We are believers of Jesus. The reason you came to church is to believe in Jesus. To believe in Jesus, if I put it differently, means to go into Him, and for Jesus to come inside us. Although I described our faith in just two simple sentences, in fact, this is the essence of our faith. Our faith is about going inside Jesus.

What happens when we enter into Jesus? Before we look into that, we have to know that God loves Jesus very much. The Creator of heaven and earth dearly loves Jesus so much that He created all things for Him and even made Heaven as His inheritance. If we go into Jesus, we will get to enjoy all of that in Jesus. We don’t deserve any of it. We are not the ones to enjoy it. Yet if we are in Jesus, we automatically receive the very love with which God loves His Son. It is like a woman getting married into a rich family. The woman had nothing to do with that family before. Let’s say, the woman was an orphan, and she married a man from a rich family. Prior to getting married, she probably had never imagined having the wealth and luxury of the rich family. But because she becomes one with her husband, she gets to enjoy everything her husband has.

In the same way, we enter into Jesus. By what process do we enter Him? Those who believe and are baptized enter into Jesus. Therefore, if you have been baptized, you are in Jesus, which means you are receiving the love of God. Once this is achieved, the second step follow: Jesus comes into you. What happens then? If Jesus is in us, God is in us. Therefore, when creation perceives us, they perceive us as God. As a result, remarkable things happen.

For a person who live a sound faith life, casting out demons in the name of Jesus is natural. However, many Christians regard faith life as a religious life. Such people think of casting out demons as merely an old story, a parable, or a myth. Yet, it is real. For us, Sungrak Church members, we often experience demons trembling and fleeing before us, as well as people being healed of sickness.

So then, why are demons afraid of us? It’s because Jesus abides in us. Though He cannot be seen in the eyes of man, Jesus abides within us. Yet, how can Jesus come inside us if He was resurrected in His body? He doesn’t abide in us in that bodily form. He is in heaven in bodily form. And that is where we will later go. It is His word that abides within us. Jesus and His word are inseparable. Thus, if anyone receives that word, he will have the same authority as God. That is why Jesus promised, saying, “If My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish! It will be done for you!” Thus, our prayers being granted and fulfilled is something God only can do. “You can receive what you want!”—this is only possible with God. We simply get to enjoy the fruits of what only God can do.

In this way, to believe in Jesus means that we abide in Him, and He abides in us. It is incredible. Those who are new to the church may not experience this and may seem unsure of this. But this is the reality.

You have to know Jesus well in order to lead a faith life that is in line with God and not contrary to Him. Because I just said that we have divine authority, some of you might think, “Well, then I can ask for anything I want! Since I need money, I’ll ask God to send money from heaven!” This is the reason why we have to know Jesus really well. Jesus didn’t come to this earth to help us make money. Moreover, He Himself didn’t live a life that promoted such activities. First, we have to know what Jesus did and what He said. I know you might be thinking, “In that case, I don’t want it. I’d rather make money! I don’t want anything other than money!” But don’t jump to conclusions yet—What He offers is far better than money.

In the passage of the Scripture, we read today, we can see the frustration of Jesus. The area where Jesus lived was the Palestinian region. Today, there is a lot of conflict in that region. It is located east of the Mediterranean and north of the Dead Sea. The Jordan River flows from north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains into the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee on the north is also called the Sea of Tiberias because it is a large lake. The other side of the lake can’t be seen. Only the horizon is visible. Though it is a lake, it’s also called a sea due to its big size.

Jesus grew up in a small town called Nazareth, located the west of the Sea of Galilee. He lived there as a Nazarene and often went to that lake. The place where He first preached was Capernaum, a town by that lake. One day, Jesus crossed the lake by boat, and people gathered before Him because Jesus often healed the sick.

He was also in Jerusalem where He healed a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. At that time, Jesus asked the man, “Do you want to get well?” And the man answered, “I do! But there is no one who can help me.” Then Jesus commanded him, “Get up, take your mat and walk!” If the man responded, “What are you saying? I am crippled,” he would not have been healed. However, the man did get up at the words of Jesus. He took his mat and walked home. He was healed. Jesus didn’t have to pray for his healing—He said, “Take up your mat and walk!” and the man was made well. You might ask, “How can that be possible?” But it is. Such things can be experienced by anyone who believes in Jesus. I, too, have experienced them several times.

For a time, I was in China as a missionary. However, I wasn’t trained as a missionary, nor did I study at a theological college. In the fifth year of having faith in Jesus, I decided to go to China because someone told me they needed workers in China. I went to China with my wife. While I was over there, I needed to first learn the language. Before I started my studies, I followed a local missionary to Shandong Province. I was planning to watch that missionary preach in that province, but he turned towards me suddenly and said, “Brother, you preach the word please!” I was surprised because I had never preached before. Yet, because I was taught at Sungrak Church and had my personal experiences too, I started preaching about Jesus whom I had experienced.

I preached, “God is love!” After preaching for some time, I noticed a paralyzed person lying there. And I remembered what Jesus did. So I walked up to that person. He was an elderly man lying on a mat. He had been bedridden for a long time I was told. He was brought there on that mat. I took his hand and then commanded, “Get up and sit!” He started clenching. I grabbed his hand and pulled him, and he got up and sat down. At that time, I didn’t know how much that meant because it was my first time seeing him. But when the man sat up, all the people in his town stood up and started praising. It was supposed to be impossible for that man to sit up like that. But I didn’t know that. I said to him, “In Jesus’ name I command, get up!” Immediately the man got up on his two feet. I held his hand. It was impossible for him to get up even if someone held his hand. Yet he got up. He was in tears and everyone was cheering. Then I told him, “In Jesus’ name I command, walk!” And he began walking. It was a remarkable sight. The people there all witnessed God’s living existence and paid attention to everything I said from then on. There were also people that came from the area who didn’t believe in Jesus. But after that happened, they acknowledged that God is truly living and accepted Jesus on the spot.

Another experience I had was when my son was five years old. I was taking him to preschool one morning when, suddenly, his legs gave way. He collapsed on the street. “What are you doing? Get up!” I told him. But he said he couldn’t get up. His legs suddenly lost all strength. “Get up!” I repeated. Yet he couldn’t stand up. At that moment, my heart sank. Because I remembered a similar case I had encountered while preaching in China when I used to preach there. He walked as a young boy, but around the age of five, he became crippled and unable to walk. I asked the man, “How did that happen? Did you have an injury?” He answered, “No I was just walking when suddenly my legs gave way, and I collapsed on the ground. Since that day, I haven’t been able to walk.” He had been crippled for 20 years. This came to my mind when I saw my son. Whatever I did, he wasn’t able to stand. I started panicking and tried to catch a taxi to take him to the hospital. I was worried. But then I thought, “What am I doing right now? I have God’s word in me. Jesus abides in me!” I turned to my son, whose name is Sunghyun, and said to him, “Sunghyun, I command you in Jesus’ name. Get up!!!” Immediately my son stood up. “Run!” I said, and he started running. That was it. It’s so simple. If I didn’t have Jesus in me, who knows what could’ve happened to my son?

Because these things happen so often, it is easy to get stuck in a rut and simply get used to it, “Well, that’s just how it is.” Nevertheless, we shouldn’t become ungrateful, right? Until God’s help arrives, we anxiously fret in a crisis. Yet if, once we are out of trouble, we think lightly of God’s help and think, “It was probably time that the sickness was healed. It was going to get better anyway!” then it will be hard to receive God’s help next time. Therefore, we ought to give thanks when God helps us. In such situations, we should not only thank God with our lips but give thank offering. Why? Because for most people, money is their most prized possession. If I had needed to take my son to the hospital, it could’ve cost me tens of thousands of dollars. But aren’t people stingy about giving offerings of even a few ten or a hundred dollars? In doing so, they could end up throwing tens of thousands of dollars away. For this reason, we truly need to have a clear conscience before God as we serve Him. We ought to be humble and grateful.

The works that Jesus did in Jerusalem were not meant for Him alone. He said to us, “You will have this power also. Whoever believes in Me will do even greater things than what I have done!” Thus, Christians are powerful people.

Because Jesus performed these signs, many people heard about it and gathered to Him in the mountainside. About 5000 people came to Him. As it was already past lunch time and people were hungry, Jesus asked one of His disciples, “Where can we buy bread to feed all of these people? For they have no food.” If this happened in our time, Jesus would’ve told them to buy some gimbap. However, in those days, it was bread. Jesus asked, “Where can we buy enough bread to feed these people?” And the disciples answered, “Even if we spent 200 denarii on bread, it wouldn’t be enough to feed all these people!” There were roughly 5000 people and if each of them was given $1 bread, it would be $5000. They didn’t have money like that. Hence, the disciples answered, “Even with $2000, it still wouldn’t be enough!”

While they were at a loss for what to do, another disciple came to Jesus and said, “Lord, here are five loaves of bread and two fish. But how far will they go among so many?” Jesus took them and prayed. He prayed to God and handed them out. He handed out the bread and fish to the people sitting there. And then, something incredible happened. Even though He handed out the food to the people, the food didn’t run out. “How is this possible?” He kept giving out food to the people. He probably handed it out of a basket. And food continued to come out of the basket. “If there were only five loaves of bread, they should’ve run out by now. How come the bread pieces keep coming?” All five thousand people there were able to eat until they were full. This is hard to comprehend, isn’t it?

In this way, as we believe in Jesus, we continually encounter inexplainable things time and time again. You may not have experienced them yet, but they occur very frequently. Once the bread was handed out, everyone ate and was full. After that, Jesus didn’t tell them to take the leftovers home to eat later, but He said, “Gather the leftovers!” He had a reason for saying that. Why did He tell them to gather up all the leftovers? Jesus did not come to the earth to make bread for the people and satisfy their hunger. But at that moment, Jesus saw that the people were starving and felt sorry for them, so He gave them bread just that once. Also, the Jewish nation was under Roman oppression at that time, much like Korea was under Japanese colonial rule. Therefore, they didn’t have much to eat and lived like slaves under the Roman suppression. And so seeing their pitiful condition, Jesus handed out bread.

When they collected the leftovers, they filled twelve baskets. Isn’t it odd? Initially, there were only five loaves of bread, but upon gathering the leftovers, there were twelve full baskets. Personally, I haven’t experienced something like this. However, I have read in a book the testimonies of missionaries who did experience similar miracles in South America. It is not that these things don’t occur anymore. Anyway, twelve basketfuls of leftovers were gathered.

At that moment, the Jews thought to themselves, “He must be our Savior—the King whom God promised to send us!” And they intended to make Jesus king by force. “If He becomes our king, He can overthrow the Romans, and getting our liberty back will only be a matter of time!” The Jews had long been waiting for a king who would liberate them. They waited for someone who could free them from the Romans. And they believed Jesus was that king.

Let’s think about that. Despite the Romans’ powerful weapons and military force, since Jesus was able to walk on water, heal the sick, and even provide food, if Jesus became their leader, they would have plenty of military provisions. How important is food supply during a war? Jesus was more than able to supply them with food. Thus, they thought, “If He becomes our king, our liberty is only a matter of time!”

However, Jesus thought differently. When they tried to make Him their king, Jesus went up the mountain by Himself because they were on the mountain side. He went away by Himself so that the people couldn’t find Him, and He didn’t come down the mountain even as the sun began to set. So all the people were scattered and the disciples were wondering when the Lord would return. “When is He coming back? It’s getting too late. We will have to go ourselves!” So they went by the lake, got on a boat, and crossed to the other side.

That lake was very large, and it soon became night while they were still crossing the lake. Now, in the middle of night, they found themselves in the middle of the sea. They were pulling on the oars when a storm arose. A violent wind blew, and a storm was upon them. They would’ve been terrified since they met a storm in the sea at night. At that moment, the disciples noticed someone. They noticed a dark figure of somebody walking on the water. When they looked closer, they saw that it was a man. You can imagine how startled they must have been. And then, they realized—it was Jesus. “How can He be walking on water?” He was no ordinary man. He wasn’t an ordinary man like us but someone powerful. He was different from everyone else. He was fully a man, but there was something beyond about Him. The disciples were shocked. Then, Jesus got into the boat with them, and soon after, they were on the other side of the lake.

After they arrived, He first went to a place called Capernaum. They would’ve arrived in the night. And then morning came. When it was morning, the people who ate the bread on the other side of the lake were still waiting for Jesus to come down from the mountain. But He never appeared. And they also noticed that a boat had left. The disciples’ boat was gone. So they thought Jesus must still be there because He wouldn’t have gone with the disciples the night before. “That’s strange!” They thought. Then they realized, “Oh, He is not here anymore! He must have left. But when?” And they also got into a boat to go to the disciples.

When they got there, they found Jesus. So the people rushed to Him and asked, “Lord, when did You get here? We were looking for You. We wanted to find You Lord!” Jesus answered them, “You were looking for Me not because You saw the sign”. (Signs refer to the evidence of God at work—His traces left behind). “It is not because You saw the signs—the evidence of God at work— but because you ate the bread and had your fill!” Why were the people looking for Him? Because they wanted food. And also they wanted to make Him their king to achieve their independence. In other words, they wanted Jesus for the sake of their earthly profits.

To such people Jesus said, “Do not work for food that perishes but for food that endures to eternal life!” These words are for us as well. The point of believing in Jesus is not for the sake of perishable food, but for the imperishable food, which endures to everlasting life. Jesus is telling us to believe in Him for the food that will lead us to everlasting life. Foods on earth only satisfy us at the time we eat them. Even though I ate breakfast this morning, I got hungry by lunch time. We have to keep consuming food to preserve ourselves. If we don’t eat for 10 days, we don’t know what could happen to us. However, the food that Jesus came to give us is not of that kind. He came to give us the food that endures to eternal life.

When Jesus said, “Work for food that endures to eternal life,” the people asked, “What is the food that endures to eternal life?” Jesus told them that the food that endures to eternal life is to believe in Him, for God sent Him. To believe in Jesus is that food. Then the people asked again, “We need some kind of evidence or sign to believe in You. Show us a sign that we might believe. In the past, Moses gave the people bread from heaven to eat. What can You give us?” They kept requesting something from Him—something that would profit them on earth.

So Jesus said to them, “The bread from heaven that Scripture speaks of is not the manna Moses gave, but Me. I am the bread of life that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of Me will never go hungry! Whoever drinks of Me will never thirst! Eat of Me! Drink of Me! You seek the bread of this earth, but you must eat the bread of life—the bread that gives you eternal life. That bread is My flesh! And drink My blood! This is the blood of life—the drink that gives you everlasting life! This you must drink!” But the people couldn’t understand His words and asked, “How can we eat this man’s flesh and drink His blood?” And they left Him.

However, what Jesus truly meant was that the purpose of believing in Jesus is not about becoming rich in this world, having food, achieving independence for the nation, or enriching the nation. Yes, those are important matters. However, there is a matter far more important than them. Jesus wanted to fulfil our God’s will. God’s will is this: whoever comes to Jesus may feed on the food that leads to eternal life, in order that they will be raised on the last day to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is God’s will— the resurrection, that is, eternal life.

Jesus seeks to give us resurrection. Some of you who are advanced in years may think, “What’s the point of believing in Jesus at this age?” But this is a misunderstanding. You have to believe in Jesus all the more. Do you know why? Departing from this life is not the end. There will be resurrection. On the last day, Jesus desires to resurrect everyone without losing even one. And He wants to lead them to the Kingdom of God, namely heaven. Right now, Jesus is already there. This may be hard for you to believe.

However, Jesus gave us a sign. He promised, “I will go to the Father first. When I go, I will send you the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is to your advantage that I go. Unless I go, I cannot send the Holy Spirit. If I go, I will send the Holy Spirit to you.” He said that when the Holy Spirit comes into us, He will seal and guarantee the faith within us. If we have received Jesus—if we have eaten and drunk of Him—the Holy Spirit will guarantee the eternal life that we possess. By receiving the Holy Spirit, believers in Jesus exercise the same authority as God’s authority and even experience those remarkable things on earth, just as I shared to you.

God is living. And the Kingdom of Heaven, which He has prepared for His Son, still exists. Jesus is already there—He was resurrected and ascended to Heaven. He went in bodily form. One day, we will die on this earth. But we have a spirit. The spirit will later be resurrected into a body and enter heaven. When you first start coming to church, you may experience healing, answered prayers, and even success in your lives. However, that which Jesus truly wants to give us is not merely those earthly things. He wants to give us eternal life. He wants to resurrect us so that we can live in heaven for eternity. In Jesus’ name, I bless you all to understand the will of Jesus and receive that which He is giving you. I’ll pray.

Father God, we thank You that through Your Son, Jesus Christ, we have come to know You and have been given the privilege to share in the glory of heaven, which was prepared for Your Son alone. You have promised that You will resurrect us on the last day to lead us into heaven. Help everyone who are here to believe this and to receive the Lord Jesus as their Master so that they may enter heaven on that day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.