Hyung Jin Moon
September 20, 2008
Headquarters Church
Chungpadong, Seoul, Korea
Transcribed by: Cathy Quebral
Edited by: Rev. Bruno Klotz
Welcome Remarks:
Yeon Ah Nim:
Good afternoon brothers and sisters.
It has already been two months since the helicopter miracle and we are truly grateful that True Parents' health is now rapidly getting better. I believe right now they are on the way to go to the airport to go to Alaska to deal with World Missions, so during the service today I ask you to gather your hearts in prayer for their safe return to Korea.
We are always, always honored to have you here in this sanctuary so that we can worship together, we can pray together and we can have community together, and we cannot forget our UC members that are joining with us via internet, we are also welcoming you as well. Welcome brothers and welcome sisters.
Hyung Jin Nim:
Welcome brothers and sisters!
Today, I would like to share with you from Chung Seong Gyung page 998. Father speaks about himself, he says, "Because I knew that God was such a lonely and isolated being, I have gone forth known that my mission until the day that I die was to fulfill even a portion of God's will and desire, to expand a foundation in at least one field and gather together those who can live for the sake of God. It is because I was born as God's son and because I felt myself responsible for establishing His will that I have persevered until now with love. Even though I was persecuted and even though I was beaten, I endured all these without taking revenge. Even as I fought my way forward, staggering or crawling on my belly, I always thought about how to set up this tradition and bequeath it to this world."
Brothers and sisters, when we hear those passages we can see the type of determination that True Father had from the very beginning. When he was going through all the persecution and difficulty, the tribulations, the doubts, the fear, in the beginning, he had this kind of heart, investing himself fully and being able then to bequeath the tradition to this world. We stand upon that amazing foundation in this new age of liberation. We stand upon that amazing foundation that our brothers and sisters also walk with True Parents.
Brothers and sisters, it is always so important that whenever we come to service we remember and reconnect to that type of heart. It really is the center of what has allowed our tradition to flourish, to become this great in this short time.
Brothers and sisters, today, as we begin service, let's remember we are not only here to observe service but we're here to participate in prayer, in song, in meditation, in words, etc. Let us truly offer this day for the sake of all beings, all people, everywhere, especially our Blessed Central Families all around this world and let us return this glory back to God and True Parents.
Once again, brothers and sisters, welcome and let's start with that right perspective in our hearts.
Welcome once again.
Hyung Jin Nim's Prayer:
Brothers and sisters please join me for prayer:
Heavenly Father, as we join here today in this sanctuary, Father we enter into Your house. True Father has told us that even when three people gather in Your sanctuary, the heavens will move and shake. Heavenly Father, here today with our families, friends and brothers and sisters from around the world, Father, we know that we will be able to move heaven. We will be able to inspire the generations to come.
Father, we pray that You may use us to fulfill Your divine destiny and use us to truly be able to be Your hands and feet in this world. Let us be the true saints and sages that are able to bring Your love, Your compassion, Father, Your benevolence, Your patience and Your goodness to this world.
Thank you so much for all that You have blessed us upon. We pray that You may be with each and every one of the family members here gathered, that all of them may be blessed and that Your abundance and ever lasting life may be with them always.
Heavenly Father, please be with all the brothers and sisters joining us around this world on the internet at this moment. We pray that You may be with their families and that You may invest into them Your seeds of hope, Your seeds, Father, of optimism, Your seeds of inspiration, so that truly they may be blessings to this world.
Thank you so much, Father. We pray and offer a deep thanks, Father, for all the things that You are planning to do in our lives, that You've done in our lives. Father, and we look forward to all the things to truly come to fruition in the coming days
Thank you so much, and we offer these things with great humility and also ever lasting love in the names of our Central Blessed families together here as one. Aju!
Interesting Story:
Before we always start our words, we like to start with very little interesting thing. Actually today is a little cutie, it's a cute. I heard this wonderful story. A mom was on the way to pick up her six year old daughter at the school and it started to begin to rain. All of a sudden, when she parked in front of the school, she saw her little daughter running towards her. And it was starting to thunder, lightning, and started to really pour. And then she started noticing that her daughter was doing something very, very strange, exhibiting some very strange behavior. As the daughter was running towards the car, she would, every time the lightning flashed, she would stop, look at heaven, smile and then run, run towards the car again. And then another lightning, boom, and flash happened again and the little daughter stopped, looked up towards heaven and smiled and started running again. She did this multiple times until she finally reached the car soaking wet, getting into the car and mommy said, "Honey, what were you doing? What are you doing, you're all soaked? Why are you doing that?" She said, "Mommy, I had to look good. God was taking my picture!" (Laughter)
Brothers and sisters, come on, get up, let's do it. That's my daughter, by the way.
Hyung Jin Nim: Main Sermon:
Brothers and sisters, today I would like to talk to you about "Having the Strength to Share." In order to live the blessed life one of the keys, of course, is to live the blessed life and then to be a blessing to others. In order to do so, one of the real keys is learning how to have the strength to share. And too many people live their lives without sharing their talents, ambitions, resources, hopes and dreams. When we share we are practicing. We are doing what God does. We resemble God's nature and thus we can receive more blessings into our lives. By sharing our lives with one another, investing into one another, sharing our time with one another, we learn to live the blessed life and to be a blessing to this world.
"But you know, I don't have anything. How can I possibly share?" Well, even if we have nothing, we can always share a smile, a word of encouragement, a prayer, for somebody in need. "But I tried sharing. I ended up gaining nothing." But when we share, we gain character, we gain integrity, we gain compassion and by gaining these traits over time, we become someone that people wish to support and help.
"But I'm busy with my own life, how can I share with others?" Because we are busy, it's even more important to learn how to share because then we will lessen our own load and we will be giving the others the opportunity to grow. "But what can I do?" We can start with very small things in our lives. We can volunteer to help the Sunday school, volunteer to help with the phone ministry, to help encourage others by calling them or writing them little messages, just giving them strength during the week. We can mentor somebody in the community. We can sign up to volunteer to be a math teacher, math tutor, to help somebody with school, study music, soccer etc. We can pray for our families in need or write a letter to somebody who is sick and in the hospital right now.
There are always young blessed children that are coming here. They're voluntarily helping in the church. We're seeing these wonderful phenomena. So many young people are coming, volunteering at the cafe, at the choir etc. and we're so proud of seeing this sharing mentality. Our Japanese sisters are always volunteering to the cleaning of the church. Whenever one of you guys comes here before service, they are in here hours before you guys, already in here, cleaning up, already making sure the pews are clean, the floors are clean, the stage is right, etc.
We have the Sunday school teachers every week, every single week. When we are celebrating and enjoying service, we have the Sunday school volunteers, Saturday school volunteers, who are downstairs with the kids, downstairs, educating, helping raise our own children.
One successful CEO told me something like this, that the secret to succeed in his view is learning how to share. He explained, "It's very simple. Its basic economics and it is called the Law of Comparative Advantage." He said, "When nations specialize in a trade and partner up, they will have an advantage over nations who try to do everything themselves like North Korea for example. South Korea may design cell phones but they don't necessarily manufacture them. China will manufacture them. And because they specialize in those fields, when they work together, they have a competitive advantage over North Korea."
And he was explaining to me like this, "People, who don't succeed, think, 'If I share, I'll never be successful. If I share, he may become greater than me. If I share, I'll have less in the long run. Why share when I can have it all?' That's how people think who can't succeed big."
People who succeed think, "If I share the success, people will want to help me succeed. If I share the success, even though he gets bigger than me, I'm still better off than when I started. If I share we will be able to create more value together and thus in the end, we'll both be better off than when we started. So why wouldn't I share?" You see, it's one of the most important principles in our lives.
This principle also we see throughout the natural kingdom. True Father has always said, "The natural kingdom, the creation, is the true Bible." He has taught us that.
This week I was with my kids and we had a chance to watch an Animal Planet program. I happened to find a program where there was an amazing thing about animal synergies. They even have an example of a fish called the Goby fish who shares its home with a shrimp. And this Goby fish specializes with eyesight, he has amazing eyesight. He has, what normal fishes don't have, which is a binocular vision. His eyes are set in such a way that he can actually look in the distance like human beings and so he has very excellent eyesight. But he shares a home and shelter with the shrimp. The shrimp of course stays inside, he cleans and makes the hole big, if there's sand in there, he'll bring it out, etc. He'll keep it in order. The shrimp doesn't have to do anything alone. He relies on the Goby fish, he shares the food, he shares the home, he shares the shelter, and together, by specializing and pairing up, they make up for each other's weaknesses, but their strengths are in the end doubled. No one succeeds alone. By sharing the talents, this natural pair becomes an amazing team.
We see this dynamic tool in our larger church community, when we see our HQ church developing. Now we're starting with the home group movement. We are seeing that the building of more church community means opportunities to share our talents, our affirmation, our skills, our resources, etc., partnering up like the Goby fish and the shrimp.
In our youth group we are now going to be starting an academy very soon. We have people who are experts in for example financial planning and they will be helping our members learn how to make smart decisions on investment and financial planning, etc. And is also a cooking academy planned. Coming together in youth groups means increased networking, more partnerships that can be developed and also even the potential future spouse may be found.
One CEO donated for the best blessed children's education, and the facilities that you see now downstairs with the new library, the new facilities with the playground, etc., that's all because of this man donating to our blessed children's community. We are seeing this kind of development here at the Headquarters church because we have a community that is learning to share, to volunteer, to invest in each other.
Everybody is being a giver and going on to practice the sharing mentality, and since we are a community that now tithes -- we give what is God's to God -- we see that there is more sharing, we see that there is more service, we see there's more volunteering in the activities. We see that there are more people helping, lending a hand out to people who are in a difficult situation. We are also going to be preparing a social welfare program. We will be able to make at first a smaller investment but a larger investment for those in the community who need the extra support and help.
As we continue to share and build this sharing mentality in our church, we will have continued success. We will continue to create goodness, benefit and improvement for our church community.
Brothers and sisters, let's give it up once more to our volunteers and all the church community. Give it up. (Applause) Very important. Very, very important. (Applause).
In the story of Jesus, when Jesus was passing to Jericho, in Luke 19, there was a story about Jesus meeting the tax collector, Zacchaeus. A man was there, his name was Zacchaeus, he was the chief tax collector in that area. He was extremely wealthy and he wanted to see who Jesus was. So he heard about the great prophet that was coming to the land of Jericho and he went out. But of course, there was a huge crowd around Jesus and Zacchaeus being a very small man, he could not see above that crowd. So he decided, " I'm going to start using my kung fu skills and I'm going to climb that sycamore fig tree. So he got up, up on the sycamore fig tree, and looked towards Jesus
And all of s sudden, Jesus started walking towards him and saw him in the tree. Jesus all of sudden said, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." So he came down at once and he walked with Jesus; walked gladly. All of the people saw this and then they begun to mutter, "Jesus is going to be with a sinner, a tax collector, a wealthy person." But Zacchaeus stood up and said to him, "Lord, look Lord, here and now I'll give half of my possessions to the poor and if I've cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount that was lost." Jesus said to him, "Today salvation comes to this house because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. The Son of Man came to see and to save what was lost."
You see, Zacchaeus at that critical point, when he was in the presence of God, decided to do what maybe he had not done before: He decided to be not a taker but a sharer. He decided to be a giver, a sharer, and he shared his resources with the community. And Jesus told him that he would stay at his house, that he would visit him, and that he would be with him and that God would be with him. Jesus told him in that quote, "TODAY salvation has come to this house." After, of course, AFTER Zacchaeus made the condition of sharing, of becoming a sharer.
Jesus, in this exercise, shows that when we share, we win. We both win. Not yesterday, not in the future. We win today. We win today because we are becoming closer to God; we resemble His nature, because God is the ultimate sharer. This opens up the possibility for us to be more blessed the minute we start sharing, the moment we change our lives from being takers to becoming sharers.
Whether we realize it or not, we are always sharing something with other people. But what we share, will determine what we get back in our lives. If we are negative, if we curse others, if we blame others and are jealous of others, then this is what we will receive. We will receive jealousy; we will receive revenge, etc. But if we wish for others to give us smiles, we have to first give others smiles. If we wish to receive help and encouragement, we must first give encouragement and help to others. If we wish to receive grace, we must in our lives show grace and give grace as a habit. If we wish to receive forgiveness, then we must also share forgiveness with those who need it. If we wish to receive health, we must also help those who are sick.
One sister, after finding out she had cancer, didn't stay at home, did not get depressed about her situation, saying my life is over, etc. She told how she immediately, as soon as she found out, she made a plan. The doctor said the result would come out in weeks, but already while she was waiting for the result she made a plan. She said, "I knew it was going to be positive. I've been having this pain, etc." So when it came out that she was cancer positive, she already had a plan. She was not going to sit at home. She was not going to dwell on how painful that is or how she's going to die in a couple of months. She was not going to dwell on any of that. She said, "I made a plan and that was this: As soon as I heard of the diagnosis, I went straight to the head cancer department, the hospital cancer center, and I volunteered to help other people with cancer."
As soon as she did that, of course, her attitude in life became positive because she now had to be encouraging other people with cancer, getting them out of their own depressed minds. She had to start mustering up her own strength to say, "Wait a minute! Don't give up on yourself. Wait a minute, believe in your future. Wait a minute! We can get through this. I'm with you. I'm in the same boat. Let's get through this together." And she did that. She told us how she did that, getting a sedative, being still in pain, etc. but she stayed positive and she remained a sharer. She didn't expect others to give. She wasn't in the receiving mentality only. She was a giver. She was a sharer. She started giving positive encouragement. She started giving hope to other people. And what happened? God blessed her. Today she is healthy, she is whole and she is completely free from cancer! Give it up for our sister! (Applause).
It's a very ironic thing. When we learn to share, we receive so much more. When I first had to take on this responsibility over the church, I started, at one point, really wondering, "Why did Father, since the early 80's, why was he sharing our faith?" I am not only talking of witnessing. I'm talking about our resources. I am talking about our community. I am talking about our victories. "Why is he sharing this with other people? We are still small ourselves. We have plenty of work to do with our own community. Why the heck are we sharing everything with everybody else?"
You know, we've been doing inter-religious conferences for about 30 years now. Our church is burdened basically with all of the cost. All the other religions who are invited to those conferences, etc. hardly bear any cost. We have had that burden for 30 years.
And many said, "Why is Father sharing all those resources like that? What about our community? How come our community can't receive any of that benefit?" You see, I realized something. Most new religions never think of investing in relationships with larger religions as they are usually intimidated and busy building their own organizations. But Father decided to build those networks even at a temporary cost of not being able to build up our community. I've seen, being here in Korea, I've seen many new religions, like Taesun Chiligyo, or Cheonikyo or Buddhism. For the last 50 years they were investing a lot in their community, they have really built up their base and they are quite substantial in Korea but they have nowhere near the worldwide foundation that we have with Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. They are nowhere near the worldwide foundation that we have not only in religion but also in politics, business, academics, etc.
Now in the age of liberation and complete release, we are starting to invest back into our community. And on top of that we have the 30 years of network building. We can now, as our community gets strong, start to synergize with that amazing resource.
Because Father decided to SHARE during the age of indemnity, our community does not just stand forever as an indigenous national religion of Korea but as a new religion that is on its way to becoming a major world religion. Give it up for Unification Church brothers and sisters! Give it up for Unification Church! That is our own! (Applause)
You see, Father understood this principle that says that when we share, we receive in the long run.
What can we learn today? By sharing we come to resemble God's nature. God from the very beginning was the ultimate sharer. He wanted to share life, love. He wanted to share His family with humanity. That is why His desire led to Him to create human beings, to have that kind of reciprocal partner through which He could not only receive but GIVE love, where He could SHARE love. Whether we know or not, we are sharing, but God is asking us, "WHAT are you sharing?" Are we sharing negativity? Are we sharing blame? Are we sharing jealousy? Or are we sharing positivity, compassion, caring, concern? We will only receive as much blessing as we will give or share.
When we share we also receive benefit. Remember, it is a simple economics, it is called the Law of Comparative Advantage and every time we share we become closer to God. And as Jesus said, "Today we receive salvation." Not yesterday, not in the future…today, we will receive salvation.
Because of True Parents sharing with the world in the age of indemnity, a worldwide network can be brought to the next level as we build up the strength in our own communities right now in the age of liberation and complete release and as we work on that worldwide foundation, to truly actualize the visions, the dreams and the hopes that True Parents have held close to the hearts for 50 plus years of their ministry. Let's give it up for God and True Parents, brothers and sisters! One more time! (Applause)
I do believe that if we understand this principle, if we truly have the strength to share, we will find ourselves absolutely with more victory, more illumination and more peace and we will live that blessed life that True Parents have blessed us to live.
Brothers and sisters, if you receive this message, let's give it up once again for God and True Parents. Come on! (Applause)
Thank you so much.
Hyung Jin Nim’s Final Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank You for this day that You have blessed upon us. Father we know You are here with us as we speak. Father, You are not here in the past or just in the future, Father, but You are here in the present moment as we breathe, as we breathe in new life, as we exhale old life, Father.
Father, You give us new chances with every single breathe that we take. You give us new opportunities, new possibilities that You opened for us as we walk towards our futures and our destinies.
Heavenly Father, we pray that You may fill us, pour into us Your spirit of courage, perseverance, Father, overcoming power, so that we may overcome any obstacles the Archangel may send and, Father, ultimately become wiser through them.
Father, we are now in a stage of complete liberation and release. Let us in this age learn to not only be receivers, those who take or receive but, Father, let us learn Your practice of sharing. Let us share our time, our resources, our skills, our dreams with those around us and help others in our community. May we help other people who need support.
Father, let us exhibit Your heart, Your heart as the ultimate sharer from the very beginning throughout the many thousands of years of Your providential course.
Heavenly Father, thank you so much for instilling in us the strength to share and we pray that as we do so, we will find our community, ourselves and our families with more victory, more illumination and more peace -- living that true blessed life that You have blessed us to live.
Thank you so much. Father, we offer all thanks and glory to You this day and we pray these things together as Central Blessed Families in True Parents name, in the True Families name and also in our world wide Unification Family Blessed Central Families' name… AJU!