Beacon Sunday Service: September 29th, 2024

All right. Good morning and welcome to the beacon. Uh, as you guys are doing already, let's just uh stand up and just greet one another with grace and peace to you. Grace is the free gift of God, and peace is the result of that, and so may we greet one another in that manner.

Grace and peace to you. And as we just gather ourselves to our seats, um I just wanted to start off with a call to worship this morning from Psalms, Psalm twenty-one, and the response from verse uh and the response from uh Psalm thirty verse four, which you guys will recite.

And together sing praises to the Lord, oh you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name. Amen. Can we do that this morning, church? May we just give him all the praise and glory to his name?

Blazing in the heavens? There is only one is our God who commands a nation, building up and tearing down silencing his rivals. There is only one is our God.

Turned away his love. Conquer us with kindness.

And to the Lamb who slayed me, glory now to the King on the throne, who was and is to come, and to the Lamb who was slain, glory now to the King of the throne, who was in to the Lamb who is slaved me.

Right there and sees around your glory and night and praise Glory be to our Glory be to us. We are Lord We are helpless in the soul.

Surround us hold us in your cold and his pleasure rise up and he will be for us.

Every creature and everyone send every earnest stars in all the same graces who wrote my word to our God be to our best our faith using a catechism for Christian growth.

In this question and answer, we will confess that God's design for the incarnation. So here's the question What was God's design for the incarnation?

Christ endured the humiliation and the weakness of humanity and willingly died in our place to purchase our redemption and give glory to God.

We appear to love you on the kingdom that you speak.

Then God is and received and love those who such your health. Glory.

Shepherd and kids.

Gloria.

Face the accusation. And joyfully you bore the bitter cross. Received our condemnation and paid for the rebel's cause. Glory of Lord, you are glory. Shepherd and king forever you'll be glory. Holy and here with us.

Good morning, everyone. Today's confession explains how we succumb to the very things we fight against. And it's through our great deliverer we are freed from the consequences of sin. So let's read our confession of sin together. Most merciful God. We confess that we have sinned against you in the thought of word and deed. We have not done the holy things that we have wanted, but have done the very things we hate. When we desire to do right, we know evil is close at hand. The waging war makes us captive to indwelling sin. Who will deliver us from the body of death? Thank you, God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. By his death and resurrection, we are free to serve you alone. Amen. Please be seated.

Let's now take in a time of private confession of sin. Use your assurance of pardon. May the God of all healing and forgiveness draw you to himself and cleanse you from all your sins, that you may behold the glory of his son, the word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. Today's prayer topic actually uh just came in to me. Um this morning we found out that uh Lois, uh our brother Albert and Sister Kathy's youngest um daughter is feeling ill and she's been vomiting and just not able to hold anything down. So they asked if we could pray for her, uh pray for God's healing hand to be over her. Uh because of uh just her sickness, they weren't able to come today, and uh they also kept Theo home and they're hoping that he won't get sick either. So pray for Lois, uh, for her to get over this bug quickly, um, for Theo to not get sick as well, and for just blessing and encouragement for the parents, as it's never easy when you see your child sick or in pain. Uh so let's pray for them for the Chang family.

Father, we lift up uh little Lois Chang up to you, Father. We know uh that you love her so much, um, and that we ask Father that you would heal her of the stomach ailments that she's going through right now, or she just can't hold anything down and she's vomiting and um just feeling really ill. Lord, we pray, Father, for uh Kathy and Albert as parents, Lord, to do the best to encourage them and to trust in you, that you would watch over their child and help her to feel better. We pray, Father, for their blessing as well on today as I know that they would want to worship with our family, Lord, but their uh immediate family is uh just a priority at this moment. We just pray that you will watch over the family.

We pray for Theo as well, that young Theo would not get sick, that he would not catch whatever sickness Lois has. Uh, and please watch over their family, Lord, lift them up. Allow them to know that um our community is praying over them, and just that we love and care for them so much, and we ask, Lord, that you uh just watch over them during this time. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Uh, children, you're dismissed. Uh, please enjoy your Sunday school with teacher Tiffany today and teacher John. As the children are being dismissed, we're gonna go over a few announcements. Uh, the first announcement is the one that we've been sharing this past month. Is that Peter Pastor Peter's installation service is going to be in two weeks, October thirteenth at 5 p.m.

We're gonna be holding it in Korean American Presbyterian Church's sanctuary. Uh, and we have uh max capacity now. We know that we're gonna have about 200 people coming. But if you still want to see if you anyone else would want to come that would be want to be a part of this history for our church, please let uh just um leadership know so that we can kind of update our head count. Uh children's ministry. Uh the new schedule was released uh a few weeks ago. Um please go ahead and check your schedule. Make sure that your calendar matches up with the day that you're supposed to serve. Um if you are not able to, please help TIFF and just by finding your replacement. Uh and last but not least, our offering options are Zell Van Mel, Cash and Chick.

If you are a member, we ask uh that the Lord or that you give as the Lord has blessed you in your life. And if you're a guest or visiting, please do not feel obligated to give. Uh I have the pleasure of uh introducing our today's speaker, uh, Pastor John Kim. Uh based off my introduction of him, you're gonna see what a distinguished life and career he's had in ministry. Uh and so let's um let's enjoy this one. Pastor John Kim was born in South Central Los Angeles in 1965. He grew up near downtown LA and later moved to San Gabriel Valley in the seventh grade. Uh it was at a summer camp in the summer of 1978 that John heard the gospel presented clearly and gave his life to Christ. During that time, he started attending Grace Community Church and grew tremendously under the ministry of John MacArthur and various youth pastors and staff who invested in his life.

And it was during his undergrad years at UCLA that he knew his calling was in ministry. He graduated UCLA in 1988 with a degree in psychology and post grad, he attended Master's Seminary in 1999. I graduated with his Master's of Divinity, and also graduated from Talbot in 2023. Uh with uh uh Doctor of Ministry in Asian American Ministries. John has been married to his wife Angela, who's here with us today since 1989. Praise God for 35 years of marriage. They have four daughters, uh, and they have let's see, two, three, two two grandkids, two grandkids, two boys. Pastor John um started his ministry at Grace Community Church and has pastored uh in various uh capacities. Um has also pastored in Maryland and Silmar and has planted churches in San Diego, San Jose, and Los Angeles.

He's currently the senior pastor at Lighthouse LA, from which he will transition a new pastor to take his place in January. John also serves on staff at the Master's Fellowship, and his attention will turn to Master's Academy International, where he will help uh start training a training center, seminary in Korea, as well as teach church planting classes in the Philippines. So let's give this brother an hand of applause. Thanks, bro.

Thank you, Phil. Good morning, everyone. And uh tradition I do is I take a picture uh of you. So it reminds me of who I got to preach to. So smile. All right. Well, as Phil shared, um Angela's with me here today, and uh we we do have uh four daughters. Um 32, 29, 25, and 19. So they are pretty much grown up. Our youngest is uh in New York uh attending FIT, so she's our last college student that we need to support. So Angela's uh working full time to uh she works as a teacher. And um, yeah, we're very very grateful. We have our second daughter's married, and uh we have two grandsons, uh Benny, who is three, and JJ, who is six months.

So that's been a lot of fun. Um it's kind of weird hearing the word grandpa, but I guess that's reality now. So uh but we we really love and enjoyed it. Well, I had the chance to meet um Howard and Steve initially, and then Phil as well, um, this past March at the Shepherd's Conference, and uh we have had a couple of opportunities to enjoy burgers because I found out they love burgers just as much as I do, so they've introduced me to a few different places. Uh I also had a chance to uh meet with Pastor Peter uh a couple weeks ago and uh we had dinner and I'm just really excited for your church. Uh you have a wonderful uh servant of the Lord who's gonna come and really uh shepherd and minister to you uh I think in ways that'll be really really special.

Uh so uh I've had a chance to be praying for you as well along the way as I had a chance uh to meet, like I said, with uh Howard and Phil and Steve and just praying for your church as uh you were looking for a pastor and God has answered that prayer. So let's uh pray one more time and ask God to bless our time in his word. Our precious Savior and Lord, we come to you this morning recognizing that it is only because of your great love for us while we were yet sinners that you came and died on the cross, rose again, and as we have repented of our sins and come to trust by faith that your grace alone is sufficient to save us, you have given us the gift of eternal life, and for that we are eternally grateful.

We come to worship you together this morning so that we would walk in a manner worthy of our calling in Christ. We bear witness together that it is only because of the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ that is shown in our lives that we now are privileged to bear witness to the glory of God in all things, especially in the church. We praise you for being our great God and that you are worthy of all the praise that we have been offering to you even this morning through singing, through praying, and through the proclamation and receiving of your word through the fellowship we have as the family of God and through being a testimony and witness to the gospel to those who do not know Christ. We ask that you would speak to us through your word today, that you would teach us, admonish us, correct us and train us so that we might be adequate and sufficiently equipped to pursue Christlieness in our lives to your glory.

We ask all this in the magnificent name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, uh, as uh Phil shared, I was born in South Central LA, so not too far away from here, and uh I grew up during a time where uh people didn't know much about Koreans. You know, they they look at me and they're like, you know, are you Chinese? Like, no, are you Japanese? No. Like, what are you? That's like that's all they knew. And so I said I'm Korean, and they're like, what's that? And I would say, well, see, there's a little peninsula off of China, across from Japan. Never heard of it. Uh well, back in the days in the early 70s, uh there was no K Town, there was just K block. Okay, it was Olympic Boulevard.

Uh there was the Olympic Korean market, and uh there was the Bank of America where every summer I remember going to the uh Korean Youth Foundation camps, and so uh it was very interesting back then. Uh even though my parents were not Christians, we went to the uh First United Methodist Church of LA uh in downtown and we had Korean school and I learned Tekwondo and uh we learned Korean folk songs. So that that was just part of growing up and uh I guess being Korean, you know, you just kinda I mean I've studied all the history now, and the church was the place where a lot of people came to uh have relationships. Now growing up in LA as well as then moving to the San Fernando Valley uh when I was ten years old, uh I realized growing up that um people are mean.

I mean, I they would just call me names. Like I was kind of shy. I didn't talk, so I didn't understand why they would call me anything. Uh they would want to pick fights. Uh I'd have to defend myself. And so uh those early years of life were just kind of confusing. Like, why is it this way? Uh I also had uh what I call a Korean drama worthy family. Okay, my extended family. Uh, you know, when I told stories to my wife when we were dating, she didn't believe me. She's like, no, they can't be that crazy. And then she met them. She was like, they're crazy. I go, I told you.

And growing up in that setting, I I think for for most of my life, my early years, uh, it it was just really, really horrible. Um, you know, my my grandmother who actually loved me, you know. I I am the first son, oldest son of the oldest son of the only son and child of the only son and child of the only son and child. So I guess that's a big deal. So she loved me, but she did not love my mom. She hated my mom. She would beat my mother in front of us. And so I have these horrible memories. My uncles were very violent men, and uh it was just horrible growing up. And so, you know, uh when I come back to K Town area, it comes like with a lot of baggage because when I think going back to the 70s, uh, there are a lot of terrible memories.

But fast forward, uh it's 2024, and uh now I'm a grandparent married, uh, you know, Angela and I, uh watching our four daughters grow up. And I would tell my girls stories, and you know, it's kind of like this the what you would hear when I remember growing up, you know, when I was young, you know, I would go to school in the snow with one shoe, you know, that kind of thing. So I realized whatever I was sharing was a similar sort of storyline to them. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, that's a nice story, dad. But uh, you know, we're living here now. And, you know, so many times I look back and I wonder why did God allow all those things to happen? Now each of you have a story as well, you know, and it's not necessarily the same exact story as someone else.

There might be similarities. But if you are a Christian, there's something that provides meaning and purpose to all of it. I think apart from God, it it's really impossible to really understand like why we go through the things we go through in life. And then you just get old. You know, um we were yesterday we were at a wedding, I was officiating a wedding, and um it was for one of uh our church members who I met while he was a college student at UCLA, and so it reminds me, oh wow, I met my wife at UCLA. Uh we got married 35 years ago, and then we blinked, and all of a sudden uh we're close to our 60s. And where did the time go? It's just flown by. And in the past few years, I've had some health issues and challenges, and it's caused me to reflect.

Like, so what have I done with my life? I mean, almost 60 years. What have I done with my life? And God was gracious to save me at this eighth grade summer camp. Uh I heard a speaker come and I'd gone to Christian schools, but I'd never actually heard the gospel clearly presented. But I heard enough that once I heard the gospel clearly, it's like, oh, this is what it means. It's about following Christ. It's about trusting Christ alone. You know, it's not just a bunch of do's and don'ts, it's not just following a bunch of rules, but it is that God is graciously provided salvation through Jesus Christ. And that is the only thing that gives me the hope of eternal life. And now my life identifies with Christ.

That is my primary point of identification. I mean, if you uh look at all that's going on the um uh all the identity politics, and you see all the cultural things going on, and people are so confused as to how to define life. It's no surprise that we live in this this world that really doesn't understand what life actually is for. But for the Christian, we understand because God is the front and center point. So 1 Corinthians 1031, when it says whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we do what? All to the glory of God. And Matthew 6.33, Christ Himself says, seek first kingdom, God's kingdom, and his righteousness, right? Now, one thing I've noticed, uh, especially as a pastor, and um, you know, watching a lot of um you know uh through church planting, uh Angela and I essentially just get older and older, and we we work with younger people every time.

And we see this process where people are kind of trying to make something out of their lives. And I like the way Paul Chipp says he says, everyone is trying to build a kingdom, but you only have a kingdom of one. There's only one person interested in your kingdom, you. No one else is interested in your kingdom, and that's true. You know, everyone is concerned about their own life. And everyone's busy building their own kingdom. They want you to join their kingdom, but no, you want them to join your kingdom. And so over time we've had a chance to see how a lot of people have been busy living life for themselves. Remember when Jesus said, if you want to come after me, what do you need to do? Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow him.

But instead, all we hear in our world today is live for yourself. You know, live for a life of comfort and ease, and follow your heart. You know, we call that Titanic theology, right? I mean, where that we went to. 2 Timothy 3 1 says this, but know this that in the last days, difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, without gentleness, without love for good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Now that's a pretty, I mean, that's a pretty good solid list of bad things. But then it says this, holding to a form of godliness, but having denied its power.

I mean, this brings context to the church. You got you got people who have a form of godliness, but they're actually characterized by all this other stuff, especially being lovers of self, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. How do you do that? How do you how do you go to church and not be a lover of God? When that's really what should be defining you. Well, that's the sad reality. I mean, you go to any church today. There are going to be people in any church who have a form of godliness. Because you you could sit there, right? You can sit there, you can sing the songs, you can uh say amen at the end of the prayer, uh, you can have lunch together after service. It looks like you're a Christian, but do you actually have a whole different way of life that defines you?

Now that's one of the things, you know, just learning over the years, especially through church planting. Uh, church planting, you have sort of a honeymoon season for the first year or so, uh, and then reality kind of hits hard, and you find out a lot of people have a lot of problems. And so, you know, you're just busy. I mean, it's just constantly busy. I mean, I remember our home uh was kind of like headquarters. Actually, it was we did everything at home, other than Sunday service, at all the Bible studies, at all the meetings, people who stay in our home. And uh, after a Bible study, it wasn't uncommon uh for people to stay till midnight, one o'clock on a Tuesday night. It's because they have questions and because they're struggling.

You have unbelievers who want to know more, you have Christians who have problems, and yet that's nothing new. You know, when you start reading the book of Acts when the church starts, you'll see that they had problems pretty much from the get-go. And so the point is, do we recognize what we are actually living for? Are we living for something greater than ourselves? Because we were created to live for something much more than just me. Now that's the problem for most people. Everyone just is concerned about me. When you look at the nation of Israel and you look at especially the period of when they were in Egypt for 400 years in bondage. They were slaves. But God had promised to bring them to the promised land.

But imagine, you know, I am studying the life of Joseph right now, and from the point of Joseph's life, 400 years go by, but they have a promise. Because God gave that promise to Abraham, and that promise was passed down. And God had told him, your descendants will actually be slaves for 400 years. And my first thought was, oh man, it really stinked to be one of those part of the generation of those in between. Like you're just stuck at it. But there's a promise. And what was that promise? That he would make a nation of them so that they would proclaim his greatness. Now, if there's any group of people that had every opportunity to witness the greatness of God, it was the Israelites coming out of Egypt.

Right? Because what did they see? They first they saw the ten plagues. Okay. Have any of you ever seen the old movie The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston? Okay, that's from our time. That's even before my time. Okay. But I remember we watch that all the time. And it's still a very classic presentation of it. But can you imagine seeing all the plagues take place? And as Israelites, you weren't touched. It was just the Egyptians. I mean, things like the plague of frogs. I can't even imagine. Frogs everywhere. Gnats. Locusts. I mean, the country literally got destroyed, except for where the Israelites were. And so these Israelites got to see the miraculous power of God at work. And then they're delivered.

They pass through the Red Sea. They're given manna and quail to feed them in the wilderness. I went to Israel back in 2012, and we took a bus into the wilderness, and Dr. Grasante, one of the guides, he says, I'm going to give you 40 minutes to just sit there and think of the 40 years that the Israelites were there. And I think it was after only five minutes, I was like, this is horrible. There's nothing. There's literally nothing. There are no stores, there are no water sources, there's just dead brush and just dirt. I was like, I can't to last 40 minutes was hard. I can't imagine 40 years. And the reason why they had to spend 40 years was because they rebelled against God. And that's kind of what's crazy.

God proved himself over and over and over again how great he was. Like they saw it with their eyes. And yet they could still rebel. I mean, I don't know. Any of you ever wished you could just see a miracle? I have. Sometimes I fly in a plane and I'd look out the window, and I'm like, hey, Jesus, you know, if he just stuck your head out and just said hi, oh, that'd be so awesome. That would that would that would give me so much encouragement? Uh but never happened. But even if he did see Jesus, a lot of people saw Jesus when he came. They heard him speak. They even saw him do miracles. And for most of them, it hardened their hearts. That's what's crazy. Like how can you see all that? And that's why when you think about the Israelites, how could they rebel when they saw the greatness of God's power being manifested to them?

They would worship other gods. Why would you worship a cheap old idol when you had the great God who created all things? Like, how could you worship even an external manifestation? When they created the golden calf, they created that as a manifestation of God, but they were told not to do that. You don't, you don't limit God and of all things to a cow. Now, you know, I like beef. I'd like to eat it, but worship it. I mean, that's just crazy. I mean, Solomon, the son of David, who was given the gift of having greatest wisdom in the world. Can you imagine if you were the most wise person who ever lived? He actually showed his foolishness by marrying foreign wives who introduced false gods to whom he built places of worship while he still worshiped at the temple that he built, where the Shekinah glory of God resided.

Again, when I was in Israel, one of the Dr. Gersanti said, if you look over there, those are the high places where Solomon built altars to foreign idols. While you look at the Temple Mount, and this you could see the Shekinah glory of God. How could you do that? How could you worship here and then worship there? You know, so all of us were like, yeah, that's terrible. How horrible. And then he goes, and we still do that today. I thought, whoa. What does that mean? Well, on one hand, we say we believe in this great God. But then in your daily life, do you still, in a sense, worship the false gods of this world? And I think over time, uh I went to Grace Church, you know, not too long after I became a Christian, and I learned so much.

Um I was used to an hour-long sermon in the morning and then Sunday school and then discipleship in the afternoon and then evening service. So literally went to church from 8:30 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. And that was normal for me. And then I became a youth pastor at a Korean church, and I found out things were really different. Uh these kids could barely keep their attention for like 30 minutes. And I would give an hour-long sermon, and they'd be like, dying. But over time, just kind of tried to train them to learn. But then as I got involved with the Korean immigrant church for about 11 years, I started to notice, I think, just how church operated. And I think it's very common in many Korean immigrant churches.

There was something missing. And instead, there was an emphasis that seemed very much just like what the world taught. Like be successful. You know, for the kids, it was all about getting good grades at school, going to a good college, getting a good job, buying a house, and you know, kind of just following a life's success. And I remember at that time I used to think it's all the first generation's fault. They're just teaching everything bad. Well, I've learned that the second generation is not any better. It really doesn't matter what generation. What really matters is do you take responsibility for yourself to pursue the greatness of God and then to pass it down to the next generation? When I was in Maryland, um, yeah, the last few years I was there, it turned into a really horrible situation.

Like I saw church politics in a way that I never had, and I saw how cruel people could be. People just yelling and screaming and making just insane accusations, and I I just remember being in shock, thinking, like, how could people who say they're Christians act like this? I just could it just completely boggle my mind. And it was during that time I was reading through Psalms, and if you turn to Psalm 145, and this is uh sorry, a long introduction just to get to this point. Uh if you turn to Psalm 145, uh one day I was reading through this, and then I went to my senior pastor, and I said, I have a question. And let's start there, verse one. Psalm 145, verse 1. It says, I will exalt you, my God, O King, and I will bless your name forever and ever.

Every day I will bless you, and I'll praise your name forever and ever. Great is Yahweh and highly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall laud your works to another and shall declare your mighty deeds. And that verse 4 really stood out. And I asked my pastor, I said, How is the first generation passing on the greatness of God to the second generation? I go, can you explain that? Because I had read a recent uh article in Christianity today. It was called the silent Exodus. This is back in like 1995, 96. And it's my one claim to fame. I'm I have a little short excerpt in that article. And uh, but this pastor who was maybe about 20 miles south of us, his reasoning was, well, the reason why it's difficult for the first generation to take care of the second generation is that we're just trying to survive.

And I told my pastor, I look at that church, they just spent like something like $10,000 on gold lettering for their church, just to have nice gold, like actual gold-plated lettering. I go, if you can afford to do stuff like that, and your youth pastor is still getting paid like 500 bucks a month, I go, I think something's wrong. You're not surviving. Now, I was young back then, so I had a lot of, I don't know. I wasn't afraid to speak my mind. Got me in a lot of trouble. I found out you don't do that, Crane Church. You just get in trouble. Well, things just went downhill from there. And I really, really just uh struggled so much with understanding how one generation can do that. Now my response was not a good response.

I just became completely dark. Like I gave up. I was like, if this is what it's like, forget it. I'm not gonna try anymore. My God, I gave my life to serve you. I left California to go to Maryland. Who does that? You know, sorry if anyone's from Maryland. Uh and uh I was willing to sacrifice, and I just literally got my life crushed. So I didn't want to go to church anymore. I vowed I'd never be a pastor anymore. And on top of that, I hated Koreans the most. I used to tell people, I am racist against only one race, uh, Koreans. I'm okay with everybody else. I mean, that's how jaded I became. Now that was not a good response. Okay, I'm just telling you, that's not a good response. But this passage kind of keeps bringing me back to where I need to be grounded.

There are gonna be three things I'll point out from this. First are actions of worship, actions of worship. If you look at verses 1 to 4, I'm just gonna highlight these. You'll see the words exalt, bless, praise or lawed, and declare. These are all action terms to exalt, to treat high above, to bless, to speak words of excellence about, to praise our law, to extol the greatness of a deity or the deity's works as an act of worship. You know, when you sing the words hallelujah, we sang that earlier, right? You're literally praising God. Praise Yahweh, and to declare, to state emphatically and authoritatively. And if you look at the collection of those words that are being used in the Psalm, it's very, it gives a very clear picture of what is to take place.

This is what we are called to do when we consider God. These are not small things. These each term reflects incredible value and significance. Because we are speaking of the one to whom these actions are directed. And you can't simply just use these actions for anybody or anything. There needs to be a very justifiable reason. For example, okay, I think Howard and Phil and Steve know that I'm a big Dodgers fan. I actually wear Dodgers jerseys every day. That's my default daily wear. For our uh, we have a birthday Christmas wish list, and I'd only put one thing on there for my birthday and for Christmas. I said, just get me one gift. Everyone can just give me, I don't care. Uh and afterwards, my daughters banned me from putting jerseys on.

So tacky. You're just wearing jerseys all the time. Like, it's a wish list. Can't I put what I wish? Well, I love the Dodgers. Uh went to a bunch of Dodger games this past year. And uh, especially after they signed Shohei. Oh my goodness, this is it's been just such a fun year. But if you heard me say something like this, I exalt the Dodgers. I bless the Dodgers, I praise the Dodgers, I declare the greatness of the Dodgers, then you might think, John, you've gone a little too far. You are ascribing terms that are not justifiable. It sounds like you're worshiping the Dodgers. Right? I mean, think about it. Maybe for you it's something else. You might have something that you place so much value, so much significance, but it's not God.

I mean, it could be family, it could be education, it could be a job, it could be something else. I mean, you think about it, with the internet now, you can find out as much information as you want about anything. So you could go all in on wanting to know something about whatever it is that you have interest in, and it will reflect your heart. I think that's why as Christians we have to ask ourselves, if we are honest, on a Sunday morning we can come here, we could sing some songs, we can talk a little bit about spiritual things, but then how about the rest of the week? What do we do? Like, what kind of actions are we carrying out that show what we value collectively as a church, then, if you put all your members together, collectively can you say, we are exalting God.

We are praising, lauding, exalting, declaring. You know, there's something to be found when you collectively worship God together. That's why we gather together. You know, even if the group is small, it's still something. It means so much. Yes, you should be worshiping every day individually, but there's something about gathering with God's people. You find strength in that, you find comfort in that. Why? Because we are facing a spiritual battle every day that's testing that. In 1 John 2 16, it says, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but it's from the world. And the world is passing away and also its lust, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.

Every day, what are you subjected to? The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life. The constant temptation to take your eyes off of Christ and to follow illicit desires. Things that are meant to take you away from God. But it's so clear, the world is passing away, and also it's lust. All those things pass away. But the one who does the will of God abides forever. A number of authors have written something similar in this terms of terms of this idea. We ultimately will worship what we love. So if you love God, you will worship him. If you're not worshiping God, then can you say you love him? If you love the things of the world, then you'll exalt, bless, praise, and declare the things of the world.

But as a Christian, if we say we truly love God, there is only one who is worthy of exalting, blessing, praising, and declaring greatness, and that is God. And so that's the second point, the object of worship. Again, if you look at Psalm 145 from verses 1 through 4, look at every reference to God, including all the pronouns. I will exalt you, my God, O King. I will bless your name. Every day I will bless you. I will praise your name. Great is Yahweh, His greatness. One generation shalom, your works to another, your mighty deeds. I mean, it's very clear there's only one object that is going to receive the exalting and the blessing and the praising and the declaring. It is always God. And it refers to God as king.

He is the one who rules. His name, you know, there's something about his name. It's kind of a big deal. God's name is the name that is to be blessed. Not my name. Now think about that. We like it when people recognize our name. You know, unfortunately, my name is too common, John Kim. Uh, so it's not not something worth boasting about. In your own life, do you bless God's name when you hear his name? Also, do you get offended when people take his name in vain? When people reduce God to a curse word. You know, to me, sometimes uh I remember we used to play uh in a park league, recreational league softball, and uh we used it as a point of trying to be a witness. Uh we'd bring like bottles of gator eight afterwards that we share with the team.

But during the game, you know, you'd hear someone miss something or bad play, and you hear them say something like God, you know, and I wanted to say, you know him. Or to like, Jesus Christ. Like, do you know him? But why do you always use God and Jesus Christ? You never hear anyone say, Mohammed, or oh Buddha. You never hear that. It's only God and Jesus. Isn't that interesting? But what they're doing is they're taking his name and using in a way that is not exalting, that is not blessing, that is not praising, that is not declaring. So that's why it's important for us to understand it is his name. I've been reading from the Legacy Standard Bible translation, and when you see the name Yahweh, that's God's covenant name.

Now, the reason why you don't see that in a lot of other translations is because uh, you know, there's a certain, I guess, sense where they wanted to be respectful toward that name. In fact, uh, Jewish people are told not to pronounce that name in case you incur judgment. But God himself gave this name. This is the name he said, you are to call me. It is his covenant name. It reflects the fact that he is faithful, he will never change. He is the one who has created us for the express purpose of living for his glory. He never breaks his promises. God's character is trustworthy. So when it says, Great is Yahweh, then verse 3, and highly to be praised. When you refer to his name, it's kind of a big deal.

There's something personal involved here. Now ask yourself, even this morning. I don't know about you, and especially if you have little kids, Sunday mornings are rough. Just trying to get them. Ready for church. It's like the one day where they're the most like difficult to deal with. Or if you have a little baby, that's the day they explode in the car seat, right? They're always good all the other times, but then no, on the way to church. So it's hectic. Or maybe you're just tired. You had a long week. But even this morning, did you take the time to pray to Yahweh, your God? The one who chose you, predestined you, elected you, redeemed you, reconciled you, forgave you, and adopted you to be his own child.

Did you really prepare yourself to exalt him, bless him, praise him, and declare his greatness. Now that's something you have to actually decide to do. It just doesn't happen by default. You know what's default? Okay, I don't sleep very well. I have a lot of issues. So meet in the morning, every morning is miserable. I do not wake up in the morning excited to praise God. My first thought is, oh, I'm tired. So my wife sees me every morning like this. I am not jumping up and down praising God. Uh especially on Sunday, I'm like, oh no, it's Sunday. I have to give it a sermon. Oh man, I hope I remember what I studied. Well, what really is the main point of this is what centers you is when you say, you know, God, I'm going to dwell on you.

I'm going to look to you to see your greatness. Because that's what's then going to center everything else. You know, too many times we let our emotions, or we let our circumstances be that determining point. And we see everything in reference to that. That's why we're so easily affected. I am totally that way. I am a very emotional person. So if things are great, great. But if things are hard, I get depressed. The object of your worship matters. Third, the responsibility of worship. As we look at Psalm 145, verse 4, we have a very clear responsibility. And this responsibility is this one generation shall laud or praise your works to another. There is something very clear that you in your generation have a responsibility to pass on the greatness of God to the next generation.

You are not responsible to pass on the greatness of man to the next generation. You're responsible to pass on the greatness of God. We are not responsible to declare and proclaim man's mighty deeds to the next generation. Now, think about that. Why does that happen? It's because this world is all centered around praise me. See what I've done.

People at my church say, Should we call you Dr. Kim now? I'm like, I don't care what you call me. Okay, it doesn't matter. All that means is I got a piece of paper. Okay? And I survived. But there's nothing, it doesn't make me any better a person. It doesn't increase any value. When I die, I die. All of it dies. It doesn't last. But what I am responsible to do is to pass on the greatness of God, his name, his works to the next generation in such a way that they can see that this is what defines my life. Now here's the challenging thing. It doesn't guarantee that they will accept it. But I am still called to pass it down. You see, again, you go to the history of Israel. What did they fail to do?

Well, they get delivered from Egypt. They have to take a little side trip of 40 years. They get to the promised land. You read through the book of Joshua, they conquer the land. So they are now receiving the fulfillment of God's promise of the land. But it only took one generation for them to turn to idols. One generation. I mean, that's crazy. Again, you experience the greatness of God. You were part of the actual fulfillment of the promise that your disciples, you know, the people who preceded you didn't get to see this. You get to see it. And you just in one generation forget about all that God did for you. You know, there's a reason why we read through the Old Testament. We're meant to learn a lot of lessons.

And the nation of Israel teaches us a lot of things we shouldn't do. Don't forget about God. In Psalm 96.3, you know, and this is the worship book of Israelites, right? It says, Tell of his glory among the nations, his wonderful deeds among all the peoples. Right? What the Israelites were called to do was to be a testimony to the nations to show his greatness. That's what they were meant to do. In fact, in Exodus 3.15, when God reveals his covenant name to Moses, he says, This is my name forever. Right? Remember when Moses says, if they ask who sent me, what shall I, who should I tell? He says, I am. Tell them, I am who I am. Tell them I am sent you. This is my name forever. This is my memorial name from generation to generation.

So there was a responsibility for the Israelites to keep passing on the name of God to each succeeding generation. Psalm 45, 17, I will cause your name to be remembered from generation to generation. Therefore, the peoples will give you thanks forever and ever. You know, when I was serving in the Korean church, and I came to certain conclusions, and then I gave up. Yeah, I mean, I got beaten up, but I gave up. But you can't give up. And you can't just point at the faults of the older generation. Each generation has to take responsibility for itself. So this is what I'm really excited for, you guys. You know, especially as Peter, Pastor Peter comes and starts to shepherd you and serve you. You're a younger church, you have younger folks, you have young families and so forth.

You have a great opportunity to do exactly this. Pass on the greatness of God. And you know, when I see your little kids running around, oh, you know what? We have our grandsons, so it's fun, you know, we have so much fun with them. But that's my thought now, even for my grandsons. How can I show them the greatness of God? You know, grandparents are just supposed to spoil the grandkids, right? That's what they all say. No. You're not just the spoiler. You're to pass on the greatness of God even to them. That's why I'm so thankful for especially those who serve the children. You know, so I know some of the folks had to serve the children, and so they miss out on this time, but it's their investment.

Because what the children need is to see the greatness of God from every opportunity they can, even nursery. Collectively, as a church, you are to declare the wonderful works that only God can do. That's why we speak of him being creator. We speak of his patient loving kindness towards rebellious people, and we especially share about the gift of salvation that only God can provide because he sent his only son into this world to be that substitutionary atonement, so that we then, when we repent of our sins, turn to Christ in faith, trust him alone. This is the message that you, as the current generation, have to share. Each of you have the opportunity, but you have the responsibility to do it.

It's not an option. That's why it's so important to gather together as a church that as you say you worship God, you exalt him, you bless him, you praise him, you declare him that you are showing that to the next generation. When we think of the Great Commission, we're making disciples of Christ. Why? Because Christ has commanded us to do that. But what are we showing them? Do we show them that it means that we love him? That we follow him, that we submit to him, that we obey him. One last thought in terms of responsibility. It is to be forever and ever. Go back to Psalm 145. At the end of verse 1, it says, I will bless your name forever and ever. What does that mean? Forever and ever. It never ends.

You go over to verse 2 as well. Every day I will bless you. I'll praise your name forever and ever. So it's not only just forever and ever, it's every day. Now, you know, having four daughters. I grew up with just brothers. So it was hard. I getting married was hard enough. Okay? I didn't understand women. And then I got four more on top of that. Challenging. But what I realized, it's not so much about trying to figure them all out because I can't. But what I can do is point them to Christ. And find the ways that I can best do that with each one. Our oldest daughter has completely walked away from everything we brought her up in. It is by far the most heartbreaking thing we are or ever have experienced.

I would trade my life if I could just to see her saved. And we because we didn't see it coming. From the outside, everything looked like she was a Christian. She was one of the most faithful church members. And then one day she says, uh, Dana, I'm struggling with all this. And then it just went completely downhill from there. And it was a very sobering reminder that you know what? Okay, I am not Jesus. I can't save her. But I have the responsibility to keep exalting, blessing, praising, and declaring the greatness of God. Now, with other three daughters, it's given us opportunity to do that even more so. And it's been such a blessing to see. God has been gracious to work in their lives so that we see them loving Christ.

You just can't take that for granted.

And now they're all complicated people. And the only thing, the only thing that matters, you know, it doesn't matter if they go to a good school, they get a great job, they make a lot of money. All of that's going to pass away. And one day they will die and have to face judgment. I would often cry, just thinking like, I don't want, especially my oldest daughter, to go into eternity lost. There's nothing. There's nothing else that matters. But what I can do, I can't save her. But what I can do is be a witness and testimony of the greatness of God. And that also means how do I show her grace? How do I show her kindness? How do I show her patience? How do I, how do I still love her, even though she's going down this path that is completely and diametrically opposed to everything we brought her up with.

How do you do that? Well, on our own, we can. But what we can do is practice this. Kevin DeYoung, he wrote a short little booklet, and he gives five suggestions. He calls it the not-so-secret secret to reaching the next generation. And I thought these were helpful. He says, Grab them with passion. In other words, like show that you're passionate about the things of God. Secondly, win them with love. Yeah, that's the one thing that the world can never give them is true love. God's love, the love of Christ. Third, hold them with holiness. In other words, you don't drop the bar to condone sin. You still uphold God's standard of righteousness. Fourth, challenge them with the truth. And this is what we have.

You know, this is why we got this. It's the truth that we give. It's not my word, it's God's word. And lastly, amaze them with God. Amaze them with God. You know so many people, they get a boring picture of God. You need to amaze them with God. You know, my girls were little. I used to tell them Bible stories with their stuffed animals. It was the John Kim version of a Bible story. And so, you know, we would name the different animals, Bible characters. And uh, I would, you know, make up my own lines, but I'm basically telling the Bible stories. And uh as they got older, you know, they got busier, uh, but at least we had the younger ones. But I remember one day, or one night, I was sharing the Bible story with the two younger ones, and the two older ones were outside in the hallway, even in their busyness and sophisticated high schoolness.

They still wanted to hear the Bible story. And I thought, you know, especially as parents, you have this opportunity to amaze them with God and show them who God is and be creative in how you do that. But even if you're not a parent, you can invest in the younger ones. And that's what a church gets to do. And so I will continue to be praying for your church. Uh I was telling Howard this week, I'd love to have fellowship with you guys, church, with our church. Uh, because we're in this together. We want to be a witness and testimony of Christ to this world in ways that will show them how great God is. So as you have opportunity this week, take time to read Psalm 145 just to reflect and ask yourself am I doing the actions?

Am I exalting, blessing, praising lauding, and declaring the greatness of God to his glory. Let's pray. Dearly Father, we thank you. You are such a patient and long-suffering God in your kindness toward us. While we deserve to die and be condemned to hell for all eternity, in your mercy, you called us to repentance so that we would place our faith in Christ alone to save us from our sins, to grant us the gift of eternal life. We thank you. That you have given us the great privilege of proclaiming your greatness and your wonderful works as those who would bear test witness and testify as to who you are and all that you have done that manifests how great you are. We ask that you would help us to humbly submit our lives to be faithful slaves out of our love for you.

We pray that you would help us to turn from loving the things of this world and instead show that we love you with all our being, that we are only alive because of your loving kindness shown to us in Christ. Help us not just to point the finger at the generations before us or to make excuses for ourselves, but to rather embrace the call that we would pass on your greatness to the next generation. May we be faithful to exalt you, to bless you, to praise you and declare your greatness to even the nations. May this be our commitment together, even as a church family. May we do all these things because you first loved us. And out of that love, may we love you and worship you by being a sacrifice that collectively is living and holy and pleasing to you.

God, may you bless the beacon church family, to be united in Christ, to be a faithful witness, to proclaim your greatness to the next generation, to your glory alone. In the precious name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Let's all rise and respond in worship this last song. May we just submit to Christ as our wisdom as our sovereign Lord as the one who just holds all things in his hands. And may we just praise him and extol him and just give him all the worship together.

Your wisdom, each one good as trust when we grow in, free us from give us grace to seem more clearly.

Help us know you are over raging blood in our most.

Help us bless your home.

Kindness and mercy to us all in Christ.

Taking the truth. We would become more like yourself.