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Worries
Jesus said not to worry about tomorrow, but it is not always easy not to worry. When life gets tough, the first thing we do is a worry. When we look at ourselves, when things don’t go well, the first thing we do is a worry. Last Wednesday we had a Korean speaking ministry session meeting to prepare for the congregation meeting that was held today. It is not easy to take care of the finances of the church like Brian, the chair of Korean speaking ministry, had said. The chair of the finance committee has to worry about the finances of the church at all times, whether we have enough budget, whether we have enough income, things like that they have to continuously worry about. But Brian shared with us a very interesting experience he had with his mother.
He was worried. And then, seeing him worry about finance, his mother talked to him. She said, Lee, never worry about the finances of the church. God will take care of it. Won’t God provide resources? When you try to do good work when you try to do God’s work, won’t God provide resources? Why do you worry? Don’t you worry? God will take care of it. So he said he learned not to worry about finance. Actually, we should not worry about anything in life, period. It is good to have a woman of faith as a mother, isn’t it? We always learn from them and it doesn’t matter how old you are, you always learn something from your parents. The very next day I got a phone call from LA out of nowhere. She never called me [the caller]. But I did a wedding for her {the caller} and she knows about our church. She’s the second generation and she appreciates how valuable the ministry is that we’re doing here at Saint Timothy. And she said she and her husband would like to tithe for our church. She said, “you’re doing a valuable ministry. I too, I want to contribute to that”. She had never called me for several years. I haven’t seen her since. They live in LA and they wanted to do the offering for our church, it will probably be in US dollars.
Good time. I mean more than the money, It wasn’t like God’s teaching was that you don’t worry about finance or you don’t worry about my church. God will take care of our needs and our church. God will guide us using whatever resources are out there. We just have to trust and do whatever needs to be done. I don’t know whether I shared this with you at the ESM prayer retreat, but there’s a church on Spadina and Harbord called Knox Spadina. It is a Presbyterian church and it’s part of our denomination. Actually, the first Korean Presbyterian Church started from that place, the first immigrant church, and that church rented the building and started the Presbyterian church there. That church has a beautiful story. In 1827, a generous person named Jesse Ketchum donated three acres of his land.
Paul’s Principles
There’s a school in downtown called Jesse Ketchum and my son went to that school. Jesse Ketchum did a lot of good things, not only for the church, but for society, for the school, and things like that. So he donated three acres of his land and the church still owns one acre. And do you know which land that is? It is right across Eaton Center Hudson’s Bay place on Queen Street. The rental fee from that land is $3,000,000 just from the rental. And in 2015, three family members pass away. They left a bequest which is $140,000. So even without income from the church members, they have at least 1.5 million dollars as a budget. They do a lot of mission work and a lot of good things. People who love the church left the money for the church as they passed away. St Paul’s mission wasn’t just to go around to preach the gospel. One of the important missions of St Paul was to collect offering funds for the Jerusalem church and he wrote to Second Corinthians in chapter nine to teach them about the offering and let us reflect. Simply have it, to reflect on what he had taught.
This is the first thing that St Paul said: “The one who sows sparingly, will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully”. The first principle is that you give. You give little, you gain little. You give a lot, you gain a lot. It’s not an economic principle that Saint Paul is talking about. That’s what life is like. If you think big, life becomes big. If you think small, your life becomes small. If you only think about you, life will be about you. If you think about others, then life will be for many, many people. If you just live your life benefiting yourself, then you’ll benefit only yourself. But if you live your life benefiting others, then you’ll be able to benefit so many people with your devotion. Like Jesse Ketchum, who powerfully gave. He gave for 200 years. The church had continued because of his generous donation. His school still exists and there are a lot of students and children who had graduated from that school and benefited. So if you think big, life will become big. If you think small, life will become small.
Second one: “each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver”. It doesn’t really matter how much you give. It has to come from a generous heart. Concretely, you give out of your thankful heart. The offering is not the result of financial resources that you have. The offering is a result of your abundant heart. Just because you have more money, it doesn’t mean that you’ll give more. But as you experience God’s grace more, then you’ll be able to give more. The offering is directly correlated to the grace that you experience in your life. Jesus Christ gave all his life and everything that he had for us. As we experience that grace, the love of Jesus Christ, then every single thing that I have belongs to you. My talent, my time, my passion, my financial resources, all of that belongs to you.
Next one is: “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work”. In other words, God will provide what we need for our good work. God will plentifully give. That was what the mother of the finance chairman meant. You don’t worry, God will give. God will take care of the church. So when we do good things, the resources will be there. And the next one is similar: “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. ”
And the last one is: “You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity which will produce thanksgiving to God through us”. As we share in the blessings we receive, it will produce thanksgiving in some people. That was what the couple in LA did. Because of their generous donation, we are thankful for them recognizing our ministry, praying for our ministry, and supporting our ministry. We have confirmed again that this ministry is valuable and that we are doing something very valuable. There are a lot of people who live their lives benefiting others and those people will be thankful someday. We just talked about the orphanage in Korea. Yesterday I had a session meeting and Barbara is working really working hard going around interviewing different people and helping out orphans in Korea. Whatever she does will benefit many people. Your life, your donation, your gift will produce Thanksgiving somewhere in some people. Saint Paul understood the beauty of the lifestyle of giving – giving is a lifestyle.
Lifestyle
We have to cultivate the lifestyle of giving and that is our philosophy. Whatever we have, we share to benefit others. That is a life philosophy. We don’t live for ourselves. As Jesus lived for us and lived for God, we live for others and we live for God. Generosity begets generosity. Generosity begets abundance and not just material abundance. It means the abundance in life, a life of thanksgiving and a life of gratitude. One very interesting characteristic of people who give is that they’re always thankful. They’re always happy by giving their gifts to others. They become happy and thanksgiving and gratitude become part of their lives. My friends, we are indebted people.
Basically, we are all indebted people. All the joy we enjoy and all the happiness we live with comes from God and comes from other people. You could not have done it on our own. Last Thursday I had dinner with the KSM members and a man had told me, “Reverend, if there were no church, then my immigrant life would have been so difficult. I don’t think I could have survived. How important this community is! We become friends and we have people to talk to. We pray together. We worship together. This is wonderful that we have this kind of church”. There’s an African saying: “because you are, I am”. That’s a wise thing to think “because you are, I am”.
If you aren’t there then I am not here. Because you are, I am. Because God is, I am. We owe all our happiness to God and to others and I’m very thankful to you for your generous donations and gifts and what you do for this community. Because of you, we can all enjoy life’s happiness, laughter, and joy. I thank God for this community, and this community is very unique and very special and that’s what I believe. That’s why I gave my whole youth to this community. I came here when I was 34, so all my thirties, all my forties, all my fifties. That’s my prime time!
I gave all of them to this community because I do believe that this community is unique and special. If I can at least make one decent spiritual community, then I’m very happy. I’m very happy about that. Our children will be able to drink fresh water from the fountain of this special, beautiful, precious community. Generosity is our statement that we cannot have made a life alone. Generosity is the expression of our gratitude to God and to all others, for walking along with us to build a life together. Generosity is our belief and our philosophy that life’s good is to be shared with others. The true blessing is to live a life of giving. That’s a blessing. If you live a life of giving you are a blessed person, the blessing is not to receive. The blessing is to give from the life of giving. Thanksgiving comes from the life of giving. Compassion comes from the life of giving. Joy comes in from the life of giving. Deep satisfaction comes from the life of giving.
Reflection
We are made not to have our hunger filled by trying to fill it. This is a misunderstanding. You can never fill your hunger by trying to fill it, you’ll become more hungry. The more you try to have, the more hungry you will become, but the more you try to give, you realize that you don’t need much. You realize that you already have it. We already have everything we need. Whatever we have is an extra bonus. Those things, if we have it we are thankful. If we don’t have it, we are fine. We already have everything that we need. Life is made that way. Jesus taught us, you can only fill your hunger by emptying yourself by giving. That’s Jesus’ philosophy. You empty yourself. Then God will fill it. As we get to know God, we realize how much we have received and from that realization, true sharing can come.
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