Fear Factor (Exodus 3-4:17)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon, July 4, 2010

During a violent thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small boy into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, “Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?”

The mother gave him a smile and a reassuring hug. “I can’t, dear,” she said. “I have to sleep with your daddy.”

A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice: “The big sissy.”^[1]

Hey, I don’t ever want my girls to think of me as a coward who crumble under pressure. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities in my house to be the super brave daddy to my girls. My girls, now that includes my wife, have terrible fear of spiders. You always know when the girls have discovered a spider. After their discovery are the usual shrills and commotion. “Daddy, Daddy, Come over here!” Judging from their panic, you would think they discovered a huge poisonous spider that can kill you! But, often I have to bend down to spot a tiny creature minding its own business inconspicuously on a wall. I almost feel bad to impose my super power to rid of the tiny creatures. But, I do it anyway. I do it with confident smirk on my face that says, “Hey, This is nothing. Let me take care of it.” Sometimes, I become too cocky and don’t move quickly enough to track down the offending target. But, the majority of times, I walk away with the prize wrapped up in toilet tissue with great cheers from my girls. Mission accomplished! My girls have their hero!

Just between you and me though, there are times that I get little scared when I come across unusually fatty and colorful spiders. Well, I arm myself with extra layers of toilet tissue and usually I am good to go.

Do you ever wish you could attack all things in life with such ease and confidence with very little fear in you? Is there an alternative world where we can insulate ourselves from fear factors? How about the world where we choose not to do anything that is unfamiliar or scary? What if we choose not to do anything that makes us insecure? What if we choose not to be vulnerable, but choose only to insulate ourselves from any kind of disappointment and hurt? How about the world that has no fear of failures because we choose not to do anything adventurous even worse risky? What if we choose not to be honest with our own past failures, but instead choose to blame others for our failures? I guess it would be possible to insulate ourselves from fear.

But, you and I both know such is life of a coward. Someone said this,

“There are at least two kinds of cowards. One kind always lives with himself, afraid to face the world. The other kind lives with the world, afraid to face himself.”

For some of us, it takes very little bravery to kill spiders with toilet tissue in our hands, but it takes guts to face the world that doesn’t see much in us, the world that forecasts our doom before we even venture out; and, it takes everything to face and own up to our failures with brutal honesty; it takes great courage not to allow our failures to crumble us, not to embitter us, not to take the wind out of our sales, not to give up.

The history has known such man who didn’t surrender to the past failures nor fear of failing in the future in facing the world and facing himself.  It is not an overstatement to say that the President Abraham Lincoln truly was the greatest president for our country. But, before the legacy of his impeccable presidency, he was a man of many failures, but he was never known as a quitter.

Starting 1831, he failed in business, was defeated for legislature, again failed in business, elected to legislature, sweetheart died, had a nervous breakdown, defeated for speaker, defeated for elector, defeated for Congress, elected for Congress, defeated for Congress, defeated for Senate, defeated for Vice-President, defeated for Senate, and finally close to 30 years later in 1860, elected President.

The turbulent time required a man who wouldn’t give up under the fear of failures, oppositions both from friends and foes, and fear of being disliked, even hated because he set his sight high on the freedom of men kind. The history required a man who became better in spite of his past failures. Abraham Lincoln was that person.

Moses was also a man who was familiar with the failures in life. When he saw an Egyptians beating a Hebrew slave, one of his own people, he took the matter into his own hand and murdered an Egyptian. Exodus 2:12 records, “Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and him in the sand.” What he did was quickly discovered. He was rejected by his own people and he became a fugitive. He settled down in a distant land beyond the reach of Pharaoh, beyond his own people. Once a proud royal prince of Egypt, he was a shepherd hiding in fear of past failure unable to see much for his future.

When the world saw a fugitive, paralyzed with the fear of failure, God saw something different. He saw Moses who will lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. What you see in Exodus 3 and 4 is God calling Moses out of his past failures, out of his fear of failing in order to accomplish his miracle through Moses.

God’s vision was very clear. In Exodus 3:7-8, you see God telling Moses he had seen and heard enough of the misery of his people in Egypt. It was the time for him to act and rescue them from Egypt and lead them to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. To accomplish this, God told Moses in Exodus 3:10, “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” The irony here is that God was calling Moses right back to Egypt where he tasted his miserable failure, where he ran away from, and where he stayed away from so long. Responding to God’s calling, God’s vision meant Moses facing his fear in Egypt. But, we see him faltering, second guessing himself.

“God, I don’t think you get it. I don’t think I am cut out for this. Really, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh to bring your people out of Egypt? (Exodus 3:11) What if they question who sent me to them because they don’t trust me? (Exodus 3:13) What if they don’t believe me or listen to me that God you are really leading them out of Egypt? (Exodus 4:1). Really, why should they believe anything that an ex-murder had to say to them? God, I don’t think I am cut out for this. I’ve never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to me. I am slow of speech and tongue. Really, I am terrible at public speaking (Exodus 4:10). God, please, I think someone else can do far better than job than I can. So, send someone else (Exodus 4:13).”

Here are the reasons why Moses had difficult time getting over himself and respond to God’s vision.

• Moses feared that his failure and mistakes in life could not be redeemed.
• Moses feared rejection and distrust from his own people after all he was known as the disgraced prince who ran away to save his life.
• Moses feared that he just wasn’t good enough.

Moses kept looking at his own failures, his own inadequacies and kept on making excuses for why he couldn’t do what God envisioned for him. That’s what fear does to us. It inflates our problems so big that it blinds us to God who is far greater than any of our problem; it blinds us to see our God is God who can do all things through his people.

Enough about Moses, let’s see what God was doing with Moses. While Moses threw his objections and excuses one after another, God worked patiently with Moses; he didn’t dismiss Moses with his fear and objections.

“I will be with you. Moses, this is not about you, it is about me being with you and help you to lead my people out. Really, it is not a matter of if, but it is matter of when you bring my people out of Egypt. I am going to lead you step by step. So, get off your self-pity and you got to start trusting me. Don’t be fearful of being rejected by the Israelites; just tell their leaders I sent you to free them from slavery and to give them a good land. They are going to listen to you. You are going to go to Pharaoh with the leadership of elders and tell Pharaoh to let my people go. I know that Pharaoh will not listen to you. But, don’t worry. I got this in control. I am going to strike him with my wonders against his country. He is going to let you go. Not only that I am going to make sure that you don’t go out empty handed because Egyptians are going to give you whole bunch of stuff. What? You worry that the Israelites won’t believe that I appeared to you. How about showing them some miracles? What? You worry about your speech problem? Come on, I made your mouth. I will help you speak and even teach you what to say. What? Send someone else? No, I am not sending someone else. You are going to go with your brother. He is going to be your mouthpiece. I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do.”

God was patient. God didn’t dismiss Moses’ fear instead God assured him, gave him tangible signs, provided a helper. More than that, God himself came to Moses as his Great Helper.

Moses had to cross the threshold into believing in this God. It really was not about what Moses could do; it was all about what God was going to do through Moses for God’s mission. In the same, guys,

this whole church thing, it is not really about you nor is it about me; it is neither about your fear nor my fear; it is not about what we think and should happen. But, it is all about God doing his things to make sure his vision come true through you and me. Church is really about God on Mission.

I am so glad that God is nothing like Chef Gordon and church is nothing like Hell’s Kitchen. I watched one of the episodes with my wife last week and I walked away feeling sick to my stomach. You would definitely not see Moses surviving in this show with all his insecurities. It really is a nightmare to compete in that kind of environment where your competitors brutally chew you out, Chef Gordon only affirms your top performance, but the moment you screw things up, you are going to be called, “donkey” and whole bunch of other stuff and be thrown out.

No, our God is different. He has his vision he wants to accomplish, the vision of transforming you and me to be missionaries to Buffalo Grove and wheeling areas, to be missionaries to our immediate neighbors, our co-workers, our colleagues. But, he is not going to accomplish it by beating us down. When people reject us, doubt us, when our past failures haunt us, when we are gripped with fear, he is not going to come with hammer and pound us down. No, he sent his Son Jesus to be our Great companion with the promise, “I will be with you always”; He comes as the Great helper, “I will help you.”

So, I refuse to surrender to both unfound fear and real fear. Instead, I am going to lean hard on Great companion and Great helper to accomplish his vision! And, so should you!

I know that some of your fear is found in me. Can Pastor Steve change, can he be consistent, or can he care for me? I regret that my past actions or inactions have given any kind of room for you to doubt me. But, I appeal to you that you extend the gospel that you receive from God to me. God raised a murderer, a fugitive who was rejected by his own people, an inadequate and reluctant man in order to accomplish his vision for freedom and blessing for his people. Surely, God can use me in spite of my inadequacies and my past failures. I need you to breathe in me the gospel and see me as God sees me.

And, I also I refuse to see any of you as unable to move pass beyond your fear, your doubts, whatever is holding you back. My goal is to prepare each of you to become missionaries who serve God of mission to the community where we do church, where you live and where you work. I am going to work patiently, persistently, fearlessly because I believe in God’s vision for us. So, should you!

---

^[1] Larson, C. B., & Ten Elshof, P. (2008). 1001 illustrations that connect (465). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Yahweh Mekeddeshem - I am the LORD who makes you holy (Exodus 31:13)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon July 19, 2009

Today, I would like to explore with you another way God made himself known in the Old Testament, namely, Yahweh Mekeddeshem, which means, “I am the LORD who makes you holy, sets you apart as holy, or sanctifies you.”

Ephesians 1:4, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. 1 Peter 1:16, “Be holy, because I am holy.” God’s purpose for you and me is that we become like him in his holiness. What we are going to learn today is that becoming holy and blameless in God’s sight happens when you and I remind ourselves of God’s grace giving character and when we demonstrate God’s grace to others.

The particular passage which includes Yahweh Mekeddeshem that I would like to draw your attention is Exodus 31:12-17. Please, turn your Bible to Exodus 31:12-17 and let’s stand together for God’s word.

• Ways to be reminded of God’s grace giving character.

What is stated in this text is how the practice of the Sabbath resulted in knowing God as grace giving God, Yahweh Mekeddeshem, “I am the LORD who makes you holy.” Yahweh Mekeddeshem is grace giving God because it is his grace that allows us to be holy.

For God to be Yahweh Mekeddeshem, the One who makes you and me holy, he would have to be holy God. Consider these verses: Leviticus 11:44-45, “be holy, because I am holy… I am the LORD who brought you out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.” Leviticus 19:2, “Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.” When God who is holy calls you and me to relationship with him, he calls us to become like him in his holiness.

God who is holy is completely free from the moral imperfections, impurity and frailties. Unlike you and me, no flaws can be found in him; he never gets tired of being good; never fails to be good and perfect. He is sinless. God who is holy is also completely faithful to his own promises again unlike us who can be unreliable as faulty bows when it comes to keeping our promises.[i] Psalm 105:42 speaks to his holy character of his promises, “For he remembered his holy promise given to his servant Abraham.” Exodus 15:11 speaks of holy God as one who redeems, who saves, “Who among the gods like you, O LORD? Who is like you-majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?”

God who is holy has the quality of otherness about him; because he is transcendent beyond our ordinary limits of moral imperfections and sins, to sin ridden, imperfect, unreliable people holy God is utterly unapproachable. According to Colossians 1:21, human condition is such that of being alienated from God and being his enemies in minds because of evil behavior (Colossians 1:21). You may see a blatant and hostile attitude towards God, or you may see the attitude that treats God as irrelevant; “God doesn’t matter to me,” some might say and live accordingly. God who declares, “I am holy” will not be reduced to irrelevancy. God who declares, “I am holy” will not tolerate those who rebel against him. There will be a day when holy God will judge the attitudes, the lifestyle, and the deeds of those who insist God as irrelevant to them, those who continue to oppose God and refuse to yield to him.

So, when this holy God declares, Yahweh Mekeddeshem, “I am the LORD who makes you holy,” this is God’s message of his grace giving character. Your best of best shots at shunning evil, moral imperfections and failures, temptations, your most sincere intent to be good and holy will never measure up to God’s standard of holiness, his goodness. Your best of best effort and striving will not get you anywhere but restless and fruitless life. Holiness for Christians as it was for the Israelites is something that cannot be conceived outside of God’s intervention. It is God’s grace of making you holy that enables your effort and striving to bear lasting fruit.

To help the people of Israel know this grace giving God, God gave them the Sabbath; the Sabbath practice was a way to be reminded of God’s grace, the One who makes his people holy. So, let’s consider how the Sabbath was a way of God reminding his grace.

The verbal form of the Sabbath means to cease, to pause. What were they to stop, to cease? They were to stop doing things that sustained them. Consider when God gave manna when the Israelites lived in the desert. On the sixth day, God gave them a double portion of manna so that next day on the Sabbath they wouldn’t have to work to collect manna (Exodus 16:22-26). This law of stop working after six days and resting on the seventh day was so important that non-compliance was dealt with death penalty (Exodus 31:14). God called the Sabbath a sign, which allowed the Israelites to remember important things about God; their week in and week out of stop working and resting on the Sabbaths was designed so that the Israelites would grasp God’s grace giving character.

In Exodus 20, you will find the Sabbath as one of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:11, you read the connection between the Sabbath and God’s creation account of creating for six days and resting on the seventh day from the work of creating. So, the weekly practice of the Sabbaths was designed as a sign that would point them to God as their Creator.

In Deuteronomy 5, you also find the Sabbath listed as one of the Ten Commandments. But, here the emphasis that comes after the Sabbath is the call to remember their former condition as slaves in Egypt and how it was Yahweh who brought them out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

In their weekly practice of resting by pausing from working, they were reminded God was the Creator who provided for them and that it was God who delivered them out of bondage. It wasn’t their labor, but it was the grace of the Creator who provided for them and the grace of the Redeemer who delivered them. So, the Sabbath was designed as a sign to point the Israelites to the grace giving Creator, Redeemer.

Jesus said in Matthew 12:8, “… the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.” The way it works for Christians now is not by observing the Sabbath as the Israelites did, but by finding ourselves in the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ.

He said in Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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.”

It is only in Jesus Christ, you and I can become holy, be set apart for God. Yahweh Mekeddeshem, “I am the LORD who makes you holy,” Yahweh calls you and me to rally around Jesus, to come under him, to find ourselves in him, for through Christ’s blood, his death and resurrection, we can become holy.

How you spend the sacred time with Jesus will determined if you will grow in holiness. For some of you, the struggle is overworking.  You need to learn to take time to rest in Jesus Christ.  But, many of you, the struggle is not so much about overworking, but taking wrong kind of rest. In your spare time, if your goal is simply to vege out in front of TV, mindlessly surfing on your computer, this wouldn't fit the kind of rest Jesus envisions for you. 

For the Israelites, the Sabbath keeping was a sign that pointed them to God's grace giving character.  What kind of rest would point you to God's grace?  Are you taking such rest on ongoing base? 

• Ways to love others through demonstrating God’s grace to others:

When you read carefully Exodus 21:10 and Deuteronomy 5:14, you will find a comprehensive list of who were to remember the Sabbath. “On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.” It was for the whole people, whole creation that were to pause from work of labor and to rest in God, the Creator, the Redeemer. So, through the practice of the Sabbaths, the Israelites were called to love people and love creation. Loving people meant tangibly allowing others to stop working and experience God’s grace.

The principle of the Sabbath extended not weekly, but on every seventh year as well.

Exodus 23:10-11… Consider the Sabbath year. God promised to bless on the sixth year, to produce enough for three years that can last until the harvest of the eighth year. So, they were told to give the land a Sabbath of rest (Leviticus 25:4); During this Sabbath year of rest, then the poor would be able to eat from the land at the Sabbath rest. Consider Deut 15:1-3… the Sabbatical year for canceling debts… “At the end of every seventh years you must cancel debts.”

Pretty radical stuff, right? God has no interest in raising up generations that are self-absorbed and have no interest in demonstrating God's grace to others.  Jesus said the first and the greatest commandment is to Love the Lord God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. And the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. One's confession of love to Jesus without following his command to love others is not genuine and downright unchristian. Faith without deeds is dead faith.  Faith must be expressed in good deeds.  So, as we seek to be immersed in God's grace to make us holy, we must seek tangible ways to bless others, to demonstrate God's unearned grace to them. 

---

[i] New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis: Volume 3. 882. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1997.

Life Application: Grace to become a servant of the gospel (Ephesians 3:7-13)

God’s grace that shapes you to become a servant of the gospel

We often think of God’s grace in the sense of being saved (c.f. Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have saved, through faith…” Grace activates salvation. But, from Ephesians 3:7-13, what we see is that grace not only activates salvation in our lives, but it also shapes us to become a servant of the gospel.

Paul said in Ephesians 3:7, “I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.” Paul received salvation by God’s grace in faith. But, it didn’t stop there. God’s grace that saved him shaped his identity to become a servant of the gospel. This grace that shaped him to become a servant of the gospel was Paul’s focus in Ephesians 3:7-13.

As a servant of the gospel, he was passionate about communicating the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery (Ephesians 3:8-9). Simply, he was passionate about communicating the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ clearly as possible to the people who weren’t Christians.

Andrew Kim in his sermon this past week at our church asked, “What is the gift of God’s grace in your life today?”

Considering the dynamic aspects of God’s grace,

• grace which has activated salvation in your life
• grace which shapes you to become a servant of the gospel

Explore the following questions:

1. How are you experiencing God’s grace to shape you into a servant of the gospel?
2. How are you growing in passion to communicate the gospel clearly to non-Christians? If you don’t think you are growing in this area, what do you think is preventing you from being shaped into a servant of the gospel?
3. Can you explain the gospel clearly to a non-Christian?

Read together “Two ways to live,” which clearly lays out the gospel

Pray

• Ask God to help you experience his saving grace freshly and to experience his grace so that you become a servant of the gospel.
• Ask God to help you learn to clearly communicate the gospel to non-Christians.

Created to give grace with your words (Ephesians 4:25-29)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon March 29, 2009

In this month, we’ve been exploring the biblical paradigm of putting off the old self and putting on the new self in the language of Paul in Ephesians 4:22-23. “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

“Put off your old self… Put on the new self, created to be like God…” Lest, we reduce and confine Paul’s call to put off and put on as some kind of path to self discovery, self enhancement that only makes difference for me, for you, individually, he spends the rest of the chapter 4 spelling out how you and I must practice putting on and putting off in the context of doing life together. And, today we are going to focus specifically on what it means to be created to impart grace with our words.

James 3:9-12 speaks to irony of inconsistency when we use our words not for imparting grace, but in mean spirit. “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?”

We praise God and we curse others with the same tongue if we don’t practice putting off meanness in speech and putting on speech that gives grace. Putting on speech that gives grace is living consistently in whom God has created us to be.

• Give grace by speaking truthfully for you are created to belong to each other.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:25 we are to give grace to each other by speaking truthfully. He reasons it is because we are members of one body. The image of each of us belonging to members of one body means we are created for relationship in Christ. Christian living embraces the truth, “I cannot do life without you because we belong together in the body of Christ.”

Paul understood the gospel is intensely relational because God is relational. Paul understood that to be griped, touched and claimed by the gospel is to live reconciled relationship with God; and out of this reconciled relationship with God, we are given a ministry of reconciliation, to be “Christ’s ambassadors” according to 2 Corinthians 5:20. How intensely does God feel about relationship? Intense enough to send his Son Jesus Christ to die and to be raised from the dead for sinners, enemies like you and me so that we can be in relationship with him! And, out of enemies like you and me, he has created new people with new identity in Christ as God’s children now belonging to each other as members of Christ’s body.

Klyne Snodgrass says concerning Ephesians 5:1, “Be imitators of God,” “Copying God only means taking seriously who God says we are.” [1] Paul says in Christ we are created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. In Christ we are already given the new identity in the body of Christ that is designed to image God. Taking seriously who God says we are, coping God, or imaging God means to be people who take relationships seriously by giving grace to each other by speaking truth.

Speaking truthfully is being honest about ourselves to each other and being honest about others. Being honest is built on the fact that we all share the same challenge to put off our old self and to put on the new self. I like what Snodgrass has to say about this:

The text calls for a transparency, an openness guided by wisdom as to what is appropriate. Death is not a subject from which we can run, so why should we not discuss death more straightforwardly? Our sexuality often possesses us, so why should we not in the right context discuss it and deal with it? Why can’t we be more forthright about our own egos? We do make ourselves real by telling the truth.[2]

We don’t normally think about speaking truthfully without exaggerations or lies as a way of imparting grace to each other’s life. But, the scripture informs us that indeed speaking truthfully is way of giving grace to each other for it allows us to be real and relationships we build to be genuine.

• Give grace by rejecting rotten words for you are created to yield good fruit.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:29 there are words, talk that is considered unwholesome talk. Unwholesome describes foul spoiled fish/rotten fruit or stones that crumble. Jesus used this word to describe bad fruit in the gospels. Luke 6:43, Jesus said, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.”

I love wholesale places like Costco where you can get bulk of food for cheaper price. But, the downside in getting fruits in bulk is that inevitably you find some rotten oranges, apples or strawberries. If it is rotten badly, I would end up throwing the whole fruit away, losing any saving I may have buying in bulk.

There are kinds of talk that is unfitting to the new identity God has given us as Christians, Paul calls them rotten. The words that come out of malice and anger either loudly or under our breath, “Shut up!”, “Jerk!” calling names, swears, sarcastic comments. How about uttering God’s name like “Oh, My God!” when you are not praying, but when you are surprised or angry? John Piper likens this to stomping in anger on one’s wedding ring which symbolizes marriage covenant. God’s name stands for who God is, but when we use his name mindless in vain, we treat God’s name without dignity and honor. Criticisms without love are rotten as well.

Paul says when we smell or see the rottenness in our thoughts we are to bury it, kill it, put it aside, and to reject it instead of allowing rotten words to come out of our mouth. This requires us to be thoughtful, to be slow to speak, to give enough time to evaluate and smell our own thoughts for rottenness and deal with it accordingly.

• Give grace by speaking words that build others up for you are created to impart grace.

Paul says that there is better way far more consistent with being created into a new tree to bear new fruit, unspoiled and good fruit. He tells us to get rid of rotten words and to speak good words. How do you know if your words are good words? You know it when you observe the effect of your words on other people who hear you.

Do your words tear down?

What words tear down instead of building up? Words that tear down are words that often come from assumptions without verification. When someone says something to you that makes you feel uneasy, misgiving, or hurt, unless you take the intentional steps to verify what you heard was what the other person meant, you risk speaking to tear the other person down or if you decide not to talk about it, you risk brewing grudge.

Do your words build others up because you speak to their needs?

Speaking words that build others up requires you to first listen to the other person. You listen by asking questions about the other person. By asking question about how the other person is doing and by taking time to hear the person, you learn the person’s needs. Only then, would you able to speak words that can build the other person up. If you are usually the one talking about yourself but you never care to ask how others are doing, you will never learn to speak words that build up others. You will be known as self-centered, narcissistic person, not an encourager.

Do you words impart grace?

Paul says we ought to speak in order to benefit others. To benefit is literally means to “give grace” or to “impart grace”. When people speak to you do they walk away from you feeling like they were touched by God?

Imagine what it would be like if we all practice giving grace to each other. Imagine how it would change the dynamics of our relationship. Imagine how unbelievers would react when they see believers interacting with each other graciously. Imagine how it would change families, friendships. Imagine how it would change our church. Giving grace to each other with words, it is our calling, our privilege, our inheritance. Let’s embrace it wholeheartedly.

---

[1] Snodgrass, Klyne. “Bridging Contexts” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Ephesians. By Klyne Snodgrass, 255. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 1996.

[2] Snodgrass, Klyne. “Contemporary Significance” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Ephesians. By Klyne Snodgrass, 262. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 1996.

Fight for grace over shame (Revelation 3:14-22)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon February 22, 2009

I am going to continue to tackle hypocrisy, the disconnection in knowing the biblical truth and not living it out consistently and faithfully. One of the traps of hypocrisy is the way we deal with shame.

1. When you compensate shame with hiding, shaming and blaming…

When I was a teenaged boy, I begin to notice a trend in my family. Each moving led us to a smaller home, going from a four bedroom house with a second floor balcony with nice big front garden, to a three bedrooms condo, and finally to a basement unit with two bedrooms shared by a mother, a grandmother, and three teens with an outdoor bathroom with no seat.

Along with this downgrading trend in housing, I also noticed a trend of diminishing number of friends who came to my home and diminishing disclosure about my family to my friends. An absence of my father who lived in the U. S., poorer living arrangements, my mom working so hard to make ends meet running a tinny bar serving barbeque chicken as anju for Korean soju and beer, I didn’t share what was going on with my family to anyone, not even to my close friends. God knows how much I loved my mom, but I wasn’t too keen on talking about what she did for living.

Shame is a powerful force that affects the fabric of human relationships. There is this subtle difference between guilt and shame. While Guilt is judicial in character, shame is relational.[1] Or, put it another way, I quote, “While guilt occurs when an absolute standard is violated, shame occurs in a relational context.”[2] Shame can be caused by guilt, but it doesn’t always. Did I feel shame because I did something wrong and caused hardships in my family? No, I felt shame not because I did anything wrong but because the image of my family didn’t seem to fit an image of a good and socially acceptable family. So, I remember growing up feeling shame about my family and even myself. So, I hid it. I did it very well.

Then, there is a way of relating to others through shaming. Often parents are masters at this sadly. You give a child this look of disappointment, rolling of eyes, shaking your head side to side, or yell at him in front of the whole world with your disapproval and disdain. It is to convey a clear message to a child that his behavior is embarrassing to parents and to him and this is the reason why he should stop behaving badly. When we learn to deal with shame caused by wrongdoings in healthy ways, it will result in doing what’s right for the sake of living with integrity and clear conscience.

But, shaming is an unhealthy and destructive way of dealing with shame. Shaming conditions us to avoid doing things that might bring shame to our family and us. So, if you grew up in shaming culture, you might have become very good at avoiding getting caught doings things that may shame and embarrass your parents and yourself; and if you are good at learning and excel in school, yours parents would love you and you feel like you are doing just fine, but beneath the iceberg of appeasing your parents, you are blinded to your ugliness. If you are not good at school, then, you live with this nagging feeling of shame; and you are convinced you are no good. This is what shaming does.

Another unhealthy, sinful response to shame is blaming. Consider Adam and Eve. When they didn’t listen to God, but instead trusted the serpent’s lies, they experienced shame which was good thing. If they didn’t feel bad about not trusting God and breaking trust with him, what we have here is two sociopaths. No, their initial sense of sin, shame over their guilt of distrusting God was good thing. The problem was not they felt shame, but how they responded to their shame. When they heard the sound of the LORD approaching them, in Genesis 3:9 we see them responding to their shame by hiding from God. That’s what sin does; we hide from God. When God confronted Adam and Eve about their sins, they didn’t come out clean with sincerity and remorse and shame, instead Adam blamed Eve and God for his sin, Eve blamed serpent for her sin (Genesis 3:11-13). Instead of dealing with their legitimate shame over guilt, they hid from God, shamed and blamed each other; their interest was not dealing with their own sins, but saving face.

Here are “Signs of Toxic Shame in Us” according to Paul Tokunaga.[3]

• When someone tells us, “What a great job you did!” we fire back, “No, no, I messed up with several parts of it.”
• When our personal piety seems “too good to be true” to others because it probably is. There is no shame that our “spiritual cosmetics” attempts to hide our true spiritual condition.
• When we are reluctant to talk candidly about our family, especially our relationship with our parents.
• When we have a hard time looking our spiritual leaders in the eye.
• When admittance to grad school at Cal or the University of Michigan or Columbia feels like a rejection of our personhood because Harvard and Stanford turned us down.
• When our public prayers are “I’m such a warm” offerings: filled with remorse, guilt, shame, and total unworthiness. Translation: “How can God stand me? He probably can’t.”
• When there is a reluctance to “own” our ethnicity. “I’m American (period, end of conversation, how’s the weather?).”

In the domain of relationship, we need to watch out for the temptation to deal with shame by hiding, shaming and blaming others to save our own face.

2. Acknowledge your legitimate shame over your crucified and buried flesh of sin.

There are ways to ensure we don’t become subject to toxic shame of hiding, shaming and blaming.

First, we need to learn to acknowledge our legitimate shame. Jesus said in Revelation 3:16, “So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold- I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” What is that lukewarmness that Jesus was so bothered by and couldn’t stand it? It’s hypocrisy of disconnection between what we know as truth and how we do not live it out consistently and faithfully. We need to acknowledge the legitimate shame over hypocrisy of disconnection.

Laodicea was famous for being important center of trade and communication. Its wealth came from the manufacturing a high quality of glossy black wool. And, it was also a famous for what was known as “Phrygian powder,” with potency to cure eye defects.[4] Wealth, fashion, and medicine… they seemed to have it all. What else did they need? Indeed, many lived as though they needed nothing else. When you live this way, you are going to be prayerless and dry because you lack sense of need before God.^[5]

But, Jesus broke news to them. “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

Some of you may say, “Well, this isn’t something I struggle with since I already feel like a worm and worthless.” I want you to know that there is a real difference between acknowledging legitimate shame and feeling sorry for yourself. Acknowledging legitimate shame requires seeing your self at the cross, where Jesus crucified your worthless self with him, put it to death; it requires you to see your own self remain dead at the tomb where Jesus was buried. Thereby, it seeks to understand your self having no power to govern or rule you any longer. What you have is the habits and memories of sins that must remain dead. But, self pity, feeling sorry for yourself, refuses to see your self crucified at the cross and buried at the tomb.

Ken Fong says this about healthy shame: “Healthy shame is an intermittent, proper awareness of being a limited flawed human being. It leads to the acknowledgement of your need for help from a higher power. It is the source of creativity. It is the core of true spirituality. It is the healthy sense of sin that led many of the tax collectors and prostitutes to Jesus to receive forgiveness.[6]”

How do we deal with hypocrisy of disconnection? We deal with it by going back to the cross and to the tomb and seeing our self crucified and buried, remained dead. There at the cross, at the tomb, we need to see with clear judgment the ugly and hopelessly dark and evil, completely bankrupt, wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked flesh of sin.

3. Fight to respond to Jesus who pursues relationship with you.

When you take each daily moment to see with clear judgment and with honesty your crucified and buried sinful flesh, it is then time to fight for relationship with Jesus.

Jesus said in Revelation 3:18, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”

Whether you wake up from engrossed in the false promise of wealth, fine fashion and health to satisfy you or wake up from lost in self-pity of rejecting Jesus’ death on the cross for you, the battle that you must fight is fighting for relationship with Jesus.

Jesus says, “You don’t need to hide in shame any more. You don’t need to shame others or blame others any more. Look at the cross where I died, look at the tomb where I died, your shame is crucified, buried, and remain dead. Come to me because it is I who can cover your shameful nakedness.

Jesus says in Revelation 3:19, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Jesus doesn’t stop at dealing with our shame by covering our shameful nakedness with his death. That’s not the end goal he had in his mind when he took up the cross and died. He wants to go further. He wants to dine with you. He wants relationship with you. He pursues you. Do you know that he’s been pursuing you? Do you know that he’s been knocking at your door? Do you hear his voice calling your name? If you would acknowledge your shame at the cross, at the tomb, there you will hear the knocking from your Savior and there you will hear his voice calling you.

---

[1] biblical theology shame

[2] Stan Inouye, The True Samurai of God: Christ, the Cross and Culture, The Kaki See, winter 1984, p. 1.

[3] Paul Tokunaga, Invitation to Lead, IVP, 2003, p. 42.

[4] Johnson, Alan F. “7. To Laodicea (3:14-22)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 12. 456. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1981.

[5] Keener, Craig S. “Contemporary Significance” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Revelation. By Craig S. Keener, 164. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 2000.

[6] Kenneth Vyeda Fong, Isights for Growing Asian-American Ministries, Rosemead, California, Evergrowing, 1990, p. 95.

Fight for change in grace (John 4:1-42)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon February 8, 2009

This week, I picked up a book titled “Growing Healthy Asian American Churches.” I want to quote from this book for you. It says,

congregations grow most optimally when their explicit (theology, that is proclaimed faith) and implicit theologies (practiced faith) are congruent with one another and thus reinforce one another[1]… when our congregations’ belief and actions mirror one another, when our churches are orthodox and engage in orthopraxis, our churches will continue to grow as healthy households of God.[2]

Along with this book, I just finished reading, “The Emotionally Health Church.” And, here is a quote from the book about the author’s reflection from the movie, “The Apostle” by Robert Duvall. He plays Sonny, a preacher, an evangelist from his boyhood, but terribly marred by his temper, lust, addiction to alcohol, and in rage he killed a man with a baseball.

Sonny, like most of us, is a complex individual. He is a zealous committed Christians whom we admire, and yet he is also terribly inconsistent. Most painful, perhaps, is his lack of awareness of the harm that will come from appearing more than he really is. In some ways he is an imposter. He easily compartmentalizes his faith and spirituality from the totally of his humanity.

Does believing about the right stuffs, orthodox, explicit theology, proclaimed truths get readily translated into the right living, orthopraxis, practiced faith? What we believe and how we live our lives… are they congruent, or is there a gaping disconnection between them? I’ve been doing quite of soul searching lately. This gaping disconnection between what we know as truth and living out this truth, Jesus calls it hypocrisy. When hypocrisy rules, we measure the spirituality with the yard stick of whether we’ve done our quite time, whether we prayed, whether we attend serviced, whether we abstained from the obvious moral failings. We neglect the whole vast domain on how we treat each other, strangers, the poor, the people who are different. When hypocrisy rules, we don’t want to deal with the angry heart that resents, attacks, lying heart that betrays trusts, lusts that erodes purity, the numbed emotions that only gets excited over entertainments. When the gaping disconnection takes place between what we believe and how we live, we would become “disturbed by the thought of an alcoholic, adulterer or exconvict sitting in the pew next to them in Sunday’s worship service,” to quote from Nancy Sguikawa and Steve Wong.[3]

I am asking myself, if God is truly awesome in his incomprehensible love for us in his Son, why isn’t there growing affection for God, why are we not getting restless in growing excitement for him, why are we not zealous and passionate, why are we not jumping up and down and dance like David when the Ark of God returned?

I am convinced that unless I attack this gaping disconnection of head and heart, orthodox and orthopraxis, proclaiming truth and living out truth, we as church will grow dead, we as individual may be nice, but become cynical hypocrites who are no good for the kingdom of God.

So, I’ve been looking for the truth that will help me draw this gaping disconnection of hypocrisy. And the Lord led me to today’s passage. The remedy for hypocrisy, the gaping disconnection of head and heart is to fight for change in grace.

1. Fight for change in grace of Jesus who connects with you.

Imagine sitting next to you now is an alcoholic, sexual addicts, homosexual person, filthy and dirty homeless guy smelling like urine, and imagine your unspoken reactions. In many ways, this is how the Jews felt towards Samaritans.

John 4:9, the Samaritan woman speaks to Jesus about this disparity, distance, disconnection, even hatred, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)”. Let me speak to the historical background that might help you see this disconnection.

Samaritans were not pure Jews. After the northern kingdom of Israel were conquered & exiled by Assyrians in 722 B.C., Assyrians repopulated the Samaria from all different places. So, purity of Jews ceased to exist, instead Samaritans were the Jewish remnants mixed with Persians and other conquered peoples. By adopting relationships with non-Jews, Samaria also adopted the many practices of paganism. Eventually, Judaism won over the paganistic beliefs and practices, but severely affected their belief system.

Samarians rejected all scripture except Pentateuch that is the first five books of the Old Testament because other books emphasized Judaism centered on Judea and David’s line. Samaritans rejected the worship in Jerusalem, but instead created their own center of worship on Mount Gerizim. By Jesus’ day, a smoldering tension existed between the regions of Judea and Samaria for racial and religious and even political reasons.[4] “Samaritan woman” represented this off shoot of Judaism, hostile to the Jews; Jews too found the Samaritans as appalling moral failures to be shunned away.

And, add to this the culture of Jesus time when it was not common at all for men to speak to women in public, even if they were married, and the absolute taboo for single men to speak to or touch women at any time.[5] What you have is a shocking account of Jesus, a Jew, talking with a Samaritan woman.

This is why John 4:27 says that when the disciples returned, they were surprised to find him talking with a woman.

John 4:6, “Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour,” that is noon. We see a glimpse of Jesus’ humanity here. He got tired just like we get tired. In his humanity seeking for rest from his tiredness turned into the divine moment. He crossed the cultural, religious, political, emotional barbed wires to engage the Samaritan woman, unthinkable to human eyes, but it just the sort of thing Jesus did all the time.

“Will you give me a drink?” Jesus asked in John 4:7. He was countercultural and reached out to the Samaritan woman; and he did it by asking for her help. This is how Jesus began reaching out to the untouchable, through his humility of acknowledging his human need as the Son of God.

This is how Jesus connected in grace counterculturally and humbly!

2. Fight for change in grace of Jesus who gives you the living water.

The Samaritan woman knew all the locations for every water source around Shechem, but here was Jesus talking about “living water.” John 4:10, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Living water is water that is kept fresh through constant streams of flowing like a spring or river. The Samaritan woman knew that in Shechem there was no fresh living water source with steady streams. That is why going way back even Jacob had to dug well for water (John 4:12).

But, we know that Jesus wasn’t talking about physical living water, but spiritual living water.

Concerning this living water Jesus said in John 4:13-14, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirst again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

What Jesus said about him being the source of this living water is reflected in what God said about himself in Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

The living water is offered to all who are thirsty and it was already envisioned in older days of Isaiah. Isaiah 55:1 says, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the water.” And, Zechariah 14:8, “On that day living water will flow from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and in winter.”

Jesus picks up the theme of living water again in John 7:37-39, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believed in me, as the Scripture had said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.”

It is this constant flow of living water, the Holy Spirit from Jesus, his grace overflowing, the key remedy for the disease of the gaping disconnection of the head and the heart.

3. Fight for change in grace of Jesus who overcomes your shame and isolation.

When the Samaritan woman asked Jesus in John 4:15, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water”, we see that she was thinking literally physical water.

It is interesting that instead of answering her directly that she was mistaking spiritual living water with temporal physical water, he told her to bring her husband. What may have been a benign request since it was a common understanding for a woman to talk with a man only with her husband present, now became a moral probing over her life that has been crippling her with deep spiritual shame and social isolation.

She drew water at noon which was far from the ideal time; early morning or at dusk was when the women came to the well to avoid the Mediterranean heat. In John 4:18, we see Jesus revealing why this woman isolated herself. She was socially stigmatized as morally loosed woman; she had five husbands and the one she was with currently was not even her husband. Ill-informed theology, her immoral lifestyle disconnected from her knowledge of what was right from wrong, her misplaced hope in men… she tried very hard to hold on to these false securities. But, Jesus kindly but firmly dealt with her sins.

But, the heat was too much. The Samaritan woman did what any of us would have done if someone were to encroach into our personal space and yet we don’t want to completely close the door on conversing with this person. Her strategy was to take the focus off herself, and to talk about something else. In her case, she deflected the focus from the reality of her shame filled life of sexual promiscuity and isolation to an impersonal and lofty theological controversy of her days.

John 4:20, the woman deflected Jesus’ omniscient probing eyes; “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” The Samaritans argued for the superiority of worship in Shechem rather than in Jerusalem because they rejected all the books of the Old Testament except the first five books. According to Genesis 12:6-7, it was at the site of great tree of Moreh at Shechem, the LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.” And, by rejecting the rest of the Old Testament that speaks to God’s choice of Jerusalem for worship and the line of David to rule, the Samaritans legitimized their false worship.

Jesus refuted them by affirming the inadequacy of Samaritan worship in Mount Gerizim because salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22). But, to Jesus this argument over where God should be worshiped either in Jerusalem or in Schechem was irrelevant because worship was no longer restricted to certain places; instead worship was to take place in one’s relationship to Jesus. John 4:23, Jesus said, “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.” The time Jesus referred here is the time of his crucifixion and his resurrection from the dead. His sacrificial death and his rising from the dead was the key pivotal moment in the history where we now get to worship God in Jesus and through the enabling power of the Spirit regardless where we may live.

So, the notion that we only worship on Sunday right now here in the church is misnomer. You are called not only to acknowledge God’s loving rule over you with his Almighty power in this given moment, but in 24/7 anytime, anywhere. This is why we must attack the hypocrisy of reducing worship to the domain of Sunday worship services. It also means we can fight for grace of Jesus who overcomes our shame and isolation without limitation.

The Samaritan woman didn’t grasp the truth about Jesus. So, she tried to deflect him. She said in John 4:25, “I know that Messiah… is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Essentially she was saying to him, “Well, you have very good points, but really the Messiah will decide on who’s right about this.”

The Samaritan woman tried very hard to deflect Jesus from seeing her shame and isolation. But, Jesus already knew. The fact was that he knew her better than she knew herself. Jesus shined his light on her but in shame she sought to isolate herself from him. But, Jesus didn’t pull back. He didn’t give up because he knew that what she really needed was his grace to break her from shame and isolation. So, he declared to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

To a woman who lived with deep shame and lonely isolation, Jesus offered to her his grace to overcome her shame and the power of isolation.

4. Fight for change in grace of Jesus who gives you testimony.

John 4:28 says, “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? They came out of the town and made their way toward him.”

She was touched by Jesus. Jesus helped her to move from seeing Jesus as an ordinary Jewish man, countercultural, possessor and dispenser of eternal life, the Messiah. And in Lean Morris’s word, “She abandoned the bringing of water for the bringing of men.”

She went from a woman who lived in isolation poisoned by in shame and guilt to a woman who now invites others to discover the Messiah who knows her so completely. She went from a woman in deep shame who picked the hottest noon time to draw water to isolate herself from the judging eyes to a woman who now was zealous to tell others about the person she met at the well; she met the Messiah who knew everything about her, yet didn’t distance himself, instead drew near to her. Shame and isolation no longer defined her; she was now a transformed, changed woman in grace of Jesus Christ.

This narrative about Jesus and the Samaritan woman is interrupted by the disciples who returned. Jesus told them in John 4:35, “open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” As Jesus was speaking about the plants ready to be harvested at any moment, the Samaritan woman was leading the crowd to Jesus. They were making their way to Jesus because of the testimony of this woman.

What was the effect of her testimony? John 4:38 shows the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” Their faith journey did not stopped here. They believed in Jesus because of her testimony, but later they said to the woman in John 4:42, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

When a person is gripped by grace, giving testimony isn’t done out of obligation, but out of living relationship. In that living with relationship with Jesus, he gives us testimony about him.

Conclusion

Do you have a testimony of what Jesus is doing in your life? Is your gap of disconnection being narrowed? Is Jesus changing you? Let’s fight for change by staying in grace of our Lord Jesus.

---

[1] Peter Cha, S. Steve Kang & Helen Lee, ed., Growing Healthy Asian American Churches. IVP, 2006, p. 13.

[2] Ibid., p. 14.

[3] Ibid., p. 30.

[4] Burge, Gary M. “Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (4:1 – 26)” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: John. By Gary M. Burge, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. p. 141.

[5] Ibid., p. 142