Living Hope

Jesus is the person who gives us hope.

[Scripture]

For today’s message, let us turn to the 1)gospel of John 11:21-27. Let us all rise and recite the scripture together. I am going to read one verse, you guys read the other and let’s recite the last verse together.

요한복음 11:21–27 NIV

2)21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 3)25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

Amen.

[Welcome]

Good morning PW and welcome to today’s worship service. Let us take this time to greet one another. Let us turn to our neighbors and say, 4)“Jesus is our living hope.” That is right guys, Jesus is our living hope. When we were doomed to death, he came back from the grave to give us eternal life, and for that reason alone he is our living hope. 5)This month we’re going to learn on the theme of the Comeback Kid. During December we learnt about the kid from nowhere came into this world as our savior and through April we are going to learn on how Jesus came back to be our savior. I hope that through this month, you all get to meet Christ who came as our hope to this world.

[Sermon]

I am a person who believes that there is a season in life where you need to certain things. For example, during your teen years you would need to go to school and study. During your teen years you should make good friendship and enjoy each other’s fellowship. During your teen years you should study real hard. During your teen years you need to encounter Jesus and have a faith of your own. Why? It is because if you lose your chance to do so in that time naturally, you are either going to regret not doing so later on in your life, or you struggle to do so later. I say this out of experience. I still regret not studying hard in High school. I regret not reading the classics. I regret not making good friends, my high school friends are all about mucking around. But no matter how much you regret not doing something, but God leads your life to where it supposed to be. And for me despite regretting everything that I did not do right, I am still here as a pastor which I have been called to do.

My High school grades were terrible. When I say terrible it was horrible. I said that I was 2nd from the back when I first came back to Korea, but when I was in 10th grade, I hit that 1st from the back. It wasn’t my whole grades, but I was last in Ethics. Isn’t it Ironic? Pastor Failing Ethics. Anyways, I pretty much gave up. I reconciled with Jesus, I lived to be more like him but my grades were going the opposite direction. The more I spent time with God, my grades went down. So, in other words, I was selling off Jesus for my bad grades. But, when I got into 12th grade, things changed. Reality hit me. After taking my first practice Korean SAT, I had no college that I could apply to. My past laziness caught up with me, and now I had no choice to study.

After my shocking results, I studied a lot. Like really a lot. 7:30am - 10:00pm. The grades went up. My efforts paid off but I met a dead end. I met a stagnation point. Because I didn’t study to prepare before hand, I had so much things to catch up on, meaning that it was going to take a while until everything gets sorted out. I started to feel anxious too because, the grades that I was getting was not enough for me to get into the Bible college that I wanted to get into.

So, one day I was going through all the options and requirements to get into the college that I wanted to enter. And that’s when I found out that for people who were fluent in a foreign language, if you got over a certain score in an acredited test, I was able to enter the college with out taking the Korean SAT. It seemed as if God was showing me this. John this is it. From that day on, I started to prepare for the next exam that was going to be held after a month knowing this. After a month of preparation, I took the test and I got 2 wrong out of 200 questions. And I got a really good score.

This is when greed kicked into me. The score that I got was good enough for me to get into other good schools in Seoul. It wasn’t good enough for schools like SNU, Yonsei or Korea Uni. But it was good for school that I could not even dream of with my grades. A voice inside of me kept saying, you can become a pastor a when you go to grad school. I gave into the voice and decided to apply for 2 school other than the bible college. On the day I needed to file an application, I told my mother as I left the house. Mom I am going o be applying for theses schools today. But on that day, my mother told me. Pray before you do.

I went to school, I prayed to God. Then I took our my QT book which is called “My Utmost for His Highest.” I usually did SENA back in the days but I couldn’t get it for thatn month so I was doing QT through this book. But on the day that I was going to submit the application it was from the scripture of 2 Samuel 23:15-17

사무엘하 23:15–17 NIV

6)15 David longed for water and said, “Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!” 16 So the three mighty warriors broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the Lord. 17 “Far be it from me, Lord, to do this!” he said. “Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?” And David would not drink it. Such were the exploits of the three mighty warriors.

After finishing reading this scripture, I realized that it was my greed. It was my greed in wanting to get into a good school. So like David, I said, I am going to pour this out before God and did not submit the application. Time to time I regret not applying for these school. It would have been a great experience to go to these school. But I think it was the right choice, for I seeked the word of God. I got the answer from God and it was a choice that was based on the word of the Lord. Because hoping for Jesus was something that was greater than hoping for a school that this world said was better. I sometimes regretted my choice time to time when I was going through trials in life, but I knew I made the right choice because I knew that God had things planned ahead of me.

The reason I am sharing this story with you all is to call you all as pastors. Nope I am just joking. The reason I am sharing this story is to make you all reflect on where your hopes are? What is the basis of you wants and motivations to do things? Is it based on your hopes of being successful to what this world tells you to do? Is it for the fame and to follow what this world has to say? But today, I want us to change this chain of thought and put Jesus first when we hope for things.

In today’s scripture, Martha meets Jesus. Martha had just lost her brother and said that if Jesus came a little earlier, her brother would have been okay. She isn’t blaming him. But she goes on to say that she believes that Jesus is the messiah. Let’s read John 11:27 one more time. John11:27

요한복음 11:27 NIV

7)27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

This should be our hope, even if things does not go to your ways, we need to seek Jesus and confess that Jesus is the savior and have hope for he saves. It is not about us. It is not about our success, it is not about getting into Good college and getting a good job, but instead our hope should be in Jesus. Our hope is in sharing Jesus. So, no matter what you do if you are sharing God and Jesus you are a success in the eyes of Jesus for you have put your hope in him. For the salvation that he gave us is the hope.

This week, we have 6 of our members going to share the Gospel in Turkey and Cuba. I hope that you have put your hope in Jesus. It is not going to be easy. I tell you. But the hope in Jesus change what you see and experience.

And for everyone here let the hope on Jesus be our strength to live our lives. Let our hope in Jesus be the standard to make choices in our lives and be obedient to him. Let us pray.

[Prayer]

[Response]

Living Hope

[Benediction]

[Announcement]

In-House Retreat 4/19

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Retreat 6/20

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