Having All the Answers

October 25, 2023

15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept.
18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.
19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

-Genesis 50:15-21 (NIV)-

What is preventing you from really pursuing Jesus with a fervor and passion?  Perhaps for some of us, it’s simply because we don’t have everything figured out.  Would it make things easier if you had all the answers in life?  If God told you the purpose and timing of every event ahead of time, would you really follow after Jesus then?  Herein lies what makes faith genuine.  If we had all the answers in life ahead of time, and if God granted us this kind of supernatural insight, then it wouldn’t be faith; instead, it would be general knowledge.  There is also a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. 

To explain this concept further, imagine this scenario: if I worked for a chair company for many years, I would probably know every component of how a chair in our showroom is put together.  I can tell you that a particular chair has a set of sturdy, iron legs, held together by a set of screws and finished with a seat and backrest made of walnut wood (my favourite species of wood).  Walnut wood is one of the more dense and heavier wood species in North America.  I can tell you that this chair is designed with a seating capacity of 400 lbs.  However, even if I knew all of this in my head and knew it was designed to support my weight, I could never tell you how it felt unless I sat in it and proved all the claims of its construction. 

Similarly, if I memorized a baseball manual, I would probably be an expert in baseball and could instruct baseball players how to play the game, but then if I’m standing at the plate with a 90 mile/hour fast ball or a 45 mile/hour curve ball coming at me, guaranteed I wouldn’t perform well.  Why?  Because I had no experience in going through the actual scenario myself and wouldn’t know the next action in the sequence of events.

You see and believe it or not, in life we will never have all the answers, and we have to make educated decisions quite often.  When it comes to our faith journeys, God never gives us the entire picture and he wants us to walk through events and journey with him.  Quite honestly, if I knew bad events were coming my way, I would probably do whatever it takes to avoid them, but then I wouldn’t be obedient to Jesus in faith and I may just end up cursing God.

In our text in Genesis, often times we hear of the fantastic story of Joseph and think about the prosperity, but we forget that Joseph wasn’t meant to be in Egypt in the first place (see Gen. 41:50-52 where Joseph remembered his pain, and referenced Egypt as the land of his affliction and not his home).  Scholars estimate that Joseph was in prison for about thirteen years!  Can you imagine all of the wondering and doubts that Joseph had during that time?  He did everything right and calamity came his way.  He probably didn’t have any answers as to why God allowed him to go through such pain and torture.  Yet, Joseph didn’t abandon God and remained faithful.  Joseph also didn’t hold any grudges and showed extra grace to his brothers.  Admittedly, that’s something that I struggle with at times.  Moreover, we have to remember that it's God’s story and not our own.  We are simply privileged to have a small role in God’s greater story.  In addition, God purposely doesn’t give us all the answers we seek for and wants us to go through life’s journeys and experience them with God.  We may know God is good in our heads, but it’s another matter to experience the goodness of God for ourselves.  Out of faith, God calls us to journey with him, through all the ups and downs so that we can rely upon him and trust him.  Be faithful to God through Jesus Christ and he will take care of the rest!

-Rev. David Chung

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God, Do You Care?

October 18, 2023

28 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved[e] in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34 And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

-John 11:28-37 (ESV)-

I’m back from vacation!  For those of you that know, I just recovered from Covid19 and then was on a three week trip to Singapore, then Indonesia, and then South Korea.  During my trip, off and on I prayed that God would reveal something to me, and to show me something and anything he wanted to reveal.  As much as it was a vacation, it was also a time to spend with friends and relatives, but I always pray for the possibility that perhaps God also wanted to show me something special during my trip away.  Especially while in Seoul, South Korea, I began to reflect on me never feeling like I belonged anywhere.  I’ll probably expand more on that during a future sermon or future devotional.  To answer my prayer however, I really do feel like God was reminding me of my eternal heritage of being a citizen of heaven and that I’m just passing through this world (Philippians. 3:20-21).  This answered prayer brought meaning to my feelings of never feeling like I belong anywhere.  It’s a natural feeling, given that my eternal home is with Jesus in heaven;  that’s where I belong and with many other Christian followers of Jesus.  I felt more at peace after this reminder.
….and then October 7th, 2023 happened!

During the morning of October 7th, 2023., Hamas attacked Israel, stating that it had sent 5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel and within a span of 20 minutes.  At the time, I was on a flight from Surabaya, Indonesia and on my way to Seoul, South Korea.  For those of you that don’t know, Indonesia as a country has the greatest number of Muslims in the world with 87% of its 277,534,122 population identifying as Muslim.  To me, it feels like a different planet, not just a different country, because everything I could think of feels very foreign and different to me.  This is probably the fourth time I’m visiting this country (my wife’s home country), and each time I come across something eye-opening to me.  Everything from driving on the opposite side of the road with thousands of mopeds around to daily blasting Muslim calls to prayer on external speakers on the streets is very different to me.  However, these differences are nothing compared to the sudden state of life changes happening in the Israel and Gaza regions.  I can’t even begin to imagine how much loss and suffering is happening on both sides of this terrible war.  I believe the actions of Hamas are not right, and it triggered a terrible retaliation from the Israeli forces out of defence.  As usual, the media is doing a great job distorting both sides of the story.  Because of these attacks and in the blink of an eye, it feels like the world as I knew it is no longer the same.

In all of this, many may be asking, “God where are you?”  Others may be asking, “God, do you care?”  These are natural questions and I believe God draws near to the broken hearted, the hurting and the suffering.  Perhaps some are even asking, “God, why did you allow this?”  God gives free will, and sadly, some have taken that free will and used it to cause havoc and tremendous suffering.  If God did not allow free will, then God would be a controlling and corrupted being.  We are to remember that perfect love involves free will and love cannot be forced.  God always gave free will from the start with Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.  Of course, I never answered the second question yet – God, do you care?  That answer is found in our biblical text in John 11:28-37.

In this true story, we see tremendous evidence of how much God cares!  Here, God in human flesh in Jesus Christ could’ve ignored Martha and Mary.  Jesus’ chief goal while on earth was to save the lost, and he could’ve ignored this time.  True, Jesus used miracles to highlight his deity and magnify the fact that the Kingdom of God has now come with his arrival, but he didn’t have to use this situation in that narrative.  Instead, Jesus purposely and intentionally drew near to Mary and Martha and he actually wept.  Verse 35 in our text is the shortest verse in all of scripture, but arguably, it’s one of the most powerful verses, because it shows we worship a God that cares tremendously in our time of need, suffering and loss.  Jesus already knew he had the ability to raise Lazarus from the dead, and yet he still wept!  If that doesn’t show you the heart of God with utmost love and care, I don’t know what will.

For those that are mourning during this time, and for those that need God desperately, take heart, because I’m convinced God draws near, and God’s ultimate peace will come soon!  Please stay close to Jesus Christ, and look to him for all hope!

For anyone further interested in the news of the Hamas/Israeli war, I found this video clip that was tremendously helpful for me.  I will remind everyone that the Jews are still God’s chosen people and he has a plan for redemption for them still! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDs58krKXm0

-Rev. David Chung