URC Weekly 9/25/2011: The Life of a Christian



Hello Church,

This past Sunday, I had a chance to have dinner with Hannah’s father, my soon to be father-in-law. He is a gentle, meek, soft-spoken man; I think he is still a bit shy to talk about Hannah with me. Consequently, we talked about the other major commonality we have – ministry.

He spoke many words of wisdom that evening. I have reconstructed what he said in English (since we speak to each other in Korean) to the best of my abilities:

“A pastor must be excellent at everything he does. He cannot afford to ignore even one task on his to-do list: sermons, prayer, Bible study, administration, etc. He has to do well in school. He has to be an exemplary family man. Most importantly, he has to constantly meet people and build good relationships with them. This requires the pastor to be always available for them. Never say no when someone asks for help. This means that his life must revolve around not his own, but around those of others.”

Yet one thing he said struck me in particular:

“But even if you do all that, people who will leave will still leave you. That’s the life of a pastor.”

Church, I believe this is not just the life of a pastor, but the life of any Christian. Replacing the ‘he’ and the ‘you’ in the quotes above with ‘Jesus’ would give an accurate description of the life of Christ. This is the same life that all of us ought to imitate; the word ‘Christian’ means people resembling Christ.

Sometimes, imitating Christ makes no logical sense to us. Yet this is exactly where the wisdom of God is found. Just check out some of the things that God has said:

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last (Matthew 20:16).”

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me (Matthew 5:11).”

“Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it (Luke 17:33).”

People of God at Union Church, do you take the Word of God seriously? Let us then challenge ourselves to obey before understanding. Let us live to lose our lives, so that we may gain the real life.

• MEN’S SMALL GROUP: Please meet some time this week
• VBALL TOURNEY: 10/1 (Sat) @ 8am; see email for directions
• NICK VUJICIC: 10/1 (Sat) and 10/2 (Sun), see poster in our room
• JOINT WORSHIP: 10/2 (Sun) @ 1130am at the Main Sanctuary, BBQ afterwards
• R2B RADIO: 10/8 (Sat) @ 4pm, AM1190
• SNACKS: TBA
• SCRIPTURE READING/OFFERING: TBA
• DEVOTIONS: Titus 2 – Hebrews 3