The passage we read today comes from the beginning of the first chapter in the Gospel of Mark—the very first book written among those that record the works of Jesus. Because the very heart of our faith is found right here, this is what I’d like to speak to you about today.

Now, when we come to church, we hear the word “faith” quite a lot, don’t we? And so some of us might have made up our mind, thinking, “Now that I’m attending church, I should live a life of faith!” Or perhaps, you’ve thought, “Let me overcome this difficult world with courage through faith!” But there is a significant difference between the faith you have in mind and the faith we learn about in the church. The faith God speaks of is something that cannot be found in the world; it is something we have never heard of before. Many people judge the church with their own opinions from a distance without actually attending. But that is only what it looks like from the outside. Those outside the church can never truly know it, nor can they understand the faith of those who believe. What the world has understood up until now is nothing more than their own subjective understanding.

This is roughly what the world calls “faith.” For example, back in my university days, I had a physical education assignment where I had to make as many basketball shots as possible in one minute. Since I hadn’t played much basketball, my performance wasn’t great. I had to shoot as quickly as possible right under the hoop, so throwing from a distance wasn’t an option. It was clear that the more I practiced, the better I would get, but I didn’t have enough time, and the exam day was approaching. So the method I chose was “mental practice.” I had read a book about it—the idea that if we believe in our heart and imagine specifically, it actually works. So even though I couldn’t practice on the actual court, I kept imagining it. I pictured myself making shot after shot, and believed that I could do it. “I can definitely do this! I can surely score more than twenty in a minute!” I believed this with certainty and practiced it over and over in my mind. And then something remarkable happened—I scored more than twice as many as before. So I do believe this works. When we believe something will happen, keep telling ourselves it will, visualize it, and picture it specifically—it truly works.

So then, is this faith? Is this the faith we speak of in the church? Not at all. This has absolutely nothing to do with the church, with Jesus Christ, or with God. This is something that has been possible for any people, in any era—something anyone can do as a human being. Therefore, there is no need to come to church just to do this. It would be better to simply lie down and imagine it rather than spending that time coming to church. The church is clearly a place where we come to receive what the world cannot give.

It is indeed faith, but not the kind that originates from the human heart. Rather, it is believing what God has made known to us. This is the faith of God. It is not something that we have derived or figured out on our own—it is believing what God has made known to us. We could also put the word “faith” in another way: acknowledging what God has taught us—that is our faith. It is having faith that comes from God.

Regarding that faith, the passage we read today declares: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Our faith has a clear object. Our faith is believing what God has made known to us—in other words, it is faith in the gospel.

Let’s say it together: “Faith in the gospel!”

Faith in what? The gospel. We have faith in the gospel.

Then, what is the gospel? It is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. “The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”—this is something we have never heard of in the world. “The Son of God. Jesus Christ. The Gospel.” Just three simple phrases—yet their meaning goes far beyond anything we could imagine.

Therefore, if you come in thinking, “Oh, I already know what faith is,” —it will take a long time for you to truly obtain it. We must lay down all our preconceived notions about faith. If we think, “What could be so special about going to church? What’s so special about people who believe in Jesus?”—that is a misunderstanding. Of course, we Christians also bear a significant responsibility for such misunderstandings. It is because we should have introduced the gospel accurately, but we failed to do so. Many preachers have failed to deliver the gospel correctly, confusing the faith God gives with a human faith and preaching the latter instead. As a result, many people around the world have come to mistake it for the true gospel.

For instance, I once listened to a sermon on a Christian broadcast. It was a famous pastor from America, and when I started watching halfway through, he had been talking for quite a while, saying, “Do not eat too much sugar!” I thought to myself, “Oh, he must be using that as a metaphor. I wonder what he’s trying to say by talking about sugar for so long.” So, even though it wasn’t very interesting, I watched until the very end. But the final conclusion was simply, “Therefore, do not eat too much sugar!” A piece of advice to eat less sugar for your health was coming from the mouth of a pastor during a service at a mega-church. In fact, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Christian faith. It’s the kind of thing you could hear at a temple, a cultural center, or even among a group of friends. Because of messages like those, many people feel disappointed and leave, thinking, “There’s really nothing to church after all,” and walking away.

However, what we can hear in the church is something we have never heard before—and even when we do hear it, it is not something we can easily understand. What Christians today know and believe is not the kind of thing that can be grasped after just one or two hearings. The reason we invite you to church is to help you obtain something truly wonderful—something so incredibly good that you could never have even imagined it. At first, we cannot share everything all at once, and so we will guide you step by step. But what we are about to introduce to you is truly magnificent. It is something beyond our imagination—something we have never even thought of before. No matter how hard people try to imagine “the best thing they could possibly give me,” it would not even reach a billionth of the greatness of what we can actually receive in the church.

To say it again, the faith you expect and the faith we will encounter in the church are completely different. If we do not transform our minds completely, we may come a few times without ever being ready to receive it—and then simply walk away.

In the past, someone I knew came to our church. Her child had cerebral palsy, and although they had visited many hospitals for a long time, they couldn’t find a cure. When the child was about twelve years old, after wandering from place to place and even visiting temples, she came to our church as a last resort. The one and only thing she hoped for was the healing of her child. She wanted nothing else.

However, the church is not simply a place for healing the sick, and simply saying “I want to be healed!” does not guarantee that healing will come. There is a process, certain conditions, and a way that must be followed. As I mentioned earlier, faith is not what people commonly think it is. What that child needed was to have faith planted and explained to him. I was there by his side, helping as I watched faith take root and transformation begin to take place.

But the mother could not accept the changes in her child. She wanted her child to be healed, yet she could not tolerate the transformation that was taking place. She had a deep resistance to faith. The child had suddenly begun crying out, “Jesus! Jesus!” and started speaking in tongues, saying he had received the Holy Spirit. Seeing her child speaking in words she could not understand, the mother thought, “My child has lost his mind!”— and she even took him to a psychiatric hospital. The child was hospitalized briefly and then released, but he held on to his faith and wanted to continue living a life of faith. However, the mother could not bear to see her child encountering and experiencing God so fervently, and in the end, she confined him and prevented him from coming to church. After that, the child’s situation grew much worse. I tried hard to persuade the mother, but it was of no use. She did not want any of this. All she wanted was, “Just heal my child’s cerebral palsy completely!” — and she rejected the faith that God requires. And so, even though God wanted to heal that child, He could not.

Right now, some may have come to church seeking what they personally want, looking around and comparing things. However, God has His own concerns. Faith is listening to the Word of God and acknowledging it. God has things that matter to Him. Taking an interest in what those things are and aligning ourselves with them—that is faith.

Think about it. Did you make God, or did God make you? Can you add or take away even a single hair on your head? Can you make it white or black? Well, you could dye it, of course. But God is the One who has counted every hair on our heads.

So then, who is God?

There are many gods in this world. Some misunderstand the phrase “there is no God besides Me” to mean, “There are no gods in this world—there is only one God!” That is a misunderstanding. There are many gods in this world. There are many people in this world, aren’t there? The number of gods is even greater than that. It may seem like living a good life will bring blessings our way — but that is never how it works. Why? Because there are gods who interfere. It may seem like effort and hard work will get us everything we want—but again, that is not how it works. There are gods that hinder us and make us fail.

However, among all those gods, there is one particular god. This god is completely different from all the others. He is the one who made all things, created them, and brought them into existence. He is the one for whom nothing is impossible. Unlike other gods, He has existed from eternity past and will exist forever by himself. Even the movement of this world is by his power. While all gods differ in their power, he is the one who stands at the very top of all gods. He is the one who made the earth, the universe, and you and me. He is the One we call “God.” If you wish to contact other gods, you can go elsewhere. There are Buddhism, Lamaism, and the hundreds of millions of gods said to exist in India—if you want to be close to those gods and seek their help, you can call their names and serve them. But the God we serve is the Creator of heaven and earth, the Almighty God, the God who knows all things, the God who will judge and govern all things in the end. He is the God in whom we have our faith.

How do we know that this God is truly powerful and mighty? It is because we know this that we have our faith, and you too must come to know it little by little. This God is related to every single one of us. Even the beating of our hearts right now is by His power. To have an encounter with this very God, and to share in all the glory and goodness that He possesses—that is the purpose of our faith.

In a word, what is the most basic, the greatest, and the most vital thing that God can give us? It is eternal life—everlasting life. Without eternal life, everything else is nothing. If we have no life, what good is it to have a lot of money? Only when we have life forever can all those things truly become ours for eternity. Therefore, obtaining eternal life is the very purpose of our faith.

However, far from having eternal life, human beings do not even recognize the God who created them. Even though we live by His power, we have become ungrateful. Human beings are destined for destruction. Because we have already turned away from and betrayed God, our destruction was determined long ago. If we were to be treated by God according to our deeds, we would have to face eternal death in hell. Although it may be hard to believe, this is the reality that awaits us.

But God does not want to leave us in that state; He desires to save us. He wants to rescue us from curse and punishment and grant us eternal life. This is exactly what we are seeking to obtain right now. And to obtain it, faith is absolutely essential. It is not a vague faith like, “If I live a good life, things will turn out well!” Nor is it the kind of faith where you think, “If I just imagine myself practicing basketball, my skills will improve!” It must be the faith that God Himself has given us.

So, this is what we must come to know in the church from now on: “What is the faith that God has given us so that we may not be cursed, not be punished, not go to hell, but instead obtain eternal life?” That is exactly what it is.

It is introduced in a single word: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus Christ, the Son of God—He is the object of our faith. God, and His Son, and the One whom God sent to do His work, the Christ—He is Jesus.

Two thousand years ago, when Jesus was baptized and came up out of the water, a voice came from heaven, saying: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God Himself testified to two things. The two things mentioned earlier — the Son of God, and Jesus Christ — these were personally confirmed by God with His own mouth. We have our faith in what God has declared: “This is My beloved Son! This is the One in whom I am well pleased!”

Now, when we hear these words, we must say amen— we must respond with agreement. Not responding to God with, “Oh, come on—what do you mean?” When someone says something to us, what should we do? We should acknowledge it and respond with agreement. If I said something and someone responded with, “Oh, please. That’s a lie. That makes no sense,” I wouldn’t want to deal with that person anymore. It is the same with God. God clearly opened His mouth and declared, “This is My beloved Son! This is the One in whom I am well pleased!”—and instead of responding with doubt or disinterest, we ought to be asking, “Really? Why? What has He done that pleases God so much? How can this man be the Son of God? How can He be equal with God?” But instead, people show no interest, and even go so far as to deny it—and though God said He was well pleased with Him, they said, “No, this man is a sinner!” and nailed Him to the cross, refusing to acknowledge Him. Such people are disregarding God. When we hear the voice of God, we must be people who respond with “Amen”—clapping our hands and saying, “Yes! Amen! That’s right!” Since God has said, “This is My beloved Son!”—we too must acknowledge, “Amen! Jesus is the Son of God!” And since He has said, “This is the One in whom I am well pleased!”—what should we respond with? “Amen! Yes, right! He is the One sent by God, the Christ who accomplishes the work God has given Him to do!”

Among those who made such a confession, the one who recognized it first and most insightfully was a disciple named Peter. When Jesus asked, “But who do you say that I am?” —Peter responded with complete agreement to the word of God: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” This is exactly why Jesus was so pleased.

Our faith is not something that another person thought of, nor something that Peter was the first to introduce. Then who first made it known to us? Hearing what God first revealed and responding with agreement—that is our faith. And it is those who do so who become the ones God is well pleased with and dearly loves. And it is they who will obtain eternal life.

Therefore, as you live your life in the church, I urge you to make up your mind in this way: “I have come to church to know God and to know what He has done—and so from now on, I will respond with agreement to God!” Do not challenge God, do not disregard His Word — I bless you in the name of Jesus that you would make up your mind to say, “I will say ‘Amen!’ to the Word of God!” And if you do, God will help you.

You must also make an effort to truly meet God, and God will help you as you do. That is how you can have an encounter with Him. If you are not properly prepared, no matter how hard you try, you will not meet God. In the end, you might even leave, thinking, “The church is nothing special.” But it isn’t that the church is nothing special—it’s that you haven’t yet realized who God is or encountered Him. I bless you in the name of Jesus, that this would not be the case for you, and that you would surely come to meet God.

God our Father, we thank You for making known Your mystery before us in this way. Help us to be people who listen with curiosity and open ears, and who respond with agreement to what we have heard. Help us to have the faith that You desire. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen!