Naeane Church, Sunday Worship Service, October 18, 2026. The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost

 The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost

 

Title: The Holy Spirit Turns the Whole Direction of My Life Toward World Evangelization

 

Text: Acts 1:1-8

 

 

On this twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, I want to preach under the title, The Holy Spirit turns the whole direction of my life toward world evangelization.

 

As we go through life, we always carry a plan for our life's goals, usually without even being aware of it. I should work hard and make money. I should rise to a higher position of honor. I should gain more power and influence. I should make my name great across the whole country, and then hand all of it down to my children and descendants so that it carries on. Perhaps this is just something I alone hold, something I simply take for granted. But it is not only me. Most people probably carry it the same way, all of it below the level of awareness.

 

So the question is whether this is biblically right, and if not, how the goal of our life ought to be changed instead. I hope that through the Word we can think about this again, examine it, and be changed.

 

Today, too, I will preach in the form of answering five questions.

 

 

First. How did I fight the spiritual battle this week?

 

Follow after me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.

 

I know this about myself. I know that I keep calling out, Jesus is the Christ. In the past it would have ended as one thought leading to another thought. But now, no matter how negative a thought rises, no matter how much it is a thought that judges someone else, I always attach to it, Jesus is the Christ. And so I can feel that I am changing, that I have changed. And along with that I feel a deep satisfaction with myself.

 

This week in particular I was at a gathering of pastors. It is the presbytery, which meets only twice a year. In the past, whenever I came back from it I always felt uneasy. On one hand my conscience bothered me, and on the other hand there was this feeling of, why on earth are they like that? And it was not what I saw in others. It was what I saw in myself.

 

When I go to such a gathering, something comes shoving up from inside me. What comes up is this. I want to show off. I want to make it known that I am an impressive person. I want to keep showing that the church I serve is outstanding. There is an enormous amount of this, moving quietly under the surface. I am not the type to say it out loud, so I show it in subtle ways. That is why, for days after one of these gatherings, I always used to blame myself. Should I really be like that? Should I really be like that? Inside me a voice kept asking, do you want to show yourself off that badly? When you are among people in the same line of work, there is that mutual showing off. So it was not only this time. I have kept fighting with myself. There has been a fight going on inside me all along.

 

Let us do it again. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.

 

When I go among pastors in particular, I always came back having failed, so I went in tense every time. Even this has been changing bit by bit. This time I went, and we were in session for several hours. I went in at nine in the morning, and it was probably around four o'clock by the time the meeting ended and I came out. So it was nearly seven hours. And after I came back, I was truly satisfied. I thought, I won this time. I have been fighting and winning. I could see how much my own self had changed. I was not trying to put myself on display there. I was trying to lay everything I saw before God in prayer. And perhaps I have moved from being centered on my own church and my own members to seeing the whole of Gangnam, looking at the whole of Gangnam and asking how I ought to pray for it. It was a time of being renewed in that way too.

 

On another note, this week as well I go out to the evangelism field every afternoon, as I always do. In the past I went to the evangelism field out of obligation, but now I go because it is enjoyable. Why? Because it becomes an occasion not to change people through everything I see, but to change me. So I see this and pray, I see that and pray. The field I am in is an enormous field. It is the largest hospital in our country. It is a place I go every day, yet every single day is different. And the message that challenges me is different every day too. But I am not trying to change the outside. Through that message, within its influence, I find myself having countless thoughts of unbelief. So I keep breaking those thoughts down, over and over.

 

Perhaps evangelism is not about changing someone else. The truest evangelism is about changing oneself. Only then does the outside change. So I say to myself, I must change. Whatever situation comes, inside my heart I must take hold of peace in the name, Jesus is the Christ. Because I hold that attitude, the field is truly enjoyable, and I even find myself hoping new situations will keep coming.

 

And when a new situation does come, I sometimes take a hit for a moment, because something I did not expect has landed on me. But when such a situation arises, in the old days I would always drag it into my own thinking with something like, oh no, you failed again, so you are not getting into heaven. Now I am not like that. I do take the hit when it comes. It happens because I am not ready and because something else is still inside me. After I wrestle through a slump for a while, I come to see, ah, this too is God's plan, this is a chance for me to be renewed, I am a disciple being renewed. So perhaps my daily prayer request is this. I hope I get to experience something new again today. Why? Because it becomes a chance to know myself and to be renewed. That is more or less how I spent this week.

 

 

Second. How much more deeply did I come to know Genesis 3:15 and original sin this week?

 

The most important passages in the Bible are Genesis 3:1-5, and also Genesis 3:15. We think every problem is out there, on the outside. But every problem is in here, inside. Why? The ground for this is given in Genesis 3:1-5. Satan, who had been outside. Self-centeredness, which had been outside. Money-centeredness, which had been outside. The idea that I myself am god, which had been outside. All of it came inside. This is the problem. And so it does not leave. According to John 1:12 we have become children of God, and still it does not leave. Until when? It does not leave until we die.

 

And for decades, as a pastor, the thing I was most mistaken about was this. I thought that once I was saved, it had all gone out. I thought that once I was saved, it was all finished. It is, in fact, finished. But in my flesh it is not all finished. That is the problem. So we lay all our problems and prayer requests on the outside, wanting only the outside to be changed. But in here, inside, I have made myself god, and so I assume I have no problem at all. That is your problem, and that is the problem of Genesis 3:1-5.

 

So this week again, I saw that I am in truth a devil, doing the devil's work. Doing the devil's work does not only mean harming someone else. It means that I take in the information coming from outside and use it to enthrone myself as god. This is the problem. So I come to see, this is something I can never change on my own. I can only be changed by God.

 

That is why the name God gave in Genesis 3:15 is Jesus, who is the Christ, that eternal name. Let us live it out, following after me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.

 

From the very beginning the Bible gave us the way to win. Within us the devil's work goes on without stopping. From inside, thoughts come without ceasing, and as in Mark 7:21, murder and strife and lust pour out without end. God gave us a name that can overcome the very fact that all of this pours out. What is it? It is the name, Jesus is the Christ. And yet because we do not really know the power of that name, we leave the inside alone, empty, and go around trying to fill ourselves from the outside. Whatever comes in from the outside to fill the inside is nothing but what belongs to demons. So God has already given the covenant, the eternal name, so that we can win in here, so that the kingdom of God can win in here. And we do not know it.

 

So I come to know ever more how great and how important the name of Genesis 3:15, Jesus is the Christ, truly is. Especially in that gathering of pastors, which I can never resolve as long as I live, or in that field outside where I go to evangelize, I can never change my own inside. But when I call that name, over and over I see my own self already changed. I find myself thinking, wow, this is really astonishing. So that name is not just a name, and it is not an incantation. When I call that name, the Christ who is at the right hand of God, together with me, works by the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit works in this very place, and keeps shattering the spirit of thought and ideology that does the devil's work inside me. So no matter what happens, we must call that name. Amen.

 

I am preaching here, but in the past I would have preached only theory. Now, though, I am a witness. So I stand here, with real gladness, in the position of a witness. And so I look at you. I take hold, within myself, of the fact that I now stand as a witness who can lead you. So you can call out just as I keep calling out.

 

 

Third. The text today is Acts 1:1-8, and we interpret it on the basis of Genesis 3:15.

 

As I said, the Bible says that every human being, because of original sin, is under sin and death and dying, and that Satan has already come inside. This is the root problem that no human being can solve. But God gave, in Genesis 3:15, a name that can solve it. So when you read the Old Testament from that point on, depending on how deeply, how precisely, and how firmly a person took hold of that name, there were differences in timing from person to person, and the range of its power and the range of its witness differed. But its continual appearing is the history of the Bible.

 

Who appears in it? In Genesis 12 Abraham appears, and Isaac appears, and the people of Israel appear. And then at last, in the Gospels, who appears? Jesus, who is the Christ, enters. In the Old Testament there was only the promise, he is coming, he is coming. The name that finally came is Jesus. So in the Synoptic Gospels he carries out his public ministry, and he dies, and then he rises, and after the resurrection he remained for forty days. And then after that comes the Book of Acts.

 

What appears in the Acts text today? Before he ascends, he speaks his last words to the disciples. While he is still on this earth, Acts 1:8. If the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Shall we all read it together, or recite it? But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That is the word Jesus spoke publicly while he was still in the body in this world, in front of the one hundred and twenty. And then at last he went up into heaven. This is our text today.

 

Now let me explain a little of the background. **The history running from Luke through Acts continued on, and in that way time passed into the AD sixties. By then the disciples of Jesus were passing away one by one, and of the generation that had seen and heard him directly, few were left alive.** And by now the gospel had been witnessed throughout the whole world. So people had a thought. What thought? We should not keep passing on Jesus' words by word of mouth only. We should put them in writing. **So a man named Luke, who was a physician, carefully investigated everything from the beginning of Jesus' ministry up to his resurrection and ascension, and what he recorded is the Gospel of Luke.** And what is the theme of Luke's Gospel? That Jesus is in fact the Christ.

 

Then people had another question. Jesus went up into heaven as the Christ, so what happened after that? That is what they wanted to know. And so what was written is the Book of Acts. So Acts runs from chapter 1 to chapter 28, and both Luke and Acts were recorded long afterward, after everything had already happened. **In particular, both books were written in the form of a letter to a man named Theophilus. That is the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.**

 

 

Fourth. The part of today's text I most want to interpret in depth.

 

What I most want to interpret today is this. In Acts 1:1-8, it is just before Jesus ascends. As he ascends he says, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power, and then he goes up. Now if you look carefully at the disciples there, there is nothing particularly remarkable about them. But here is the most important key. Jesus shows all one hundred and twenty of them his ascension, and who were those one hundred and twenty? They were people who had seen him, for at least forty days after his resurrection. They were not people who had merely heard. Having heard some news and having seen it with your own eyes are two different things, are they not?

 

This week you went somewhere, or you heard about something. This week some of our people were putting on a performance called Cheongchun, Youth. They go for several hours to put it on, and come back, and prepare, and so on. But what came to us by KakaoTalk? Just a brief clip of the singing, thirty seconds, twenty seconds, that was all. So all we saw was a brief glimpse. Twenty seconds, that was all. So for a moment we think, ah, how moving, and we pray, Jesus is the Christ, and think, so they are over there doing that too, and that is about as far as it goes. But the ones actually involved prepared from before they left, from early morning. They chartered a bus, went, got their clothing ready, dozens of them gathered, they rehearsed, and then they did it for real. And when they did it for real, everyone was watching, were they not? A great crowd watching, and they did it under tension. And after it was all over they came back again. It took nearly a whole day. So what is the point? The one who experienced it directly and the one who merely heard about it are not the same.

 

It is the same way. For the disciples of Jesus, it did not end when Jesus died. The disciples who saw him before his death and when he died, and the disciples after about forty days had passed, as in Acts 1:8 today, are completely different. Why different? Because after his resurrection Jesus spent, not merely ten days, but forty days with them, directly. For forty days he taught them. In the Bible it is put simply. It just says, briefly, he spoke about the kingdom of God. But how much and how deeply and how thoroughly he taught about that kingdom of God, consider this, he taught it for forty days. Not the same content over and over. So what did the disciples experience over those forty days? Jesus, risen and changed into an entirely different body, taught them about the Scriptures that already existed, and taught them about the problems in this present world, and how the world will go from here, and what will become of the soul. He taught them all of it.

 

Think about it for a moment. When you and I teach here, as fellow human beings on the same level, even that moves us a little. Now suppose someone who died and rose again were teaching here for forty days. And suppose you were watching him teach with your own eyes. Then a person is different, I tell you. It became an occasion for the countless thoughts a person has lived by, as a human being, to be entirely changed.

 

So the part I most want to explain today is this. Because Jesus, for forty days, showed the disciples directly that he was alive and interpreted the whole of the Word for them, what became of the disciples? They became, of themselves, witnesses that Jesus is the Christ. Witnesses. They became witnesses in whom the evidence had piled up from the inside out. And then, what does he say to them? Now all you need is for the Holy Spirit to come upon you. Once the Holy Spirit comes, world evangelization happens automatically. That is the part I wanted to explain.

 

 

Fifth. How, then, shall I apply today's Word?

 

Perhaps this is the most important, and the easiest, part for you and me. First, let us confess together. We were, under Genesis 3:1-5, under eternal sin, under eternal original sin, forever held by Satan, beings who could only die. Follow after me.

 

Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. I am a child of God. I am a child of God. Every problem, ended. Devil, be gone. Filled with the Holy Spirit. World evangelization.

 

So we were under an eternal problem, and in the name, Jesus is the Christ, we have been saved and made children of God, and we are now moving toward world evangelization. Now let us apply this Word. At the very end, Jesus made his disciples into witnesses who carry the evidence within themselves, and told them to go now toward world evangelization. To be witnesses of world evangelization is your mission, the work you are to do, the goal of the rest of your life. And it was that same work he had been teaching the disciples. So let us apply this to your life and mine.

 

When I look back quietly, the people I saw from the day I was born were my father and mother. My father and mother went to work faithfully and labored hard. The work my mother mainly did had to do with ships. She would go inside a large ship and do what? She was one of the people who painted them. She was paid a good deal, too. And on the outside of the hull, you still see it these days, there are things like clams and oysters stuck fast to the ship. My mother would scrape them all off with a tool, a kind of scraper, pushing it along. And after that she would paint. She was paid quite well back in those days.

 

So, always watching her at work, this took root in my heart. My parents should work hard and make plenty of money, send us children to good schools, live without worry, let the children take care of their old age, hand down a large inheritance to the children, and then, when I die, I will get to go to heaven. That is the picture I saw from childhood. And in me, too, this is simply laid down as the foundation. More than laid down, it is just the baseline. I have never once questioned it. And yet this is my own portrait.

 

Also, after I became a pastor, there is the word evangelism. It is such a good word. The word evangelism itself is a beautiful word, a word that can save another person. But this word has become so diluted that it has turned strange. Because when people hear evangelism, they understand it as coaxing someone and dragging them in, something like that. So even after becoming a pastor, I have hardly ever used the word evangelism with you. Because I myself cannot be evangelized and the person outside cannot be evangelized, so how could I use that word on the members, driving them hard, wearing them out, loading them with guilt? That is why I did not use the term.

 

But here let us set it in order once more. The Jesus who has gone up to the right hand of God, in what direction does he want the world to flow right now? He wants it to flow toward world evangelization, and that is in fact how he makes it flow. This appears in Acts 1, and later in the Book of Revelation as well. So the world, when we look at it, seems to resist all interpretation, as though money is everything and power is everything. But the Christ at the right hand of God is, right now, leading it on toward world evangelization without stopping. It is only that our eyes cannot see it, and it resists our interpretation.

 

So now we too, even though it does not change at once, even though there is a process of changing, we must change the direction of our life. In what direction do we change it? That I should make a great deal of money and seize a great deal of power, raise my own name tremendously high and become a hero, or become a tycoon and hand it all down to my children. That is what we must now drive out and heal in the name, Jesus is the Christ.

 

So in what way must it change? I must live as a witness of world evangelization. Just as God, just as Jesus, leads the world on toward world evangelization, I too must take everything, what I eat, what I sleep in, what I wear, and set it in that same procession of world evangelization. I must go in that current, in that direction, toward that goal. With that resolve, you must change.

 

First of all, you must change on the inside. Even if it does not change at once, you must change it. You must set your mind to go in that direction. How important is this? I am in my sixties. Including myself, I make videos together with you. For the videos about seniors, there are many cases where I write the scenario. And I go around outside and have conversations. These days I talk with people a great deal. With others, now that I have passed through all those earlier stages. So what is the worry of people around my age? It is, why does life not go the way I want it to?

 

The other day I had a brief chance to talk with the owner of a dry cleaner's. As I was handing in my clothes I said, sir, your face looks really well. And he said, what is good about it, there is so much that is not working out. When I asked, what is it that is not working out so badly, you only need to receive the blessing of heaven, he said, the blessing of heaven seems to have all gone somewhere. The moment he was asked, what had been inside him came shoving out. And as I walk the streets I see that people who have reached my age, and I was like this before too, have worry and anxiety packed tight inside them. Because life is not going the way they want it to, there is a stifled feeling.

 

And this cursed life gets more and more pressed down by money and honor and power as it goes, more and more held captive by them. This is so no matter how old one grows. So the older you grow, the more we must take hold of our goal in the true covenant of God. Follow after me. World evangelization. World evangelization. World evangelization. World evangelization. World evangelization. World evangelization. World evangelization.

 

We must always keep the direction set that way. Everything, what I eat and sleep in and wear and spend on, raising children, earning money and spending money and drinking coffee, whatever I look at, even if I cannot believe it at the moment, it is always heading toward world evangelization.

 

But to carry out world evangelization, Christ left one condition at the very end. You only need to become a witness. Now if we interpret becoming a witness in the way of our church, Naeane Church, a witness is someone who has the evidence in himself. So how does one come to have the evidence inside? In the way of Naeane Church, you simply keep reciting, Jesus is the Christ. You simply keep crying out in your heart, Jesus is the Christ. And you push out the countless thoughts that are coming, in the name, Jesus is the Christ.

 

Because, as I said earlier, this week there was the gathering of pastors. And there were thoughts shoving up inside me. In the way of Naeane Church, what kind of thoughts? Hey, you are better than that pastor. You were ordained faster than that pastor. You have more years of experience than that pastor. That's right, yes, you are the better man. That's right, I am the better man. The conversation just runs on inside, does it not? So, you, what should you do when that person looks down on you? Ah, then of course it is irritating. It is only that I cannot put it into words. That's right, you are impressive. It just comes surging up inside.

 

So what happens if I put this into words? If I put it into words, this person and I gradually split apart. Is that not so? The more a human being speaks of how impressive he is, what rises in the other person's heart? Envy rises, does it not? Jealousy, of course, naturally rises. If I boast about my children, if even a word of boasting about myself comes out, is the other person really thinking, how impressive? Not one of them is. What comes out in the other person? Oh, so that one has made it. And I cannot. Envy rises. If this person hears me say I made ten million won this time, the other says, oh, is that so, and seems pleased for a moment, but inside, the thought, I guess I will have to borrow money, comes up. Because a human being is evil, when I speak of how impressive I am, the other person uses it to envy, tries somehow to tear it down, tries somehow to snatch away what is over there. This is because Satan is inside here.

 

But I, not knowing the other person's heart, was in a way egging it on and going only toward making myself look impressive. The more I kept boasting, the more envy and jealousy rose sharply in the other person, and he was becoming an enemy. So I truly came to realize this. And I kept calling, Jesus is the Christ. After calling it, what I was about to do on the inside, I pushed out in the name of Christ. And the urge to display myself over the other person, I turned into prayer and into blessing him instead. It changes like this.

 

So when my own self changes on the inside, what comes out? Peace is born, I found. A room to breathe comes to the face. Joy came to the face. Ordinarily I had never once praised that person. In any case there was so much inside me that turned my stomach. But this time I saw it. Ah, I am blessing that person. I was startled at myself. So what had I become? I had become a witness, had I not?

 

The Bible says, evangelize the world. But to go out and do some tremendous thing, you and I cannot do that, and even if we did it would not work, and even if we tried it would come to nothing. It only wears me out. But the more I keep calling, Jesus is the Christ, it is not that I am changing it. It becomes changed. And then the evidence shows forth on the outside.

 

 

So let me bring it to a conclusion. What is the conclusion?

 

The more I seek and call, Jesus is the Christ, the Spirit of Christ within me, the Holy Spirit at the right hand of God, keeps turning what is inside you and me into thoughts toward God, and pushes out the satanic thoughts, so that peace is formed within me and the kingdom of God is expanded all the more. And through that evidence, you and I can save the people around us. That is the witness of world evangelization, and that is the way Naeane Church interprets it.

 

I bless you in the name of Christ, that this week too you would keep yourself, and that through Christ within you, you would be a witness who raises up countless pieces of evidence. Amen.

 

 

Closing Prayer

 

Let me pray.

 

Father God, thank you. Thank you for giving us your Word. Thank you for letting us know more deeply the truth that Jesus is the Christ. Thank you especially for letting us know, deep within, that where Satan once stood on the outside, there are now countless satanic thoughts within me, and that inside me, as in Mark 7:21 through 23, only resentment and jealousy and sinful thoughts pour out without ceasing.

 

And thank you for letting us know the secret that through that name, Jesus is the Christ, that eternal and only name of God who is with us even now, these are driven out, their power is weakened, and that spirit is shattered. Let us first build the kingdom of God within our own hearts, and through that evidence, work so that God may work among those around us.