May the Word We Hold onto Become Our Nature to Save Others (Deut. 3:1-11)
Today we will share the grace of God with Deuteronomy 3. Deuteronomy is a repetition of what was said to the Israelites for the sake of the next generations. God is giving his words yet again through Moses so they don’t lose hold of the word of God’s law. How must the saved people of God live their lives? In the past in Egypt, they lived with the ways of the world. If the majority of the people agreed with them, then they lived that way. However, the saved children of God shouldn’t live that way.
Without a doubt, a child of God must live by the ways of God. And once you know God properly, you’ll know that He is working and guiding my life. However, if you misunderstand God, then the invisible God will be invisible to your eyes. We have the blessing of knowing and believing in the accurate God through the words of the Bible to see the way God is working and guiding our life.
However, the habits and the nature we have are not in this direction but are centered on the ways of the world and people. This nature means the thoughts of my brain and the actions of my heart play differently. That’s what it means to know better but be unable to control ourselves. We know everything by theory but we don’t see God’s work actually in our lives. Because of that, it might be flustering. That’s why God repeats his word through Moses so the next generations are not confused. The ways of the world the world lives by doesn’t need God’s Word. In the ways of the world, you can be 1st place by having a great idea or going with the majority. However, the way that the people of God live is the complete opposite to that.
Around 40 years after the Israelites left Egypt, the Israelites are about to enter Canaan, and that’s the last chapter of Numbers. And in that chapter we saw that the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites are all in Abraham’s lineage. They are the descendants of Abraham’s nephew Lot and Jacob’s brother Esau. So God says, “Do not attack these people, and give them fair payment of what they offer. If they don’t let you go through their land, don’t enter.” So they have to go around the people.
What can we do in this situation? It’s possible that we may barrel forward in the name of God blindly. There are people who say, “Well, God told me to go to the land of Canaan, so I’m going to move according to my own methods,” but God gave His Word not to do that. So if the saved people of God are not able to follow God’s word according to God’s time schedule, then they will have a delay. In other words, if you keep on progressing with the center and nature of humanism that is centered on myself, it isn’t aligned with God. Even after receiving salvation, if we do not remain within the detailed flow of God’s Word, then my nature has no choice but to be on myself. And because of God’s word, they circle around. And the rest of the people are waiting.
So those are the people we will be reading about in Deuteronomy 2 and 3. In the land of Canaan, the Ammorites were living. And the Ammorites crossed the Jordan River, and took over the land East of the Jordan. So there were 2 or 3 Israelites tribes that continued to stay on the East of the Jordan. It means that while the Ammorites were strong enough to cross the Jordan River and conquer many nations, Israelites had to pass through.
And right now, they are on the east side, and are surrounded on the north and the south by two nations. In the South, it is the Heshbon people with King Sion. And that’s at the end of Deuteronomy 2, while the Israelites tried to pass through, the Heshbonites were waging war and the Israelites had victory because this was a war God enabled. And Deut. 3 detailed the Israelites coming from the South up through the North. And on the north are the Bashanites with King Og.
The southern area had very good land, and the north side as well. That’s why the Israelite tribe wanted to stay at the east side of the Jordan to have their farms. There was a time where the Israelite people had a 7 year war with the Arab people. The south side, the Heshbonites, were given to the land of Egypt. And even right now, that’s the land Egypt refuses to return. And the reason is because this is the region where the water from Mount Hermon flows through this land. And if Syria takes over that land and cuts off the water supply, Israel would lose all of their water. That’s why, just this area, Israel refuses to return this land. That’s the land that the King of Bashan, King Og, was controlling. This king was the king of giants who was using iron metals at the time.
Deut. 3:1 says, “Og King of Bashan’s bed was made of iron and was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide.” The bed was about two meters wide. So, the people on the north, the Bashanites ruled by King Og, were racing towards the Israelites to battle against them. The fact that his bed was made of iron was that these were people ahead of the iron age in terms of their weaponry, because this was a time when everyone else was making their tools and fighting their battles with bronze materials.
But Deut. 3:2 says, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army and his land.” We are people who are able to see in advance with the Word of God and to conquer in advance. If we’re not able to follow this very specific stream of God’s Word, we’re bound to run away because there’s no way we can fight against these giant people with iron weapons.
Deut. 3:3, Moses delivers the Word of God directly to the people, “The LORD has given the king into our hands,” so we are people who hold onto God’s word and go forward. If we do not have the Word of God, then when we face a problem or a situation, then we have to either fall into the problem, or we have to run away. However, for people who certainly have the Word of God, a problem is not a problem for them, because they’re going forward with the solution of already having won.
The people of Bashan were so confident to fight against Israel, so they waged a war. However, because this is a battle given by God, without a doubt, the Israelites are fighting a battle already having won. Ultimately, the Israelites conquer all the way to the north army, and it becomes part of Israel’s kingdom. Then, what do the words of the Old Testament that we just read have to do with our present-day life?
Even if you think about it very quickly, you’ll receive the idea that He gives His people His Word and He fulfills His Word. In the Old Testament, the mission of the age was to physically conquer the land of Canaan. They’re in the process of fulfilling the Word God gave to Abraham, “I will make your descendants into a great nation,” so God’s promise, “Whoever curses you, I will curse,” is being fulfilled. “I will bless those who bless you,” so God’s Word is being fulfilled exactly.
Nowadays, God did not give us the covenant of physically conquering a land like Canaan. In the Old Testament, they were given the mission of the age to go to the geographical land of Canaan because there had to be a nation established there where Jesus Christ would be born. Nowadays, we don’t need the physical land of Israel because Jesus Christ already came physically, so we don’t need it anymore.
Now, we’ve been given a mission that the people of God who believe in Jesus Christ must carry out. If you believe in Jesus Christ, then you’re a true descendant of Abraham. That means that the covenant given to Abraham is fulfilled exactly the same way as it is for us. Relentlessly, anyone who believes in Jesus Christ receives the same inheritance, that all people on earth will be blessed through them, and that many peoples on earth will be blessed through you. God is currently fulfilling the promise he gave to Abraham exactly the same way, through Jesus Christ.
For us nowadays, we’re not conquering the land of Canaan; what exactly are we conquering, then? Our mission is to conquer disbelief in God, which is the kingdom of Satan. That’s not talking about a geographical location, it’s applicable to all nations, all peoples, and all the future generations. Because this is a battle against Satan and the kingdom of Satan, it is a battle that saves human lives. People are seized under the authority of Satan and sin, so this is the battle that saves and liberates them.
Every week, God gives us His Word in order to fulfill that covenant. That’s why there’s one thing we must concentrate on, because that’s the Word God has given to us in this time schedule. In this battle to save, what must we concentrate on throughout the week? This is the battle God must fight, but what is it that I must do? It is to fix my eyes on Jesus Christ, why is that? Because only when we focus our eyes on Jesus Christ is God’s covenant fulfilled.
This is how you need to ride the flow of God’s Word well. Why do you think God gave us this Word? Because it’s time that we have to fix our eyes on Jesus, that’s the message God is giving to our church. The person who is able to align the Word of God with their present reality is the one who can see answers, but if someone just studies it theoretically, like they study in school, they are not going to see answers in their field.
In order for us to fix our eyes, there’s something we must throw away. We must throw away our legalism. What this means is that we have to change our nature of the law. We have heard the gospel a lot and we will continue to hear about the gospel, and I’m sure there’s no one here that doesn’t understand it, but why do you think God gave us these words? It’s because our nature is still legalistic, and if we have a legalistic nature, we cannot fight the battle of saving ourselves or saving anyone else.
What does legalism or the nature of legalism taught me? Biblically speaking, if you know the law, you will know what sin is. However, someone who is legalistic or has the nature of legalism will just end it at that, that’s not what God desires. God wants you to discover that so that you can hold onto the gospel, that’s why it is law. We know this when we study the Bible; however, when we actually go into our field, this doesn’t align with our nature.
As one example, when we face a problem, a legalistic person will get lost in their problem because they’re not able to find Jesus Christ Who is the answer, and they just remain within their problem. That’s why they’re not able to come to life. Whenever we face a problem, we focus on God and look at what God’s plan is. That’s the gospel; however, when a legalistic person faces a problem, they will ask who is right and who is wrong.
When we face a problem, all we have to do is discover God’s plan, but they’ll always say, “I did this wrong.” That’s why they oppress themselves. They also have the nature of oppressing other people by saying, “You did well,” or, “You did not do well.” Even though they know the gospel, their actual lifestyle is not the gospel, then they cannot actually save people.
We can say and relay the Word of God well because we’ve heard the gospel so much and we have so much training, however, actually saving people takes place through those who have the nature of the gospel. Isn’t that right? Even if you have the gospel, if you have a nature of legalism, the only thing you’ll end up debating is whether you’re right or wrong, so this is important content.
If there are any of you who say, “I have salvation and the gospel, but I’m still so oppressed when I face problems and I’m still so frustrated by them,” it’s because you’re not looking at God’s plan or answers. It means you’re interpreting everything with the words of the law, centered on people. For people who are legalistic like this, their own righteousness is very strong. It’s either two options: “I did well,” so they’re puffed up, or they say, “I did not do well,” and they oppress themselves, and it’s the same thing with other people, “I did well,” or, “I did not do well.”
But this is not what God gave us. In this situation, in this incident, delivering God’s plant to them is the way to save them. This is the person who is able to carry out a ministry. We can talk about the words of the Bible, but that’s not what will save people. This Word becoming my nature and coming out through me will save people. Unbeknownst to us, we have this nature of legalism, so that reveals our own righteousness, and that may make us feel that we’re doing a really great job, but the one who looks for God’s plan cannot exalt people because they only glorify God.
That’s actually the way to save myself and other people. Otherwise, people keep running away from me. Why is it that I say words that are correct but people avoid me? It’s because the gospel isn’t what’s being relayed, but the law is being relayed. So, first and foremost, you would have no peace, because we cannot receive peace without the gospel. But the law is so fearsome! The Pharisees have a nature of the law, but they were so adamant that they were righteous and just. But it turns out the devil was using that to seize them.
Christ is righteousness; we are not justice. The cross is righteousness and justice. Paul said that, in regards to the law, he was blameless. But now, he’s beginning to emphasize the righteousness that comes from the resurrected Christ. It’s not a righteousness from myself, it’s not the righteousness that I accomplish, because that reveals me. “I kept the law, I’m righteous,” we boast of ourselves, or if we’re not able to keep the law, we’re oppressed by that fact, but that’s not it.
If you hold onto the plan and righteousness of Christ, there’s nothing to reveal about myself; it’s all about God’s righteousness and God’s plan. Because the glory of God is being revealed, Satan cannot deceive you with legalism. The church is a place that raises up many people like this, but if the church is very legalistic, they will raise people up to have a legalistic nature and people will fight. That’s why churches fight, everyone fights with someone else because they think they are righteous because of their legalism.
So, people will fight while they pray. They can’t escape because they think they’re righteous. That’s how scary this legalistic nature is. If you see God’s plan through that other person, there’s no need to fight with them while you pray; you can just look for God’s plan, and that’s the kind of church that saves people. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how many people gather who are legalistic; they will have no strength.
Those are the kinds of remnants we must raise up; you’re not raising up remnants who are good at talking. We need to raise remnants who truly save. But sometimes it seems like it’s not much because at least legalistic people have a strong structure, but when we talk about just looking for God’s plan, it seems almost formless, because in everything we are saying “It’s God’s plan, it’s God’s guidance,” it seems like we don’t have any form, but that’s what’s unstoppable. That was Paul, that’s the gospel we’re talking about.
The moment we take the Word of God centered on humans, Satan begins to enter us, but there’s some people who can’t even talk, and they have works arise. Rev. Ryu says that another pastor has a very bad stutter, but works arise for him because it’s not about words, but it’s not that you have works arise if you have a stutter either. Regardless of this man’s stutter, because the nature of the gospel is being relayed, people are coming to life.
But if we’re using the words of the gospel as legalism, the person we are talking to will die, and that’s why everyone is leaving you. Why is that? It’s because you have the gospel but you haven’t become gospelized. The church is the place that gospalizes. We don’t have a lot of form, we have finished everything with only the gospel and have followed God’s guidance and plan, then we don’t need to create a form; it will be created when it’s time. When someone who is able to give us that form comes, we realize that’s God’s time schedule and we created that structure.
The person who saves other people has to arise in order for the church to save people. But if you’re so focused on raising up the structure or form first, then you might do that, but you’ll kill everyone with it, so you must keep this in mind. Especially church officers, you have to know this in order to know the church.
The second thing we must throw away is mysticism. People who pray a little bit or say that they do pray will sometimes receive unhealthy mysticism. Unhealthy mysticism is what you call it when you take a God Who is invisible and you keep on trying to see him physically with your eyes. As one example, let’s say you want to hear His voice with your ears or you want to see the invisible God with your eyes. Or, people who are so centered on receiving spiritual gifts because this is the only evidence that God is alive. We call things like this, unhealthy mysticism. These people are trying to experience something through their prayers. These people can never save anyone else and they cannot save themselves.
Third is humanism. Humanistic people are centered on themselves, it is a channel for Satan. They move everything according to their own experiences and thinking. Democracy is a governance style centered on people. So, we learned about democracy in the world and tried to apply that and live according to that. That can never save people. At first it may seem that something is taking place, because you’re moving everything with your brain. But after time passes, all of that will fall. That’s the reason churches will seem like they’re maturing well, and then collapse because it’s a compilation of humanism.
Prosperity-based faith. People who live their walk of faith, centered on receiving physical blessings. They can never save people and they can never save the world. These are four things that hinder us, and this has become our nature, so we’re not even aware that we have this. That’s why God gave you His word, and when you face Jesus Christ with that Word of God, that’s when your nature is healed and changed.
Your life is not about your thoughts; it’s about your nature, because you move and follow what is second nature to you; you don’t make decisions with your thoughts. The reason pastors who have a thorough knowledge of the bugle and the gospel fall is because they know it with their brains, not their nature, then people are not able to understand that. It means it’s not the gospel for them yet. So the gospel is about Christ, but does that mean we should just repeat, “Christ, Christ,” over and over again? No.
The word “Christ” means He is our Savior, He is the One Who is able to save us from what the law cannot save us from, and you have to think about that carefully. There is a spiritual salvation, and there is a salvation from your physical problems. Spiritually, you’ve already received salvation, and in your everyday life problems, you have to receive salvation as well, but it’s impossible to receive that salvation with legalism. You can only receive salvation if you stand before the gospel.
It doesn’t matter how much you try to calculate with your humanism or how diligently you try to pray with your unhealthy mysticism or how much you say “I tried harder” with your legalism; it has to be the gospel of Christ. That’s the message, the message isn’t something else you go out to find, but when you actually enjoy this gospel of saving, then the works of saving will take place through you.
But there are some people who say there are pastors who are so good at speaking very good messages, but it doesn’t make you feel alive inside. There’s no problem with the sermon because biblically speaking, it’s accurate, however, those four different centers or natures are being mixed into that message. That’s somebody’s second nature, so even if they don’t say any words regarding it, it is still married to the words they say, and the spirit recognizes that and the spirit doesn’t come to life. That’s what it is.
Why must I look towards Christ? Why must I concentrate on and fix my eyes towards Christ? It’s making our second Nature, and from this, your business will come. You know this with your brain, but when you go to your actual business field, you go back to your nature. God is fulfilling His Word through your business, but that’s not aligned with your nature. So if the gospel doesn’t become my nature, then I cannot run my business properly, nor can I raise the next generation properly, then even the temple, if you’re not gospelized, then you’re going to see things from other people’s perspectives.
People with a fluctuating faith will challenge towards temple Construction turn in order to receive their own blessings. People who are legalistic will feel obligated because they have to do it. People with unhealthy mysticism will do temple construction in a mystical way. Humanistic people will be giving their Temple Construction offering, thinking of their position in the church and then being afraid of what other ps might think, they don’t look towards God. GBut the people who have the nature of the gospel will take this word as the covenant, they will pray about it with God, they will receive the answer from God and will challenge towards that answer in faith.
Our battle is a battle of saving. The message is out, we have the Bible and every week we receive a message. But the real battle is, how much is there a difference or gap between my life and the word of God? It would be great if we can speak well, but it’s fine if we cannot because the spirit saves; it is not the physical body. Even if we’re stuttering and stammering, the word of the gospel saves this person’s spirit. If you’re good at speaking, that’s great, because they can hear it in a way that’s easier to understand. If you also have the nature of the gospel, then works of life take place.
The content of Deuteronomy chapter 3 in our present day reality is that our battle of faith is the one that saves people of all nations, heals all people on earth, and saves the next generations. Within that is the battle of faith that saves myself. There are four natures or centers that disturb that movement, but it’s impossible to recognize that unless you’re looking at Christ. Only when you concentrate on Christ will you recognize that you have this nature; you can never realize that with words. Therefore, that time when we concentrate and fix our eyes on Jesus Christ is the way to save yourself, people, the next generation, and the world. So, we’ll conclude the Word of God with this and we’ll pray together.
Prayer
To where do I belong? God, please save me from my nature. Liberate me from this, so that I can have only Christ. Let us pray together.
Our second prayer topic, in the group Kakao talk, we’ve talked about Joseph Shin, and he’s the son of Deaconess Shin, who is in our choir, and he’s in his final semester at UC Davis, and I believe his lung collapsed. As we look at this problem, people will make different judgments on it based in their nature. How do legalistic people look at this? They don’t even know who they’re talking about, but they will say, “They’re cursed by God.” People from a prosperity-based faith will say, “God please bless them so they can recover well” People with unhealthy mysticism will not care about God’s plan but will pray diligently to heal this boy.
But what we pray for is that through this surgery, God’s grace will be upon him and he’ll be raised as a remnant for world evangelization. Don’t you think that’s God’s plan? This is the gospel we must enjoy ourselves and relay to them, but the legalistic people will say, “They’ve been cursed by God.” But through this is God’s opportunity for God’s grace and God’s works. Because He is a remnant to do world evangelization, this is God’s time schedule for world evangelization. We need to have oneness of people with this nature to gather together for the church to come to life. Let us pray together for Joseph.
I believe this is a time of blessing where faith will go in through this incident. We have remnants from our church scattered in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Davis, and South Carolina, and this is the time schedule where you really have to pray for them a lot because it’s hard for them to be separated. Then, God’s plan is for us to pray more. Then, may this be a time when we confirm the works of God that transcends time and space. Let us pray now for our scattered remnants. We have a remnant in Minnesota as well, a precious remnant in Minnesota who will soon be moving to LA. The further away they are, the greater the opportunity is to confirm God’s works of transcending time and space.
Our next prayer topic will be for the training that will take place, not this week, but the week after. We’re going to have one training session the week of Feb. 12. This will be a training to put the 30 gospel Bible verses as well as the way of salvation and the gospel letters into practice so we can give the answer of the gospel in many varieties of ways. For anyone who would like to participate, please contact Senior Deaconess Choi. The greatest goal of evangelism is to give salvation and then to nurture and raise them up. That’s the bare minimum for evangelism, even though there may be greater effects than that.
We have the 10 min basic message training after the second service, and the way that you guys should think about that is not to understand this material, but “Would I be able to give this answer to the next generation or a new believer in 10 minutes as well?” Then you will hear the training differently. Of course, new believers do not know the basic message so they listen, but for us, it is training to give this life saving gospel in a short time. People who are not able to do that will sit there and listen to the message so it will become their nature. After that point, the second level of training is to give the way of salvation to the person you are talking to, from one minute up to an hour. Either way, I believe this is the training that will make this into our nature and will save people. May you enjoy the answer of Immanuel.
Let us pray for the guidance and the works of God to be upon the training sessions, both led by myself and the assistant pastors in the church.
Finally, let us pray for our missions and evangelism. You know the nations that we are doing missions with, especially in Africa, please pray for a new country in our list, Burundi. On our Thursday young adult regional churches, there’s a student from Burundi that is joining, and he is the layperson who is evangelizing in the field. He is now in Kenya and he is joining in with our young adult regional churches. Ethiopia is a communist nation so it’s harder to get an internet connection with Ethiopia. So, even though he’s just a layperson, he is wandering among the Muslim territories to evangelize.
In Kenya, we have Rev. Kim Young Chul who is doing the children’s ministry and is doing his ministry quite well. He’s the only pastor; everyone else is just a layperson. Even in Mongolia and Karen, these are all laypeople. That’s the reason we want to bring them into pastoral ministry, because the laypeople are the ones who run the errands for the pastoral ministry. Let us also pray for the Yakima region. The evangelism movement is taking place through one senior deaconess’s family. Before this point, we didn’t think of them as a prayer topic, but from this point on, we really want to go full-fledged into praying for them. So let us pray for them together and end in benediction.
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, and the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the heads of all the people of God, the future generations, and all nations, who desire to hold onto only the gospel, to only look to the Triune God, and to fight the battle that saves lives, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.