Today we celebrated Sunday School Sunday. All the Sunday School children and teachers participated in the worship services. Pauline McShea the teacher preached a message on how we started our faith journey and where we are going.
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Sermon: Watch Over Your Heart
Today Pastor Choi continues his sermon series on ‘heart’—part 2 of 3: how to take care of your heart. After a brief recap of the last Sunday’s message, he points out three excellent ways to watch over the heart: 1. Screen out all negative and destructive thoughts. 2. Store up good and godly thoughts beginning with God’s Word—the Word of Life. 3. Stay on whatever is noble and honorable. By doing so, we will have the life God intends us to have.
How to Take Care of Your Heart
Following is a summary of the sermon:
Watch Over Your Heart
Proverbs 4:23 New American Standard Bible
Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life.
Introduction
This morning I will continue my sermon series on heart- part 2 of 3: how to take care of our heart.
Recap of the Last Week’s Sermon
- Remember that the heart is the innermost seat of emotion, will, thoughts, and appetites. It is an open bowl where all the thoughts freely come and go. Three parties have access to your heart: you, God, and the devil. It is also a battleground where God and the devil vie for your worship, affection, and devotion.
- Remember that you’re the sole caretaker of your heart. You are the guardian appointed by God and your heart is a ward under your protection. Your job is simple yet very important: to keep your heart safe and secure.
- I am sure every one of us wants to take good care of our hearts. A healthy and strong heart begins with our desire to provide excellent care to the heart. Unless we want to take care of our hearts, no one will. Even God cannot help us on that. Why? Because God never overrides our free will. Without our desire or invitation, God won’t be able to help us much. The neglected heart becomes confused, unruly, and eventually we suffer the consequences thereof, that is, evil things march out and defile us (Mark 7:21-23).
Contents
Today’s verse expounded:
The first half of today’s verse reads: “Watch over your heart with all diligence.” The literal translation of the original Hebrew is: Above all guarding, guard your heart.
Definition of “to guard”: “to protect property, places, or people from attack or danger” (Oxford Dictionary). We all protect something or some people from attack or danger. A question: what do you guard? Life, health, wealth, house, bank accounts, investment portfolios, family, jobs, image, identity, and so forth. One thing is for sure: none of us guard anything worthless. We only guard something precious, valuable, and essential. So, out of all things worthy of our guarding, which one does God command us to guard most? The heart. Our heart is the number one priority to protect. Guard it fiercely.
Why the heart?
The second sentence of today’s text reveals the reason why we must guard our heart above all things. Once again the English translation reads: For from it (heart) flow the springs of life. The literal translation of the same sentence is this: For from it come out the sources of life. All things of life stem from your heart.
Let me elaborate a little more on ‘life’ here. The life here means more than just daily survival. It is the life meaningful. It is the life fulfilling. It’s the life of contentment. It’s the life God intends us to enjoy. In fact, Jesus wants us to have that life—and have it abundantly (John 10:10). It’s the life that consists of “earthly felicity combined with spiritual blessedness” (The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Cesenius Hebrew-English Lexicon, p. 313). To ‘life’ here, the Septuagint (LXX) Bible renders a unique Greek word ‘zoe’ instead of ‘bios.’ In other words, things that matter most in life originate from our heart. The essential elements of the blessed life come out of our heart. And, whatever comes out of our heart even determines our final destination. That’s how crucial our heart is in life. So, if you want to live a life satisfactory and meaningful, and if you want to live a life with purpose and destination, and if you want to secure your life eternal, then learn to take good care of your heart.
Once again, understand your identity: You are the watchman. You are the guardian of your heart. Your job is to keep your heart pure, innocent, and blameless in the sight of God until Christ comes (Philippians 1:10). So, based on these understandings, I am going to introduce three ways to take a good care of your heart. Let’s not forget. The entire well-being of your heart and the quality of your life are determined by your desire, discipline, and diligence.
Three things we can do for our hearts: Screen out, Store up, and Stay on.
Screen out. You are on guard duty for life on behalf of your heart: to prevent the enemy infiltration. E.g. The army uses the daily password. Whoever says the correct password may pass, whoever doesn’t, the guard can shoot. Same goes with our guard duty for the heart. For any thought trying to enter the heart, ask the password which is always the same: are you in line with God’s will? If so, enter. If not, stop. Never allow anything bad to enter your heart: only good things.
God commands us to take captive every thought and bring it to Christ. Listen: “… we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, NASB). We must learn to screen out thoughts and feelings especially those that are negative and destructive. Some of us are in the habit of following whatever our heart says. Follow your heart, they say. However, beware: the same heart can deceive us. In Jeremiah 17:9, God says, “The heart is deceitful above all things…” I would rather let God’s Word guide me not my own feelings. E.g. 1. “I cannot forgive my brother.”— Remember the Lord’s Prayer. E.g. 2. A young couple wants a divorce due to no more feelings of love to each other.—Marriage is a commitment. Let no one separate what God has joined (Matthew 19:6). E.g. 3. Depressive / Suicidal thoughts. Check out the source of every destructive thought. Satan can prompt such a thought in your heart (John 13:2). Give no opportunity to the devil (Ephesians 4:27). Bring every thought and feeling under the control of Christ. Filter it. Test it against God’s Word. E.g. Practice the screening on TV and movies you watch. Pray before you watch. Place guards on your eye-gate and ear-gate. Stay disciplined on it. Payoff will be huge.
Store up. There are many good things we can store up in our hearts; good memories, good music, good stories, good images, good thoughts, and so forth. But, first and foremost, begin with God’s Word the Good Book. Why? Because it is the Word of life (1 John 1:1). It gives you peace. It restores your health (Proverbs 4:22). It is essential for your eternal life, too. Do you love God? Then, you will love and cherish His Word. It would be an oxymoron if you say, “I love God, yet I never open the Bible.” It would be equally contradictory if you say, “I care for my soul, yet I never read the Bible.” Why? Because God’s Word is the food for your soul, and if you don’t feed your soul with God’s Word, your soul will starve to death. Never believe in the devil’s lie that the Bible is too difficult to understand. He does everything to keep you from getting into God’s Word for your salvation. You need God’s Word for your eternal life. You need God’s Word to protect your heart (Matthew 15:19). Listen to the Psalmist: 9 How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. 11 Your word I have treasured in my heart that I may not sin against You (Psalm 119:9, 11, NASB).
Stay on good and godly thoughts: 8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things (Philippians 4:8, NASB). Whatever comes into our hearts, it stays in our hearts and it is extremely hard to remove it. That’s why we need to make every effort to put godly things in our hearts in the first place as a daily positive reinforcement. Then, we keep on dwelling on such things all the time. Chew on them, sit on them, and meditate on them daily. You will have a blessed life.
Conclusion
Above all guarding, guard your heart: screen out all bad thoughts. Next, store up God’s word diligently; fill up your heart with whatever is honorable and noble. Finally, stay on them daily. Then, you will enjoy the life abundantly in Christ. Amen.
Sermon: What Is the Heart?
Today Pastor Choi talks about the human heart. Pointing out that the human heart is a battle-ground between God and the devil who vie for our worship, devotion, and affection, Pastor Choi exhorts the people of God to take good care of their hearts by asking for God’s help.
Following is a summary of the sermon:
What is the Heart?
Jeremiah 17:9 New American Standard Bible
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?
Introduction
Recently, after 25 years in ministry, I wanted to have a deeper understanding on one subject: the heart. Not that I wanted to be a cardiologist or a psychologist. It seems to me that everything in our life (both good and bad) stems from the heart such as kindness, love, greed, and even hate. Heart matters in every relationship with God and with people. So, this is how I reasoned myself: the better understanding of the heart, the better understanding of myself and others, and the better relationships with God and with each other. So I started my study on the heart.
It still has a long way to go before I can even say that I understand the human heart. This morning, you are about to hear my preliminary study on the subject. In fact, I am going to do a three-part series in the next three Sundays. I hope and pray that the series will lead us to a better understanding, better care of our hearts, and better relationships. Here’s part 1 of 3: what is the heart?
Contents
Definition of the Heart
Let me begin with what I mean by the heart. There are three definitions of the heart: medical, poetic/artistic, and scriptural.
- Medical: a hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood through the circulatory system by rhythmic contraction and dilation (Oxford Dictionary)
- Poetic/Artistic: the center of the total personality, especially with reference to intuition, feeling, or emotion (Dictionary.com)
- Scriptural: the innermost seat of emotion, mind, will, conscience, and appetites.
This morning I am going to strictly focus on the scriptural sense of heart: the heart as the innermost seat of emotion, thoughts, will, and appetites. Our western mindset is tuned to the separation of heart and mind (or heart and head) due to the Platonic distinction. Please note here that I make no distinction between heart/emotion and mind/intellect, because the Scriptures don’t make a clear-cut distinction between emotion and intellect. In fact, the Ancient Hebrews believed that all the characteristics of modern-day “heart and mind” were interconnected and originated from one entity, not two, and they called them “heart.” So, will I. When I say “the heart,” it covers both the mind and emotions.
Three Kinds of Heart
The Bible talks about three kinds of heart.
- The Heart of God (Genesis 6:5, Jeremiah 32:41, Ezekiel 28:2)
- The Heart of Man (Jeremiah 7:19)
- The Heart of Beasts (Daniel 5:21)
The Heart of God
I am so thankful that God too has the heart. God’s heart deserves a full sermon for another time. This is how much I will tell you, though. Out of His heart, God created the heavens and the earth (intellect). Out of His heart, He has chosen us to be His children (will). Out of His heart, He loves us unconditionally (emotion). To Him each soul is equally valuable, sinners and saints alike (e.g. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous—Matthew 5:45). He never gives up on anyone unless they reject Him first. In fact, His loving kindness, generosity, and mercy endure forever! They blow us away! All out of His loving heart! Isn’t it wonderful that we worship and belong to such a God with a loving heart?
The Heart of Man
When God created Adam and Eve in His image and likeness, He has given them the heart that shared the characteristics of God’s heart; pure and innocent, loving, kind, creative, and no sign or touch of evil at all. However, when they disobeyed God, sin came in and that changed everything.
In fact, sin corrupted the human heart to the core and forever. For instance, during Noah’s time, God was deeply grieved with the constant evil thoughts of humans to the point where He regretted that He had created humans. He wanted a new start. So, through the Great Flood, He wiped humanity off from the surface of the earth except for Noah’s eight. However, Noah’s eight still had the old heart—still depraved as before. Thousands of years later, God described the condition of the human heart to prophet Jeremiah as follows: the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
Almost three millennia passed since prophet Jeremiah; in the 21st century, our heart still is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Wouldn’t you agree?
The Heart of Beasts
The reference on the heart of beasts is also found in the Bible; only once. The heart of beasts demonstrates basic instincts of survival: no reason, no ability to create, no conscience, or no reverence of life. It only knows daily survival among prey and predators. One man actually experienced and had it for seven years (Daniel 4:32). E.g.
21 He [King Nebuchadnezzar] was also driven away from mankind, and his heart was made like that of beasts, and his dwelling place was with the wild donkeys. He was given grass to eat like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until he recognized that the Most High God is ruler over the realm of mankind and that He sets over it whomever He wishes (Daniel 5:21).
Once again, my focus will be on the human heart.
What’s Happening in the Heart?
- You can forget all the rest of my sermon this morning. However, please remember this: Your heart is a battle ground between God and the enemy of God (that is, the devil) who vie for your worship, devotion, and affection. For instance,
– God sows the Word of God in the heart (Luke 8:11).
– The devil snatches away the Word sown in the heart (Luke 8:12).
- Remember: Your heart is like an open bowl and both God and the devil have access to it. In fact, three parties have access to your heart: self, God, and the devil. All of them can throw in and take out any thoughts out of your heart. Let’s think about this a little more, beginning with “self.”
What Each Party Can Do to Our Heart
- Self: we can initiate/retain/remove any thoughts, wishes, and plans in our hearts either good or bad. Here are some examples of what we can do with our hearts.
– We can humble ourselves and incline our hearts to God.
– We can watch over our hearts with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23).
– We can also neglect the care of our heart and let it be defiled: See what happens to the heart that is neglected, that is not properly cared after or not protected from the devil. Listen to Jesus in Mark 7.
– From within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deed of coveting and wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man (Mark 7:21-23).
- The devil: too many a Christian have a very naïve understanding of the devil: some of us think he is not real; others believe that it is just a personification of evil. Others depict him as the guy holding a pitch-fork with two horns on his head and a tail. Or, a cute little guy sitting on our shoulder whispering to us. No, he is much more a cunning creature than those images. He has only one goal: to steal, kill, and destroy your soul into hell (John 10:10). In order to achieve his goal, he diligently works, first and foremost, on your heart. He enslaves your heart through temptation, fear, deception, and confusion. He snatches anything good and godly away from your heart especially God’s Word sown in your heart (Luke 8:12) [e.g. distractions during sermon]. Then, he fills up your heart with evil/unclean/negative/destructive thoughts that you often take as yours. E.g. Judas Iscariot (John 13:2).
- God: He is the expert in the human heart and He is most interested in your heart and mine. Our hearts are His business. In fact, He cares about our heart more than any one of us ever would. How much does He know about our heart? Everything. Through and through. Remember: He is the designer and creator of the heart. He is the divine heart surgeon. He can make our sick hearts healthy again. In fact, the Bible lists 32 things that God can do/does with our heart. For instance, He searches the heart, weighs, examines, tests, strengthens, revives, renews, changes, and sets the heart free, to name a few. However, one thing He will never do to our hearts: control. He leaves the full reign of the heart to us to the point where we can abuse such freedom to even curse the Creator. Such a freedom is the sure sign of love.
The good news is this: God can help us to remove evil/unclean/destructive/negative thoughts. He also can fill our hearts with good/godly thoughts. He can purify and strengthen our hearts as well. All of these would He do only upon our invitation and requests. Without our desire to keep our hearts pure and clean, and without our invitation, God wouldn’t do it. We must ask for His help from the heart.
Conclusion
We all have a job to do: to take good care of our heart. Where do we start? Ask God for His help today. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit will help you. Next week, we will think about some practical ways to take care of our heart. Let us pray.
Sermon: 2016–the Year of Prayer
Today Pastor Choi designates 2016 to be the Year of Prayer. Beginning with the definition of prayer, he covers basic characteristics of prayer. He exhorts the people of God to call unto God throughout the year so that they may undeniably experience the living God who answers their prayers.
The following is a summary of the sermon:
2016: the Year of Prayer
Jeremiah 33:3 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
Introduction
The top ten most googled New Year’s Resolutions in 2015: the top ten most searched “how-to” questions in the U.S. during the week before and the week after New Year’s Day 2015:
1. how to get rid of stress
2. how to make kale chips
3. how much water should I drink to lose weight
4. how to write a resignation letter
5. how to cook lentils
6. how to cook cabbage
7. how to write a letter of recommendation
8. how to cook collard greens
9. how to steam broccoli
10. how to crochet a beanie (Olivia B. Waxman, Here Are the Most Googled New Year’s Resolutions –http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/here-are-the-most-googled-new-year%e2%80%99s-resolutions/ar-BBo3D9a?ocid=spartanntp)
Well, one thing is for sure: people want to get rid of stress. Let me tell you the best answer to that quest: prayer. Let’s think about prayer this morning.
Contents
I don’t exactly remember how my prayer life has started. Neither can I recall when I first started praying to the Heavenly Father or who taught me to pray. I never took a course on prayer such as “Prayer 101: Introduction to Prayer,” either. Yet, sometime in high school, I started praying to God.
Prayer is the breathing of our soul.
Let me define what prayer is before I go further.
Oxford Dictionary defines prayer as follows: a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.
Here’s my own definition: prayer is a series of thoughts or words, either spoken or unspoken, directed to God on behalf of others or for self.
Another definition: prayer is the breathing of our soul to God.
Whatever definition you follow, one thing is for sure: prayer is an activity of our soul. Prayer is to our soul as breathing to our body. Without it, our soul perishes. With it, our soul thrives.
We learn to pray by doing it, not by studying about it.
If someone asks you what breathing is, you may explain that it is ‘the process of taking air into and expelling it from the lungs’ (Oxford Dictionary). But, anyone can breathe in and out with no understanding on the lungs; where they are located in our body and what they do, right? In fact, we naturally breathe in and out; we never stop breathing until we die. Same thing goes with our prayer. When we first confess that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Lord, our spirit becomes alive and our soul begins to breathe, that is, pray. From that day on, our new born soul is to pray to God without ceasing.
You don’t need a sermon or training to start praying. You just pray like a new born baby breathes from the moment of birth without training. You learn as you go.
Prayer works.
Some of us are skeptical about prayer when it comes down to actual praying. However, don’t say that prayer doesn’t work until you try it. E.g. When I first started praying, I was not 100% sure about the effectiveness of prayer. In fact, I wondered about the practicality of prayer: whether it works or not; and if so, how exactly God answers prayers. So, one year in college, I decided to experiment on prayer. I started a prayer journal where I recorded all my prayer requests: the date I started praying, the contents of prayer, the date it was answered, and how it was answered. I kept journaling for the next six months. At the end of the sixth month, I found 96 entries in the journal. To my great surprise, I found every single one of them answered in one of the following ways: YES (majority). NO (some). WAIT (a few). That’s how I discovered that prayer is real, not just a psychological hypnosis to comfort myself (note: prayer is not eastern style of meditation, either).
Fasting is a prayer that works ‘fast.’
Some of you heard about fasting. What is fasting? It is more than skipping meals. Fasting is an intense prayer. It is a prayer that works ‘fast.’ There came the time when I did some serious prayers with fasting, especially during my major crises in life. Pouring my soul in anguish, I would cry out onto the Lord to deliver me from my troubles. The Almighty God surely listened and answered my humble pleas in the ways beyond my imagination. Praise God! If you haven’t tried fasting, try it. It works really well and fast.
God speaks to us in the ways that we understand.
I must point out that prayer is a two way communication: we speak to God and God speaks to us. Most of us consider prayer, however, as one way street: we are good at telling God our shopping list but poor at listening to God.
So, how do we listen to God? God uses many different ways to speak to us: to some, through visions and dreams. To others, through audible voices of angels. To more others, through the open doors and closed doors. And, through the Scripture passages, too. No matter which way God communicates with us, let us not forget: He speaks to us in the ways that we can clearly understand (this one requires some training. I will talk about this later; how to discern His voice).
One of the ways that God speaks to me in prayer is reasoning: through questions He leads me to come to my own conclusion. Whenever He does that, I find Him very gentle and kind, patiently listening to my worries and frustrations. Then, He leads me through reasoning to His assurance that eventually takes away my worries.
The result of Prayer: peace and assurance
After prayer, we come out of God’s Throne Room with the assurance that He is in control, faithful, and alive in our lives. He is not the God who stays aloof from our daily challenges and struggles. Rather, He is deeply involved in our daily affairs. No wonder our God is Immanuel (‘with-us-God’). E.g. Philippians 4:6-7: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Conclusion
As your pastor, I designate this year “the year of prayer.” Let’s call it: the year of P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Something Happens).
This year I urge all of us to get on our knees to fulfill God’s will for us.
This year let us refuse to sit in the darkness or despair.
This year let us not stop praying until we see God’s promises fulfilled.
This year let us not stop praying until we undeniably experience the Living God.
This year let us press on and cry unto the Lord to see how He answers us.
This year let us claim the abundant life that Christ has promised to us.
This year let us offer our thanks to God for all the answers to our prayers.
This year let us praise His name among us.
This year let us declare to everyone that God is alive.
This year let us walk with God in prayer who leads us in victory.
Let us pray.