Scripture Reading
Sermon Text
{Transcript}
Ephesians 4: 17-24
Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
A New Beginning
Today is the first day of September. September is kind of new beginning. January is the beginning of the chronological year, but September is another kind of a new beginning for a lot of us. The hot Summer is over and you feel the cool air in the morning and in the evening. Last night I went out just to walk around for about five or ten minutes. It was so beautiful. We feel that coolness in the air already. Students enter into a different grade and some students start university life. Wow. That’s a very, very different life from high school. So you’re going to start a new kind of journey in a new place, maybe Kitchener, Waterloo or London or Queens. Some students experienced totally new journeys. Some people are getting married and others have new babies. Some people bought their first house and some people start a totally new direction, new life direction, completely different life direction. A lot of changes. All the things that I mentioned just now is what’s happening within our own community. That’s what people are going through within our own community. These are all examples of kinds of new beginnings.
Beginning and the End
I’d like to reflect on the beginning today. T.S. Elliot said, “what we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning”. The end is where we start from. We realize that the beginning and the ending are closely connected. Without the ending, the beginning cannot happen. In today’s scripture passage, St Paul also said, “put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts”. He tells us to end the old life. And then he said, “be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to clothe yourself within yourself”. So and the old self and then begin the new self. So he’s also talking about ending and beginning. They’re closely connected with each other. Wherever beginning happens, there is all always ending. Whenever ending begins, there’s always a beginning.
When you graduate, what do you call that? Commencement. You graduate, you’re finished school, but you commence, you begin something new. So we have to reflect on old and the new. When we look at our old life, as we look back, there are things that we regret. The longer you live, the more things that you regret, actually and unfortunately. There are more things to celebrate too, but also there are more things to regret. Our life is, mixed with all kinds of emotion, both joy and sadness. Exuberant joy but at the same time we have baggage with us. We said what we should not have said and we did what we should not have done. We are sometimes blinded our own foolishness. Why was I so foolish? What was I thinking?
It was almost like I wasn’t thinking at all. I just lived my life by the passion or emotion that I had within me when I was younger. So when I look back, I think “what was I doing? What was I thinking?” So sometimes we are completely blinded by our own foolishness.
Breaking Free of Regrets
You know, if we could go back, create a time machine, and if you could go back I’d like to fix it, but thing is we cannot. That’s why, all of us, we live with regret, guilt and burden. These things are always with us. It’s just a part of us ingrained within us. Regret, guilt a burden, no one lives free from those. We all live with those things, but one thing bad about those things is sometimes these things hold us back and do not let us go forward. It’s like dead weight. We all have regrets and guilt and burdens, but these things hold us back so we can never start a new life. You can never start a new beginning because these are within us. Sometimes we even feel stuck and we become victims of our past. Too much pain and too much disappointment. Sometimes I discover people, they don’t change at all. It’s not because they don’t want to change because they cannot change. This baggage of the old is too strong. You’re stronger than that.
But sometimes we feel weak because this baggage is so weighty that we cannot really make changes. You can be exactly the same old person. Our thinking doesn’t change. Our habits don’t change and how we feel about life doesn’t change. We’re just repeating the same thing over and over again with the same feeling. You’re better than that. We are more than that. You’re stronger than that. Just living like that. To begin a new life, we have to break away, break away from what? Break away from the old self that enslaves me with apathy, fear, helplessness and hopelessness. Unless we break away from those things, we can never start a new beginning. In other words, you gotta have the courage to be able to let go of our old pattern of life
Just because we have lived in a certain way all of this time. That doesn’t mean necessarily that that is a right way or the absolute way that we have to follow. Just because you have lived like this, that doesn’t mean that you have to live like that, in the next decade or two decades. You can start new. If we blindly follow the old way– I saw three reasons why we follow the old way. One is laziness, the other is fear. And third is weakness. I mean, laziness. We’re just, everything’s a bother. I don’t want to do anything new. You’re too lazy to think about new things because you’re comfortable. And also fear: there’s always new things that are threatening and it’s scary. You know, things are much better when we know what to do. They are much more comfortable and much more convenient because we know exactly what to do. Or weakness; many times we feel powerlessness. We feel powerless to change anything or sometimes change seems like a illusion. Oh no, no, we can’t change. We think that nothing will change and we feel powerlessness and helplessness. We are stuck in this pattern of life and will die in this pattern of life. It is our weakness speaking if we blindly follow the old way because of our laziness, because of our fear and because of our weaknesses, we cannot make a new beginning.
Courage to Start a New Beginning
I do believe that every morning is a new day and new beginning. I do believe that we can always start a new beginning. That’s my philosophy. It is human courage to break away, break ourselves away from the chain of the vicious cycle of the old pattern that sucks the life out of us. I do believe that we have that courage –we should have that courage. That was what Jesus wanted to do. He came to start a new beginning. This why old people are very, very smart and wise. Are they count the years starting from Jesus. So to this year is 2016 the year from the beginning of Jesus. Why? Because Jesus came to start a new beginning. That’s what Jesus Christ came to do. He wanted to start a new beginning. This is what St Paul said, let us carefully read this, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new”.
Renew Your Spirit
This is what St Paul said. “”In Christ everything has become new. Do you believe that you can have a new beginning? Yes, we can have a new beginning. The age doesn’t matter. Age is just an illusion. I do believe age is an illusion. You can always start a new beginning. That’s what I believe. Not because of me, but because I’m Christian. That’s why I believe that everyone can start a new beginning because I’m a Christian. When I look at myself, sometimes I wonder whether I can ever have a new beginning, but in Christ everything has become new, so I do believe. The new beginning, my friends starts from here. Nowhere else do beginning starts from within. Not changing our circumstances necessarily. From here, our thinking has to change. Our minds have to change. That’s why I St Paul said, “be renewed in the spirit of your minds”. He was wise. Your minds have to change first. You know, old people don’t change much so don’t be like old people you know. They don’t want to change. Be young, it doesn’t matter the age. Be young, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds. There has to be change in your thinking and unfortunately my friends, I’m so sad when I look at so many people’s minds. Their minds are polluted, their minds poisoned somehow. Polluted and posing with what? With the thinking that a new beginning is not possible. I will never change that kind of thinking. Pollutes your minds and poisons your mind.
These are the words of who? These are the words of victims of the past. The victims of the pastor always said, ‘we can never change it. It’s too late’. All the victims of the past always say that. Don’t ever listen to that. Don’t ever listen to that philosophy. Don’t ever that message. Listen to the message of Jesus Christ. Listen to the message of St Paul. “In Christ we are a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come”. How clear can Paul get about life? I do believe St Paul, I do believe Jesus. I don’t believe people’s victimized philosophy. Don’t let them poison your minds, but be renewed by the teaching of Jesus Christ who wants to always give us a new beginning. The problem is the message is not just out there. Sometimes the message is within us, because we have an old damage itself within us. This old damaged self within us tells us whenever we tried to start a new beginning, “Who do you think you are?” It always ridicules us. “Who do you think you are?” Whenever you start a new beginning, you hear that question, but next time when you hear that question, answer it with this. “I am the beloved precious child of God. I’m a beloved son and daughter of God”. So next time you hear that question, answer it with that answer. Of course you cannot do it alone. You need God’s help. Everyone needs God’s help. The spirit will help you. You are much more than you think. You know. Scotia Bank commercial says you’re richer than you thing. I always liked that, so I watched that commercial very carefully.
What Defines You
I think you are more than you are. Think about it. You have lived only a certain part of your life. There’s a bigger part of your life you have not lived yet, but because of your damaged yourself, you’re just you’re stuck there. Instead of just living out your old pattern, explore the new things within you. That’s a new beginning. You have not known– you don’t know everything about life. You are more than you think you are. Explore it, and once you find it, start new. Life has got to go forward, not backward or stop. Fish, if they stop, what do they do? They die. They have to swim all the time to survive, to live. If you stop where you are, then you die. You have to always start a new beginning. You can do that at any age.
What defined Moses’ life? What age defined Moses’ life? For the first forty years, he lived in a Palace, nice luxury and everything, but that didn’t define Moses. The next 40 years he was in the green pasture. He had wives and the good houses and all that. It was comfortable, very comfortable for 40 years, but that didn’t define Moses and last 40 years, God called him. ‘Go into the wilderness, start a new journey. You will take these people out of Egypt into the promised land’. Then last 40 years when he was 80 years old, last 40 years of his life, defined who Moses was. What defines you? You are not finished yet. Explore, have courage, be strong. Don’t be wimpy, don’t be wishy washy. Stand strong. Stand tall and take the challenge instead living like a victim of the past. All the university students remember this message when you enter into new journey of your life.
{Reflection Song: Amazing Grace}
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