Vision (1): Sola Scriptura

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (1 Kings 19:9-18)

Today, we start our Vision Campaign. Actually, the better term might be intro to True Light Community Church, rather than the Vision Campaign. I pray that we can introduce what the True Light Community Church believes in as well as where it is trying to go, so that we will be united to do the work God has called us to do well.

There is one thing I would like to ask all of you to do, and that is participating in a small group. After worship, and after we fellowship together, there will be a time of small group. During the small group time, we will be sharing what has been preached during sermon. It is important to hear the preached Word of God, but also important to apply them in our lives. As we share how to put them into action, I am sure that God will add blessings onto us. Through this campaign, I pray that the True Light Community Church will become sure of its identity and grow into the church God is pleased with.

The vision of True Light is to be a community of faith, dedicated to building the body of Christ. This Vision 2020 is something that you all, under the guidance of God, adopted as our church’s vision. From the littlest ones to the oldest, we are all God’s children and one family. In order for us to be a church God wants, we need everyone from every generation to dedicate themselves to building this body of Christ up.

I believe this vision is important for immigrant churches. According to some statistics, 90% of Korean American Young Adults will leave Korean churches once they graduate from college. There are some who leave the church all together, and some who will attend American or multi-ethnic churches. One of the reasons behind this trend is that they never develop a sense of ownership for the church they grew up in. It’s the parents’ church. For 2nd generation Korean Americans, it is a church in which they don’t have voice, and it’s only for the parents. So as these young adults start their adult lives, they do not find any reason to attend Korean churches.

I personally believe that there is a place and a role for Korean churches. I believe it is important for us to pass down the identity as Korean American, and also to pass down Korean spirituality to the next generation. In order to do that, Korean American churches should not be a place where English speaking or younger generations are pushed to the corner, in a small chapel, so they would not be distraction to Korean adults. It needs to be a church where whether you are 1st or 2nd generation, or even 3rd generation, English speaking or Korean speaking, old or young, Korean or of other ethnicity can come together and build it up together.

We will discuss more about this in coming weeks.

The place I wanted to start is this. As we seek to live out the Vision 2020 of True Light Community Church, how do we know this is the vision God has given us? Better yet, as we try to live faithfully for God and get to know God better, how do we know how to live and what to know about God?

There is a guide for our spiritual life and having a personal relationship with God. It is the Word of God. The Scripture is the final guide and standard, concerning how to live and do the right things. It is something Martin Luther, 500 years ago, during the Protestant Reformation, so famously emphasized. Only through the Scripture, can we learn to live the life we are supposed to live.

Look at our text for this morning. “All Scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The very thing that completes us and helps us live the life God is pleased with is the Scripture. It says the Scripture equips us for every good works. How? It does so buy teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. It first teaches us what is right and wrong, and then it rebukes us of our wrong doings. It doesn’t leave us there, but corrects us, and then finally trains us in righteousness.

One other important thing to note. It says “all Scripture,” by which it means “all Scripture.” It is not talking about a particular passage, but all: both Old and the New Testaments. All of it is inspired by God, and according to Hebrews and many other passages, it is the very Word of God. I pray that through this Word of God, we will be transformed to live the way he wants us to live.

Of course, the Bible is not the only thing that allows our faith to grow and mature. John Wesley, who founded Methodist tradition, said that there are four things that helps us know God. So it is called a Wesleyan Quadrilateral or Methodist Quadrilateral. The most important thing is the Scripture. Then it is tradition, followed by experience, and lastly reason. Wesley does say that the tradition, experience, and reason all must be viewed in light of Scripture.

What is a potential problem? We need to view tradition, experience, and reason in light of Scripture, but often we view Scripture in light of our experiences. What I have personally experienced will shape how I interpret a certain passage in the Scripture. For example, African Americans often love the book of Exodus. It is their favorite book, because it has a message of slaves being freed. And they often avoid Pauline Epistles, because Paul seemingly encourage slaves to obey their masters. But even though they both might be blacks, these passages will not have same ring or impact for actual Africans.

What we have gone through and experienced greatly shapes our view of the Scripture. Here is another example. Koreans have much easier time accepting the concept of Trinity than a Westerner. Culturally, Koreans are less precise about singular and plural. As I have mentioned in previous weeks, Koreans often say “our wife,” really meaning “my wife.” Also Korean kid will understand when the adults tell them to go buy 3-4 bottles of drink. A westerner child will stand there and wander where he should buy 3 or 4.

Of course, it is not wrong to look at the Scripture in light of our experiences and tradition. It always works that way. You cannot view Scripture apart from your experience. Problem happens when one takes what he or she has experienced and thinks everything will work that way. We need to understand, through the Scripture, that God also works in other ways that we have not experienced.

God is big. God is whole lot bigger than we can imagine. We cannot possible comprehend all of his greatness. But we put God in the box. This is the box of our own experiences. We often think that the God I have experienced is true God and what others experience is not really God. But God is beyond what I think of him or have experienced. So we need to put in constant effort to understand the fuller understanding of God in the Bible.

I will give you an example. This was from a sermon I heard recently. It is the story of Elijah in 1 Kings. After a showdown with the prophets of Baal and Asherah on Mount Carmel, Elijah expected Israelites to repent and return to the Lord. But Israel didn’t, and Isabel, the queen, put a price on his head, so Elijah ran away. After getting fed by God in the desert, Elijah walked forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb. He goes into a cave and he talks to God about the circumstance he is in. He had served God faithfully and performed spectacular miracles, but the end result is many of the prophets of God are killed and he is about to be killed.

Then, God walks in front of Elijah. I Kings 19: 11-12: “The LORD said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” The Bible says that there was wind, earthquake, and fire, but God was not in those. Then came this gentle whisper. Look at verse 13. “When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”

What is God like? For Elijah, the God he experienced was a gentle whisper. But was God always a gentle whisper? What was God when he made a covenant with Abraham? He was a fire. What was God when the Spirit descended upon the disciples in Mark’s upper room? He was a wind. What was God when Israelites assembled at Mount Sinai? He was earthquake. God showed up in all of these: wind, fire, earthquake, and… a gentle whisper.

Where is Mount Horeb? It says it was the mountain of God. It had another name: Sinai. Remember when God’s glory passed in front of Moses? Moses was standing at the cleft of the rock, and God passed by. Mount Sinai was covered with cloud and smoke. There was fire, wind, and earthquake that no one could get anywhere near Mount Sinai. And on this very same mountain Elijah sees God. It says he went into a cave, but it literally means a cleft of a rock. Many commentators say that it could very well be the exact same rock Moses stood on. But in front of Moses, God passed by in a spectacular fashion, and in front of Elijah, he was just a gentle whisper. Why? It is because different people need different things. Remember when Lazarus died? Jesus deals with Martha and Mary in a very different way. Both said, “if you were here, my brother would not have died.” But Martha gets a lecture about how Jesus is the life and the resurrection, and Mary gets a tear.

Which is real God? It is both. Because I have experienced a gentle whisper of God, I cannot dismiss others who experience God as fire. Because I have experienced a miraculous healing of a disease, that does not mean those who go to hospitals have weak faith. Because I prefer more traditional and quite worship service, I cannot dismiss those who are more charismatic as immature, nor vice versa.

God shows up to different people in different ways according to their need.

We should not box God up according to our own experiences. Rather, we need to look at our experiences, lives, traditions, thoughts, and everything in light of the Scripture.

Elijah, in order to meet God, spent 40 days and nights to travel to Mount Horeb. When was the last time you were in deep meditation of God’s Word, in order to meet him? I pray that we will not put forth our own thoughts, opinions, or wants, but rather think about what God wants and how he wants us to live first and foremost.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

May we live the life centered on the very Word of God, that we will be a church God is pleased with.