Sermon by Rev. Kim Hong-deuk during Sunday Service at Cheon Won Church, Seorak, South Korea, on November 5, 2023
Hello dear family members, how are you? It’s nice to see you. Today I will give my talk on the topic “The Report Card of Faith.” First, if you look at pp. 255-256 of Vol. 233 of True Parents’ Words Collection, you will find this passage:
“Did you know that your school report cards will always follow you until you die? As you enter the work world, it follows you around all your career. It’s the same for you personally, also. When you join the Unification Church, everything you do is entered on a record card. It records exactly how the Blessed Family lived, what percentage of what Father said was put into practice, and how many hours you spent. Then it will be clear what you did and how much you did. In this way, a standard of criticism emerges regarding what benefits a couple has received and how they lived within the Unification realm. It’s not just passed over. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Living life in moderation doesn’t work. It’s the same even if you go to the spirit world. Just by name, if you are a Blessed Family of the Unification Church, you will know exactly who did what because there’s a list of everyone in the spirit world. If the spirit world record and the earthly record differ, it will be a big problem. Lying doesn’t work. That’s amazing, isn’t it? That is why this earthly life is important. Don’t accumulate debts day by day. It means live a debt-free life. “It’s not okay to be in debt.” Aju!
True Parents said that the lives of all of our Blessed Families should be written down on a record sheet. Like a school report card, if you go to the spirit world and just name a person, it will definitely show how much they have lived according to their words. Father repeatedly emphasized that one should not live in moderation and that one should not accumulate debts day after day, but always accumulate credit.
Dear brothers and sisters, actually I prepared today’s sermon with a rather serious attitude. So far, I have been preparing sermons with the thought of how to help our members receive more grace and inspiration by focusing on our faith growth and resurrection, but today we will learn how to help all of our members receive good care from Heavenly Parent when we enter the spirit world. I tried to focus the sermon on whether it would be possible to have a better report card of faith that would allow us to be praised for living a life well lived. In order to do that, I thought it would be more important than anything else to tell you exactly what are the most important items for increasing your faith score. This is because I felt a strong sense of self-reproach that I had been neglecting my most important responsibility as a pastor, which is to establish the correct basic attitude of faith among our church members.
If students do not correct their orientation and attitude toward their studies, their grades will not improve no matter how much they stay up all night studying, and if athletes also have a poor basic attitude, no matter how hard they practice, their skills will not develop and they will face limitations. Likewise, if a believer does not adopt the basic attitude of faith, no matter how diligently he or she lives their religious life, no matter how long he or she attends church, and no matter how respectfully a Blessed Family plays a central role in the church, even if he or she is a Blessed Family directly appointed by True Parents, even if you become the top leader of an organization, your faith will no longer grow and you will be stuck in that position, and your faith report card will inevitably be so poor that it counts almost as a failing grade.
There are required courses for a major that must be completed in order to graduate from college, and there are also elective courses. Similarly, if you receive a failing grade of F in one of the required major subjects, no matter how many other grades you receive, your grade will always be in the bottom tier. It’s the same way in the life of faith: If you fail one of the most basic subjects that a religious devotee must maintain, then you will be in a low position. On the other hand, there are some members who are new in the church and have been members less than a year, but they maintain the basic attitude of faith. When I see a family like this, I feel proud of them, and their pure faith seems charming and heart-warming.
Since I mentioned the report card today, I would like to take this opportunity to give homework to you folks. In other words, before the end of the year, we will ask all the members to grade their faith scores for this whole year. There are many grading criteria, but the main distinction is based on how strictly tithing and worship attendance are observed. If you have tithed regularly every month for the past year, you will get 100 points, and if you missed it once, you can calculate it as 90 points. And since there are four weeks in a month for attending worship, if you attended all four times, you will get 100 points, and if you attended twice, you will 50 points.
After giving a score based on these two things, the number of additional people you evangelized, how actively you participated in various activities or events, how well you observed daily worship and Hoon Dok Hwe at home, and furthermore, how much you cleaned and sang for the church. Please rate yourself on these grading items to see how actively you’ve been participating in flower arranging and other activities.
As True Parents said, the church inputs the basic beliefs of all members into the computer every week. In other words, we are entering worship attendance and tithes, as well as Sunday offerings, gratitude offerings, holiday offerings, and special offerings by item, so that we can grasp the religious status of our members at a glance, including workshop attendance, witnessing performance, how many joined or left, children’s situations, and spiritual parents. We are accurately entering information into the Hyojeong management system. Through this management system, each individual’s faith level is automatically calculated each month based on the family members’ tithes, Sunday offerings, gratitude offerings, and Sunday service attendance.
Faith levels are divided into 5 levels, and a family member who has not attended church or made any donations for more than 6 months is automatically marked as a dormant family. And if you have made a donation or attended a service even once within 6 months, you will be at level 0. And if you have attended at least two worship services and made at least one offering in three months, you will be marked as level 1. There are 13 Sundays in 3 months, but the fact that we barely attend worship more than twice and make an offering more than once means that our basic religious attitude is not very good.
The next level is faith level 2 and 3. If you reach this standard, you are a member of our family who tithes almost every month without fail and attends worship services at least 50% to 70% of the time. In other words, it means a quite decent state of faith. So when pastors see members with a faith level of 2 or higher, they feel reassured and thankful, and sense that God really loves this person.
But unfortunately, about 50% of our church members are stuck at faith levels 0 and 1. In other words, less than 50% of the family members are religious in terms of properly observing the basic attitudes of faith, such as tithing and attending Sunday services. As I thought about how sad it must be for God when He looks at me, I began to feel infinite responsibility as a pastor who had not been able to properly guide our members in their faith, and I could not help but feel shame and regret such that I could not raise my head before God.
When I think about how True Mother would feel if this data were provided to Cheon Jeong Gung every month and she saw it, I couldn’t help but feel giddy and dizzy. No, in fact, I think True Mother might be curious and ask us to bring in the religious records of our Cheonwon Church members. To tell you honestly, it may not be the case in other local churches, but at least in our Cheonwon Church, those who live in Seorak and Gapyeong, where True Mother is closest, the place that is the most envied by members around the world, where they assume the members faith is of the best standard. Shouldn’t we be a good model and set the example? In fact, when I was assigned to Cheonwon Church here five years ago, while working for an organization in the HJ Cheonwon Complex, I saw the members living here and thought that they were truly blessed members, especially the Cheon Jeong Gung, International Headquarters, and the Training Center staff. The family members who work here are wondering how good their ancestors’ achievements were and how good of a religious example they were to be chosen to be here. However, I felt really sad when I saw that there are many members who, despite being so close to True Mother, are unable to properly follow the basic religious principles.
True Parents say the following on p.737 of Cheon Seong Gyeong:
“When you go to the spirit world, your records are 100% stored on a computer. Everything that is recorded appears. At the touch of a button, you can see through mental images everything that has been recorded throughout a child’s life, from the time a child was hugged and breastfed by her mother. Such a world is being recorded every day, complete with your emotions. The day that comes, is the day when we die. No one can tell a lie when they stand in front of an all-powerful emotional computer.” Aju!
Mother said that when you go to the spirit world, all records of your life on earth will be 100% displayed on your computer. She says that no one can lie when standing in front of a computer that is fully informed and competent to appraise all aspects.
Some members say that the path of faith is sometimes too difficult and arduous. Of course, it is true that it is not an easy path. However, the reason why you feel that the path of faith is too challenging and difficult is because you do not look at it by the standards and criteria of heaven, but by the levels and standards of the earth, namely, the secular world. If you look at things by the world’s standards, you want to live comfortably like other people, go to beautiful places with your family every weekend, and if you think about saving even a penny more to prepare for retirement or your children’s future, then, of course, you would hesitate to tithe to church and make various offerings.
For members who are not tithing properly, I looked up True Parents’ words on p. 1193 of Cheon Seong-gyeong.
“Tithe means giving one-tenth of everything you own to God. Although you may not offer the whole thing to Father, it is valuable in that sense to offer one in ten of them with great care. By offering one in this way, the remaining nine will also be treated as holy objects. People who live by paying tithes like this will never perish. As each day passes, his storehouse grows.
Also, if you look at Malachi 3:10 in the Bible, you will find this information.
“Thus says the LORD Almighty: Bring your whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house, and test me with it to see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing for you until there is not enough room for you.”
It is true that calculating tithes realistically can be burdensome and feel like a waste, but the sincerity and material given to God will never just pass away meaninglessly. I can’t see it or feel it, but I don’t know how great and incalculable blessings He bestows upon our family and my sons and daughters and descendants based on that condition. You must definitely believe this. Furthermore, it is like having accumulated great blessings that will be received forever in heaven when you go to the spiritual world. Without this faith and confidence in God and the spirit world, who would voluntarily donate with joy and gratitude in a world where it is difficult to make a living?
Following is a verse from p.1298 of Cheon Seong Gyeong:
“Teacher is a person who knows how scary Heaven’s constitution and Heaven’s laws are. It is not an earthly law. Since it is the law of heaven and the law of the ideal, eternal world, we must not fail to train ourselves to keep it right from while we live on this earth. The point is that you should not live as you please. In order to avoid being caught by that law, the teacher is going straight through all the hardships. It’s not because I’m not good at it. It’s not because I’m smarter than you. I cannot avoid taking this path because I know it so well.”
In this way, through the life of True Parents, they have shown us that we must know the Heavenly Constitution and that we must strictly follow it, so they are teaching us about it in detail and at length through their words.