Hyung Jin Moon
June 20th 2009
Headquarters Church, Seoul Korea
Transcribed by: Valerie Randolph, Jacinta Moreau, Regina Shin
Proofread/Polish by: Karen Katayama and Bruno Klotz
Opening Prayer by Rev. Michael Brazil:
Our Heavenly Father, our Heavenly Mother! We really want to sing our praises and Hallelujahs to you, thanking You for the love and the grace that You have showered upon us. Today it is raining but we want to feel in our hearts that it is raining hearts and love, grace and truth and beauty and goodness. You are showering upon us, internally and externally, Your love, grace and joy. We want to soak it up, we want to inherit it and feel it, in the depths of our being so that we really shout out with Your love. We want so much to open our hearts to welcome You here today, to be with us, to join together, so that we can all rejoice in the big dance of heart, love and truth.
Our Heavenly Father, we pray that You will be here with us and that You will speak through our speaker today, that through his words we can come ever closer to You, that we can feel Your heart and truth and that we can have greater strength to be even better for You in the week ahead.
Again, we invite You and thank You and we most humbly offer all this to You as blessed central families gathered together from around the world. Aju!
Welcoming Remarks:
Yeon Ah Nim
Good afternoon, brothers and sisters! It’s great to see you all. This early morning we went to the growth level Cheon Buk Goong and we prayed there. As it was raining on us, we felt that it was a blessing that was sent from Heaven.
We are always honored to have you here with us, and for those that are joining us via the internet, we are always welcoming you as well. Welcome brothers and welcome sisters!
Hyung Jin Nim
Welcome brothers and sisters! If you are in the Catholic tradition, you know that before one prays, before one offers grace, they draw the cross on their body. I’m sure you’ve all seen that. So one day we were wondering together with the Hoon Sa Nims, "Hey, as Unificationists we want to draw the mark too!" But it is a little more complex than the cross, so how do you do it in a way that is spiritual, short and nice? Through prayer one day we got inspired. So we are going to do that together.
Let’s start with our hands like this; we are going to start with the outside. We are going to make the circle on the outside -- that’s Give and Receive action. Then we are going to make the inside box -- that’s the Four Position Foundation. Come on, together! And all together we inherit on the true love of God. You just drew the Unification Symbol! Let’s give it up. (Applause) It all came together in one.
Let’s start with the Cheon Seong Gyeong today. This is Cheon Seong Gyeong Page 640. Father says:
“What is the one thing to be done in the world of humanity? The light of love must be bright. For that to happen you must catch fire internally and externally. From what? From the motive force to love.”
When we meet people and we want to share our faith, I usually show them the Unification Symbol, because this is actually the Principle, all embedded in a very simple symbol. You can see in this principle the Give and Receive action. All relationships must have Give and Receive to truly be able to move and to be healthy. Here we see the Four Position Foundation -- that’s very simple. It symbolizes all our profound relationships. It symbolizes the relationship between spouses, between parents and children. It also symbolizes the relationship between man and the creation. In the third blessing in the Principle we can see that. It symbolizes all those relationships. Then when we come together in the center; it all comes together in the heart of true love that is a selfless love, a love that exists for the sake of others. That, in a nutshell, is the Principle. That is in our mark.
That’s what True Father is telling us today. "The light of love must be bright," he says. In our life let us always have this mark moving. It’s supposed to be moving, not supposed to be staying still like this. It’s supposed to be turning like this. It’s supposed to be rotating, to be alive.
In our lives, in our relationships, in our relationships with the environment, the creation, let’s always be centered on what True Father calls “the light of love,” on true love, that exists for the sake of the other. If we do that we will find ourselves more blessed, more victorious, more in the favor of God. We are going to have incredible victories. If you believe that, let’s give it up for God today! (Applause)
Welcome once again, brothers and sisters!
Hyung Jin Nim’s remarks about prayer:
Let us take this time to pray for our Abel good spirits. Those are brothers and sisters that have already gone but they are still with us. They are still protecting and looking over us. We want to take time to acknowledge them this week. They have done great things for us in the past; they are really helping us like our guardian angels that are protecting us. Let’s listen to this song of worship and praise and let’s offer this praise and thanks to them and to God for sending them into our lives. Let’s take this time for a brief prayer.
Unison prayer
Thank you brothers and sisters for taking time to offer your hearts for those who are passed before us but are still with us. It is always so important to not forget them, to recognize them. They are in our lives and are helping us.
Interesting Story:
I heard a story about Arthur and Mary. They were going to get married so they went to meet Arthur’s parents. After dinner, they were having a wonderful time. There were some interesting situations that occurred during dinner. On the drive back, Mary says to Arthur, “Arthur, I never told you this but I am an atheist and I never believed in hell. But you know what, honey, after meeting your mum I think I believe in it now. We’re not getting married.” That’s what she said! Oh my God, that’s a little scary! We love our mothers-in-law, come on!
True Parents Declaration:
These are my True Parents, the eternal king and queen of peace and liberator of God’s heart. They have saved me from my past and blessed my future. They give me true love, forgiveness, and happiness today. And I choose to receive it.
My mind is awake. My heart is open wide. From this moment I will change forever.
In my name I pray. Aju.
Main Sermon:
I would like to talk to you today about “Desiring the Promise.” In order to live the Blessed Life, we have to believe in God’s promise for us. God wishes for us to actualize all our potential; that is to be successful and influential, to be powerful, to have great wealth both spiritually and materially, not just for ourselves, but so that we can have great impact and give benefit to others. This wish is also for our movement in the age of liberation and complete release. You see, He really wishes for us to see true success, to build a stronger church and to see the Unification Movement go out and move the nations and be able to allow and help others inherit His true love. Learning how to desire His promises is one of the keys to living the blessed life.
Let’s take a look at some of these scriptures today. We are going to take a look at Christianity today. This is from the Psalms, Psalm 37:4:
“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
Notice: when we delight ourselves in the Lord, when we obey His commands etc., He will give us the desires of our heart. That is to say, that all the real dreams and great potentials that we feel and that are latent within, He has already given them to us. When we delight ourselves in the Lord, when we follow His path of righteousness, then He allows them to come up. In the Psalms we can see and feel that.
Let’s take a look at Buddhism now. This is a very classic Bodhisattva vow. This is seen in every single Mahayana tradition or Vajrayana tradition that attests and believes in the Bodhisattva. Let’s read that together:
“May I attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.”
This is a very key vow. As you can see, it is filled with desire; it is absolutely filled with a huge desire, to free all from suffering.
Let us look at the Koran today. This is the 40th Sutra. Let’s read it together:
“Be patient for surely God’s promise is true.”
In our life, it is important that, as we are walking the path, we allow ourselves to have perseverance and patience; to know that the promises that God has given to us are true, to believe that they are true, and to move forth so that we can move into those blessings.
Let’s take a look at True Father’s words. This is from the Way of Unification, p.794:
“No one could break off Jacob’s strong conviction, because he believed in God’s promise that he would establish the ideal people and nation with God’s blessing.”
We see here Father again telling Jacob’s story, having a strong conviction in the faith of God’s promise for him to lead the people of Israel and to have the descendants of Israel flourish and succeed, etc.
When we look at the Principle, we see the Fall of Man. We see that the Fall occurred by desire. But is it really just desire per se? The Principle is actually very clear on this. It is not necessarily desire per se but it is Lucifer’s selfish, self-centered desire, the selfish desire to steal another’s love for one’s own pleasure and power; to exploit the innocence of Eve; to feel in control and to feel powerful; to disobey God and to be traitorous for selfish ego aggrandizement: “I can challenge God. I am just as powerful as you. I can do it. I have the power, too. I can destroy your plan.”
See, Lucifer exploited Adam and Eve for his own enjoyment and selfish sense of power. This desire, as we know, became the cause of the Fall. This selfish type of desire, as we see in the Principle, became inherited by humanity. So the inheritance of false love, selfish love and unprincipled love began to spread. The Principle is very clear between what is false love and what is true love. False love is self-centered; it is selfish, self-serving, using others for one’s own personal enjoyment. But true love is selfless; it is ‘egoless’, and serves others, and it benefits the whole.
When we have a desire that goes beyond ourselves and our ego, and serves a larger more principled goal, we know that God can support that. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. had an enormous desire; he had a huge desire for the end of racial segregation. But we do not see him as full of evil greed and selfish desire. We see his desire as an honorable desire, a worthy desire, a principally based desire, supported by God. God does not want us to hate each other because of our skin color.
All the great religious leaders, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, all the great leaders have a great desire to see change and to help people find God and find truth. This is a huge desire that each one of them holds and that they passed on to their disciples.
I heard a story about a hermit who was meditating by a river one day, and a young man interrupted. He said. “Master, I wish to become your disciple.” And so the master replied, “Why do you want to become my disciple?” The man replied, “I want to find God”. The master then at that moment jumped up, did a couple of back flips, landed on the ground, grabbed the man by the neck and threw him into the water. He held his head underwater and the man was kicking and trying to get free but he could not. After about a minute, the master pulled him out of the water and the man was coughing and gasping for air. He was trying to catch his breath. Eventually the man slowed down, quieted down and the master spoke, “Tell me, what did you want most of all when you were underwater?” The man of course replied, “I wanted air, that’s what I wanted the most.” The master said, “Go home and come back to me when you want God just as much as you wanted some air.”
Brothers and sisters, in the same way, when we are walking the path, it is so important to desire God, to desire to follow the path of righteousness, to desire to live a selfless life, to desire these things. I’ve heard many people who have looked at the theistic religions and said that theistic religions cause a lot of problems in this world. They do a lot of warring and things like that. They have so much desire. They are so desirous.
And so the religions of the East are about getting rid of desire as the primary means for liberation of suffering. But actually, people who say this do not understand Eastern religions so well. In Buddhism, for example, the eradication of all desire is totally undesirable because, without desire, one would not be able to motivate oneself to work and strive towards enlightenment. Nor would one be able to move, to strive to free other beings and liberate them from suffering.
In Buddhism, for example, there is a principle called Bodhijita in Sanskrit which means "heart of enlightenment". This is basically the wish to attain full enlightenment for the sake of all beings, and this is an absolute key to the Path. The Path in Eastern religions is not about throwing away all desire. It’s about channeling, changing the patterns of desire so that they are not ego-based and selfish, but rather selfless. And this is the same in all religions. We must understand that the desire in our spiritual life to eradicate all desire is not desirable. It is important for us to have the right type of desire that is within the Principle way.
In some way, many people in our tradition feel kind of guilty for wanting the Unification Church to succeed. “I’m an Unificationist but I feel guilty for wanting Unificationism to succeed.” Actually, we should not feel guilty for wanting to see Unificationism succeed. This is not a selfish desire. We want Unificationism to succeed and to grow because we believe that it holds truths, because it has the truth of the Divine Principle, the truth of the divinity of God as true love; the truth of True Parents as the inheritor of true love; the truth that all of us are able to inherit God’s true love and that we ourselves can become true parents as well. We believe that these teachings will help the world become closer to God and help liberate people from the divide of God and man and divine and human.
Saying that we are selfish as a religion because we wish to share this truth, that we are selfish as a faith community, is like saying that Christians or Buddhists are selfish when they share their tradition, when they share their faith, when they spread the teachings of Jesus or the Buddha, to guide others to enlightenment or freedom from suffering. It is not a selfish thing. This is a very important thing because we hold truths that we have in our tradition.
So we have to want. We want God and True Parents to be recognized. We have the desire for us to be recognized in society and we need not feel guilty about that. It is not a selfish desire. We are not doing it for our own ego aggrandizement. We are doing it so that all the blood, sweat and tears that have been shed by our parents and by our True Parents and by God are not done in vain. We do it because we believe that the patterns that True Parents have taught us, give and receive, four position foundation centered on God, selfless true love, are the pattern for peace and harmony in the family, in the nation and in the world. We believe that that is the truth, and that is a very powerful model for our lives. We should want to be recognized as a world religion with an immense desire to inherit the true love of God and to spread that true love into the world. It is very important for us actually to want and desire that.
I heard a story about a young man; I guess in his 40’s or 50’s, a performer, actually an opera singer. A lot of you may know him. His name is Paul Potts. He performed here in Korea just the other week. This man was born in Kingswood, England, raised by his father who was a bus driver and by his mum. He ended up in junior high school singing with some of the churches in his area but because he was always a little shy, he was bullied by the bullies at school. This made him lack self confidence as a person. He was never brave enough, he said, to be able to stand forth and to share what he had. But in his voice, in his singing, he said he found solace, even while he was being persecuted and bullied.
As an adult, he became a manager at a mobile phone company. He worked as a Carphone Warehouse salesman but he felt that this is not enough to his life: "This is not the great purpose for which God has sent me to this world. There has got to be more. There is something in me. There is a desire in me that is yearning for more than just a Carphone Warehouse job."
And he stepped out of that fear. He had to take a step. He had to take a huge risk actually. And he risked being made fun of, he risked being bullied again, he risked being mocked etc. He went in front of probably the most difficult stage in all of Britain, and that is the stage with Simon Cowell and these kinds of judges. He went on the show called “Britain’s Got Talent”. He absolutely did something that we are going to see right now. Let’s take a look at this video.
Video
After that performance, he went on to win that contest, then perform at the Royal Variety before the Queen of England and then became an international opera singer and now traveling the world. When I look at this story, it kind of reminded me of our own tradition. We are kind of like Paul Potts. We began out in the countryside in the North, in Chungju, North Korea, with absolutely no foundation, absolutely nothing. True Parents went under tremendous bullying, a lot of severe persecution, just like Paul. And to this day, some of our unification families are still being persecuted.
But we are slowly, slowly being discovered by society. We can see that for example in Korea, with the changes that are happening in society, with the media turnaround. Over the last year there were a hundred different media articles about the Unification Movement, all positive. But there are still, of course, some places in the world and some people that continue to demonize the Unification Movement as a dangerous cult. But we are making inroads into society. People are starting to see that we cannot be compared to dangerous religious organizations that end in violence etc.
But just like Paul, he had to take a leap of faith. He had to say, “You know what, this level in my life is not enough. I am not going to be satisfied just here at the Carphone Warehouse. I know it is a great job. I know maybe that it is a steady salary. But there is something in me that is desiring something more. There is something in me that God has placed within me that can shine and inspire the world.” And this is like the Unification Movement. We have been in the indemnity period. We have been beaten down. We have been persecuted. We have been threatened a lot. A lot of our members have been threatened, even with violence.
But now is the time, in the age of liberation, to start getting more confident. Now is the time to start taking a leap of faith and say, “Wait a minute. We are not destined for just this. We are not destined to see ourselves being persecuted for the rest of our history. We are destined for something greater. We are destined for something that can inspire the world.” This is what Paul Potts did. He went onto that stage, the most difficult stage where, if you are not good, the judges literally tear you apart. He went up there with courage; he went up there with confidence. He was still a little insecure about himself. But as the contest progressed, he became more confident, understanding, "Yes, maybe I can be great. Yes, maybe I can influence and truly inspire the world." And he IS great.
In the same way, it is our own responsibility to want to be recognized as a tradition, to not just want to stay at the Carphone Warehouse level but to be able to step out as Unificationists and say, “You know what? We can be proud of our tradition. We don’t have to be persecuted anymore. We don’t have to be misunderstood. We can explain. We can share our faith with confidence. We have something, a truth that we bring to this world that is totally unique. We understand the give and receive action, four-position foundation, all centered on selfless, altruistic true love; we understand that this is God’s essence and His plan for creation, the initial plan when He created everything.” This is a beautiful truth; it’s a powerful truth. We have to be proud of that truth that we offer to the world. Let’s give it up for Unification Church! Come on! Let’s give it up for our Unification Family!
Here in Korea, we have a church down in the south called the Changwon Church, down near Pusan, in the southern region. In the past the Changwon Church was actually quite successful. It had about 500 to 1000 members there because we had related businesses that were in that area. They were very successful. Because of that situation some of the classes in the elementary schools were filled with over 50% Unificationist Blessed Children; over 50% of the school class was Unificationist! The teachers there, even if they wanted to say something negative about Unificationism, they couldn’t because 50% of the community that they were trying to serve is Unificationist. When we saw this and compared it to other regions which have a very small Unificationist percentage, we saw that the children in those other regions were persecuted more heavily; they were made fun of more heavily; they were being bullied more. Even the teachers of other religious traditions were persecuting them, saying negative comments that would really discourage those young Blessed Children.
More than anything it is for this reason that we as Unification tradition must truly come together and desire to want to grow and to make an impact. When we see our children that are suffering, when we see our children that are being persecuted and made fun of, because of being Unificationists, because of believing what they believe, then enough is enough in our eyes. Enough is enough! When we have good church growth, contribute much to the community -- we see the Changwon Church doing very good things in the community with service, partnerships with the schools etc. -- when we benefit the community, have a strong presence and are confident as Unificationists, then we have a lot of support and a lot of people change their minds about Unificationists.
Brothers and sisters, what can we learn today? It is important to understand that God has given us a promise. He promised us that when True Parents arrive, we really will be able to make a global impact; we will be able to spread the message of the Divine Principle; to spread the message of “Inherit the True Love of God”. We will be able to impact families and help spouses become better spouses, centering on God’s true love. And yes, we may have not been perfect in the past; we may have not been always able to be successful; we may have had organizations or businesses or other related organizations that were not so successful. But now, in this age, those things are turning around and we are becoming successful. We are becoming much more successful.
As you know, I mention almost every Sunday, that we had a huge turnaround with the Chaedang. All our companies are now successful. The church organization as well is developing and growing into a church that now is caring for members. We had church growth from 14,000 to 18,000 core members in the last couple of months. Let’s give it up for our Korean church all around the nation! That is because we are becoming more confident about our faith. We are becoming more confident about our desire to want to share our faith. We have nothing to hide! We have a great faith; a great tradition! We have a great truth that we offer to the world!
It says in Galatians 6:9,
“Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.”
If we do not lose heart, we shall reap, God promises. That is the same thing, the same desire that we must have in our hearts, I believe, in this age of liberation to truly be able to allow the community to shine. To not only let our Korean church but the worldwide Unification Church to get stronger and brighter and, as True Father said, to let the light of love shine, to let the truth and the true love that emanates from our community shine into the world. That is truly an important thing for us as Unificationists, to take that leap of faith and to share the faith, to be able to say: "I am confident in who I am and I am excellent in what I do. I am the best teacher. I am the best businessman. Whatever work I may do, I will be the best at it and I will share my faith." This kind of confidence is something that is attractive and, in this time of liberation and complete release, it is something that we absolutely need as we move into the Growth Stage Temple.
Every morning now we are doing sincere devotions around the Growth Stage Temple and we feel just incredibly inspired. When you go to that area, you will see that this is just a totally different level that the Unification Movement will be in Korean society. We will be at the level of major churches here in Korea, the churches that are the largest amongst the world’s churches. As we progress and succeed at the Growth Stage Temple -- 21,000 new members -- where we witness and share our faith, and as we succeed and move forward towards the 210,000 member temple, that will be literally the biggest temple in the world.
It is very important for us to have confidence in what we are doing; to believe that really it is our time when True Parents are here, to share the incredible truth that they revealed from heaven, to not be shy about that, to believe what we believe, to share our belief, not be arrogant about it, but to share it, to believe it and to actualize it in our lives.
I do believe that in this age of liberation and complete release, if we do that and we want to desire that promise that God has given us, that He has not only given us individually but given to our entire community, from young to old, then I do believe that in this age, if we move forward with that kind of selfless motivation, desiring that promise, we will absolutely find ourselves living the Blessed life, inheriting the true love of God, moving the nations and moving closer every day to world peace. If you believe it, let’s give it up for God and True Parents!
Closing Prayer by Hyung Jin Nim:
Let’s join our hearts in a final prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank You so much for the blessing You have given us today. We thank You because we know You are our parent. Your only wish for us is that we can truly be all that we can be. Dear God, You have given us so much incredible potential. And You also have given us the desire in our hearts to share that potential with others. As we continue to learn, let us today understand the difference between false desire and good desire. Father, let us not cast away ALL desire, but let us understand that desire which brings You joy, our True Parents joy, and our community joy. For that type of desire is honorable, righteous and beautiful. Father, we pray that we will be confident to have that righteous desire and become saviors to this world, like our True Parents have taught us. And to be little messiahs ourselves, that go forth and wish and yearn to help and free others from suffering. Father, we pray that in our lives we can find this purpose, and as we center ourselves on this purpose, we will achieve great success and victory, all to be returned to You for Your glory.
Father, thank you that You have given us this time to reflect and to remember that it is alright to want to have You shine in this world. We can desire the truth that You have given us. We can allow the truth of our True Parents and the Divine Principle to shine into this world, to restore marriages, families, and nations. Father, we believe that this will become a reality.
To do this, we want to step out of our past, meeting those new horizons, with hope, expectancy, and a bright heart of love that will conquer all darkness. Thank you so much. We pray this together as one central blessed family. Aju.