February 25, 2018_Keep the Holy Day

The humble and obedient Son

God is the Father. We did not know that God was the Father, but we came to know it when the Son of God came to the earth. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word who became flesh is Jesus. God testified that Jesus is His beloved Son, and Jesus called Him Father.

God the Father and the Son are equal as God. Nevertheless, the Son said, “The Father is greater than I.” (Jn 14:28) The Son of God humbled Himself before the Father. Jesus said of Himself: “I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Mt 11:29) He submitted to the will of the Father and was obedient in all things.

Obedience involves understanding the intent of the command giver and carrying out the command. Submission on the other hand, involves trusting and obeying the command giver even if you do not understand the reason. You obey because you trust and respect the command giver. Even though we cannot see God, we can know Him because the Son of submitted to the will of the Father, even to the point of death, and so fully revealed the will of God.

The gospel is having knowledge of the finished work of God the Father and the Son. God sent His Son into the world to accomplish His will, and the Son did not do anything of His own, but completely fulfilled the Father’s will. Our faith is to know these things that have been done between the Father and the Son, and to obey and submit to God just as Jesus submitted to his Father.

Bearing the First Fruits of faith until the end

All Christians know the fatal consequence of Adam’s sin. The very action of eating the fruit may have seemed harmless, but for the commandment spoken by God, “In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” Because of the commandment, Adam was unable to escape death. If disobeying God’s commandments brings death, shouldn’t we pay close attention to the commandments of God? Was that the only commandment God gave?

When a person embarks upon a life of faith, having very little knowledge of God, one of their first experiences of grace is Keeping the Lord’s Day. Anyone who wants to have faith will go to church and participate in the worship services. The worship service is the first-fruit for anyone who has been saved by Christ. The 144,000 in Revelation chapter 14 who sang a new song that only they could learn, “these were redeemed from among men and were the first-fruits to God and to the Lamb.” (verse 4) Anyone who desires to partake of the first resurrection should not, under any circumstances, neglect to keep the Lord’s Day, which is the first-fruit of faith.

Keeping the Lord’s Day is for our own edification

The idea of the Lord’s Day originated from the seventh day of creation in which God rested. Genesis 2:2 says, “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” When God made a covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai, He commanded them to remember this day and keep it as the Sabbath. This was a kind of prophecy. Jesus came to the earth according to the will of the Father, and accomplished everything that the Father commanded. Then He died on the cross and His last words were, “It is finished.” (Jn 19:30) The next day, He Himself rested in the tomb from the work which He had done. It was the Sabbath day.

On the first day after the Sabbath, Jesus was resurrected with a spiritual body. He ascended into heaven, and from there He sent the Holy Spirit to believers to build His body, which is the church. The church is the body of Jesus. Unlike the dead bodies which are in the grave, it is a resurrected body! Each one of us is a member of the Lord’s body. We gather on the Lord’s Day to bring together the perfect body of the Lord.

Jesus said, “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” (Mk 2:28) Jesus is Lord of all the Holy Days, including the Sabbath, and the day after the Sabbath. It was Jesus who made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh. It was Jesus who commanded to do no work on that day. It is He who said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mk 2:27) Many people mistakenly think that they are making a sacrifice by keeping the Lord’s Day. We must understand that rather than sacrificing anything, by keeping the Lord’s Day, we are in fact edifying our own souls.

Hearts that yearn for the Lord’s Day

Jesus was resurrected on the first day after the Sabbath and the Holy Spirit also descended on that day. The very fact that the Holy Spirit has come into us is confirmation that Jesus is in us. Therefore, for whatever comes from the Holy Spirit, we must willingly receive. Some people receive the gift of tongues from the Holy Spirit, and then neglect to use the gift. This devastates their own souls. We must welcome everything the Holy Spirit grants us. The Spirit desires to give us all kinds of good gifts in addition to tongues. Those who desire these gifts look forward to each Lords Day.

Once a believer hears about the resurrection of Jesus, the Lord’s Day is the first experience he has of obeying the call of the Holy Spirit. However, the Bible warns that it is impossible for those, who have shared in the Holy Spirit and have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. (He 6:4-6) Indeed, for the believer, keeping the Lord’s Day is the first experience of sharing in the Holy Spirit. What do you think will happen to those who, knowing the significance of the Lord’s Day, treat it with disdain and neglect to observe it? When a person neglects to keep the Lord’s Day, they feel guilty at first, but as it becomes a habit it gets easier to justify their actions.

God commanded us to keep the Lord’s Day in order to give us life, not to take it away. Keeping the Lord’s Day is like giving us life. Therefore, we must always keep the Lord’s Day holy in every way. We must not reject the grace that God has granted, but rather share in the Holy Spirit which edifies our souls. Like a promised bride waiting for her groom, we ought to faithfully prepare for the Lord’s Day.

Paul emphasized that when we come together on the first day of the week, we should bring an offering that we have prepared in advance and present it cheerfully and willingly, not begrudgingly. (1 Cor 16:12, 2 Cor 9:5-7) He addressed this specifically because of what Jesus said, that “where a man’s treasure is, there his heart will be also.” (Mt 6:21) Preparing the Lord’s Day offerings in advance reflects a heart that yearns for grace, God’s word, and the gifts of the Spirit.

Do not neglect to come together, but rather encourage one another

Jesus’ death on the cross tore down the wall of partition between God and man. Inside the Old Testament temple were the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. The priests worshiped God daily in the holy place, but only the high priest could enter the most holy place, where the name of God was placed, and he only entered once a year. They were separated by a veil, and when Jesus died on the cross, in that moment, the veil was torn from top to bottom. (Mk 15:38) The tearing of the veil signifies the removal of the barrier that separated God and man, which is sin. Put another way, the justice that the law required, which was condemning man for his sin, was satisfied by Jesus’ death on the cross.

Hebrews 10:19-20 says, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh.” Whoever trusts in the blood of Jesus has hope. It is the hope of the resurrection and entering heaven to be where Jesus is. As the saints of God we must cling to this hope by coming together regularly, encouraging one another, and looking after each other. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” (He 10:23-25) If you long for the Lord’s return, do not forsake the assembly of the believers, but make every effort to gather with the saints.

Draw constant nourishment from the Vine

Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” (Jn 15:5) The branch must be connected to the vine in order to produce fruit. But even a branch that is connected to a vine which doesn’t draw the sap from the vine will wither and eventually break off from the tree. You want to be a branch that continuously takes in the nourishment from the vine. Keeping the Lord’s Day is critically important to your survival as a branch. Honoring the Lord’s Day is not about making a sacrifice, but about receiving all of the good gifts God gives you: the Holy Spirit, the love of God, and life.

Hebrews 10: 26-27 says, “If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no sacrifice for sins, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of fiery indignation that will consume the enemies of God.” Anyone who knows the truth and returns to their past life cannot be brought back to repentance. Their end will be the unquenchable lake of fire. We can avoid this by keeping the Lord’s Day which is fundamental for all believers. We must never become one of those who partakes of the Holy Spirit and then falls away. Anyone who has tasted the goodness of the Holy Spirit must be led by the Spirit for the rest of his life.

When I started my pastoral ministry, I could have registered with an established denomination and start my post at the church that they appointed me, but I did not do that. I instead chose to walk on the difficult path of starting my own church. I refused to embrace the contradictions that the established denomination tried to impose on me. The one who appoints the pastor is God, not man. To be more specific, it is the Holy Spirit who appoints the pastor according to the will of God. Therefore, the pastor must work according to the will of God. If he does not do so, he will be forsaken by God. On the other hand, if he works in the way God wants him to, God will establish him ever more firmly.

The pastor is not an employee employed by the church. But he is the servant of God who is to work to the death at the place that God sends him to. But before I started my ministry, this is what I witnessed: those who were called and chosen by God as his servants would ultimately corrupt themselves into the slaves of man in the establishment of a secularized church. I did not want to become a servant of man employed by another man, but I earnestly desired to become a servant of God employed only by God. For this reason, I chose to walk on the path of starting my own church to build up a church with a renewed established order. And I have been walking on this path my whole life. I sought only the inspiration of God. And through the revelation given by Him, and by His wisdom, knowledge and power, I have sought to do my work.

As a church grows and the area of work begins to spread, more pastors are required to undertake this work. Normally, you can invite a pastor from outside the church to fulfill this requirement, but, as the overseer, I only ordained and appointed pastors that I personally taught, and I intend to keep this tradition. The vine produces branches, and from those branches, even smaller branches come out and produce fruit. No one can deny that the fruits, which hang from the vine, all began from the cultivating work done by the farmer at the root.

Faith must come out solely from God. Faith cannot come out from man’s logic, his will, or his desires. ^“Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.’’ (John 1:12-13) Believers are not those who are born from man, but they are born of God. If this is so, should this not be the case even more so for the pastor?

Therefore, I did not invite a pastor from an outside church or an outside denomination nor appoint him as an assistant pastor. I only appointed those who I taught and inspired to obey what they have learned. And I set them up to do the work of our church. However, if they depart from the vine by themselves, they will naturally wither away and finally they will not be able to do anything. (John 15:5) In the same manner, I did not register with the established denominations, but started a new church in order not to repeat their errors. It is in this way that I started on this harsh road of starting a new church.

The overseer is not the servant of man, but the servant of God. The assistant overseer is not the servant of man, but the servant of God who is attached to the branch that hangs from the original vine. (John 15:4) One must distinguish what is the servant of God and what is the servant of man. To be a servant of God alone, I held on solely to the revelation of God, lived my life as one who established my own church.

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Outline translated by Sarah Lee
Letter translated by John Kim
Interpretations by Daniel Hong
Korean Summary by Ki-Taek Lee