True Inheritors

1. True Inheritors. November 28, 2009, HQ Church, Seoul Korea Even in our own family we can say that we are not perfect beings. We have disappointed True Parents many times as children, but True Parents continue to fight for God, they continue to love God first, and that in the end became the greatest teaching to all of us, to love God and the world. Every pain that we encounter in life, the Messiah feels and experiences this as well. The fact that all things aren’t perfect doesn’t take away from the fact that True Parents are the Messiah; it actually confirms that they are the Messiah. Because despite all the imperfection around them, despite all the betrayal that they have had to endure, despite all the hate that they had received, they continue to live for one purpose, endlessly, year after year, decade after decade, to share the inheritance of God’s true love. Welcoming Remarks: Yeon Ah Nim Good afternoon brothers and sisters! (Good afternoon) It is always our honor to have you here in this sanctuary. On this happy Thanksgiving Day, I hope you guys have a spiritual feast during the service time and have a beautiful dinner with your family members. May you and your family have an eternal blessing with your family on this Thanksgiving Day. Aju! Rev. Hyung Jin Nim Good afternoon brothers and sisters! Let’s start by manifesting the Principle. Give and receive action. Four position foundation. May I inherit the true love of God. Aju! We want to share Father’s words on page 607 of Cheon Seong Gyeong. Father speaks about the spirit world. He says, “In the spirit world, everyone rejects egoists but welcomes altruists. Among those who go to the spirit world after living on earth, the altruists take the top places. This is especially so for those who apply themselves in for example forty countries and live for others with the heart that they would have toward their mother and family, and with the heart of a saint to save the people of the world.” Brothers and sisters, when Father is talking about altruism, he is really talking about the essence of God, the true love of God that seeks to serve and live for others. And this heart is the heart that we as Unificationists seek to try to inherit. You see, brothers and sisters, Father says here, that when we are able to live in that realm - even though we may have flaws and imperfections - then we live in that realm of heart, where we are as a parent towards humanity trying to save the children that God so wishes to embrace. Brothers and sisters, on this Thanksgiving week, it was actually Thanksgiving on Thursday, but on this weekend, we pray that all of us may inherit this greater love, this greater heart and, particularly in this service, to return great glory to God and True Parents. Main Sermon: Today I want to talk to you about the “True Inheritors.” Let’s look at some of the world scriptures today. Let’s look at Christianity. This is Matthew 28:19-20. Let’s read this together. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Aju. This is known as the Great Commission, one of the keystones of Christianity and its success. Let’s take a look at Buddhism. This is from the Garland Sutra 36. Let’s read this together. “I should be a lamp for the world replete with the virtues of Buddhahood…All sentient beings burn with greed, anger and ignorance; I should save and free them.” Aju. Next is from Islam. This is from the Qur’an 16:125. Let’s read this together. “Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and exhortation. Reason with them in the most courteous manner.” Aju. And from True Father, this is from the collection of all speeches Vol.33 p.69, and let’s read this together. “By witnessing through the Divine Principle, we are carrying out a movement to revive love, the world of heart, which transcends time and space. Our worlds and our prayers are ultimately for the sake of love. Let us realize the ideal of love - that is perfection.” Aju. Today let us focus on this core scripture from Matthew 25:34-40. This is known as the ‘Sheep and goats parable.” Let’s look at a portion from this section. Let’s read it together. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' ” Aju. Here we can realize something very important. For Jesus Christ those who inherit his love, those who testify on his behalf and follow him, they are like the most precious jewels in the cosmos. When others treat them well, as the scripture says, they are going to be blessed. They are going to have Jesus’ love. It is the same for True Parents. As the inheritors of love, we can capture the ultimate value for God and True Parents. Those who live with the parental heart, that we see manifested in the Seven Deaths and Resurrection, the heart that will go the path of laying down their life for their children over and over again so that the children can be free - this kind of incredible heart - those who can inherit that heart for the sake of the world and True Parents, these become the jewels. And whoever helps the least of these children of True Parents will have done the same for True Parents. Last week we had a wonderful blessing in meeting our brother Goto-san who came all the way from Japan in person. We had a great time with him. He gave an incredible testimony about the victory of faith and the victory of love, how he overcame his oppressors by natural subjugation. But then after service we had more incredible miracles. On the next day, Monday morning, we gathered at Cheon Jeong Gung with True Parents and had hoondokhae with them. Then after hoondokhae, it was Kook Jin Hyung’s son’s birthday, but we asked Goto-san, “Please come to the table with True Parents.” And so Goto-san came to the table with True Parents and he just cried and cried, like his dream is coming true. 12 years and 5 months he was tortured and now he could see True Parents! And I love Father’s reaction! As soon as we described, “This is Goto-san, the person who went through this incredible turmoil and this human rights violation and yet the first thing that he said when he was liberated was ‘are True Parents healthy?’ That’s the first thing he said! That incredible inheritance of the filial heart!” then Father invited him. He said: “Quickly sit down. Where is the food? Bring him food. Bring him food. Feed him, feed him. My son is hungry!” That was so moving, so moving! When we saw that we were,”Oh my God!” Everybody was crying at the table. It was so amazing! When we see this kind of heroic faith and when we remember that we have this kind of heroic faith, when we see this we can look at Goto-san and say, “He is a remarkable fellow.” But we can also make the mistake of thinking that he has some kind of superpower or that he is not human, and that he is better than all of us. But that is not the case. Goto-san is also a human being just like you and I. He is just the same as us. He is not a perfect individual. But he is heroic in his faith because of his incredible love, the love that defeats even death and oppression. That kind of inheritance of the filial heart, that is what is heroic about this incredible fellow. When we see his life we see that he is standing on the frontline till this day. He was repenting in his sermon. He said, “I repent that for 12 years I couldn’t help the providence. 12 years I couldn’t witness to True Parents, I couldn’t testify on their behalf.” This is a man who was stripped of his human rights, and he is pained in his heart that he could not be on the frontline, running with the members. This kind of incredible inheritance of heart! This is amazing! You see, we don’t respect him because he is some kind of flawless, perfect human being. We respect him because he is a true inheritor of the love of True Parents. It’s the same thing when many people think of the Messiah or the messianic figure then we tend to think of him as a flawless being and all that he does and touch will succeed and prosper. But that is simply not true. When we look at Jesus’ life, Jesus never succeeded and prospered as a flawless being. He was mocked and persecuted. In the eyes of man he was a complete failure. Even twelve disciples couldn’t follow him to the end. They were denying him. 12 people! Many of our attackers that attack True Parents say that they are fake and they’re a fraud, that they are not real messianic figures. They say that because they are not perfect and because their family is not perfect or because their church is not perfect and because all the things that they pray about are not coming to pass, then that’s a proof that they are false. But this is not understanding the truth of the Messiah. When I was 20 I remember even myself thinking, “Why does True Father talk about world peace? Why does he always talk about world peace, do conferences on world peace? We cannot even unite this church, we cannot even unite this community! Talk about world peace! We cannot even unite True Family! Talk about world peace!
But I realize I didn’t understand what the Messiah was or what true love was. The Messiah doesn’t come as a God, perfect, flawless, he comes as a man who experiences the joys and the ills, the selfishness, the poverty, the war, the pain of humanity. True Father lived most of his young adult life in total poverty. He endured two wars, and he has seen death and destruction right in front of his eyes. He suffered in torture camps and forced labor camps. He endured racism and hatred based on faith. He has been spit on, literally spit on, cursed at, beaten, torn and broken and he has seen his children not obey him and even hate him in their immaturity. But we say, “This is not the characteristics of a Messiah.” No, no, no! The Messiah endures all the pains, all the sufferings that normal human beings encounter. And I heard members tell me that they cannot appear in the community because many of their children have married outside or because their families aren’t perfect, and because Father talks about family salvation - that the family has to go to Cheon Il Guk - so they think they have no adequacy to come in front of True Parents or to stand on the front line because their family is not in order. But I tell them, “What is important is to understand this: Individual salvation does not mean that that individual is perfect. And in the same way a family that is on the path of salvation is not flawless. But despite of the ordeals that we encounter we center ourselves on the inheritance of true love and on the sharing of that inheritance of true love.” Even in our own family we can say that we are not perfect beings. We have disappointed True Parents many times as children, but True Parents continue to fight for God, they continue to love God first, and that in the end became the greatest teaching to all of us, to love God and the world. Every pain that we encounter in life, the Messiah feels and experiences this as well. The fact that all things aren’t perfect doesn’t take away from the fact that True Parents are the Messiah; it actually confirms that they are the Messiah. Because despite all the imperfection around them, despite all the betrayal that they have had to endure, despite all the hate that they had received, they continue to live for one purpose, endlessly, year after year, decade after decade, to share the inheritance of God’s true love. As a young person I always thought that true love was just encouraging the children, listening to our complaints, giving us what we wanted and when we wanted, “Daddy, give me that.” “Okay!” “Now I know you love me.” (Laughter) Or not telling us the truth if it hurts. This kind of love! This in Buddhism is known as “foolish compassion, foolish love.” And I realize that this was the false type of concept. This was never what True Parents wanted us to inherit. In fact, they were always strong with us, about how we must love God, how we must serve the world, always emphasizing that. True Parents wanted us to inherit a true love that was not thinking of ourselves, or how others have to be sensitive to me, or how everybody has to watch me, but a true love that would sacrifice and serve.
Go the path of suffering and slender and even scorn so that others may be free from such a path, like our descendants or our future children and grandchildren.
He didn’t change because we complained, or because the world persecuted him; he never changed. He remained solely focused on the liberation of God’s heart. And in the end that became the greatest teaching to every single one of the children. A true Messiah can endure the inevitable evils and sufferings of the world, not because he doesn’t feel or encounter them – he does - but because he lives not for himself but for the world and for the Creator of this world. Let’s give it up for God and True Parents! (Applause) Because of that heart, True Father has fought for us to create a better world. He has fought for us to have the pride of having the most successful religion at the time of their founder. He fought for that, so that we could have that pride. It’s the inheritance of this heroic faith and this heroic love that lets True Father overcome the difficulties and imperfections that he sees in his life. Just in the month of October we had a report given to us by the World Mission Department. They reported that the Japanese church witnessed to over 3,500 people last month. In one month, 3,500 new Unificationists! Let’s give it up for a big birthday! (Applause) They did it by declaring True Parents. 2,000 new members, 1,500 members that used to attend church but now are coming back to the church, and it is this kind of amazing inheritance of True Parents heroic faith - testifying on behalf of True Parents - which is at the core of the Japanese church’s success. But the question may arise, “Why haven’t they grown according to the potential that we see when we look at the Japanese church?” The answer is very easy. For thirty years the Japanese church has had to help the entire world providence. They had the sole responsibility of funding the entire world providence. But I want you to imagine just for one second, if they for thirty years didn’t have that burden and they testified and continued to live with this kind of incredible faith, think about how amazing the Unification Church would be in Japan. It would probably be one of the biggest religions there already. This is not to say that in the Korean church, or in the American church, we don’t have this potential to inherit this kind of faith and inherit this kind of excitement. That is not true! Even in Korea, the church in the early days had this kind of faith. It had this incredible inheritance of this excitement of love for the world that wishes to seek and save spiritual lives by testifying. It had this incredible burning desire. We saw incredible histories in the beginning of the early church in Korea. We were able to witness to some of the most powerful Christians in all of Korea. We had the runner-up for the presidency of Ehwa University - that is the largest women university in Korea, it’s a Christian evangelical school - she converted to become a member. We also converted that university’s pastor! The pastor converted after hearing the Principle! That was how powerful things were happening at the time. That kind of exciting faith was so incredible. Christians would see that and say, “My God, we have to watch out for these Unificationists!” That’s where a lot of the oppression and attacks started. But as time went on, then because of those attacks we slowly lost that kind of faith, that excitement for our tradition, the excitement that the Lord has returned. But I still believe that we have that (excitement) deep inside of us, we have that in the resources of our mind and heart, we have the desire to wanting to testify to True Parents, to change the world, to be able to save souls. We still have that in our hearts. True Parents overcame the difficulties in their life, not through ordinary means but by extraordinary faith, by extraordinary inheritance of a heroic type of faith and love for God. For us now, we as a movement need to tap into that heart again, to re-inherit that kind of faith and love for True Parents and the world, to become true inheritors that move out into the world. Just like the Japanese church is actually doing right now. This is why we need new faces, like Goto-san, because they remind us that our faith is not dead, that we are still alive, that we still have passion in our life, that we still have movement forward to be able to be effective in sharing that the Lord has come. When we re-tap into this beginner’s mind we have the power to change the nations and the world. This was the most incredible sight that in the early days people who were not members saw. They saw that incredible power. In the present time the Japanese church will continue to grow. They are estimating 40,000 new members in one year; that kind of incredible revival in Japan! And here in Korea we can also do that. We also can do it. We also can have that kind of faith and that kind of success that comes through inheriting that kind of heroic love and faith. When we become, once again, excited about our faith, excited to share what we have, to share the truth of the Principle, to start talking to people, discussing with them the issues of theology that Christians have dealt with the last two thousand years without answer, then we are able to engage in that blessing, in that new era. No one in the Korean church or in the Korean nation will do this for us. It’s only by our returning to our faith and our love for the world, returning to that powerful thing that started it all. Actually it was the faith that was inherited by the Japanese church! By coming back to that faith we will be able to speak to the nations and declare to the Lord that we are the true inheritors and that the Lord has returned and that the nations will hear it. If you believe it, brothers and sisters, let’s give it up for God and True Parents! (Applause) It is time! Let’s finish this sermon with one last quotation of True Parents. This comes from Father’s prayer, an incredible prayer. “May all those who follow Thy heart be as candles lighting the five continents, lighthouses on the great sea. May we become witnesses, knowing the mission we shoulder, ready to testify to Thy deep heart, and going forward as incarnations of Thy love.” Aju Altar Call Prayer : Heavenly Father, thank You so much. True Parents thank you for being victorious in inheriting the essence of God, in sharing that inheritance with us so that, Father, we can inherit that kind of parental heart, the heart which sees the whole world in suffering and wishes to save that world. Father, let us have the heart of the true inheritors, the inheritors that have the true value, an ultimate value, in the eyes of True Parents and the Lord. Father, we thank You so much that You have gathered us in this place, so that we can, Father, remember once again who we are. Father, let us have purpose in our life. Father, let us not only pursue our own ambitions, but Father, let us also inherit the greater love that seeks to be able to go even the path of difficulty so that our children and our grandchildren may be free from such things. Father, we pray that we may inherit that kind of incredible true love, the love that was manifested in the seven deaths and resurrections. True Parents walked the path of death, descended into hell to take our place, and they would do it over and over without end to the day that their children may enter Your graceful kingdom. We thank You so much. We want to inherit that true love today, and we pray that we may have a greater faith, a greater love that can truly move the nations. Father, we pray and we know that that starts from within. We want to inherit that today, we want to testify on your behalf and we want to be proud of who we are, whose children we are, and what we are as a Unification Movement. We thank You so much. Allow us to inherit Your love and use us in a great way. Use us not for ourselves but use us so that we may be the greatest blessing on earth. We thank You so much. We want to dedicate this grace and this thanks to You on this day. We offer these prayers, praying with gratitude and thankfulness in our own names. Lifting up the name of True Parents we pray as their children. Aju.