Fight for brutal honesty about yourself (Romans 7:24)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon February 15, 2009

Last several weeks, I’ve been exploring the ways to fight against the disconnection between what we know to be true and how we live it out. It is a fight against hypocrisy. Today, I want to explore with you how learning to be brutally honest about ourselves lays down a firm foundation to fight against the rampant and insidious poison of hypocrisy.

1. Fight against feel good psychology of building up self-esteem.

I picked up a book this past week by Don Matzat, titled Christ-Esteem and subtitled Where the Search For Self-Esteem Ends. As the title and the subtitle suggest, the author seeks to establish the biblical case against self-esteem while affirming Christ-esteem. Self-esteem is looking inwardly to find solutions to problems in life while Christ-esteem is looking to Jesus as the solution to our problem and learning to love, adore, respect, honor and prize Jesus.

For now, let seek to understand why we need to fight against the feel-good psychology of self-esteem.

Self-esteem is about finding oneself and feeling good about self by improving one’s self image through positive-thinking and affirming self worth.

When I was a ninth grader in Korea, my best friend’s home room teacher established a ritual that could be heard through the walls of many classes. Every morning, and throughout each school day, this teacher would have all his students stand up and recite aloud in unison this phrase countless times, “나는 할수있다,” “I can do it.” By repeating this phrase 10, 20, 30 times and more day after day, week after week, through the whole school year, this teacher sought to raise positive and self confident thinkers who can positively solve all problems. I don’t know how much change took place because this teacher’s effort to boost the self esteem of his students. I did see my friend improving academically and in his leadership. Things got little confusing since this teacher reinforced his students’ positive thinking with fear of punishment from him for their substandard performance.

Here is my point. If I can achieve self-confidence and positive self image about myself and begin to really like myself and love myself, and be able to tackle life’s problems in stride, would I need Jesus after all? If I can become a good person simply by way of disciplined positive-thinking, telling myself, “I can be good, come on! I am going to be good because I can,” would I need Jesus?

Let’s be honest! We’ve all done this, haven’t we? Haven’t we tried really hard to fight off temptations that are common to us all and temptations that each of us find uniquely more vulnerable to than other temptations? We’ve peppered our earnest effort with good dose of positive thinking, “Oh, I can do this,” but only to find, “I cannot do this.” And, we find our expression in Paul’s words in Romans 7:18-19, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do- this I keep on doing.”

If we could ever succeed in improving ourselves enough to be righteous by beefing up our self-esteem through thinking positively about our ability to be good, then Christ would have died in vain. Paul said in Galatians 2:21, “for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Christ died precisely for our utter inability to gain righteousness by trying to be good, to get better and to improve.

So, building up self-esteem, feeling good about yourself by boosting your own confidence through the self talk, “I can do it” may lead you to feeling good about yourself. But, when the moment of good feelings passes, you end up crawling right back down to the cycle of shame and guilt and increasing disconnection between what you know and how you live. Building strong self-esteem, self-confidence cannot take out the poison of hypocrisy. It only leads you to further shame, guilt and despair.

2. Fight for brutal honesty with yourself; you were the problem.

To detoxify the poison of hypocrisy, we don’t need to waste our time trying to like ourselves more, love ourselves more; building self-esteem only takes us further away from the solution to the problem. If you are serious about dealing with the poison of hypocrisy, if you are serious about demolishing the gap between the truth and the practice, then what you need is a real solution. And, the Bible teaches no other solution than Jesus Christ.

So, here is the game plan. If Jesus is the solution, we need to make sure we frame our lives so that we go to Jesus who is our solution. We need to fight against anything that would prevent us from drawing near to Jesus. We begin by naming the illusive danger of seeking to bolster our own self esteem.

What we need is to move away from being self-sufficient person with strong self-esteem to move towards growing in Christ-esteem that is finding our confidence, self worth, self-image, self-value in Jesus alone.

But, to move from self esteem to Christ esteem, from self-confidence to Christ-confidence, you and I need to learn to be brutally honest with ourselves, that we were the problem. Apostle Paul talked honestly about himself as being the problem in Romans 7:24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Let me explain this by telling you about a leaky ceiling in my house.

Some of you know that our living room ceiling has been leaking since last September. Whenever it rains heavy, or heavily accumulated snow starts to melt, water starts to collect above the ceiling and soaks through ceiling materials and leaks.

Last year, a patch of roof was replaced, it didn’t work. Lately, the effort has been to seal off the roof with tar stuff. Well, it still leaks. The patch work and the application of tar stuff have not worked because the problem is extensive.

I have this suspicion that the few hundred dollars of patch work and applying tar here and there will not solve the problem. Why? The problem is not about the little cracks and holes here and there. The problem is the roof. The roof itself has reached the point where no amount of small temporary fixes will be able to reverse its fate. The house needs a whole new roof because the current roof is the problem.

You and I were like my roof. We think that Jesus died to take care of the little cracks and holes of problems and sins here and there. We think that little bit of the blood of Jesus and his death would do to cover our problems and sins. But, the truth is Jesus didn’t leave the Father’s side to come down, to dwell with us, to suffer unjustly, to walk to the cross, to lay down his body to be crucified, to shed his blood, to be raised up on the cross, to hang on it and to lay down his life just because we had little problems and sins for him to deal with. The reality is that we were in much deeper trouble than my roof that needs to be replaced with the new one. We were more like a condemned house that needed to be bulldozed to make a way for a completely new house.

The truth is Jesus did what he did not because I had few problems, but because I was the problem.

Don Matzat wrote, “We erroneously believe that God is in the repair business; that he compassionately repairs human lives like a friendly father fixing his children's broken toys. We make up a list of our specific problems and go about seeking the Lord for specific solutions, but nothing ever gets checked off the list and it seemingly never ends.”[1]

Until I come to understand that I was the problem, I will not fully know that Jesus was, is and will be the solution for me, the problem. Unless I descend as Paul did to consider his life as wretched, whatever was to his profit to consider loss for the sake of Christ (Philippians 3:7), to consider them rubbish in order to gain Christ and be found in him (Philippians 3:8), I am only dealing with the surface of the problem, just the tip of the iceberg.

I was the problem that could not be fixed or repaired into a good shape with just few patch works here and there. I was the problem that needed to be crucified with the Lord, to be put to death. And, now it is not this crucified self, but the new me hidden in Christ that lives following his resurrection from the dead and ascending with Jesus to be seating at the right hand of God.[2]

And, this is why Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

My old self crucified no longer lives. This is why trying to build on our old self through building self-esteem makes no sense. It is like digging the grave and exhume the dead body hoping to revive it back to life, to repair it back to the old shape of life. God is not in the business of repairing our old condemned self. But, God is in the business of raising people who are in Christ, his Son, who find Jesus as their esteem, their confidence, their honor, their adoration, their hope, their everything, and their salvation and who will inherit his righteousness, his holiness, his joy and his peace.

Here is the tricky part about our old self. Paul says in Colossians 3:5, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature [that is the old self crucified and put to death]: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”

Some one said, “The old life is dead; they must let it die.”[3] Although our old self was put to death with Jesus when he was crucified, the habits of sin die very slowly. Another scholar illustrates this by likening believers to immigrants who have moved to new country. In this new country with new culture, new way of living, immigrants have not yet become adapted to the new ways of life.[4] Or, another image would be to likening to a person who gets his finger stuck and drawn between rollers of a giant machine. “Another minute and he will be flattened to a shapeless bloody mass. He catches up an axe lying by and with his own arm hacks off his own hand at the wrist… It is not easy nor pleasant, but it is the only alternative to a horrible death.”[5]

When you and I see the habits of sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed creeping back from the old self that has been crucified, we are to be brutally be honest with ourselves and declare, “I was the problem, and I was crucified with Jesus, and the old me that was put to death on the cross with the death of Jesus, must remain dead.

Whenever we allow the old self, the problem that was slayed on the cross with Jesus back to new life hidden now in Jesus, it is like living the old movie, Night of the Living Dead.

When we recognize that we were the problem, and our old self, the problem had to be crucified with Jesus on the cross, now when we see the old habits creeping back to the stage of our new life with Jesus, we now have only one thing to do. Show no mercy to the habits of sin and do whatever it takes to let them remain dead.

3. Conclusion

Paul after recognizing he was the problem when he said in Romans 7:24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” He answers his own question in Romans 7:25, “Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

When we remember that our old self has been crucified with Jesus and we now live hidden in Jesus, it makes no sense trying to exhume the old, condemned, expired self by feeding the old habits of sin. When we fight for brutal honesty about our old self, then it only make sense to do all that we can to actively put to death the remnants of old habit of sin. And, it is more than possible in Jesus to put to death that which was already put to death by Jesus.

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[1] Don Matzat, Christ Esteem: Where the Search for Self-Esteem Ends, 1990, p. 52.

[2] Boice, James Montgomery. “4. Justification by faith alone (2:15-21)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 10. 451. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1976.

[3] Vaughan, Curtis. “a. Sins to be put to death (3:5-7)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 11. 211. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1978.

[4]Garland, David E. “The Old Morality (3:5 – 9a)” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Colossians and Philemon. By David E. Garland, 204. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 1998.

[5] Vaughan, Curtis. “a. Sins to be put to death (3:5-7)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 11. 211. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1978.

Hope against all hope (Romans 4:17-21)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon

Romans 4:17-21, “As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed-the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead- since he was about a hundred years old- and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

To ‘hope against hope’ is to have hope even when the situation appears to be hopeless…

Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all...As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength. (G.K. Chesterton, Signs of the Times, April 1993, p. 6)

What causes hopeless?

· Powerless to dream… Hopeless sets in when you are just getting by and trying to be content with status-quo. But, you are aching because you know deep down inside of you that you are created for something more; you are created to dream beyond what seems possible because you know God. Yet, you have lost the ability to dream. You no longer think in what’s possible. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God “has set eternity in the hearts of men.” You are made for eternity, but you have lost your way and you don’t dream any more. Busyness, trying to survive and get through, even the entertainments bore you now... You no longer dream and you are hopeless.

· Powerless to know where you are going… when you feel lost, when you don’t know where you are going, when you cannot see the big picture, when you are not driven by God given purpose in life you lose meaning.

· Powerless to change… It’s been too long since you saw real changes. Nothing is changing and you’ve been slowly sinking into the deep hole of hopelessness because you feel powerless to see any meaningful change.

· Powerless against setbacks… When you are defeated, when you mess up, when life turns for worse, it also cause hopeless.

What causes you to feel hopeless about your life? What makes you feel hopeless about the state of your family? What makes you feel hopeless about our church, about our nation?

When God stepped into Abraham’s life, God spoke in the language of promise of what he was going to do. He was going to raise Abraham to be the father of nations, to bless all people, all nations through him. When God spoke in this language of promise, sure certainty, it was as though God set his eternity into Abraham’s heart. How could he an old man 100 years old, how could Sarah his wife beyond human possibility to get pregnant at 90, how could he, how could she dream the possibility to have a child, to dream the birth of many nations? … The present reality, the human impossibility, was so far off from what God said he was going to do through Abraham. One without faith would brush God off as making a cruelest and insane joke.

But, it was far worse in those and agonizing dark days when Jesus’ dead body was put away in the tomb. There is nothing in the world that can compete against the lethal power of death to destroy hope. Death is like great flood that wipes away anything and everything in its path. Death is like great fire that burn down homes with memories into rubbles and smokes. Death is like catastrophic engine failures and structural failures that impair an flying airplane to nose-dive to destruction. Death leaves casualties of hopelessness.

Yet, on this Easter Day, God has set eternity into the hearts of men and women like he has never done before. When death seemed to have the final say, when death seemed to have pronounce all is lost and gone, when death seemed to have destroyed any hope, God broke into the darkness moment of history. But, it was like the sun rising from the east and the darkness couldn’t hold it back.

Just like that God broke into the powerlessness to dream, powerlessness to make sense out of meaninglessness, powerlessness to change, powerless against setbacks. Just like that God broke into the dark present reality with his eternity. And, the history has never been the same since then.

I believe that just like the way God evoked Abraham and Sarah to dream that which was humanly impossible, just like the way God brushed Abraham and Sarah with eternity, he is doing that with you and me. God wants you to know today that he has power to do what had promised to do with your life, in your family, in our church, in our nation, in our world. You will not thwart God’s sovereign purpose. Your choice is either to yield to his purpose and welcome it in faith or you reject his purpose and descend into hopeless death. Romans 8:28–30 says,

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

God’s goal is that you share in his glory as Jesus shares in the Father’s glory. It is the purpose beyond time boundary. Before you were born, while you were little like the babies today, while you were children like my older girls, while you were teenagers, now as grownup adults, God’s purpose is that you be conformed into the likeness of Christ and lived for God’s glory, get on with the Father’s business!

Church, brothers and sisters in Christ, today God has set his eternity in your heart. So, set your heart on something far greater and far glorious beyond your present situations.  Don't be defined by powerlessness to dream, inability to see where you are going, powerlessness to change and powerlessness to fight against setbacks. It is time to rise and to march with Christ. Don’t let the present reality defines you. Let the Great I AM of eternity defines your today. Set your eyes on God’s purpose to conform you to the image of Jesus, to embark on his mission to bring glory to God.

So, as apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:14,

Church, I charge you today, “Wake up, O Sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

God’s winning blueprint! (Acts 2:14-41)

 

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon February 3, 2008

“No Blueprint to Beat the Patriots: Giants face uphill battle against perfection in Super Bowl” reads the headline in the MSN website, referring to an article by Fox Sports.

Double-cover Randy Moss.

Blitz Tom Brady.

Attack the perimeter defensively with tosses and stretch plays designed to exploit New England’s aged linebacker corps.

Try taking advantage of Patriots safeties with seam and crossing routes in the middle of the field.

Blah, blah, blah.

For 18 games, NFL analysts have espoused different theories about how New England can be defeated. None of them have worked well enough to topple the Patriots entering Sunday's Super Bowl XLII matchup against the New York Giants.[1]

I am sure you out there New York Giants fan have thought this through. It is hard to believe there should be any New York fans in Chicago area… well we know who you are. J

Sometimes our headline seems to read similarly. “No blueprint to beat the perpetual sins of laziness, procrastination, ego-centric pride disguised in self-pity, anger, yelling,” “No blueprint to make faithful out of faithless coward,” “No blueprint to beat the apathetic, passionless spirit,” “No blueprint to change prayerlessness to prayerfulness,” “No blueprint to stop the bickering and fighting,” “No blue print to beat the sexual temptations,” “No blueprint to change the closed mind, hardened heart to accept Jesus as Christ and Lord,” “No blueprint to beat the fear of men to be Jesus’ witness.”

I am afraid we are like the New York Giants in this sense scratching our head not knowing how to beat the demons in our lives.

Today’s scripture passage clearly marks it for us that God is never helpless; God is never without the clear blueprint to carry out his sovereign, eternal plan; he has executed his blueprint to help us, to save us. The question is will you and I accept God’s blueprint of salvation?

When the people heard the disciples of Jesus Christ the sound the Spirit blowing like a violent wind and followed with them speaking unlearned languages declaring the praises of God, although many were amazed, some, however, made fun of them and said, “They had too much wine.”

Was there a blueprint to beat the skeptical crowd? Of course, the answer is the resounding yes. God has the winning blueprint.

1. God’s winning blueprint involves the downpour of the Holy Spirit.

Standing along with other eleven apostles, Peter simply and firmly dismissed the false assumption of the crowd who thought the disciples were drunk. Do you remember from the last week how some made of fun of the disciples for what happened to them when the Holy Spirit rested, filled them?

Peter reminded them it was only 9 in the morning and was absurd to think they were all drunk at this hour. Then he set out to explain to them God’s winning strategy, the blueprint of his salvation.

To talk about God’s winning blueprint, Peter talked to them about the ancient prophecy of more than 800 years old. It comes from Joel 2:28-32.

It was a prophecy that foretold the time when God would pour out his Spirit on all people, sons, daughters, young men, old men, servants, men, women without discrimination. “In the last days” is the time between Jesus’ first coming and his second coming. In these last days, the time between Jesus’ two comings, is the days of the Spirit. Another word, since the first coming of our Lord Jesus two thousand years ago until now is the age of the Holy Spirit and will continue to be so until Jesus returns again. Now is the time when all who believe in Jesus Christ can experience the outpouring of the Spirit.

But, there will be a time when the outpouring of the Spirit will cease; instead of the downpour of the Spirit, it will be the day of judgment of God to separate the goats from the sheep, the righteous from the unrighteous, the saved from the unsaved, the believers from the mockers, the followers from the ones who reject Jesus Christ.

God’s winning strategy against the ugliness of sins, killing with words, thoughts and actions, chaos, crisis, apathy, deadness, laziness, and aimlessness, dark emptiness and aching loneliness involves sending his Holy Spirit to rest upon his people, to fill them, to baptize them.

You see prior to Jesus’ coming, for over five hundred years, there was no prophetic voice heard in Israel. The prophetic voice of the prophets was the clear sign that the Spirit of God was with them. But for five hundred years leading up to the time of Jesus, there was no sign of the Spirit moving among them.

The Pentecost broke this silence. The Pentecost ushered again the wind of the Spirit to blow on people, to perform the impossible miracles, signs and wonders, to beat the impossible in people’s lives. This Pentecost was in the making since Joel spoke in the 8^th century B.C. In this age of the Holy Spirit, God works directly at our heart level where our convictions, emotions, wills, the very core of who we are.

But lest we forget that the age of the Spirit came at a high price, Peter reminds us as he did with the crowd the necessity of the cross of Jesus Christ.

2. God’s winning blueprint involved the costly price of his Son at our hands.

When you trace back in the gospels of what Jesus said about this era of the outpouring of the Spirit, what you find is the necessity that Jesus be killed, die on the cross, to be buried and to be raised on the third day. Here is an important statement about God’s winning blueprint from Peter in Acts 2:23 about Jesus’ crucifixion, “This man was handed over you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”

Ronald Goetz wrote in the Christian Century an article with this thought provoking title, “God’s Plan to Kill Jesus.” It speaks to this verse, Acts 2:23:

Here is a text to try our modern Christian souls. It appears to be on a collision course with the best of our liberal values. God is up to his eyes in the blood of Jesus! God in league with “lawless men”! How can any Christian argue with much conviction against capital punishment if God effects his purpose in such an unwaveringly bloody way? On what basic can we work for world peace if God required such a violent resolution of the conflict between creatures and himself? … Yet the soteriological necessity of Christ’s cross remains pivotal to the whole New Testament. The New Testament preserves nothing of any earlier understanding. We can’t attribute any serious authority at all to the New Testament unless we are willing to come to terms with the centrality of this text.[2]

The idea is that the cross, the death of Jesus was not accident. It was not something haphazardly conceived by God who ran out of options in dealing with humanity. No, God decided long ago, the Messiah, the Son of God, the sinless God-man, to undergo substitutionary death that is to be killed, to be crucified in our place along side of the two criminals with the help of the wicked men, the Roman soldiers and the Jewish authorities who handed over to Romans.

When the Son of God, Jesus was crucified on the cross, the Romans, the Jewish religious authorities thought it was their plan, their complete execution that killed Jesus. But, the whole thing was planned out by God. It was God’s plan, God’s initiative to hand his Son to be crucified with the help of the wicked men. Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all…” It was God’s will, his plan, his thinking, to have his son be killed in the cruel crucifixion that pales the modern humane method of execution by lethal injection.

Jesus often talked about God’s blueprint to his disciples. He said in Luke 9:44, “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.” Mark 10:33-34, “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.” He said in John 16:5-7, “Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

To have God’s winning strategy to have his Spirit rest upon us, fill us, baptize us, to will and to act according to God’s will, Jesus had to die. God’s winning strategy meant God’s plan to have his Son be rejected, be killed in the hands of the wicked men.

3. God’s winning blueprint involves cutting to the heart.

Going to back to Acts 2:23, yes it was God’s purpose, his foreknowledge, his blueprint that his Son be killed, but it was the hands of the wicked men who put him to death by nailing him to the cross. What does the nailing the Son of God, Jesus Christ on the cross mean? It meant rejection by the wicked men.

Do you find yourself rejecting the Son of God, Jesus Christ in your life? Is Jesus Christ your Savior, your Lord? If you reject him, if you had rejected him in the past, and I am afraid, we all have rejected Jesus one degree to another, and we are and we were that wicked men who put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

Verse 37 writes, “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”” What cut their heart? Majority of them didn’t physically nailed Jesus to the cross? Yet, by their rejection of Jesus Christ as their Savior, their Lord, they realized that it was they who crucified the Savior, the Lord on the cross. They realized that it was because of them Jesus was killed on the cross.

Have you been cut to the heart? The pain gets so intense that it feels like your heart is being cut through a sharpest knife? Do you know what that is like? Have you pound your chest, have you pound the ground, have you felt like tearing your clothes because pain is unbearable?

Have you come to the realization that it is you who crucified Jesus Christ by rejecting him as the one who saves us, the one who rules over us? That it is I who crucified Jesus Christ with rejection!

God’s blueprint to Salvation is for you to personally experience this pain of the cutting to the heart.

4. God’s winning blueprint involves Jesus sending gift to his murderers.

The cutting to the heart is really the work of the Spirit through the truth of God’s word. When you take the word of God seriously, then the Spirit convicts you in regard to sin.

But, he also opens your eyes to the reality of God’s amazing forgiveness. Verse 33 says, “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.”

What it says here is that it is Jesus who received the Holy Spirit and it is him who has poured out the Holy Spirit. By our rejection, it is you and I who crucified Jesus Christ to the cross; it is we who must take the responsibility of killing the Son of God by our rejection.

Yet, the amazing thing is this Christ whom we crucified with our rejection has not set out to vindicate his death, his unjust killing. He is not after us to destroy us. Instead what he did upon his exaltation was to send the Holy Spirit to us that we may truly know him. Instead paying evil with evil, Jesus pays evil with goodness. We crucify him with evil rejection and he sends us his precious gift.

Have you known anyone who sends the murder a precious gift? Well, that is exactly what our risen Jesus Christ does. He sent to us his precious gift of the Holy Spirit to us who crucified him with our rejection.

Having cut to the heart, the people asked Peter, “What shall we do?”

Peter replied in verse 38-39, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off- for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Repentance is preceded by the experience of being cut to the heart. Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus was cut to the heart when he realized that by persecuting the believers he was persecuting Jesus Christ. With being cut to the heart for rejecting God’s rule, to repent is to turn to God to ask for forgiveness and to come under his rule.

The next practical step to be part of God’s winning blueprint is to be baptized. This is physical baptism when a person confesses in the public Jesus as Lord and Savior and be baptized with water. If you have never been baptized either as an adult or as an infant, but you profess to be Christian, then take this to the heart and you need to be baptized.

If you were baptized when you were an infant, then you need to be confirmed by making that profession in front of the people that Jesus is Christ, Savior and Lord to you.

These are important external rituals that testify to the inward experience of the Holy Spirit.

Easter is coming and it will be perfect time to obey the scripture. So, you are Christian but have not yet been baptized ever or been confirmed, you need to talk to me. When you obey, the blessing follows.

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[1] http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7747796?MSNHPHCP&GT1=10937

[2] http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=719

Find your true root, Acts 3:1-26

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon February 17, 2008

Here is a clip from

Jump to 4:00 mark to see Chris Rock’s response when he finds about his root.

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Did you catch what he said last? “If I had known this, it would have taken away the inevitability that I was going to be nothing.” If he known the fact about where he came from, the fact about his great, great grandfather, who he was and what he did, it would have altered the course of his life. That’s a huge statement. He speaks to the power of knowing one’s root.

Today’s message is about knowing your spiritual heritage, your spiritual root. Perhaps, being reminded of your spiritual root, you will shake off the defeated, passive spiritual attitude and take on the new attitude that your life is going to matter in God’s kingdom.

1. Find your true root that goes back to Abraham.

Acts 3:24-26, apostle Peter spoke to the Jewish people who were amazed by what happened to the crippled bagger. Peter said, “Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’ When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”

The offspring of Abraham these verses refers to is Jesus Christ. It was Jesus, the promised offspring of Abraham, whom God raised up from the dead and sent first to Jews to bless them and the rest of the world.

When Peter spoke of God’s blessing through Jesus Christ, there was nothing vague about it. God’s blessing is turning each of us from our wicked ways to the way of Christ. Left to us alone without God’s blessing, none of us can escape the curse of sin, the wicked ways. But, God’s blessing reverses, undo the curse of sin puts us on the path to shunning evil and choosing all that is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy matters (Philippians 4:8).

Now, for the Jews, they may claim their physical root back to Abraham. But, what we learn from the Bible is that it is not the physical blood connection that makes a person a true heir of Abraham, but it is the faith that connects you and me to Abraham.

Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 4:12-13; 16-17, “it was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith… Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring-not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is father of us all. As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.”

Concerning Abraham, the writer of Hebrews wrote in 11:8-12,

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹ By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹ By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. ¹² And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

Abraham believed in God who gives life to the dead, God of resurrection, God who calls things that are not as though they were, God of creation, God who builds as the architect and builder.

Our connection to Abraham is through faith in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, we too are counted among the descendants of Abraham as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

2. Find your true root by exercising your faith in the name of Jesus

The beggar was placed probably by his family and his friends to bag for money at the temple gate called Beautiful.

The exact location of the temple gate Beautiful is not known. It is thought that it might have been Nicanor Gate leading to the court of women. Jewish historian Josephus mentioned this gate as the gate of Corinthian bronze with exquisite workmanship that exceeded in value of those gold and silver plated gates.[1]

This would have been an optimal location to bag. People often came with the mentality that they had to impress God, and giving alms to the poor was one way to do it. This man had never known what it was like to walk since he was crippled since he was born.

To this man who expected money from Peter and John, Peter offered far superior. Instead of a temporary relief from money, Peter offered a complete solution to the man. Verse 6, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” His crippled legs he never used to walk became strong and made completely well, enabling him for the first time to jump and praise God. Until this moment, he had never walked up the steps of the gate Beautiful into the temple area. For the first time in his life, he walked up the steps and walked into the temple court. And, later, he went out to a placed called Solomon’s Colonnade giving witness to the power of the name of Jesus Christ.

When people thought it was by Peter and John’s power or godliness that made this man well, Peter proclaimed in verse 16, “It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.”

A commentator says about name. “In Semitic thought, a name does not just identify or distinguish a person; it expressed the very nature of his being. Hence the power of the person is present and available in the name of the person.”[2] Jesus, his name is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, meaning, “the Lord is salvation.”[3]

Who is Jesus? Verse 13, Peter declared Jesus as God’s servant, the victorious servant in suffering who was obedient to the point of death in order to accomplish the will of the Father as written in Isaiah 52:13.

Verse 14, he is “the Holy and Righteous One,” who was set apart to God to accomplish again his will and who was completely innocent of any crime or sin.

Verse 15, “the author of life” whom God raised from the dead. Jesus is the source life, the source of salvation.[4] The irony was that the people asked that a murdered be released in place of Jesus. The people killed Jesus, the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.

Whenever you find yourself praying to God, I want you to pause and reflect this fact that you are praying in Jesus’ name, the Son of God, God’s servant, the Holy and Righteous One, the author of life who made this crippled man well. F. F. Bruce commented, “Peter impressed on them that the power which had wrought the cure resided in Jesus’ name, and that the man had availed himself of this power by the exercise of faith.”[5]

Our root goes back to Jesus. To know the power of Jesus Christ, you and I must exercise our faith. And, the Bible is very clear that “faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ,” Romans 10:17.

The message is very clear. Nothing is too difficult for God. Anything that God sets his heart to accomplish he has done, he is doing and he will do. And, it is when you and I find ourselves praying, interceding in Jesus’ name with faith grounded in God’s word, you and I will meet the divine opportunities to see God at work.

This is our heritage as God’s people; you must be rooted in the name of Jesus!

3. Find your true root of forgiveness and times of refreshing by repenting and turning to God.

Peter said, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,” Acts 3:19.

To repent, to turn to God is the way you and I will find our true root. To repent is to change one’s mind. It is about renewing one’s mind in Paul’s language in Romans 12:2.

Going back to the beginning clip on Chris Rock, the tears he shed when he learned about his great, great grandfather was the tears of regret for not having known his true root. If he had known this fact, if he was given the opportunity to embrace his true root, he is certain that he would have had more aspiration, passion, zeal and hop in his life, to become greater.

For you and me, the road to become greater in our lives, is to go back to our root. It can happen when you and I embrace our true root in Jesus Christ.

As it was true two thousand some years ago when Peter preached, it still is true today that the only way to find our true root is through changing our mind and turning to God.

What do you need to change your mind about?

The great change that is required in us is right valuation, knowing what is truly valuable and important. What do you value the most? What is the greatest treasure in your life? The reality is that whatever you consider to be your treasure you will guard it with all your might.

The change of mind need to happen at this level of knowing what is really valuable and important. If money, clothes, fast cars, comfort, certain lifestyle, gadgets are important, then our time and effort will be diverted to what we think are important and valuable.

But, forgiveness and the times of refreshing is important, then we will go to God. If being witnesses of Jesus Christ is important, then you and I will spend building relationships with non-believing people.

We battle with apathy when we forget what is truly important and valuable in life. And, the only way out of apathy is right valuation, change of mind and turning to God.

This is how you and I will find our true root.

---

[1] F. F. Bruce, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Book of the Acts, Revised. Eerdmans, 1988, p. 77.

[2] EBCNT: Acts 3:4-6

[3] John MacArthurh, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Acts 1-12, Moody Bible Institute, 1994, p. 108.

[4] F. F. Bruce, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Book of the Acts, Revised. Eerdmans, 1988, p. 82.

[5] Ibid., p. 83.

Courage under fire (Acts 4.1-31)

 

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon February 24, 2008

Thing were going really well for the new believers led by the apostles. On a single day of preaching done by Peter “about three thousand were added to their number” as noted in Acts 2:41. And, 2:47 notes how the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. And, in chapter 3, we see Peter doing the impossible in the name of Jesus Christ; a forty year old man, a bagger, with the lifetime congenital defect to his legs that made him a cripple man since birth experienced the impossible, spectacular healing that allowed him to experience for the first time in his life what it was to walk and to jump. People were blown away by this amazing healing done by Peter in Jesus’ name. 3:10 states, “they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.” Certainly it is not too difficult to imagine the magnitude of the amazement felt by the people.

Truly these were the sunny and glorious days for the newly found Jerusalem church. The biblical preaching, the exponential church growth, and the stunning miraculous healing, things couldn’t have gone any better for the church.

But, what we see in chapter 4 is this unfettered sunny days being overshadowed by darkness of persecution. It is like the lunar eclipse of this past Wednesday, the brightly shining moon in its full glory being overshadowed by the earth; slowly the moon turned from its luminous color to eerie shade of red until the whole moon was overshadowed by the earth.

As we make our ways through the chapters of the Acts of the apostles, you will notice this theme of worsening darkness of persecution. Chapter 4 is just the beginning.

This morning, what I want you to pay attention is the way the apostles and the believers react to this drastic change in their circumstance. When things got hot, when things got dangerous, when their evangelistic zeal to proclaim Jesus as Christ and Lord was matched by the growing rejection, hatred, and physical threats, I want you to notice the way the believers reacted to this dark change. I want you to pay attention to this because the way one reacts to the changing circumstances reveals great deal about the person’s faith. Another word, the way you react in dark days reveal true nature of your faith in Christ.

1. Expect the opposition and rejection to your testimony of Jesus Christ

The theme of this year is this: “You are my witnesses.” And, as you get serious about being Jesus’ witnesses, as you get more active in sharing your faith, you can be certain of this; you will face rejection; you will face opposition.

Jesus said in John 15:20-21, “Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also… They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.” Luke 21:12-13, Jesus warned his disciples what would happened to him when they become his witnesses, “they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them.”

This is precisely what happened to Peter and John just the way Jesus said it would happen to them. The leaders over Jewish communities detained Peter and John over night in jail. Next day, they convened the Sanhedrin which was the highest governing authority, the senate and the highest ruling authority, the supreme court of the nation; there were seventy one people in this Sanhedrin council; the Sadducees and the Pharisees made up the seventy and plus the high priest. It was like Peter and John being brought in front of the Supreme Court and the Senate meeting to be judged. The Sanhedrin had the jurisdiction over all cases except the capital punishment cases. This was why earlier Jesus was handed over to Romans to be crucified instead of they themselves crucifying Jesus. They took offense to Peter and John’s teaching and proclamation about Jesus.

• Resurrection: Verse 2, it says that the priests, the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees “were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.”
• Responsibility for crucifying Christ: It was not too long ago, when these same religious leaders and other Jews along with the Romans that they crucified Jesus. Peter explicitly tells this fact in verse 10, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead…” They thought they took care of Jesus Christ. But, now the exponentially growing believers after Jesus were testifying to the fact that Jesus was indeed raised from the dead.
• Exclusive claim for salvation by Jesus alone: Verse 12, Peter claimed, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

If you were to make the same case to the secular minds about Jesus Christ, the likelihood of being taken seriously is unlikely. What is likely is you will offend the minds of people who embrace pluralism. Pluralism is the attempt to tolerate every religious claim and view as equally valid and true. It does this by attempting to find the common universal ground among the competing, exclusive truth claims while ignoring the nature of their exclusive claims. This is really the bedrock, the underpinning of our society we live in now. The exclusive claim by Jesus that he is “the way and the truth and the life” that “no one comes to the Father except through” him found in John 14:6 goes against the fabric of our time. In the minds of pluralist, the Christ’s exclusive claim for salvation in him alone is bigotry, offensive, primitive, uncivil, and intolerant. For us to claim that only in Jesus salvation is found is appalling and backward to many.

So, as you and I get on board and get serious about being Jesus’ witnesses this year, we need to get this; the message of the gospel is offensive because it is the exclusive claim of Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation and this goes against the common value of pluralism.

When I became a Christian at the age of fifteen after immigrating shortly to America, I began writing letters to my good friend in Korea who was not a Christian. I wrote to him how I was changing because of my newly found relationship with Jesus. I shared about Jesus Christ, what he meant to me, and how I was feeling, thinking, behaving differently. I shared the changes that I was experiencing because of Jesus. My friend who I grew up with, who I shared tons of fun moments of laughter, being silly and playful, who was warm to me wrote letters back to me. In his each letters, my friend wrote how he thought I was going through a religious phase, how I was becoming weak, weird, deceived. He dismissed my conversion, my relationship with Jesus as silly thing. His tone felt demeaning and removed. This was coming from my childhood friend.

Apostle Peter said, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you,” in 1 Peter 4:12. If you get serious about being witnesses of Jesus, you will face opposition and rejection from many. People will dismiss you as a bigot and won’t take you seriously.

As you take Jesus’ call to be his witnesses seriously and know that you must expect opposition and rejection, there has to be something within you that will make you stand strong and courageous.

In verse 13, you see this courage in operation. It says Peter and John’s opponents saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men… they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

If we are going to expect opposition and rejection, you and I must be grounded in this courage.

2. Courage is for those who spend time with Jesus

The courage that the members of the Sanhedrin saw operating in Peter and John was the byproduct of their intimacy with Jesus Christ.

They were not extraordinary people; they were not trained in the theological school as their opponents were; they were no experts in the laws. But what was true about Peter and John was this, they had been with Jesus.

Can this be said about you? Can it be said that you are men and women of courage because you spend time with Jesus.

More time spent at the feet of Jesus and learning from him his way of life, you will become more like him. Courage to be witnesses of Jesus Christ comes from spending time with him. If we lack in courage, it is because we lack in spending time with Jesus.

Their courage caused them to declare, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” in Acts 4:19-20 when they were commanded not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus in verse 18.

Spending time with Jesus make you bold like Peter and John.

3. Courage is for those who have people to call their own.

It says in verse 23 that Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.

Do you have the people to call your own? Do you have the people to go back to and to share what’s going on as you try to be Jesus’ witness? Peter and John did.

When they got back to their own people, they were energized, encouraged. Look at the way their own people responded to their report in verse 24. They raised their voices together in prayer to God. The people you can call your own are the people who would pray with you earnestly.

Do you have people like that? It has been highlighted to us by God that along with the theme of being Jesus’ witnesses this year, another theme will be building up the small groups.

Our small groups are still in infancy. But, God’s going to use the small groups to provide you the people you can call you own, the people who would pray for you earnestly.

Here is what I want you to remember. It is going to take time to form lasting relationship. To share the sense of belonging, to earnest and genuinely pray for each other doesn’t happen over night or months. It will take time. It will also require effort from each of us. Relationships don’t happen by chances. Relationships happen when you intentionally seek each other.

So, be patient and be intentional. You will gain courage from people you belong to, people who pray for you.

4. Courage is for those who know God as Sovereign Lord.

Verse 24, when they prayed they called out to God, “Sovereign Lord.” The word Sovereign Lord is only used few times in the New Testament. It comes from a Greek word despovth". According to Low and Nida, it means “one who holds complete power or authority over another.” It is the strongest term that speaks to God’s absolute control in his power. We get our English word ‘despot’ from this Greek word. You may come across English word ‘despot’ in articles that might describe someone like Fidel Castro who have had absolute control over Cuba for long time until just recently. Of course, when despot is used for someone like Castro, it speaks to the exercise of power tyrannically and temporally regardless of how long they may rule over their countries. Our Sovereign God doesn’t exercise his power tyrannically; his control is not temporary.

The people declared in verse 24, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.” Our God is the master, the one who has the absolute control over whole universe, whole creation. The Sanhedrin gave Peter and John the official command not to preach or teach in the name of Jesus.

Yet, in the prayer of their people, what we see is this conviction that their God was Sovereign God, the Creator over all creation. This would include all those who oppose and reject the message of Christ.

This Sovereign God, the Creator God is God who has spoken. Through the mouth of David, he wrote in Psalm 2, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” All the assaults and the oppositions and rejections against Jesus Christ will be in vain. God declared this long ago. “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.” Yet, their effort, their conspiracy against Jesus will be in vain because God has spoken as such long ago. What God says goes. This is what it means for Sovereign God to have the absolute power and authority over all.

Verse 28 “They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” Jesus wasn’t crucified by the will of the kings of the earth and the rulers. It was by the will of God, the Father. It was by the will of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who submitted to the Father’s will. Even at the cross, the darkest day of the history of mankind when God’s Son died, God was firmly in control. The darkest day was by Sovereign God’s will, by the Son of God’s will in submission.

As such in your darkest days, you will not stand alone for God is with you. Beyond the darkest days await the glorious days for God wills it.

5. Courage is for those who belong to God as his servants.

Verse 29, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” They identified themselves as Sovereign God’s servant. You cannot know God as Sovereign God apart from being his servants. To know God as Sovereign God means to assume the position of servant. And, to assume the position of servant is to know where you belong, you belong to God.

6. Courage is for those who ask for it from Sovereign God at where you are.

Do you see why Peter and John, their own people had such courage? They prayed unto Sovereign God. Verse 29, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” Verse 31, “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” The words, courage in v. 13, boldness in v. 29 and boldly in v. 31 come from the same Greek word.

Notice that this confidence, boldness, courage is what they prayed for to Sovereign God; and they received their answer when the Holy Spirit came and filled them. It is the Holy Spirit who dispensed the courage, boldness to speak God’s word boldly. Another word, the courage that enables you and me to speak boldly the word of God is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Notice that they weren’t praying that somehow God would help them be safe and avoid any more confrontation. They pray for more of the stuff that got them into trouble in the first place. Another word, they are praying for boldness to be Jesus’ witness right where they were at. God grants courage for now, for here, for where you live, where you go, where you stay, where he sends you although it might be dark where you are. Courage is for those who ask for it from Sovereign God at where you are.

Conclusion

How do you receive this courage, the fruit of the Holy Spirit? It requires you to set your heart on being Jesus’ witness. Such determination comes by way of spending intimate time with Jesus. As you set your heart on being Jesus’ witness, you expect opposition and rejection. But, because you are not alone for you belong to your people, your small group, your church; you are encouraged for you surround yourself with a group of faithful prayer warriors.

How do you receive the fruit of the Holy Spirit? It requires the renewing of your mind, knowing clearly God as your Sovereign God. It requires you knowing who you belong to, to God as his servants.

How do you receive the fruit of the Holy Spirit? It requires you to ask for it from Sovereign God so that you can be effective witness here and now, wherever you are, wherever God sends you.

Sunday Sermon, Judges 13:1-5, God is always on the move!

Again the story of Samson begins in typical manner as we’ve seen in the book of Judges. 13:1 comments, “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.” When we covered the story of Jephthah in chapter 10, we learned that the nation of Philistines was used by God as a disciplining measure when the Israelites were delving further into the idolatry. 10:7 says, “he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of Philistines and the Ammonites.”

K. Lawson Younger in his commentary observes a marked difference in the story involving Samson’s life compared to the stories before him.^[1] Until now, when the disciplining hand of the LORD was upon them when he allowed Israel to be oppressed by the foreign nations, the Israelites cried out and turned to the LORD. Grant it they weren’t always sincere about it, nevertheless they sought God’s help. What we find in chapter 13 is the absence of any account of the Israelites crying out or turning to the LORD for his help, for forty years.

The time of Judges was a dark period. As the story of Judges progresses, what we find is that the Israelites further degenerated. It got so bad that the people of Israel were not even turning to God or crying out to God even insincerely under the oppression of Philistines. Two words describe their state. Apathy, rebellion.

We need to remember that the story surrounding Samson involves this very context. People had forsaken God so completely that they would rather live in the misery than turn to God. They were so utterly apathetic about their lives. And, it is during this period of dark apathetic and rebellious time that God was on the move. When the people were paralyzed by apathy and rebellion unable to draw closer to God, it was God who was on the move to help.

1. God is always on the move.

With the typical opening in 13:1 and the notable absence of the Israelites calling out or turning to the LORD, the story narrows on to what happened before Samson was born.

From verse 2, we see how God was on the move. Manoah was Samson’s father. He was from a tribe of Dan, specifically from a city called Zorah about fifteen miles west of Jerusalem. We are not given his wife’s name in this story. But we are told that she was sterile and remained childless.

Now in verse 3, we see how God was on the move. His angel appeared to her and told her this; “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

What happens when God’s people are so apathetic that they just aren’t interested in turning to God even under the great oppression? What happens when God’s people are so set on rebellion that they simply don’t turn to God? Left to their own apathy and rebellion the Israelites would have been absorbed into the surrounding nations’ idolatrous cultures and disappear.

What we see today is God was on the move to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. God wasn’t going to let his people perish and be no more. He was on the move to deliver them, to awaken them from their apathy, their entrenched rebellion. He was on the move to deliver them.

God was on the move and his plan involved Manoah and his wife who was sterile, childless. His plan was to miraculously open up Manoah’s wife’s womb to grant them a son. And, through this son, God was going to move in Israel to deliver them from the hands of Philistines.

This is really the essence of our God. Left to us alone, we will all perish in our apathy and rebellion. Left to us alone, none of us will ever seek God. Left to us alone, we would be in the predicament described in Romans 3:9-18.

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and they way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

All of us left to us alone… in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, we would all degenerate so completely. This is what apathy and rebellion would do to us.

Apathy sets in, rebellion sets in, heart gets cold, and we don’t want to come to God. Is there any hope? Left to us alone, we will have no hope but to shrivel away, to ebb away till there is no life; only left with the crusty, fragile, lifeless shell.

Is there any hope? Yes, there is! God is on the move! He has always been on the move. Romans 5:6-8 says, “You see, at the just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

No matter where you are, be encouraged this morning for God has always been and is now moving in your life. Are you set in apathy, rebellion, and do you feel hopeless, beaten down, dry, callous, empty, and lifeless? Is there any hope? Yes, there is always hope not because you can do something about it, but, because our God is on the move. He is compassionate, gracious, ready to rescue us, to bring us to the green pasture.

2. God is on the move to deliver and he wants to set you apart for his purpose.

Another side of our God moving to deliver his people is that he involves his people to accomplish his will.

In our story, God involved Manoah, his wife and their son to advance his move to deliver his people from the oppression. It specifically involved setting apart Samson as a Nazirite. The word Nazirite comes from the Hebrew verb that means to consecrate, to set apart.

Today, we are going to have a communion. The bread and the wine themselves are nothing special; they are ordinary bread and ordinary juice. But, what make the communion bread and the drink very special is that they are set apart, consecrated to represent Christ’s body and his blood.

In the similar way, Samson was to be set apart, to be consecrated for God’s purpose. God was on the move to deliver the apathetic and rebellious Israelites from the oppression. And, he was going to use Samson by setting him apart for this very purpose.

This setting apart, consecration was to be done through the Nazirite vow described in the book of Numbers 6. Jackie A. Naude says in a theological dictionary, “The consecration was not an ascetic separation but an expression of loyalty to God, in which forms of abstinence were illustrative rather than constitutive.”^[2] Another word, the three highlighted practices of abstinences in the Nazirite vow were to demonstrate what was going on in a person’s heart. The Nazirite vow was the outward expression of the inward spiritual dedication to God.

Numbers 6 tells us that the Nazirite vow involved abstaining from wine and other fermented drink, grape juice, grapes, or raisins. Nothing that comes from the grapevine was to be eaten; the vow involved not cutting one’s hair during the period of vow; and thirdly, the vow involved abstaining from any contact with dead bodies. It gives very specific direction on what to do when suddenly someone dies in the presence of a person under the Nazirite vow.

This vow was voluntary in nature. For, Samson’s case, the vow was God’s calling upon his life. He was born with God’s purpose to deliver Israel from the hands of Philistines. And, this purpose was to be expressed through the Nazirite vow.

Today, we the followers of Jesus Christ, by the virtue of being born again, we too are given God’s specific calling to be set apart for his purpose even before our spiritual rebirth. One of God’s purposes is reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

A phrase that describes what our church is all about is “Loving God and Loving people.” Without God’s gracious initiation, without him always on the move to deliver us, we would not be able to dream up of loving God and loving people.

God reconciling us to him is all about enabling us to be people who would love him. And, out of that love relationship with him, we are also enabled to love people in God’s way.

God moved definitively by sending his Son Jesus Christ to die in our place for our sins. God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us. Jesus sacrificed his life to pay for the penalties of our sins that is death. By his son’s death, God removes the sin barrier. By graciously and sacrificially loving us through his Son Jesus, God deal with our apathy and rebellion against him.

Once he deals with our apathy and rebellion, he creates in us new life, new inclination, new love for him. And, he can use us to be his ambassadors to point people to him, to experience his love.

Conclusions

When you come to the communion table shortly to take the bread and the wine that illustrates Christ’s body and blood, remember God is moving towards you and he enables you to move towards him by forgiving your sins. May God increase your love for him as you receive his love in Jesus Christ!

You also need to remember that God is moving towards you and enables you to move towards him so that you help others to experience what you are experiencing, moving towards God.

Would you join me now to commit ourselves to God who is always on the move?

Oh, Jesus, we thank you for removing the barrier, the sins that stand against us, by dying on the cross, taking our place to be killed for our sins.

Oh, remind us this morning how you are actively moving in our lives. We confess our apathy, our rebellion before you. Who can rescue us from our apathy, our rebellion?

As the psalmist prayed in Psalm 121:

I lift up my eyes to the hills- where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

And, we receive your affirmation as we recognize that you’ve set us apart, consecrated us for your purpose. And, so we remember as the palmist did.

He will not let your foot slip- he who watches over you will not slumber; in deed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD watches over you- the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all harm- he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

In Jesus name, Amen.

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^[1]K. Lawson Younger, The NIV Application Commentary, p. 286.
^[2]Jackie A. Naude, New International Dictioanry of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, (H5692) rz"n:

Coming of Christ (Isaiah 52.7-12; John 1:1-14)

Cornerstone Mission Church - Christmas Message on 12/25/2008

My sister’s family treated us to few days up in Wisconsin Dells to one of the indoor water theme parks. We made it there on Monday evening. And, I took my kids and my sister kids to water raft rides. I don’t know if you’ve been to one of those indoor water rides, but it is quite amazing. You go up what must be endless stairs for few minutes and finally get to the top where you get to descend on a round shaped raft down through a tube; well it is all over in 10’s of seconds. The tube begins inside the building, winds down outside the building, and finally enters back into the building. And, the raft simply winds down inside and through the tube and dumps you on the lower pool.

I’ve never been on these things at night, not alone on one of the coldest winter days thus far. As soon as raft takes off in splash, it quickly descends down inside a tube and in a matter of a second or so you are in this complete pitch darkness that blinds you and disorients you. And because you are in this pitch darkness, you cannot anticipate turns. And, you end up feeling dizzy… Well, I tried to be tough and I am sure none of the kids knew how I felt. But, I tell you, all I wanted after few twists and turns in pitch darkness inside the tube was a glimmer of light. That’s all I needed to get myself together, just a flicker of light at the end of the tube.

The absolute worse was when I sat down with my back facing downward. Something about going downward with quick twists and turns in complete darkness made me feel dizzy and nauseated. In complete darkness, I just couldn’t get my sense of direction. Man, did I want that light or what? Just to think about it gives me headache and makes me all dizzy. Kids were just fine. Perhaps, this is a sign of my aging. Now, don’t go around thinking that I was afraid of the ride, because I wasn’t, all right? Uh hum! I just didn’t like how riding down in pitch darkness made me feel all disoriented, dizzy and even nauseated. What made it all better was when there was light; it helped me regain my sense of direction.

Today’s world feels like descending down inside a pitch dark tube in a raft with your back facing downward. No one ever imagined just a year ago, or even six months ago, we will be where we are today with economic downturn. Some think that we haven’t hit the bottom yet. Other words, expect more bad news ahead of us well into the year 2009, perhaps stock market hitting 6000 level, rising unemployment rate at all time high, credit woes, businesses suffering. Then, there are two wars that our nation has been fighting. Although scaling down the military deployment is a possibility in Iraq, situations in Afghanistan are getting worse; it demands more troops and fear of repeating Russia’s unsuccessful occupation in Afghanistan is real. And, if you didn’t know already the long time dictator president Lansana Conte of Guinea died last Monday prompting unrest and another military coup. It is potentially explosive situation. Our Sarah and others who planned to take off for a Vision Trip with Teachus Mission to Guinea cannot leave any more. The world we live in today feels like dizzy, disoriented and discouraging downward descent inside a pitch dark tube with unexpected twists and turns. And, it is now more than any other time in recent history when people are looking for the real source of hope, the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

For the Israelites, they felt like they were in this pitch dark and dizzying and discouraging descent when they were deported from the Promised Land as captives into the exile. There in the foreign land, Isaiah 52:7 lets us know that they yearned for good news who would proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” Down the pitch dark tube of descent under the rules of foreign kings of Babylon, what else could be constituted as good news, then to hear, “Your God reigns!” So, they yearned for the Lord to return (8), to comfort his people (9b), to redeem Jerusalem (9c); they yearned to see the salvation of… God (10). And, they heard good news, “you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, the God of Israel will be you rear guard.” Thus, they saw the light at the end of the tunnel. No longer were they confounded and disheartened in the pitch dark tube of descent for the Lord returned. So, there was this great celebration of God’s coming, God breaking into their wasted places of Jerusalem.

This coming of the Lord, breaking into the world of the exiles foreshadowed the coming of God in Christ Jesus. John puts it this way in 1:9, “The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world,” the world wrapped up in the pitch dark tube of descent. It came about when the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14), the Word, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth, his name is Immanuel, “God with us,” Jesus Christ! As it was when the LORD went before the Israelites and was their rear guard, it is Jesus who lights the way for us. Jesus is the light that stops the pitch dark tube of descent.

When apostle Paul asks this question in Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” he doesn’t assume that we Christians would be shielded from the pitch dark tube of descent. But, what he says is although we may be considered as sheep to be slaughtered… we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, namely Jesus Christ (36-37). His conviction is this, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

So, this morning, be encouraged, be strengthened in Christ’s advent. He came because he loves you. God’s plan is not to take away every problem and pain you are facing today as so many of us falsely hope for. No, he has better plan than zapping away our problems and pains. His plan is to make us warriors, conquerors, overcomers in the love of Jesus Christ. That is what Advent of Christ means today!

Count on God’s blessing in Jesus Christ (Numbers 6:24-26)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon on January 4, 2009

As you start off another new year, I want you to think about this. What can you count on for the New Year? As you think about this, let me tell you a story:

Although one of the smartest people ever lived famed scientist Albert Einstein had more trouble finding his way home from work than unlocking the secret of atomic power. One evening while Einstein sat deep in thought aboard the train that brought him home each night, the porter was collecting tickets. As the porter approached Einstein, he rummaged around in his coat, through his pockets, his shirt and everywhere he could think of, but couldn’t find his ticket.

The porter told, “That’s okay, Dr. Einstein, I know you ride this train every day. I can collect tomorrow.” To this Einstein replied, “That’s fine for you, young man, but how am I supposed to know where to get off the train without my ticket?”

I am glad that I can find a similarity in being forgetful with Dr. Einstein who depended on his ticket to where to get off. As you envision this year, what can you count on?

This morning, I want you to know that you can count on God this New Year. If 2009 is anything like 2008, we can expect unexpected surprises, the good and the bad. All aspects of our lives will be touched by the prolonged recession, the global conflicts and wars around the world, the changes that will be brought by the new administration. It is uncertain time and that makes it more important to know that you can count on God.

When we talk about counting on God, it is important to have right encounter with God. We get into trouble when we start formulating our own understanding about God with our own feelings. If I start on the assumptions that God is angry, grumpy and is out to catch me when I screw up and punish me for it, that he is removed, uninvolved and uninterested about my life except advancing his own agenda, or that he is irrelevant and archaic all because the way I feel about him, I would not want to know God nor count on him.

I want you to know that you can count on God not because you feel like you can count on him, but because God says you can count on him from his own word.

Open your Bible to Numbers 6:22-26. Let’s consider together why we can count on him for the New Year.

1. Count on God’s blessing in Jesus Christ.

There is a very strong connection between Numbers 6:22-23 to Leviticus 9:22. In Leviticus, Aaron emerges from the Holy of Holies after sacrificing the sin offering, the burn offering and the fellowship offering. That is when he lifted his hands toward the people and blessed them (Leviticus 9:22) with the blessing recorded in Numbers 6:24-26. So, what you see here is the priestly blessing by Aaron taking place after sacrifices of offerings were made to God.

And the offerings were made in a particular order in Leviticus 9. (1) Sin offering or guilt offering: (2) burnt offering: (3) fellowship offering and grain offering (along with drink offering). The order is important. First God dealt with sin through sin offering; second, the worshipers committed to God wholeheartedly through burnt offering and grain offering; and third, fellowship/communion was established between the Lord, the priest and the worshiper.[1] God prescribed these sacrificial offerings for the Israelites in order to forgive their sin, for their devotion to him and for peaceful relationship between him and the people. When these offerings of forgiveness, devotion and fellowship were carried out, that is when Aaron pronounced the blessing upon the Israelites.

From the book of Hebrews, we see it clearly that it is Jesus Christ who came as high priest (Hebrews 9:11) and as the mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 9:15) who did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves, but entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood (Hebrews 9:12).

Blessing only flows from what God purposed in his Son, and how Jesus Christ, his Son, carried out his redemptive purpose at the cross. In other words, you cannot entertain God’s blessing for you apart from Jesus Christ’s sacrificial offering of his life, his blood on the cross. It is Jesus who makes forgiveness of your sin, devotion of your life to God and fellowship with God and people possible. Only on what Jesus has accomplished for you already can you count God’s blessing!

For the Israelites to enjoy God’s blessing they needed to trust in God-ordained and prescribed offerings to deal with their sin, divided heart and broken relationship. In the same, to enjoy God’s blessing, we need to turn to Jesus who is the perfect Lamb sacrificed to deal with our sin, our divided heart and broken relationship.

2. Count on God who wills for your good and is committed to keep you.

Numbers 6:24, “The Lord bless you and keep you.”

When you find yourself in Jesus Christ you can count on God’s blessing. God’s blessing speaks to his will. What’s God’s will for you who are in Christ? The priestly blessing shows God’s will for your good. So, when you hear, “The Lord bless you!” what you need to hear is that God wills for your good. Apostle Paul talks about said in Romans 6:9-10, “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” In Christ, you are no longer an object of God’s wrath; in Christ, you are saved. The Lord bless you. The Lord wills for you good.

A commentator says, “Blessing is his idea, his purpose. It is not something his people must beg for, but it is the outreaching of his grace.”[2] God is not greedy with his blessing, only determined to give to those beg really hard. No, if you are in Christ, God’s stance toward you is not crossing his arms in greed, but that of posture of blessing. God wills, is determined to have you walk in his blessing and enable you to live in his abundant purpose for you.

Not only God wills for your good, he is committed to keep you, safeguards you. Jesus said in John 10:11, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The good shepherd who laid down his life is according to Paul in Romans 8:34, “Christ Jesus, who died- more than that, who was raised to life- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” This you can count on that Jesus is fighting for you, praying for you to succeed in God’s purpose, in his blessing. He promised, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” in Matthew 28:20. The one who promises his presence forever in your life is committed to safeguard you to the end of the age. That you can count on!

3. Count on God’s presence and his favor.

Numbers 6:25, “the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.”

Do you remember what happened to Moses when he came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands? Exodus 34:29 says that although Moses wasn’t aware, his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. So, when you hear the blessing of God making his face shine on you, it is about his commitment to draw near you, be present in your life, to speak clearly to you. He won’t have to scream at you because he will be near you to speak to you. Again, it is Jesus who said in John 10:15, “I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” Count on God’s presence in your life.

You can also count on God’s favor upon you. Some of you have worked for difficult bosses who are not easy to please, whether you do a good job or not, because they are unreasonable in their demand, unkind, rude and unsupportive. You walk away from them feeling like they aren’t interested in seeing you succeed at your work; their interest isn’t about your professional growth. Well, the blessing for God to be gracious to you promises that you won’t have that problem with God. God’s blessing to be gracious to you is a promise to show you favor. You will not have to earn his favor because his favor is given to you in Christ. You don’t say and do things hoping that God will be favorable to you. No, he is already committed to be favorable to you in Christ. You say and do things not to earn God’s favor, but as your thankful responses to God for showing you favor in Christ.

4. Count on God’s smile and peace.

Numbers 6:26, “the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

To turn his face toward is God’s promise to smile on you. It speaks to God’s pleasure and affection for you.[3] Again as it was with God’s favor, you cannot earn God’s pleasure, his affection. He gives you his pleasure, his affection, his smile on you in Christ. When you sin, you come to Jesus and received God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ blood, and God smiles on you. When you are doing what’s right before God, God smiles on you because it is through the life of Jesus Christ and power of the Holy Spirit you are growing in holiness. From being justified to being sanctified, from being delivered from darkness to walking in the light, being delivered from Satan to walk in the Spirit, God smiles on you because how the life of Christ bearing good fruits of the Holy Spirit. So, God’s promise to smile on you is his commitment to be pleased by the life of Christ within you. So, if you want to fine smiles on God’s face you need to remain in Jesus.

To give you peace is God’s commitment for the year 2009. Again, I emphasize to you that peace is not what you earn by doing the right things. God’s peace is given to you. Peace he promises is the quality of life you will enjoy when you follow Jesus as your Shepherd, as your Lord, your Savior. Sometimes, doing the right thing can cause whole lot of troubles in your life. Stephen from Acts did what was right when he accused the Jews of having betrayed and murdered Jesus (Acts 7:52). But, what he got was execution by people throwing stones at him. While being stoned to death, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and falling on his knees and crying out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:59-60). What I see is man of great peace who entrusted himself to God and who interceded for those who were stoning him to death. I highlight this to make sure you know that God’s promise for peace is what he is going to give you when you follow Jesus.

5. Benediction!

Numbers 6:27, “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

“They” meaning this prayer of blessing from v. 24-26 will put God’s name on the Israelites. Having God’s name on you is another way of saying God’s blessing is on you. So, NLT translates it, “Whenever Aaron and his sons bless the people of Israel in my name, I myself will bless them.”

As such as, I would like to pronounce this prayer of blessings on you, and as I do, may God himself come now and bless you richly.

• The Lord bless you and keep you...

In Christ God wills for your good and wills to keep you.

• The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you...

In Christ God promises to be so near you that you feel the warm of his face and show you his favor.

• The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace...

In Christ God is pleased with you, he smiles on you, and grants you peace.

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[1] Barker, Kenneth L. NIV Study Bible (Fully Revised): Leviticus. 150-152. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 1985, 1995, 2002.

[2] Allen, Ronald B. “(b) The Aaronic Benediction (6:22-27)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 2. 754. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1990.

[3] Allen, Ronald B. “(b) The Aaronic Benediction (6:22-27)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 2. 755. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1990.