The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009
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The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2009 |
Good afternoon brothers and sisters, Good afternoon, it’s really great to see you all. Today we’re in America with True Parents, for the 50th True Parents day. Happy True Parents day to all of you! Today we hope that all of God’s blessings will come to you and that we will be a bigger blessing to the world. We always love to have you here in the sanctuary, and for those who are joining us via Internet, we also welcome you as well. Welcome brothers and welcome sisters.
Brothers and sisters, good to see you all today, Pastor Michael, good to see you. Today we are going to start from Chung Seong Gyeong page 703:
“Our lifetime is but a moment. This lifetime will determine whether we are connected to eternity or to the moment. You are all historically the resurrected bodies of your ancestors, wearing their faces. How long is this history? It is said to be hundreds of thousands of years old. The purpose of this long arduous course of history was eventually to create one person who is you.”
Brothers and sisters, let us remember these words that Father speaks, let us remember that the purpose of this long arduous history was eventually to create that one person which is you. Let us remember that meaning and that value, brothers and sisters. Let us start seeing and building ourselves with the power of the purpose of God.
When we do that we are going to have greater meaning, greater strength, and we are going to start to have greater enthusiasm for life, and we are going to start to become great blessings.
Brothers and sisters, I found it so important that whenever we start a service we begin by remembering to be like that. Let us always remember, when we give service to worship God and True Parents here on Saturday, to elevate joy to Heaven. And we do believe that those blessings come showering down. Can we say Aju at this point?
Yes, brothers and sisters, it’s always good to have you here in the service, welcome once again, and let’s be that great blessing for God and True Parents today. Thank you brothers and sisters.
Heavenly Father, thank You for this day You blessed upon us. Father, we are gathered in this sanctuary on this beautiful Saturday and we pray that You may bless each one of the brothers and sisters here today. We pray that You may bless all the nations that they are connected to. Father, we pray that you may be with all the families joining us all across the world, and, Father, we pray that we may be that victorious people, victorious as we move into the spring season, not moving to it with a victim mentality but with a victorious mentality.
Father, we are here to truly give glory and honor to You, to inherit your divine true love to spread that to the rest of this world. Father, we pray that today we may realize our incredible purpose and value. May we stand proud and tall as Your sons and daughters. Thank You so much for this time. We offer all these things in tremendous gratitude and everlasting love in our names as central blessed families. Aju!
Good to see you all here today. Before we start I always like to start with something a little interesting. I heard an interesting story, a story about a Sunday school teacher. She was teaching her young students about Noah and the Ark. She asked them what they thought Noah may have done to pass time on the Ark for 40 days. After waiting for few moments the teacher suggested: “You know maybe he did a lot of fishing. How about that, children?” One little boy gave her a funny look and he raised his arm up and said: “Teacher, I don’t think so. It’s kind of hard to fish with just two worms!”
Brothers and sisters, today I’d like to talk to you about the joy of blessings. You know, in order to live a blessed life we have to learn how to be a blessing. You know, living just to fulfill one’s own needs, one’s own dreams, one’s own goals and ambitions is a very boring and unfulfilling way to live our lives.
See, God is delighted when we live our live to be a blessing to others. That’s when we get more blessings from God. Try to find at least one person to bless every single day. Isn’t it an exciting, creative and blessed way to live? And it’s one of the keys to live a blessed life.
Let’s take a look at some of the World scriptures today. We start with Christianity, Luke 6:38. Let’s read it together. “Give and it will be given to you. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” Notice that give and receive action! It will be given onto you; the measure we give will be the measure we get back. God is taking toll, God is watching.
Let’s look at Buddhism today. It is Itivuttakha, Sutra 18. Let’s read it together. “If beings knew, as I know, the fruit of sharing gifts, they wouldn’t enjoy their use without sharing them, nor would the taint of stinginess obsess the heart and stay there.” Once again we see “the fruits of sharing gifts,” the joy.
Islam, Qur’an 92:18-21. We will read it together: “He who gives his wealth to purify himself and confers no favor on any man for recompense, only seeking the face of his Lord, the Most High, he shall surely be satisfied.” See once again how important it is to be able to share.
Let’s look at True Parents’ words today. This is from the 46th book. Father here is speaking”: You become happy by giving. You cannot get true happiness from receiving. That is why the person who gives is more blessed than the person who receives. Why is there blessing in giving? It is because you stand in the position of being with God.”
This is what True Parents speak to us today. "But you know how am I going to bless somebody else? I can’t even take care of myself. Let alone bless another person!" But it is the opposite way. Once we start blessing others you‘ll see how valuable you are to God. You are going to start seeing and noticing how valuable you actually are to others. You’ll start respecting yourself more and start having a stronger sense of purpose and self value.
“Well, I don’t have anything to give,” -- you may say. No, you have a smile! You can give somebody an encouraging word or you can give somebody courage when they don’t believe in themselves. You can call an old friend. There’re so many small things we can do. We can give our seat on a bus to some elderly person. We can help somebody drive their way to church that can’t drive. One thing we like to do is to check our closet and give away the clothes that we don’t wear regularly. You may say, “I can’t give away these clothes. I looked so good in that dress 10 years ago.”
Brothers and sisters! It’s time to let it go! It’s important to be a blessing. Remember, not the item that we give but the fact that we give blessing is going to improve our blessed life. Remember, no matter how small, God sees it all!
See, Jesus was always a blessing wherever he went. Wherever he went he was healing the sick, he was feeding the poor; he was spiritually enriching and guiding many people there, comforting lonely people there as well. But you may say: “I can’t perform miracles like Jesus; I’m not a son of the highest God!” You don’t have to heal the sick and perform miracles to be like Christ, brothers and sisters! You can have compassion; you can help somebody in small ways.
In True Parents' autobiography that came out -- now it’s a bestseller, number 6 bestseller in Korea and keeps on going. Let’s give it up to True Parents! -- Father speaks about one story. When Father was young there was his grandfather and his parents in that old village in North Korea. They had such a habit of being a blessing to others. He said how in the winter season always there were homeless people who were traveling. And they would stop and stay in their house. His family created a space for people, just in case for people who had no shelter and were passing by. And they would always feed them. They tried to give some food, even a bowl of rice.
This chapter is titled “A joy of sharing a bowl of rice.” In that chapter Father spoke about how his parents and his grandparents were always compassionate to the needy. They were always sharing as much as they could. They never drank, they didn’t smoke cigarettes. They used this money to provide more food for the people who were passing by. And Father said how he, as a young child of 11 years old, would sit in that space with the homeless people and listen to their stories. He would help his mother bring the food to those people and he would find joy in it.
But the real joy he received was the love that those people would return back. They gave gratitude, love and real thankfulness for being a blessing to them. And also he mentioned that when the winter season passed, he would actually start missing the winter season as all people would leave and travel where they needed to go. Father said: “I started actually missing these homeless people and their stories. And I would wait for the next winter.” He would anticipate with joy in order to give and to be a blessing again.
See, we don’t have to do big things. We don’t have to do huge things. You can pray for somebody. You can buy soccer boots for another child whose boots are worn out when you are buying these boots for your child. You can spend your time to be a listener to elderly people. It can be a great strength for them and a great sense of friendship. You can write a surprise gratitude letter to your children. Just out of the blue, no reason, not because there is a birthday or Christmas. Just because it’s worth it. Because they are worth it. You can fix an air conditioner in somebody else’s room. You can do very small things and you can be a blessing for other people.
A few years ago my wife told me how she was filling up gas in America at a gas station. All of a sudden a senior man came up and said: “Young lady, I am so sorry! But I desperately need 20 dollars.” She hesitated at that moment. Something inside of her, God, spoke to her: “You know, plant a seed of goodness in this man’s life!” And she said: “Okay, wait here!” She went to the gas station but there was no AT machine. So she actually had to go the supermarket 3 blocks away. She had to get in her car, drive 3 blocks away, park her car, get into the supermarket, go to the ATM, and pull out 20 dollars, get back into the car, get back to the gas station and give the man these 20 dollars. She went out of her way to get this man 20 dollars. He was so elated and so grateful that this woman that he even didn’t know drove to the supermarket which was 3 blocks away, came back and gave him 20 bucks he really needed.
Of course we don’t know what exactly his situation was and how things turned out. Maybe it was his grandson’s birthday and he needed a little more to buy that toy he promised. Or maybe he forgot his wallet and he needed to pay 20 dollars for extra gas to get home and nurse his sick wife. We don’t know. And really it doesn’t matter. What we know is, that on that day God was watching that blessing and He was happy. God was smiling on her that day.
When we moved to Korea, one day my wife told me that she went to pick up our first son from school. And she bought him this yummy Hottokk. Yes, here it is. It like a rice cake with honey on top of it and inside there is yummy sweet bean paste. So yummy! All Korean members know what that is. And she was a blessing to our boy that day. She gave him this wonderful thing and he was so happy. It was fantastic! While they were eating this in front of the school he said: “Mommy, I want just one more! Just one more!” And she said: “Honey, you’ve been doing your homework very well lately so I will buy you one more.”
She bought it and as soon as he received it he ran off. “Where are you going?” she said. She came to look where he was going. Actually he ran to one elderly grandmother who was standing on the side of the street. And he held this Hottokk up that his mommy just gave him and said: “Grandma, please have this! It’s cold today, please have it. It’s warm.” That grandma just lit up with joy and she was so happy. And you know when she told me that story I was so moved. I was moved that he was inspired to share his passion and joy with other people. It didn’t cost us even a dollar but that fact that he did this compassionate act was so inspirational and really important in his own life.
Whenever it’s our kids’ days -- you know, every week we have our kid’s day when we take one of our kids out and spend one-on-one time with them -- we always challenge them -- can you be a bigger blessing today? At the end of dinner we always go to the Seven Eleven where they can choose a snack from the whole store for themselves. Yummy potato chips or whatever, you know. Then they always not only do that, but also they choose a snack for all their siblings. And then they choose them for cousins. And also they choose snacks for the security guards who protect our Hannam-dong Training center. I see them when they run to these security guards and deliver those candies and potato chips and whatever they bought that day for them. Those security guards are so happy. And I know that it’s probably not going to change these guard’s life forever, or make some profound impact in their life but I do know that it will change my children’s life forever.
They are learning to be givers and not getters. They are learning to be compassionate and not selfish. It doesn’t really take any extra time to teach them that giving is a key to living the blessed life. And it doesn’t even cost a lot more; it costs a few cents or a few dollars more. When your children start practicing a life of intentionally blessing others in small ways then what you get in return is absolutely priceless.
We were walking up to Hannam-dong Training center one day and that day my sister Sun Jun had the flue. So we went out just buying her a cake. And in front of the gate there was a Japanese sister who was coming out. She greeted us and told us that she came for some errand and that she was so happy to see me. We expressed our thanks and gratitude and we said: “Oh, my goodness, we would love to give you something but we don’t have anything. We have this cake but it’s for Sun Jun and I have got to give it to her. She is sick.” And my wife at that moment takes a scarf that she actually really likes and that True Parents gave her. And she said: “Please, take this scarf. It’s really cold and True Parents want you to have it.” And the Japanese sister started crying in that moment and saying thank you. But the most important thing was that she was saying not only thank you to us but also she was saying: “Thank you, True Parents!” She said: “Thank you, True Parents!” And that‘s what it’s all about.
And it was wonderful to see my wife’s compassion and it was wonderful to see that True Parents can work through us when we start being blessings to others. I know that God was smiling that day again and I know that True Parents really truly wished for that sister to have that scarf.
We were in Dongdaemun market one day making training robes, and I remember that while I was waiting for a couple of minutes for the person to arrive, there was a man lying down on the other side of the street. And this man was crying and crying, literally wailing on the street very loudly. And there was a group of people standing around looking what is going on. We wanted to do something for this man. But right in that moment other ministers came and other people came, so we got busy and moved on.
But that man stayed in my heart. I felt terrible that I could not do anything for this man. I could have just asked the police to come or could give him what I had in my wallet. You know, I could have done something. But we just got busy. And that night I repented to God that I could not have done something, that I should have done something. And a few weeks later we were finishing early devotions on the mountain and we were on the way back walking to Hannam-dong Training center. It was still dark, about 4:40 am. And as we arrived at the bottom of the Hannam-dong village there was a man lying on the street on the cold steps in front of this cupcake shop. We passed him and he immediately reminded me of the guy that I saw at Dongdaemun and who was crying and for whom we could not do anything.
While we were waiting at the intersection I turned to the ministers and said: “You know, we should do something for this man. It looks like he is going to freeze.” It was really cold that day. And one of the security guards immediately called the police. And we found a towel that was hanging on the glass door about 5 yards away and went to cover up this man with the towel, at least his hands. He looked very cold. He immediately got on up and said: “I’m fine. I’m fine. Thank you. Thank you.” And he started walking off. What we realized was that no profound things happened after this, no showers of blessing coming down from Heavens after that. Actually we quickly forgot about this situation. But I realized that deep sense of gratitude that arose in our hearts at the fact that we tried, we cared, at least we tried to do something for this person.
Usually when God asks us, when He inspires us, when He puts this feeling of warmth to try help another person we hesitate at that moment. We say: “Oh, you know, God, I need a sign. Why do I need to help this person? He can help himself. He doesn’t need my help. He looks healthy. I need a sign. Give me a sign. Or maybe I need a prayer. Let me pray for 10 days. I will do a 10 day condition and then decide whether I will do it." Or I need God to tell me directly. Brothers and sisters! Today God is telling us directly: “Be a blessing today. Be a blessing everyday to somebody!”
I’m not saying that you have to go extreme, like giving thousand dollars to those who are lying on the pavement. It doesn’t have to be that extreme. It can be something very small. The fact that we GIVE is important. It can be just calling 911 for help and asking police to come and help the man. Or giving him a scarf or buying him a cup of warm coffee. It can be something very small. That’s the important thing.
One of our wonderful Han-il couples here (Korean husband and Japanese sister who were blessed by True Parents) goes out of their way to drive a 94 year old grandmother-member to the church every single Sunday. But they not only do it on Sundays. They do it on Tuesdays for prayer, on Wednesdays for service, etc.
The 94 year old grandmother has a very hard time walking. She needs help to get up the stairs. So always she needs people around. Since she doesn’t have these people around, this family literally adopted this elderly person, our member. And she says that if she doesn’t come to the church she feels like she is going to pass away early.
And this family goes out of its way without any recognition. Actually this is the first time I’m talking about them in public. They drive across town 30 minutes to the grandmother’s house and they have to bring her to the church on Sundays and bring her back after the service. It’s not a one time thing. They haven’t missed even ONE service. We’ve been here for a year. They are here for every single week. Let's give it up for our Central Blessed family!
This kind of blessing makes our community stronger. This kind of giving, this kind of sharing, this kind of family-hood truly allows us to become that blessed community.
You know, our vice-chairman of Tong-Il group who works with Kook Jin Nim is now the head of finance in the Headquarter church. And he meets with presidents of our companies, all Tong-Il group companies, like Il-Hwa and the Construction Company, etc. And after the service they discuss how to become bigger givers and greater givers. And he created a plan of action where presidents and staff of the companies do service work at church. Every week they help with the welcoming ministry, they help with parking ministry, they help with passing out flyers ministry and food ministry (you know, green tea and cakes after the service).
And just on the Tuesday meeting one of the Il-Hwa presidents’ wives told us that usually they have about 25 participants from Il-Hwa Company for the first service on Sunday. But this time, because they were directly doing the service, because they were becoming truly owners of the church, leaders of the church, even though they are presidents of the company, this inspired those members. So there was double of attendance and 40 members came and helped with the service and others ministries.
They go into more humble work even though they are established businessmen. For the second service we have a lot professional working men in the congregation who volunteer to help. We have all sorts of brothers and sisters from our other services helping and volunteering in cleaning, Sunday school teaching and choir and etc.
All this is creating that culture, that empowering realm and a community of giving blessings. It’s so inspiring to see these people who are presidents and other people who can make other people do the work for them. But they step up as the owners of the church; they take personal action to serve and to attend the community. And that is true leadership. When we see that we are truly inspired.
A few years ago I knew this brother from UTS, his name is Chris. He was a wonderful brother who had a very deep interest in inter-religious work, just a wonderful fellow. It was a winter day. And I noticed that Chris didn’t have a jacket on. And it was freezing that day, so cold. He said he was fine. But I thought: “I have to do something for him.” So I gave him this expensive jacket that True Parents bought for me just a few days ago. He was so surprised. He said that just the other day he gave away his beat up old jacket to a homeless man on the street. And actually he didn’t have any money to afford another jacket. And he told me that he prayed to God: “God, I know that you’re going to provide all my needs and supply what I need.” He didn’t know that a couple of days later God was going to give him a wonderful jacket sent directly from True Parents. Let’s give it up for God and True Parents, brothers and sisters!
You see, God is great! God is great! Chris gave away his old jacket in compassion. He gave his old jacket away to this man who he knew needed it that day. And God brought him back a bigger blessing, double. See, when you bless others, when we get into the habit of giving blessings to others, God always blesses us back. He never forgets. He always keeps this record of what we are doing and how we are blessing others.
Just a few days ago someone sent me this video from You Tube about these two Chinese dancers. The man lost his leg when he was a young child. And the woman lost her arm in a car accident. And they could have got depressed at their lives and given up their lives, gotten addicted to self-pity. They could have done all that. But they overcame their respective handicaps and became great blessings to this world. How? By dancing and teaching. They teach that when something is going wrong in your life don’t blame God or get angry with yourself. Just keep dancing on! Keep pushing on! See that God is challenging you to become a greater blessing in a unique and more creative way. And they actually won the first prize in the International Dance competition in Beijing just a couple of years ago. I am not a huge ballet enthusiast but when I saw this video it brought me to tears. Let’s take a look at this video right now.
(Video is shown)
Let’s give it up for these incredible artists!
Just think about how easy in their situation it is to get down on their life and give up and become depressed. But they overcame those obstacles and became truly victorious and real blessings to this world, inspiring so many people.
Actually I sent this video to a group of my friends. And one of my friends is a priest and he told me that he loves this video. And he wrote me back telling me that after he watched this video he typed in my name in You Tube and saw a couple of interviews that we’ve done with Korean journalists. And he wrote me this incredibly encouraging letter based on these interviews’ content. And I realized: “Wow, God is blessing me with encouragement. Because these dancers are inspiring people I end up becoming blessed because of their blessing.” And really it took no extra time for me to send this video. It didn’t take any extra effort on my part. But I’ve got a blessing of encouragement back from God through my friend because of these wonderful artists.
Let’s give it up once more for these artists!
Brothers and sisters! What can we learn today? Learning to be a blessing is the key to living the blessed life. Living to just fulfill our own needs is boring and actually very unfulfilling. Living to bless and thus be blessed by God is an exciting way to live. Every day is exciting. Everyday we are on the secret mission from God to bless somebody. It’s like you are Tom Cruise in “Mission Impossible” and you have a secret mission to bless somebody.
It doesn’t have to be something huge. It can be the smallest thing. It can be something very small. But that blessing, remember, God can use that seed to create an incredible tree of blessings for that person in his life. And He can use that small blessing that you bestowed on another person and create a miracle from that blessing.
Let’s remember, brothers and sisters, that already today we are blessings to another person. Let’s act on that and truly exercise to give those blessings around us today and every day. If we do that I do believe we will find the joy of blessings and we will live this blessed life that True Parents have given us. We will find more victory and illumination and more peace and we will inherit the True Love of God, being a great blessing to this world. If you receive the message let’s give it up for God and True Parents!
Heavenly Father thank You for this day that You have blessed upon us, Father we thank You for speaking to us today, reminding us to be a blessing. To be a blessing doesn’t have to be in huge ways but we know it can be in the smallest action, in a smile, in an encouraging letter, in a thank you, Father it could be in helping somebody stand up walk up the stairs, if they are elderly.
We pray that we may inherit your true love and be able to be a greater blessing to this world. Father we know that true love is not a feeling, true love is a power. It’s a power that is strong enough to overcome and make naturally surrender even the worst evil, Father, for true love is dynamic, is alive, is emotion and is powerful. Father we pray that we may inherit that, and we may be able to live our lives not only trying to fulfill our own needs and desires but fulfilling and helping others become more blessed themselves.
We know when we do that we’ll become even more blessed, that you will help us to rise to new levels of victory, to new levels of illumination and peace and that, Father, You will work Your true love power through us.
Thank You so much for this day. We pray that You may be with each brother and sister present here today and we pray truly to inherit your true love and be greater blessings to this world. Thank You so much. We pray all these things with a tremendous gratitude and everlasting love in our own names as central blessed families. We pray together here as one. Aju!