2 Corinthians 13:5

I am thrown away if Christ does not live through me. 2 Corinthians 13:5 5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? I am not sure how you comprehend this verse in Scripture, but there is a clear warning in this message. The Scriptures say if we examine ourselves to see whether the we are in the faith and know that Christ Jesus is in us then we are to live as our Lord commands. If that is not so then we have failed the test and have nothing to do with Him. What does this mean? Though you may be present in body because you have nothing to do with him and you have failed the test you are going to hell. This is the warning in this message. It is the message of judgment. Today we sang a hymn about the abundant field that is ready to be harvested. It is possible that we think to only sing this song on joyous occasions, during Thanksgiving day, and when we are grateful. This is the last Sunday for 2012. When we give thanks we can gather the harvest and then give thanks or we can give thanks first and then harvest. If we review 2012 and giving thanks for the harvest that we have collected are we speaking of things that are outside of us? How many square feet do you think our garden is in the back? It is not much. But this small field, if you are not diligent in maintaining it, will be full of weeds. If you desire a larger field would you be able to maintain it well? Each of you has been given an abundant field in your lives. Everyone you meet your daily life is an opportunity for you to save their soul, it is your purpose, but are you fulfilling this purpose? Are people being saved wherever you go? And if you are not saving souls are you at least sharing the fragrance of Christ to everyone? If you are sharing the fragrance of Christ then people will desire to be with you. Why? It is because of the fragrance. The moment I pass them they will grab a hold of me and want to speak with me. Why? It is because from me will flow the words of life. But when people look at me and do not desire to be with me, why is that? It is because there is evil within me. Why? It is because I do not have Jesus in me. I am rotten. But I am the one to get upset when people hate me. This is the way it is your families. I was like this too at one time. It was my personality. If my younger brothers were playing and I came home they would all disperse. Why? It is because I was the type to ruin the ambiance. At home it may have seemed that I acted like a king, but outside amongst my friends I played well with everyone. What was the problem? Rather than doing what I should have done I did things I should not have. To satisfy my flesh, I did things well outside, but when I came home I acted like a king thinking that this was the right way to be. Growing up in this environment, I thought that this was right. But one day being awakened, I realized that I have been living wrong. Without changing I could not remaining in God's grace and without having Jesus in my heart, I would be the one to ruin the ambiance wherever I went rather than create memorable and beautiful ones. I would be the one to push people away from me. This started in my family. Then outside of my family could I have done the right thing? Looking back I realize that they played with me because I was there, and the moment I got up and left I they would have been pointing fingers at me and saying things about me. I did not know this. I did not live a life with Jesus. When we think of the abundant field that God has given us we think of lands and the many souls we need to go find and save. But do we ever consider that it is our calling to save the souls of the ones that have been put into our lives? If this is so then we have not lived the life of faith in Jesus. We look at individuals as food. What kind of food? Money that will feed us. We look at them as customers who only give us money. We look at them as individuals that we must make a sale. We do not think of them as souls that we are to save. Yet we say that we are Christians. That is why when we leave those people, because we only use them for our profit, they will point fingers at us and speak about us. No matter how much we act as though we are kind to them, because we are using them to gain a profit for ourselves, when we turn our backs they will speak and say things about us which we do not desire. I was unaware of this. When we sing that we must harvest before the time is past, and we reflect on the past year of 2012 even up to the hour before the service, time has already gone, we have already missed the opportunity. I am 60 years old and if I am to live another 60 years then I have already lived half my life. But who will guarantee that I will live 120 years. Let us assume that we will live to 80. And 75% of my life is already gone. We have missed all the opportunities. What a stupid and foolish life we have lived. But still we do not awaken to seize this opportunity that is given to us now. We are constantly reminded to not worry or be anxious, but we worry about things that will happen in years to come and fail to see that we are living a life without Jesus. If we have Jesus then it is possible to live a life daily without worry or anxiety. If I am truly to live a life as a witness to Jesus to be a fragrance to him, then even though I may have profited from the person, that person will still desire to see me again and want to meet with me whenever I pass them. But having lived the life in the flesh, they will hate to ever see me again. When we reflect on our lives and see that rather than living by the word we have lived according to the flesh, we have bodies that are sick. All of us are sick. When we examine a body that is sick there is a sequence that we follow. When we examine the blood, do we do so after eating? Whenever you are to have your blood drawn to be examined it is done when you have fasted. You may have eat dinner but breakfast you must skip and then go to have your blood drawn. Those who check your blood glucose, do you check your blood after you have eaten? There is a sequence that must be followed. When we examine the G.I. tract it takes time, you must drink certain medications and is a little bit complicated. What it says here is that in four hours you are to drink 8 L of water that contain a medicine. For someone who is not accustomed to be drinking lots of water, that is not an easy task. You must fast, drink lots of water, it takes a long time, you must have patience and endure hardship. Is this easy? Then they put in the scope. It takes quite a bit of time to do the examination. Why do we examine the G.I. tract? Why do we put in the scope and look inside? Is it to see something beautiful? We look to see if there's a problem or something that does not belong. Why is there sickness or disease? We say because we did not take care of it, but how do you take care of your insides? Do you open it up and wash it? How do you care for it? The answer is simple but it is hard to do. We must overcome temptation of our eyes, control the urges of our mouth, and overcome the greed that we seek to satisfy ourselves and eat in moderation. But we overindulge and the insides are overworked and have given up. When we exercise we are to do it in moderation, but when we over exert ourselves we do more damage and are exhausted. Then when we are to do something we are unable to accomplish that task. Why? It is because we are too tired to do anything. Likewise, when we have eaten something we are to digest it and move it through our body, but because we have eaten too much it is overworked and cannot perform its function. Then because the body cannot function properly it becomes sick and diseased. Who made that happen? It is with my eyes, my mouth, my hands, and all that I took pleasure from in my mouth, but that has damaged the insides which are truly important. You will have a problem with your liver, your stomach, your heart, your lungs, your blood. All your functions will be affected because of the pleasure you seek to satisfy in your mouth. The desire to satisfy the flesh and to take pleasure from it has caused your body to suffer. It is the same with the things of the spirit. For the things of the flesh we can examine the body and treat it, but how do you examine the sickness of the spirit? How do you treat the spirit? How can you examine it? The body can be examined with MRI, x-ray, scopes, blood tests. But how does one examine the condition of the Spirit? It would be nice if there was an MRI for the spirit. Then you could lie down and in about 5 or 10 minutes they could tell me what the problem was. But how can we know if our spirit is sick? When we examine ourselves, the problem is we set our own standards and we are perfect in our own eyes. When a parent looks at his child and he is satisfied with them. When one looks at oneself and the satisfied with themselves. When someone tells you not to do it but in your mind it is alright to do. Why? It is because you have lived your life according to your standards. Whether it be your speech, what you eat, the way you act. No matter what anyone tells you you refuse to listen. For me the one who knows me best is my wife. Between husbands and wives we are good at pointing out each others faults. And when they do so it affects our pride. And we refuse to listen to what they have to say. When we first gathered as a church and when we compare to the amount we eat today, how much have we decreased in our consumption? We eat a lot less. It has decreased incredibly. Why has it decreased? As the Spirit becomes clear, the things of the flesh starts to get cut off. As it becomes easier to control oneself the things of the flesh naturally decrease. When the spirit comes to life the flesh naturally dies away and the change becomes evident in one's life. It would be nice if our spirits would grow according to the amount we eat. But that is not possible. The Spirit must be clear and you must choose to change your life. If you live by your own standards then you will eat and drink until you feel satisfied. Though people say that drinking coffee late at night is not good for sleep, you will choose to drink two or 3 cups because that is what you decide to do. You will eat according to your standards of what is spicy, salty, and how much. Everything is according to your standards. When you are in the conversation, you are only concerned about what you want to say whether the person in front of you is interested or not. And if the person in front you is unhappy, you argue with them. Why? Because you spoke to that person the way you wanted and completely ignored them in the process. You are the standard by everything you do. You do not know the mistakes that you make. No matter how you examine the body you cannot see that your spirit is sick. When we see the things that are in us our thoughts, speech, actions habits, the things we see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, the standard by which we know that these things are sin is the Word of God and by the working of the Holy Spirit who reveals to us the sin in our lives. Jesus told us that when he would send us the helper He would bring judgement and make us realize sin. We must open our eyes and see the sin in our lives through the help of the Holy Spirit so that when we see it we can repent from it. If you see that the pleasure that you sought to satisfy in your eyes into your mouth have caused you to become sick then so it so with your spirit. The pleasures of the flesh, speaking whatever you like, eating whatever you want, and seeking to satisfy all your desires, makes your spirit sick as well. Why do you speak evil? It is because your spirit is sick, you are unclean and that is why evil comes out of your mouth. Why do I keep doing the things I should not be doing? We say to stop looking at porn, stop getting being engrossed with video games, and we keep drawing lines of warnings. But we continue to do these things. Why? We force ourselves to continue doing the things that we find pleasurable. It is because our spirit is sick. We do not realize that our spirit is sick. With control we are to care for our bodies and keep it clean in which our Lord dwells in, but we seek satisfaction and pleasure and make our bodies sick in the process. And if our bodies are sick that means our spirits is sick. If we have made our bodies uninhabitable for our Lord and just as today's Scripture says Jesus is not in us. If I realize one day that I have been living in sin and have suffered sickness because of it and that I have been living a life without Jesus as Lord, then what does that mean? It means I have nothing to do with Jesus and that I am dead. I cannot go to heaven. This is the result of your faith. But do you see this as your result? No. We believe that on Sundays you come dressed in nice clothes and you sing and dance before God and think that this is faith. The truth is you left the Lord outside and sang and danced for your own pleasure. Did you truly celebrate and sing and dance with the Lord together? Did you really? If you come before God to worship and he says that he will not accept it, then do you stand right with God? Do you think that because you have offered worship to God that you have done your duty and it is finished? If this is how we are living in our faith, then we must examine ourselves again. Everything I see is through the standards of me eyes. These glasses are fit for my eyes. Everything looks good to me. All the church members in my eyes have good enough faith. It is easy for me to judge them as believers. But just because I say you are perfect does that mean that God also sees you as perfect? The biggest mistake that all believers make is thinking that because it is right in your eyes you believe that it is right in the sight of God. The journey that you are on the started off in the wrong direction. You think that you are good enough but if our Lord says that you are not then you are not. You may have done your best at work, but who there must not be dissatisfied? If the owner is unhappy then it does not matter. Though I may have sacrificed myself to turn in a project if my superior does not like my work then I will be terminated. But we think that doing things according to our own standards is enough. Our spiritual life is the same. We are busy telling our Lord that at times we have fasted, served others, given offerings and have done enough. We ask what more does he want from us and say we can do no more. We tell him that when we are upset, that we should be allowed to be angry. If we are upset we want to eat and drink and have fun. We tell him that how can we live according to his rules while living in this world. All this is according to whose standards? My standards. If God allows you to do something then go ahead and do it. It does not matter what the pastor says. But if the Bible says no then it is no. This is the standard for your life by which you can say yes and no. But the more I think about it we have set ourselves outside of Jesus and live according to the standards of the flesh and have become accustomed to it. We live our Christian lives according to the things that we see, hear, touch and taste we accept as good as long as it pleases us. This life is only an empty shell of Christianity. We sing that we sincerely seek the Holy Spirit. But no matter how sincerely we seek the Holy Spirt, without the Holy Spirit himself in us we are not truly seeking him. We fail to recognize this. We think sincerity is all about our feelings. When we sing asking the Holy Spirit to help us, and ask him in to help us in our prayers, whose prayers are we seeking? It is the prayers that God desires. It is the prayers that God can hear for which we ask the Holy Spirit to help us. We think that we are praying when we we open our mouths asking for the things we want. When the Spirit helps us to pray speaking in tongues for the things that which we do not know is to truly be a person of prayer. When we read the Bible the Holy Spirit sheds light on it, so that we can receive it in our spirit. But when you only try to read it for knowledge, the Words that conflict with your heart are not accepted. That is why there is no change in your life. You read the Bible in a way that satisfies you and there is no change in your life and faith fails to develop. When you witness you do not do it using a system. You pray that you do it according to the wisdom that is given to you from above. We are to pray and seek that we are transformed to be like Jesus. Why do we pray and study the Word? Is it to receive power, boast to others, move up in status, to fulfill your desires? Then you are going the wrong way. If by fasting and praying and receiving power you think that you can live the life any way that you desire then you are wrong. Let him says that we ask to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to live a life filled with the love of our Lord. We ask for the Spirit that we may have the strength to live clean lives. We ask for the Spirit that we may burn all the things of the world out of us, to rid all desires of this world. This is why we seek the power of the Holy Spirit. We seek the Holy Spirit to help us live the life of Heaven here. This is why we pray. But we pray asking to heal our sicknesses, or to show our spiritual power to others. We have misunderstood the purpose of the Holy Spirit and His work and therefore have problems in our Christian walk. Let us examine ourselves through the word that has been given to us to the Holy Spirit, Jesus says that he is the vine and we are the branches. He has told us that we must stay attached to him. If we reflect back on 2012 and see that we have not produced much fruit, then why is this the case? It is because we are not connected to our Lord. If we failed to produce fruit in 2012 because we were not connected to our Lord this signifies that my spiritual life was dead. This is the answer. But because we are alive in the flesh and because we satisfy our desires we assume that we are living. Who has judged? I am the one that has judged. I am the one to judge my circumstance and complain if I lack money, or give any other excuse for not producing fruit, but if you are told to confess that you have lived a life dead in the spirit this past year would you be able to? No. Let us use the word of God and examine ourselves. 1 John 2:6 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. If I say that I am in Jesus and that he is in me then the life that produces fruit is living the life the way Jesus lived his life. This is the life of living in Jesus. Of all the countless Christians in the world today including myself, are we living the life as Jesus did? As I look upon my own life I can only say no. I may try to live as Jesus did but I would be embarrassed to say that I am living my life as he did. We are to try our hardest to live as Jesus did, and though impossible, the Bible commands us to do so, it is not a request. We are commanded to live as Jesus did. But we fail to focus on this. Because we have failed to find our focus can we truly look at our lives and see our sin? We use the excuse that that was Jesus' life and it is not our life. But if we compare our lives to the Word of God we see the result which is our sin. What must we do if we see sin? We must repent. But rather then repent, we make excuses. We continue to cover ourselves to make ourselves presentable rather than acknowledging the sin and removing it from our lives. We are deceived by the games of the devil. For example, let us say my wife or my children come and tell me about something that I am doing wrong. If I accept it then I am able to change it. But what is our usual response? We make excuses for our behaviors. This means that we are refusing to change ourselves. The Christian life is one that examines their life according to the Word and acknowledges the wrong and changes it. It is a confession of sin and seeking the help from our Lord Jesus in living a life that has been redeemed and to be holy just as he is holy and to choose to live this life and to live the life just as he did. If these are not the words that are coming from you then you must examine yourself. But what should you be examining? You must examine your relationship between you and the Lord. Are you attached to him or separated from him? You must examine to see if you are living in him. The spiritual war is does not occur outside of us. It has nothing to do with your finances, for the health of your body, would people around you, and the temptations. When your relationship is right with God, you will overcome everything in your life. No matter how problematic your children may be, if you are standing right with God, you will realize that there is no problem at all. But because you are not standing right with God, the problems of your children seem like major problems. Whose problem is it truly? It is the problem that arises within you. You have no money, you are starving, you are fired from your job, your body is sick, you are being ignored by people, you look at your circumstance and then you fall. You are not standing right with God. Why are you starving? What is wrong between God and me? Why am I having problems at work? Why am I having problems with the people in my life? If I right the problems between God and I, then no matter how difficult the circumstances in my life I will be given the strength to overcome. But without standing right before God, I will start making excuses in all situations and point the finger elsewhere. Then I will lose the spiritual war. No matter how difficult the situation, if I serve the Lord and accept my circumstance as have been given to me by God, then I can with overcome with joy and gratitude. But we do not live this life. There was a recent interview with the famous baseball manager Kim. He was telling the story of his life and the hardships he faced growing up. Today he goes around giving lectures to give hope to the younger generation. He says that you were not unemployed because there is no work. You are unemployed because you do not want to work. He asks them is not hard labor also work? Nobody wants to do hard labor so they bring in immigrants to do that work. And everyone seeks the easy jobs. He tells them that when he was younger it was not that way. He tells of his jobs delivering newspapers and milk. But he says he did not do the work considering it work but he did it with joy. How did he enjoy his work? He said when he would go deliver the product he would always time himself. He said that it is today it took them an hour then tomorrow because it is a new day he would try to break that power and do it in 59 minutes. He did it with joy and considering it as a challenge. He never considered his work is something difficult. He always did his work with joy and gratitude. Why am I telling you this story? Rather than complain about the difficulty and hardships of your circumstance, if you could see that through your circumstance that God is training you for his work, or that he is disciplining you for not being right with Him, then you could see that God is wanting for you to examine yourself. Then you can make the change, but because I am me I complain. If we fail to accept our circumstance with joy and gratitude knowing that God is wanting for us to learn more of his grace through these trial then we will have lost the spiritual war. Then the Spirit cannot be present in us. In order to win the spiritual war, we must ignore all the things around us, and first and foremost reconcile our relationship with God. If we live according to the desires of the flesh focusing on what we eat and drink as important, then it will be difficult to win the spiritual war. There are too many temptations and the desire to eat and satisfy that need will be first. If we obey God and seek first his kingdom and his righteousness then what follows is spiritual victory. But if we reverse the order then we can neither win the spiritual war nor be satisfied with the needs of the flesh. True Light church members, do you truly desire to live the life that please God? I must first lay down myself before him so that he can govern me in the way that he desires. This is the decision that I must first make on my own. When a problem is before you rather than coming to God first, what do we do? We start coming up with solutions in our own minds. After we have decided what we will do we come to God in prayer and ask him to answer our prayers. I am asking that we do not do this. When we have a problem we should come to God first with the problem and ask them why the problem is there and ask God what he desires to do with me in this situation. If we come to God in prayer in this manner then the answer will be given to us. This is the life of obedience to God where victory is found in the spirit. Then if God grants us the new year in 2013 then would we not reap an abundant harvest if we sought God daily in this manner and followed Him in His will? This must be our lives so that we can be victorious in our spiritual life. Do you truly desire to be a disciple of God? When you meet Jesus, who is truth, you will either follow him or you will abandon him. Many of us abandon the pursuit of Jesus because it is difficult. We abandon the pursuit because we do not truly believe. We only do that which we desire to do. This means that we do not believe in him but we believe in ourselves. Is this not so? If a parent does everything the child desires does that make them a parent? But if they fail to do everything are they still not the parent of the child? Is any parent child relationship perfect? Do you know why it is not a good relationship? It is because the children do not trust their parents completely. And do parents realize that they are not perfect and admit their faults and acknowledge this? We failed to acknowledge this. We think that we are good enough and we live according to our own standards. He who is truth, perfect, Creator, our shepherd, the One who gave us life, if we believe this we are to follow Him. But do we follow Him? We complain that we cannot go down that path. When He commands us to lay down everything and follow Him, we say no we cannot do that. Is this obedience? No. There is only one path to true discipleship and that is to abandon everything and to follow. The other choice is not to follow. To go halfway is the same is not going. It is better to have not believed at all. It is the same. But we mistakenly believe that because we have a little faith and have done some things, therefore it counts. In the end when we stand before God in judgment we will be punished. If you come before God and you declare that you believe in him does that make you a true believer? 2 Thessalonians 3:2 2 And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not everyone has faith. It clearly says that not everyone has faith. But when we ask anyone they all say they believe. But those who say they believe, do they obey? If they a not obedient then they do not believe. To say that you believe and follow Jesus Christ means that you are to die like Jesus and to be guided by him wherever he may lead, no matter how dark and difficult the path, to do things that I dislike, and lead me to places where I would give my life, I must say "yes" and that is the life of faith in Jesus. To believe in Jesus is not about receiving wealth and success. It is his choice to give. If he leads me to the lowest of places where I am stepped upon, I must have the will to be obedient to him which is the life of following him. The one who lives this life is the one through whom He works. The one who confesses death in Christ is the one who is victorious in him. Whether you have an abundant field or a small one, if you are to meet only one person today, and saving that soul which is your harvest, doing your best whether people are watching or not, choosing to accept the calling given to you, and living your life being led by the Spirit, the accumulation of the harvest that you will store up, will be an abundant offering that you will be able to offer up to the Lord and one at He can accept from us. You do not reap a harvest overnight in an explosion. Remember that it is the daily events in our life from which you reap a harvest for the Lord. If 2012 was not a year that you are able to off up to God, then examine yourself today and ask God to grants 2013, if he does, make the decision to live the life of obedience as you offer yourself up to Him. Sermon by Pastor Howard Park Translated by Miguel Park