Today Pastor Choi talks about the second divine resource that God has made available for us to tap into in times of need: God’s strength.  Expounding on Isaiah 41:10 and Philippians 4:13, he exhorts the congregation to rely not on their own wisdom and might but on God’s.

  Rely on God’s Resources (2)

Following is a summary of his sermon:

Rely on God’s Resources: His Strength                    

• Isaiah 41:10
• New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
• ¹⁰ do not fear, for I am with you,
  do not be afraid, for I am your God;
  I will strengthen you, I will help you,
  I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
• Philippians 4:13
• New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
• ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
• Recap: Last Sunday, I started a new sermon series, “Rely on God’s Resources,” and talked about the resources God has made available to us for our life journey.  The first resource available to us is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who dwells in our hearts.  He resides in every believer who confesses that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior.
• Today, I am going to talk about the second divine resource that we can tap into: God’s strength.
• Nowadays, we are living in a constant state of fear and anxiety.  Everything today seems fragile, volatile, uncertain, and unpredictable.  Think, for a moment, of our society, our government, our national security and economy, let alone our health and families.  I don’t have to go further.
• We are inundated with heart-wrenching, sad, and fear-raising news every single day.  People in the media, in competition with each other, seem determined to bring the shocking news to us by all means.   Do they even care about the impact of news on the audience?   We cannot completely shut down the news, either.   I wish all of us were free from fears and anxieties.  I wish we would be exempt from all life’s uncertainties.
• However, we are not.  In fact, I, your spiritual leader, am no different from you.  Almost every day, I too go through life’s uncertainties, challenges, struggles, worries, or fears.  I too know what it is like to have worries and fears.  Here’s an example.
• About twenty years ago, I was in Michigan serving a small congregation.  At that time, my daughter was about 3 or 4 years old.  Like today, back then, I would pray for her every night.  I still remember one particular night.  I was on my knees praying for God’s protection on my daughter from any harm and evil forces.  All of a sudden, in my heart, a fear arose about her future.  The fear was about what would happen to her when both of her parents were gone (she had no siblings and no relatives in the States.  All of them lived in South Korea).  The fear totally gripped me and began to take away the peace from my heart.  That feeling of panic bothered me greatly, so I continued on asking God the question: Lord, indeed, who’s going to be there for my daughter in times of need, when neither of us (parents) is around?  I remember how God answered my question that night.  I love the way He did.  He answered my question with a set of three questions.
• The first question He raised in my heart was this: Do you remember when you first came to America?  “Yes, Lord,” I answered.   In fact, I still do quite vividly that summer of 1985, August 2, to be exact.  Both my wife and I landed at the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago with several pieces of luggage and $5,000 in cash.
• The second question from the Lord was: Who took care of you since then?  “No brainer, Lord,” I answered, “It was You.”  Indeed, He provided everything my family needed more sufficiently than we ever imagined.
• The third question from the Lord was the clincher: “Don’t you believe that I will still be around long after you both are gone and be there for your daughter as I always have been for you?”  That did it!  It melted away my fear right away!  That night, the Lord assured me, once and for all, that He is with me and my family forever and takes care of us!  Amen.  The antidote to our fears is the presence of the Lord.
•  That leads us to our first verse: Isaiah 41:10.
• Here, the LORD spoke to His people, Israel, through the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah.  Obviously, Israel as a nation, even back then, was fragile, caught in between the mighty powerhouses such as Assyria and Egypt.  Fear and anxiety of an uncertain future filled up the hearts of the people.  So, God spoke to them,
• ¹⁰ do not fear, for I am with you,
  do not be afraid, for I am your God;
  I will strengthen you, I will help you,
  I will uphold you with my victorious right hand (Isaiah 41:10).
• Let me unpack the verse.  First, God says, “do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God;” The English translation doesn’t do us justice here: it barely shows the meaning of the original Hebrew.   The better translation would be: God says, “stop fearing.”  God saw His people already engaged in fear and worries about their future.  So, He says to them, “Stop fearing now!”  In the same way, God sees what we are going through.  He knows you and I are already engaged in constant worries and fears.  And, to us, He says this morning, “Stop fearing, my child!  Stop being afraid!”
• In the next sentence, God provides us with the reasons why we should stop fearing.  Because He is with us.  Because He is our God.  Do you see what I see here?  Throughout the Old and New Testament times, God consistently provides His assurance to His people reminding that He is with them.  However, we the people of God constantly forget that truth and keep worrying about our future.  This morning, He reminds us, once more, “Stop fearing, for I am with you.  Stop being afraid, for I am your God!”  He is not just anyone’s god, but your God.  My God.  E.g.  One pastor, in order not to forget God’s presence with him, would walk for the rest of his life with one hand closed as if he was holding someone’s hand in his.  In this case, he was holding the hand of Jesus.
• Three promises: After the assurance of His presence with His people, God provides three promises to them: I will strengthen you, I will surely help you, and I will surely uphold you with my right hand of righteousness.  I love the way King James Bible puts it:  “I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”  Three times God repeats that He is our true source of strength and help.  Three times He reminds us that we ought to go to Him for help in times of need.
• One more thing: with my right hand.  In Hebrew language, the right side means strength and might.  Here, God says to us that He will hold us with His mighty hand and will never let go of us.  Let God’s hand have a grip on you, not fear.
• That leads us to Philippians 4:13.
• Philippians 4:13
• New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
• ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
• Here, Paul the apostle talks about the true source of his strength: not himself, but Christ who strengthens him.
• Most of us are familiar with this verse and, in fact, this is a favorite verse to many.  How great it sounds!  How wonderful it is to know that we can do all things!  Often, though, focusing on this positive attitude that we can do all things, we easily forget who enables us to do all things.  It would be a great illusion/disaster to believe that we can do all things by our own might.  In fact, Paul is actually saying here that he cannot do anything without Christ who strengthens him.  He declares that Christ alone is the true source of all things possible, not himself.  If we believe otherwise, and if we believe in ourselves, it would be very risky.  E.g. G.K. Chesterton talks about people who are full of themselves in his book “Orthodoxy.” He writes: “Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves?  For I can tell you.  I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar.  I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success.  I can guide you to the thrones of the Supermen.  The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.” (p. 14).  He clearly points out the danger of being full of self: lunacy.
• Paul wasn’t full of himself, here.  In fact, he discovered a simple yet profound truth in accomplishing anything in life: Do not rely on your own wisdom and might.  Rather, rely on God’s wisdom and His might, and you will never go wrong.    He later went on to say that when he was weak, that was when he was strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).  When he was weak, he relied on God’s strength, which in turn made him strong.  The same line of thinking also helped King David when he was fighting with Goliath.  He said to Goliath, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted (1 Samuel 17:45).”
• Do not rely on your strength.  Rely on God’s.
• Let’s pray.