Sermon Reflection

Retreat Reflection: The Presence of God

Before this year, I wasn’t a particularly big proponent of retreats. Perhaps it’s just the denominational background I grew up with, or that I’m more of a logical than feeling person, but there is a hint of spiritual pride in me insisting that I don’t need a melancholic atmosphere with a good music set, a remote place or a hype-man speaker to externally motivate me to grow in my faith and obey God’s commandments. Oviene, on the other hand, absolutely loves retreats ever since she got saved in one many years back. So oftentimes she tries to excite me for an upcoming retreat, and occasionally we’ll get into a debate on what the purpose of a retreat is.

This time, however, weeks before our church-wide retreat, the weekend of October 18-20 was already looming in my mind as something I look forward to. As I was trying to understand why in my concession to Oviene, it boils down to how in recent years I have tried to set aside dedicated time alone with God. While in the beginning it was more of a disciplined routine of singing a song, following a Bible plan and saying a prayer of thanksgiving and petition, over time I got to pour out my laments, admire His workings and intentions, and pant for His commandments (Psalm 119:131), leading me to praise Him in worship. These cherished moments often had to be cut short as other busyness of my day starts, and so I was yearning for a full weekend where I just get to be with God, serving, worshiping and learning together with His church body.

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For all my reservations towards creating an ambience to conjure up passionate feelings towards God, my favorite moment in the retreat was ironically the Holy Spirit Baptism on Saturday night. People were worshiping, praying to God and for others, receiving and sharing words of encouragement and direction. More than an hour into the session, pastor Sugi said something along the lines of “we would rather continue to dwell in this moment than end the session and move on to our next activity or talk about other things”. Indeed, I never felt so free, able to freely worship and pray to God, without a care about the worries of life in a 3-hour faraway land of Chico, California.

Before Jesus started His ministry, He went into the wilderness to fast for 40 days and 40 nights (Matthew 4:1-2). While there are many symbolic significance to the length of Jesus’ fasting, at the most basic level He set aside intentional and dedicated time to be with the Father. Throughout His ministry, “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35) If Jesus, who is perfectly aligned with the Father, went to such lengths to spend dedicated time to be with God the Father, how much more should I? Or perhaps, that is precisely why Jesus is able to be perfectly aligned with the Father and enjoy a perfectly intimate relationship with Him.

So rather than despising external help to pride ourselves that we can pursue being with God by our own will and might, I think we all should instead seek out every opportunity to place ourselves in environments and around people that can facilitate us being in the presence of God.

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My second favorite session was probably the workshop, where for the first time I was qualified into the older group of married couples and families. Most of the people there were either from the San Ramon campus or family care groups, and to be honest I did not have much of a relationship with them to expect having deeply meaningful discussions, moreso in a group close to 30 people. As the group rather perfunctorily went through the material, someone raised her hand when asked about who is feeling burnt out, and to her dismay asked, “Am I really the only one who feels this way?” She later opened up and described how every day was a battle for her, and while she knows theoretically that God is sovereign and He has a greater purpose for not lifting her out of her circumstances, it is exhausting and daunting all the same to have to face those challenges each day. While she may be going through that in another domain, I’ve never had anyone described exactly how I felt in my current situation. Had the workshop ended there, I would already have found great comfort, not that somebody is struggling like I do, but just knowing that somebody is able to understand what I’m going through.

It may not have been a direct response, but someone else later chimed in that she went through a really difficult time of being alone where she ran towards temporary reliefs in Korean dramas and other distracting media. Expectedly, it wasn’t working and she testified how she decided to run to God’s promises instead, by simply reading His living Word repeatedly to herself. While discouraged that I didn’t take home a seemingly practical solution, my desperation led me to try it out nonetheless. I began studying the Psalms where people have gone through times of feeling that God is far away or has left them. One such passage is Psalm 88, where I learned through this sermon that it is actually appropriate to be frustrated, angry, or even hopeless, as long as we are being so with God. Like in the story of Job, we are actually invited to question, complain, or even challenge, as long as we are doing that to God. The key is that we never leave God, still following Him and obeying His commandments, no matter the circumstance.

While it’s mind-boggling enough for an almighty God to permit us to do all that to Him, what’s even wilder is what I realized weeks later. As I was frustrated and complaining to God about the tough day ahead I had to face, it hit me that God personally went through all that I had to go through and worse when Jesus Christ humbly came down into this world. As I had to deal with contentious situations, He had to contend with the Pharisees and authorities (Luke 20:20-26), dealing with angry mobs (Luke 4:16-30). As I felt tired to get up early for my devotional time, He goes out to pray to the Father before anyone is awake. As I felt burdened in sparing time for others amidst my busy schedule, He had to balance His job as a carpenter, duties as a son, callings in ministry, and yet always practiced compassion and had time for people, sacrificing His comfort first and putting others foremost (Luke 8:40-56). As I fear that people may disregard me, He was stripped, spat on and mocked despite how righteous He is and took it all in (Mark 15:16-20).

Perhaps I have somewhat viewed God as this boss who sits high up in Heaven and demands discipline and sacrifice from me (which by the way, He has every right to do so), when actually God has set a perfect example in Jesus, where He chose to humble Himself and go through our pain and suffering Himself, so that He can empathize with us, show care for us and do it alongside us, even to the point of dying for us (Hebrews 4:15). So I am not alone in fighting the good fight and running the race – God is really there next to me toiling even harder. 

As I was demanding an answer from God for my worldly struggles, He may not have answered to console me with words, He may not have intervened to alleviate my situation with miracles, but He gave me the most precious thing – His holy presence. We ought to wonder, “What kind of god does that?” Only our God, because God is love, and offering my life to such a God is what I would joyfully do.

Who is God to you?

By the grace of God, I had the opportunity to share the Word at our South Bay service for the first time. As such, I also had the privilege to observe the process in which our beloved speakers tirelessly prepare the sermons that edify our church body. Beyond having to juggle preaching meetings with their full-time jobs, family and other ministries, I witnessed the amount of thoughtfulness, prayer and reverence for the Truth that they put into these messages. In the midst of false teachers and social media constantly attacking us, I think we should appreciate how lucky we are to be in a church that is rooted in the Word.

The other piece of thoughtfulness that we may have taken for granted is how the sermons are crafted meticulously to form a coherent, overarching theme for the year. I wonder how many of us had the frame of mind going into each sermon, or in anticipation of the next, that we were in the series of “Shout of Praise”? That it was trying to teach and remind us how we ought to properly worship God, and how we need to get that right before we are able to live out God’s calling in each of our lives? Yes, our theme for the year is “Alive In Calling”, and yes, it wasn’t a coincidence that the Next Gen conference earlier this year was “Kaleō” (which means “to call”).

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The first 2 sermons were an emphasis on the prior series, “But First”. Some of us probably feel like we keep coming every Sunday finding ourselves still “stuck” in Joshua 5:13-15 and can’t wait to move on. But as aptly as God appeared to Joshua when he was eager to take on Jericho, we rightfully spent these sermons on top of a whole series addressing first the holiness of God and how He needs to be revered.

Ps. Sugi explained how God allows us to have such encounters with Him so that we can connect more deeply and personally with Him. Reflecting back on my journey with God, He answered my prayers for an internship during college after being shown how incompetent I am through many failed interviews, to remind me always that He is my sole provider. He created a path for Oviene and I to be able to stay and work in the US after we’ve exhausted every single option, to show how He is indeed above all creations, even our government and its immigration laws. He provided a church community after I struggled to fit into the multiple churches I hopped around, to teach me that church is His body that I commit to, not (just) a social group that I can hang out with. And most importantly, He forgave me when I had become like the world in my delusion that I was being a witness to my non-Christian friends, to overwhelm me with His love and save me by offering me a new life that belongs to Him and is for Him.

How has God revealed Himself to you in your encounters with Him? It’s tempting to stop at the blessing that addresses our struggles, and requires reflection to know who God really is. Because if all we ever know about God is His blessings, then are we worshiping God or a genie? That brings us to what Renaldi preached on, which is the holiness of God. 

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Right before the series, I went to Washington, D.C. for the museums that are free to visit. The Museum of Natural History was particularly memorable, as it showcases the biodiversity across the millions of species and the sheer size of some of these creatures that God created millions of years ago, but also how multiple mass extinctions had easily wiped them from the face of the planet. I also found myself in awe of God at a planetarium that visualizes just how vast and massive our universe is. While I was wondering why God went through all that “hassle” to create the world we live in now, I recalled what apologist William Lane Craig said in a debate once, which is “just because He can”. God is all-powerful and infinite, so creating all that is effortless, and so perhaps He did all that just so we get to admire how magnificent He is.

Now, this magnificent God, who is all-knowing and eternal, is also perfectly content in a perfect relationship in the Trinity God: Father, Son, Spirit. Despite that, God wanted to have a relationship with us and so created us in His image, giving us the free will that we abuse to sin and rebel against Him, foreknowing that the Father would have to send His Son to die as a perfect sacrifice to redeem us.

All of us probably heard about the gospel as described above, and perhaps we have also heard testimonies from people in our church of how their lives have been transformed by it. But maybe some of us have wondered why hearing this gospel doesn’t seem to impact us as it did for them. Ephesians 3:19 says that we need “to know this love that surpasses knowledge”. The word “know” is translated from the Greek word ginṓskō, which means to properly be acquainted through personal first-hand experience. As such,  it does not just mean knowing in the intellectual sense, which is instead what it will surpass, and rather requires us to pursue a relationship with God. Once we know this perfect love of God, we can’t help but to revere and worship Him.

 It is interesting that the first mention of the word “worship” is in Genesis 22:5 ‘Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.”’ Abraham was going to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as the Lord has commanded him to do. I believe that is the true meaning of “worship” – to obey God: to trust Him with all your life decisions (Isaiah 55:8-9), to serve Him with all that you have (Matthew 22:37), to sanctify yourself to be more like Christ for the rest of your life (Romans 12:1-2). Beyond our shouts of praise and singing songs to adore Him, we acknowledge God for who He is – that is, Lord of our lives (or to put it very plainly: He owns us). That is the only way to respond to a holy God.