We are not here simply to introduce you to a religion—we are here to help you meet God. No matter how faithfully you attend church, if you never truly meet God, there will come a day when you walk away. That cannot be called faith. What matters is not merely attending church. You need to have faith. And that is exactly what we want to help you find.

If you make up your mind—”I truly, desperately need to meet God”—and bring that before Him in prayer, God will hear you and He will meet you. So pray sincerely, from the heart: “Lord, I want to meet You! So many people say that You are alive—how can I leave this world without ever having met You myself? Please, help me to meet You while I am still here!” When we pray, we sometimes pray out loud, and sometimes very quietly. But what matters is not the volume. Even if you are still new to this and can only pray silently within your heart, if you call out to God sincerely, He will hear you.

Knowing that God is alive and dying with that knowledge is far better than dying without it. But think about how heartbreaking it would be to discover that God is alive—and then leave this world almost immediately after. Wouldn’t your priorities in life shift completely, between living as though God doesn’t exist and living with the knowledge that He does? A life lived without God and a life lived knowing God is there—these ought to look very different.

I know this better than anyone. I met God in my third year of university. Before that, I didn’t just disbelieve in God—I actually looked down on people who did. And that had everything to do with the books I started reading as my mind began to open up to the world. Of all things, in the eighth grade, I came across a book by a philosopher. It was called Philosophy Lectures for Middle and High School Students—have you heard of Kim Yong-ok, also known by his pen name Do-ol? At the time, he was a professor at Korea University, and he used to walk around with a shaved head in Buddhist robes. Reading that book, I thought, “I had no idea philosophy could be this fascinating.” I was completely captivated. After finishing everything he had written, I went out and bought his next book.

The title was What Is Woman? Strange title, isn’t it? And yet, interestingly, this question—”What is woman?”—turns out to be deeply significant not only in Eastern philosophy, but in matters of faith as well. The book, simply put, is a critique of Christianity—and there is one argument in it that has stayed with me to this day.

In Christianity, God is called “God the Father.” A father, right? And then there is the “Son.” In other words, the very language of Christianity is built around father and son—it is male-centered. The Father and the Son, up in the heavens above. And what is the opposite of heaven? The earth, of course. And the earth, he argued, is the world of mothers and daughters. So his critique goes like this: “The culture of this world is fundamentally a Christian culture. A heaven-centered culture. A son-centered culture. A male-centered culture. A patriarchal culture. A culture of the powerful and privileged!” And in response to that, he argued: “We must now develop the culture of the earth. The culture of daughters. The culture of women!”—and feminism fits right into that framework. And then he goes even further: “We must call upon the many gods of this earth and let them rise! We have cried out to the god of heaven for far too long—now we must summon the gods of the earth and breathe life back into them!”

And what exactly are these gods of the earth? They are demons. So his book is essentially arguing this: “Shamans performing their rituals—this is a good thing. Why should we believe in a shaman from the Middle East? We should believe in the shamans of Asia and serve the gods of this land!”

After finishing that book, what do you think I saw as the root of every problem in the world? Christianity. The book’s argument was this: “All the side effects of modernization, all its contradictions, the ever-widening gap between rich and poor—all of it is the result of heaven-centered culture, son-centered culture, progress-centered culture—in other words, Christian culture! If Christianity were simply to disappear, the world would finally be happy.” That is what the book was saying.

And I read this in middle school. You can imagine what happened to me. I went on to read his other books—What Should We Do with Eastern Studies?, and then Laozi. Right up until I met Jesus in university, I bought every new book he published the moment it came out. It was only after I met Jesus that I saw it clearly: “I have been so deeply shaped by this man. My mind is filled with anti-Christian thinking. This is a frightening thing.” And so, the moment I believed and was baptized, I gathered all those books together and donated them to my university library. There were about twenty-five of them.

That is what happens when you fill your mind with books like that—you get swept along by the culture of the world, and you end up not just disbelieving in Christianity, but hating it. It wasn’t that I simply didn’t believe in Jesus. I despised Him. And I’m sorry to say that because of me, some of my friends never came to believe either. In high school, having read all those books, I would share those ideas with the people around me.

There was another book as well—Escape from Freedom, written by a Western author. His argument goes something like this: human beings are given freedom, but that freedom is too much to bear—it fills us with anxiety. So we flee from it, seeking refuge in a kind of bondage. “That flight from freedom—that is what religion is. That is what Christianity is.” And so I thought: “People who believe in Jesus are cowards—people who cannot handle the freedom they have been given.”

I shared these ideas with my friends, and naturally, they were influenced. Two of my closest friends were both believers—one of them even had parents who were church elders. But as we spent time together, both of them stopped going to church. Years later, after I met Jesus, I tried to share the Gospel with them, but it was heartbreakingly difficult. One of them did eventually come to me after a long period of wandering, and through prayer, he even received the Holy Spirit. But his roots in the faith were never deep, and he kept drifting—until one day, all contact between us was lost. It is a painful thing to think about.

And so, as you can see, when we do not yet know God, we have heard so much from the world around us that it is easy to develop a negative view of faith. And that is even more true in this day and age. There was a time when saying “I am a Christian!” came naturally and easily. But today, standing among a group of people and declaring “I am a Christian!” takes real courage.

That said, we Christians must also acknowledge that we bear some responsibility for this. What kind of responsibility? It would be far better if we Christians examined ourselves first—but when we fail to do that, the world steps in and the criticism comes pouring in from the outside.

There is a film that captures quite well how the world looks at Christianity. It is called Miryang—Secret Sunshine. Have you seen it? Miryang is the name of a city in Korea. I have to be honest—I couldn’t watch it all the way through myself. As a Christian, it is uncomfortable to watch. But it is hard to say that everything in it is simply wrong.

The story goes something like this. A woman loses her son. He is murdered. The grief is unbearable—she feels as though her mind is on the verge of collapse. In the midst of that pain, she finds her way to a church. There, she finds comfort and comes to lean on God, and gradually a sense of peace enters her heart.

But then she hears a message taught at the church: “Forgive.” We pray this every day, don’t we? “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” In other words, if we want to stand before God and say, “Please forgive my sins,” we must first be willing to forgive those who have sinned against us. Moved deeply by this, she makes up her mind: “I will forgive that murderer.” She prays and prays, and then she goes to the prison. Her heart is pounding—but she is also strangely excited, even joyful. There is, after all, a joy that comes with forgiveness.

She goes in to meet him, ready to say, “I forgive you.” But when he walks out, his face is glowing. Bright and at peace. And then he opens his mouth and says, “God has forgiven me!” He makes his confession of faith. Not a single word of “I’m sorry” to this mother—not a trace of remorse toward her. Instead, he goes on and on: “I have received grace! I have been forgiven!”

Now put yourself in that mother’s position. She came there with a heart that was still crying out, “I cannot forgive this man”—and yet, leaning on God’s grace, she had pushed herself to make this journey. And instead of the man she expected to meet, she finds someone telling her he has already been forgiven. This man should have been standing before her saying, “I am so deeply sorry. I have committed a sin worthy of death—you would be within your rights to have me killed.” Even if God had forgiven him, that forgiveness was between him and God. Before this woman, he still owed a debt he could never repay—and that is something he should have expressed. But instead, he launched into his personal testimony. He said entirely the wrong thing for the moment.

The wound it left in her was devastating. She reached the point of saying, “I want nothing to do with faith—none of it!” Her thoughts spiraled: “I haven’t even forgiven him yet—and he’s already been forgiven? God forgave him? I never gave my forgiveness—so how could God just go ahead and forgive him on His own?” The pain drove her nearly out of her mind. Half out of her senses, she rushes out of the prison. She wanders. She stops going to church. And that is where the film ends.

That film left me with a great deal to think about. I imagine it stirred something in you as well. The truth is, we are failing to introduce God to the world as He truly is. How rich in compassion He is. How deeply He loves people and thinks about their hearts. How extraordinarily considerate He is. And yet, because we are careless and self-centered, we end up wounding people deeply—leaving them with the impression that God is like that. And in doing so, we drive them further away from Him. What a serious failure that is.

Our God is not like that. It is truly a human failing. It is our own fault. Our church, and each one of us, is capable of making that same mistake. But this is what I want to ask of you: even if you have been wounded by someone around you, please do not take that as the full picture of who God is. God is not like that.

We are all still learning who God is—we are sinners, being gradually transformed into the likeness of what God desires us to be. The people who come to church are not perfect people. If anything, the people who come to church are precisely those who have acknowledged that they are sinners. It is because they said, “I am a sinner!” that they came. Why? Because on our own strength and at our own level, we cannot meet God. We cannot even approach Him. If anything, we are people who deserve His judgment and condemnation. It is because we have confessed, “If there is a heaven and a hell, I am someone who should rightly go to hell!”—that we have come before God, desperately wanting to live.

So there are two things that are true of everyone who believes in Jesus. They have made this confession: “I deserve to die. I am utterly wretched.” And yet—wretched as they are, they do not want to die. They deserve punishment, but they do not want to be punished. They want to live. And really, who can blame a sinner for wanting to live? No matter how great a sinner someone is, they want to live. No matter what wrongs a person has committed, they want to live.

Take, for example, a woman who was caught in the very act of adultery. How horrifying. The regret must have been overwhelming. Did she sin because she wanted to? The pull of that sin was simply too powerful—she could not resist the temptation, and she fell. But afterwards, her heart would have been in agony. She would have been consumed with dread. And then—she was caught. In front of everyone. “If only I could take it back. I would do anything.”

Now, picture what happens next. Think about the Middle East. Even today, the punishment is stoning. Back then, there was no question. They would bury a person up to the waist and stone them to death.

And Korea was not so different, not even a hundred years ago. There are accounts written by Western missionaries who came to Korea in the late 1800s and recorded what they saw with their own eyes. Walking along the streets, they would come across a woman buried in the ground with only her head showing. And beside her—a saw. What was the saw for? People passing by would each take a turn with it. This happened in our own country. That is how women caught in adultery were treated.

And now this woman is facing exactly that kind of terror. The crowd is crying, “A woman like this deserves to die!”—and they are ready to carry out the sentence. The Jewish leaders bring her before Jesus. “Jesus, she should be put to death, shouldn’t she? We should stone her, right?”

Jesus sits down and begins to write something in the dirt. We are not told exactly what He wrote—but whatever it was, my guess is that it was something that stirred the conscience of everyone watching. You know the Ten Commandments, don’t you? “You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.” Someone might say, “Well, I haven’t murdered anyone. I haven’t committed adultery.” But then they get to the very last one—the Tenth Commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his house, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Even coveting is a sin. The Tenth Commandment catches everyone. So perhaps that is what Jesus was writing in the ground.

As the crowd stood there shuffling their feet, Jesus stood up and said, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” Yes, she ought to be stoned—that was the law. But only someone without sin could throw the first stone.

And what happened? One by one, they all walked away, until not a single person was left. Now—do you think it was the older ones who left first, or the younger ones? The Bible tells us it was the older ones who left first. Why? Because they knew. They had lived long enough to look back over their lives and understand just how great their own sin was. There are not many people who can honestly say, “I am a righteous person.” And in fact, that is a blessing. Someone who boldly declares, “I am righteous! I am better than others!”—without knowing any better—will still be caught by the Tenth Commandment.

And so the woman is left standing there alone. Jesus looks at her and says, “Woman, has no one condemned you?” “No one, Lord.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” He said this, and He sent her away. This is our Lord. This is our Master. This is our God. This is the One who showed us, in human flesh, exactly what the invisible God is like. And in order to forgive sinners like this—a price had to be paid before God. If we paid that price ourselves, we would simply be finished. So who paid it? Jesus Himself paid it on our behalf. This is the God we serve.

God has so much that is good—and He is not the kind of God who hoards it all for Himself. He is always looking to give it away. He shares. He keeps holding out what is His and saying, “Here, you try this. Here, enjoy this too.”

We can relate to that impulse, can’t we? You go somewhere and have an incredible meal. “Wow, this place is amazing—great service, and the prices are so reasonable!” Now, do you want to tell everyone about it? Honestly? I don’t. If too many people find out, it gets crowded. “I’ll just quietly keep coming here myself, while the prices are still good.” That is the nature of a sinner. So yes, we recommend it—but only to our closest friends.

That is our sinful nature. And yet God, in that same spirit of wanting to share what is good, goes infinitely further—because He wants to share it with sinners, with enemies, with people who flatly refuse to listen to Him. For that purpose, He even sent His own Son to die on the cross.

Can you imagine how the Son felt about that? He didn’t understand it either, and He brought that to God directly. “Father, do I really have to die on this cross? For people like that—such petty, ungrateful people—do I really have to go through this? And what will become of Your name? I have always said, ‘The Father is with me! The Father is the one doing this work’—but if I die on this cross, how they will mock You and despise You. So if there is any way this does not have to happen—please, take this cup from me.” He prayed this. Normally, if Jesus prayed once and heard nothing, He would have accepted it: “This must be God’s will.” But this time, He went back and prayed the very same prayer again, sweating profusely. Then He returned to where His disciples were, found them sleeping, urged them to stay awake and pray, and went away yet again—praying the same prayer a third time. And every single time, it was the same. Silence. No answer.

Even then, Jesus still could not understand why it had to be this way. And then came the cross. At the very end, He cried out with a loud voice as His last breath left Him: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!” What does that mean? “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” People assumed: “Jesus has been abandoned by God. The relationship between them has been severed.” But what was He really crying out? “God—why? Why go this far for people like that? Why would You forsake Your own beloved Son, the One in whom You are well pleased, just to love them?” There was no answer to be found. That cry from the cross was a confession that on this earth, no reason could be found.

Then there is only one answer. There is only one reason God did all of this. And that reason lies within God Himself. It is because God is love. There is no other reason. God Himself—He is love.

And so one of Jesus’ disciples, who lived to the age of ninety, made this confession at the end of his life. In the book he wrote, he said: “God is love.” That is why Christians, whenever we share our faith, say the words “God is love.” But we say it so casually that we often have no idea how much weight those words carry. For Jesus Himself, this was a love that made no sense—a love He could not comprehend.

And so God’s love for us does not originate in anything we have done. That is why I am filled with such joy. If God loved me because of something in me, then His love would come and go—present on my good days, absent on my bad ones. But the reason does not lie in me at all. I have no condition, no qualification to be loved. And yet, because He Himself is entirely love, He loves. So whether I am doing well or falling short, whether I am earning high marks before God or not—His love for me does not waver.

This is something all of us must come to know—what God has made known to us. Only then will we be filled with peace. Only then can we have a whole and unbroken relationship with Him. A love that is beyond human understanding. And that is simply because it is the very nature of God.

The passage we read today says this: “He called us by His own glory and virtue.” We believe in Jesus and come to church in order to receive life—and to receive everything that belongs to godliness. In other words, to receive everything God has to give. But how do we receive it? The Scripture says we must know Him—that God. What kind of God must we come to know? The One who called us by His glory and by His virtue.

He is a God overflowing with glory. But what does His glory have to do with us, if that is all there is? What does it matter to us that the chairman of Samsung has enormous wealth? The difference is this: this God, full of glory as He is, also has virtue. And what is virtue? It is the constant desire to give away what is good. That is exactly the God we serve—a God who is always looking to give the very best of what He has, even to sinners.

There are many gods in this world, and they are not all like this. A God like ours is one of a kind. Some gods say things like: “Hey, you need to get a divorce—right now! If you don’t, your business will fall apart. I’ll bless you, just hurry up and get a divorce!” That is the kind of thing they say.

But the God we serve—the Father of Jesus Christ—is a God who wants to give His glory not only to His Son, but even to those who hate Him. For that purpose, He has carried out these extraordinary and costly things, and even now He continues to pour out His grace. I bless you in the name of Jesus that you will not turn away from His love—but receive all of it.

And if you want to possess that glory which God gives, there is only one way. It is to be united with Jesus Christ. That is what faith is. To become one with Jesus Christ. And in that union, to receive everything that Jesus Christ receives. And this same God has an expectation: “I want you to partake in My nature as well!” So we have received God’s glory through faith. Then what does He want alongside that faith? God called us by His glory and by His virtue—and since we have received glory through faith, what must come next is virtue. Having believed, we are now called to add virtue to that faith.

So if something good has come to you through faith, you must begin to think about passing it on—to others, to people who are wandering just as you once were. When you do that, knowledge will follow. And after knowledge comes perseverance. Keep walking that path and you will bear good fruit. And a person like that—God will keep investing in and growing them.

This is why how you begin your life of faith matters so much. If right from the start you receive glory but never take hold of virtue, you will travel a good distance and then suddenly collapse. And there are those who end up losing even the glory they once had. Do not let that happen to you. If something good has come to you, look for ways to give it away. Shouldn’t the first people you share it with be your own family—the ones you love? If this truly is something good. And then you will find yourself wanting to share it with the hurting people you pass along the way—that is what it means to share your faith. And beyond that, you will want the peoples of distant nations you have never seen to receive this blessing too. That is what moves us toward missions.

When that kind of virtue is present in a person, God takes notice—and He keeps moving them forward, step by step, into the next thing He has for them. So first, come to know this God for who He truly is—and then draw close to Him. I bless you in the name of Jesus that you will.

“O God, who called us by Your glory and virtue—make me one who possesses Your glory through faith. And grant me Your virtue, so that the good things I have received may be shared with more and more people. Lead me in that way.” I encourage you to make that your resolve.

God our Father, we are here today with a desire to meet You. We ask that You move upon their hearts by Your Spirit, and help them to truly encounter the living God. May they come to possess Your glory through faith. And may they come to understand just how precious that glory is—so that they become people who pour out their hearts, their minds, and their very lives to share it with more and more people. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.