From the Pastor |
Psalm 139 & 1 Cor. 6:12-20
I’d like to start today by asking a couple of questions: Who are you? Does anyone really know you? Do you know you? Are you willing to let people see the real you… the good, and the not-so-good that makes up who you are? Well, in Psalm 139, David reminds us that there is someone who knows us… inside and out… the good, the bad and the ugly that is us. The one who created us… KNOWS each and every one of us… personally… intimately… even better than we know ourselves. “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me… For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb...” This psalm reveals how intimately God knows the people God has created. Have you thought about that… considered the fact that God knows you… every part of you… even the parts you successfully hide from everyone else? Think about that… God does not only know our physical being… God know our very thoughts… the words we will speak before we speak them. God knows what is on our minds… in our hearts… and God knows us completely. There is nothing about us we can hide from God. David tells us that this is not only because God created us… but because God is always with us. We cannot hide from God. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” Even the darkness of this world cannot hide us from God. God sees through the barriers we construct and the mask we put on to hide true selves. God knows us. And it is an incredibly intimate knowledge. So God… the creator of all things… OUR creator… knows us even better than we know ourselves… knows everything there is to know about us… and you know what? God STILL loves us. Think about that for a minute… As flawed as we are… as horrible as we can be at times… GOD STILL LOVES US! No matter what we say or do… good or bad… God still longs to be in a relationship with us. It is hard to imagine, isn’t it? I mean… How easily are you able to forgive someone who hurt you? How easy is it to let that person back into your heart and your life? Yet, that is exactly what God does for us every day. God, who created all things… longs to be known by you. After all… to be in a relationship with someone… they have to know you and you have to know them as well… so now I wonder… Do you know God? God knows you… How well do YOU know GOD? … How can we know God? The Gospel of John tells us: “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” [John 1:18] It is by knowing Jesus that we are able to know God. Jesus came to bring forgiveness and salvation… to offer eternal life to all who come to believe… but that goal of eternal life is not simply to someday live in heaven… it is the knowledge… the revelation of WHO God truly is. For Jesus said “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” [John 17: 1b-3] Through Christ… eternal life… being able to know God… personally… intimately… is something we can have right now. One of the problems with Christianity today is the focus we put on receiving salvation without looking to truly experience an intimate, close relationship with God. We tend to look to being forgiven and “saved”… and then our journey stops. We pray and turn to God in faith… we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior… we are forgiven and we are saved. BOOM… We are done. This is what Paul was warning the believers in Corinth about. They believed that since they had been forgiven and saved by their faith in Christ… they could do as they please. It was all good and they had nothing to worry about. Sin was no more. ““I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial… Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” But Christ does not set us free so that we can do whatever we want… Christ sets us free so that we can come to know God and then do what God wants us to do. And Paul reveals the way God continues to be present within every believer… We become temples of God’s Spirit… and we are no longer our own. As followers of Christ we are blessed with the greatest of gifts… the presence of the Holy Spirit not only with us… but within us… revealing the knowledge of God to us if we would only listen. As Jesus said: “But when… the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth… He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” If we receive forgiveness and salvation through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, but them simply continue on living as we want to live… doing whatever we want to do and ignoring the Holy Spirit… the very presence of God within us… we miss out on the real purpose of our salvation… Knowing God! Unfortunately, it seems like a large portion of Christians in our society have done just that. They look for salvation in heaven… they look to the time they will see God face to face, and they miss the best part… truly knowing God NOW. It is by knowing God that we can truly experience all that God offers now: A deep and abiding Love… peace of heart, soul and mind… immense hope and a joy that fills us even during the darkest times. If we want those things in our lives we need to know God. If you want to know God’s will for your life… if you want to do whatever it is God is calling you to do… you must know God. How can we know God? Jesus, the Christ, came into the world to offer salvation to all who would believe… but he also came to reveal God to us… Not so that we can do anything we want and still be forgiven… but to make it possible for us to know God… to know God in such a way that we are recreated… made new and changed for all to see. By revealing God to us we can look to Jesus and learn how it is we are supposed to act… how we are to treat others, and how we are to respond to greed, injustice, violence and hatred. Forgiveness and salvation is NOT the ultimate goal… knowing God in our hearts… in our minds… in our very souls is the goal. Knowing God in such a way that we learn and grow and become more and more like Christ… perfect… loving… caring and merciful. Working to bring great change to the world … bringing light to a world in darkness… bringing love to a world that knows far too much hatred. We all sin… we all fall short… far short of perfection. But God KNOWS us… and still loves us. By looking to Christ… by studying God’s word… by listening to the Holy Spirit we can know God as well. The thing we need to realize is that when we open ourselves up to learning about and truly knowing God… we hear the call to obey God’s commands come through loudly and insistently… the call to commit our lives to living out the laws of Love… Loving God AND neighbor… We hear the call to continue the wonderful work of Christ in the world… caring for the poor and needy… bringing healing to others… being active participants in God’s plans for revealing himself to the world. Through the presence of the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of God it provides us… we are called to use all that we are… our entire beings… in the service of God. By knowing God… we carry great responsibility… the responsibility for living our lives of faith… shining the light of God’s love in the midst of the darkness. God knows us… personally and intimately and when we open ourselves the truth that God is not just with us, but within us, and God is always speaking to us… guiding us… if we would just learn to listen… then we can come to truly know God. Amen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Yeon Shin
|