Receive the Word Like the Air You Breathe

God exists by Himself. He created the heavens and the angels, and all things were made by Him. He created the oxygen we breathe and the carbon dioxide that trees respire. But God Himself has existed from the beginning, from eternity to eternity.

First and foremost we must know that, unlike cultists, we are not followers of a ‘wise religious leader’ who ‘discovered a secret’ and founded a religion. He who has existed from the beginning nourishes us by His Word by which He created all things. We do not rely on flattery or knowledge. We are living by the Word by which God created and rules all things. Religious people discipline themselves diligently. But we live by the word of God. If there is no oxygen in the air we will die no matter how diligently we strive to take each breath. Plants on the other hand need the carbon dioxide that people breathe out, just like people need the oxygen that plants emit. This is an amazing principle! Living things must breathe in order to live. Our faith is not in discipline or training the will, but in life.

As Bereans we must clearly understand the Picture of God’s Will. Only then will we be able to live a spiritual life, become leaders and witness for Christ. If we do not understand God’s will, we can never be leaders. Haven’t I faithfully proclaimed the message of the gospel for so many years after I came to understand God’s will, even in spite of my poor background? It is like water that flows from a fountain whose taste and life giving blessing does not change though you draw from it for many years. It may seem like I am preaching the same message, or something similar, every week, but you should receive it as you do fresh water or the air that you constantly breathe in.

Life and Eternal Life

There are two expressions that are used in church whose meaning you must clearly understand. They are, ‘life’ and ‘eternal life’. They may sound like the same thing, but there is a distinction. You must not confuse them. Jesus said, “You get life by drinking my blood, and get eternal life by eating my flesh.” He continued, “my flesh is a real food and my blood is a real drink.” Life means being raised from the dead, and eternal life means living forever.

Many people confuse these two meanings, and that is why they do not understand the real value of their spiritual life and some even abandon their faith. Last week I asked you to cut out the sermon summary from the bulletin and attach it to the fly leaf of your Bible. I also want you to keep today’s bulletin and examine the sermon summary carefully. I was shocked to discover the ignorance of many of our church members regarding these matters when I saw how they reacted to the recent events. So I have decided to try to awaken the leaders through sermons, the messages on the Lord’s Day, and through special Berea lectures on Fridays.

Life means being raised from the dead, and eternal life refers to that life being sustained forever. We all have gained life. How did we obtain it? By our own confession of faith! Even so, do you still regard it as an abstract concept or as merely knowledge? But it is a real experience!

God has revealed Himself, but who is God? God is the eternal One, He is eternal life. To show us His eternal life, He sent the Word to us. What is the Word? It is the Word of eternal life. It is not a sound but the Word of eternal life. While the words of men are just sounds, the Word of God is eternal life.

We must constantly hear the Word. When a cow eats grass, one side of its belly swells. And when it chews its cud, the other side swells. The cow regurgitates what it has eaten and chews on the cud. It does this several times. The Law differentiates between clean and unclean beasts, and one of the distinctions is whether the beast chews the cud (rumen) or not. Cattle and sheep do. The beasts that are offered to God must be those that chew the cud, or ruminate. Saints are also to ‘ruminate’ on God’s Word.

When you are faced with any situation or circumstance, you remember the word of God which tells you are not to worship idols or steal. Even if you don’t carry a Bible around, you remember God’s word in certain situations. When you have money, you separate the tithe, and say to yourself, “I must tithe”, or “I must give a regular offering” because you are reminded of what God has commanded. When you are reluctant, the word reminds you that if you do not obey, God will not bless you.

If you are not filled with the Spirit, you can scarcely ruminate on God’s Word. Only those who are filled with the Spirit do. The Bible says that when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, He will make you understand the word and bring it to remembrance. Only the Holy Spirit can cause you to meditate on God’s word. When a devoted son eats a home-cooked meal it reminds him of home and his parents. When he enjoys fellowship and blessings he remembers his parents. Likewise, when the Holy Spirit comes upon a person, He reminds us of God’s word and makes us understand it.

A person once told me on their deathbed, “Pastor, Thank you.” I asked, “For what?” Then he answered, “You have delivered the words of eternal life, and I thank you for that. Now, I feel the words more closely.” A soul well nurtured with the words of eternal life is at peace at the moment of death. His soul which was raised by God’s word will live forever. Therefore, we must meditate on the Word. In order to do this we must be filled with the Holy Spirit and read the Bible daily.

God sent the Word and He appeared to the world in the flesh. We believe that the flesh is God. He came to mankind but His origin is not human. He is the Word, therefore He has eternal life. Jesus lamented that people did not come to him for eternal life when they read Scriptures. Even though the central focus of the Bible is Jesus, they, having read the Bible, were still looking for something else. All of the Bible bears witness to Jesus.

Grace and Truth

Grace and truth come from Jesus. Grace and truth each have their own roles. If you do not know this, you are confused. In Korea, wives usually call husbands older brother, which makes the order confusing. In the past a foreign missionary asked me, “What does ‘Seobang-Nim’ mean?” Koreans call their husbands Seobang-Nim, or their servants, or younger sisters’ husbands Seobant-Nim, so he was very confused. Even I was confused when I heard it. Even though the term, ‘Seobang’ is used in all three cases, they each mean something different.

We should clearly understand the two terms and use them properly. Today’s sermon outline reads, “What He did is grace, and His word is truth.” People usually say that they receive grace when they are pleased after the sermon. But that is not what the Bible means by grace. Grace and truth are clearly distinguished.

Grace

Grace is this. Jesus came in the flesh, was eventually judged by Pilate in Jerusalem, and was killed and carried into the tomb. This is grace. In other words, grace is the fact that the Word became flesh, abode in Nazareth, came to Jerusalem through Galilee, died on the cross, and was buried in the tomb. This is grace! This is what Jesus did! This was done completely by His own merit. He did not die for His own sins, but instead became sin, bearing the sin of Adam for all mankind, and was crucified in our place. Mankind was destined for judgment but He bore that judgment and was punished instead. And He was also buried in man’s place. In other words, the Lord suffered the punishment that we should have suffered. That is why we rely on His merit. This is grace.

We received that grace in baptism. Baptism symbolizes the punishment that Christ received in our place, the death and burial as punishment for sin. He paid for all our debts! Without any merit or effort of our own, without being judged or dying for our sins, we have gained it all. We have received grace by Jesus’ merit!  We were the ones who were destined for judgment. But He was the one who was judged and punished, who hung on the cross, and who died and was buried in our place. His deeds were credited to my account. My soul can now claim them as its own. This is what we experience in baptism!

We have experienced grace through baptism. If anyone of you is not yet baptized, you have not experienced grace. Whoever believes must be baptized. The Ethiopian eunuch was baptized after Philip testified to him about Jesus saying, “Look, here is water. What is preventing me from being baptized?”

Some Christian denominations practice a baptism by sprinkling rather than full immersion. This practice was originally established by the Catholic Pope. After seeing many Christians be baptized in water, the Pope started baptizing people in his name, and binding them to himself. He began baptizing by sprinkling. At that time people were forced to obey the orders of the Pope, putting aside Jesus’ commands.  But some of them insisted being baptized properly as Jesus had ordered. The Catholic church drowned them when there were baptized! When they saw this, many more people began to be baptized saying, “I will obey Jesus even if it means I will die!” Those who were baptized were called Ana-Baptists. It is estimated that around fifty million people died in this way. When I planted the church I decided to start my church as Baptist in order to follow the Baptist tradition. You can trace traditional baptism (immersion) back to Jesus. Baptism (so called) by sprinkling can be traced back to the Pope.

In baptism we rely on Jesus’ merit. If you are not yet baptized, you have not experienced grace, even if you know what it is. Grace must be experienced! If you have experienced dying with Jesus, shouldn’t you also experience being raised to new life? The Bible says that John the Baptist baptized with water but Jesus baptizes a person with water and with the Holy Spirit. We come up out of the water to newness of life by the Spirit which raised Christ from the dead. That is why we confess that we die with Jesus when we go into the water and we live with Jesus when we come out of the water.

Truth

So what is truth then? Now that the Holy Spirit has come upon us, He does not speak on His own, but only teaches what Jesus has said. That is truth. Living by truth is a way of life for the saint. When the words in the Bible come into us as we read it we can meditate on them. That is why reading the Bible is a prerequisite before attending BereaAcademy. You will not understand the Bible completely when you first read it. But once you have read the Bible and you understand the Picture of God’s Will and once you are filled with the Holy Spirit, everything you have read will come to your remembrance. Then you will be able to communicate the Picture of God’s Will when you teach.

Jesus spoke only the truth. But the Law came from Moses. The Law is the law of death. The Truth is the word of eternal life. The words of Jesus are the words of eternal life. We must listen to Jesus’ words. Some people can read the Bible and memorize the names of all the kings. But the words of eternal life that we get from the Bible are the words that Jesus spoke. Is the truth in you? Are Jesus’ words in you? You must understand the truth by the Holy Spirit and meditate on Jesus’ words.

Once we have received grace we live by the truth. Living by the Truth is not a singular experience. Unlike being raised to life when we were dead, which is a singular experience. However, experiencing the truth is an on-going experience. When we experience what Jesus did on our behalf, it is a singular experience, but we commemorate it continually. That is why we partake of the sacrament of Holy Communion. By participating in Holy Communion, we commemorate our deliverance from eternal punishment in hell.

If you have received life, you must now obtain eternal life. Since you have received grace through water baptism, you must hear Jesus’ word by the Holy Spirit. This is how you live forever by the truth! Since you are saved from eternal death by grace, now live forever by the truth! Oh, my soul, live forever by the truth!

Those who Received Grace, Be the Witness by the Holy Spirit

Let us read the sermon outline together —Grace is life. Truth is everlasting life. Grace must be experienced; but we must receive the truth continually in our hearts. We received grace through baptism, and by the Holy Spirit we know the truth eternally. The role of the Church is to testify of this until the last day. We must bear witness to the grace that we have received and bear witness to the truth which we know.”

Those who have received grace must bear witness that they have received grace. In the sacrament of Holy Communion, when we drink the cup we are confessing that we have been baptized. Those who partake in Holy Communion but do not eat and drink judgment on themselves. We must be witnesses of Jesus until He returns. That is our spiritual life.

So we must receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “When the Holy Spirit comes upon you; you will receive power and will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” He did not even tell the disciples how long they would wait. The disciples just waited and focused on prayer. They just focused on prayer not worrying about their household chores. Just constant prayer. It has transformed the whole world to this day.

Our church must be a prayerful church. Whether adults or youngsters, we must constantly pray whenever we gather, like the early church praying in the upper room. Whenever two or three people gather and pray, the Lord promised to be with them. I start my prayer at 3:20 in the morning at the Shingil main sanctuary. All day long I pray with all my strength. Then I return to the office and I pray again until 7 pm.

I am convinced that the Lord prays for me day and night. We must pray, then we can experience the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus did not tell His disciples to wait for several days. But they just prayed hard. When the portion of prayer was complete, the Holy Spirit came upon them. When prayers of the saints are full, God met with them. Those who receive grace and who live by the truth will experience the working of the Holy Spirit. Oh my soul, pray!

Coming Soon

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Outline translated by Sarah Lee
Letter translated by Sung-In Hong
Interpretations by Sarah Lee

Chief Editor: Helen Nam
Korean Summary by Ki-Taek Lee