Cheon Seong Gyeong Ⅱ - 392. Giving Sermons that Move Hearts
1 As a leader, you must not avoid difficult situations; rather, you should overcome any situation. If you cannot proactively master your environment, how can you accomplish Heaven's Will? God's strategy is to have you go through trials, even to send you to prison, in order to raise you to stand so firmly that no one can bring you down. If you have experienced this in the past, thinking about your previous misery will enable you to endure present suffering and go forward. In Hungnam labor camp, every year I was given an award as an exemplary worker. God had me go through that course in order to train me. With that in mind, I am now training you. When suffering children ask for something from their parents, who cannot provide it, how miserable those parents must be. Thinking of God in that position, I have endured a course of pain and suffering; therefore I can handle any situation. Suffering without any purpose has no value, but doing so for God's Will is more precious than any amount of gold. This is my asset. That is why I never prepare my sermons. I have only to speak the truth from my own life experience, and people cannot help but be moved.( 016-344,19661014)
One's heart when preparing a sermon 2 As a leader, when you go out to witness, you should feel as though your flesh and bones are melting away. Then go to the pulpit and give a sermon with a prayerful heart, thinking, "Father! I am so unworthy and inadequate. Nevertheless, You have to rely on me to do this, and I am so sorry." Do not be centered on yourself. Consider that you are a member of God's special task force, dispatched with God's official endorsement to represent True Parents and heaven and earth. Before giving a sermon, I spend more time praying for the members than for the sermon. I pray, "Father! I must lead these people and raise them up. What should I do? Should I go this way or that way?" After offering that devotion, I give a sermon as my heart leads me. If the heart is absent, there can be no life. The way through the valley of the heart is painful and miserable. Thus when looking for a teacher, do not seek a teacher of knowledge; rather, seek a teacher of the heart. The more you dig into the valley of the heart, the more you will find tears and the less you will find yourself. The closer you get to your final destination, the larger God's Will and purpose will become and the smaller you will become. As long as you are becoming smaller and the Will is becoming larger, all problems can be resolved.( 009-080,19600412)
3 You can call yourself a high priest only when you go through a process to become a sacrificial offering with the heart of a parent and the body of a servant. To become a high priest, you need to have a child who is willing to become a sacrifice. If you do not have a child from your own direct lineage that will do that, you should at least have a spiritual child. The worship service is the time to make offerings. It is when you report to God about your past and make atonement. Therefore, die worship service is not a time when you can expect to be free.( 011-163,19610624)
4 How can you travel around, going here and there for twelve months of the year, and casually go up to the pulpit saying, "Brothers and sisters, let us sing hymns," then speak about how Father is such and such, and then pray? If you act like that, the heavenly nation will never be realized and people will never be resurrected. Look at a mother in labor when she is giving birth to her baby. Doesn't she go through so much pain, feeling as if she is about to burst, with her face contorted in so many ways? If a mother goes through so much when giving birth to her physical baby, you have to be more serious than that to give birth to your spiritual children. When you leave the pulpit, you should be sweating and in tears.( 075-177,19750102)
5 Spiritual leaders cannot do their work without having spiritual experiences. They should not prepare their sermons by reading books. Do you see God when you read books? Is God in the midst of those books? No, He is not. Because God dwells in a mysterious spiritual realm, you have to connect with Him through the Holy Spirit. Faith is most precious if it includes spiritual experiences. Therefore, people who join the Unification Church usually have such spiritual experiences. In fact, they must have these experiences. These kinds of phenomena are very for the Will, Heaven will be with you.( 076-151,19750202)
6 I have such a direct and close relationship with God, I have no need to worry about preparing my sermons. You too need to train yourself to be like this. Sometimes I have to meet and speak with famous people, even up to ten times in a day. I must talk about a different topic each time, depending on the occasion. But do I prepare my speech every time? At such times, I am fully aware that I am an offering. I have no concept of "I" or "me" or "mine," I am in the position of a total offering. It is a very solemn position. It is a heavenly principle that people standing in front of an offering should bow their heads. God is present at the altar and exercises His dominion there. You should think, "Before this altar today, I offer all my heartfelt passion, all my strength and all my effort." Then you open your mouth and speak with greater sincerity than ever before in your life. When you do, God will help you. An offering is made from a serious position.( 060-348,19720818)
7 Do not think lightly about the sermon you are going to give on Sunday. Do not just say, "Where in the Bible shall I read from? What hymns shall we sing? Bring out the hymns! Bring out the Holy Songs!" Base your sermons on your knowledge of people; use real life experiences and relate them to comparable passages in the Bible. Give an interesting sermon that compares personal experiences with the content of the Bible. Then listeners will be captivated. Since your sermon relates to them, they will like it. Do not attempt to prepare your sermon by reading books. Even books come from people. People themselves are the originators of books.( 046-285,19710817)
8 One memory continues to linger in my heart. When I was being taken to the labor camp in Hungnam, I had to trudge along a stream through a valley, chained to thieves. That memory is still so vivid. I cannot forget the time we walked along that winding path in the valley. It left a strong impression on me. Those steps were heading toward a different world. I really wondered, "In the future, what paths will I have to walk each day? After serving my time in prison, what will I need to do? What should I do during my prison life?" It was going to be difficult, but I was ready to go there. Actually, that time was a good opportunity to come to a new realization about myself. That is why this memory stays with me.( 030-152,19700321)
9 Once I worked on digging a tunnel at Hamhung. As I worked, I became so hungry that I could hardly lift up my pickax, and so completely exhausted that I was on the verge of losing consciousness. After going on like that, you cannot imagine how happy I was when I heard, "Time for lunch!" What a feeling in that moment when I threw the pickax on the ground and turned around to eat! I have countless stories like that in my life. I have been through indescribable suffering. However, you need to understand that all those miserable situations did not destroy me; instead, they will shine throughout history. That is why I am saying you should keep going on, collecting stories that God can cherish as treasures. When you open up and tell the people of the world the true stories of your sufferings and tribulations, in just ten minutes you can move them to wail in tears. It will be far more effective than a one-hour sermon on another topic. Where can you find a sermon topic better than this? That is why I am telling you not to worry and, until you are thirty, go through as many hardships as possible.( 030-152,19700321)
10 When you give a sermon, do not just decide on the title and then get up to speak. The basic standard is that you should select the title in prayer. You cannot move people with a sermon based on a prepared title. If you want to make people cry, you should shed tears in prayer before the sermon. When you pray, you should be thinking about all the kinds of people who might come that day. You should also be thinking about the situation in Korea and how to improve it. Then you will be able to foresee, "Today, these types of people will be coming." Bearing all this in mind and having prayed tearfully, when you come to the pulpit you will be able to move your audience to tears. If you have written a letter with tears, it can make the recipient cry. In the same way, you should become a motivating force in the position of the subject partner in heart. Without doing that yourself, expecting others to shed tears is unreasonable. Therefore, when you go to the pulpit you should know that it is a court of judgment. If you are unable to improve despite your efforts, you need to repent. If you are unable to inspire others in an hour-long sermon, you should repent for three hours. If you deliver a poor sermon and cannot inspire the people, you have to repent three times more than that.( 160-195,19690512)
11 As a leader, you should listen carefully to your members when they share their situations. You need to take notes about their testimony and know how to use it as material that can be helpful for everyone. If a member has moved your heart, make the lesson of their testimony the topic of the Sunday sermon. Pray about that topic and convey your inspirations to the members. Al-ways live in attendance to Heaven. Your sermon should never be focused on yourself. If you refer to books to prepare your sermon, Heaven will not work through you. Your sermon will fall flat. The seed of life comes from Heaven. It does not come from people or their knowledge. That is why you must shed tears before you give a sermon. Only by shedding tears and taking the position of a parent can you bring the children to repentance. In order to make others shed tears, you should first open the gate of tears. Your tears open the gate of their tears. Only if you open that gate can they finally shed tears. Only if you shed tears of repentance can the gate of repentance open for others.( 237-038,19921110)
12 Always think that you are indebted. A person who thinks this way is public-minded. This is because you have not taken full responsibility and others have had to, on your behalf. As you look around at the congregation, think, 'As I was not able to do the job right, my members are doing it for me." Up to now I have been bearing the suffering that the entire Unification Church membership had to endure. But from now on members will have to face all kinds of incidents, one by one, at all levels—the individual, family, tribe, nation, and even the world. I have been through a difficult course, but now all members throughout the world must face their own challenges. From this perspective, we share a common destiny. It is a serious matter that the spirit world is directly listening to the words of those who are guiding the members for a public purpose. This should not be taken lightly. It is the same for me. When something good happens to you, before talking about it or laughing with joy, first think of Heaven. Likewise, when you face sorrow, first think of Heaven. When you face something sorrowful, if you can say, "I am suffering on behalf of Heaven," you can bravely go beyond that sorrow.( 237-039,19921110)
13 When you endure sorrow, you will surely be rewarded. During the course of paying indemnity on earth, if you shed tears of sorrow while truly being in the position of goodness, you will eventually shed tears of joy. On a scale of one to ten, if you experience sorrow at the level of ten, the happiness that will eventually come to you will surpass that scale, to the level of one thousand. Because we have such experiences in our life, we can continue our life of faith. If after you endured sorrow to the level often you received joy only at the level of one, it would dissipate within a few days. But in following the path of Heaven, if you truly persevere through sorrow, true happiness beyond your imagination is bound to come. If you do not have a chance to feel it or receive it, such joy will come to your wife, your children, or your ancestors. So do not do anything thoughtlessly. Live your life with the attitude of attending God at all times. Always consult with Him. When you feel frustrated, sit down and pray. Sleeping should not be the issue; working should not be the issue. Praying must become your way of life.( 237-039,19921110) |