honoring my parents

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your
father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise— "that it may
go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." Eph 6:1-2

The first four commandments dealt with our relationship with God.

The last six deals with our relationship with one another. And it is interesting to note that God places our relationship with our parents as of foremost significance in His commands.

Ephesians passage tells us that honoring out parents is the first commandment with a promise. That is to say, first as in foremost, of greater importance and superiority.

The reason why God places such emphasis on this primary relationship between a parent and a child is because our relationship with our parents will determine the sort of relationships we will establish with everyone else around us. The family, in other words, is the building block of all relationships.

In a world full of broken and dysfunctional families nurtured by incompetent parenthood, why are we commanded to honor (i.e., to prize highly, tp care for, to show respect for and to obey) our parents?

What we can learn from God's fifth commandment is this command is not based on qualification of the recipient of that honor (i.e, our parents), but simply on God's authority and His established order in family, life and society.

We honor our parents not necesarily because they deserve it per se, but because God told us so.

To honor our parents "in the Lord" has long been interpreted as in cases which does not conflict with will of God for my life. But that is only a surface meaning. "In the Lord" means in the same way you would God.

In other words, by acknowledging our parents' position in life as ordained by God and not some cruel error, we are ultimately confessing that God did not make a mistake.

So when we honor our parents, despite all their shortcomings and oftimes devastating and painful effect on our lives due to their failure to nurture us in godly ways, we are honoring God Himself as the Author of our lives.

When we honor our parents in this way with this attitude, as difficult as it may be, we receive three blessings.

First and foremost, our relationship with God will suffer no stumbling block. Also, we can relate to others in a healthy way, not having to have to carry the "baggage" of broken parent/child relationship into our own lives. And finally, we are able to break the cycle of what some calls "generational sin," in which we are not bound to make the same mistakes and commit the same failures as our parents when we ourselves are parents.

--from Nakwon EM Feb 25th Sunday Worship Service

holy sabbath

In the fourth Commandment, God commands His people to keep the Sabbath ("rest") day holy. We as believers keep the Sunday, the first day of the week, as our day of rest, instead of the traditional seventh day which is Saturday as the Jewish people keep today.

Two main reasons behind the change in date from Saturday to Sunday are:

• Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, the first day of the week. (ref. Matt 28:1-11)

• The early church met on the first day of the week for corporate gathering and worship. (ref. Acts 20:7)

The Sabbath Day was instituted by God in the beginning of the world. God created everything in six days, and on seventh, He rested. But not only did God rest on the seventh day, He did something even more significant:

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Gen 2:2, emphasis added)

God wanted to give His children a day of rest from the toil of labor. We are to work for six days and rest the seventh. But the reason behind the command to rest is two-fold: physical and spiritual renewal.

We are in essence built to need a day of rest after six days of "labor."

No one can keep going for continuous days without facing the consequences, whether it be failed health or emotional and mental breakdown.

But even more significant is the spiritual aspect of this renewal.

Each Sunday when we come together to worship, these four things need to be accomplished; otherwise, we will find ourselves out of joints throughout the week spiritually, eventually affecting even our physical aspect of life:

• Remember God's faithfulness
  
• Refocus our purpose in life
• Reaffirm that God is in control
• Rededicate our lives to God
  

These four things constitute a necessary spiritual renewal that ought to be experienced and embraced each Sunday in corporate worship when brothers and sister come together in one place.

So how exactly do we keep the Sabbath day holy?

"Holy" simply means "to set apart" or "to separate."

First of all, Sundays ought not to be like any other in that it is not a time to indulge our need for simple distractive break from regular routine; it is not a "free day" to do as we please not limited by responsibilities work or school or other vocations presses upon us on other days of the week.

God speaks through Prophet Isaiah explaining what He desires from the Sabbath rest of His people and what we ought not to do.

If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not or sdoing as you pleasepeaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 58:13-14, emphasis added)

To put it simply, God blessed this day so that if we keep His commandment to keep it holy, not simply doing whatever we please but to spend it pleasing Him, in all that we do, God will bless the work of our hands, satisfy the desires of our hearts and grant us strength to overcome the days to come.

How you worship God on Sunday, in other words, will determine how you will spend the coming week.

Do you honor God by keeping the Sabbath Day holy in His sight? Or is this yet another no-school or no-work day to us as you see fit?

Let that incredible blessing of God be upon your life as you prepare your hearts to give your best each "Lord's Day" to He who gave His Best for pay for our sins and grant us eternity.

--from Nakwon EM Feb 18th Sunday Worship Service

God's name

Third Commandment:

"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name." Exodus 20:7

Names bore significance in ancient times in that it carried the bearer's characters or personality, reputation and authority.

Even today, no one in their right mind would name a child born in America 'Adolph' or 'Osama' or 'Saddam.' Why? Because those names symbolize tyranny and terrorism.

A woman who marries forsakes her maiden name and changes it to that of her husband's. But it isn't only her last name that is changed: she must change her way of life, her priorities, her attitude and more often than not, her preferences.

When we call God as our Father, King, Lord and Savior, it follows that such proclamation must carry with it inevitable and logical change in our way of life and attitude.

So how does one misuse or better put misrepresent God's Name?

Exodus 3:13-14 records the conversation between God and Moses when the eighty-year old ex-prince of Egypt is receiving his calling to lead a nation of slaves out of one of the most powerful nation on earth during that time.

Moses asks God what Name he ought to bring before the people of Israel when he presents his case about God who will deliver them from bondage.

In essence, Moses was asking God to demonstrate to the people his ability and willingness to save His people. God's Name, when heard, would allow the people to believe.

God gives an answer: "I AM"

The Self-Existent One. The Uncreated One.

After receiving such revelation from God at the burning bush, Moses receives one of the greatest revelation mankind had ever received.

He sees God's glory. He doesn't see His face, but hidden in teh cleft of the rock, Moses sees the back of God as He passes him.

When God proclaims His name, God doesn't list some name as we would expect, He proclaims His attributes:

Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” Exodus 34:5-7 (emphasis added)

His character WAS His Name, the LORD.

In Numbers 20:8-12, a tragic event takes place.

When Moses angrily struck the rock twice to bring forth water to quench the thirst of millions of Israelites wandering in the desert going from one complaint to another, God denies this powerfully used prophet the one thing he desired above all else - entrance into the Land of Promise, Canaan.

Why such harsh punishment for mere burst of anger at rebelliousness of the people toward God?

The answer is in God's reason in verse 12:

"Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."

Moses received the greatest revelation of the Name of the Lord. His life was punctuated by revelatory communion with the living God who used him mightily for His purposes.

But when Moses failed to represent God in the way he was called to do - when he misrepresented God's patience, goodness, forbearing love - he had broken the third commandment (which by the way Moses had brought down from the mountain himself after two 40-day fasting).

We can honor God's name in Worship and in Prayer.

Many people assume this third commandment has to do with cursing, using foul language or profanities.

It is so much more than a command to clean up our speech.

When we praise God in worship, we are making an audible and heartfelt confession of who He is. In other words, we are proclaiming God's name.

But if our lives do not coincide with our profession of faith in the Author of that faith, we dishonor God and misuse His name.

And when in prayer, despite the fact we prayed a prayer in the strong Name of Jesus, we fail to truly believe God is able to help us and hear our prayers, we are dishonoring the powerful Name of Jesus.

Our lives reflect what we believe in.

Does your life reflect the incredibly bold proclamations of God's faithfulness in your life? Do you live a life that shows you truly serve a might God who can never fail?

--from Nakwon EM Feb 11 Sunday Worship Service

God's face

Second Commandment:

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20:4-6)

God loves us with a fierce, jealous love. Jealousy of God demands exclusive devotion to God.

After the Israelies came out of Egypt through the mighty delivering power of God under Moses' leadership, in Exodus 32, they decided to give God a visual form in the shape of a golden calf - the known Egyptian idol of their day.

It wasn't that they denied there involved incredible supernatural intervention in their freedom from slavery; they wanted to SEE to "believe."

Throughout history, man has served some god in one form or another or in many like the Hindus who worship over 330 million deities (I made an error during the message; it wasn't 6 million, but 330 million!). What is common throughout history is that these gods or goddesses are represented in physical form which are familiar, whether it be human, animal or things in nature.

Why do we insist on seeing?

One pastor said eyes are the portals through which Satan works, and the ears are the portals through which God works.

How true it is!

Our Christian walk demand we walk by faith, not by sight.

Apostle John reminds us that no man has ever seen God in John 1:18.

The four living creatures in Rev 4 beheld the glory of God. But in order for them to see God in his awesome unveiled glory, they needed more than a pair of eyes.

Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." Rev 4:8 (emphasis added)

These living creatures' entire bodies were covered with eyes.

And the first word to come forth from their mouths in adoration was "Holy."

To this day, we have no physical likeliness of Jesus anywhere. People have attempted to draw Him, envision Him on canvases and portraits, but that is missing the point.

To put it simply, God's second commandment to His people is that they walk by faith, not by sight, by serving God and God alone.

The African Impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. The animal will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall.

Are you like that?

A beautiful, graceful creation with incredible ability to go on to that next level of closeness of God, and yet refuse to take that "leap" of faith because you cannot see ahead?

--from Nakwon EM Feb 4th Sunday Worship Service