St Timothy Presbyterian Church in Toronto: Sermons

Galatians 2:20

{Transcript}

And it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Today’s passage shows the core of Christian belief and it describes Christian life. What Christian life is all about and how we live as a Christian. In modern times, there’s a really blurry line between being Christian and non-Christian. Some people think that being a moralist is being a Christian. Or doing well in society is what it means to be Christian. There are very confusing messages all around, but particularly when it comes to what it means to live as a Christian.

St. Paul summarized in one verse what Christian life is all about. “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” Probably we are familiar with this verse. Now I want you to reflect on it. You know those words in words, but what does that mean without using doctrine. What does that mean? What does it mean that it is no longer I who lives in me? It is no longer I who lives in me? What does it mean that the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me? What does it mean that Jesus Christ lives in me? All these things sounds good and okay, but we don’t really understand the implication of what that means is. I mean, when you look at it, I didn’t really put the red mark, but you see “I, me” six times in one small passage. Six times he talks about me, I. Who am I? Who am I? Am I happy and satisfied? I mean, as a Christian you’re supposed to be happy and satisfied. So because I go to church and I’m a Christian, I’m supposed to be happy and satisfied, but are we? Am I happy and satisfied? Am I free and living a fulfilling life?

Last Wednesday, I was pretty disturbed. I have this new alert from a New York Times, so every morning I get a news. In the morning and in the evening I read it everyday. And then this time I came to an article that said two reporters were killed during the interview. I looked at the time and it was just two hours before I read that article. I was disturbed. The whole day I followed the development of the story to see who did this, who did this horrible thing. And the first thing that came to my mind is that it was another gun. Oh, I hate guns. I said to myself, I mean, you see news scene interviews every day. That’s what you see when you turn on the TV. It’s a very common thing that people do. They were not in a war zone. They were not in a dangerous place. They will in a local town, a very safe place, and this horrible thing happened right in front of your eyes. I got so disturbed. Why?

People get killed in the movie theater. People get killed in the train. People even get killed when they have a Bible study. This killer was right there for one hour participating in the Bible study and then killed them all. Does it make sense? Does this world makes sense? What is this world coming to? I mean, we are talking about being successful. Oh, the world society is progressing and then development and other kinds of things… while people's souls are dying. The spirit of the people is dying and we talk about all the progress. Are we progressing or regressing? In what way are we progressing? The incident shows the disease of the modern people. I see people who are imprisoned – not in prison, not under the dictatorial government – but in themselves. People become more and more prisoners in themselves.

The suspected murderer said that he had been like a human powder keg for awhile. Just waiting go boom, and he did. He said, “I am angry.” He was imprisoned in his own anger. I was questioning, what is freedom? What is freedom? When we think about freedom, the first thing that comes to my mind and people’s minds is to do whatever you like. Without being restricted by anything or by anyone, do whatever you like. Yes, that is freedom. In some parts of the world, women, even though they want to study, they cannot study just simply because they’re a woman. When they tried to study they get shot. They cannot do whatever they like. In some parts of the world, they cannot worship like you do right now. You freely came to worship God, but in some parts of the world, they cannot worship God freely. They cannot do whatever they like, so doing whatever you like, yes, that is freedom and we enjoy that freedom in this country. I thank God that we enjoy the freedom.

Even if we have all the freedom to do whatever you like, when you are imprisoning yourself, you cannot have true freedom. Even though you do whatever you like, if you are imprisoning yourself, how can you have freedom? We forget that sometimes we are the biggest problem. We imprison ourselves. We are imprisoned in our own problems, in our own anger, in our own insecurity, in our own selves. We are imprisoned. That was what St. Paul discovered. He didn’t know, but he was imprisoned. Of course he was not enslaved by anger like the murderer. St. Paul did not even know that he was enslaved by himself. He thought that he was living a good, righteous life. Then one day he realized that the righteous life that he lived, that itself is the greatest power to imprison him, his own righteousness became my own prisoner.

During Jesus’ time, that’s what the Pharisees did. They were righteous. They were great. “Yeah. I’m better than you!”. That kind of attitude, and then they were actually imprisoned in their own righteousness. They were the ones who killed the Son of God, and St. Paul was doing the same thing. He was on the way to Damascus. He was imprisoned in his own righteousness. Those people, I have to kill them. He was imprisoned that he was on the way to do that, and then he realized he met Christ. He realized that his own righteousness was imprisoning him, enslaving him. It was a very sophisticated understanding. He was a righteous man, but he realized that his own righteousness had enslaved him.

There are many things within us that enslave us. We ourselves sometimes are the worst enemies when it comes to having true freedom. Some people live in their anger, just a little thing triggers them. They get so angry. Some people are imprisoned in their greed, Oh, I have to be better than you. I have to have more than you. I have to excel. Nobody can beat me. Some people live in imprisonment of selfishness insecurity, pride, ignorance and false religiosity. The righteousness that comes from your own efforts, our own darkness, sometimes we are imprisoned in our own boredom. Life is boring. I don’t know what to do. These things enslave us.

With all these things going on in me, how can I have true freedom? How can I have true happiness and satisfaction? How can I experienced the fullness of life when these things are going on within me? I don’t even know that I’m imprisoned. When we are enslaved by ourselves, where do we escape? When a country enslaves me, I can run away from the country and go to another country. That’s what’s happening in lot of places; Syria, Afghanistan, all of these people go to a European country to run away from that enslavement. So many people get killed, Just in the last few days, many hundreds of people just got killed in the process of that dangerous journey.

St. Paul found this solution. He said, in today’s passage, “It is no longer I who live in me.” Before he was the most important thing and he was the boss and he was the main actor of his life. Everything was about him. Salvation was about him, righteousness was about him, everything was about him. He was at the center of everything. He was at the center of the universe. But after meeting Christ, he realized that he did not have to think about himself all the time. Life is not just all about me, he realized. He did not have to be the center of everything. He could let himself go. He didn’t have to control his life. It is true freedom not to have to think about yourself all the time. That’s true freedom. That is true salvation.

I read somewhere in a book, it says, When the shoes fit you, you don’t have to think about your feet. When your belt fits you. You don’t have to think about your waist. When everything is in harmony, you don’t have to think about yourself. It is true. When you’re in harmony with yourself, you don’t need to think about yourself. When you have lot of problems with yourself, you always think about yourself. You have a lot of insecurities. You always have to think about yourself. When you have a lot of pride, you’ll need to always think about yourself, but when you’re in harmony with everything, then you don’t need to think about yourself. That is true freedom from yourself. The real salvation is not to pay attention to yourself, but to completely forget about yourself.

When we can completely forget about ourselves, we can live a much more meaningful life. The tube of flute has to be hollow to make the beautiful sound, the canvas has to be empty so that beautiful art can be created. That was the truth. Jesus taught us and St. Paul expressed it in this way. “This is Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness”. Jesus displayed his most beautiful self by emptying himself. Oh my goodness, what a truth. Don’t be fooled by untruth. Be inspired by the truth. Jesus displayed his most beautiful self by emptying himself, not showing off himself. He said, If you try to save yourself, you will lose it, but if you lose yourself for the sake of the Gospel, you will find it. How much more true can it get? Don’t be fooled by the philosophy of this world; “Promote yourself. Be the celebrity. Be famous. These successful, be loved by people.” The more you think about yourself, the smaller you become.

There is a funny story about a rabbi. There was a rabbi who was seriously ill, and his disciples came to visit him. Beside his bed, they were talking among themselves about how great the rabbi was. One of them said there was not a single person as wise as him since the day of Solomon. The other said his faith was like Abraham’s faith. And another one said he was so intimate with God that he was like Moses. He could face God. He could meet God face to face. He was just a wonderful man. While they were talking all about great things about this rabbi, the rabbi look disturbed. After they had all gone, the wife asked rabbi, did you hear all the praise that they made? He replied “Yes.” How come you look disturbed? And he said, “No one mentioned anything about my humility.” The more you empty yourself, the more you will become full. The more you empty yourself, the more freedom you’ll enjoy. Let us reflect on St. Paul’s words once more… And it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

What we need to meditate on every day is not ourselves. It is about the love of Jesus Christ. That is something that we need to meditate on every day. Then you will become free from the fear of yourself, fear of failure, fear of rejection and fear of non-existence. I told KSM members because they are closer to the end of their lives, If you think about yourself so much and if you are attaching yourself so much, how can you die? How can you let yourself go when death comes to you? You’re wonderful. You don’t need to think about yourself all the time. You’re wonderful as it is. You’re beautiful as you are. So enjoy your life. Celebrate your life. Always be thankful for the love of Jesus Christ who loves you so much.

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Genesis 32:22-31

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

Jacob was a man of struggle as you know, nothing came to him easily. Everything. He had to fight for it, for the birthright he had to fight for it. For the blessings of his father, he had to fight for it, for his wife he had to fight for it. For seven years he worked so hard to get a life that he wanted, and it was the wrong life the father gave him, so he had to work another seven years. I don’t know how that happened, In the morning he woke up and it was not the wife that he wanted. So he had to work for another seven years to get everything he wanted, he had to fight for it. You know, there are people like, that who always have to fight for their lives, nothing comes to them easily. Life doesn’t come on a silver platter.

Today’s story is just a perfect representation of Jacob. Jacob, even for Gospel blessings. He wrestled all night and he said, “I will not let you go. I will not let you go until you bless me.”. So he wrestled, even wrestled with God. Faith did not come so easily. “Oh, now I believe in God.”. You know, all kinds of the spiritual things it didn’t come easily. He had to fight for it. He wrestled with his life, even for Gospel blessings, he had to fight. So as I said, nothing came to him easily. Life, did not come on silver platter for Jacob. The interesting thing is, you know, I really liked Jacob, but Jacob is not the greatest guy. I mean Jacob does not have the greatest personality. He deceived people and all that, at the same time I liked Jacob in a way because he’s so much like us. He had to fight for his life so much, but he never complained about his life. He never blame anyone, he could blame many people, but he never blamed anyone for his misery. That’s the sign of a strong person, you know, weak people always complain. Weak people they always have finger pointed at somebody else. They always blame other people for their misfortune, but Jacob was a strong man. Jacob never blamed or complain about his life, he had no time to blame others. Jacob helped, he had to deal with his situation. He was a hard working, man. He didn’t easily give up in any situations, he was a fighter. Doesn’t matter what situation he may be thrown into there he never accepted that as a given reality and just sat on it. He always fought to overcome whatever situation he had. He was a strong man. Even Laban, his uncle who was quite cunning, could not handle Jacob. Laban is the one who gave the older sister to him first right? So his wife’s father, he was a very cunning man, but even cunning Laban cannot overcome Jacob, could not handle Jacob. Jacob lived his life as though there is no other life.

My friends, there is no other life, this is the only life we have. Let us not complain about life, It’s no use. Let us not blame other people for the difficulties we experienced it’s no use. That is what we people do. We are not that weak. We are with strong with Christ. We can handle our situations, we can deal with our situations instead of sitting down and complaining and blaming. Let us figure out what to do. Whatever difficulties we may have with our lives. Life is full of struggles for everyone, not just a few, for everyone. Life is a struggle. We all struggle with different issues. Some people struggle with their financial situations. Some people struggle with their career picks, nothing really opens up for them. Some people struggle with health issues and also some people struggle because they have such bad relationships with their parents, with their children, with other people, or some people struggle because of their children. Life can never be peaceful. That’s what I experienced after many years of living, I realize that life can never be peaceful consistently. Always things happen. Things that you never expected happened. There is always a storm. We cannot live our lives running away from the storm, don’t do that. We cannot avoid our own storms. We have to build character to sail through the storm. Only people who build character can sail through the storms.

During my holiday I went to Boston to visit Grace. Oh, they have a done so well to really make us comfortable. So we drove down to New York together and then Chris was busy looking for music for us to listen to, so seventies and eighties. So, and then they turned on this music “bridge over troubled water.” Do you know that song? By Simon and Garfunkel. Very famous song, one of my favourite songs, I played it and I didn’t realize that even Elvis Presley sang that song before he died. We’re searching through the web and then the background of this song and the words are really nice. I listened to it again and the Words are really nice. So I wanted to share with you, the words; “When you’re weary-“, I won’t sing it so don’t worry. “Feeling small when tears in your eyes. I drive them all. I’m on your side. Oh, when times get rough and friends just cannot be found like a bridge over troubled water. I’ll lay me down like a bridge over troubled water.” I’ll lay me down… beautiful song, isn’t it? What a nice song. And then Simon was requested to write another verse. He came to the studio and a right there, he wrote another verse, and that verse was this one “sail on silver girl sail on by, your time has come to shy. All your dreams are on their way. See how they shine? Oh, if you need a friend, I’m sailing right behind like a bridge over troubled water. I’ll ease your mind like a bridge over troubled water. I’ll ease your mind.”.

The reason Jacob could sail through the storm was that he had this experience when he was young, he had a problem with Esau because of the birthright, he deceived him, cheated on him. So he had to run away from his home. He was probably a teenager young. He was almost got kicked out of his home, he had to run away for his life, and he came to a place called Bethel, and during a lonely night all by himself. Young man. I mean, he was kind of a mother boy, he always, always in the kitchen with mother, but now he was all by himself. His mother wasn’t around. His father wasn’t around, nobody was around. He was there in the wilderness in Bethel. He fell asleep, while he was sleeping he heard this in his dream and this is what God told Jacob, “know that I am with you and we’ll keep you wherever you go and we’ll bring you back to this land for I will not leave you, until I have done what I have promised to you.” That word clearly came to Jacob In his dream. He never forgot these words in his life. You know, there is certain experience in your life that you never forget in your life, certain experiences with God. Some spiritual experience that you have had will never disappear from you. I have one of those experience too in my dream and whenever I had a difficult time I remember that dream. Jacob always remembers those words that he had in that dream, he clearly heard that in his dream. He knew that when he sailed through, the storm, God was sailing right behind.

He knew that that was why he didn’t give up. He could give up, but he knew that God was sailing right behind him. Life struggles, but we don’t give up because God is sailing right behind us and we can sail through the troubled water. My friends, even high schools friends, you will face, It’s not that you may face, you will face storms in your life. You will face difficulties in your life, but never forget that God is sailing right behind you, and you will sail through the storm, and Jacob actually became the foundation of Israel. In today’s story, Jacob becomes Israel and Jacob’s 12 children became 12 tribes of Israel so that actual Israel began with Jacob. He trusted in God, he held on to God, and he remembered God promise and his sail through the storm and he became the foundation. I hope that your life becomes a foundation for a lot of other people too.

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Mark 5:1-20

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God's name don't torture me! For Jesus had said to him, Come out of this man, you impure spirit!

Then Jesus asked him, What is your name?

My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many. And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.

A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them. He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you. So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

Bondage and Freedom

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Korea from Japanese occupation with the end of the World War Two.  It is so strange that one country should invade another country to conquer it. Why do they do that? Why does one person conquer another person?

Unfortunately, that is our human history and it is very sad that this is our human history. It is sad that we see this as our reality and many of us simply accept that as our reality without trying to fight against it and build an alternate reality. It is also very sad to see it still going on now, not necessarily politically and militaristically, but in many other ways such as racism, sexism, classism, and so on. At the micro level, we always see more popular people and more powerful people looking down upon less popular and less powerful people. This will always happen. It is all a game of power. Is that what life is about, a game of power? Reflecting on this, I was thinking about bondage and freedom. I hope that today’s passage illuminates our understanding on that topic.

You know, whenever I read this passage, I feel really sorry and bad for the man of the Gerasenes who was tortured by the unclean spirit. Even though he had a family, he could not have a nice dinner with the family. He was all out there by himself in the mountains and among the tombs. He wandered around howling in pain. He could not stay with his family. Day and night he was wandering around and howling. He must have been so tormented if he went around howling like that. He had to just let it all out through howling. He couldn’t contain it within himself, he was so frustrated. Something truly pressed him so much that he had to howl, but was he totally powerless then? No, I don’t think so. He had the power. No chain could restrain him. He broke chains into pieces and he was so strong that no one had enough strength to restrain him or subdue him. The power he had was not the power that he could control. He had the power but he could not control that power, rather, that power controlled him.

Bondage is a condition where the power that we cannot control controls us. Jesus asked him his name and he said: Legion, my name is Legion. Legion was the Roman military unit. One legion consisted of five to 6,000 soldiers, so it is like he had the power of five to 6,000 soldiers within him. That’s a tremendous power but this power completely controlled him and this power drove him crazy. I just read a New York Times article about Islamic State ISIS and how ISIS invaded regions of Syria and Iraq and made women as their sex slaves. They’ll go into a village and conquer the village to capture all of them and then divide the civilians by gender. Then they kill all the men and will select a few women and sexually abuse them and sell them as sex slaves. Many of these people escape from that camp and they become a witness and have done interviews with the New York Times.

This also happened when Japan occupied Korea. They made many Korean women as sex slaves for their soldiers. They called them comfort women. It is scary to think about what the powerful people can do to the powerless. And yet we love power. We admire power. We pursue power and we continuously work hard to acquire power, but we have to understand very well about the nature and dynamics of power. Otherwise, you will become slaves and victims to that power. Power controls you and you are trapped in bondage. Many people have power, but they are still in bondage so they turn around to make other people in bondage. They enslave other people just as they are enslaved by their own power.

As long as we love power, I don’t think liberation is possible. We can never be liberated from the bondage as long as we love power. Slowly, that power will take life away from us. Whatever power that may be, whether it’d be a religious power, money power, reputation power, political power, or military power, that power will slowly take life away from us. That power can easily cause us to be lured into the temptation of power and to lose dignity, humanity, joy, and the meaning of life. We love power so much that we we throw away life itself without realizing how precious life is. Life should not be trampled by power because life is so precious. We can’t throw away life just to have the power. Who said that it’s a good life? Who said that power is the way to life? So many of us have become blinded by the power. Much of Jesus’ teaching was about not falling into the lure and temptation of power. Jesus said, Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Be like children. If you want to be the first, be the last. If you want to be the chief, you must be the servant. All about Jesus’ teaching was warning against the power. Do not fall into the play of power.

Resist Temptation

You’re going to lose your life. When we look at three temptations of Jesus, they were all about power. Satan said, display your power as the son of God and do the  things that you want to do with power. That will be much easier, much more practical and a much more realistic way to achieve what you want to achieve. However, Jesus rejected all of those suggestions Satan made. Jesus knew the dynamics of power so well. Jesus knew that the real freedom can never come from the power. Sadly, this world is operated by power and many people have become victims of the world that they created. They worshiped power. They evaluated each other by how powerful you are. They put a high value on power so it is very difficult for Christians to survive in this world without blindly following what the world does. Slowly, people became slaves to power. If you’re powerful, you’re blinded. If you’re powerless and you feel small and weak, you are controlled by power. All of their thinkings become influenced by the power and they enslave each other. One group enslaves the other. One country enslaves another country. The haves exploit the have-nots. The powerful control the weak.

Jesus healed the man. He no longer had the power because the legion was chased out of him, but he came to his senses. He woke up. This is what verse 15 says:  “They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there clothed and in his right mind”. The very man who had the legion and everyone was afraid of came to his right mind. I hope that all of us come to our right mind.

But in verse 17, we see a strange reaction of the people. it says: “Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood”. They asked Jesus to leave even though he did a wonderful thing healing this man. Why did they do that? Because they lost 2000 pigs. They lost profit. They wanted the power, not healing. We’d rather choose pigs over a right mind. We’d rather choose money over a right mind. We’d rather choose power over life. Even though I’m miserable, I need power and I want power, that’s what people say. The man with the unclean spirits was liberated and experienced freedom, but these people were still in bondage. That’s why Jesus told him not to remain there, those people were still in bondage. You become my witness as a liberated person. I believe that today’s passage is a great challenge to all of us.

Real Freedom

What controls my life? Should I just blindly let anything control my life. Should I let the world control my life? Who said the world knew what was best for me? This is my life and I want to live my life in the most authentic and beautiful way. Who said following the world is the best way to do so? Does your boss have the right to tell you what the best life is for you? What controls my life? What am I pursuing? Healing or power? Do I have real freedom or am I still in bondage? True freedom is being free from the desire for power. Whether you have power or not, when you’re free from that desire for power, then you will have true freedom. Jesus said: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”. Jesus wants us to be set free because that is the most beautiful life. Be free from the vanity of power. That is the most beautiful life you can live in the one life we have. I want to live the most beautiful life without being lured into the game and lose all of my precious ears, precious time and precious life. I will not do that so that I can be humble. Being humble means to be awake, to see what the power does to me and not falling into the lure of power. That’s what being humble means. Awake.

Let us not let the power lure us and dominate our thinking, but let us build solidarity with each other to pursue liberation from the bondage.  Let us share the truth with each other, that’s what this spiritual community is all about. We are different. We are pursuing an alternate reality. We are not pursuing the reality that people out there set up for us. We are pursuing the reality Jesus taught us to live and that’s what spiritual community is all about. That’s what this community is all about. From the micro level to the macro level, we treat each other with dignity and with respect, with love and honour. Instead of trying to control each other and telling others what to do, we empower each other to pursue the wonderful freedom Jesus gave us and live a meaningful life. It’s hard to do it by yourself. It is hard to do it by myself. We need each other to build that alternative reality to live a good life.

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Matthew 7:7-11

Prayer is a gift from God, but many of us do not pray. Why is that? We all know, somehow, prayer is a gift from God, but many of us do not actually pray. Why is that? Because we have misunderstandings about prayer. We have misunderstood the whole dynamic of prayer, the whole theology of prayer. And that’s why we do not pray. For example, when we hear what Jesus had to say in today’s text, we may become skeptical and have a wrong picture of God. Why did I say this? Because some of us may ask, why do we have to pray to God at all? Isn’t it God who knows everything, but then why do we bother to pray to God? My answer is yes and no. Just stay with me. If God knows everything. And if God knows what our needs are, then why do we have to pray? The argument seems to have all the right reasons. Furthermore, today’s text seems to discourage people to pray with the same reason. If God knows our needs, why do we have to pray?

Let’s read the verses nine to eleven one more time. “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” We can agree to the first part that parents would give anything to their children. Who will not give bread when their children ask for it? But we become a little hesitant when we reach the last part, “How much will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?”

So does it mean that we still have to ask for bread? God’s gifts are dependent on our asking? Just stay with me a little more, okay? The reason why God’s giving depends on our asking is neither because he is ignorant until we inform him, nor because he’s reluctant until we persuade him. The real question is, my friends, not whether God is ready to give, but whether, we are ready to receive. Let me tell you once again, okay? The real question is, not whether God is ready to give, but whether we are ready to receive. In this sense, God’s gifts are dependent on our asking. So when we pray, we are not trying to control our God to give us something, but to submit ourselves to God, to receive God’s gifts, that’s a big difference.

You know, the story of Jacob at Java river, right? It’s a very famous story in the old Testament. The Bible says, “Jacob wrestled with the angel of God, and Jacob prevailed on him.” That’s why he received a new name, Israel. The meaning is the one who wrestles with God. But what actually happened was different. God prevailed over Jacob, bringing him to the point of surrender, when he was able to receive the blessing, which God had been wanting to give him all this time. God struck Jacob on the hip socket so that God could give his blessings to Jacob. So, our God never spoils his children. God does not shower us with gifts, whether we want them or not. God does not shower us with gifts, whether we are ready for them or not. God waits until we recognize our need, and turn ourselves to him in humility. James, in the new Testament, says something very relevant to what have I been telling you. From James chapter four, verses two to three, it goes like this, “You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

So, my friends, God’s gifts are dependent on our asking. There’s another misunderstanding about prayer. So I want to explore it with you. People say prayer is unnecessary. Why? Because God gives to many who do not ask. And God fails to give to many who pray. And they come to this conclusion: prayer is unnecessary or unproductive. People say, “I prayed to pass an exam, but failed it. I pray to be healed of an illness, but it got worse.” Does it sound familiar? My friends, we need to understand that the promises of Jesus in today’s text are not unconditional. When Jesus said knock and the door will be open for you. It is not unconditional. It is not like saying, “Open sesame!” to every closed door. If so, prayer will be like a magic wand, granting every wish we may have. Do we really want our prayers to be like a magic wand? No, I hope not. But if so, we become like a magician, like Aladdin.

And we make God turn into a Genie. And Hannah saw this picture and she loved it. Hannah, as Bob Kim’s daughter. My friends, you do not know what you’re asking for. I found one place in today’s text, that could be a key to solve this problem. There are good things in verse 11. Let me read it for you. “If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” Our heavenly father gives only good gifts to his children. Amen. Only our heavenly father knows which gifts are good and which are not. Amen. Jesus said human parents will never give a stone or a snake to their children who ask for bread or fish. But what if, what if the children ask the very opposite from their parents? Would the parents give stones and snakes to them? What do you think? As a parent, I am guilty of doing that. My sons have asked me, “Appa, I need a PS4, I need to upgrade my iPhone.”

But actually, we bought it. But our God, heavenly Father, would never give us something harmful. Even if we ask for it urgently and repeatedly because our God gives his children only good things. So, my friends, we must thank God, even when our prayers are not answered. Can we do that? Can we trust in God’s faithfulness and goodness? When we pray, when we ask, knock, and seek, our prayer topics will be changed. That’s the secret, just kneel down before God and pray, but God changes us.

Some scholars say, when you want to pray, you must have some knowledge of God. We have to know God’s will so that we can pray to God. I don’t agree with them. Some scholars say, prayer presupposes faith. It is one thing to know God’s will, it is another to humble. It is another thing to express our confidence in God. But I don’t agree with that. The teachings of Jesus found in Matthew, chapters five to seven, are called, “The Sermon on the Mount”, and today’s text is part of it. And Jesus’ teachings are very straightforward there. For example, Jesus said this, “Love your enemies,” in Matthew 5:44. Then we just have to follow his instructions. No need to make any arguments or excuses, but just love your enemies. In order to obey Jesus’ teachings, we need to prevail on ourselves, to submit ourselves to that truth, that teaching. Do I sound extreme?

No, my friends, unless we strive to obey to that point, we will never go deeper or move into another level of spirituality. Same goes with today’s teaching on prayer. If Jesus said, ask, seek, and knock, just do it. With simplicity, and without thinking too much, just do it. Even though you may not have clear knowledge of God, even though you may not have strong faith in God, just do it. As I said, while we kneel down on our knees, God will change our hearts. God will change us like he did with Jacob. We will experience active movements of the Holy spirit in us. Do not think too much. Just do it. When Jesus said, ask, seek, and knock, it is not a series of actions. It is about what we truly pursue and look for in this life.

Prayer is not just an action. It is our openness. It is our attitude towards God. What comes just before today’s text is a well known teaching of Jesus. Jesus said, “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” And the striving for the kingdom of God and his righteousness is expressed in the prayer as we seek, ask, and knock. New Testament scholar, D.A Carson, he was born in Montreal. He said this, “Prayer is a wholehearted pursuit of the kingdom of God.” Prayer is not just an action, but our life attitude towards God. When we pray wholeheartedly, our faith will grow, and our prayer requests will be changed. How much we know about God, and how much faith we have become secondary. When we pray, as we ask, seek, and knock, in other words, wholeheartedly, we will become a person who can receive God’s good gifts.

You know, the story of the gospel of Luke, where the two persons go up the temple to pray? It’s a very famous story. I love this story. One was a Pharisee and the other, a tax collector. The tax collector did everything right, but that wasn’t a prayer. But the Pharisee did everything right, but that wasn’t a prayer. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This is a true prayer. When someone is beating their breast in prayer, they’re repenting before God. When someone is beating their breast in prayer, they’re asking for compassion from God. When one sinner is beating their breast and chest, God’s heart is also in pain.

Yes, my friends, it’s our heavenly Father’s. No parents will go without pain when their child is repenting before them. Wouldn’t they embrace their child with compassion, and accept them as they are? My friends, prayer is a gift from God. I’m afraid that we have not opened the gift from God yet because of our misunderstanding about prayer. Again, prayer is not just an action. It is our pursuit of God’s kingdom. And because of that, we can pray persistently, not just in a prayer motion. While you’re talking to your friends, you’re listening to sermon, while you are serving outside, doing your work, you can have that kind of attitude towards God’s kingdom. Your openness, your hearts’ openness, that is prayer.

Please let your pursuit of God’s kingdom be done in your asking, seeking, and knocking. Let me read some parts from a Norwegian theologian who wrote beautifully about prayer. Let me read it for you. “Prayer is not for the purpose of making God good or generous. He is that from all eternity, nor is it for the purpose of informing God concerning our needs. He knows what they are better than we do, nor is it for the purpose of bringing God’s gifts down from heaven to us. It is he who bestows the gifts. And by knocking at the door of our hearts, he reminds us that he desires to impart them to us. No, prayer has one function, and that is to answer, “Yes, Lord,” when he knocks, to open the soul and give him the opportunity to bring us the answer.” My friends, when you pray to God, please open the door of your hearts for God, and say yes to God so that he can bestow the good gifts to you. Amen.

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Isaiah 53:1-7

Good afternoon, everyone. Today I’m gonna talk about the cross. No wonder, we are Christians, so I’m gonna talk about the cross. But also I’m going to talk about that desire, human desire as well, and then I’m going to make quite a bit of Biblical references so there’s going to be a lot of PowerPoint so I hope you can follow with me. The first human feeling, human emotion, human thought recorded in the Bible, you can find from Genesis chapter three, from the mouth of the first woman, Eve. It says, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise”

This was the first human beings thoughts and emotion and feeling: good for food, delight to the eyes, and desire to make one wise. So the first human emotion or thought that came from within a human being was desire. Eastern cultures like Korean or Japanese or Chinese, we write human beings like this (ingan) and that means, the Chinese character means, human beings find our identity between and among other humans. So the Eastern understanding of the human being is more like a social relation and understanding. But in Western culture, Latin writes human as humanus and then from hummanus came from the word hummus and nowadays we have the word human. It means earth, or dust. So we are just dust and earth.  That’s a Western kind of understanding from a long thousand years ago.

But the Bible understands it a little bit differently. In Genesis chapter two, verse 23, the first man, Adam says, “Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken. . ‘Woman’ and ‘Man’ came from the same word, ish. Ish means desire, or fire, or some would say passion, something like that, but desire, basically. The Bible understands human beings like me and you as a being of desire. What was on the tree is not our focus today. The focus is that the first human saw the tree and she desired. The Bible tells us more about the desire. The desire, if you look closely to the Bible reference, that desire wasn’t just generated within herself. Desire wasn’t just created within herself. She just didn’t bring up the desire. Chapter three, verse six says, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise“. Her desire wasn’t generated within herself but came from outside. Her desire came from the other. Her desire came from the outside.

We see this everywhere. You can go to, or any, any daycare or childcare, the younger, younger, the better. At the nursery school there is a kid who is happily playing with his toy for a while, but suddenly he sees that another kid is playing with a much, much more desired toy. And then this kid wants to have that toy. And then these two kids fall into rivalry. And then they have to resolve something. Even from really young ages, it’s just happens like that. Desire comes from outside, from the other. You desire someone who possess something that you desire.

You don’t just create your desire. You see someone, you see like a close relationship or far away, but you desire like a visible thing. Smartphones, computers, cars, houses, or invisible things like knowledge, fame, recognition, or happiness. That is why one philosopher once said that if you think your desire is original to you that’s a romantic lie. He said, if you think your desire is original to you, thats’s a romantic lie. Humans borrow one another’s desire. Because of their desire, Adam and Eve had to come out of the garden. And then they had two sons, Cain and Abel, and we all know the story. The sacrifice of Abel was accepted, but not Cain’s. Cain committed the first murder by killing his brother.  Just imagine if both sacrifices were accepted or both sacrifices were denied. There would be no competition. There would be no rivalry. There would be no killing. But one was not recognized while the other, the opposite. Cain was kind of consumed by desire and killed his rival, his younger brother.

Let’s look at the 10 commandments. The kids in Kids Church, they kind of know 10 commandments because during VBS one of the most favourite songs they’ve been singing every day was the 10 commandments song. So there is kind of a cool motions, I don’t want to show it, but they really liked the song. Number six to number nine, so simple, nothing that special. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

You shouldn’t do this. The commandments prohibits some kind of action that would destroy the harmony of the community. Suddenly the 10th commandment became really long and the object, the target was changed. You shall not desire your neighbor’s wife or male or female slave or ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbour. So from six number six to nine, certain actions prohibited, but the 10th commandment prohibits human desire, not actions. The desire that comes from the outside, from your neighbor, which means outside the other, the otherness.

If I go back to 2000 or so, I imagine that there’s a law maker of the 10 commandments, he was trying to make the 10 commandments and he didn’t want the people to fight. He didn’t want for people to fight each other, and so he was trying to lay out the list, the list of prohibitions. But soon he realized after number six, seven, and eight and nine, he realized that the list went on and on and on. You have to list out everything. So he gave up. So instead of listing out the thing that people fight for and become violent, he decided to finish his work by talking about desire. Desire for that which belongs to the other.

From January this year, Kids Church has been using this new curriculum and it’s 52 weeks about Bible stories. We started from the creation story. And then today downstairs, they must have finished already, they are learning about the story of King Saul. And every Bible lesson comes through the short Bible movie clip, two minutes, three minutes, something like that. And almost every week, I realize there’s too much violence in the Bible. Every week. The stories are full of violence, filled with so much blood. Sometimes I worry about how much these young kids are able to digest, but the Bible says so, so I don’t know. Then I realized that that’s human reality and our history. Humans, we humans desire. And that desire comes from the outside, the other. That desire desires what you have not, but the other has. Then there comes jealous, competition, envy, and that makes rivalry. Then violence comes in many, many different forms.

You all know that in the story of Jacob and his brother Esau, Jacob desired what his brother Esau had. The privilege that only the first born son had and its blessings from his father, Isaac. Then Jacob’s desire together with his mom Rebeca’s desire led Jacob to a kind of a competition, a rivalry with his older brother, Esau. You can imagine it easily. Esau was not even years older than him, they were twins. And Esau was just born, I will say just a few minutes earlier than him. Then there came violence.

You all know that in the story of Joseph and his 10 older brothers, the 10 brothers desired their father Jacob’s attention, but only the youngest brother possessed that. If this situation continued, they wouldn’t receive Jacob’s blessing and inheritance. So the 10 brothers with one heart in harmony for one purpose made Joseph a scapegoat. They exercised their violence upon their youngest brother, Joseph, trying to kill him and eventually selling him as a slave to Egypt.

You all know, also, the story of Israel in the times of judges. The Israelites desired what they didn’t have, what other nations had. Every nation around them had kings, but they did it. So even though God didn’t like the idea, the Isrealites’ desire led them to, I would say a rivalry with God. Rivalry with God, the invisible God, and set one desirable person, King Saul on the throne. I don’t have to give you more examples from the Bible. We are full of desire, desire, rivalry, violence, over and over again.

But, even though we are born with desire, it seems like the Bible says we don’t usually desire God. We desire anything that the other possesses, but we don’t desire God. The first woman saw the tree and she desired it, but we see the lamb of God and we don’t have desire. Is because the lamb of God, the Messiah, doesn’t look that desirable. Today’s scripture said, “For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him“. His appearance is not desirable. Who can desire the scapegoat, right? Who could desire that? He has no form that we should look at him. He has no majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. The first woman saw the tree and we already read her burning desire, right? So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired, to make one wise. But if we saw the Messiah, the Bible may have been written this way. So then the man or woman saw that the Messiah was no good for our survival and that it was not a delight to the eyes and that the Messiah was not to be desired to make one wise.

The problem is the Messiah demands us to desire him. The Messiah, according the Bible, demands us to desire him. Jesus said, Then he said to them all, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me“. St. Paul said, “therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children“. But according to Isaiah, we humans didn’t desire the Messiah and rejected him and finally had him killed. “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”

The Bible doesn’t use a backhanded way of saying it, of talking around it. The Bible just directly tells us that it’s us who killed the Messiah. Not you or some but us. Our desire killed him. So St James says this, “then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death“. And St. Paul says this, “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God“. And also the prophet Isaiah in today’s passage says this, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way“. We have all turned to our own desire. Often, when we are being consumed by desire, we become ignorant. We see the Messiah, Jesus Christ dying on the cross and say, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted“. When we are consumed by desire we don’t see what we have to see. That’s why the first saying of Jesus on the cross is this, Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

They don’t see what they’re doing because the desire is so hidden, deep, deep down in human existence. Conversion, repentance, I don’t think they are big things. Just to know that I’m a sinner, I’m a sinner just to see I’m responsible for killing the Messiah on the cross, that’s conversion and repentance. When I was in grade eight or nine in Korea, I went to a Hi-C retreat. And I didn’t want to go because I didn’t go to church at that time because I was in puberty here so I was just against everything. I was against my father, my mother, I was against society. I was against this institution of school, all kind of a rebellious ideas. Yes. Those were my grades, six, seven, eight those days and I didn’t go to church.

Why, why should I go to church? There’s a romantic idea, kind of a fantasy idea, I believed. And then my school friends, for two months, they’d been saying “let’s go” every day, every day. So then, okay. Okay. I liked my friends, so I went there. There were three nights in the retreat, so I didn’t want to go. I didn’t have any interest in any ladies or woman by that time I didn’t have any interest in swimming or the food or anything. So we had about 100 or 150 kids and I was always really back there sitting like this because we didn’t have chairs. We didn’t usually use chairs years ago, we would just sit on the floor. [grumbling noises] I had a “I don’t want to listen” kind of a kind of attitude.

And then the last night, last night, I still vividly remember the last night. The thing is, I just realized I’m a sinner. I don’t know where that came from. I don’t think it was a kind of ethical or doctrinal kind of confession. I just saw myself and I realized I’m a sinner. And then my second question was, what am I supposed to do? There was my question. And then there was cross was there so then something happened there. That was my conversion. I remember that I realized I’m a sinner. For a long time, I didn’t think I was a sinner. Why am I a sinner? Sometimes I lie, sometimes I use bad language, yes. Who wouldn’t? And it’s not a big deale kind of a stuff, but it’s not because of that. The more I looked into myself, the more I tried to go deeper in myself I had to say that I’m a sinner.

When the St. Peter he said, “Go away from me, Lord for I’m a sinful man“. The first thing St. Peter said. When the prophet Isaiah first met God, he said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Therefore, when St. Paul first met God while he was on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians, he heard, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? … I’m Jesus, whom you are persecuting“. I know I’m a sinner. My two kids will not see I’m a sinner. My wife and my mom will not see I’m a sinner. They like me or love me, but they don’t see that I am a sinner, and also you don’t see I’m a senior right? Do you? But I know I’m a sinner.

I know that desire conceived, it gave birth to sin and that sin, when it was fully grown, gave birth to death of the Messiah, the lamb of God, the innocent God, the innocent lamb of God. If I don’t see I’m a sinner, then I have a romantic fantasy or romantic lie. But if I see I’m a sinner, then I have the truth, nothing but the truth. Therefore, I desire the old rugged cross. I desire the cross that has no form nor majesty. I desire the despised cross. I desire the rejected cross. I desire the cross that has nothing in appearance that we desire. Someone says the Bible is like a cloth made with fur. Humans desire to see the outer part, the beautiful part, hairy part, smooth, and so warm. But the Bible flips the fur and lets us see the other side, the animal skin, red and blood dripping.

That’s the Bible, someone says. The cross, the sacrifice of the innocent lamb of God is the same to me. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth“. It’s not the fancy and the side of a part in the appearance of the cross, but the other side, the blood of the lamb of God. We have the cross. This is my favorite part of the sanctuary, the cross. We have this beautiful cross, but we have to see the other side of the cross. Even though it looks big, grand, or beautiful, we must see the other side, the blood of the lamb of God. Not the desirable part of the outer appearance, but the other side. But the good news is that the Bible doesn’t stop there.

The Bible is intention is not to accuse us. Even though Barbara says, you are responsible for killing Jesus Christ the Bible doesn’t trying to accuse us. You’re a sinner, but there’s more. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us“. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all“. Our desire had crucified him. We hear not just “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? … I’m Jesus, whom you are persecuting” but we hear this gentle voice, ‘David, David, why you prosecute me? I’m Jesus, David, whom you are prosecuting’. And accept the grace of the cross and his forgiveness.

More and more and little by little not to live with the desire of the old self, but to live with a new desire for the cross. St. Paul said, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified“. I’m no longer just me. I am no longer just a sinner. I’m a sinner that is covered by the blood of the lamb. I’m a sinner that is covered by the blood of the cross. I’m a sinner whose sins are forgotten and forgiven. So I cherish the old rugged cross. So I desire to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Lord, help us to desire you more.

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Psalm 42

Psalms: 42

The Art Of Waiting

This week I have been reflecting upon waiting. I think waiting is a beautiful thing. Somehow when I think about waiting beauty comes to my mind. There’s something beautiful about waiting. Music is not just sound. Music is a combination of sound and silence. Some musicians say that silence is more important than sound, so sound and silence are combined together and make beautiful music. In the same way, life is both working in waiting and this is the rhythm of life. You cannot just work and work and work. There has to be waiting period. And then you go back to work. So waiting is very much part of our rhythm of life and waiting is a beautiful thing. It’s not just a waste of time. We have to understand the art of waiting because a lot of things happen in our waiting.

In our waiting, we learn to be patient so that we don’t get easily flustered when things did not go as well as want. We wait because we have hope. People who have no hope, they don’t wait. Only people who have hope can wait. And waiting also means that you’re not controlling everything. You just let God control things and you wait, so in waiting there are a lot of beautiful things. So in that sense, waiting is beautiful. When the farmer sows the seeds, sowing the seed is only small part of it. The big part of what farmer has to do is waiting for that seed to grow and produce fruit. That is not his control. It is in God’s control or the control of nature. You have no choice but to wait.

We have to understand waiting quite well. Yesterday as John mentioned, we had our first meeting of young family with babies. I should have brought that picture, it’s so beautiful, so cute on the sofa, about five kids. But there were more than that, more than ten kids, but only five kids sitting there. I should’ve brought it. They gathered together, they talked and the baby’s crying and all that, but it’s not a distraction. It’s just fun. It was so fun that we decided to do it together. We’re going to do it every month and I told them, Okay, we’ll do it every month. I’ll find a place. So I have to ask the elders to provide a place. All these parents know what it means to wait for nine months. You have to wait for the baby to be born. So waiting is an essential part of our life, but we think the waiting is a waste. Waiting is  never a waste. But sometimes it feels likes a waste when you got caught in traffic and when you have to wait in a bank or even for coffee, you have to wait. And then sometimes you feel like it’s a waste, but it is not a waste of time. In waiting, a lot of things happen.

You know, I realized that change happens when we wait not when we work. Change happens when we wait. Depending on what attitude you have about waiting, you can come out of waiting as a bigger person or as a smaller person. You can come out as a bitter person who always complains about everything or you can come out as a bigger person who has gratitude, who is thankful and all that.

Why We Wait

One of our KSM members is having surgery. He has cancer. So, today after service I brought him in to my office and I prayed with him and he was smiling and all that. And then after awhile about five minutes of talking, he started crying a little bit. He said sometimes it is difficult when he deals with cancer within himself. But, you know, what is important is focus. When I have focus, when I start having this clear focus on God, then gratitude came, thanksgiving came, and after that I smile all the time. And my wife always crack jokes now. So he was smiling and laughing. He’s going to have surgery tomorrow. You can come out of waiting as a bitter person and sour person or you can come out of waiting as a grateful person, the bigger person.

A good example is Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela waited in prison for 27 years. Of course, the last period he stayed home, but most of his time he spent in this prison cell. Twenty seven years is a long time. For 27 years, he was waiting in that small cell. But at the end he came out as a bigger person. When you look at that, that’s Nelson Mandela after 27 years. 27 years changed him. Nelson Mandela became Nelson Mandela because of the 27 years of waiting. He did not become a bitter person. He did not become a hateful person. He came out as a bigger person. I don’t think without that 27 years Nelson Mandela cannot have had such a powerful influence on South Africans, and also the  whole world. Waiting can make somebody beautiful. Waiting can really cultivate a person and change a person. Without waiting there’s no spirituality. Without waiting, you cannot be God’s instrument. If you don’t learn how to wait, you cannot live life successfully, and you cannot be an instrument of God. When God called the Israelites out of Egypt, they had to wait for 40 years before they entered into the promised land.

If we know how to wait, within us, character is built. Once character is built, you become a strong person. Through waiting character is formed. Then no matter what situation you may face, you’ll be able to persevere and overcome it. That character can be built only in waiting. Nothing else. Every person who is successful all went through impossible situations. But through those impossible situations, because they have character to persevere, to overcome, they could get the next level. Most failures, they will stop there. They’ll give up there because they don’t have character to go beyond that. Where is the character built? Through waiting, you can build character.

As you read Psalm 42, you see desperation and despair of this psalm writer. This is what he said: “My tears have been my food day and night”. How difficult it must have been that his tears have become his food day and night. We hear repeated this sentence twice. “Why are you cast down? Oh my soul. And why are you disquieted within me?” He experienced impossible situations and because of that he was depressed. He didn’t know what to do. My friends, in our time, we experience this kind of feeling. Often we feel like there is nothing that we can do to deal with our situations. Challenges are too big and we get depressed and discouraged. We just don’t know what to do and we feel like giving up. And many people, actually indeed they gave up. Today Katie came out, she’s having both radiation therapy and chemotherapy together. She had a good spirit after service. She was in the corridor, and then she said it is hard, but I can handle this.

On Monday, she has to go to have a little hole so that she can have food because of tongue cancer. She cannot eat, but she doesn’t want to do that. After a few days she can also eat again and recover, so she doesn’t want to do that. But she was in such a good spirit. If she didn’t have that character, she would have given up. Like, my goodness I can’t handle this anymore. It’s too difficult, too hard.' But she never gave up. She had a high spirit. That is the kind of character that we all need. The people who have learned the art of waiting, they don’t give up. We know how to wait. Even when we cannot do anything, we know how to wait. They know the importance of waiting and they know exactly when to wait. Sometimes we have to move.

The Opportunity Of Waiting

Yes, we have to do the work, but sometimes we have to know that this is a time to wait. You don’t go around frantically to solve your problems. Sometimes by doing that you’re making the problem worse. Sometimes you just need to quiet down and wait. These people who know the art of waiting, they know how to wait and when to wait. They know exactly when to wait, and they wait for God to work, for the situation to work out on its own. We have to learn how to calm ourselves down sometimes. Be calm. Be calm, especially when the storm comes, learn to be calm. That’s being cool. When the difficulties come, be calm and don’t worry so much, don’t be wrapped up with fear. Just be calm with confidence. I like this scripture passage so much. “Be still and know that I’m God”. Just be still and know that I’m God. You’re not alone. Be still, I’ll take care of you. Just know that I am God. When we learn the art of waiting, you realize that from deep within hope arises. Hope is not something that you decide. Hope is not something that you decide to have.

If you have hope, you have it. If you don’t have it, you don’t have it. It’s not something that you decide to have or not, but when you acquire the art of waiting, you realize that from deep within hope arises. Even when your situation is hopeless, hope arises within you. A life of waiting is not a passive life. Life of waiting is searching, yearning.

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you. Oh God, my soul thirsts for God, for the Living God. That’s what waiting is. You don’t just passively wait and sit down and do nothing. But in your waiting you search for God, you reach out to God. You promised. You stand on the promise of God. Now you hold onto the promise and ask God, this is what you promised and then you search for God to work in our lives. Life of waiting is beautiful. There’s so much passion, so much desire, so much thirst for the living God. God will pour his living water on your thirsty soul and heart.

So when difficulties arise, don’t be scared. When impossible situations arise to not despair, just learn to wait. Trust in God and our waiting will not be wasted, and our waiting will not disappoint us. This is what St. Paul said: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Beautiful passage. Practice the art of waiting. Whenever we have no choice but to wait, don’t get frustrated. Use it as an opportunity to cultivate the discipline of waiting with anew.

[Refection Song: In His Time]

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Philippians 2:1-4

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit,if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

The World We Live In

What beautiful advice for all of us. Regard others as better than yourselves. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. Look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let us reflect on that a little bit. What great advice. I think this is what we are supposed to live with. If we keep this advice, the world we live in will become a better place. Obama in his speech for the nuclear negotiation with Iran said, “At the end, the world will be a safer place, safer world, the better world.” That’s what we want. If we take Paul’s advice seriously, I think many of our relationships will become quite better. We know we live in a fragmented world, relationships shattered and broken, and I realized that we did not keep Jesus’ advice or Paul’s advice. We are tremendously influenced by the world unconsciously, without ever realizing how much we are controlled by the ethos and the thinking of the world. As Joshua shared, working 12, 15 hours a day, do you really think about what you are living for?

We are very much influenced and have to understand how much are we are influenced by the world. We can't just let the world influence us. I think the world we live in is controlled by the power, everything is based on power. What is power? I don’t think that it’s just political power. For example, how rich you are, how popular you are, how well educated you are, how well you’re doing with your career, how attractive you are, what race you are or what gender you are. All of these things make up personal power. We live based on the power that we have accumulated for ourselves, and from there we try to build relationships with others with the power that we have. That’s why sometimes, you try to accumulate this power so that you can have the upper hand in your relationship.

Then you look down upon those who are less powerful and you’re very nice to those as powerful or more powerful than you. You know my friends intrinsically, power has a desire to control and even control our relationships. We are so deeply entrenched in the power-hungry world that we do that with each other too. Even among couples, they constantly have power struggles between each other. Even with friends there is power struggle. People who are enslaved by the power try to put others under you, under your control, and they don’t even realize they are doing it. They have this automatic assumption that “I’m better than you” or “I should be better than you”. No matter what, I’m better than you. They are not even aware of this assumption. Whether you’re a religious person, or even in other areas, people use that. Even in religion, they use that to gain the upper hand. “I’m better than you, at least in my faith, in my spirituality”, from that all kinds of prejudice begins: racism, sexism, ageism, classism, elitism, you name it. No matter how worthless a person may look, if we cannot uphold that person’s human dignity, I think that’s corruption. That’s corrupted thinking. No matter how shabby and how pathetic this person may look, if you cannot uphold that person’s human dignity, you have already corrupted your thinking.

Whether that person is a strong person, weak person, a waitress in a restaurant, or students in the airplane, no matter who they are, they all deserve your respect and human dignity .

Saint Paul said to Regard others as better than yourselves . I think that’s a remedy. This is so against the culture stream, culture trend in our society. I want to be better than you always. I worked so hard so that I can be better than you, but Paul said Regard others as better than yourself . That is so against the stream of our modern thinking, but I think that's the wisdom. I believe that’s the truth, and I think that it is something that we need to hold onto. How can we regard others better than yourselves? It is hard to do because whenever we tried to do that, we felt miserable. When you consider other people better than you, you feel miserable. Is Paul telling us to live with this miserable feeling? I don’t think so. Paul is saying that even when you regard others  better than yourself, you don’t need to feel miserable. That’s not what should make you feel miserable. It’s the way how you see things, the world and your relationship with others. When others do well, we have two contradicting feelings and emotions within us. On the one hand, we are very happy for them if their children are going to an Ivy school or if their children are doing a wonderful job and they are doing very well, you’re really happy for them. On the other hand, you wonder, what have I been doing all this time? They achieved so much and look at me, I have only done this. Right there, if you’re not careful, you fall into self-pity and you start feeling miserable.

Let us consider a totally different scenario. Let’s say you feel that obviously you are better than the other person. You know, in terms of your singing ability, or in terms of your looks, or in terms of whatever, you obviously think that you’re better than the other person. How can I consider the other person better than myself? Do I fake it? Do I say “Oh, you’re better than me.”, do I fake it? Paul said, In humility, consider others better than yourself . Not in false humility. We all know false humility so well. We are fooled by false humility multiple times, to the point we're not fooled by false humility anymore. So, regarding others as better than yourself is not about comparing yourself with others and seeing who is better, it is our attitude towards other people. It doesn’t matter who the other person is. We always, whether that person is a child, or poor and powerless, you always consider them as better than yourself. You put yourself under that person.

What is that called? When you put yourself under other people? What is that called? Servant. Exactly. That’s what a serving mentality is all about. He says in the four verses you read from verse five, he said, have the same attitude as Jesus, and then he showed what Jesus said. Who thought he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave or servant, being born in human likeness and being found in human form. Paul boldly declares that Jesus took the form of a servant. I think that’s a radical statement. Our Lord, the son of God, took the form of a servant. As Jesus became a servant to save the world, to make the world a better place, Jesus asked us to be a servant. That is the way of the disciples. That is our journey. Our journey is not towards the power, to defeat and control the people. Our journey is a journey to the servanthood, where we put ourselves under others and serve them. That’s what our journey is all about. We are not the people. We are Christians. We are not the people to rule, but, to serve. This is our philosophy. This is our principle of living. This is what Jesus said, You know that among the gentiles, those whom they recognized as their rulers lorded over them and their great ones are tyrants over them, but it is not so, among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you, you must be a servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you must be the slave of all. For the son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life, a ransom for many . My friends. This is a core of the gospel.

There are many good things in the Bible, but that is a core of what we believe. Core of the Gospel. If you lose this core of the Gospel, you lose being a Christian. If we lose this, we don’t know what it means to follow Jesus Christ. If you’re still trying to rule over other people and conquer other people, whether it's personally, nationally, or globally, then what we are doing is not Christian living. That’s what’s going on in the world right now, so we have to sometimes go against the stream of this world. Don’t blindly follow what the world does, stand strong even though that is against the stream. People who think like that are corrupted in their thinking. They fell into the futile thinking and with futile thinking, you cannot do God’s work. My friends, regard others as better than yourselves. When you deal with other people, look at yourself. Do you have this automatic assumption showing that I’m better than you because I’m a man?, because I’m white?, because I’m more educated? Because I’m more powerful? Or because I’m richer? Do you automatically assume that you’re better than the other person? Catch it. Your influenced. You’re influenced by the world’s thinking.

Always regard others better than yourselves. Be kind to them. Be kind. Before they greet you, go first and greet them. Be nice to them. It doesn’t matter who, always treat other people as though you are their servant. Only strong people can do that, like Jesus. Only strong people can do that. Weak people try to pretend that they’re stronger, but confident people, the powerful, real strong people can kneel down and serve other people. We are not the slaves of power. We are the servants of love. We are not blinded by power, but we are awakened by the love. We don’t build relationships based on power, but on love. We are born again. We are born again by Jesus’ love. We are born again by Jesus’ teaching. The first thing about being born again is to be a servant. That’s the first thing, and that is the essence of our life. So when you have lots of power, be careful. Don’t make yourself greater than others with that, rather, use that, humbly, to serve other people and to serve God. Josh, that’s why you’re working 12 to 15 hours. Not just to accumulate power, but with that power, you can serve other people. That’s the essence of spiritual living,

Without realizing it, have we become a slave to power? So many times we feel insecure because we don’t have enough power. Or, because we have so much power, we have become arrogant. Let us pray that we are not slaves or servants of power, but that we be servants of love. Let us pray that God fill us so that we may truly become servants of love to serve other people and God.

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Mark 6:7-15

Let us pray: “Lord, help me to dedicate myself in Your hands. Lead my life in Your hands. My life does not belong to me; it belongs to You. Help me, oh Lord, to trust in You and leave my life in Your hands.”

He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.  So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

King Herod heard of it, for Jesus' name had become known. Some weresaying, John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.  But others said, It is Elijah. And others said, It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.

You know when I look at Jesus’ life, I realized that Jesus was not much interested in the crowd. Jesus was much more interested in the individuals, some are minorities, disciples. Jesus knew about mob psychology very well. He didn’t take psych 101, but he knew all about a mob psychology, human psychology. He knew what the crowd is like. The crowd, they’re there one day and the next day they’re gone. They’re crazy about you on the day and the next day they don’t even look at. You know, they are very selfish and self-centered. If they like it, they swallow it. If they don’t like it they spit it out. That’s what the crowd is and Jesus knew this crowd so well that he was not fooled by the crowd. He did not do things to entertain the crowd.

By doing that to be popular, he didn’t do any of that. And we looked at the narcissism in modern days. Jesus was not at all narcissistic. He didn’t do all these things to attract attention from the people. Look at me. I’m the savior. I’m great. I can do this. I can do that. You know, I can do this miracle and I can do this teaching Jesus was not interested in doing those things. Jesus just did whatever he had to do. So Jesus was not really interested in the crowd and gathering the crowd, but rather Jesus was interested in small people, a small number of people who truly follow Jesus. Jesus said, “don’t take anything that is so against our culture, against the grain of our culture” Our culture, the more is better, bigger is better. Faster is better. That’s our culture.

But Jesus said, “don’t take even two pieces of clothes. Don’t take money. Oh, don’t take sandal, but don’t take back. Just go out and do it”. When you look at Jesus’ life in the Bible, he was only interested in those who are sincerely desiring to follow Jesus. Not all of those people who are just mesmerized by the power that Jesus displayed. Jesus was not interested in power. Jesus was into truth and Jesus wanted to teach these disciples to exercise the same thing. So today’s story is after Jesus called 12 disciples, Jesus sent them out to do the work and these people went out and did wonderful things. Just all kinds of miracles they could perform. They never tried that before. They never experienced them before. They simply followed Jesus and what Jesus is trying to say is “what I’m doing, you can do also if you believe in me”. Today’s story, Jesus said, “don’t take any of that” Jesus is not asking you to be poor, to live a humble living. That’s not the main point. The main point of today’s stories is that you don’t take anything, don’t depend on those things. Can’t you just depend on me? Can you just trust me? Can you just follow what I’m telling you to do? Then you can experience an amazing thing in your life. And they actually followed Jesus and then did amazing things that they never are expected to do. We have so much, so many clothes, so many shoes, so many bags and car. How do we have so many things, but somehow don’t feel powerful?. You’re not empowered. We cannot do a lot of things, we always worry about tomorrow when we have so much. For people who have nothing to eat, they worry about tomorrow, but we have so much. There’s so much food in the refrigerator, but still, we worry about tomorrow.

I don’t know why when have so much, why do we worry? Look at the birds of the air. They do not fall because God takes care of them. Look at the lilies in the field they are beautiful. Not because they are beautiful, but because God made them beautiful. How much more God will take care of us, we are the children of God. We are not just flowers or birds, we are the children of God, and how much more God will take care of us, why do we worry? When we have so many things, why do we worry? I think Jesus is teaching us a very simple lifestyle. Restore the simplicity in your life. When you make your life so complicated, then you won’t experience the power of life. But when you simplify your life, take and give away all the unnecessary things and learn how to depend on me, trust me, then everything will be all right. That’s what God teaches us.

Faith is an abstract concept. We don’t know what faith is. We don’t know what it looks like. Faith is an abstract, so it’s easy to say that, “Oh I have faith” because nobody knows what that means. “Oh yeah I have faith”, what do you mean by that? We don’t know because it’s an abstract concept, but faith when you have real concrete faith, you give everything in God’s hands. You leave everything in God’s hands. That’s what faith is. When you trust God, you can leave everything in God’s hands and then that’s what faith looks like. If you have genuine faith, true faith, when problems occur, instead of trying to solve it on your own, you’d leave them in God’s hands. When you have challenges in front of you, instead of worrying about it, you’d leave them in God’s hands. You have a big project that is coming up and are worrying about whether I can do a good job or not? you leave them in God’s hands. Let say you failed or didn’t do very well, you will get frustrated and disappointed. But, when you leave things to God’s hands when you fail you think, “next time I try, I’ll rise again.” That is the attitude you will develop.

When you are able to deliver yourself in God’s hands, you will be able to have the power to do it again and that’s what Jesus is teaching us. When you’re in a bad relationship with somebody or whatever, and then you did something wrong, of course, you have to go and apologize, “I’m sorry, I really did a bad thing”, but that person doesn’t forgive you?. That person doesn’t open up, what do you do? Do you try to manipulate? No, you do as much as you can, ask for forgiveness, and only after that, you live in God’s hands so that person may change in the future. You don’t manipulate people, you don’t manipulate the situation. When you trust God, you don’t use your own manipulative skills to correct the situation, you just simply leave everything in God’s hand and that’s what the power of faith is all about. Your life journey, journey to fullness. It’s like this, as you live you may face challenges and difficulties and hardships and all that. Then instead of using your brain, how can I solve this problem? How can I deal with this problem? You worry about how you can come up with all these strategies and solutions and all that. Instead of doing that, you’re going to the cellar. You pray, instead of trying to come up with all the best solutions with your brain. Just leave them. You go into the cellar, you pray, and when you do that, you’ll be able to see the way you will be able to see how God is moving and you see the movement of God and when you see the way you follow that way, that’s what a journey’s all about. Every time you do that, every time you face challenges, you face problems instead of trying to solve it with your brain, you go into prayer and then God will use your brain. Use every skill. God will use every situation that you have and then God will show you the way, and then once you see the way, you follow the way. That is what journey is all about. Let me give you an example. Jesus Christ, when he preached the Gospel, a lot of people loved this message. They were mesmerized by his message so that they follow Jesus, but Jesus knew that these people will reject me. Now they follow me, but soon they will reject me. If they don’t get what I want, then they don’t deserve me. I’m in deaths. What they actually did, but Jesus already knew, so he did miracles and all that. Not to get popular but to help them out because he had compassion. He helped out a lot. After that, when they persecuted him, they said all kinds of false rumors in the center and then accused him that Jesus did not manipulate the situation. Jesus just lets them be because Jesus trusted the Sensationalism, God’s work will never be done. He just led them all the way to the cross. He was misunderstood. And yet he did not try to correct their misunderstandings. He just let them be. He left all that in God’s hands and took up the cross. And ultimately that cross brought the victory.

Jesus did not use manipulation. He trusted God in everything he did in our lives. When we are able to trust God in everything we do, your life will be empowered. You will experience new power. Right now we have too many things and we depend on that and we think we have power, no, rather, we lost the power to live a powerful life. But if you learn to trust in God, then you will experience the power. Everything will work out in life and I thank God. But in the process, are you going to perish because you don’t believe?. I hope that you believe in God. God will work everything for Good in the end. Don’t give up. Trust God and believe in God and let God take control of your life. Many times we try to take control of our lives and we lose confidence. We worry until we give up. We run away. We can never face challenges with that kind of attitude, but when you trust God, you can face the challenges because you believe that God will empower you. God gives you the wisdom. God will give you the strength and God will give you the solution. Life secret is very simple, give away, give away, and just simply trust in God. Give away your life in God’s hands.

Many young people, don’t fall into narcissism. God can never use you if you are in narcissism. If you’re self-centered, if you had been living in your own power, God can never use you. Trust God and trust in God’s power. Then you will rise with God’s power. So whatever you do in your life do not worry, don’t be scared, go, but with faith, you have to trust in God and go when you don’t have anything. Don’t worry. God will provide what you need. What is important is what is my dream? What is my desire? What do I want to do with my life? That’s what’s important. When you have that, God will give you the strength. God will give you the resources and God will give you the wisdom to be able to achieve what God wants you to achieve in your life.

In life, we don’t need great sophisticated strategies and model in doing ministry. That’s not what we need in life. What we need is simple faith, simple faith in God. That’s what we need. That’s what Jesus taught them. The first thing Jesus taught the disciples was to simply have faith. Just give away everything else, but hold onto simple faith. Then you’ll be able to perform all kinds of powerful things that you never experienced before and that’s what we need and I hope that you hold on to the power of love in your life.

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2 Corinthians 12:2-10

In this inspiring message after the retreat, Rev. Kim uncovers the secret to happiness. May the grace of God be what empowers you in life, rather than the power we find in the world, which is temporary.

I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows  was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness. So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

Accepting Life's Circumstances

I see life as very interesting. I’m not saying that if it is good or pleasant necessarily, just interesting. A life is never either this or that. Life is often both this and that. Life circumstances are never either good or bad. Life circumstances are both good and bad. If there is laughter, then there are tears. St. Paul experienced going to the third heaven. We don’t know exactly what he was talking about, the third heaven, but the experience was fantastic; an out of world kind of experience. He himself said, I’m not sure. I don’t know whether I was in the body or out of the body. So he had a tremendously high spiritual experience. Not many of us will have had experience of going to the third heaven while alive on this earth, but that’s not the end of the story. The Bible is like that. That’s not the end of the story.

And then that’s the not main story either. Soon, God gave him a thorn in the flesh. Actually, it wasn't God who gave him a thorn in the flesh, but God allowed Satan to give a thorn in the flesh of St. Paul. And this thorn bothered him tremendously. He was tormented. Now he had just experienced paradise as this spiritual high, then soon, he experienced the bottom, the lowest point of his spiritual life by being tormented by Satan through the thorn in the flesh. So we realize that life is either this or that. Life is always both this and that. People are like that. People are never either good or bad.

People are both good and bad. We cannot paint a person as a bad person or a good person because they consist both of good and bad. But we like to a paint reality with one color. If there is just one color, it is easier to understand, easier to grasp, and easier to control. So we paint reality with one color. But as you look at the reality, honestly and carefully, you realize that reality is a combination of many different colors and the spiritual spirituality or spiritual journey is to embrace all colors of our reality and be thankful in all circumstances. Embrace all colors and be thankful in all circumstances.

Having Gratitude

Do you want to know what the secret happinesses is? I found the secret of happiness. You want me to tell you, yes or no? It’s very expensive. I’m telling you for free. I realized that the secret of happiness is that you never expect life to be this or that, but to accept both this and that. Never expect life to be this way. If you don’t have that expectation, then you’ll be happy. Accept both this and that. But a lot of unhappiness comes from, Oh, life should be this way and if life is not this way, I’m not happy. If you continuously insist that, then you’ll never experience happiness in life. If there is rain, there will be sunshine. Accept both rain and the sunshine.

Our issue in life is not whether life is this or that. Our issue with life is whether I can survive through the situation I am in. Whether if my the life situation is either this or that, the issue is whether I can survive through the situation that I’m in right now. Mary Jo Leddy said in her book “Radical Gratitude” that being grateful is the secret of life, and gratitude is the most radical attitude towards life and this is what she said about gratitude: In gratitude, the vicious cycle of dissatisfaction with life is broken, and we begin anew in the recognition of what we have rather than what we don’t have, in the acknowledgement of who we are rather than in the awareness of who we are not. We are not happy because of our life circumstances, my friends. We are not happy because of our attitude towards our circumstances. Do you understand? We are not happy because our life situations are a certain way. It is because of our attitude towards certain situations of our life, we become very unhappy. Right after experiencing the third heaven, the spiritual high, St. Paul experienced the spiritual low. He was thrown down into the bottom of his spirituality. He just wanted to remain at a spiritual high.

My Grace is Sufficient for You

So with relative confidence, you know when you’re spiritually high, you have spiritual confidence. With relative confidence, he approached God and prayed thinking that when he prays, even he can even remove mountain. When you’re spiritually high, you have that kind of spiritual confidence. So he approached God, and prayed three times. The Bible is figurative. That does not mean that Paul prayed only three times. That means Paul prayed as much as he could. I mean, would you think that Paul is finished praying only after three times? No, he prayed as much as possible. He prayed with confidence, with spiritual high, but somehow surprisingly, God did not answer him. God did not take out the thorn in the flesh. Sometimes in your life, with your logic, with your brain, you think that this is the best and you prayed, but God does not listen.

That’s what St. Paul experienced. He thought that with the absence of a thorn in the flesh, he can do much better with his ministry, for you, for God and everything, so he thought that it would be best that the thorn would be removed, so he prayed three times. But God did not take away the thorn. When God does not listen to your prayer that of which you desire the most, the prayer that in your head is the most reasonable and good, and God still does not grant that prayer. What do you do? Do you give up? Do you give up praying? Do you give up believing in God? Do you give up spirituality? Paul experienced God not answering his prayers, but that was not the end of it. He got this message and the message is: My grace is sufficient unto you, my grace is sufficient for you. What is God doing here? God was teaching Paul to learn to accept all his life situations, whether with the thorn or without the thorn. God taught Paul to live with not only with good situations but also with bad situations too. God taught Paul the only thing we need in this world or in our life is this. The only thing that we need. What is this?

The Gift of Grace

Grace. That’s the only thing that you need in your life. Everything else is extra. Everything else is a bonus. When everything runs out, but if grace is still operating within you, then you can survive that. Grace is the most important thing. Beyond that, if you have wealth, that’s a bonus. If you have good children, that's a bonus. If you have a beautiful boyfriend/girlfriend, that’s a bonus. If you have beautiful children, if you have your health, that’s a bonus, but the only thing that we need in our life is grace. St. Paul discovered that grace is sufficient for you. St. Paul learned this secret and that your power does not come from your power. Your power comes when you’re powerless. Your power does not come from your power. Your power comes when your power is gone.

This is what he said: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness. In other words, power is made perfect in powerlessness. When you’re powerless, then you can experience real power. When you feel powerful, that powerfulness may not be the true powerfulness that we need in this world. The true powerfulness is when we feel totally powerless. We experience the true power that doesn’t only come today and disappears tomorrow. There is another power, the kind of power that exists today, but disappears tomorrow, but the power Paul is talking about is a power that lasts forever with you and that power is God’s power. And through his weaknesses, he experiences the true power of God. Unless you are stripped off of all your power, you won’t see the power of God working in you. When you’re totally vulnerable, that’s when you experience the true power of God in your life. The star shines brighter in the darkness, in the same way, God’s power shines brighter in the dark night of the soul. When you go through tremendous darkness, that’s when you experience the true power. We are so scared that I want to have power. I have power of popularity, fame, money. Well, you know all those things. I want to have this because without this, I can not survive! So you live with this power, being scared that someday you might go away, but when you let go, when that is taken away from you, sometimes that’s when you experience the true power that is operating in you and that gives you true confidence in your life.

Finding Strength Through Weakness

That’s why Saint Paul could boast about his weaknesses. This is what he said: So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. He tasted the power of Christ, so he does not boast about his power. Rather, he boasts about his weaknesses because in those weaknesses he experienced the power of Christ. I hope that all of you will become the people who experience the power of Christ. I hope all of you will live and become the people who live with the power of Christ dwelling in you, rather than power that you accumulate. That power just disappears and evaporates.

During KSM service, when Reverend Chung was doing communion, I got a message from Reverend Son that a member of our congregation who was in hospital, passed away this morning. He was in the hospital. He wanted to have worship with us at the same time. And then he sat and drank something. And after that he passed away. The fragility of life. The vulnerability of life. The power that we hold onto doesn’t last forever. When I said that, all members in the congregation about his age, all his friends there were totally shocked. Everything that we hold onto in this world can be taken away just like that. I hope that we all experience the power of Christ, that never departs from you. And that we live with this grace of God operating in you. When this grace of God operates in you, you know what happens? You are being content. I told you at the retreat, the complainers shouldn’t complain over people. You are the problem. You are the problem.

When we experience the spirituality, we learn to be content in whatever circumstances, good or bad, well fed, or hungry because even in your weakness, God’s power will be manifested. Experience. Don’t have doctrinal faith. Have faith that experiences the power of Christ. Put down your traditional faith and experience the power of Christ dwelling in you. But many times when you hold onto your power, you will not experience that power that much. When you let that go and let yourself become completely immersed in the grace of God, everything else is bonus. Be content and be thankful. When you know that power, in the life situation where it tries to shrink you down, you’ll come out, standing tall. May the power of Christ dwell in your life.

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Part 3 of the Journey to Fullness series.

Recorded live from the retreat held on June 27, 2015.

Click on the image above to read this session in e-book format.

Be like a Child

The last song was so good and appropriate for our talk. Give myself away so God can use us. I wonder whether that is the ultimate purpose of our spiritual journey. This afternoon I had time alone with Nolan. Grace and Josh were going into the discussion. So, I took a Nolan by myself while you are having a discussion. I was just sitting there, very, very nice weather, a breeze and the kind of sound of laughing in the background from group discussions and people talking. I was sitting there and then at first, I felt a little lonely. I’m by myself while they are having a great time of discussion and all that. So, I felt a little uncomfortable in the beginning and then saw myself, why do I feel lonely? I started getting into the inner journey in a way for myself. And then I looked at Nolan and he was sleeping for about an hour and a half. And then I looked at him, almost 30 minutes, just looked at him and reflected, looked at him and reflected, and the best thing to look at for meditation and reflection and how peaceful, that boy is, just sleeping baby, peaceful, no pretension, nothing to worry about, nothing to show off, nothing to prove himself. He was just sleeping. And it occurred to me, a spiritual journey is to be like children.

That’s what Jesus just said. If you are not like a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. But as we grow up, you know, we come up with all kinds of distorted images about ourselves. That’s not the image that is created for me, that is an image that we have adopted for myself to protect ourselves, to guard yourself, to conquer others, to be better than others. So, we created very many distorted images of ourselves. Maybe our spiritual journey is to take off one by one of those false images or distorted images that we have put upon ourselves for our own survival. So that spiritual journey is to go back to be like a child. And what as an adult, as an adult, that very difficult for Nolan is easy. He doesn’t have to worry about making an income, he doesn’t have to worry about feeding our family. Doesn’t have to worry about people attacking him at all, that you know he’s furious, safe, so it’s easy for him. But for an adult, he will be very, very difficult job to do so. But the goal is there. The direction is there. To be a great person is not to be great in the eyes of the world. To be a great person is to be like a child. Simple, very simple. Appreciating what you have. Always be thankful for what you have.

I wonder that is our spiritual journey. Whether our spiritual journey is very pure, pure person, just like a child being pure without calculating, without manipulating, without showing off, just being pure as you are, that it’s as simple as that, but that is the most difficult thing to do. This identity is a very, very strange thing. We are struggling with our identity. Who are you? Really? Who am I? Is it the inner person who I really am, or the outer person I present? Who am I in the real sense? When Jesus just started the ministry, that was the first thing that he just had to overcome. It is an amazing revelation when Gospel writer wrote about Jesus’ life. The first thing Jesus had to deal with was his identity, nothing else, and when I discovered that, wow, this identity thing is a very serious matter. They’re very confused with our own identity in many ways. We don’t know who we are. That’s why we are struggling so much in our lives.

So, when you look at the Gospel, this is how it begins. It begins with Jesus Baptism. Jesus, when Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him, John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me, but Jesus answered him. Let it be so now for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness. Then he consented and when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were open to him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and a light on him and a voice from heaven said, listen, this is my son, the beloved with whom I am well pleased. That is the conclusion of the baptism of Jesus. The conclusion was about Jesus’ identity. Who are you? You are my beloved Son. That was what was revealed at the Baptist. Nothing else. Jesus’ identity was established at the baptism and that was the first thing God did in the Ministry of Jesus Christ.

That’s how Gospel writers saw, but right after that there’s a temptation story, but listen to temptations story very carefully. This temptation story is about Jesus’ identity. It was nothing like temptation you’re thinking of. This temptation story is about Jesus’ identity. Let us look at it. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and afterward he was famished. The tempter came and said to him if you are the Son of God if you are the Son of way, he’s already the Son of God. Baptism already said, Jesus is the Son of God, and Satan is coming to Jesus and say, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread, but he answered, it is written. One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple and saying to him, if you are the Son of God again, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down for it is written. He will command his angels concerning you and, on their hands, they will bear you up so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him again, it is written to not put the Lord your God to the test. Then again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, and he said to him, all these I’ll give to you if you will fall and worship me. Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve only him. Then the devil left him and suddenly angels came and waited on him. Temptation was about Jesus’ identity. Jesus is the Son of God and he was already revealed that he was the Son of God, but Satan kept asking, Jesus, prove your identity. Proof your identity by doing all these fantastic things. Wow. That’s a revelation. That tells us a lot. God gave us the identity. The world asks us to prove your identity. Who said those were the criteria by which Jesus becomes the Son of God. It is what Satan made, it is the will Satan made up. It is not what God wants from Jesus that was what Satan made up because that is what all human beings all fallen human beings. These are what the world wants, and these are what human beings want, so you do all those things that I’m telling you to do.

Then prove that you are the Son of God. Jesus never fell into that temptation. Jesus at the inset, worship God and serve him only. I’m not going to worship anything that you say, I’m going to worship only God. Nothing else. Ninety percent, 99 percent fall into that temptation to prove their identity. When was Jesus’ identity finally revealed right in the beginning when God said at the baptism, you are my beloved Son, and then right at the end, at the cross, Jesus’ identity was revealed where at the cross. Let us read that part. Now when the centurions and those with him who were keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, Truly this man was God’s son, century the gentile. At the end. In the beginning, God said, Jesus, Son of God, in the end, recognized the Roman, the Gentile, the world, recognize that Jesus was God’s son. Jesus was God’s son and he never tried to prove that he was God’s son. His identity was revealed by Jesus being faithful to the cross, not by proving it. That shallow. Jesus was the not trying to prove his who he was. He was just faithful to who he was to the cross.

That’s why Jesus said, you want to follow me, take up your cross and follow me. If you don’t take up the cross and you cannot fall on me, you try to prove yourself and you try or want to follow me. You can follow me by trying, trying to prove yourself. You want to prove to you, are you? Do you want to follow me? Take up the cross. Be Faithful to who you are. This tells me a lot about how I’m supposed to live. Jesus was not influenced by what the world falsely expected of Jesus and from Jesus. That is a strong man. Jesus is a strong man. He was not falsely influenced by what the world expected of him or for him. He was himself. The world tells you, be this. Then I will tell you, you are the son of God. Teach us to no to that she just was just himself and a whole story in the Gospel is all about people accusing. Jesus ended disappointed with Jesus because Jesus did not meet the expectation of what they wanted and the ultimately because of that Jesus died on the cross. We are not that strong. They are easily influenced by what the world wants. Either by having it one, not having it and being envious of it. We can easily follow the false expectations of the world.

How the World Measures You

They look good because the world says it’s good. Because the world made that it is good. But they didn’t look as good, but it’s not good in a real way, but we say that is good because the world says it is good. We are blinded, falsely blinded, thinking that that is good. Instead of truly finding who we are, we are trying to define ourselves with what the world wants from us. My friends don’t define yourself by what the world measures, measures you with. From there, all kinds of problems begin. If you try to follow what world, what the world expects from you, you start creating false selves and they use to stop being like a child, you’d become somebody else you do not become who you are. We create fearful self-create itself and narcissistic self. I’m going to reflect on these three things. Fear, greed, narcissism. These three things are what many people, most people fall into it. We’ll set the wrong purpose, wrong direction, and you will get two wrong destinies. Fearful because we cannot meet the false expectations of the world. Greedy because you’re lured by the glory of the glory. This world to fall asleep promises narcissistic by trying to achieve what the world admires. They don’t want to be like Gandhi. They want to be like Gandhi as a result, but they don’t want to be Gandhi in the process. They don’t want to be Martin Luther King. They want to be Martin Luther King at the end. They don’t want to be Martin Luther King risking their lives. By just following the wrong expectations of the world we become strange people. Become strange people.

The other day a person told me about his friend. I think this describes so well the attitudes of many people. His friend was a cancer survivor of 10 years. He had cancer 10 years ago and uh, he got treatment and then after 10 years it didn’t recur. So, he was happy, and he realized how precious life is. Do you know what his conclusion was? Life is so precious I’ll not think about anybody else. Now I’m going to think about just myself because this is so precious. I don’t want to waste my life worrying about or bothering with other people. I’m going to do what I want. I’m going to live as I want. I’m going to live fully what I want to live. Wrong direction, wrong purpose. Jesus said you want to save your life. You lose it. You Lose Your Life for the Gospel Sake. Put Truth, you will find it. It will save it. Many people live like that. You know, my life is precious. One Life I have. Why do I have to bother with all the people? I’m going to just live for myself and my family if they’re okay, I’m fine. Whatever happens in the world does not my business? What if whatever it happens to other people, that’s not my business. Okay? I’ll help as much as I can, you know, just to relieve my conscience or guilt or whatever thought beyond that problem, my problems, me and my family. Why bother with other people?

You want to save your false self, you’ll lose your real self. And those who gave up their false self for Jesus’ sake will find true self. In Greek life. There are two words for life, Zoë, and Psuche. You can say. Zoe is kind of meaningful existence. Psuche is bare survival. Are you going to live for survival? Or are you going to live for meaningful existence? I think we should live a meaningful existence. I don’t want to live Psuche alone. Psuche. Good. But I want to live Zoë. Jesus said I came to give you life. Life abundant. And that is the way. That’s what Jesus Christ came to give our journey is to have abundant Zoë. Okay, great. So, can you stand up a little bit? I think some people are falling asleep.

I talked about fear, greed, and narcissism, and the first thing that we need to cultivate in our spiritual journey is trust. Trust is the best way to overcome fear. When the Israelites were freed from Egypt and they took the journey to the promised land, and the first place they encounter was wilderness and, in the wilderness, they trained for. They were trained for trust. Do you trust me or not, God wanted to ask the Israelites, are you going to follow me by trusting me or are you going to not follow me? So, trust was the biggest thing, in the beginning, to be trained with. They had to deal with the uncertainty of the future. When we don’t know about the future or tomorrow, that creates fear within us. When things are going okay, it’s okay. You don’t think about the future when things are going okay. What do you say to yourself? Oh, tomorrow will be the same. Tomorrow will be the same when everything’s going, alright. You don’t even think about tomorrow. Tomorrow is exactly. It will be the same as today, so you don’t worry about tomorrow. Predictable. Tomorrow is though hidden to us. Our life is like that. Whether we like it or not, people who go through difficulties, they realize that suddenly tomorrow may not be the same as today. Next year may not be the same as this year. When everything’s going okay, you automatically assume that tomorrow with the same, but when things happen to you, suddenly tomorrow becomes uncertain. You’re not quite sure about what might happen tomorrow, so whether you accepted or not, whether you accept that tomorrow’s hidden or not. Tomorrow is hidden. It’s the nature of life.

People who came to the Bible study in South Carolina, would they have known what would happen to them the day before, like Tuesday evening? Tomorrow was hidden to them. Would they be able to protect themselves if they did anything better? No. Since we don’t know about tomorrow, the fear is built within us. It is a built in. Fear is part of us. There’s nobody put lifts without fear. Everybody lifts with fear because fear is built in within us because tomorrow is hidden. We cannot get rid of fear because it is very much part of who we are. We don’t need, but we don’t need to let the fear paralyze us. Even though we cannot get rid of fear, we don’t have to let fear control you, delaminate you and paralyze you. Let’s say because of what happened in South Carolina. If you don’t go to the Bible study or because of what happened in Boston, if you stop, if you stop running marathons or because of what happened in Virginia Tech, if you don’t go to school, you’re letting the fear trap you.

Yes, life is precarious, and our tomorrow is uncertain and hidden, but instead of letting the fear control you and trap you, you need to face and overcome it by trust, by building trust in you. When you do a spiritual journey intentionally, you will realize this thing, this wonderful thing. You realize that there is a mysterious power bigger than you that is controlling and guiding your life. You realize you realize behind all you do, there is always, there has been always this power that has helped you, guide you to come to this point as you do this spiritual journey intentionally. If you realize that power, you’re in connection with that power, you’re connected with that power. You sense it, you feel it. You recognize the hand of God who has guided you and lead you. In our spiritual journey, we recognize that we are not walking alone. God is always walking with.

We realize if we do not shape our lives, but our life is shaped by the good will of God and slowly you become free from fear and worries. Can you say to yourself, okay, from tomorrow I’m not going to fear? Can you say that? Okay, from tomorrow I decided my friends, I decided not to worry. Can you do that? You know, I mean, from tomorrow maybe you can say, I’m not going to smoke or from tomorrow I’m not going to eat the what is that bacon or whatever, those things. At least you can see that. But from tomorrow, I’m not going to worry tomorrow, from tomorrow, I’m not going to fear you can’t do that. But somehow as you do the spiritual journey intentionally, you don’t have to fear worries, disappear somehow in your life. Jesus said to not worry about tomorrow and that became the reality in your life. That’s a result of a spiritual journey. Wow. From when I started from, when did I start worrying about my life? If the road is blocked, then you say, cool.

If there is no way, then you say, then you make the way. If there is an obstacle, then go over it. When the time comes, the door will be open. When the time comes, the road will appear for you. If you need it, God will give it to you. If you don’t need it, God will take it away. There is a time to live and there is time to die. There is time to have a good time and time to rough time, time to laugh, and time to cry. When there’s a storm, soon there’ll be sunshine in all our certain circumstances. We simply trust that God will guide us, God who began a good work will bring to completion in his time, not in my time. Why do you worry, as the song says, give yourself away? Give yourself away. Why worry. Just simply trust in God. God will take care of you, won’t he, as he has taken care of you all this time, as God has given you all the good things all this time, won’t God take care of you and guide you and lead you. Spiritual journey. It’s a mysterious journey.

You don’t control it. You don’t dictate it. You live it in God’s hands. The song says, my life is not mine. It belongs to God. Keep it away so that God can use you. It is a journey to experience the wonderful opening for you, wonderful planning and then when I wasn’t looking at northern, you have wonderful future and that wonderful future will be open for you and that is a message not just for Nolan, for all of you, and also for me. Wonderful Future. It will be open for all of us. Trust in God. At times you may feel lost at times. You don’t see any future. Your future is bleak. Sometimes you feel hopeless under darkness really covers you and you don’t see any good future that is coming to you but waits, we’re trusting God. That’s what Israelites had to do.

Even the very basic simple stuff, they had to trust God. Do you worry about food? You don’t worry about food. Too much food we worry about. Too much food we worry about. But these guys in the wilderness they must worry about food every day and they are not to store it either. The Next Day, will God give us the food or not? And then the food came, so they hit thankfully, but they could not store it for themselves and the next day they must wait. Is God going to give me the food or not? That’s how they lived, and then at the end, they got tired of it. They got tired of trusting God. I want food whether I trust God or not, I want food in my storage. So, they created a golden calf instead of trusting God, they wanted to take care of their own future. Don’t make that same mistake in your life. Learn and disciplining yourself to learn to trust in God in all circumstances, especially when a crisis comes, a good opportunity to train yourself to trust in God. Last time when Grace and Will came for Nolan baptism, we had lunch together in a Chinese restaurant and then will set this you know, getting married to Grace and then having business in Boston and all these things. I realized that there is a bigger hand, that is, has been helping me because I’m probably, I’m a minister. His father in law is a minister. So, he said no, but he said that. I don’t know where to go during lunch. So. Oh, that’s very nice, you know.

Nice. And then, I mean, right now everything is going all right. So, he could say that, but I hope that he can say that even when things are bad because that’s a spiritual journey when everything’s going on, right? It’s easy to say here, but when difficulties, difficult things come, can I say that that’s a spiritual journey? If you can say that even when difficult things come to you, then you are doing the spiritual journey. And I hope that all of you do the spiritual journey. There’s a beautiful passage in Isaiah. I want to read it for you, but now thus says the Lord. He who created you or o Jacob, he who formed you. O Israel. Do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name your mind. When you pass through the waters, I’ll be with you and through the rivers. They shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you. How beautiful, how beautiful. That is the truth. This is what Isaiah experienced. I hope that this is also true for all of you. Meditate on it.

I’ll give you another passage. From the new testament is a Paul statement. Then we are afflicted in every way but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. This is one of my favourite passages in the whole Bible. How strong, how strong he was, afflicted and perplexed, persecuted, but he will be able to stand through it. Another passage from Jesus. I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace in the world. You face persecution but take courage. I have conquered the world.

Don’t live your life in fear. Live with trust, don’t build fearful self, and then do all kinds of stupid things to overcome your fear, don’t do that. You are creating a false image. You’re creating a distorted image and that distorted and false image will vanish in the end. In our journey the second obstacle we will face is greed. You must understand how greed operates. The nature of greed is insatiable. That is what greed is. It is insatiable. You can never satisfy your greed. Of course, we want good things in life. That is human nature and it is good, but when you’re obsessed with it, you become a slave of greed and if you follow greed, your life will be ruined. Especially in this consumer-oriented society. We are surrounded by advertising pitches that we need something more, something better, something different. We don’t need them. We want them, even the pants I am wearing right now is a boss. I just wanted to show off what I’m wearing. Nobody said anything, so somebody gave it to me. So, I think it was a cheap one and I didn’t wear it for about two years. And then one day. Wow, it is a boss. I must start wearing, that’s why it’s a little bit longer.

See this consumer-oriented society just makes us very dissatisfied. Always complain. Our journey cannot be a junior of greed. That’s a stupid journey. The journey of greed that was not the journey of Jesus Christ. She just, she just said, I came not to be served, but to serve. He came not to receive, but to give. Life of giving generally is much, much happier life than the life of receiving my friends. Always find the opportunity to give rather than the opportunity to receive. Being greedy is the opposite of the journey of giving. What we need to cultivate within us is a spirit of contentment first, spirit of contentment. We must learn to accept our situations and not complain about it. Complainer’s please know that you are having a problem.

You don’t have a legitimate reason to complete. You have a problem. Problem is not out there. Problem is you so complainer, so listens very carefully. Okay? You’re identifying with that kicking, each other. Hitting each other. Complaining is a very, very bad in our spiritual journey. Learn to be content. If you constantly compare yourself with others, you’ll never be happy. There are always people smarter than you, prettier than you whether you believe it or not. I’m going to talk about narcissism at the end, but and more powerful than you and more successful than you. You don’t need to stick out to be important. You don’t need to be the best of the best to be precious. Your identity is not determined by the performance in this world. The remedy of the problem of greed is to learn to be content. Real appreciation of what we have. Just walk around and look at the flowers and how beautiful the air, how nice, the people around you, how wonderful you are. Why don’t you say that? Teacher? Huh? How wonderful you are, so yeah, how wonderful you are. Oh, nice.

The world will be a better place. Instead of continuously complaining about each other, we appreciate each other. This is what Saint Paul said. I’ve learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little and I know what it is to have plenty in all sort of consensus. I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. Doesn’t matter the circumstances I have learned the secret of being content. He’s the one who this future journey. When you do the spiritual journey, then you start having this thankfulness, gratefulness. Thankfulness is part of this future journey. Contentment. The spirit of contentment is a necessary tool to have for the meaningful spiritual journey. Then we can focus on giving and always don’t focus on receiving in your life. Always focus on giving. Find the opportunity to your talents, your resources, your intelligence. If you’re really, really, beautiful, you’re attractive, whatever, and your personality, think about using it for other people. Think about using it in giving. Your life will come alive. The third thing you need to overcome is this narcissism. The world is getting worse and worse with this narcissism cosmetic surgery in this world is just a going really, bad.

I’m reading this book for the seminar to understand a little bit better about narcissism. That title is the narcissism epidemic, living in the age of entitlement by Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell. They said in their book, people who are born after the 70s, raise your hand. Oh, woman, you don’t want to say that, okay, it not what I said, this is what the book says. The people who are born after 70, they’re affected by this cultural shift of self-focus and the trends accelerate it in those born in the eighties and the nineties, so seventies, eighties, nineties. Be careful about narcissism. Parenting became more indulgent. Celebrity worship grew, and reality show TV show became a showcase of narcissistic people and very unhealthy narcissism is very unhealthy. Unhealthy to yourself and to other people. The Internet allows people to have the possibility of instant fame and then look at me mentality. Narcissism magnified the false self to the extreme. That’s what narcissism is. We examined Jesus’ temptation in the beginning and the narcissism is the exact result of falling into all those temptations. It is the exact opposite of Jesus’ teaching, an extreme form of self-centeredness. Even the religion became a tool for their self-glory. I’ve seen some religious people, very narcissistic instead of, I mean they are. They are saying that there are so religious, but they don’t really care about others. They care about their own being religious. That’s why being spiritual and being religious are two different things cannot the same thing. You shouldn’t be confused with those two. You can be quite self-centred while being religious like the Pharisee in Jesus’ time. People look for religious experiences, religious high in St John of the Cross, the mystic, says that is spiritual lust.

The more focused you are, the more bankrupt it will become spiritually. That is not the journey to fullness. That is a journey to emptiness. By creating a more false self, we cannot find ourselves. Rather we’d lose ourselves. We lose joy, meaningfulness, and purpose. I said, the journey has purpose, direction, and destiny, and our purpose cannot be myself. Our purpose cannot be about me. Then the destiny will be nothing. If you see yourself, you lose it, but if you lose you or yourself for the truth, you’ll find it. That is the truth. Listen to the truth. If you’re obsessed, obsessed with your salvation, you lose your salvation, but if you don’t think about salvation but live a life of trusting, giving generously, and serving and giveaway yourself. Then you’ll find yourself

In the end, as the end, I will say what Dalai Lama said. This is what he says. I believe the purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside in our hearts. In your life do you build a huge temple on the outside or do you build a true temple in your heart, the temple of goodness and compassion inside you? That is a journey to fullness. Let us not forget who we are. Why are we here? And where are we going? These three questions always ask, who are we? Why are we here? And where are we going?

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