English Sermon

12/1/2024 Worship Service

"Laodicea Church"
Revelation 3:14~22

Introduction
Hallelujah! Welcome again to the Sunday service at New Elim Church.
The reason I greeted you again today is because,
Today is the 12th anniversary of the founding of New Elim Church.
So Elder Lee Heung-ju sang a special song, changing the lyrics and praising the Lord who has been with New Elim.
Yes. Everything we have done so far is by the grace of God.
It has been 12 years, so it is not a very old church, but it can be considered a mid-aged church.
In a way, it can be said that it is time for first love to cool off.
So today, I want to look back on ourselves once again and talk about the church of Laodicea, one of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation that only received rebuke. I hope that we can become a church that is more devoted to the Lord.
As you know, the Book of Revelation begins with Jesus' letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor.
Asia Minor does not refer to the Asian continent where countries like Korea, China, and Japan are located, but rather Turkey.
The official name for Turkey has now changed to Turkiye.
Now, Turkey is a country with a majority Muslim population,
But, in the past, It was a place where many churches were established by the early church members, including Paul.
That is why Turkey is included in the pilgrimage course for the Holy Land, along with Israel, Greece, and Rome.

Most of the seven churches in Asia Minor receive both praise and rebuke.
However, there are two churches that only received praise.
They were the church of Smyrna and Philadelphia.
Many of you know this fact, but there are also two churches that only received rebuke.
The two churches are the church of Laodicea and the church of Sardis.
Another thing these two churches have in common is that they were both wealthy churches.
Sardis was a transportation hub where five roads intersected,
so trade was active and it was a wealthy city that accumulated considerable wealth.
Also, because it was located on a high hill, there were few external invasions.
It was one of the cities that the people of Asia Minor most wanted to live in.
As befitting its reputation, it had the largest chapel among the early churches.
However, despite its appearance, it was evaluated as a dead church.
In other words, most people were Christians in name only.
Laodicea was a wealthy city just like Sardis.
This place was also a transportation hub and a financial center, and a city that accumulated wealth through black wool.
It is said that even now, Burberry, a luxury British brand, is produced here.
It was also a city with good welfare, with a famous medical school.
The church of Laodicea was also splendid and wealthy, but it was only rebuked by the Lord.
I want to share today’s message with the hope that we can use this Laodicea church as a negative example and become a New Elim church that serves the Lord properly.

1. First Rebuke
First, let’s look at the reason why the Laodicea church was rebuked.
In fact, the reason is widely known.
It was a lukewarm church that was neither cold nor hot.
In order to accurately understand this message, we need to know the geographical background of this place.
Although the Laodicea church was a wealthy city, one thing it lacked was water.
The water supply was not good.
So it received cold water from the nearby city of Colossae,
and hot water from another nearby city, Hierapolis.
Colossae is a place with snow-capped mountains, and Hierapolis is a place where hot springs flow out.
The problem is that both of these waters become lukewarm when they reach Laodicea, making them difficult to use anywhere.
When the hot spring water flowed to Laodicea, it became lukewarm and gave off a bad smell.
Cold water flowed and when it reached Laodicea, it could not be drunk as cool living water.
It was useful when it was hot or cold, but it was useless when it was lukewarm.

In fact, we tend to think of Jesus' rebuke of being lukewarm as only rebuking us for not being hot, but Jesus' rebuke also included things that were not cold.
Whatever we do, we need hot passion, but don't we also need cold reason?
Economist Alfred Marshall left behind the famous saying, "A cool head, a hot heart."
When he was appointed as a professor at Cambridge University in England,
he expressed his ambition to produce many graduates who are cold-headed but hot-hearted.
Perhaps due to this influence, Seoul National University's motto is also "A cool head, a hot heart."
If you look closely at Jesus' words, he does not say to be only hot.
Verse 15 says “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot.”
Jesus rebuked lukewarmness, telling them to be either cold or hot.
He says not only hot is good, but also cold is good.
The people of Laodicea also needed both cold and hot water.
They knew very well that lukewarm water was useless.
However, the Lord rebuked the church of Laodicea as a lukewarm church.

In reality, there are some believers who believe calmly,
while there are some believers who ignore reality and believe passionately.
The members of the Pentecostal Church are mostly on the hot side.
On the other hand, the members of the Presbyterian Church believe very calmly.
They are on the cold side.
In fact, in any church, there are both hot and cold members.
However, both types of people are needed in the church.
A healthy church is one where these two groups recognize and cooperate with each other.
On the other hand, a problematic church is a church where these two groups say they are right and ignore each other.
The problem is the believers who are cold without passion for the Lord,
and those who are hot only with their own passion, not with passion for the Lord.
These people are lukewarm people that the Lord cannot use.
If the Lord has given you coldness rather than heat,
I hope that you become cold water that cools the Lord's heart.
On the contrary, if He has given you hot heat,
I hope that you begin His work with that passion.
However, a hot person should not criticize a cold person as someone who lacks faith,
and a cold person should not criticize a hot person as someone who blindly believes.
Aren't hot people usually the ones who start work and the ones who finish it the ones who are cold?
Remembering the Lord's words to be either cold or hot,
I earnestly hope that you all become useful workers of the Lord.

2. The Second Rebuke
However, Jesus' rebuke does not end here.
The church of Laodicea was spiritually blind, unable to see its own spiritual state.
Verse 17 says “You say, ‘I am rich, I have acquired goods, and I have need of nothing,’ and do not realize that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.”
Last week, I told you how affluent we live in this age of abundance.
But don’t you feel that in this age of abundance, we are becoming increasingly spiritually dark?
How affluent is the United States that we live in?
But spiritually, how poor, blind, and naked are we?
We are becoming increasingly insensitive to sin, and we do not believe in God at all because we cannot see Him.
How many people are truly spiritually naked?
The greatest tragedy is that we are spiritually blind and do not know our own misery.
The member of the Laodicea church appeared to be wearing the best clothes made of black wool, but in spiritually, they were miserable, poor, and miserable, like naked people without clothes.
If you stop advancing in faith because you think you are doing well, you will inevitably regress.

The church of Laodicea is naked and ashamed.
It is an embarrassing situation, but they do not know that they are ashamed.
If you look at the Chinese characters for the word ‘창피’(shame), it is composed of the character ‘猖’ meaning to run wild and the character ‘披’ meaning to spread out.
So it does not quite match with ‘창피’, the shame, we think of.
However, the metaphorical meaning of this is ‘wearing clothes but not fastening a belt. ’
Here, clothes refer to pants.
What would happen if you wear pants and do not fasten a belt?
Your pants would fall down and you would be naked. This is called shame, 창피.
The church of Laodicea was in exactly this spiritual situation.

The Lord knows their spiritual condition and suggests the correct treatment.
Verse 18 says “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you, so that the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and eye salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.”
He speaks of three healing treatments.
First, he tells you to buy gold refined in the fire, so that you may be rich.
When trials come, not compromising with the world and maintaining faith even in trials is being refined like pure gold and becoming spiritually rich.
Second, he tells you to buy and wear white garments,
so that the shame of your nakedness may not be seen.
White garments are a contrast to black wool, a specialty of Laodicea,
It refers to a clean and pure life as a saint.
To live as a Christian, we should wear the garment of Christ.
In other words, we must achieve the salvation of sanctification, which becomes a little more holy every day.
Third, he tells you to buy eye drop and apply it your eyes, so that you may see.
Eye drop was also one of the specialty products of Laodicea.
Just as applying eye drops helps you see better, opening your spiritual eyes and seeing your sins is the way to go.
Isn't it the Word of God that makes us realize and see our sins?
Therefore, we must look at ourselves in the mirror of the Word and living in repentance.

Yes. The only way out of spiritual stagnation is repentance.
We must work hard at everything, but the thing we must work hardest at the most is repentance.
The second half of verse 19 says “...Therefore be zealous and repent.”
True recovery begins with laying down your own way of thinking and stubbornness, and standing before Jesus with an empty heart.
Only by the grace of the Lord, our stubborn heart can be fundamentally renewed.
Jesus stood outside the door of the self-satisfied church of Laodicea, unable to enter, but only knocking on the door.
If the church of Laodicea heard the voice of the Lord and opens its heart wide,
they would have intimate fellowship with Jesus and enjoy an abundant life.
Likewise, the lukewarm church can recover its identity and spiritual discernment.
The secret to the church not becoming lukewarm and lethargic is intimate fellowship with the Lord through repentance.

3. Now is the time of the Laodicean church
There are various ways to interpret the Book of Revelation, and one interpretation is that the seven churches of Asia Minor symbolize the churches that will exist in history.
According to this interpretation, the first church, the church of Ephesus, is a church that forgot its first love.
It is interpreted as the early church that started out passionately with the apostles,
but forgot its first love and became weak after the apostles disappeared.
The second church, the church of Smyrna, is interpreted as a church that maintained its faith during the period of persecution despite the severe persecution of the Roman Empire for about 300 years after the early church.
‘Gladiator 2’ is currently showing in theaters, and these are the churches that existed at that time.
There were many believers who died as sacrifices for the gladiator and as entertainment for the Roman citizens.
The third church, the church of Pergamum, is said to have become corrupted after the Roman Empire made Christianity the state religion.
The fourth church, the church of Thyatira, is said to be a church from the Dark Ages.
The fifth church, the church of Sardis, is said to have changed from theocratic to humanistic under the influence of the Renaissance.
The sixth church, the church of Philadelphia, is said to have been created as a result of the Reformation.
It is said to be a church of the spiritual awakening that experienced a great revival from the mid-19th century to the 20th century and that this led to missionary work.
Thankfully, the Korean church was also created at this time, and there was a tremendous church revival in Korea as well.
And the last seventh church, the church of Laodicea, is interpreted as a modern church.
According to this interpretation, shouldn’t we take the words sent to the church of Laodicea to heart and listen more carefully?

How splendid and wealthy are churches today!
No severe persecution in these days like Laodicea church.
As the church of Laodicea became lazy and complacent in a good situation,
Did today’s Christians lose their spiritual thirst?
Jesus introduces himself to Laodicea church like this.
Verse 14 says “To the angel of the church of Laodicea write: ‘The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation, says this.’”
Amen means truth. The expression ‘truly, truly, I say to you’ appears frequently in the Gospel of John, and in the original Greek, it is ‘Amen, Amen.’
So, it means that only Jesus is truth and that Jesus only speaks the truth.
And the phrase ‘the beginning of God’s creation’ does not mean that Jesus is the first creation, but that he is the Creator.
The word ‘beginning’ means the center, the first.
Why does Jesus introduce himself like this?
Because the truth has disappeared and has been distorted in Laodicea Church.
Jesus should be first, but people were first.

Due to this wrong belief, due to lukewarm faith, the church of Laodicea gradually pushed the Lord out of the door.
The first half of verse 20 says “Behold, I stand at the door and knock...”
Yes. The church that drove Jesus out of the door is a lukewarm church.
In fact, aren’t there churches today that are driving Jesus out of the door?
Churches that say there is salvation other than Jesus and churches that claim that homosexuality is not a ‘sin’ but a matter of ‘difference’ and ‘diversity’ are driving out Jesus.
The way to solve this lukewarmness is to hear the voice of Jesus, and open the door and accept Him.

Conclusion
Now I will conclude.
Today, on the anniversary of the establishment of New Elim Church, I shared the words given to the church of Laodicea.
In fact, there are many good churches and praised churches in the Bible.
The reason I talked about the Laodicea church, which was only rebuked on this good day,
is to use this church as a negative example and to become a healthier church.
Also, because it is a word that we need to listen to more in these last days.
Let’s pray that New Elim Church does not become a lukewarm church that pushes the Lord out and turns away from Him.
How many lukewarm believers are there these days who cannot tell whether they believe in Jesus or not?
Even though they go to church, aren’t there people who are spiritually ignorant and do not know their sins, and do not know shame when they commit sins?
Aren’t there more and more useless believers who are neither cold nor hot?
Rather, don’t they think that living a life of faith like this is more cool, and actually push Jesus out, and want to live the way they want rather than the Lord wants?
Every time that happens, Jesus knocks on the door of our hearts.
He tells us to be diligent and repent.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you and I may hear the voice of Jesus, walk with Jesus, and serve the Lord with holy passion and holy calmness.

11/24/2024 Thanksgiving Worship Service

“Give Thanks in all circumstances”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

We who live in America have to speak in English.
What is the most common English word we use?
I think it is ‘Thank you.’ American is a country full of gratitude.
In Korea, we probably use the word ‘thank you’ a lot, but surprisingly, instead of ‘thank you,’ we also say ‘please work hard’ and ‘I am sorry’.
If you think about it, when we buy something in Korea, we say ‘please work hard’ more often than ‘thank you.’
Of course, this word also contains the meaning of gratitude, but its original meaning is ‘please work hard.’
It is a word made up of ‘受’ which means ‘receive’ and ‘苦’ which means ‘pain.’
And even to those who have done something truly wonderful, instead of saying, “Thank you,” Koreans often say, “I’m sorry,” and feel that we owe them a great debt.
If possible, please say, “Thank you” more often.
Why should we do that? Because this is God’s will for us.

The passage we read today is a very famous one.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.”
But the words that follow are more important.
“For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
Yes. Living like this is the Lord’s will for us.
Please do not think of living according to the Lord’s will abstractly, but remember that it means always rejoicing, praying without ceasing, and giving thanks in all circumstances.
Among them, today, on Thanksgiving Sunday, I would like to share the word about being thankful in all circumstances.
I said before that the word that is said and heard the most in America is “Thank you.”
I believe that one of the reasons America is blessed is a country full of gratitude.
Isn’t one of the reasons why communist countries have fallen because they lack gratitude?
Communists always encourage resentment and complaints rather than gratitude, and emphasize struggle.
If we do not live according to God’s will without gratitude, we cannot help but fall.
I hope that we would not be believers who resent and complain, but live our lives enjoying the abundant blessings that the Lord gives us with gratitude.

However, in the words ‘be thankful,’ the word that must never be left out is the word ‘in all circumstances.’
The meaning changes completely depending on whether this phrase ‘in all circumstances’ is included or not.
There is a huge difference between simply being thankful and being thankful in all circumstances.
Therefore, we must be thankful in both good and bad situations.
Being thankful in all circumstances is God’s will for us.

1. Be thankful in good circumstances
Actually, it seems a little easier to be thankful in good circumstances.
Nevertheless, do we take the good situations we have for granted and live without gratitude?
On Thanksgiving, I hope you will count the blessings you have and be thankful.
In fact, what a wonderful time we live in now!
As most diseases are being treated, you know that the average life expectancy has increased significantly.
Accordingly, the UN recently announced a new age classification, as shown in the picture above,
17 years old is a minor, 18 to 65 years old is a youth, 66 to 79 years old is a middle-aged person, 80 to 99 years old is an elderly person, and 100 years old or older is a long-lived person.
According to this, I am still a young person.
According to this, there are not many elderly people in our church.
In the past, when people reached their 60th birthday, they would hold a grand 60th birthday party to celebrate their longevity, but now they rarely do.

In addition, how well do people eat these days?
When I was young, I had to eat only one egg a day.
At that time, I also heard that eating more than one egg was not good for your health.
I found out later that it was because eggs were expensive.
Because of this influence, when my wife gives me two or three eggs, I feel a little guilty.
Also, I used to mix rice with soy sauce and sesame oil in fried eggs.
In the past, if you ate more than a drop of sesame oil, you would get a cold stare from the whole family.
However, now, we eat sesame oil as much as we want.
These days, it's not that you get sick from not eating enough, but because you eat too much.
How thankful we are to live in such an affluent era!

Also, the fact that we are alive right now is a blessing.
One of the most famous rich people in America these days is Elon Musk.
He runs several companies, including Pay Pal, Space X, and Teslar.
As of 2024, he is said to be the world's richest person.
For reference, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong is ranked 261st.
Even Ilan Musk, who is doing so well, had an unfortunate incident.
He lost his first son 10 weeks after he was born.
Do you know how this child died?
This child was sleeping face down, and he died because he couldn’t breathe.
He lost his life in such an absurd way. In fact, this accidents happens sometime.
There was a family that lost a child like this at the church I used to serve at.
Many babies sleep face down.
However, there are cases where they suffocate while sleeping like this.
In this case, someone has to turn them over or they have to turn them over themselves in order to breathe and live.
We are alive now because we did this turning well.
Even if the son of the richest man in the world, he will die if you don’t do this simple turning.
So isn’t it God’s grace that we are alive and alive until now?
God gave us life, and not only that, but also gave us health to come to worship on Thanksgiving Sunday.
It is God’s will to be thankful for everything, so I hope that you will become believers who do not lose gratitude for the things you have enjoyed in good circumstances.

2. Be thankful in bad situations
However, being thankful in all circumstances is not just about being thankful in good situations, but also being thankful in bad situations that I don't want.
It is actually hard to be thankful in bad situations.
When I face difficulties that I don't want and things don't go the way I want, isn't it easier to complain and resent rather than be thankful?
Nevertheless, believers in Jesus can be thankful even in bad situations.
Why is that? Because for those who love God, those who are called according to His will, all things work together for good.

Many of David's psalms were written while he was in the wilderness, being chased by King Saul.
How unfair was David's situation?
He only loved God and his country, so he defeated the Philistine general Goliath, and he had no intention of betraying King Saul.
However, because of Saul's jealousy and envy, he suddenly became a national rebel and had to live as a fugitive in the wilderness for 15 years.
If you look at the psalms he wrote at that time, he pours out all his grievances to God and cries out desperately and prays. Sometimes he curses his enemies.
However, David’s prayers do not end like that, but always end with thanksgiving.
This is because every time he prayed, he became certain of the victory that God would give him, and because of that, his heart became at peace.
Please do not forget that the secret to being thankful even in such a bad situation is prayer.
That is why, before telling us to give thanks in all circumstances, the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing.
I hope that you will become believers who pray even in bad situations, to turn resentment and complaints into thanksgiving, and to turn suffering into an opportunity for blessing.

In fact, the people David met during his wilderness journey later became his faithful servants, and through his wilderness journey, David’s faith was refined like pure gold, and he became a king who was after God’s heart.
Therefore, when evaluating the kings of Israel, David is the standard.
It is said that good kings ‘did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like his ancestor David.’
However, this does not mean that David’s life was free of suffering and difficulties. During his suffering days, he prayed and kept his faith with gratitude, so he was evaluated as the greatest king in the history of Israel.
Wasn't he a king who prayed without ceasing, was thankful for everything, and lived according to the will of the Lord?

If there is something I earnestly desire and pray for, and God does not grant it, I hope you believe and give thanks that it is better and better for that prayer not to be granted.
For example, someone prayed earnestly for his business to go well.
And his prayer was granted and his business went well.
However, because of this, if this person could not keep the Sabbath, grew distant from the church, and left God, then that answer was never a blessing.
God only gives His beloved children the blessings they can handle.
Therefore, I hope you will believe that the situation God has given me now is the best situation God has given me, and become believes who are thankful even in bad situations that I do not want.

3. Thanksgiving through Jesus Christ
Giving thanks for everything like this means being thankful in both good and bad situations.
But the most fundamental reason for being thankful for everything is Jesus Christ.
I told you that the average life expectancy has increased a lot, but that doesn’t mean that no one can avoid death.
Since everyone is a sinner, and the wages of sin is death, whether we live 60 years, 80 years, or 100 years on this earth, we all face death.
Death is the situation that everyone hates and does not want the most.
Nevertheless, everyone’s final destination is the grave.
If you think about it this way, isn’t life truly meaningless and ultimately without anything to be thankful for?
However, believers are those who have overcome death and obtained eternal life in heaven through Jesus.
Therefore, we can be thankful even at the moment of death because of Jesus.
Furthermore, we can be thankful and hope for the heaven that Jesus has prepared for us in any situation in life.
This is the true faith and hope of saints.

The early church members were arrested, crucified, fed to wild beasts, and sacrificed to gladiators simply because they believed in Jesus.
Despite this, why did they not give up their faith and bravely become martyrs?
Because they had hope for the heaven that Jesus had prepared.
Because they hoped for the day Jesus would come again and hoped to enter heaven, they were able to be thankful and praise even in the face of death.
Last Friday, we learned a song called ‘One Day.’ ‘One Day’ is the day Jesus comes again, or the day I go to heaven.
In other words, it is the last day of this world that I experience.
However, for the believes, that day is the happiest day because our salvation is completed.
This is American worship song.
The subtitle of this song is ‘When we all get to heaven.’
The lyrics of this song are as follows.

“One day You'll make everything new, Jesus
One day You will bind every wound
The former things shall all pass away/ No more tears
One day You'll make sense of it all, Jesus
One day every question resolved
Every anxious thought left behind/ No more fear
When we all get to heaven/ What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus/ We'll sing and shout the victory”

I hope this confession will become my confession and yours.
If you know the end, no hardship is hard to endure.
If you know the outcome, you don’t have to be anxious in any situation.
The end of believers is happy ending through Jesus.
Therefore, be thankful in all circumstances.

Conclusion
I will now conclude.
God did not tell us to be thankful for everything without a reason.
In all good situations, He tells us not to forget the grace of God who gave us the blessings and to be thankful.
God tells us to be thankful because He gave us life, health, and the things we enjoy now.
He also tells us to be thankful even in bad situations that we do not want.
There is a reason for this.
God trains our faith through difficulties and hardships and gives us more abundant blessings.
I hope that you will become those who believe in God who works together to achieve good, and who pray and give thanks even in the midst of hardships and use hardships as opportunities for blessings.
Lastly, I shared that we can be thankful for everything because we have Jesus.
We can be thankful in any situation because there is one day when we will obtain the eternal life in heaven that Jesus has prepared for us.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you and I will all live with gratitude and praise in any situation, hoping for one day when we will gain the final victory with Jesus who overcame death and was resurrected.

Let us praise together at this time.
Remember one day all wounds will be healed, all suffering will end, all worries will disappear, and our bodies will suddenly be transformed into glorious bodies of resurrection. Regardless of our circumstances, I want to live with gratitude in all circumstances. Let us confess and praise together.