2016.12.18_Jesus Who Came to the Well
in 2016 Lord's Day, Ki Dong Kim[John 4:1-14]
God
is the self-existing One.
He
sent His Son to the world
so that the world
may receive grace (2 Co 13:13).
Though the world is His (Ps 100:3),
the world does not know Him (Jn 1:10).
He comes to the well and seeks water.
Water belongs to the Creator (Ge 1:7)
but mankind possesses it temporarily.
Jesus was in the world yet the world did not accept Him.
He seeks water (Jn 4:7)
but the people of the world
blame their circumstances and reject Him (Jn 4:11).
Everything we give to the Lord are like water –
our bodies, possessions and time, they are all like water.
If we had understood the Lord’s request,
we would have sought something greater from Him.
For the Lord’s flesh and blood
are promises of everlasting life (Jn 6:53-55),
do not shun the Lord who has come to us.
Just as the Holy Spirit has come into our hearts,
the Lord Jesus abides in us also (1 Jn 4:13).
○ The world is like Samaria
and the Church is like the well He seeks.
What is Jesus seeking from the Church?
○ The family of the saint is the well He seeks;
the Lord Jesus is seeking water.
O saint, do not hesitate.
○ Each person is the well that the Lord has come to.
Thus we must not disappoint our Lord Jesus.
He will give us the living water that leads us to eternal life.
※ The Lord is crying out, “I am thirsty”.
Do not close your ears.
The Lord will surely repay those who give Him water (Mt 25:35)
(John 4:1~14) Admit that Jesus is God God is the self-existing God. Before creating heaven, from eternity, He was with the Word, and through the Word, He created all things. The only way for mankind to know the invisible God is through the Word. The Word has been revealed to mankind through the creation and through the prophets. In the fullness of time, God sent the Word into the world. In other words, God revealed Himself to the world through His son who proceeded from His Bosom. Jesus of Nazareth, who was in the bosom of God the Father is Himself, God. However, there was no one who realized He was God. Even His relatives considered Him crazy because He called God His father, and even in Jerusalem, where there were a lot of spiritual people, there was no one who recognized Him. He was despised, beaten, suffered many things, and eventually died on the cross. It was treatment so shocking that we can scarcely imagine that God allowed Him to experience it. Christians believe that Jesus, who was despised and mistreated, is the Son of God who was born by the Holy Spirit, and that He is the One and Only God who was in the bosom of the Father. People in the world recognize Jesus as a good person, a philanthropist, or a great thinker. However, no matter how much anyone respects Jesus, he who does not believe that He is God cannot be saved. God’s only-begotten Son does not remain on earth. But God allowed believers to possess Jesus’ name through the Holy Spirit. We have drunk Jesus’ blood and eaten His flesh, and possessed His name by the Holy Spirit, thereby receiving the power to become the sons of God. As the children of God, we also are recipients of the inheritance that comes from God. Those who have the name of Jesus are heirs of heaven with Jesus. Unfortunately, many Christians wander in the same way as those who do not know God, even though God is in their hearts. Reality appears in those who acknowledge A poor street vendor bought a lottery ticket and won the jackpot. People around him knew it and celebrated his winning, but he himself did not believe his good fortune. However, the moment he admitted that he had won the lottery he was so shocked that he fainted. There was no change for him until he accepted it, but when he did, the fact brought a great shock to him. A few days after a woman came home from visiting her mother, she received a telegram. The message read ‘Your mother died’. However, she could not read the telegram because she was illiterate, so she did not consider it important and went out to work in her field. That evening when her husband came home, she asked him to read the telegram to her. Her husband was shocked and said, “Your mother died!” But she could not believe it because she had just met her mother a few days before. So she said, “stop joking around.” But her husband said, “I am not kidding! it says your mother died”The telegram was just another piece of paper when she did not believe it, but when she accepted the message, she was deeply shocked. It is because people do not recognize they are saved that they are not touched. If you do not acknowledge that you are an heir to the kingdom of heaven, you will not be inspired. Just as Esau considered his birthright insignificant, so too do many people treat their salvation as insignificant. Even if you read the Bible and pray diligently, if you do not believe God’s word, you will be thrown into the lake of fire like the chaff which is burned with unquenchable fire. No one can see God. That is why God sent the image of His being into the world in order to reveal Himself to mankind. Jesus is the image of God. In Jesus, the attributes, character, glory and power of God are revealed. However, if a person does not acknowledge that He is God, it does nothing for him, even if he were to see Jesus with his own eyes. Likewise, if you do not accept that you are the children of God, even though you may attend the church every Sunday, you are not the children of God. God’s word works only for those who accept it. The same is true of blessings. No matter how richly God promised to bless, those who will not receive it can never be blessed. Approve him as God who asks for water Jesus Came upon a well in Samaria. He asked a woman who was there drawing water to give him some water to drink. The woman was surprised and said, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How is it that you ask me for a drink?” At the time, the Jews treated Samaritans as heathens. But Jesus started a conversation with the Samaritan woman. To the surprised Samaritan woman Jesus said, “If you knew Him who asked you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” (John 4:5~10) Even now, the Lord asks people for a drink. What He asks us are not eternal things but temporal material things that He needs and uses. What we possess is never eternal. Our flesh and all our riches can only be used while we remain in the world. However, for the Lord who is thirsty, each of us is like the well. Just as the Lord came to the Samaritan well, He now comes to us. The Lord is asking us for a drink. Today, many people ignore the voice of the Lord, who is saying “Give me a drink!” The Lord who has entrusted people with duties and offices is saying, “perform your duties, faithfully execute your office, quench my thirst.” Yet, even though He urges, “Be faithful in your duty and satisfy my thirst!”, people pretend to not hear Him. That is because they do not know who He is and they do not realize how great a gift He can give in return. He was always finding the people who could give Him a drink for His thirst, and even when He was about to die on the cross, He said. “I thirst.” “Eat my flesh, and drink my blood! Possess my name!” This is the cry of the thirsty Lord. Will you not hear the Lord’s earnest cry? Will you ignore the appeal of the One who is asking for a drink of water? The Lord wants us to accept Him. Neither His relatives, nor neighbors, nor the people of Jerusalem who claimed to know God well – none of them accepted Him. Today, we know by the Holy Spirit that He is God. Then, we must be willing to give Him a drink of water. It is said that many are called but few are chosen. Who can be chosen? It is those who respond to the thirsty voice of the Lord. Only by the Holy Spirit can we listen and obey the Lord’s voice. Let us be filled with the Spirit and respond to the voice of the Lord who is asking for a drink.
Jesus Who Came to the Well
2016.12. 18 Sungrak Church Lord’s Day Sermon
By Senior Overseer Ki Dong Kim
Looking back upon my life at the age of eighty, I feel I have lived quite an arduous life. I was born when the Korean peninsula was governed by Japan and the Japanese government severely oppressed Korea. Not only was it difficult to make ends meet at that time, but the Japanese government even confiscated anything made of steel including pots, spoons, and even door handles. A Consequently I had to use clay bowls whose odor was so strong that I could not eat well because it got into the food. I was born into a very poor family, and my parents were not educated. I could not have eaten even a snack or an ice cream at all because we could not afford such a luxury. You could say I was born with a “clay spoon” in my mouth ( as opposed to one born with a “golden spoon” in his mouth.) Some might ask me how I can remember things that happened several decades ago, but all the pains of that time have been imprinted into my very bones and I cannot forget them. I existed at the lowest level of the social and economic class. I was a farmhand in my childhood, a boot boy, I sold razors and flint, I was a Korean popcorn vendor, and a day laborer during the time of the autumn harvest, and on and on I struggled with my life groveling among all kinds of the lowest positions. In my eyes, when the day came and I saw the sky, I felt as if it was only the clouds that guided my dream. I did not have any possessions or any place to go, so I struggled to the point of death in order to get anything from anywhere. When Korea became independent, the average national income per person was twenty dollars. A few years later, the Korean war broke out, and it is hard to describe the damages inflicted by the war (for three years and a month). When the military coup happened, the national income per person was eighty dollars. People today might complain about their difficulty in making ends meet even with the national income at thirty thousand dollars, but if they could compare their situations with those of the past that I mentioned above, they would realize how tough it was to live, even to survive at that time. Is there anything you cannot do in order to survive? Pride itself becomes a luxury. Most people today feel that their lives are filled with hardship but in fact, they are like a foolish person dying while waiting under a tree for a fruit to fall down while they do nothing. In my opinion, every one of those born in this age is abandoning their happiness even though they have gold or silver spoons in their mouths. When we come to know Jesus, then we will understand how we ought to endure: not lazy; unashamed; not lying or deceiving others. Then we will have hope to live in this world. I hope that you all can endure regardless of whether your job makes you rich or poor. Throughout my whole life, I have never concealed my early years, but rather I have tried to remain mindful of and to remember those days. I believe God has given me many second chances, and so I try not to miss any opportunity that God has given me to be faithful in every circumstance. Lying to and deceiving others is like cursing oneself, so you must be careful. [gmedia id = 75]
Outline translated by Sarah Lee Chief Editor: Helen Nam
Letter translated by Sung-In Hong
Interpretations by Sarah Lee
Korean Summary by Ki-Taek Lee
2016.12.11_Your Neighbor As Yourself
in 2016 Lord's Day, Ki Dong Kim[Matthew 22:34-40]
God
is our Father.
In the same way
that He loved His Son (Mt 3:17),
God loved the world, that is, the souls in the world (Jn 3:16).
Likewise, He gave the world a commandment,
upon which the Law hangs (Mt 22:40).
He commanded us, “Love your neighbor as yourself”.
To love as yourself is the same as how
parents love their children as their own selves;
it is all people’s nature (Mt 7:11).
Therefore if one does not love his neighbor as himself,
that is, as he loves his own child,
he breaks the commandment.
While the Law is fleshly ordinances (Mt 5:17),
the commandment is the foundation
and hence it is never abolished (Rev 12:17).
As Jesus gave up His own body,
the Holy Spirit abides deep within our souls (1 Jn 4:13)
and life is in our spirit.
A true faith life
must have life (Jn 14:6).
○ Love is not a saying of the lips;
it is maternal nature,
namely, God’s divine nature.
○ Where there is love, there are no lies.
There are no lies in maternal love.
It is the same as the love of God.
○ Those who received God’s grace, understand true love,
and hence they love.
Faith life involves love in action.
※ Let us love.
Let us love our neighbors as ourselves.
This will be our soul’s crown.
Enjoy Eternal Life by Keeping Jesus’ Commandment God is our Father. Although we previously did not know who God is, we now call God our Father because we have been born again as the children of God by believing in Jesus Christ. God loves us just as parents love their children. The expression ‘We became the children of God’ is the same as saying ‘We became those beloved by God’. Our faith lies in believing God’s love for us. It is just hypocrisy to profess faith without believing in God’s love for us. If we are the children of God, we must know God’s love. Mankind did not deserve God’s love. Man was created from dust of ground just like the beasts. Of course, mankind is above beasts in that mankind has intelligence, will, and emotion. But, even though mankind is superior to the other beings, without a soul, mankind cannot attain eternal attention from God. In the time of Noah, all men except Noah’s family were swept away and died in a great flood, God did not show sympathy toward them. For God, people without souls are no different than beasts. When mankind multiplied and prevailed on the earth, God chose one person and breathed into his nostrils, making him a living being (spiritual being). With this, mankind became a spiritual being who could have fellowship with God. Just as men sustain their flesh by eating food, so too do they sustain their soul with spiritual food. That is why God gave Adam (who became a spiritual being) the commandment, ‘Do not eat the fruit of knowledge of good and evil’. And God also said to him, ‘If you eat the fruit, you will surely die.’ (Genesis 2:17) That means that if he were to break the commandment, his soul would surely die. Adam, having been deceived by the devil, disobeyed the commandment of God and the first spiritual man, was faced with spiritual death. For the flesh death means passing away and returning to dust, for soul, which never dies, death means eternal punishment. You can imagine how terrible the eternal punishment is if you consider the scene in the Bible where the demons shudder and plead with Jesus. Since God did not want mankind to fall into such a situation, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to the world to save mankind. The Word was with God from eternity . That Word came to the earth in the flesh and He is Jesus Christ. Although Jesus experienced a man’s life on the earth, He was never a descendant of Adam. He is the Son of God, independent of Adam’s lineage. In other words, He is sinless, unlike the first Adam who was corrupted. God sent Jesus to the world, that is, He sent Himself. Jesus is the express image of God’s person. In other words, knowing Jesus means knowing God, and seeing Jesus means seeing God. All the words, commandments and power of God reside in Jesus. Sadly, just as the people of Israel could not recognize who Jesus really was even when he was before their eyes, people today tend to make their own image of God, thinking, ‘God must be like this’ all the while ignoring Jesus.. We must recognize that we cannot have eternal life if we do not know God. Not having eternal life means eternal death. Jesus is the faith that God sent to mankind. In order for us to be saved, and to enjoy eternal life, we must have the faith that God gives, not our own. Even if a baby is born healthy, it must be fed continuously in order to sustain life. Likewise, those who are saved by receiving Jesus must be fed with spiritual food. That is why Jesus commanded His disciples, ‘Eat my flesh, and drink my blood!’ What we need is not only to rely on the Lord’s word for a moment, but we must let Him abide in us. Let Us Love with a Mother’s Heart The commandment that God gave to our souls, who have been raised to life through Christ’s merit, to ‘love one another’; that is our spiritual food. (John 13:34) A commandment is not just a directive that we hear and ignore. Because Adam disobeyed God’s commandment, all mankind was condemned to eternal punishment. Yet today, even knowing this, people still ignore the Lord’s commandments. We must recognize that even if we keep the Ten commandments perfectly, all those efforts are meaningless if we do not keep the new commandments. Love is the character of God. If you have been forgiven, if you believe in God, if you have eaten His flesh and drank His blood, then the character of God must be manifest in you. God’s character appears only when we practice love. Practicing love does not simply mean being sympathetic to someone. The important element in practicing love is a ‘constant sacrifice’. A one-time act of kindness does not enable you to bear the fruit of perfect love. Jesus commanded us to ‘love your neighbor as yourself To love someone as you love your own body means loving them as your children. Loving someone as one’s own body can be seen in a mother’s love for her children. In other words, in order to practice perfect love, we must love maternally. Only when you evangelize others with the love a mother has for her child can you bear fruit. This is what I experienced when I was quite young. A pastor came to me and asked me to pray for his son. His son’s feet were putrefied. As I arrived at his house I could smell a terrible odor from the yard. Cow poop was applied to his feet as a folk remedy, which was so disgusting. When I was about to pray, laying my hand on his shoulder, at that moment I came to think, “What if I were his mother! What if I were his mother!” Then, I began to squeeze the pus from his feet with my hands. As the pus was coming out of the wound, I was thinking, “I’d better wash my hands right now. What if I get infected?” But to erase the thought, I prayed harder. At the very moment, I recalled a childhood memory of my grandmother sucking the pus out of the wound when I had a boil as a child. At that moment a voice echoed in my soul saying, “suck it out!”. So I knelt down and put my mouth on the wound and I started sucking the pus until red blood came out. His parents and neighbors who witnessed this were crying. And that very evening the young man repented of his stubbornness. He repented of the past when he had rejected faith in Christ because of the shame of his father’s poverty, and later he attended a theological seminary. I was leading a revival service in a church, praying and laying my hands on the sick, and a boy came to me wearing a hat. He asked me to lay my hands on his hat, but I managed to get the hat off of him. His appearance hidden behind the hat shocked me. He had no hair, and no skin at all on his eyes, nose, and lip. He was a leper. I immediately regretted making him take off the hat, but I overcame the thought and laid my hand on his head. I prayed hard in order to remove the thought of wanting to avoid the boy. And then I was about to lay my hand on another person, she was also leper. She was the mother of the boy I had just laid my hand on, and she had also been infected while caring for him. I repeated in my heart, saying, “What if I were her mother! What if I were her mother!” I prayed hard for her for some time, she who had become a leper, saying in my heart, I “If she were my child, even though she were a leper, would I not embrace her?’ About a month later during another revival in that area the same boy approached me, took off his hat, and said, “Teacher, blow a breath on my head.” I blew on his head, and then the boy said, “Oh, it is hot!.” All of the sensation which he had lost had been restored. Anyone who has been pierced by a thorn-bush, would try to break the branch. But if you were the mother of the thorns, you would not be able to do it. Without a mother’s heart you cannot love. Without a mother’s heart continuous sacrifice is impossible. The character of a mother’s love is the very nature that God has given us. No matter how many good deeds you do, you cannot save yourself. Only the righteousness of God can save your soul. The righteousness that God has given us is the commandment of Jesus Christ. When Adam broke the commandment, God paid the price of sin with the death of the Son. The commandment of Jesus is the last opportunity that God has given us. We must not miss the last chance. If you believe in Jesus, you must keep His commandments. You must have the love of a mother. When you love with a mother’s heart, your neighbor will be changed, and your church will revive. Let us have the mother’s love that God has given us. Let us love our neighbors as our own body.
Autumn. With the coming of this season, I come to shed my tears. In the fields, the brown rice swayed in the wind, and under the clear autumn sky, the mountains and streams were turning red, as if in joyful singing. However, I was crying again and again in my desperation where I could scarcely have any thought about the future, only thoughts about parting from the world. My mother and two of my brothers could not even get up, because they were starving. During that time, I could count on being treated to a meal by some of my friends, making my hunger bearable. I visited them in order to be treated to a meal because I wanted to have one last encounter and say my farewell. Since I had made up my mind to die, my mind was rather relaxed, and I was not concerned about the world. How very sorrowful the world is! I had made up my mind to abandon the world and leave my mother and younger brothers in this world full of sorrows. Stepping out of my room, and a while on the road, I suddenly heard a ringing sound of a church bell ringing in my ears. That used to an almost daily occurrence, but that day the sound of the bell was like the sound of thunder in my ears. There was a Presbyterian church about one hundred meters from my house where one could hear the church bells ringing and also a Catholic church about two hundreds meters away whose bell could also be heard. But, it was the ringing bell of a Methodist church, seven or eight meters away, that roared in my ears, and it was strangely louder that the others. I looked toward it and murmured, ‘Does God really exist? If He does, I want to ask Him who I am .’ Still murmuring, I arrived at the Methodist church. That church was where one of my friends attended, and since he had witnessed to me several times before, I was somewhat comfortable as if I myself used to attend that church. Around sixty years of my Christian life have passed since that time. What have I done so far before the Lord who called me ? I am immensely grateful to God for choosing me as His servant. Like the blowing of a violent wind the time and the tide flicker before my eyes. There have not been any moments when I was not tense and passionate. Whether people welcomed me or not, I tried my best, longing to deliver God’s word, to the point of death. I am looking forward to the time when the Lord calls my soul, laying down all I have done so far. I want all of my church members, my beloved members, brothers and sisters whom I have raised with my tears to read my autobiography, 『like the blowing of a violent wind』. My son, and my grandchildren too. I do love all of you not just in words but really and truly, and I strongly desire that all of you read it. Please. [gmedia id = 75]
Outline translated by Sarah Lee Chief Editor: Helen Nam
Letter translated by Sung-In Hong
Interpretations by Sarah Lee
Korean Summary by Ki-Taek Lee