Jesus said, “Those to whom the word of God came were called gods.” When you come to church, you may receive love, care from others, and various kinds of help. But what is the most essential? It is receiving the word of God. If you do not receive it, everything else is nothing but a shell. The core is receiving God’s word. Then what happens to the person who receives God’s word? God Himself called such a person “a god.” He said, “You are gods!” And Jesus pointed to that very statement and affirmed, “Yes, this is true.”

Now, what does this word “God” actually mean? We Christians call Him “God.” But this word is no different from the word “god,” which is used for other spiritual beings in the world. In other words, the words “god” and “God” originally have no real difference. So if we restate what we saw earlier, it can be expressed as, “Those who received the word of God are gods!” The passage we just read in the New Testament was written in Greek, and in Greek it is the same. Those who receive the word of God become gods. Do not focus on whether the first letter of God is uppercase or lowercase—just feel the weight of what this is saying. I am telling you this so that you may grasp how shocking this statement truly is. Those who receive the word of “God” become “god.” Through my exhortation today, you are now receiving the word of God, and the purpose is that you also become like God. So when we use the word “god,” as I just explained, we can say, “Those who received the word of God are gods.” And if we choose to use the English word “God,” we could even say, “Those who receive the word of God become Gods.” But of course, saying “You are Gods!” outright feels burdensome, doesn’t it? That is why Scripture says, “Those to whom the word of God came were called gods.”

So when we come to church and receive God’s word, we rise to a level that is like God’s. This is amazing. When people say, “Believe in Jesus and be blessed,” they often think of blessing as doing well in business and staying healthy. But that is not what this means. It means, “Possess the joy of God.” And God’s joy belongs to God Himself. So who can possess what belongs to God? Only those who have risen to a level that is like God’s can possess what He possesses. Let me give you an example. If a little child says, “Mom, please give me some money!” and the mother asks, “How much?” and the child answers, “Twenty thousand dollars!”, would she give it? Of course not. But if her grown son says, “Mother, I urgently need money. I need it for my business. Could you lend me twenty thousand dollars?”, then even if she does not want to, if she has the money, most parents would eventually lend it. Why? Because he can handle it. You would never give that kind of money to a fifth grader who cannot handle it. Being able to give means trusting them and recognizing their level. In the same way, whose word is God’s word originally? It is God’s. Only God can bear it, because it belongs to Him. And the person who receives that word rises to a level that is like God’s. That is exactly what God desires for you: “Become like Me!”

If some miserable person came and said to you, “Become like me!”, would you feel good? Of course not. Now, let me talk about casting out demons. When believers cast out demons, the demons often say certain things. When I ask, “Demon, why did you enter?”, they usually answer, “I came to kill him!” Most of them say that. But when I command, “In the name of Jesus, come out!”, they leave crying, and the sick are healed. But listen carefully to what the demons say. When they say, “I came to kill you!”, what does that really mean? Scripture calls demons “the dead,” so the dead are basically saying, “I came in to make you become like me!” When I cast out demons, there were several demons saying, “I committed suicide!” Some even said, “Ah, I used to believe in Jesus too!” So I asked, “If you believed in Jesus, how did you become a demon?”, and they answered, “I killed myself!” This means that even if someone believed in Jesus, if they commit suicide, they can become a demon. And when I asked the demon who said, “I killed myself!”, “Why did you enter here?”, what do you think it answered? It said, “To make this person kill himself too!”

So look at this. “Become like me!” This is the desire of people, and it is also the desire of demons. But God has that kind of desire as well. His heart says, “I want you to become like Me!” That is why demons also say, “I want you to become like me!” When a demon that died of cancer enters a person, what do you think it wants to do? It wants to say, “I want this person to die of cancer!” That means it wants that person to become like itself. Last week, a demon of poverty also manifested and was cast out. It said, “I was poor!”, “I never earned any money!”, “I lived despised and died despised!” So I asked, “What were you trying to do to this person?”, and it said, “I was trying to make him poor!”, “And what were you going to do after making him poor?” It finally answered, “I was going to make him so poor that he would eventually kill himself!” All of them try to make people become just like themselves.

However, we must be like God. Why? Who is God? Is He someone who committed suicide? Does He have cancer? Is He a suffering being? No, He is not. God is joyful. God is pleased. God is satisfied in Himself. God is eternally joyful. Even when the devil killed Jesus, the Son of God, God is joyful. Why? Because He would raise Him again, and through that He would judge the devil. So Jesus shed His blood and died on the cross. Jesus, our Lord, shed His blood and was crucified, and yet God is still joyful. Why? Because through that blood, He can save more people—He can save humanity. Therefore, we are saved today.

So even though Jesus shed His blood and died—and on one hand we may feel heavy because He died for our sins—we are people who rejoice because He shed His blood and died. It is strange, isn’t it? “Wow, this is wonderful! Jesus died!” How can we be joyful because someone died? If Jesus had not shed His blood and died, we would go to hell. But He paid the full price for our sins. Jesus was also slapped and suffered many injustices. He took all of these things on Himself for us. I am joyful because Jesus suffered injustice. Why? Because He becomes great comfort to people like us who suffer injustice, and He becomes the power we need to endure it. And God vindicated all of it. He repaid all that injustice. So even though Jesus was insulted, beaten, and eventually killed, afterward God raised Him up, brought Him up to heaven, and now He lives there. This is the Lord we believe in—the risen One. And God rejoices greatly because of Him. So God calls us and says, “I have paid the price of your sins! My Son accomplished this work! So come, and now have fellowship with Us! I want you to be joy like Me! I want you to be free like Me! I want you to be filled with joy like Me! And I want that joy to be eternal!” This is God’s invitation. I bless all of you in the name of Jesus to respond to God’s call. I am truly grateful that you came here today to receive God’s word. I bless you in Jesus’ name that you will clearly receive and experience God’s word—not anything else—and that you will become like God. Yes, you will become like God.

Among the disciples of Jesus, there was John. He lived until the age of ninety. While the other disciples died earlier, he lived a long life, and in his later years he wrote letters. He wrote to certain people, and at the beginning of his letter he referred to Jesus Christ as “the Word who was from the beginning.” He said, “That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have touched with our hands, which we have heard with our ears!” The Word who existed from the beginning, the Word who was with God, was not originally something visible. But they saw Him with their eyes and touched Him with their hands. Why? Because that Word became flesh and came to us. That One is Jesus. And so the disciples of Jesus walked with Jesus, the Word, holding His hand, hearing His word directly, seeing Him heal the sick, and witnessing Him raise the dead. That is why they said they had become witnesses.

But what does he say next? He says, “There is a reason I am telling you all this! And the reason is this: I want to bring you into our fellowship!” In the same way, I am inviting you into that fellowship. Just like John, I am now calling you into the fellowship that I myself am enjoying. And what kind of fellowship is this? It is the fellowship with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. The fellowship we have been invited into was originally the fellowship between the Father and the Son. It was the fellowship between God the Father and His Son. That fellowship did not originally include human beings. It was the eternal fellowship between the everlasting God and His Son Jesus Christ. And what is the core of that fellowship? It is that God the Father loves His Son with the greatest love, and the Son exalts the Father and obeys Him even unto death. So when the Father said, “For the sake of humanity, shed your blood and die,” the Son obeyed, even though He did not want to. And God exalted Him and gave Him the highest honor. The Father and the Son say to each other, “No, the Father must be exalted!”, “No, I will exalt you!”, “No, I cannot accept that!”, “No, I will exalt you!”—this is the beautiful relationship in which the Son exalts the Father and the Father exalts the Son.

But what would the opposite kind of relationship look like? Suppose God and the Son said to each other, “Hey, go and shed Your blood on that cross and die!”, and the Son replied, “Father, is this really what You are asking? I already came to this earth for You and to fulfill Your will, and now You are telling Me to shed My blood and die?”, and the Father said, “If I don’t raise You again, You have nothing left! Because You became a man, once You die You have no way to return unless I raise You. You must obey My word!”, and the Son said, “Are You challenging Me right now?”—what would happen then? The human beings caught between the two would be terrified, standing there trembling and thinking, “What should we do?”, and if Jesus finally said, “I won’t do it!”, and refused to take up the cross, then humanity simply would not be able to receive salvation.

But thankfully, the relationship between God the Father and the Son—their fellowship—is indescribably beautiful. It is a fellowship that reveals God’s very nature, as They exalt each other and humble Themselves toward each other. God the Father, who governs all things and is full of glory, desires to give all of that glory to His Son. This fellowship itself is astonishing, yet what is even more amazing is that They invite us into that very fellowship. Why do we keep hearing the gospel again and again? Because God is saying, “I want you to enter this fellowship as well!” This is exactly it: we are being invited into the fellowship between the Father and the Son. So while the Father and the Son are in fellowship, we have now been brought into it—Father, Son, and me; Father, Son, and us. When I say, “The Father and the Son!”, you respond, “and us!”

“The Father and the Son—”

“and us!”

How amazing is this fellowship? We enter into the very relationship and glory shared between the Father and the Son, and we enjoy it together with Them. It is like this: imagine a king and his beloved queen seated at a grand table, dining together. Their servant comes in to serve the food, and the king says, “Come here! You also come and eat with us!” The servant replies, “Your Majesty, what are you saying?” But the king says, “You have worked hard—come, sit here and eat with us. Forget your duties for a moment, enjoy this delicious meal, and rest.” What an unbelievable scene! Even being invited to come for a moment would be overwhelming. Yet God is saying to us, “Come into the fellowship that I share with My Son, and remain there forever!” That is why Jesus prayed this way. He said, “that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” And He prayed to the Father, “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” He continued, “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through Your word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us.” In other words, Jesus prayed that the love the Father has for the Son would also be in us, and that we would become one with the Father and the Son in that same fellowship.

It is enough to make us faint. Why would God treat us with such honor? And yet people refuse it, thinking it will cause them loss. They say, “Ah, I just want to live the way I am. I like the world as it is. If I believe in Jesus, I won’t be able to drink or smoke anymore.” So they reject this grace. “If I believe in Jesus, I have to go to church every Lord’s Day. I don’t want that,” and they turn away from this astonishing grace. Why do they think this way? Because they do not know what they are being invited into. If they truly understood, who would think like that? Suppose someone received an invitation from the presidential palace: “We invite you as an honored guest.” Who would say, “Ah, I’m busy! I planned to go hiking this weekend—who has time for that?” Almost everyone would go. Would someone refuse because they dislike the presidential palace? In the same way, when God gives you such great honor, you refuse only because you do not know. If you truly knew, no one would reject it. That is why God says, “Know Me.” Know what God gives, and know who God is.

You have come to church to receive the word of God. You have come to church to know God. And knowing God is the same as knowing yourself. Why? Because God’s glory will become yours, everything that belongs to God will become yours, and God’s power will become your power. Earlier we talked about casting out demons, right? How could I cast out demons? I am just a human being—how could I possibly drive out demons? But God’s power has come to me just as it is. That is why demons are cast out. How could we ever open the eyes of the blind? And yet such things happen. God’s power comes to us exactly as it is.

Because God is eternal, anyone who becomes one with God can no longer truly die. Even if we die, we live forever. Yes, we live eternally. This physical body decays and returns to dust, but our souls, which have now become like God, will live on. And after our bodies return to the dust, when the appointed time comes, our bodies will be transformed. We will rise again with a body—just like the one I have now—that can taste food, see with the eyes, hold hands with others. We will live again with a real, tangible body, and in that state there will be no death. We will live forever. This is what the Bible calls resurrection—not that our dead bodies will be reassembled from the dust, for what has returned to dust will not return. Rather, because our spirits have become like God and exist forever, that spirit becomes a body and enters heaven. This is the hope we hold. This is the assurance with which we live our life of faith. So I bless every single one of you, in the name of Jesus, that not one person here will be left out of this amazing fellowship with God, but that all of you will join in.

This is why you are baptized. Through baptism, God opens the first door for you to become one with Jesus and enter into that fellowship. Jesus commanded, “Be baptized in My name!” And the moment you are baptized according to that command, your old self—who could never enter heaven and had no choice but to go to hell—is buried. Then you become one with Jesus, and from that moment on you receive the treatment that belongs to God’s own people. By becoming one with the Son of God, you receive the love that only the Son of God could receive.

And once you are joined to Jesus, God then sends His power and His Holy Spirit to you. He pours Him out on you. It is like this: suppose a finger is cut off—you would need a transplant. First, the finger must be attached. Let’s say it is an arm. The arm is attached, but what must be connected first? The blood vessels. Will the blood flow properly once they are connected? If it does, then the arm becomes part of the body. But there is another problem. Even if the blood vessels are connected, what if the nerves do not connect? Then what happens? It is certainly part of your body, but it cannot move. It does not move according to your will. It remains stiff. Wherever you go, it goes with you, but it does not help at all. Even if you touch something with that arm, you feel nothing. None of us want to remain in that condition. Once the blood vessels are connected, the nerves must also be connected. In the same way, do not be satisfied with simply believing in Jesus and being baptized in His name so that you become part of Him. Ask for the Holy Spirit. After that, God pours His Spirit upon you like nerves being connected. This is something only God can do. When the Holy Spirit is poured out, that is when you can move freely; you become one with the whole body of God, share in the glory of Jesus, and work together with Him. This is what God desires. He wants us to become His body and work together with Him.

So I, too, have already become a part of God’s body—of the body of Jesus Christ—and I am now working together with God. Even though my physical body is here, separate from Him, in spirit I am one with God, and as a part of His body I am now delivering this message to you. God governs me so that my thoughts and my heart are moved, and that is why I am able to speak this word to you now. Those who are used by God in this way will also receive the reward that God gives. This fellowship is truly joyful. Therefore, I invite you into this fellowship. I bless you in the name of Jesus that you will come and join the fellowship shared by Jesus Christ and the Father!

God our Father, we truly thank You for calling us through Your beloved Son. You have invited us into the fellowship shared between You and the Son, so help every one of us respond to this call and receive Your love. Let every unclean and hindering work be driven away completely. And please move, guide, and inspire the hearts of all our helpers, so that they may truly assist these souls with everything they need. We also pray for the new believers and newcomers who are here today: help them be washed by the blood of Jesus, be baptized in the name of Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit, and be nurtured as members of God’s body. We thank You, and we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.