김흥규목사 (성루가연합감리교회)
There are times when we are looking for something. We think that item is in a certain place; yet, when we go to find it and it is not where it is supposed to be, we panic. For example, clothes should be in a closet, and books should be on a bookshelf. But sometimes, that piece of clothing is not in a closet-rather, it is stuffed in a corner somewhere else. Sometimes the book is hiding in a place other than the bookshelf. In times like this, we spend valuable time looking for those things.
Today, I would like to say that it is a true blessing when all things in this world-people, things, and all creations under heaven-are in right places, where they are supposed to be.
According to Genesis 1: 2, before God created the universe and all beings in it, “earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.” We call such conditions ‘chaos.’ All things are mingled within darkness, without order or form.
Amid such chaos, God created all things one by one. When all things in nature began to take their form one by one, order came to the universe. Day and night divided the day, and land and oceans separated. Sky and ground rifted apart, and all animals and plants began filling up the earth.
When God created all things in the universe one by one, chaos subsided and order and stability came to the universe. The antonym for ‘chaos’ is ‘cosmos,’ and this word can mean order, or it can also mean universe. How can ‘cosmos’ mean both order and universe? Because there was order in the universe that God had created. So when all things are at where they are supposed to be, all is accordance to God’s will and full of His blessing.
Let’s think about this. If the sun is not where it is at, but rather much closer to the earth, then we will not be able to survive. We will all burn to death. The same goes for the moon and the stars. When they are in places that they are supposed to be, in places where God placed them, the skies are beautiful and harmonious tranquillity exists. All is peaceful and stable.
The interesting thing is that among all things in the universe, God had given humans a special place to reside in. Let’s take a look at Genesis 1: 28. “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
What does this mean? Did God not specifically designate the place and the position that humans are supposed to occupy? Did He not tell us to rule all beings, such as birds, fish, plants, and other animals rather than being ruled by them? God told us to be supervisors, to be managers. Because of these words from God, man was able to rule everything in his domain and create the miracle of today.
The principle of human existence is same everywhere. In a family, there is a place for the father, the place for the mother. There are places for the children. If children reside in places that the father is supposed to be in, then the order in that family will break down. When the role of husband and wife is switched, that too will make that family strangely not harmonious. In a family, only when its members are in places that they are supposed to be in, will there be order and happiness.
The same principle applies to a nation. Not long ago, the newly elected president of Korea, Roh Muhyun, expressed that it was hard on him to be a president; as a result, he received stinging criticisms. But presidents are human, and they can harbor feelings of despair. In times of tribulations, when unbearable pressure weighs on them, would they not feel like giving everything up and quit being president? The problem is that President Roh imprudently made his comments publicly. Because he is the president, he must hide those feelings, no matter what he feels on the inside.
To bring order and stability to a nation, ministers must be ministers, congressmen must be congressmen, and civil servants must be civil servants. Soldiers must keep their places as soldiers to keep the nation safe. Don’t soldiers who go AWOL and shirk their duties not get punished severely during a court-martial? Why is the Korean society so chaotic and unstable today? It is because people are not where they are supposed to be. People are in places where they are not supposed to be, and that is bringing about much chaos.
Even in organized sports, being in the right place is paramount. In a soccer game, where there are eleven players to a side, attackers must attack and defenders must defend their half of the field. If one player fails to do his job, the team is weakened and it cannot win the match.
In the Bible, there are many that were blessed because they were at where they were supposed to be, and did what they were supposed to do. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Peter, John, James, Paul, and such are some of countless examples. Each of them was at the place of grace that God solemnly placed them to be. They were in the places of holiness. Therefore they received God’s love.
But there are opposite examples. There is countless number of figures who abandoned the place that God placed them in. Most representative of example is Samson. Who was Samson? He was an immortal hero who was gloriously born under the pronouncement of conception from God’s angel. Samson was a Nazirite to God, a holy chosen one of God who had a special gender distinction.
According to Judges 13: 4-5, Samson was not to drink wine or similar drink since he was a Nazirite. He was not to have razor touch his hair. Living such distinct lifestyle was the place in life that God had reserved for Samson. But Samson could not keep his place in life. He drank the wine that he was not to drink. And he fell into the temptation of Philistine prostitute Delilah, who eventually took razor to his head. What was the result? Did he not suffer insufferable humiliation and fall into hell?
If I, as a pastor, and other elders of this church go to a bar on a Sunday, what would happen? That is not the right place for us. It is not the place that God wants us to be at. It will become a place of humiliation. It will be a place of shame. It will be the most unnatural place. Christians must be in places set aside for Christians in order to find happiness. If Christians find themselves in the tarnished, evil places of the world, then something is seriously wrong.
The Second Epistle of Timothy is a letter that Paul, while awaiting his day of martyrdom in a Roman prison, sent to Timothy. According to today’s scripture, there were many that had abandoned the incarcerated Paul during these last hours. Those who had loyally served with Paul as his right and left arms left him one by one.
According to verse 10, Demas, who loved the secular world, had forsaken Paul and left for Thessalonia. Who is Demas? According to Colossians 4: 14, Demas had shared his fate with Paul. If Luke was Paul’s right arm, then Demas was probably his left. Demas, who played such an important role, had forsaken Paul, who was facing certain death. Not only that, Demas lost his faith because of his love affair with the secular world. He left the place that he was supposed to be at, and went to a place that he was not supposed to be at.
Crescens left for Galatia, and Titus left for Dalmatia. These two, in contrast with Demas, did not forsake Paul. They left on a journey of mission. Titus, the main figure of the Epistle of Titus, appears in many letters of Paul and one of key colleagues of Paul. (See 2 Corinthians 2: 13; 7: 6; 13-14; 8: 6,16,23; 12: 18; Galatians 2: 1,3; Titus 1: 4)
Titus, oblivious to dangers, left for Dalmatia, a faraway place on Macedonian waters. Crescens and Titus both were in right places, the places they were supposed to be at as Christians.
Take a look at first half of verse 11. “Only Luke is with me.” Who is Luke? According to Colossians 4: 14, Luke was a “beloved physician.” As a colleague of Paul, Luke recorded the Gospel of Luke and the Acts. (See Luke 1: 3, Acts 1: 1, Philemon 1: 24) Because he was a physician, medical terms appear some 50 times in the Gospel of Luke. Life of Luke is beautiful because he was with Paul to the end, up to the very moment when Paul was martyred.
It is true. As stated in verse 11 of today’s scripture, Luke was the last colleague of Paul. How difficult is it to maintain trust and loyalty with another person until the end? But Luke did so. The fact that Luke, a physician, is next to Paul, whose health had greatly declined during his imprisonment-what can be a more comforting thought? Luke was at the place he was supposed to be at until the very end. That is why he was a beloved physician, loved by both humans and God.
According to second half of verse 11 and 12, Mark and Tychicus both were beloved colleagues of Paul. They too were at right places, brining great positive influence to Paul’s mission work.
But let’s take a look at verse 14 and 15 for a moment. Alexander the coppersmith did great harm to Paul. According to 1 Timothy 1: 20, Alexander, along with Hymenaeus, discarded his conscience and failed in his faith. Paul advises Timothy to beware of Alexander, meaning ‘protect yourself and don’t get too close to him.’
Alexander was indeed the one who did not stand in the place of grace but stood in a place of curse. He stood not in the place of faith but lack of faith. He was anti-Christ. He opposed Paul and his coworkers so severely that Paul wishes for God to deal with him eye for an eye. He left the work of carrying out revenge against Alexander up to God!
According to verse 16, Paul said “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me.” When Paul was suffering, those who should have been by his side had all left him. They were in places that they were not supposed to be at!
As I conclude, I would like to implore you on one matter. We are all children of God, those who God had saved by paying through the blood of Jesus. So be in places right for the children of God. You are holy Christians. Be in a holy place.
On Sundays, no matter what, come to the church and be in the place full of grace. When possible, participate in many church gatherings. Choir members, stand in the choir. Sunday school teachers, go to the classrooms. Be in the right place that God had assigned you to be at. That is the beautiful thing to do. That is an action fit for the children of God to carry out.
A group of botanists were hiking in the Alps when they discovered a rare species of flower. This flower was growing atop a ledge of rock on side of a cliff; therefore, one could only get to it by lower oneself on a lifeline from the top of the cliff. Needless to say, it was a very dangerous endeavor.
Unfortunately, no one in the group had and special knowledge regarding rock or mountain climbing. So they asked a young shepherd from a nearby village for help. Giving him a few gold coins as compensation, they asked him to go pick the flower from side of a cliff off of a lifeline. The boy wanted those gold coins. But no matter how hard he thought about it, dangling from a rope off of a cliff seemed like a very dangerous thing to do.
The boy had to believe that although these people were total strangers, they would hang onto the lifeline on the other end with dear life. After hesitating a while, the boy left the group and returned a while later with an elderly gentleman. Then the boy excitedly ran to the edge of the cliff.
The boy yelled to the group of botanists, who had a look of concern on their faces. “You can tie the rope under my arms now. I’ll go into the canyon, as long as you let my father hold the rope.”
What a beautiful story! Is the boy not saying that as long as his father is by his side, even the steep cliff canyon is not fearful? It is true. Those who live with God our Father by their sides are always safe. They do not fear any disaster or calamity of this world. It is because God our Father shields them from all the turbulence.
No matter where you are, no matter what you do, always be with God our Father! That is the rightful place for all of us, the children of God, to be at. It is a place of victory, a place of grace, and place of blessing! Amen.
There are times when we are looking for something. We think that item is in a certain place; yet, when we go to find it and it is not where it is supposed to be, we panic. For example, clothes should be in a closet, and books should be on a bookshelf. But sometimes, that piece of clothing is not in a closet-rather, it is stuffed in a corner somewhere else. Sometimes the book is hiding in a place other than the bookshelf. In times like this, we spend valuable time looking for those things.
Today, I would like to say that it is a true blessing when all things in this world-people, things, and all creations under heaven-are in right places, where they are supposed to be.
According to Genesis 1: 2, before God created the universe and all beings in it, “earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.” We call such conditions ‘chaos.’ All things are mingled within darkness, without order or form.
Amid such chaos, God created all things one by one. When all things in nature began to take their form one by one, order came to the universe. Day and night divided the day, and land and oceans separated. Sky and ground rifted apart, and all animals and plants began filling up the earth.
When God created all things in the universe one by one, chaos subsided and order and stability came to the universe. The antonym for ‘chaos’ is ‘cosmos,’ and this word can mean order, or it can also mean universe. How can ‘cosmos’ mean both order and universe? Because there was order in the universe that God had created. So when all things are at where they are supposed to be, all is accordance to God’s will and full of His blessing.
Let’s think about this. If the sun is not where it is at, but rather much closer to the earth, then we will not be able to survive. We will all burn to death. The same goes for the moon and the stars. When they are in places that they are supposed to be, in places where God placed them, the skies are beautiful and harmonious tranquillity exists. All is peaceful and stable.
The interesting thing is that among all things in the universe, God had given humans a special place to reside in. Let’s take a look at Genesis 1: 28. “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
What does this mean? Did God not specifically designate the place and the position that humans are supposed to occupy? Did He not tell us to rule all beings, such as birds, fish, plants, and other animals rather than being ruled by them? God told us to be supervisors, to be managers. Because of these words from God, man was able to rule everything in his domain and create the miracle of today.
The principle of human existence is same everywhere. In a family, there is a place for the father, the place for the mother. There are places for the children. If children reside in places that the father is supposed to be in, then the order in that family will break down. When the role of husband and wife is switched, that too will make that family strangely not harmonious. In a family, only when its members are in places that they are supposed to be in, will there be order and happiness.
The same principle applies to a nation. Not long ago, the newly elected president of Korea, Roh Muhyun, expressed that it was hard on him to be a president; as a result, he received stinging criticisms. But presidents are human, and they can harbor feelings of despair. In times of tribulations, when unbearable pressure weighs on them, would they not feel like giving everything up and quit being president? The problem is that President Roh imprudently made his comments publicly. Because he is the president, he must hide those feelings, no matter what he feels on the inside.
To bring order and stability to a nation, ministers must be ministers, congressmen must be congressmen, and civil servants must be civil servants. Soldiers must keep their places as soldiers to keep the nation safe. Don’t soldiers who go AWOL and shirk their duties not get punished severely during a court-martial? Why is the Korean society so chaotic and unstable today? It is because people are not where they are supposed to be. People are in places where they are not supposed to be, and that is bringing about much chaos.
Even in organized sports, being in the right place is paramount. In a soccer game, where there are eleven players to a side, attackers must attack and defenders must defend their half of the field. If one player fails to do his job, the team is weakened and it cannot win the match.
In the Bible, there are many that were blessed because they were at where they were supposed to be, and did what they were supposed to do. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Peter, John, James, Paul, and such are some of countless examples. Each of them was at the place of grace that God solemnly placed them to be. They were in the places of holiness. Therefore they received God’s love.
But there are opposite examples. There is countless number of figures who abandoned the place that God placed them in. Most representative of example is Samson. Who was Samson? He was an immortal hero who was gloriously born under the pronouncement of conception from God’s angel. Samson was a Nazirite to God, a holy chosen one of God who had a special gender distinction.
According to Judges 13: 4-5, Samson was not to drink wine or similar drink since he was a Nazirite. He was not to have razor touch his hair. Living such distinct lifestyle was the place in life that God had reserved for Samson. But Samson could not keep his place in life. He drank the wine that he was not to drink. And he fell into the temptation of Philistine prostitute Delilah, who eventually took razor to his head. What was the result? Did he not suffer insufferable humiliation and fall into hell?
If I, as a pastor, and other elders of this church go to a bar on a Sunday, what would happen? That is not the right place for us. It is not the place that God wants us to be at. It will become a place of humiliation. It will be a place of shame. It will be the most unnatural place. Christians must be in places set aside for Christians in order to find happiness. If Christians find themselves in the tarnished, evil places of the world, then something is seriously wrong.
The Second Epistle of Timothy is a letter that Paul, while awaiting his day of martyrdom in a Roman prison, sent to Timothy. According to today’s scripture, there were many that had abandoned the incarcerated Paul during these last hours. Those who had loyally served with Paul as his right and left arms left him one by one.
According to verse 10, Demas, who loved the secular world, had forsaken Paul and left for Thessalonia. Who is Demas? According to Colossians 4: 14, Demas had shared his fate with Paul. If Luke was Paul’s right arm, then Demas was probably his left. Demas, who played such an important role, had forsaken Paul, who was facing certain death. Not only that, Demas lost his faith because of his love affair with the secular world. He left the place that he was supposed to be at, and went to a place that he was not supposed to be at.
Crescens left for Galatia, and Titus left for Dalmatia. These two, in contrast with Demas, did not forsake Paul. They left on a journey of mission. Titus, the main figure of the Epistle of Titus, appears in many letters of Paul and one of key colleagues of Paul. (See 2 Corinthians 2: 13; 7: 6; 13-14; 8: 6,16,23; 12: 18; Galatians 2: 1,3; Titus 1: 4)
Titus, oblivious to dangers, left for Dalmatia, a faraway place on Macedonian waters. Crescens and Titus both were in right places, the places they were supposed to be at as Christians.
Take a look at first half of verse 11. “Only Luke is with me.” Who is Luke? According to Colossians 4: 14, Luke was a “beloved physician.” As a colleague of Paul, Luke recorded the Gospel of Luke and the Acts. (See Luke 1: 3, Acts 1: 1, Philemon 1: 24) Because he was a physician, medical terms appear some 50 times in the Gospel of Luke. Life of Luke is beautiful because he was with Paul to the end, up to the very moment when Paul was martyred.
It is true. As stated in verse 11 of today’s scripture, Luke was the last colleague of Paul. How difficult is it to maintain trust and loyalty with another person until the end? But Luke did so. The fact that Luke, a physician, is next to Paul, whose health had greatly declined during his imprisonment-what can be a more comforting thought? Luke was at the place he was supposed to be at until the very end. That is why he was a beloved physician, loved by both humans and God.
According to second half of verse 11 and 12, Mark and Tychicus both were beloved colleagues of Paul. They too were at right places, brining great positive influence to Paul’s mission work.
But let’s take a look at verse 14 and 15 for a moment. Alexander the coppersmith did great harm to Paul. According to 1 Timothy 1: 20, Alexander, along with Hymenaeus, discarded his conscience and failed in his faith. Paul advises Timothy to beware of Alexander, meaning ‘protect yourself and don’t get too close to him.’
Alexander was indeed the one who did not stand in the place of grace but stood in a place of curse. He stood not in the place of faith but lack of faith. He was anti-Christ. He opposed Paul and his coworkers so severely that Paul wishes for God to deal with him eye for an eye. He left the work of carrying out revenge against Alexander up to God!
According to verse 16, Paul said “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me.” When Paul was suffering, those who should have been by his side had all left him. They were in places that they were not supposed to be at!
As I conclude, I would like to implore you on one matter. We are all children of God, those who God had saved by paying through the blood of Jesus. So be in places right for the children of God. You are holy Christians. Be in a holy place.
On Sundays, no matter what, come to the church and be in the place full of grace. When possible, participate in many church gatherings. Choir members, stand in the choir. Sunday school teachers, go to the classrooms. Be in the right place that God had assigned you to be at. That is the beautiful thing to do. That is an action fit for the children of God to carry out.
A group of botanists were hiking in the Alps when they discovered a rare species of flower. This flower was growing atop a ledge of rock on side of a cliff; therefore, one could only get to it by lower oneself on a lifeline from the top of the cliff. Needless to say, it was a very dangerous endeavor.
Unfortunately, no one in the group had and special knowledge regarding rock or mountain climbing. So they asked a young shepherd from a nearby village for help. Giving him a few gold coins as compensation, they asked him to go pick the flower from side of a cliff off of a lifeline. The boy wanted those gold coins. But no matter how hard he thought about it, dangling from a rope off of a cliff seemed like a very dangerous thing to do.
The boy had to believe that although these people were total strangers, they would hang onto the lifeline on the other end with dear life. After hesitating a while, the boy left the group and returned a while later with an elderly gentleman. Then the boy excitedly ran to the edge of the cliff.
The boy yelled to the group of botanists, who had a look of concern on their faces. “You can tie the rope under my arms now. I’ll go into the canyon, as long as you let my father hold the rope.”
What a beautiful story! Is the boy not saying that as long as his father is by his side, even the steep cliff canyon is not fearful? It is true. Those who live with God our Father by their sides are always safe. They do not fear any disaster or calamity of this world. It is because God our Father shields them from all the turbulence.
No matter where you are, no matter what you do, always be with God our Father! That is the rightful place for all of us, the children of God, to be at. It is a place of victory, a place of grace, and place of blessing! Amen.
