The scripture we read today is from the Book of Romans, and it is teaching us about our identity. Before we came to church, we didn’t know God. But after we came to church and met God, we got to have a new identity. It is not that we got a new religion; it is a new identity. Of course, while we are on the earth, it doesn’t seem like our identity has changed much. But in God’s eyes, our identity has changed.

In the past, we had nothing to do with God. Instead, we were in the position of defying God and going against Him. However, once we received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and started to receive God’s love, we come to see how our identity has changed.

What is the new identity? It is that we are God’s children. God’s child. A child is either a son or daughter, but that’s actually from the human’s perspective that we use that term. The Bible, however, says that we received the “spirit of the Son” rather than saying “children.” The scripture we read says “the spirit of adoption.” But that doesn’t mean God adopted us as sons. The meaning of adoption there originally means “to become sons.” Therefore, we received the spirit that makes us sons so that we became God’s sons. Since we became sons, we call God “Father.” It says, “Abba Father,” which can be translated as “Dad, Father.”

We now call God as Father. You probably have a father at home. Some of you may like your fathers, others might feel a bit distant from their fathers. Yet we must not stereotype our fathers by their limitations; we ought to think differently.

God is our Father, but how is that? Firstly, He birthed us. God bore the pain of childbearing and birthed us. It is because of God that we exist. God made us. He brought us into existence. Like the rest of all things in the world, we were created by God too.

In addition, God gives us breath. You are breathing right now, but it is not by your own self that you are breathing. If you were, you wouldn’t be able to breathe while you are sleeping and unconscious. However, you don’t need to worry even when you sleep. It is not by our own strength that we breathe. The same for our hearts beating. We are not straining to keep our hearts beating. The One who beats our hearts and gives us breath is our Father God.

Another reason we call Him our Father is because we are His sons. The meaning of son in the Bible is not in the sense of gender where we differentiate sons and daughters. Instead, it means the heir. The heir is given everything the Father has. That is a son. Even when we say, “Jesus is God’s Son!” that’s what we mean. Jesus is God’s Son because He is the One who will inherit all things of God. Therefore, to say Jesus is God’s Son doesn’t mean that Jesus is lesser than God, falls short, or is inferior to God. It means that everything God has belongs to Jesus. Everything that God has was given to Jesus.

Does God have two sons? Or three? It says the “Only begotten.” Jesus is God’s only begotten. He is the only Son. Therefore, God gave all things to His Son. For example, if God had a million dollars, He inherited all of that to His only begotten Son. Thus, how much would the Son have? Since His Father had a million dollars, the Son would also have a million, wouldn’t He? But if the Father had two sons—one older and one younger—and He had a million dollars, the elder son would get 500,000 and the younger 500,000. So when we look at one those sons, how much of the Father would we see? Only half. 50%. That means we cannot know the Father fully.

However, Jesus is God’s only begotten. He is the only Son. Thus everything of God was inherited to His Son. So when we see Jesus, God’s Son, we will be able to know God fully. The glory that we see in Jesus all belongs to God. In other words, “Jesus is the One who revealed God!” Put it differently, it is said Jesus is the image of God. Since He is God’s Son, He is able to show God as He is.

But we all can become such sons of God. God called us to be His sons. How can this be? We didn’t like God originally, so how can we inherit everything of God? This is because we have become united with Jesus Christ—God’s heir. That is why we believe in Jesus. If we believe in Jesus, we can inherit everything of God in Jesus. Do you want to inherit the things of God? If you don’t want that, you don’t need to believe in Jesus. You don’t even need to go to church. The reason we go to church is because we want to inherit everything that God has.

So then, what is it that God has? He is bountiful. Out of them, that which we are most interested in is the life of God. That life is God’s life—eternal life. Therefore, that life is called eternal life. It means to live eternally. Man can live maybe 70 or 80 years, but God exists from eternity past and never disappears but remains forever. Furthermore, God is happy. What kind of happiness is His happiness? It is eternal happiness. Eternal happiness.

The funny thing with man is that when we were living in the flesh and didn’t know God, we thought everything would end once we died. We thought 70 or 80 years of life was everything. Even so when we seek happiness, we don’t just seek happiness that lasts only 70, 80 years. What kind of happiness do we want? Everlasting happiness. We seek love, yet none of us are going to seek love that is only 70 or 80 years long. What kind of love do we ask for? We ask to be loved eternally. A man and a woman in love seek everlasting love even though they know that their life will only last 70 or80 years. This is because inside of us is something that seeks eternal love. That something is the spirit. The spirit is our true self. That is the real me. It is because we are spiritual beings, everlasting beings, that we know about everlasting love and happiness. Our spirit yearns for that. We were in search of that when we finally came to meet God.

Inside of us, we are seeking eternal things, but when we step out into the world and look for love and happiness from people, what they give is not everlasting, and we are left disappointed. We already know that ourselves. Therefore, worldly people have pleasure through the world, but once they realize it is short-lived and disappears, they feel empty. Although they are loved, they feel insecure. They themselves know that one day this love will depart from them. “Love me forever!” they say, however, they know that the other person cannot love them forever. And even if that person endeavors to love them forever and his heart never changes toward them, one day death will separate them. That is why they feel insecure.

There is One who is able to satisfy our spirit that yearns for eternal love—God. God’s love is everlasting and God’s happiness is everlasting. What is it that this God has done? Jesus was hung on the cross, shed all of His blood, and was pierced to shed all of the water. People killed Him so brutally. They accused Him as a sinner and mocked Him, slandered Him, framed Him with lies, and killed Him. Then they put Him in the grave.

At that time, graves were not like the graves in Korea, where they buried the body underground. They placed the body in a cave. The man was left lying inside the cave all day, the first day and the second. But in the early morning of the third day, He was raised to life. The One who raised Him to life is God. Although Jesus came and revealed God, nobody believed Him. And even if they did believe in God, nobody believed that Jesus was the Son of God.

Yet Jesus had said, “God is living. That God is at work. He cannot be seen, but He gives me all the glory and everything He has. Therefore, He will raise me up. Even my death is not on account of you. Rather, it was God who commanded me to come and die. Therefore, I obey Him. And because God is pleased with me, He will raise me to life.” And truly, He did come to life.

How can He come to life without God? There was someone who raised Him. The man whose blood was lost was raised to life. He didn’t even rise on His own. If He did, it means He had merely fainted and woke up. But He had no blood left in Him nor was there any water left. How can He possibly rise by Himself? He is unable to. But the One that raised Him, although He cannot be seen, by His power, Jesus was raised. He is God. Therefore, we know for certain that God exists.

Furthermore, we came to know another thing. As much as God raised Him to life, God also acknowledges Him. People killed Him as a sinner, but God raised Him to life, saying, “No! He is without sin! He is righteous!” People didn’t just kill Him. They accused Him, “You’re a sinner!” and pierced and crucified Him. But God defied them and raised Him back to life, for He is righteous.

So why was the righteous One punished in that way? We found out that the ones deserving of punishment were actually each one of us. You and I were subject to eternal punishment, deserving of God’s punishment, and perished eternally. But instead of destroying us, God sent His Son to bear the punishment in our place. So He is saying, “Believe in this truth! You must realize that you are sinners. Yet God did not destroy you because you are sinners. Instead, He loved you so much that He wants to inherit all things to you. Believe this! Jesus is the One who fulfilled this. Therefore, acknowledge Jesus, accept Him, and be united with Him! Kneel down before Jesus and receive in God!”

“How do we accept Him? Do we have to cultivate ourselves all our lives? Or do I need to make a certain effort in my lifetime?” “No, there is nothing you need to do all your life. Just believe! Believe this truth. If you do, just do one thing!” “What’s that?” “Be baptized in the name of Jesus and repent, saying ‘I’m a sinner. I am the one deserving of punishment!’ Repent and confess, ‘Jesus is without sin. He is God’s Son. Thus, God raised Him to life!’ Acknowledge this and be baptized. As you go in and come out of the water, you will be united with God’s Son!”

Whoever acknowledges so will no longer be regarded as a sinner by God. Since he has united with God’s Son, God regards him as His son. From then on, God answers his prayers and grants the happiness He has. Moreover, He sends the many angels in heaven to help him so that his spirit knows, “Oh, I am receiving God’s love!” In this way, he will have a life of experiences on earth. But more importantly, the flesh will die. But death is not the end; just as Jesus resurrected, He promised, saying, “I will not leave you buried among the dead but raise you up!” Therefore, our hope is to resurrect and receive the glory which God gives, just as Jesus went up to heaven and was glorified.

Everything that God gives is so plentiful; hence, cannot be described in one word. But that everything we just express as ‘glory’. However, when we get there and see for ourselves, we will be stunned. “Wow! Was it all of this?” And on that day, the people who had previously despised this while on the earth will greatly regret it. However, those who united with Jesus on the earth and received God’s love would be so blown away that they wouldn’t know how to react. “I haven’t really done much. All I did was believe and I am given this great glory…” They would be touched by what God has done, praising God and living in happiness eternally.

What you all need to receive by coming to church is this happiness of God. In Jesus’ name, I bless you to receive God’s happiness and have hope in heaven.

Acknowledging the Son of God is really hard to do by man’s own strength. When I first came to church, the one who evangelized me told me so many times, “You will be a child of God!” but I still couldn’t believe that. I couldn’t understand that God had manifested in the form of man. I was heavily influenced by Confucianism, which is close to Eastern philosophy. So I thought of God abstractly as the reason or logic behind how the whole natural world evolves. I thought that the principle of how the world evolved and of nature was what people usually called ‘God’.

But then I was told that a man called Jesus is God. He is the Son of God? It was unbelievable and ridiculous. Although I had come to church to start a faith life, that was when I had not repented at all and tried to start a faith life with my own will. At that time, I felt quite at loss when I prayed at church. Everything else I was able to follow. I could worship if I had to, listen to the word if I was told to—of course my mind was elsewhere when listening. And during offering time, I didn’t give an offering. Since I didn’t have faith, I thought, “Why should I pay this valuable money to the church?” Sometimes, because the pastor was at the front, I even thought, ‘Why should I give my money to that pastor?’ I had absolutely no faith.

But since I decided to attend church even if I pretended as though I had faith, I had to pray somehow. Yet when they said, “Let’s close our eyes and pray!” I just couldn’t do it. So when they all prayed together, saying, “In Jesus’ name, we pray!” I simply couldn’t say “In Jesus’ name we pray!” I thought, “I came because I wanted to know about the truth. What does the man Jesus have to do with me?” So when others said, “In Jesus’ name,” I would say, “In the name of the truth, I pray.” Because doing that didn’t go against my conscience.

Later on, I went to the church camp. I earnestly asked to let me meet God. I prayed, “God, I want to meet You! If You are living, please meet me!” Of course, at first, I couldn’t pray loudly. Even though others told me to pray out loud, it was very hard. Actually, I wasn’t even sure if God existed, so how can I open my mouth and say out loud, “God, help me!”? But after some time, I watched others encountering God, but I myself didn’t, and my heart became more longing.

Afterwards, I received a conscription order. At that time, I felt that if I went on the way I was, I wouldn’t be able to meet God, and once I would go to the army, that was it. Hence, I began praying very earnestly, and because I was earnest, I started to speak out loud as I prayed. “God, if You are living, please help me! God, if You are living, please help me!” Yet I just couldn’t get myself to say, “Father, help me!” I kept thinking about my father at home. I had one father, so how could I possibly call someone I can’t even see as my father while my father was sitting at home? I simply couldn’t say it. Thus, all I could say was, “Truth, help me!” Or “God, help me!”

But I became more and more earnest and prayed, “God, I admit that I am a sinner. I was in despair. I had no hope. If You are living, let me meet You!” Then, just as promised in the Bible—if you look at today’s scripture—it says that the Holy Spirit testifies that you are God’s child. At that moment, I finally received the Holy Spirit that God promised that Jesus promised. I earnestly prayed, saying, “I confess I’m a sinner. I admit this! And I want to believe that Jesus is God’s Son! Why? Only He has taught me that I am a sinner. And no one else but Him has paid the price of sin for me. If You are living, I want to know You!” And in that moment, the Holy Spirit came into me.

It is from here that I cannot explain. The Holy Spirit cannot be seen, nor is He matter. Therefore, I cannot physically explain how the Holy Spirit came into me. But the promise clearly came true to me. I received the Holy Spirit, and in that very moment, if I was to describe it somehow, it was as though a lightning struck and hit me in my stomach. And from there, from within me, came bursting forth a deep lamentation. The lamentation of repentance.

It’s like when a little child wakes up to find his mum is not next to him. What does the child do? He cries. He cries and cries for an hour, but his mum still doesn’t come. Then he doesn’t cry anymore, because it is useless to cry. He would tremble in fear. But after an hour, his mum comes back. Then what does the child do? He cries again. He cries. That’s exactly how I felt at that moment.

Because I had finally met God and discovered that the One that I had been longing to meet for years was truly living, a cry and weeping burst out of me in that moment. And a word popped out of my mouth. Very naturally, I cried out, “Father!!” It was the first time ever that I said “Father.” And it felt so natural. This was something I had tried so hard on my own but couldn’t say. But the moment the Holy Spirit came, I cried out, “Father!” I started weeping, and on that day I cried and wept for an hour. I was overwhelmed by the fact that God is truly living and how He forgave me of all of my sins and accepted me. They were tears of thankfulness.

From that time on, my life was completely changed. From then on, I became God’s son, and thus I was able to pray, my fear disappeared, and I received eternal happiness, eternal love, and hope of the resurrection.

Since then, I am able to live boldly because of my identity as God’s child. Prior to that, I was worried about finances, felt lonely, and so on. But ever since then, I don’t have such worries because God is with me. In the past, if there was anything I had to do, the first thing I thought about was money—if I could afford to do it. ‘I don’t have enough money for it! My circumstances don’t allow me to!’ Yet when you have something to do that you are sure of  and you have the certainty that God is for it too, you can do it even if you have no money. Because money will follow. You can pray about it.

To give one example, I got married 2 months after graduating from university. I had nothing. I didn’t have any money. At that time, I didn’t even have a job. We got married at the end of April, but I started working on the 1st of April. Even so, when we were determining our wedding date, I was out of job. Who can possibly do that? How can a person without a job and without a home decide on marriage? But because I had faith that God was for it, despite not having money and the circumstances not allowing, I made the decision. And when I decided, everything else followed. That’s a Christian’s life. Of course, this example is only the tip of the iceberg.

Pastor Ki-Dong Kim started from zero—literally nothing—to building this great work after fifty years. He has many disciples across the globe. When he had nothing, he set his will, and everything followed. It is God who is with him. Because he is a child of God.

You also can live this kind of powerful life. Why? Because you have a new identity. In Jesus’ name, I bless you all to become God’s children in Jesus Christ and abundantly receive God’s happiness and joy as God’s children. I’ll pray.

Father God, thank You for sending us Jesus Christ so that by uniting with Your Son we also became Your sons who share in Your eternal happiness and joy. Grant every soul here Your grace and lead them step by step so that they meet You, and help them to receive Your love abundantly. In Jesus’ name. Amen!