I believe that this the grace of Jesus Christ. Why do I have passion? Why do I have such a dream and vision? It’s probably because of the grace of Jesus Christ who gave the power of resurrection within us. Even when you’re tired and drained, you feel the power that moves you forward. Having no dream and all that means that you became a victim of fear, that’s why you don’t set up a goal. Be courageous. Stand up again, move forward, and you can do it with God’s power. Not by yourself because you’ll be drained. But with the power of resurrection, you can move forward. That’s what I would like to see in your life.

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Matthew 27:24-29

{Transcript}

Matthew 7:24-29 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who builds his house on sand. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was it’s fall. Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching for he taught them as one having authority and not as described.”

I hope that you keep this in mind as a Christian, in everything we do, it is important to build a strong foundation. If the foundation is strong, you’ll be able to stand through storms and hardships. But if your foundation is weak, when the difficulties come, you will not be able to stand through the difficulties of your life. So foundation is the most important thing in building. When you have a strong foundation, you can add lots of things, but when you don’t have a strong foundation, you cannot. It’s useless to build all these things because when it collapses, they will all collapse together. So in life you have to think about what is my foundation upon which I built my life on. What is that foundation? And we need to think about it. And then once in a while, just drop everything. You need to go back to your basics. What is the guiding principle that guides my life? And if you have fallen away from that foundation, from that guiding principle, then you need to come back to the basics. So continuously you need to do this process in your life. You live your life without realizing it. You are influenced by something or someone or some circumstances and you fall away without realizing it.

And then you need to come back to the very fundamental things, the very basic, and that is called reformation. Reformation is not something that you start… new reformation is back to basics. When Martin Luther did the protestant movement, it was reformation because the Catholic Church, for a while, had a runaway from the basic fundamental things, so he did reformation to bring back them to basics. And then in modern days, churches have fallen away from the very basics – even protestant churches, and they need to come back to the very basics… and the same thing with human beings. Have we fallen away from basic humanity? Then if we have fallen away, we need to come back to the very basic fundamental things. I’m really disturbed these days about what is going on in the world, all the shootings and the refugee crisis in Syria and in wars and children being killed in the sea to run away from their own country…

And when I look at all these things, is that the best thing that we could do as human beings? Are we building the best life as a human being? And I wonder – without really critically evaluating our world, our life – Are we just accepting it as a status quo? Can we do that? No. If we have fallen away from the basic humanity as Jesus taught, we need to come back to the very basics. And Jesus’ message was always to come back to the very basic and fundamental thing. Did you know that Jesus never said anything new. Whatever Jesus said, whatever Jesus taught, they were are all there. They were all in the Old Testament. There was nothing new that Jesus said to us, it was already all in the old testament. But Jesus is just telling us how far you have been away from the basic humanity.

So when Jesus taught that, people realized, “How far I’ve been away from the basic teachings of God,” and they came back to the very basics. That’s why they were amazed. When you look at the scripture today, when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes, because Jesus knew exactly what we have been lacking. That’s why people listen to Jesus. And they were amazed at Jesus’ teaching. You know, when you look at the gospel Matthew, in the beginning, Jesus’ baptism and birth story, all of these things that are right in the beginning when you take those out. The first thing Jesus did was teach – sermon on the mountain, chapter five to chapter seven is about sermon on the mountain. In other words, build your life upon these teachings.

And that’s why Jesus said, Okay, let me tell you. And then He went up to the mountain and He told people, These are the things that you have to build your life on. So from five to seven are very important chapters. So I hope that you can read almost every day, five to seven. I’m going to summarize at the end, Jesus’ teaching from five to seven, the sermon on the mountain, but those are the basics. Those are the foundations upon which we have to build our life. Not just because you’re Christian, not just because you’re religious as a human being… you have to build your life upon these things. Otherwise your life will crumble, your life will be destroyed. But when you build your life upon this basic fundamental teaching, then your life will be able to stand through all kinds of difficulties and hardships and you will become a true human being.

Sometimes, you know, I realized that humanity… are human beings so evil? No, we are good. God has created us good and we have turned into less than human beings. We need to come back. What does it mean to live as a human being sometimes when we are so influenced, without realizing, it by the culture around us. Maybe materialism, money or popularity or self centeredness. We are continuously bombarded by these values and teachings of the world and then we forget about what it means to live as a decent human being. And so we need to come back to that.  We are so fragile. We’re so vulnerable. we are easily influenced by our situation. You know, we think we are very strong. Like, Oh yeah, I have a guiding principle that guides me. We think so, but when I look at myself… I’m easily swayed by the situations that I’m in.

This summer I went to Boston and then Will, Grace, myself and my wife, the four of us went to New York. When I went to New York, people did not care about traffic signs. There’s a red light but they just crossed the red light when there were no cars. In Toronto, even at night I wait, even if there is nobody there and no cars going by, I just wait until it turns green. But everybody’s just going, even this beautiful lady with a suit on, she just crossed. And then a gentlemen too. They all do that, and then Will told me, “Oh Dad, that’s what they do in Manhattan.” And after awhile I was better than anybody crossing anywhere, “Yeah, that's what you do in Manhattan.” I was walking and my wife said, “Hey, don’t do that.” “It’s OK, we do that here in Manhattan, right?” And then I come back here, and then I keep the traffic light again.

But we human beings are so easily influenced by the circumstances we are in. We need to always come back to basics. Whether we really keep the fundamentals, and this is what Jesus said: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them, will it be like a foolish man who built his house on sand? The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. And great was it’s fall.” So you hear the words of His teaching, and you should act on them, then you build your life on the rock. But you hear the words and do not act to them, then you are building your life on sin. And here sometimes people make mistakes.

“Ah, listening is not that important. Doing is what’s important. So okay, if you do it, then you build on the rock. If you don’t do it, you build on the sand. And if you’re not careful right here, you fall into very sake religion, doing it for the sake of doing it, without really understanding it with no heart. Oh, doing is what’s important, but that’s not what Jesus is saying here. Here, hearing the word and doing it doesn’t mean that with your will. Like, Now I know the words, so with your will, you do it. That’s not what Jesus means. You internalize what you hear in you so that you become that kind of person that’s what Jesus is saying. In other words, you meditate on it and you listen to it carefully. It becomes internalized within you. It changes you. That’s what doing is – it’s not really that you didn’t change at all and then you just do the things for the sake of doing it. You internalize the words.

Jesus never downplayed listening. Listening was very important to Jesus. That’s why Jesus said, Let those people who have ears to hear, let them hear. Let those people who have ears to hear, let them hear. Hearing was very important to Jesus. And Jesus also said, My sheep listened to the voice of the shepherd. Listening is very important and St. Paul said the same thing. Faith comes from hearing. Hearing is not unimportant, hearing is very important. There’s a good insight by Henri Nouwen about listening. And this is what Henry Nowan said: “The word listen in Latin is audire. And then from that word, actually audio, audio system, audio came from audire. Many english words came from Latin. So the word listen in Latin is audire. If we listen with full attention in which we are totally geared to listen it’s called, obaudire. And that’s where the word obedience comes from. So when you carefully listen and hear, then obedience follows. The obedience doesn’t follow because you don’t hear carefully. So it is very important that we need to know what are the fundamentals. And then we need to continuously meditate on those fundamentals and then see ourselves, examine ourselves whether I am following those fundamentals or not, especially for those who are graduating from high school or university. I want you to keep these fundamentals.

I summarized into 10 the beatitude of the sermon on the mountain. I summarized it into 10. I hope that when you live your lives, you build your life upon these 10 principles, guiding principles. Doesn’t matter where you are. If you keep those guiding principles, then you will make the world a much better place. I don’t think the word that we have created… it’s not the best place.

I mean, we did a good job in some parts, but in other parts, we’re doing a very bad job. I’m really thankful and glad that Germany is taking on so many Syrian refugees. Probably most numbers Canada just doesn’t match up with them. And then I saw one YouTube video and the German people were saying, Welcome, welcome, and they had a welcoming package to the Syrian refugees. And they went through so much difficulties and they came to Germany and they gave them a welcome package. I was in tears when I was looked at that on YouTube. We need to make a better world. We as Christians especially should not be influenced by the values of this world. We should live as a human being, a decent human being, not as an animal, not as a materialist. We should live as decent human beings who helps each other. That’s what we are called to do. Let me share those 10 guiding principles that I summarized from Jesus’ teaching on the sermon on the mountain.

First, if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. We have no room for retaliation. We should not follow all the movies that you see, you know, where they retaliate and they kill off and then you feel good for a while… but that’s how the world becomes worse and worse and worse. And that’s what’s happening in many parts of the world, continuous retaliation. If somebody hits you on the right cheek, turn the other, no choice. That’s what we got to do as a decent human being. That’s what we gotta do as a Christian. You don’t get revenge. You don’t get revenge in whatever way, military way or in a personal way. You don’t get revenge. Somebody hits you on the right cheek. We have to give the other.

Second, love your enemies. You don’t just let them be, but you have to love your enemies. That’s what Jesus said. You have to love those who hate you. You have to love those who hurt you. We have no choice. That’s what Jesus did. That’s our guiding principle. We have no right to hate anyone. We have to love even our enemies.

Number three, do not show off about your piety and your goodness. Piety and goodness are not to show off, like, “Oh, well I’m a man of prayer. Oh, I’m a woman of color or whatever.” Spirituality, nobody should see. Nobody should know how spiritual you are, how religious you are. You don’t show off your piety. You don’t show off your prayer. You don’t show off your almsgiving. Whatever you do with your right hand, your left hand doesn’t know. Christianity or Christian zeal is not about showing off how religious you are.

Next, you cannot serve two masters. God and money… I’m sorry my friends. That’s as simple as that is. You cannot serve two masters. Money is so tempting, so powerful, Jesus put that at the level of God. Either you worship or worship money, you have no choice. Which one are you going to worship? God or money? If you worship God, then you’ll be able to stand through hardships. If you worship money, you will collapse when the hard time comes. Think about it. What is your guiding principle? God, or money?

And next, do not worry, but seek first the Kingdom of God. Tomorrow we don’t know, but God takes care of the birds in the air, the lilies in the field. God has given us so many good things. God will take care of us, do not worry, but now seek first the Kingdom of God. That’s what we do. Seek first the Kingdom of God, the reign of God, justice, love, righteousness. Those are the things that we seek after. Don’t worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Next, do not judge so that you may not be judged. How easily we judge other people. How easily we judge each other… and with the same criteria, you will be judged. Do not judge so that you may not be judged. Always take other people with humility, and a humble attitude.

Next, ask, seek and knock. Always. Our life is about asking. Our life is about seeking. Our life is about knocking continuously, you know? We don’t give up. We continually knock, then the door will be opened. Now, the impossible situation we see in the world – we continuously knock with prayer. Lord, let your justice be done. So, about five years ago, we had a refugee from Afghanistan, and two years ago we started another program for a refugee from Syria. And so right now we are going through the process of application. But the thing is, it takes so long. Two years ago we started, and still they are not here. They have to go through all these red tapes, and we continuously seek for justice of God, for the love we continuously knock at the door.

And in everything do to others as you’d have them do to you… the golden rule. Exactly the same way. You want to be treated with respect and treat others with respect. You want to be loved then love others. That’s how you’ll be treated.

And next, enter through the narrow gate. We are not here for the glory and fame. No, we are not. We are not here for the glory and fame. That should not be your goal. Young people whose goal is to be a celebrity, that should not be your goal. Narrow gate, small road… That’s what we are called to enter through.

And next, be fruitful, always around us with people, church, or wherever you are. Be fruitful. That’s it.

These are the guiding principles. I hope that you internalize these guiding principles in your life so that you build your foundation upon rock, not on sand. May God bless you and congratulations to all those who are graduating. Keep these things in your mind and build your life… and you’ll make this world a better place for everyone.  

In this inspiring message, we are reminded of the need to get back to the basics. When the world is telling us which way to go and how to live, it is good to remind ourselves of the basic principles of Christian living.

10 principles that Jesus taught us are:

Listen to hear Rev. Kim elaborate on each of these principles and the need to return to basics.  May you be blessed by the Word!

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