St Timothy Presbyterian Church in Toronto: Sermons

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.

One thing great about Christmas is that there’s an atmosphere of joy, and I think that’s why I like Christmas. Whenever Christmas time comes, there is a feeling of joy. There’s a lot of parties, lots of laughter, and lots of giving and receiving gifts, especially receiving gifts are good. All of these things, create joy in our lives. The birth of Jesus Christ brought joy to us, I think so. It is the right way of celebrating Christmas, celebrating with joy, with lots of joy. Life is supposed to be enjoyed, there is supposed to be joy in life. If there is no joy in life, what is the purpose of living? If there is no joy of salvation then what kind of salvation is that? Salvation is very much connected with the joy and Jesus Christ was born to restore that joy. A lot of people don’t live with joy, so Jesus Christ came to restore that joy in us and he lived his life that way.

That’s how he lived, he lived a very, very joyful life. He loved parties, when you read the scripture very carefully, he really loved parties. He met with all kinds of people and he enjoyed his life. He enjoyed every moment of his life so much that the people who were jealous of Jesus said, “Oh Jesus, he is drunker. He’s a glutton” Since they were jealous, they could not enjoy their lives as Jesus did. Jesus had fights with all kinds of people, even with the senators, but had a great time, that’s how he lived. We kind of have a skewed image of Jesus. We think of Jesus as always being serious, calm and in a lot of pain and suffering. A lot of artists actually painted Jesus or the image of Jesus in this way and rightly so, that is a true aspect of Jesus; Jesus who suffered, Jesus in agony. Jesus went through a lot of pain and those artists were right in picturing Jesus in that way.

The prophet Isaiah pictured Jesus in the same way and in Isaiah chapter 53 verse 3, he said, “He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.” This is what Isaiah foretold about Jesus. So the image that we are familiar with is a very much a picture of Jesus in agony. But you know, that man of sorrow also said this, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be new and that your joy, may be complete.” That man of sorrows said, “I have lots of joy, so I give that joy to you so that your joy may be complete or your life may be complete.” Life without joy is not complete, life with joy is a complete life. He had joy, he was a man of joy, he was filled with joy. So since seeing Jesus in this way, I realized that joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive. I realized that joy and sorrow co-exist and listening to Jesus, he was a man of sorrows, but he also said, “I am the joy.” So within Jesus, joy, and sorrow co-existed somehow.

Why would you go through life’s pain and hardships and suffering? You can still have joy, anger, disappointment, sadness, fear, anxiety and frustration. These are what we go through every day. No one is immune from this experience, every day we all go through this. But this does not mean that you cannot experience joy. So I reflected on how is it possible, how can you have suffering on the one hand and joy on the other hand, in the same person, in the same life? How Is it possible that you can have both in you?

This is what I realized, that there are different levels of emotions and experiences, I realized not all of the emotions are on the same level. Anger, disappointment, sadness, and frustrations are at one level of emotion or experience, but the joy is at another level, a deeper level of emotion or experience. At this experience, our emotion of joy is not triggered by what you’re going through or what you’re experiencing. Let me put it in this way to make the understanding easier. When you see the ocean, there is water on the surface and when the wind blows and the storm comes out, the water at the surface reacts violently. But 100 meters down below, the same ocean water does not really act violently, it is relatively calm when the winds blow and the storm hits the water. It is the same water, the only difference is the different level.

Joy is the same emotion that we experience, but It is at a different level. It is still our emotion, but it is at a different level. That’s why St. Paul said “rejoice always”, because it’s at the superficial level, you can never rejoice always. You will always react to the situation you are involved with and to what you experience. This joy will never be always and I realized because its down below that is possible, rejoice always. Having joy and the deeper level of our existence is crucial for us to have a meaningful life. Life without joy cannot be called real life. Life is more than duties and responsibilities, life it has to be filled with joy. There has to be joy in life; the joy of pleasure, the joy of eating, the joy of meeting friends, joy of reading, joy of entertainment, the joy of serving, joy of doing meaningful things, joy of learning, joy of praying, the joy of worship, and joy of singing. There has to be joy in whatever we do, we need to enjoy it. But the thing is, when there is no joy at the deeper level of your existence, eating itself cannot give you joy.

Entertainment itself cannot give you joy, so when you have something that you enjoy so much such as food or travel or whatever you should be thankful that you can do that. There are some people who have nothing to really enjoy their lives They eat just to survive, they watch TV because there’s nothing to do. They go to work, but they don’t seem to enjoy being there. They come to church out of responsibility. The bigger the joy you have at the root of your soul, the more you can enjoy your life. It is not the travel itself that gives joy when there is joy at the deeper level of your experience, you can enjoy the travel so much. It is not the life circumstances that give you joy, but when there is joy at the deeper level of your existence, you can enjoy every moment of your life. Every simple thing that you do, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to enjoy your life and to experience joy. In the simplest things, you can find joy. The people who are filled with the joy that walk around and see the flowers, they can enjoy it. They hear birds singing and they can appreciate and enjoy their lives, every single moment of their lives and every single thing they see around them when it is a joy at the deeper level of your existence. Then how do you get the joy at the deeper level of your existence? How do you get that? I realized that whatever you experience in your lives, whether it’s a fun party or travel, eating or whatever, I realized that they cannot enter deeper into my soul. It affects me at the superficial level, at the water level, but it cannot penetrate into the deeper level. So for a while, we enjoy it, but it cannot, it just remains at the surface level, it cannot enter deeper into our soul, into the deeper level of our existence. This joy at the root of our soul is only possible when your deepest desire is satisfied, then we can have joy there.

Only God can satisfy that deepest desire within you. When that deepest desire within you is not satisfied, joy is not possible. Only God can satisfy your soul, only God can satisfy that deepest desire that you had, only God can penetrate beyond through the surface into the depth of our soul and satisfies it and then joy is created. Life can be cruel, sometimes waking up in the morning is a chore. You start the day with gloominess or anxiety and worries, sometimes keeping a happy face is hard. But still, we can smile because my deepest desire is satisfied by God. Day-by-day, we need to come to God with our deepest desires, saying “Lord, this is not something that can be satisfied by what I do, only you can satisfy this.” We need to come to God with that desire. I heard somewhere “In everybody’s life, some rain will fall and what we remain after the rain depends on how well we dance through the rain.” Rain will fall on us someday, but what remains is whether we can dance through the rain, singing in the rain.

This is what St. Paul said, “rejoice in the Lord always, do not worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request be known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” This is an elaboration, rejoice always because the “peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds”, that’s why we can rejoice always. You can experience all kinds of things, but peace of God, which is beyond our understanding will guard my thinking, my heart, and mind. That’s why we can rejoice always. Present your request and your desire to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, and that peace dances at his joy. So joy and peace are the same things and when the peace within us starts dancing, that is the joy. This joy is the power to go through hardships and difficulties.

Last week I saw a good movie called “Of Gods and Men.” It was about monks in Algeria. In the last scene just before they were all killed, they had two bottles of wine and then from the mom’s cabinet, they got together and shared wine and bread. In the beginning, they’re smiling and then it slowly becomes very serious and then you see tears. But I saw peace there and that peace gives them the assurance and confidence in life. Even in persecution, that peace gives us joy.

That is confidence in life. Through this Christmas season, choose not the superficial joy that you entertain yourself with, but I hope all of you may be filled with joy that Jesus Christ brought to us.

The post Rejoice Always appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.

Matthew 14:13-21

What Jesus Gave

Today’s story, it is a very interesting story. It gives us a lot of hope, especially in every field that I don’t have much to give to the world. I don’t have much to really help out with anyone, uh, where we feel like that this passage gives us a lot of hope. A big crowd followed Jesus even from God. Then it was dinner time if they knew, uh, that it was a, I mean, there were so fascinated with Jesus for God to bring their own food. They didn’t prepare for the food in following Jesus, they just wanted to follow. You just said that they were so mesmerized by the, a message at the power authority and they forgot to eat. Jesus saw them and had compassion for them because they were physically hungry. He just saw another hunger in them that hungrier was disputable. Great. Jesus said, Jesus saw that they almost their souls or they were like sheep without a shepherd.

That’s why they followed Jesus all alone because Jesus really gave them what they needed there so entwined Jesus gave them or what they needed. They had never experienced what they experienced with Jesus. It heard about joy, but they never knew that that kind of joy was possible in their own lives, but they were with Jesus. They really felt that deep joy and deep satisfaction and fulfillment, that kind of fulfillment that fulfills or fills up your soul, not just your emotion, not just your that but the kind of fulfillment that fills up your soul and they experienced that with Jesus. Now they were hungry not only physically but spiritually, and Jesus is wanting to help them with their hunger, but instead of really helping them, Jesus was doing something strange. Jesus told the disciples, you don’t need to send them away. You give them something to eat and you just knew very well.

It was no food, but Jesus knowing that, told the disciples you give them, you give or told them to that was very strange, Jesus, in a way, put them in a mode of challenge. He just wanted to challenge them. Challenge their traditional thinking. You give them what they need to eat, but that was not only challenge, but Jesus was giving them the opportunity to extend themselves or stretch themselves, teachers wanting to take them and elevate them to another level of existence. You know, our existence can have many different metals such as level people think they are all equity, our lives the same life, but there are different layers of existence and you just wanted to take these people, the disciples from one level to another level of existence where the reality of the power of God becomes real. But their response was, that’s very simple. We have nothing.

We Have Nothing

We have nothing. You tell me to give them what to eat, but we have nothing. We only have five loaves of bread and two fish and they are 5,000 people counting men to feed and five loaves of bread and two fish. There might as well be nothing. You know, in a high school math. You know one over infinity is nothing. Zero. So five loaves of bread and two fish. Considering that you have to feed 5,000 people. Men and women and children, probably more than 10,000 people. They are nothing. You know? That’s exactly how most of the time in modern world they’re living in a nuclear age. The problem is today we ask ourselves, what can I do? There’s nothing much for me to do to help out this word. We see our nothingness all the time. We feel small. When we confront our reality with our naked eye, we often feel that we have to feed 5,000 people, but we only have five loaves of bread and two fish.

The problems that we faced are much, much bigger and the power, ability and resources that we have, and so he simply said, Lord, we have nothing. That is our answer to our problems. You don’t see any possibility in those five news and to fish. We don’t see that they are any good. Only when we recognize in these five groups of bread and two fish are where the quote again, only if we can see that we can see the power of God. Jesus showed them what it could do with five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus actually showed them what they could do with this living human resources. He took five loaves of bread and two fish. He looked up to heaven and then he blessed them and then broke them and gave it out. In other words, Jesus, through his prayer. He delivered his five loaves of bread and two fish into the hands of God.

What We Bring to God

That’s what Jesus did. Small things that you have you deliver that in the hands of God. That’s the miracle Jesus introduced to us and that is a miracle of life. Actually. My friend’s that is a secret of life. If you understand the secret of life, you will do tremendous things in your lives in small things which we don’t find a value. We called them nothing, but when they are delivered in God’s hands through our prayer they come very important and can be used to benefit many people around us, nothing becomes something when that nothing is delivered in God’s hands. Christian understanding of creation in Latin is “creatio ex nihilo” and they put that up against. Yeah, so what is creation out of nothing when it is delivered into gossip that nobody becomes somebody that is creation. Many people live with urgent sense of your scarcity and focus on their nothingness. It fix their eyes on their debit. Tennis, they always see what they don’t have this tendency so storng that it blinds their eyes and their eyes cannot see the abundance of life. Life is so abundant, but they never experienced that life can be abundant because they are always seeing the limited, limitedness of their lives. On Wednesday evening, we are doing spiritual reading on Ephesians, and then as we read Ephesians, one thing that we discovered was that to Saint Paul, life is a mystery,

that’s basically it summarizes St Paul’s perspective and his theology. To him, life is a mystery and God’s revelation is mystery. Until that time, he didn’t realize that life was a mystery.

He thought that Michael was very much a fixed in a certain way, but after meeting Christ, he realized that life is mystery in all over the place. In his writing. He says that life is mystery and it even the fact that he was doing God’s work was a mystery to him. He never expected that to be for him. Even now was mystery, now this is the confessional of St Paul. Let me read it, “although I am the very basis of all the saints. This grace was given to me to bring the gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ.” Here the important word is, “although.” “Although” is the most important word, he recognized, that he is the least of all of the apostles, but that was not the end of his confession. He said, although I’m this small, God through the grace of God gave you the opportunity to share the good news, of sharing the richness, the boundless, the abundant riches of Christ. Recognizing that your small is not, should not be the end of your confession, recognizing your limitedness should not be the end of your confession. Recognize that you cannot do many things or you don’t have much should not be the end of your confession. You always look at your limitedness, your smallness with this word “although.” “Although” I’m not talented, “although” I don’t know much, “although” I’m not that smart, that “although” will make all the difference, that’s how Saint Paul saw his smallness. Acceptance of your smallness is not, should not be the end of your life. You’ll also have to accept the mystery of how these small things can bring about the abundance when the, when your smallness is delivered in God’s hands and they were in God’s grace, works in your lives, that they will multiply and make many people abundant.

Reflection

Sometimes we feel we have nothing. I feel like times compared to the challenges that I face, I feel like I’m very small. I don’t have much ability and strength and resources, but when the grace of God works in us, we can bring the riches and abundance of Christ. Let’s find something in our nothingness. Only through the grace of God we can do that. Then you’ll be able to see how your nothingness can bring about abundance in life. God used 12 small people, they were small people, fishermen, laborers, tax collectors. There was small in their society. God chose them and using these small people, he changed the world. It started with the small people and he shared and spread the Gospel to all of the world. And 2000 years later we are enjoying the gospel. But you all get from these small people. 12 small people, sometimes, I mean five loaves of bread. Today we prepared 5 loaves. Peter, thank you. We don’t have fish though. We have five loaves of bread and two fish. It is just enough for me. But when that small thing was to delivered in God’s sense, not only it fed me, feeds me, but also it feeds 10 thousand and 12 baskets of leftovers. Not only was I, am I full, but making other people full.

Sometimes when challenge is so big. I’ll take this portion. That’s just good enough for me.

I am not fishing either. I’ll just keep it for myself. We made that kind of life, but when you put that small things that you had in God’s hands. God will multiply them. Not only God will feed you, God will feed many other people, not only God will make your life abundant, he will make many people’s lives abundant. Yes, we recognize we’re small, but we also see the miracle and the mystery of life where this small things can contribute to the abundance of the world. I think that we have that big the heart, bigger person, you can do so much for the people around you there are many people who need the Lord. There are many people who are hurting. There are many people who are lonely. There are many people who are hungry. There are many people who have so many, so much problems. Now you can. You may be small, but you can be used as a vehicle to reach out to them.

The post YOU Give Them appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.

Genesis 28:10-22

Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.  He was afraid and said, How awesome is this place!This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.

Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.

The way life turns out is very interesting. When I look at a little kids and many young people, how your life will turn out will be very interesting. It’s not something that is predictable. We cannot see how life will turn out. That is what life is like. I think Jacob misunderstood life. Jacob thought that he was able to control everything that happens in his life, even the blessings from God. Last week we meditated upon that. Jacob stole the blessing from Esau, from his father, and then he stole the birthright. He thought that he was able to control everything in his life. But many unexpected things can happen in life. You will probably encounter many, many unexpected things in your life. Right now you have something that you want in your life, but maybe 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road, you will never know how your life will turn out. In that way, life is a strange thing. And also I would like to say life is a mystery. It is not a fixed concept. It is not completely drawn yet. It is yet to be drawn, it is to be unraveled. So it is a mystery to how life will turn out.

Look at Jacob. He never expected that he would end up in the wilderness all by himself. That was not why he bought the birthright and stole the blessings from his father. He thought, If I have the birthright and if I have my father’s last blessing, my life will be okay automatically because this birthright and blessing from the father must have some kind of miraculous power that will make my life really, really good. He never expected or thought that he would end up in the wilderness all by himself, but in the end he did.

Alone in the Wilderness

I wonder how Jacob might’ve felt in the wilderness all by himself. Gosh, I have the birthright and I have the blessing. What am I doing here? I cannot even stay home. I’m running away from the home where I can have a good time with friends and family, my mother and everything. Now I cannot even stay home, I’m just running away to a place that I don’t even know! His life was very, very different from what he was expecting. He wasn’t used to staying up all night in the wilderness because the wilderness was not his thing. He truly was a mama’s boy. He just stayed home all the time with this mother. To Esau, the wilderness was his place. He was always in the wilderness. He was hunting, and he is very familiar with the wilderness. As for Jacob, the wilderness was a strange place. He never went to into the wilderness.

Most of time, he was at home. He was a very domesticated guy. So the wilderness was very, very new to him. Not only it is new but it is a scary place. Think about it. He was all by himself in the wilderness. He heard wild animals crying. Everything was very new, strange and scary. The night was dark, his future was very dark. He could not foresee what was waiting for him. He could not foresee what was ahead of him. Everything was dark to him. Jacob the trickster. Jacob the liar. He used his tricks and he got what he wanted, but in the end, he got nothing but the dark night in the wilderness where he was lonely, scared, and very uncertain. He must have been really confused about God, about blessings, about birthright and everything. I think he was very, very confused. This was the first crisis he encountered in his life. This was the first dark night in his life, probably under up to this point, his life was very well controlled with his mom and around the house. His life was pretty comfortable, but now he experienced the first crisis of his life. High school students. When you encounter the first crisis in your life, remember this message.

His wakeful world was full of fear, uncertainty, and confusion. His guard was up and therefore he could not see anything but darkness. He had his guard up all around him because he was so scared. So he didn’t like his wakeful world. All he could see in his wakeful world was fear and terror. Only in his dreams, would you find his guard down, he could see what he cannot see in his wakeful world. He could see the reality of God. He could see that God was right there. This was his confession: Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. The Lord was always right there, but because he was filled with fear and uncertainty and darkness, he could not see that. The Lord was always right there. Now in his dreams, he met God, he found God and said, he was right there and I did not know it. Sometimes we meet God in the most unexpected places or in the most unexpected circumstances.

Finding God

Philip Yancey, who wrote a book called “Finding God in Unexpected Places”, he said this: Jesus was a master at finding God in unexpected places. Jesus found God in a tax collector who did not even know how to do a formal prayer. He found God in a foreigner who had failed marriage five times. Jesus found God in a man who had been sick for 38 years with no hope. In the most unexpected places, Jesus somehow always found God. We expect to find God in a sanctuary in a holy place, but Jesus found God in the most unexpected places and unexpected circumstances.

Today’s scripture tells us that we find God in a man who runs away because of his lifestyle of trickery. We don’t necessarily find God in the holy sanctuary; where you can hear beautiful choir anthems. Many times we find God in a place where people struggle, fail, hurt, mourn, get disappointed, angry. In those places, we would never expect that we will find God in those places, sometimes we find God. In our own dark times, we find God.

As you can see the stars most clearly in the darkest sky, you can see the power of God’s presence in your darkest time. I'm not sure whether or not you’re too young to experience your own darkness. Everybody goes through dark times. When I started sharing this in KSM, I saw tears and after the service, some woman came up to me and shared her story. I never expected that she would go through that difficult time. No wonder she looked so dark and gloomy, I didn’t know her story. I cannot share everything she told me, but she’s shared such a devastating experience that she’s going through and she said “What you said is true.” Sometimes during my own dark times, I find God. Last Wednesday, an elder came up to me and he said, Reverend, when times are good, it doesn’t matter how good the sermon may be. It doesn’t really hit me, but when I go through a difficult time, every word that you say really penetrates into my heart and it hits me. Reverend, these days, I live because I have the word. Otherwise I would not have survived.

Sometimes in our dark times, we truly find God. When the sky is dark, you can still see the stars. St. Paul expressed that in many different ways. This is what Saint Paul said: Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. You would expect that when sin increases, that curses will abound more. That’s what we think, but St. Paul said when sin Increases, the grace abounds more and more. When you’re going through your own failures, whether it’s a moral failure, a personal failure, or a job failure, school performance failure; when you look at that failure very carefully there is God’s grace powerfully working underneath. You may never know but the Lord was always there. You’re only filled with guilt and disappointment, but that’s where God’s grace works within in you. Life is not always easy. Sometimes you’re thrown into the wilderness, into the darkness and you’re right there. We find holy ground. We find a holy place where we meet God face to face. Jacob called it “Bethel,” meaning house of God. We don’t find God in a holy place. The place you find God becomes a holy place. You don’t necessarily find God in a sanctuary, but when you are going through so many difficulties in your life, if you find God then that place becomes a holy place to you.

Three Promises

We celebrate life not because it is good and easy. No one always lives a good and easy life. We celebrate life though, because in all phases of our life, there is God transforming our existence. During good times, God provides joy, happiness, and abundance. During bad times, God provides his presence and the powerful work of His grace that brings about the transformation. With God, our-non place becomes a sanctuary! With God are empty time becomes a sacred moment! With God, our sinful existence becomes a holy existence! Do you want to truly find God? When you go through difficult times, look carefully at what God is doing. You will then find God powerfully working within you. When Jacob finally met God in his dream, he received these three promises. The three promises are this: I’ll be with you, I’ll protect you, and I’ll bring you home.

In that wilderness, when he was all by himself in that cold place, he got these promises. Three promises; that God will be with me, that God will protect me, and someday God will bring me back home. When you go through your own dark times, always remember these three things. God will be with you, and God will protect you, and God will bring you back home. Don’t ever forget that. In your suffering where you mourn and suffer and ache, you’re not by yourself, God is right there. You may not have recognized it yet, but God is right there. These days, the news really gets me down. The situation with Gaza and Israel. How could a human being send a missile up in the sky and sends it down to where civilians are and it kills off hundreds of people. What kind of world is this? What kind of life are we living? What kind of people have we become?

I do believe that someday, God will bring about his own justice. If you remember these three things in your life, you will have a meaningful journey of life even though we don’t know what we will face in our journey. Especially with high school students. You’re young. You’re full of life. Live a good life. When you face a crisis, don’t get discouraged. Don’t give up. Don’t just sit on your problems. Remember, God will be with you. God will protect you, and bring you back home. That’s a promise that we hold on to, all of us! Let us keep those promises with us. God is with us. God will protect me and God will bring me back home.

The post I Did Not Know It appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.

Genesis 25:19-34

19 These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham was the father of Isaac,20 and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. 22 The children struggled together within her; and she said, If it is to be this way, why do I live? c]">[c] So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 And the Lord said to her,

Two nations are in your womb,

24 When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. 25 The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. 26 Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob.d]">[d] Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

29 Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. 30 Esau said to Jacob, Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished! (Therefore he was called Edom.e]">[e]) 31 Jacob said, First sell me your birthright. 32 Esau said, I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me? 33 Jacob said, Swear to me first. f]">[f] So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

{Transcript}

I struggled quite a bit with this passage, not because this passage is difficult to understand, but because it was difficult to see what the message would be. I mean that story is easy to understand. We understand what is going on in that family, but it is hard to really come up with a message. What message can we get from the story like this? What is morale of this story? What message can we get from Esau or Jacob? What did we learn from a man who would give up his birthright for a bowl of stew? No matter how hungry he might be, and what we learned from a man who would take advantage of the vulnerable situation of his brother. The man sold a bowl of stew to his brother who was dying of hunger for his birthright. I don’t think that was a fair deal. He was taking advantage of Esau. That was a difficulty that I went through in meditating on this passage. What is the message?

But Soon I realized that this story is our stories. These are the stories of survival. People struggle to survive for the sake of survival. They’ll sacrifice almost anything. Survival becomes the priority. Survival becomes everything and people struggle just to survive. Well, Jacob did was the same thing, Survival. Now to Jacob, life never came to him on a silver platter, in everything he had to fight out. He was a competitive man. Even from his birth, he had to hold onto his brother’s heel not to lose. He wanted to come out first. Everything for Jacob, was a struggle. Even from the birth, it was a struggle. Nothing was given to him easily without his struggle. He always had to fight out to get what he wanted. To him, life was a struggle. This story shows well how life was a struggle for Jacob.

Jacob grew up in a dysfunctional family. His father loved his brother Esau probably because he was more fun to be with. He was a hunter. He was manly, so the father loved his brother, because he goes out and then hunts the good stuff and so the father loved Esau, but the mother, Rebecca Love Jacob. This tells us a lot about his family. Very dysfunctional family. There was already a division in the family in addition to natural sibling rivalry. There was favoritism of the parents. I don’t think I’ll raise kids that way. Our father love one kid, and the mother loves another kid. What kind of family is that? that is very, very dysfunctional. The children, poor children. They were caught up in this dysfunctional family dynamics and they were caught up in the conflict and power struggle.

It was more difficult to Jacob then to Esau because all the power was given to Esau, not to Jacob. Mother’s love did not have much political power in the ancient society, but these days, mother’s love is all the power. If the mother doesn’t say yes, then nothing gets done. So any family who doesn’t listen to mother, their family will not survive but not like ancient society. All the political power was given to the father and the father was the one who control everything. And father’s love had a tremendous political power and Esau had that power. And also Esau enjoy the privilege as a first born. Even though he was born just few seconds earlier, he had all the privilege and rights as a first son of the birthright Jacob had nothing, as the second son and the Mama boy. He had no privilege, no entitlement, and no real power in his struggle to survive.

Jacob had only one way and that only one way was the way to trick Esau. That’s what he learned. He knew the birthright was nothing to Esau. Esau did not care about birthright. The scripture says that Esau despised the birthright as a quiet boy, always staying home. Jacob knew how to cook, so he used his cooking skill to lure Esau. When Esau came home from the field, starved to death. Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau asked for stew, and Jacob, using the opportunity made a deal with Esau. He said, first, sell me your birthright. That was not fair. Esau was so hungry and a little bit foolish, he didn’t care about birthright. I don’t want to die of hunger. Well, why don’t you just take the birthright, and then he took the stew.

Jacob Tricks Esau as a powerless person. He tricked Esau to survive. Often powerless people do that because that was only way that they could survive. And this wasn’t the last time Jacob used his trick to trick Esau. When the Father Isaac was on his deathbed, he pretended that he was Esau and got his father’s last blessing. That blessing only once he could give Esau pretended to be Esau. Then Jacob got the last blessing, this time, the weak mother also was part of that plot. The mother helped Jacob to get that blessing. For the powerless people, the trick is there only weapon. I think Israel, was able to identify with Jacob because Israel was always surrounded by the superpower, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, all this superpower, it was the only way they could survive was to use tricks and pretend to be powerless.

People do that. So I think the the Israelites were able to identify with Jacob a lot. That was how they survived.  When you really look at the story very carefully, Jacobs tricked did not do much help for Jacob because the birthright included the power of inheritance. He could get a inheritance from the father, but because Esau was so angry he wanted to kill Jacob, and Jacob had to flee away to his uncle Laban. So he didn’t get any anything by tricking Esau. Actually he had the birthright, I mean verbal agreement, but in practicality, he didn’t get anything all his life. Jacob used tricks to survive. He even tricked his uncle Laban. He was a trickster, but Jacob’s life, when you look at Jacob’s life as a whole, Jacob’s life did not end as the trickster. He had to go beyond the struggle to survive.

At the end of his life, he struggled with a strange man. This time it wasn’t us. It was not a struggle to survive, this time It was a struggle to be blessed by God. He realized that blessing cannot be attained by tricks. And at the end, he saw the angels of God and he met the true living God, and he wanted to truly be blessed by God. He said to the stranger “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”. There he truly met God. So Jacob called the place peniel saying, “for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved. That is a lesson that I learned.”. Jacob, realize that God’s blessing, you cannot conquer, you cannot take by tricks.

And then at the end he really committed everything to God in our struggle to survive. Sometimes we depend too much on our own power, on our resources, on our wisdom, and when we don’t have those, we even use tricks to get our life going. When we don’t have power, we even manipulate our situations. True blessings cannot come from our manipulations. We have to go beyond our struggle to survive.

We have to put our lives in God’s hands, in to God’s hands we commit our life. We have to let go and let God. Jacob learn this through a hard lesson of his life. When Jacob met Esau for the last time, for many years, they were separated at the east. Jacob had to flee from home for many years. They were separate and when Jacob had to come back home, he had to meet Esau, and Esau brought 400 men. He didn’t come out to be a brother, a friendly brother. He came out to kill Jacob. He came out to start war with Jacob, but somehow he wrestled with God and there he was changed. He didn’t manipulate the situation and in return the blessings that he stole from Esau, was returned back to Esau.

He realized that the blessings of life or not to conquer by tricks, but to share, Jacob went beyond his struggle to survive. Life is more than surviving. Life is to be celebrated by sharing our blessings. Right now in Israel, there is a huge conflict between Gaza Strip and Israel. Hundreds of people are dying. Rockets and bombs they’re going on and the Israel is planning to execute a  land invasion, even more casualty. More conflicts. I mean, this message teaches us something, life is not only about fighting to get what you want, the blessing of God is not something you conquer by fighting out, or by tricks, the true lessons of life is to share what we have with others and that is a blessing. Korea is the only country right now which is divided north and south because of ideology, and I hope that even in that land, they may learn the wisdom of sharing their blessings with each other.

You know life’s too. Sometimes we are in our struggle to survive. We even manipulate our situations and we find out, but after we find out so much, what we realize is that cost blessing. It’s not something that you fight to get only when you open your hands, open your fist, and then share life with each other. Then we experience the abundance of life. I hope that we can share while we have with others, if you have material resources you share that if you have a good heart, you share that. If you have love, you share that. By fighting, only thing that we will see is this disaster. So I hope that we learn this lesson from the scripture everyday, live truly progressive life together.

The post Beyond the Struggle to Survive appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

16 But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

17 We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a demon'; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

25 At that time Jesus said, I thanki]">[i] you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.j]">[j] 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28  Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.' For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, He has a demon'; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you. At that time Jesus said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:16-30)

One of my favourite songs is What a Wonderful World. We even sang it once in our worship service. It is just beautiful. In that song you see the beauty, not only beauty of nature, but the beauty of life. Whenever I hear that song or sing that song . I feel that life is beautiful. So let us look at the words there. I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you and I think to myself, what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. The colours of the rainbow so pretty in the sky are also on the faces of people going by. I see friends shaking hands saying, how do you do? They are really saying, I love you. I hear babies cry. I watch them grow. They will learn much more than I’ll ever know. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. That’s how the song is. Nice song, nice image. But unfortunately the world we live in, it’s not this nice. Sometimes it is cold and cruel. People are not always nice, people are not always kind. Sometimes they’re rude. I don’t see friends always shaking hands. I see friends shaking their fists.

I don’t see just blue skies and white clouds. I see storm and scary dark clouds. I don’t see innocent kids being taken good care of and we enjoy seeing them grow, but I see kids being kidnapped. As we see this world. Can we always say what a wonderful world? Not really, some people say may say what an awful world. We experienced the rejection, betrayal, racism, sexism, bullying, and big disappointment with people and these experiences make our hearts hardened. We don’t easily trust people anymore. We close our hearts to people. Since we don’t like the feeling of pain, we shut down all our feelings and we become numb and desensitized. Not only the feeling of pain is gone, but all feelings are gone. We cannot even feel for life. Listen to what Jesus said about this generation. He said, “We play the flute for you and you did not dance. We wailed and you did not mourn” How accurate his description is about the condition of our heart. We don’t know how to dance. We don’t know how to cry. We are all locked up inside. We may be too busy to feel. We may be so stressed that we don’t want to feel. After this hard work, you come home and you just want to shut down. You don’t want to think. You don’t want to feel. If this keeps going, slowly our hearts will shut down.

We use all our energy to make a living and there is no energy left to take care of our souls, to take care of ourselves, and slowly we become hardened and hardened. You know, to live in this world, there is no problem to function as an emotionally deprived person. You can function still very well. You can work very well, but your emotion gets dried up and your soul gets so dry.

I want to feel for what other people may go through. When we watch news. We hear everyday so many people die here and so many people die there. The kid is kidnapped with his grandparents. We always hear these news about terrible things going on in the world and after awhile you get numb, you get desensitized. They just become numbers. So many die. 20, 30, 100, whatever. They just become numbers. We don’t feel for what they may go through. It is pretty hard to feel anything about other people. We just don’t know how other people may feel. We are losing the ability to feel. Our ability to make money and work efficiently gets better and better, but our ability to feel becomes worse and worse.

Saint Paul said in Romans Chapter Twelve, verse 15, this is what he said, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” In other words, dance, when the food is played, cry, when the sorrow is shared. But Jesus saw that we are not able to do that. We have lost the ability to feel for other people feel. When you don’t feel for other people, how can you rejoice with them when they rejoice? How can you weep with those who weep? The degree of our intellectual level from our brain may be very high. You’re very smart people, but the degree of our emotional level may become lower and lower. But I do believe the real intelligence is not in the brain. I do believe that the real intelligence is to know how others feel exactly. Jesus was like that. Jesus wept, Jesus got angry, but he knew exactly how to feel for the situation. I think that is really intelligence. I think that they are the real smart ones, not the people who are smart in the brain. People who know how to feel, what other people feel. Feeling my friends, it’s not just feeling, feeling needs to be trained, otherwise we wouldn’t even know how to feel and our feelings can be very inappropriate. When you should not be angry, you get angry. When you’re supposed to be very happy, you don’t feel any joy.

I remember myself going through that. I was the person who officiated the wedding and there’s a beautiful couple in front of me and there were hundreds of people with beautiful clothes and then they shared laughter and joy. The person who was officiating the wedding, I felt nothing. I felt nothing. People’s laughter that bothered me rather. When we don’t know how to feel, that feeling needs to be trained. When we lose our ability to feel it is the worst feeling. It is much better to feel painful then feeling nothing. When you feel nothing it really drives you crazy. When you’re in pain, when you feel pain, you know what is going on, but when you don’t feel anything, it is a really hard to bear. To feel nothing is to feel no pulse of life and that is death.

A few years ago, a middle aged man came to me and said “Reverend, I feel numb. I don’t feel anything. I don’t know what I like and I don’t know what I wanna do. I don’t even know what gives me joy and what satisfies me. I feel nothing. What should I do?” He asked. When you’re not capable of feeling, you cannot truly appreciate the beauty of life. You become victims of hardened heartedness. You become a very harsh person. Jesus pointed this out in verse 18 and 19 “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he was a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking and they say, look, a glutton and a drunkard. A friend of tax collectors and sinners.” All they did was judgment. They cannot feel for anything. They could have no empathy for others, no connectedness with others here at the heart level. They just judge everything from their brain, but they cannot connect with people at this heart level.

Modern people suffer from this heart and heart. Nothing good can come about, only judgment, criticism, cynicism and negative worldview. People have been too stress out, people have been too busy, they have been too hurt. They have experienced too many failures and defeat. So if you keep going that way slowly, slowly, you’re running towards death, emotional death. My friends, we have good news. This is what Jesus said. “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you’ll find the rest. You’ll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus can give us the true rest. The modern people have too much in their soul.

Their burdens are too heavy. Their soul is oppressed and depressed. They need the rest. We all need rest. Not just physical rest, but spiritual rest. Spiritual rest. That’s what we need. Jesus said to come to him. All those who are weary and are carrying heavy burden. He said, he’ll give you the rest. He will give you rest. Once you find true rest in Christ, you’ll find you will restore true feelings. Then you can really connect with people at the emotional level, at a real level. You can feel for what other people feel. Being spiritual, it’s nothing complicated. Being spiritual is being alive. All your sense, all your senses come alive. That’s what it means to be spiritual. When you’re spiritual, you can feel it because everything is alive and everything so sensitive. You can feel people’s joy. You can feel everything, even the pain. When you’re spiritual, you can feel the pain much more clearly. That’s why you can feel the pain for the pain of other people. When other people are going through suffering, you feel the pain, but the pain does not remain as pain, but the pain is transformed into compassion, suffering, love.

So we need to restore that spiritual senses. Our senses need to come alive so that we may be connected with each other and we may be connected with God. Come to Jesus and find true rest. Don’t just run and run and run. Once in a while, stop and think about it. Do you feel what you feel. Many people don’t even know what they feel inside. So many things going on. They don’t even know what’s going on in their hearts. Do you feel what you feel inside? Find true rest in Christ, come to him. He will give you rest and then you’ll find true joy of life.

The post Desensitized Generation appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.

Genesis 22:1-14

Genesis 22:1-14

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham!   Here I am,  he replied.

Then God said, Take your son, your only son, whom you love Isaac and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, Father?   Yes, my son? Abraham replied.

The fire and wood are here, Isaac said, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. And the two of them went on together.

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven,  Abraham! Abraham!

Here I am,  he replied.

Do not lay a hand on the boy, he said. Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a rama]">[a] caught by its horns.He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.

Today’s passage is very difficult to interpret and to understand. Does this story even make sense? Does God make sense? Does Abraham make sense? How could a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice his own son even if it was just a test? And how could Abraham actually try and almost kill his son? It is a bizarre story. There is an Old Testament scholar named Walter Brueggemann and this is his commentary on this passage: Take care not to explain the story. It will not be explained. I’m glad that he said that. If you try to explain that of which cannot be explained, you’re destroying the power of the story. What cannot be explained gives power to this story. There is no moral explanation for this story. There is no spiritual justification. This story is simply unexplainable. Now, after trying so hard to find an explanation from this passage, a thought came to me, is life explainable? Does life make sense? Do human beings make sense? Life is full of contradiction, and we are full of contradictions.

I believe the epitome of contradiction that we know of is about the cross. The son of God was killed by God’s own people on Earth. That is the epitome of contradiction. Surprisingly, that contradiction is at the core of our faith. The cross is at the core of our faith, and that contradiction is at the core of our faith. At the core of our faith, we accept that contradiction. No wonder St. Paul said, the cross is foolish to those who don’t believe.

Our faith is a dangerous faith. It is dangerous because you have to accept the contradiction. We can never believe comfortably. That’s not the nature of faith. We can never believe comfortably. No one can believe because everything has to make sense. At the core of our faith, there is contradiction. What Abraham did was totally unacceptable. It was also unacceptable to God, so God stopped him from doing what he was going to do. Abraham was very decisive and very fast. The angel of God had to move very quickly and called unto him twice, Abraham, Abraham. I’m glad that God decided to intervene.

This reminded me of another story, the story of Jesus Christ on the cross. Isaac was silent, but on the other hand Jesus Christ cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And yet God, who intervened in Isaac's situation and saved him, God did not intervene when his own son faced a crisis. God was silent. For Isaac, God intervened, but before his own son, God did not intervene. Jesus’ story and Isaac’s story are very similar, yet very different. One story ended up with Isaac being saved and the other story ended up with Jesus being killed on the cross. Two very different results, but both stories are similar. These two stories expose life’s total contradiction. It exposes very clearly life’s total contradiction, and these stories also clearly show God’s provision, even in life’s devastating contradiction. God provided a ram for Abraham and God provided the resurrection for Jesus. Even in the situation of total contradiction and hopelessness, God provided the way out.

We don’t know the way out. We human beings don’t know the way out. We cannot even imagine what that can be, but we do believe that our God is a God who provides the way out. Even when every door seems to be closed, God still somehow provides the answer that we ourselves cannot even imagine. You don’t have the answer. You don’t have the key to unlock the mystery of life. Only God knows the answer, and only God provides the key. Only God has the key. When nothing makes sense, when God doesn't make sense, does God work in us? Both stories answer with an emphasis on yes. Even when everything does not make sense. God still works.

Another person who experienced the contradiction of life was Job. He was a righteous man, but he lost everything. He lost his children by the storm. He lost all of his possessions. He lost his health. Life didn’t make sense to Job. I’ve been righteous all my life. Why are all these things happening to me? Life didn’t make sense to Job. His friends tried to make sense of what happened to Job through their own worldview, with their own logic, they had to make Job the worst person in order to maintain their well defined world, but Job could only see the contradiction. He could not see any logic behind what his friends said. The only thing that he saw was total contradiction. To Job, life didn’t make any sense. In the end, God brought Job out and showed him the whole universe he created and Job stood before God with a simple heart and said, “Hineni.” That is a Hebrew word, “Hineni,” which means “here I am. Here I am. This word “Hineni” is a very interesting word. Even though life didn’t make sense at all to Job, by saying “Hineni,” he simply left everything in God’s hands and waited for God’s answer.

Abraham used the same expression three times, “Hineni.” He didn’t know exactly how God would deliver him out of this dilemma, but he left everything in God’s hands without trying to come up with his own easy solution. We are often trying so hard to make sense of what does not make sense. Some people make up crazy gods, with a small “g”, and some people come up with strange conceptual constructs for their lives about life, and they just force those answers upon themselves. Some people simply reject the idea of God saying that it doesn’t make sense.

Our heroes; Abraham, Job, and Jesus simply stood before God with the attitude of “Hineni,” Here I am. When life doesn’t make sense, when life’s tragedies hits you, when life’s contradiction overwhelms you, don’t try to come up with your solution: let us never lose our hope. Someday, you may experience the total contradiction of life. Don’t come up with easy answers, and don’t ever lose your hope. Let us see how God unlocks the mystery of life. Let us experience how God unlocks the mystery of life. Faith is not to believe when everything is believable. Faith is not to believe when everything is hopeful and when everything is understandable. The real challenge of our faith is when you cannot see, when you cannot hope anything, when you cannot understand. That’s the real challenge of faith.

I shared that with the Korean Speaking Ministry members and a lot of them were crying because they have experience their own contradictions in life. They have experienced their own dilemma. They have experienced rock bottom. Faith is not to believe in what you can see. This is what St. Paul said about Abraham’s faith: “hoping against hope, Abraham believed”.

Viktor E. Frankl experienced total contradiction of life in the concentration camp in Auschwitz, and this is what he said in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”: We have come to know man, as he really is, after all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz. However, he’s also that being who enter those gas chambers upright with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Israel on his lips. Hoping against hope, that's what he believed, hoping against hope, that's what we also believe. Even when your life hits the rock bottom, if you have faith, you’ll survive. That faith will create hope and that hope will give you the strength to fight life’s cruelty. Life is cruel. When we hear the news around us, life does not make sense many times, and sometimes even God does not make sense but hoping against hope is still belief.

May God strengthen your faith and live your life with “Hineni,” here I am. I don’t understand God. I don’t understand what is going on in my life. When I look at myself, I don’t understand. “Hineni”/ here I am and God will unlock the mystery of your life. How often we recognize how feeble our faith is. When everything is believable and everything is hopeful, we have strong faith, but when tragedy hits us and dilemma hits us, we soon realized that we don’t have as much faith within our hearts. Here I am, Lord.

The post When Life Doesn’t Make Sense appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.

The third and final session of this series on the meaning of life. Enjoy!

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

Last night, I mean this is the last night here, we were talking about the topic from bondage to freedom and one of the viewers after the lecture came to me and asked what does freedom look like? This is when some people might think, bondage to freedom, it just happens. No, this whole process probably continues until we all die. The difference is the whole spectrum here, but whatever you’ve been enslaved to before, you're completely controlled by that. Then as you move along towards freedom, what used to control you, does not control you anymore. You know that.  You have better control over it than when you were being completely controlled by it. For example, materialism. Before people were completely controlled by materialistic attitude and if someone doubted you, you couldn't survive. While having materialistic power, you might feel like you have control, but you actually start losing control, you lose freedom. You lose your freedom but if you start moving away from materialism you become freer. Once you become totally free, materialism doesn’t bother you anymore, and so that kind of movement from bondage to freedom does not give you full satisfaction. At one point you realize that you know that it doesn’t help you, but you do it anyway because you’re so controlled by it. So, in that way, little by little, after a while you have enough empowerment and freedom to be able to say no. At one point, you say no, I’m not going to let it totally control my life , but some sinfulness controls you. Same thing.

Do you understand? This is a process we are entering. If we go over the last two lectures a bit, the first one we said The life you are, is who you are because of all the things that happened to you before. Every event, emotion and everything that happened in your life shaped who you are . The meaning of life cannot be found in general terms. Meaning of life has to be understood in a very, very specific form. It is something that is being formed, made, shaped and it’s continuously being shaped until you die. The meaning of life is not finished, you will discover the meaning of life much more deeply as years go by and the purpose will become clearer and clearer. That's what's happening in your life, meaning it is important for you to really pay attention to everything that is going on in your life, even though that can scare you.

Sometimes negative events make you believe that even the negative events will not crush you to the point of being destroyed. I believe that God who began good work in you will bring it to completion. I believe that even the negative things, will help the meaning of life be shaped and formed within you. So no matter what kind of events happen to you, that itself does not have value, but what it does in the future changes the value. For example, something very negative happened to you and you feel that oh, this really destroyed me . You feel that you're not going to go any further in life because of this. At that point, if you don’t go anywhere, yes, that negative thing that happened to you has a negative value and it really destroyed you, but let’s say because of the negative things, you were turned around. Then later, you use the negative events for new realization, understanding and transformation. Then the value of the negative things change, it helps you become a better you. I believe that whatever happened to you, you are not just passive victims of it. You can turn it around and then you are the agent of creating new life within you.

So the first night we studied different stories, everybody writes a different story. We are not on a conveyor belt. We all make different stories, we all write different stories. We examined Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, all Bible figures, but their life is radically different from one another. We recognize how unique each person’s life is, in that same way everyone’s story is different, and you’re the only one who can write your story. You don’t need to follow other people’s story. Each person has a unique story, but there is a common thread in each story, and that common thread is all the stories move from bondage to freedom. That’s the story of God. All your stories move from bondage to freedom, and I pray that it becomes your story, and I hope that you continue to work towards that.

In between from bondage to go to freedom, there must be suffering. For example, you're on this mountaintop, but you see another mountaintop and you think I want to go to that mountaintop , but the thing is you must go down the valley without going down the valley. Meaning you can not go to that mountain top. So, this suffering is necessary and an inevitable part of human life. If you define human beings without explaining the suffering aspect of human life, you cannot define what human beings are like. So that’s why when God becomes a human being, Jesus took the form of suffering. Gospel Mark says, suffering servant , meaning suffering is very much a part of who we are. When suffering comes to us, suffering strikes us at the core, that's why it’s scary.

Suffering does not just hurt you, it really hit the core and every aspect of our life, but suffering also strikes something else. What does it strike? It strikes the compassion of God. The grace of God is released and that’s what suffering does. So, when you experience suffering, you also experience God’s grace and you’ll become compassionate. Compassion is a unique kind of love, it is not romantic love, it is suffering love. compassion is suffering.  So, when you suffer from somebody and have compassion for somebody, that’s what compassion is. That suffering makes us compassionate in some ways.

For life to be meaningful, there must be at least three elements. One, there must be something you’re passionate about. For life to be meaningful, there must be something that your passionate about, whatever it is. Two, not only do you need to have a passion for it, you must also actively engage in it. You must do something about it. In other words, It does not matter if you have a great passion for something but don’t do anything about it. That’s not a meaningful life. Third, while we pursue something, we must have an objective value. In other words, it needs a value not just for yourself, but for more than yourself. It must be of value to other people. These are the three elements that meaningful lives look like. I want you to reflect on that.

Elbert Camille, in his book The Myth of Sisyphus, described the absurdity of human life in this way. The myth of Sisyphus says that A man rolls a stone up to the top of the mountain. When he reaches the top, the stone rolls back down to the bottom and then he rose back up again, struggling and goes up to the top and it rolls back down . Not just once or twice, but perpetually, he does that. That was his punishment. He describes human life like that. Sisyphus continuously rolls up the stone, but at the end what we see is the stone at the bottom of the mountain, meaning he needs to go down again. I think he critically assessed the meaninglessness of modern life well. A meaningful life is not just fulfilling our function in a given system. Just because you do very well in fulfilling the function in that given system, doesn’t mean you are living a meaningful life. Other people may praise you, your coworkers praise you, but that itself is not a meaningful life. A meaningful life is not just fulfilling given function in a given system.

My mother used to work for Tillys Wallet Factory. All Day she stands in front of the conveyor belt every day, the same thing, nothing changes. Monday she goes to work at 8:00 and stays there until 4:00 in the afternoon, then comes home and the next day she goes there again. Same thing, same place, same people doing the work. That’s not really a meaning life or a meaningful job.

On Thursday I went to see a doctor about the retinal tear I had. More sophisticated job, but it was much different from the assembly line. People are waiting in the waiting room like a product on a conveyor belt and I was waiting there too until the doctor calls me in. He puts eye drops and goes out for 20 minutes saying, I’ll call you . So, I'm left with my pupils big and he calls me back two minutes later, he sees me and says You’re fine . Cool, that's a more sophisticated job, but not much different. A meaningful life is more than work. We must find something we are passionate about. It can be work, but it doesn’t have to be. We must think about what we truly value in our life.

Nietzsche said, He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how . If you have a why to live for you can bear almost any how. I believe that. Oh yeah, when I looked at biblical figures, I realized one common thing, they all had a very clear why to live. For example, when I see Saint Paul, he had a clear why for a living. You may not necessarily like the life of Saint Paul, but he has a clear why. These are his words, If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as the law, a Pharisee as a persecutor of the church as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of knowing Christ Jesus . Paul was describing the most ideal person at the time. It would be like describing a very successful graduate of Harvard University with many credentials to his/her name.

He’s narrating, and he says that whatever gains I had, I have come to regard this loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as a loss because of the surpassing value. He found the value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for his sake. I have suffered the loss of all things and I regard them as rubbish. I want to know Christ, the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death. If somehow, I am able to attain the resurrection from the dead. Why I'm saying that I’m not going to explain today, is because from July when we have power study, we are going to study Philippians. I am going to explain all that later, but at least hear what I want you to see. He has a clear why. You may not understand why he has that, why? but he has a clear why. How about Jesus? When you look at Jesus’ life, do you think that he had a clear why? He said this, I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly . Therefore, he came to the world to give us abundant life. That was his why, I have come to the world to give your life, and life abundantly . Jesus came to give people this why Nietzsche was talking about. To do that, he even chose death. A person who has a good reason to live also has a good reason to die for. The person who has a good reason to live has a good reason to die for.

Freud and Adler were two very famous individuals who mentioned two important factors that control human life. Freud said that we human beings are living for sex. We are obsessed with sex. Everything relates to sex. Even your hard work for a job is to do with sex. Everything he explained either unfulfilled sex or sexual desire, are oppressed and repressed. All these things come out because of your desire for sex, I see some point there. When you look at the modern world, we are obsessed with sex. Any commercial you see, even for shaving cream displays this. But the ridiculous thing is, it promotes the message that if you have this, you'll be sexy . You know everything is about sex, I understand that I see that in the world. Alder said, no, not just for sex . Human beings basically pursue power, that's what they want. Power, that’s what we want, that’s what we need, but they are connected. If you have power, you can have sex too right? I mean, I’ll always see the two as connected. So, they both correctly understood it in their own ways.

Though I believe that people do not just live for sex and power, people live for meaning. People search for meaning. I said the meaning can't be general. It is different for each person, for each person the meaning of life is unique. We must find that unique passion for our own lives. As you look back, what have you struggled so much for? Maybe when you look at that theory carefully, maybe there’s something that you tried to achieve and that is the something that you want to achieve? You might have never articulated what that is, but I think it is important that you try to articulate it even though it is difficult. Little by little, articulate what you truly value, what really gives you energy, excitement and makes you passionate. What is that? What is one thing that you want to do in your life? At the end of it, you may not say my life is robbed. You might not have had the chance to think about it lately, because you’re so caught up in your work or too busy or even too lazy to think, but I think it is helpful for you to sit down and reflect on what it is that you want to do with your life, that makes your life unique. Robert Frost said in his poem, The road not taken is the end part. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by and that made all the difference . The reason he took the road less travelled by, was what? What is he talking about? suffering? challenge? He took it because it is the road only he could take, not the road that everyone else takes, but the road that he must take. That’s what he means, I think, but I don’t really know. I'm interpreting it for myself, it makes sense doesn’t it? The road less travelled by, he didn’t follow the popular road but followed the road that he had to take. It's something unique to him.

Jesus said something very similar, What did he say? Take the what road? Narrow road. He’s not just talking about a difficult life. He’s talking about the road that You need to take, and I call that authentic life. We are called to live an authentic life, not just a popular life, not just the life that other people are taking. I want to take my life, I want to take my road. That’s what authentic life is and we need to take that authentic life that is less travelled by and that is narrow, and find meaning, you can find it there. They're within general life, you can’t find it. We don’t walk the road just because it’s there. We don’t walk the road because everybody else takes that road. We take our road and we intentionally choose which road to take. There are roads that come off as beautiful and glamorous, but may not be your road. If you take the road that is not yours, you will become miserable.

There’s a Korean movie called pacemaker, how many of you have seen the movie? It's the movie that moved me, it may not be the most well-made movie and some scenes are a little cheesy, but it’s still the movie that moved me. The first time I heard the word pacemaker, I found out that in a marathon they are the people who make the pace for the main runner-up to 30 kilometres. After 30 kilometres they don’t need to run, their job is done. Their job is running for the main runner and after 30 kilometres they don’t even run, some don’t even finish the race. They don’t run for themselves, they run for the main runner. The main character in that movie is a pacemaker. He never lived a passionate life, even though he was very talented. He just had to do his best up to 30 kilometres and that’s it. His younger brother though hated the fact that his brother could do much better but didn’t. He knew that his brother had so much talent from when they were young and poor. So there was a scene where there was a running competition. The first place prize was expensive items, they didn't really care about that. The second place prize was multiple boxes of ramen. They were so poor and so hungry and thought that they must win the boxes of ramen. They wanted the ramen so they agreed to sign up. So, the man runs, he can't run too fast, nor can he run too slow, meaning he had to make the perfect pace, and so he made a sign. When his younger brother opens the umbrella, he speeds up, when the umbrella closes, he slows down. That's how in the end they won the race and earned the ramen. Finally, at the end of the movie, the older brother runs in the London Olympics as a pacemaker. The younger brother, however, was so disappointed that he said he could not come to the competition to see his brother running. After running 30 kilometres, it was time for him to stop, but somehow this time he wanted to run for himself, not for anybody else. So, he continued, but his body condition was not fit for more than 30 kilometres. So, he ended up falling and struggled to get back up, but in that state of struggle he saw his brother standing in the crowd and all sudden he was energized.  At that moment, the younger brother opened the umbrella, that is when I cried. You know, as I got older, I started to cry a lot. Anything a little cheesy, makes me cry. Anyways, so he opened the umbrella and started running and won the race.

My friends, how often do we live our lives like a pacemaker. Instead of living life fully to it's potential, we set our boundary and don’t even think about going further. This is good. If I have a secure job, I can eat. I can die, have enough money and live a mediocre life. Moses refused to respond to God’s call. How many times do you live life as a pacemaker? Not running for yourself, but running for you. When you have something you’re passionate about, find it. When you don’t know what it is, find it. What makes you excited? If you don’t have something, what is life? If you don’t have something you’re passionate about, what is life? Second, not only do you need to find passion in life, you must actively engage in it once. Do you know it? Once you know what you’re passionate about, do something about it. Don’t just sit on it.  

Last week, I decided to start something, I took out the flute again and decided to learn jazz flute. I don’t have time to take lessons, so I bought a book with a CD, and then going from one chapter to another I practiced. I'm not good, but I’m doing something about it. You get up and do something about it. We keep ourselves to do something about it, decide and act on it. Endless effort never gives up.

I believe that courage and faith, they go together. The disciples, after finding the true meaning of life, they threw away their net concretely. They did something that was courageous and faithful. Abraham, when he was called, he left his hometown. That’s courage and that’s faith. Moses, when he was called, he was ridiculed by old men to go into Egypt with the staff and fight against the organized systematic army, he did something about it. David with a stone, went out to fight against Goliath. Martin Luther King Jr. went out on the street to protest the racism. They all did something, that’s faith and that’s courage.

Courage is not the absence of fear. Faith is not the absence of doubt. Having courage and faith is not about living in denial of reality or living in a fantasy. We always stand before the reality that makes us fear and doubt. Do you think courageous people never feel fear? They always feel fear. Do you think that those who have faith, never doubt? They always doubt. But the crucial difference is, when they see fear and doubt, instead of turning their eyes away, they head straight into the face of fear, refusing to be intimidated by it. That’s what true courage is. Yes, when you enter fantasy, you don’t even see the fear, you don’t even feel the fear. Yesterday, Lily sammonim asked about the definition of faith. Canadian theologian, Dr. Halls seeing God in human suffering said, Faith is not a shallow optimism which closes his eyes to the data of despair to maintain itself intact. Faith is not on the other hand, on equally shallow pessimism which refuses to perceive even mystery let alone meaning and beyond the fate of mortal flesh whose beauty face, whose life withers the grass .

Jesus saw the reality of this world as naked as it is. It's absurdity, Jesus saw and observed. Jesus clearly saw the absurdity of human behaviours. In contradiction, he saw hopelessness and pain, but he didn’t fall into pessimism. He was sad, he was in agony and was angry, but he never ran away, never escaped into fantasy. He embraced the world, the world full of thorns, trusting in God’s mystery. He embraced the world full of thorns. Faith encourages and even embraces failures. Embrace despair, embrace powerlessness, embrace uncertainty and embrace our doubts. Always hope, always wait and pursue while embracing all that, and you will never lose hope.

Do you have the courage to embrace yourself not because of the great achievements you make, but because of the many failures you made? I’m saying something very important here, not because of your great achievement, but because of your failures. That's the good news, God embraces you not because you’re perfect. God knows that you are not, but God still embraced you, although you're broken in many ways. These two are very, very different. We embrace our life not because everything is going well, although there are many problems and difficulties we must resolve. We embrace our life not because we see clearly the bright future, but it’s part of the fact that your life is uncertain. If you embrace your life because of something, when that something is taken away, you have no more life. If you are happy because you have lots of money, if that money is taken away, your happiness is gone with it. But if you are happy although you don’t have money, even if that money is taken away, you are still happy. Embrace yourself not because you made it perfect, but because of the fact that you made many failures. That’s what God did and that’s the gospel. That’s the good news.

Among the books I read, I have encountered this title, I’m well apart from the fact that I have cancer. Interesting book title. Her name is Hattie Carroll. She’s a philosopher who went to the doctor and was told You only have 10 years to live , and from that point on she started reflecting on her life and she wrote that book. Despite the fact that, I have only 10 years to live, I'm not going to let that crush me down. I’m going to live happily although I have only 10 years to live. If you learn to live your life despite anything, then you’re very strong. Engage life’s pursuit of what you have a passion for. It’s not easy my friends. That’s why people don’t do anything about it, even though they have passion, it’s not easy. There are many frustrations, doubts, failures and even despairs. Through those times, we may feel like giving up, that is why we need faith and courage.

Gerald’s Jensen introduced another interesting Hebrew word and that is nephesh. You read it as net fish. The meaning or the original word means life. It also has the meaning of appetite. When the scripture says the Job lost everything because of his life . He uses the word nephesh here. He had a physical life, but he lost a nephesh. It’s very interesting because the Korean language has two words for it too. For example, moksum ( ) and sungmyeong ( ). Moksum is a physical breath or physical life. Sungmyeong is nephesh. When you look at Genesis Chapter two, verse seven, Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils. The breath life and the man became a living being . It is nephesh. It’s not just I’m alive, it’s a living being with full of appetite, life without nephesh, is not real life. Life without full of appetite is not real life. I see a lot of people living their lives without appetite, without nephesh. Lives without nephesh should be restored.

Do you know Naomi? You know, Naomi, right? A Bible figure. She was an immigrant woman, who immigrated to another country, Moab. She’s an Israelite who had lost her husband, two sons and lost everything in her life. She had to come back to her homeland and this is what she said, Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty, has dealt bitterly with me . Naomi is sweet, Mara is bitter. Naomi lost her appetite, but at the end her nephesh, she was restored through Ruth. I believe that God can restore our nephesh. That’s when we become more than a mechanical being. Not only do you have a passion, but you fully engaged in your life, living out your passion.

Finally, while we pursue it, passion must have an objective value. No matter how passionately Hitler might have engaged in what he believed in, I can't say his life was meaningful. No matter how successful you may be, if it is only for your own selfish greed and glory, I can't say that it is a meaningful life. What we pursue must be for more than me. Jesus Christ did not die on the cross for his own glory, he did that to give us the abundant life. Real meaningful life is possible only when you go beyond your self-absorption. We must find something that we are passionate about, but that’s something that must be more than just for myself, my family and friends. For example, helping at Evangel hall, it's more than myself leading BOM, serving at Teasdale. It doesn’t have to be just church work. Even in your career, you can build a meaningful life. Help the younger ones or help the new immigrants.

I can't tell you specifically what meaningful life is, but I told you generally about three categories, having passion, active engagement and having an objective value. As you look at these three categories, how would you see your life? You may have all the resources already. You just need to be more mindful of constructing a meaningful journey of your life. If you have money, then use it for a good purpose. If you have talent, use it for a good purpose. If you have time, use it for others. Meaning of life is not out there for you to go out and grab it. Meaning of life is made, formed and shaped within your life. You may not need to change anything, or maybe a simple attitude adjustment is needed. God does not move our story from bondage to freedom for ourselves. God does that so that you may help others move from bondage to freedom. When God first called Abraham, what did he say? I will bless you so that you can live happily ever after , but He said, I’ll bless you so that you may bless others . That’s the meaning of life. God blessed you so that you may bless others, as we live our meaningful life.

You know, our stories will be weaved together, shaping the liberating story of life from bondage to freedom. The present structure of life will not blindly dictate our life, but our stories together will create a new pattern of living from bondage to freedom. We are creative agents of creating life with the help of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We don’t do that alone, we do it together. We don’t need a hero, we need each other. We need to share our stories with each other, and these stories will empower us. Among you, I hope that wonderful stories may come out. God has blessed you with so many talents and resources. I hope that you may be creative agents using your resources to bless others so that we may hear the story from bondage to freedom not only in you but through you, in other people. God bless you and live a meaningful life. I hope that this has helped you all to reflect upon the meaning of life.

The post Meaning of Life: Session 3 appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.

The second session of 3. Let’s continue on the journey of discovering the meaning of life!

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

Knowing the Purpose of Life

Yesterday we reflected that I’m not just a passive recipient or victim to just live a life as my circumstances dictate. I’m the agent of making an intentional decision for my life. This story is not just being written, but I am also in a way with the help of God, the author of the story of my unique story that my life will write. Every single thing that is happening in your life, every single event, every single emotion that you feel are not just random things or meaningless things. I believe that they gathered together to create a stream of the river and in that way, we see the direction of our life. The purpose of our life.

Yesterday Laila came to me and asked me a question. Laila, you’re a new person but you’re always welcome to ask questions. She felt awkward too. Linda is from Ottawa, but Laila is from London. Laila asked me about the purpose and meaning of life, are they the same thing? Very, very good question. So I said the purpose is something that is a part of the meaning of life but it’s not everything. As you live your life, then clearly you see the direction of your life and then you see the kind of end. So that’s a purpose. The end too. So the direction is set. So you’re not choosing arbitrarily the purpose, “Okay, this is the purpose in my life. I’m going to live like this.” No, that’s not what you do. As you see, you see your purpose in life being unravelled to you. So you see and you follow it. So she said, So, in the middle of it, we just live it? No, we don’t just live it. We live it, but you open your eyes, so you see every single detail that is happening in your life and you see how they work together to build.

Yesterday I was going to drive up here because on Sunday – tomorrow, I have to go back down to the church to preach. So I was going to drive up, but I was so tired. As you get older, over 50, you tend to fall asleep behind the wheel. So I was kind of scared and then Jane kindly offered, “You know Pastor, why don’t you just come up here and then you can go down. Grace can take other peoples in a ride and all that.” So I came up. So driving and she asked me, “Okay, 404…” we were on the express, “Does this take you to 404?” So I said, “Okay yeah, both collector and express, they both take you to 404 so you can just stay here and then, uh, you don’t have to, uh, um,” and I kind of fell asleep, right? And after a while, I felt strange and I looked at, looked out and saw Kennedy. “Where are we?” She said, “But you said you don’t have to take 404, you just go all the way.” She misunderstood me. “Aw, Kennedy. Oh no!”

“So okay, now we gotta go out…” and we got off at Markham. It’s like that, life. You know, if you don’t see your option, you don’t need to think about it. You can just live. Without knowing where you’re going, if life is a journey, maybe you may end up with a place where you don’t want to be, ultimately. So it is very important that you need to pay attention to what is going on in your life – daily or weekly or monthly or yearly. You need to think about where you’re going and that set the pattern instead of letting the circumstances dictate and guide you to where you don’t want to go. That’s what I’m saying. You don’t want circumstances to take you where you don’t want to go. You want to go where you want to go. That’s what we need to do.

Life Continuously Evolves

You know, some people after living so many years tell me that, “I feel like I’m being robbed of my life.” After so many years they tell me, “I feel like I’m robbed of my life.” You don’t want to do that. You want to make an intentional choice every moment. So that’s what we have been talking about yesterday. The meaning of life, it’s not something outside of you. It’s out there somewhere so I go and find it. The meaning of life is shaped in me. It’s not something other people can give to me. If you come to me and say, “Mok-san-nim (Pastor), what is my meaning of life?” “Okay. This is your meaning of life, live it like this.” Ethically wrong, that is ethically wrong. If I do that, no matter how powerful I may be, how spiritual I may be, that’s ethically wrong to do so. But I see that happening in lots of places. Even to my kids, I cannot say that this is your meaning of life, you got to do this. I can’t do that.

“Oh, you got to be a doctor” or “You’re going to be a lawyer.” Who said that that’s a meaning of life for that person? I don’t think even parents have that right to do so with their children. It is something that is being made, being shaped, and being formed. It is important that you understand it, that you know it. Over the years, it will be slowly revealing itself to you. Yesterday, so we did ‘meaning of life – life itself has a pattern of the story’ and we examined some stories in the Bible. The Bible never defines what life is. I’m really glad that the Bible never defined life because once you define something, that’s the end. Closure. It’s closed. But the Bible never defines. Life is not something that you can close. Life is something – until you die – it continuously evolves. There’s a process continuously and it unravels itself.

Unique Stories

The Bible talks about life in a story form. Because the story continues, I think the Bible is so profound. That’s why I love the Bible. I love the Bible because it has so much wisdom, so many secrets, so much truth in it. We examined three stories and then we realized that they’re all different stories. Abraham’s story is radically different from Jacob’s story, and Jacob’s story is radically from Joseph’s story. So each person has a unique story and it’s unique like all yours. All of your stories are unique stories.

Last night I heard that you had a good sharing. Some of you stayed up here until 1:30 and ate up four boxes of ramen. We got only six boxes left now, hurry up. I hope that this community is a place where we all come and share our life, without having to be so religious. Without having to express that you’re so religious. That’s a pseudo-community. I want a real community. Sharing of your shattered experiences, broken experiences. Just be who you are. If you’re struggling with God, that’s fine. If you’re struggling with your faith, that’s all right. That’s all part of the process. You don’t need to pretend to be somebody to be able to share. We all, if we can all share your stories, then together we can build an authentic community and that authentic community will have a powerful influence on you and on your children. This morning, I had a little time to talk with John Chung and I said, “You know, a first-generation community that they built – I mean I love the first generation all that, but I’m not very proud of the community that they’ve built. I’m not 100 percent really satisfied with the community they built, because the second generation cannot take it on. Somehow they built their own very unique special community for themselves. It is not something the second generation can take on. But our church is unique because you’re the pioneer. I don’t see many second-generation communities around, even in Toronto or in North America. I went down to Hawaii and met all the second generation ministers, but there are not many second-generation communities. You are the pioneers. You are building up a community. I hope that you build an authentic community, not a pseudo-community. Where everybody is welcome and everybody can share their stories. Then you’ll be powerful and you will help your children. Once you build it, they can take it on. Build some kind of community where your children can also take on.

From Bondage to Freedom

Anyway, now, these stories – every one of you has a different story, and in the Bible, there are many different stories, but I discovered that there is one common thread. There’s one common thread that I found in all these stories – your stories, Bible stories – and the one common thread is that all our stories move from bondage to freedom. That’s what I discovered. That’s what I found. All our stories move from bondage to freedom. Abraham’s story, Jacob’s story, Joseph’s story, they all moved from bondage to freedom. From the bondage of fear to the freedom of courage, the bondage of hatred to the freedom of love and forgiveness, from the bondage of greed to the freedom of self-sacrifices.

Our stories also moved from bondage to freedom, with the help of God’s grace. But, another thing that I discovered was that this is the movement of the story, but in-between, there is suffering. The story from bondage to freedom is not a free ride. To move from bondage to freedom, you have to go through the reality of suffering. For example, Israelites, they were in Egypt and then Moses led them out of Egypt. Egypt represented what? Bondage. They were slaves there. They were moving out of bondage to the promised land. That’s the Book of Exodus. To move from Egypt to the promised land, in-between, what was there? Wilderness. There was a wilderness. In other words, you will all go through a time of wilderness in your life. You cannot just enter into the promised land. I’m going to Israel this Fall. Palestine, Israel. But I heard that it takes only like a week or 10 days to go from Egypt to the promised land, but how long did it take? Forty years. Forty years of suffering. So if you think that you can have faith just like that, no.

Faith is something that is resulted after many, many years of disappointments, hardships, confusion, and all these things you go through, and after that, you enter into the world of faith. If you just grab it, it may be pseudo-faith. Be careful with that kind of faith. With pseudo-faith, be careful, because pseudo-faith will never liberate you. Pseudo faith will never take you to the promised land. It has to be real faith. The real faith, always in that life, there is suffering. Suffering is indispensable then, to find a meaning in life.

You don’t need to choose, “Okay, then should I choose always, do I have to choose to suffer?” No, you don’t need to choose because without your choice suffering will come to you. You are inescapable from suffering. The most common experience of human beings is not happiness, unfortunately, but suffering. The universal experience of human beings is suffering. Each family has its own suffering. Every person, regardless of age, experiences, some kind of suffering they go through. So when you describe human beings, if you take our suffering, then you’re not giving the full picture of human beings. What human beings truly are like. To be fully human is to experience suffering. In Christianity, we believe that God became a human being, and we call it incarnation. When God decided to become a human being, what was the one characteristic that God chose, that characteristic is suffering. The cross is a symbol of that. Jesus Christ took the suffering, as the face of a human being.

Gospel Mark describes it best. In the gospel of Mark, you find Jesus as the suffering servant. In Mark, Jesus kept emphasizing that I’m going to have to suffer. Every time he gathers disciples he says, “I’m going to have to suffer,” and all that. And then they all didn’t like it, “No, don’t do that.” They were interested in glory. They were interested in power. But suffering? Don’t talk about it. But every time Jesus performed miracles, he said, “I have to be delivered and I will suffer” and all that. They didn’t like it. Then Jesus asked Peter, “Who do people say that I am?” “Oh, Elijah and all that stuff.” Then he asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter says, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” He answered it right, and after that, he said, “the son of God has to suffer” and all that. And Peter said, “No, no, no, no…” When you look at the Bible, very interesting. Peter used the word “rebuke”. Peter rebuked Jesus, “Don’t say things like that. Right now the atmosphere’s so good, just lead them and let’s take over the Romans. Everybody’s excited about your message, everybody’s excited about you, so let’s go.” But Jesus said, “I have to suffer.” “Don’t say that wimpy stuff, you’re not going to suffer. You’re going to win.” And Jesus said, “Satan, get behind me.” So he got really rebuked by Jesus, “Satan, behind me.”

Perspective on Suffering

See, Jesus cannot do his ministry without suffering. Because suffering is a very core element of what a human being is like. Jesus Christ did not see suffering as a result of sin. Many times we think that suffering is a result of sin, but Jesus Christ had a different perspective on suffering. When he was walking with the disciples, and they met a born-blind man, and then the disciples asked what question, what did they ask? “Whose sin is this? Is it his sin or his parents’ sin?” Jesus said, “No one’s sin. This is to glorify God.” Glorifying God, ultimately he healed the man. Glorifying God means from bondage to freedom, from the bondage of blindness to the freedom of being able to see. Jesus Christ did not see suffering necessarily as a result of sin.

Actually, Douglas John Hall, who’s a Canadian theologian who is teaching in Montreal at McGill. He said there were at least four different kinds of suffering, right from the beginning in creation. First, the suffering of loneliness. God created all things, and what did he say? “It is good.” But when he saw Adam, what did he say? “It is not good for him to be alone.” So from the beginning, there was evidence of suffering, of loneliness. Second, the suffering of one’s own limitations. They all had to live with their own limitations. You know, one’s experiencing one’s limitation is hard to bear. We all struggle with that. At the job, whatever we do, especially men at the golf course, you’ll experience a lot of limitations. If you go a lot you will learn about life. Suffer. Why do you pay to suffer? Interesting paradox. Third, the suffering of temptation. From the serpent, the first human beings experience the suffering of temptation. Jesus also experienced the suffering of temptation. Fourth, the suffering of fear. As a matter of fact, the first word human beings spoke to God was a message of fear. This is what he said: “I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid.” That first phrase, human beings ever spoke to God, and they are expressing their fear. So all of these fears were there.

Pain is Part of Human Life

The suffering has always been with human beings right from the beginning until now. So when suffering comes to you, don’t treat them as though an unexpected or uninvited guests came to you because suffering will inevitably come to you. There are a lot of people suffering around me, suffering from financial problems. I mean, a lot of people come to me and then tell me about their suffering. Some people have real problems with children, a kind of tough life their children go through. Suffering from illness, he’s only two years older than me and he just got lung cancer, and so he’s getting chemotherapy right now. Suffering from political oppression, from broken relationships, from one’s own lack of capability, limitations, and difficult problems. From one’s own mistakes, the gravest sin who’s resulting cannot be undone. So from all these things, people suffer. If you are trying to achieve happiness without considering seriously the reality of suffering, it won’t be true happiness.

There’s a movie called Shadow Lands. How many people saw that? Good, yeah. Shadow Lands describes the life of C.S. Lewis. You know C.S. Lewis. He was an atheist at first. He was a professor at Oxford University, but after he was converted he wrote many good Christian books. Some of you probably know some of his books. What was his book? Mere Christianity or Narnia is a children’s story. All good books that he wrote. Then he married Joy Gresham. Joy a was a divorcee from the United States and she came to London and married him. All his life, he was just a scholar living in an ivory tower. But soon after marriage, they discovered that she had cancer. In the late age, they weren’t married for many years, just a few years while taking care of her. He experienced what it meant to truly love somebody.

But at the same time, he also experienced how painful that is to love somebody. Cancer really got worse. So once they went to their favourite spot in Hertfordshire in England – a beautiful rural area. Louis really enjoyed the moment there. This is what he said to Joy, his wife: “This is my kind of happiness. When the present moment is entirely self-contained, untarnished by any fleeting thoughts of what has gone before or what may come later.” He really enjoyed that moment. Then Joy, his wife, gently rebuked him, saying, “That’s only temporal isolationism. The happiness cannot be genuine if it involves shutting off the past or the future. What is yet to come in the future infuses the very texture of what is now experienced. The pain then is part of this happiness now. That’s the deal.” And she died. Happiness cannot be contained in one good moment. That’s temporal isolationism. After her funeral, Lewis said, “A child chooses safety, but a grown person,” I used inclusive language, he said, “A grown man chooses to suffer. The pain is part of the happiness. Now I find I can live with the pain after all.” That’s the deal.

Pain is a part of happiness. Pain is a part of human life. Jesus came to this world not to get rid of suffering or pain. Jesus did not come to this world to give us a painkiller, but I see many people try to use Christian faith only as a painkiller. Whenever they are suffering, they go to church and get comforted just for the moment. Then they need stronger and stronger dosage of that painkiller. That’s why Karl Marx said, “Religion is opium.”

Avoiding Suffering

Jesus Christ did not come to take us out of the world of suffering. We can see that in Jesus’ last prayer. This was Jesus’ last prayer: “I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but I asked you to protect them from the evil one.” Jesus did not come to take us out of the world, but to protect us from the evil one. Jesus did not say, “My children, since I’m with you, you’ll have no pain anymore.” Jesus didn’t say that. Jesus said rather, “In the world, you may have tribulation.” Tribulation is worse suffering. But he said, “In the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer.” Be of good cheer, meaning have courage. You will have suffering but have courage. But we human beings are not courageous when it comes to suffering. We are not courageous when we face our suffering, we try our best to avoid suffering as much as possible, and if the suffering is inevitable, we wish that that suffering would go away as soon as possible.

That’s all we want. We feel so helpless and powerless when it comes to our suffering. We only fear our suffering. We’re only thinking of running away from our own suffering, and our life becomes so passive and meaningless. Also, when the suffering comes, not only do we try to avoid it, but we try to find a scapegoat – someone to blame. Don’t we do that? When we go through suffering, “Ugh, if my parents sent me to this university or that university.” Or if you’re fighting, “Ugh, if I didn’t meet that woman or that man.” So when suffering comes, we always tend to blame somebody. When Japanese cars first came to the United States, many American motor factories had to close their doors. There was a Chrysler Factory in Detroit that had to be shut down. Ronald Evans was a supervisor at one of those factories and got laid off. On June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin had a bachelor party and on the way home he dropped by at McDonald’s, and Ronald Evans and his stepson approached Vincent and the stepson grabbed him from behind and Ronald beat Vincent to death with a baseball bat. And he said, “Because of you, Jap, we lost our job.” Vincent was not even Japanese. He was Chinese. Chin is not a Japanese last name.

Sometimes we try to find somebody to blame for our suffering. We’re not bold and courageous with our suffering. So one, we run into fantasy. Two, we blame somebody. Three, none of that works, then we fall into despair and bitterness. That’s what we do. We are not of good cheer. The worst feeling of suffering, you know what that is? The worst of all the suffering is the feeling that God has abandoned you. That’s the worst feeling of suffering. All another suffering, yeah we can handle, but if you feel that God does not love you any more or God has abandoned you, that is the worst feeling of suffering. That’s why Jesus Christ experienced the worst feeling of suffering on the cross. What did he say? “My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?” That’s the worst feeling of suffering and our Lord Jesus Christ experienced that.

Job's Suffering

The Bible is a story, and then to talk about suffering, the Bible gives us another story, and that story is the story of who? Job. Job is the classic example of suffering, but I believe that there is a message that God wants to get across through the story of the life of Job. Some of you probably know, but how many of you never heard of Job?

Job lived all his life with so many of God’s blessings. He had many children and they were all good and he was rich and healthy and he was even righteous before God. He was almost an ideal person. People wish that that was the end of Job’s life and he lived happily ever after. That’s not the story of the Bible. It’s a story of a fairy tale, but the Bible story doesn’t end in that way. He didn’t live happily ever after, that was not the case. The Satan challenged God. Here the Satan is not the devil, Satan does not refer to the Devil. It means, DA or prosecutor. It says “The” Satan, so DA or prosecutor. The Satan challenged God saying that Job is loyal to you, not for no reason. The reason he’s loyal to you is that in Job’s mind, implicitly he believes that his loyalty will guarantee his blessings. It is Job’s careful calculation, he said.

The challenge is that human beings worship God for what they receive from God. Not for who He is. It’s not pure love between God and human beings. The reason human beings are good is that they are scared of God’s punishment or because they are expecting God reward, that’s all. All they want is to either avoid your punishment or expecting your reward. That’s why they worship you, not for who You simply are. That’s the challenge. So this whole story of Job is a challenge to the traditional view of life. What is the traditional view of life? I think the writer of Job is a radical person. He turned upside down the traditional logic that God blesses those who are good to him. Wow that’s amazing, that’s how most people think – God blesses those who are good to him. The story of Job challenges that. Job, even though he was good, experienced tremendous suffering. It is hard to accept the story of Job and the message of Job. Even though it is in the Bible, you wish that it never happens to you. You wish that the Satan never tells God that these things should happen to me. We don’t want that kind of tragedy that happened to Job to happen to us. When bad things happen, we still wonder whether we did anything wrong.

Shattering Fantasies

Once Helen came to me and told me Peter went golfing on Sunday and he did really bad. She said to him, “See, if you miss church, that’s what happens.” Don’t go play on Sunday, missing worship service. Go after. We still think that when bad things happen, automatically we think that we must have done something wrong, or somebody did. That’s why we feel guilty. When something bad or suffering happens to us, we feel guilty. Harold Christener talks about a family in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It’s a pretty good book if you haven’t read it, it's a very old book, but it’s a pretty good book if you want to read it. A 19-year-old girl, in his synagogue, he is a rabbi, suddenly collapsed at her school. So a doctor came, but by the time the parents arrived, she had already died. She was only 19 years old. So the 19-year-old girl, she died, and after the funeral, the parents came to Harold and said, “Rabbi, at the last Yom Kippur, we didn’t fast.” They were saying that if they fasted at the last Yom Kippur, their daughter, would have survived, or nothing bad would have happened to her if they fasted at the last Yom Kippur. The Book of Job challenges the naive idea that if I’m good, bad things will never happen to me'. That’s a fantasy. Morality and religion can be also another form of fantasy. People who go through suffering can create fantasy because it’s so hard to bear, so they create a fantasy. And this is what Nietzsche said: “The true meaning of life is too terrible for us to cope with, which is why we need our consoling illusions if we are to carry on.” The Bible shatters all these fantasies. It is people who make a fantasy from the Bible, but the Bible shatters all kinds of fantasies. All of Job’s fantasies are shattered.

Ask God to Be on Your Side

The worst of all Job’s suffering, what did I say? The worst of all suffering is what? To feel that God has abandoned you. This is Job’s confession. He said, “For the arrows of the Almighty are in me. My spirit drinks their poison. The terrors of God are arrayed against to me.” This is what Job said. He felt that not only was he abandoned by God, not only was God not on his side, but God attacked him. In another place, “If I sin, what do I do to you? You watcher of humanity. Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to you?”

Isn’t it really cool, the Bible? They’re not just talking about good things. You don’t know, not even ten percent of what the Bible really says. This is a real confession of a human being. He feels that God is not on his side, that God had abandoned him. Not only abandoned him, He made him His target. That, as I said, is the worst feeling of suffering. All kinds of suffering are fine, but that feeling that God is not on your side, that is the worst feeling. You know, real courage – I said when it comes to suffering, people are not courageous – but real courage is when we suffer. When we lost everything, we still accept that God is on our side. That is real courage. When you lost everything, when you failed at everything, and even then you believe that God is on your side. That’s courage. That’s hard to accept. When suffering comes, that’s really hard to accept. In Romans 8, St. Paul said, “If God is for us, who is against us?” In other words, St. Paul experienced, in the most difficult time if suffering, he felt that God was for him. God was on his side. “Who will be against me?” That’s what he’s saying. If God is for me, who is against me? That’s courage for me. And then a little bit later he said, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Even death cannot separate us from the love of God.”

It was difficult for Job to accept this. You know, all his friends – sometimes friends are limited – all friends came to Job to console him and to help him. But what they actually did was they threw him into deeper despair by continuously saying that You must have done something wrong. These kinds of things don’t happen to anyone if you didn’t do anything wrong'. They throw him into deeper despair by saying that. So when you meet friends, when you counsel somebody, be careful. Instead of helping them, you might throw them into a deeper despair. What are they implying? They’re implying that God is not on your side'. Don’t misunderstand. God is not on your side. They want to continually assure Job that God was not on his side.

Martin Buber, a Jewish theologian said, “When we pray, we don’t ask God for anything. We simply ask God for God. We invite God into our lives.” I think that’s the best prayer. We simply ask God to be on our side. We simply ask God to be with us. Don’t ask for anything, just ask God to be with you and on your side. When we suffer, the only prayer we need is that God is on our side. That’s why Jesus said before he left the world, “I’ll be with you forever.” Jesus promised that he will be with us forever. In other words, in all circumstances, I’ll be on your side. You are my child'. Would you ever give up your children because they are the worst criminal? Would you do that? No. Jesus says, “You are my child. I’ll never abandon you.” When you read the Prodigal Son, when the son left – I mean, you can’t do anything about it, when they leave, they leave. But you always wait. You always wait. You never forget them. You never abandon them.

God's Compassion is Beyond Our Comprehension

You know, I found something wonderful about suffering. When suffering comes to us, it strikes us at the very core of our existence. Do you see this bruise? This kind of bruise is nothing, right? Pain on a part of your body is all right, but when the suffering hits the core of your existence, it hurts. When it takes away your dignity and everything that you believe, when it takes it away, it hurts. Pain hurts. That is really hurting. This is not hurting. That is real pain. When suffering hits us, it hits us in every aspect of our lives. Because it hits the core and every aspect of our lives. What I discovered, there’s one more thing that suffering hits, do you know what that is? Suffering hits the compassion of God. When it hits us at the very core, it also hits the compassion of God. And when the compassion of God is hit by our suffering, His grace is released. It’s like running, you know. I enjoy running these days. If you run, in the beginning, it’s really hard, but after a while it hits something and some good hormone is released and you feel good after that. In the same way, when suffering his us it, it hits us hard and at the very core but also hits God’s compassion. And when God’s compassion is hit, the grace of God is released.

You know the word compassion? What is compassion? Compassion is love, right? But that word is a combination of come and passion. Come is together, passion is suffering. The passion of Jesus Christ is the suffering of Jesus Christ. So, the word compassion is special love. It’s not just romantic love, it’s suffering love. So I translate that as suffering love. Compassion is suffering love. It’s a very, very special love. When suffering hits us, it hits God’s compassion, and when God’s compassion is hit, then the grace of God is released. We don’t always experience this God’s suffering love. When we go through suffering, you realize all of a sudden it’s there. I never knew this grace of God, but when you go through suffering, you find that it’s there. Suffering takes away everything from us, but it makes God’s grace and compassion available to us. When we have this compassion, when we experience this compassion, then you can have compassion for others. When you don’t experience this compassion, you cannot have compassion for others. But when you go through suffering and he experienced His grace and experience God’s compassion, then you can identify with others suffering. Then you become a compassionate person.

Without compassion, I think every human being will be hardened. So hardened, nothing will break them. So suffering does something very good. It makes us weak, but at the same time, it makes us compassionate. We can overcome our self-centeredness and understand others’ suffering. Understand others' suffering. I think Job’s friends did not understand Job’s suffering. Understanding and comprehension are two different things. The word comprehend comes from ‘comprehendere’, a Latin verb. It means to grasp. Seize. Wrapping our minds around something so as to your understanding, like you grab it. So when you use the saying “Oh, now I grasped…” it’s comprehending it. Comprehending is to put things in your grasp and know what kind of understanding is the understanding of Job’s friends. With their limited knowledge, they tried to comprehend what happened to Job, but they were all wrong. So in the end, they were all punished by God. Not punished but rebuked by God.

Robert Browning’s poem, Andrea del Sarto, says “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s heaven for?” Our reach should exceed our grasp. Your life is not in your grasp, and suffering tells us that. How can we understand God’s creation by grasping it? I think Michelangelo is a genius, he does as a few other things with other pictures too, but with this picture – look at that hand, Adam and God – their fingers don’t meet. Their hands – it’s not grasping it, it’s kind of reaching out. Reaching out, but as you look at carefully who’s more urgent in reaching out? I think God, God is much more urgent in reaching out. So our life is not like grasping. We try to grasp and put everything in our control, but reaching out that is true understanding. Sometimes suffering is hard to grasp, hard to understand, but there is God’s compassion working beyond our comprehension.

Stand Tall Before the World

Job’s conclusion comes in chapter 38. In chapter 38, as you might expect, maybe you think that God will just give an answer. “Okay, this is my answer. One, two, three, four.” No, this is what God said:

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

Who is this that obscures my plans

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?

Who shut up the sea behind doors

Have you ever given orders to the morning,

Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea

What is the way to the abode of light?

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow

Job answered, what are you talking about? I went through so much, what does that mean?'. I think there’s a wisdom there. God brings Job out and to see the whole world that He has created. You see it? Do you understand it? Have you gone into the foundation of the earth? Have you gone down to the ocean? Do you know all that? He shows that. You know, when we go through suffering, what do we do? We become withdrawn into our own small world. Why do these things happen to me? Why to me, not to her or to him? Me, me, me… we become so self-centred, we are kind of locked up in our small world and we cannot even move. At the end, suffering paralyzes us. God brings Job out of that small world, opens the world for him. See, now you stand tall before the world. This is what I created and you I will never be abandon. As I take care of this gigantic universe I will take care of you.

Here I am, God

Interesting word in Hebrew is called Hinenu. Hinenu is ‘here we are’. Hineni, with an I, is here I am, Hinenu is here we are. When God called Abraham, Abraham said: “Hineni, here I am.” When Samuel was called four times, and then when God calls Samuel goes and says, “Hineni, here I am.” When Isaiah experienced God’s presence in the temple, he said, “Woe to me, I’m a man of unclean lips and I saw the living God.” And then God sent charcoal and he cleansed lips and then after that God said, “Whom shall I send?” And then Isaiah said “Hineni, here I am. Send me.” That’s Hineni. I think that’s the answer to our suffering. When God’s grace hits us, now instead of running away into our own small world we come out, and God brings us out and lets us stand tall.

Hineni. Here I am. Nothing will destroy me. Nothing in this world can destroy me because God is on my side. Hineni, spirituality. Hinenu, spirituality. No matter how much suffering I may go through, I will stand tall. I will not be scared. I will not run away into fantasy. I will not run away into our own small world. I will stand tall. No matter how difficult our suffering may be, God will be with you. In the world, you may have tribulation, but be of good cheer. Have courage, and stand tall. Come out. Don’t lock yourself in that small world where you’re suffering and licking your wounds. Licking wounds in that small world will not help. Knowing that God is on your side, come out and stand tall. God will move you into the next stage of your life.

The post Meaning of Life: Session 2 appeared first on St Timothy Presbyterian Church.