February 22nd, 2015 Pastor Ock Soo Park’s Sunday Sermon

February 22nd, 2015 Pastor Ock Soo Park’s Sunday Sermon in Good News Gangnam Church

Matthew 28:11-20

February 15th, 2015 Pastor Ock Soo Park’s Sunday Sermon

February 15th, 2015 Pastor Ock Soo Park's Sermon

Only by God’s Grace

Sarah Farris, Good News Dallas Church

Until now, my eight-year-old son, Devin, has had a really difficult time at home and at school. Ever since he was in kindergarten he would constantly get in trouble and get suspended. In my mind I thought, “He’s so young. If this is how he is now, what will his life be like when he gets a little older?”

  God continuously gave me hardships with my kids. I went through many different stages of how I felt and thought about God and why he was allowing this situation to me. December 2011, the school decided it was time for my son to be sent to an alternative school, where all the problem kids go. I was devastated. At home, I can’t control him, and at school, they can’t control him. He won’t listen, he’s so hyper, can’t sit still, just constantly out of control and too much for anyone to handle.

I condemned myself and truly felt sorry for him having such a horrible mom, who has no parenting skills. I came back from the English Camp, in Mexico, in January when my son was starting at his new school. Even at the alternative school, where there are metal detectors when you walk in the front doors and police officers around, he still was out of control. He would run up and down the hallways, hide under tables and he even tore his own shoes apart. All I saw was despair.

One day, his teacher mentioned to me that I should take him to the doctor for an evaluation. With the information collected from all of his previous teachers, the doctor diagnosed my son with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder). I had a sorrowful heart, but couldn’t help but to be thankful that we finally had an explanation for all of this. We were able to start him on medication and he has been able to focus in school and he just received an award for Most Improved 2^nd grader.

Most importantly, through this whole situation, God revealed my heart to me. For such a long time, I saw my kids through my own eyes. I saw how miserable they were. I saw their actions and said something was wrong with them. But God has changed my heart, and I am able to rely only on God. God has given me these situations because he wants my heart, and to trust only in Him. The more I put my hands in His work, the more difficult I make the situation. I was able to see that I cannot live without God’s grace. Even though we still have our ups and downs, God has given me peace and I am able to rest in Jesus Christ.

I can’t make my kids happy, nor can I change them in any way. My prayers have no longer been for God to change my kids, but for God to allow Jesus Christ to come into their heart. That is where true happiness begins.

A Brother with Cancer and Jesus

Pastor Ock Soo Park's Testimony

JESUS SURELY HEALS

In Acts 3, after Peter raised the lame man, he said, “Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” The lame man was able to walk, not through Peter’s holiness or power, but by the name of Jesus Christ.

From time to time there are sick people who come to me to receive prayer. However, when a person with cancer visits me, I think to myself “Will I be able to heal this sick person?” Whenever I have these thoughts, I doubt 100 percent. “I can’t heal him. How can cancer be healed through my prayers?” Then again I think, “Would Jesus be able to heal this sick person?” Suddenly, I gain the heart that “Jesus can surely heal!” Then I think, “Would Jesus want to heal this person’s sickness?” At those moments, I opened up the Bible and read that Jesus never turned his back against a sick person. He never said he couldn’t heal them, but he healed them all.

IF JESUS COMES, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN?

Once, a loving brother and his wife came to visit me. The brother was diagnosed with cancer and was in a serious state. They said, “Pastor! Please pray for us.” I wanted to pray for that brother. “Brother, sit down for a while. Let’s talk first.” Sitting across from the couple, I began talking to the brother. The brother was facing great difficulties because of cancer. “Brother, let’s say that Jesus were to come here at this time. What do you think would happen? Of course, I would stop talking and sit right next to you, brother. Then Jesus would come and sit where I am sitting and preach, right?” I said, “Yes, that is true.”

“After Jesus finishes preaching, would he say ‘I enjoyed speaking with you. I will be leaving now. Good bye.’” The brother replied, “He wouldn’t do that.” Then I asked,
“Then what would he do?”
Then he replied, “He would heal my disease and then leave.”
I asked him again.
“Brother, are you sure of that?”
He said, “Yes.”

WOULD THE LORD IGNORE US IF WE WERE LOST?

I continued to speak, “In the past, I didn’t know anything about Jesus. When I used to attend church as a young boy, I asked the pastor, “Pastor, if I believe in Jesus this way, would I be able to enter heaven?” Then the pastor looked at me with a straight face and said “Who knows? You have to get there to know. No one knows other than God!” Then I asked, “Pastor, then how are we supposed to believe in Jesus?” He began to say that we have to believe in God with all of our hearts and efforts, but even then we won’t know if we can go to heaven. At that moment, I became very hesitant and thought “I probably won’t be able to enter heaven!”

However, we are able to discover Jesus as we read the Bible. We no longer believe it to be so as we read the heart of God in the Bible. As we saw how Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in the act of adultery and saved her, no matter what kind of sinners we may be, Jesus doesn’t condemn us but rather saves us. Even though we have not met Jesus, we believe that we will go to heaven because we know the heart of Jesus. We see how the father accepted the prodigal son when the prodigal son returned to the father. The son might have thought to himself, “Will he accept me? Wouldn’t he turn his back to me?” Contrary to his thoughts, the Father accepted him. That’s when the prodigal son knew the father’s heart.

“Brother, just as you have stated, Jesus will not ignore healing you. If you read the Bible, Deuteronomy 22:1 of the Old Testament says, Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother.

Then it says, Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.(Deut 22:4)

God did not speak for the ox or the donkeys but for us. Will the Lord who said not to hide yourself from the ox and the donkey that has fallen from his way, hide himself from us when we lose our way? Not so. Will the Lord who said to surely help an ox or a donkey when they have fallen from their way treat us like so? He will not. He will surely heal us.” I spoke up to there and asked the brother. “Brother, do you surely believe that Jesus will heal you?”

“Yes, pastor. I believe” If Jesus has the heart to heal your disease, and if you believe that, then your disease is already healed. It’s a problem because God’s heart and our hearts are the opposite. If your heart and the heart of Jesus becomes one and flows with one another, Jesus’ heart flows into your heart. His power comes with it; therefore, that disease is nothing.” I prayed for the brother and the couple went home.

RECEIVING THE GRACE THAT GOD GIVES US BY FAITH

After a few days, he called me and said, “Pastor! All the pain has vanished!” I don’t do such works. God does them. After a few days, the brother asked me, “Pastor! Could I enter the Mahanaim Theology School?” I answered, “Yes, once your body fully recovers, then come.” I thank God who has given faith to this brother and has perfected him. God truly loves us and bestows grace unto us. Therefore, it is not that we have to do something well in front of God, rather we just have to receive the grace that God bestows by faith.

God wants to heal us of whatever disease we have. But when we don’t have faith, we listen to the voice of Satan; we think “I will not be healed! How can this disease be healed? I will end up dying!” Such thoughts are blocking off the work of God. The brother is not perfectly healed yet. But, his health is getting better. Without doubt, I believe that God will heal this brother and I can only give thanks to God.

Elijah’s words brought hope and joy.

The new world in the heart of the widow of Zarephath.

As the widow of Zarephath stood before death, how much would she have blamed her husband and the world her misfortune? However, when Elijah said, “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail,” the word entered amazingly into her heart. People would naturally think that once the meal was finished, there wouldn’t be anymore left in the barrel. But the widow accepted those words as the Word of God and not as the word of man. The Word entered into the widow and worked to cast out all fear and despair, creating a new world.

The words of Elijah rang in the ears of the widow of Zarephath.

The widow of Zarephath appears in 1 Kings 17 when she meets the prophet Elijah outside the city gate. People were dying from famine because it hadn’t rained rain for three and a half years in Israel. The widow was living with her son and all they had left was a handful of meal. The woman went out to gather sticks to make a fire and bake a cake made from that handful of meal. She met Elijah along the way and he asked her for some water. As she went to fetch it, Elijah called her again and asked for a morsel of bread. She answered that she didn’t have a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel with which she would make a cake for her son and herself to eat and then die. Elijah said,

“Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.”
Elijah’s words rang out in the ears of the widow of Zarepath.

Just a few short words filled the woman’s heart with hope and joy.

Despair and death filled the widow’s heart before she met Elijah. After starving for a long time, she decided to eat a cake made from her final handful of meal and die. That’s when she met Elijah. Before she met Elijah, joy, thankfulness, and grace were nowhere to be found in her heart. The despair of starving and the thought of eating the last of their food before they eventually died were all that was left. However, the amazing thing was that when she heard the Word of God, her heart started to change. It’s like when the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, God said, “let there be light” and there was light. In Genesis 1, whenever God spoke, the earth changed.
Beautiful flowers blossomed, trees yielded fruits, birds sang, and the earth changed into a beautiful garden. It’s not just in Genesis chapter 1. No matter what darkness, problems, or concerns we may have in this world, when God’s Word enters into our heart, hope and joy arise, and His power is manifested.
I met many people as I preached the gospel. Regardless of who they were, all of them rejoiced and were thankful once the gospel entered into them. When God made man, He made man’s heart and that heart is made so it can only change when the Word of God enters into it. Elijah’s word went into the widow’s heart and caused it to awake. “What? The barrel of meal will not empty? Then no matter how much meal I take out, the meal will continue to fill the barrel! Then I need to get the lady next door to make dough and I got to keep scooping. And with the dough, we can make a cake, and the lady next door and I can eat… I’ll tell the lady, ‘Hey, eat a lot. We can bake more for the kids.’ I’ll call my mom. I’ll call my brother, sister in law and friends. I should call so-and-so…” The few brief words from Elijah didn’t allow the woman’s heart to remain in sleep; it had power to fill that heart with hope and joy.

How happy must the widow have felt whenever she saw the barrel full of meal!

From time to time I read the book of Acts chapter by chapter and my heart gets so fulfilled that I can’t sit still and want to hurry up and get out there to shout the Word. While I’m shouting out the Word, all of the worries, concerns, and darkness that were in my heart disappear and my heart gets filled with hope and joy. How happy must the widow of Zarephath have felt after she dressed the meal and made a cake to bring to Elijah, and saw that the meal once again filled up the barrel! How joyful was she! She would scoop the meal from the barrel and make dough; her son would make a fire. “Just wait a little longer. It’s almost done.” After she ate the bread with her son, she would scoop more meal from the barrel and call her next door neighbor to knead dough together. She would be indescribably happy.

The change in a certain girl who had to live in darkness and despair all her life

I knew a student who was half Korean on her mother’s side. After her parents got married, their relationship fell apart so she spent her childhood in darkness. When she was in elementary school, her mother became mentally unstable and would receive counseling from time to time. Her father suspected her of infidelity and started fighting with her. One day, it came to a head when he tried to stab her to death. Her mom left the house and she stayed with her dad and older brother; she lived a very painful and dark life.

She woke up one day while she was still in elementary school and saw a letter next to her head. In it, her father apologized to her and her older brother. Her father committed suicide. She was too little to know why her father killed himself. She just wondered, “How come only sad things happen in my family? Mom always fought with dad. Mom left home. Dad committed suicide.” Sometime later, her mom came home with a new husband but she didn’t get along with him. Her mom was still mentally unstable and would hit her for no apparent reason. “Why was I born into this family? Why do I have to live like this?’ She lived day by day in despair.

One day her mom started to go to a Good News Mission church and her family started to settle down. Her mom arranged for her to go to Canada to study abroad. She stayed in the church and started to listen to the gospel from the pastor while she studied for two years. She went to church ever since she was little but she didn’t know the gospel. One day she finally realized the gospel, and her life changed greatly since.

She returned from Canada and is now living with her mom and stepfather. For more than ten years, she never called him “Dad” so it felt embarrassing and awkward to start, but she did. She showed me a letter that she wrote, that said when she met her parents again inside the Lord, her family was peaceful and comforting. She was going to live in darkness and despair all her life but as Jesus Christ entered into her heart, He gave her peace and joy that other people in the world don’t have.

The woman tasted a new world that she never experienced before

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) We can’t touch God with our hand, see Him with our eyes, or feel Him with our senses but as we deal with the Word of God, we can know that, "this is God's Word; this Word is God." Just as the Word gave hope, joy, and faith to the Zarephath widow who only had despair, many times I saw people who were in despair, whose life became bright and happy after God’s Word entered into their heart.

As the widow of Zarephath stood before death, how much would she have blamed her husband and the world her misfortune? However, when Elijah said, “The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail,” the word entered amazingly into her heart. People would naturally think that once the meal was finished, there wouldn’t be anymore left in the barrel. But the widow accepted those words as the Word of God and not as the word of man. The Word entered into the widow and worked to cast out all fear and despair, creating a new world.

“I’m going to scoop up some meal, and bake bread for my mother’s family. How happy will she be as eats the bread? How happy will my family be? In this famine…!”

The woman was excited. A new world that she never experienced before; she tasted that new heart. When I think about it, I can’t express in words how amazing it is.

Whoever receives God’s Word into their heart can’t help but change. The Word casts out all the worries, concerns, and fears and makes a new world of joy and hope in our heart. I believe the peace, joy, and faith the Zarephath widow received from God will fill the hearts of all people who truly meet God and accept the Word.