The Kingdom You Enter by Dying

When I began this series of sermons under the title *The Kingdom You Enter by Dying*, working through the people of the Bible, what I wanted to know was how far they had let go of human righteousness in order to live by God’s word. But as I followed them, I found that they had already, in Jesus Christ, let go of human righteousness, of greed, of anxiety and of doubt, and were living as people dead to the world. They were people who had given themselves up for the righteousness of God. Jesus did not pretend to die on the cross; he died completely. In the same way they too became dead men on the cross and devoted themselves to nothing but the gospel.

Looking at those fathers of faith, who set their hope on a kingdom of God that can only be entered by dying in faith, I find myself thinking that we too, lacking as we are, ought to take our first steps of faith. Their lives, given up for the sake of God’s name, were holy lives; and seeing that, I wondered whether we, weak as we are, are still hesitating. In every age the children of faith who have grasped the whole will of God have said and done the same things, and their lives became a pattern for many. No one can say and do those same things without believing in Jesus Christ in the heart and confessing him with the mouth. So we too must walk boldly the road the people of faith walked.

Believers do not first take the place of death and live beating themselves into submission. That is why so few of them tell the people who watch only this fast-changing world that heaven is reached only by believing in Christ. The world is strewn with temptations, and one moment of carelessness is enough to bring a person down. This is the world — a Sodom and Gomorrah — in which believers are living.

Jesus and many who went before us lived first as people who had died, and that is how they could become light to the world. Believers carry the same commission to preach the gospel, and only by living humbly before God, in a faith that has been born again, will they keep from swaying to the left or to the right. Only then can they hold the lamp high toward a dark world and call people to come out into the light. To those who have closed their ears and walk only the road of the world, believers must say that hearing the gospel is the one way to live. If believers who trust a holy God behave exactly as the people of the world behave, the gospel can never be preached. That is because believers who hold a lamp and then, ashamed of it, cover it with their coat give no one any help by that light.

Jesus said, *I am the way, the truth, and the life*. Because of that we can travel the road to heaven at ease, and we can hold a faith that does not waver, with the word of truth as our measure. He gave life to us while we were wandering on the road of death, and so, by the mercy of God, we came to be saved.

Look at the people of faith who appear in *The Kingdom You Enter by Dying*. Like the apostle Paul, who confessed *I die daily*, they gave thanks in the very moment of suffering and lived lifting up the name of God. My hope is that you too will keep your faith with joy always, as those people of faith walked the road Jesus Christ walked, praising him as they went. If you live looking to the eternal kingdom and hoping in it, God will give eternal life within his grace.

The kingdom you enter by dying is the kingdom where you live forever. When you close this small book, may the love of Christ and a settled resolve of faith toward God remain in your heart. If all the believers become one and preach Christ, in the spirit of people lifting a lamp to light the world, the grace of God will bless you.

My thanks to the members of Watercourse Church, who devote themselves without fail to preaching the gospel. This book is published by many small lamps gathered together; it carries the faith of believers who long to light even a little of the darkness, and we give it to you.

April 2008
Cho Chun-sook, Pastor of Watercourse Church