Citizens of God’s Kingdom (Philippians 3:20-21)

Citizens of God’s Kingdom (Philippians 3:20-21)

 

It is always my honor and privilege to deliver the Lord’s message, and today, I would like to talk about being a citizen of God’s kingdom. Do you guys remember the first movie that you ever watched? The very first movie that I ever watched was the movie Terminator 2. Have you guys watched the movie? I watched the movie when I was in the 1st grade in elementary school, and I still remember the beginning part of the movie where the terminator comes to the earth in all naked. As all you guys know, Terminator 2 is the movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger says “I will be back” which became one of the most iconic quotes in the movie history. I grew up watching his movies, and not only the movies he filmed, but even his life story sounds like a movie. He came to America as a bodybuilder and later became a movie star and even became the governor of California. It seems like everything he ever wanted to achieve, he found a way to do it and made it happen no matter how ambitious it seemed at the time. One of the things that was very interesting to me in his life story was how meaningful it was for him to become an American citizen. I got a chance to take a glimpse on his book, Total Recall, and in the book, it is quoted “As long as I live, I will never forget the day 21 years ago when I raised my right hand and took the oath of citizenship. Do you know how proud I was? I was so proud that I walked around with an American flag around my shoulders all day long.” One of the proudest moments in his life that he recorded in his book is the day he gained the U.S. citizenship. Arnold Schwarzenegger had won the Mr. Olympia competition a record setting seven times, he starred in major blockbuster movies, and he even built a fortune as a real-estate investor. But, even with all of those experiences, one of the proudest moments of his life was the day he finally became a citizen of the United States of America. For someone like me who was not born in America, I know what it means to be an American citizen. I know what it was like to live in the US as a non-resident. Unfortunately, when I first came to America, I did not entitle to all the rights, privileges and benefits that come from being an American citizen.

When I first came to America, I did not expect to live in this country this long. At first, I thought my family moved to the States just to study and go back. My father was a Korean army chaplain at the time, and somehow, he got selected to come the States to study in Texas. I thought we would go back to Korea when he finishes his study, but my father decided to retire and we ended up staying in the United States as immigrants. Living in the United States without a green card was very challenging. The life in the States wasn’t somewhat normal without the citizenship. I couldn’t get sick, because my parents always told me medical bills are very expensive and if I get sick I need to go back to Korea. I couldn’t get in trouble for anything, because I did not want to get arrested, deported back to Korea. I couldn’t travel or I couldn’t even open a door for anyone because of immigration and customs enforcement. Even though I personally did not do anything wrong in this country, other than following my parents, I always had to live in some kind of guilt. I did not fit in in this country. After 10 years of suffering to get the green card, or permanent resident card, I joined the U.S. army, and I finally became the citizen of the United States. My family financially, mentally and physically suffered for about 10 years to become a US citizen. But the question is why do immigrants want to come to the US? I know there is a lot of issues going on in Texas, but why do people want to come to the States so bad? Because this country offers peace, freedom and opportunity that you cannot get anywhere else in the world. People want to be free from worrying, pain, and sorrow. After receiving my U.S. citizenship, I realized that it brought me comfort. I no longer had to worry about applying for jobs, tuitions, I no longer had to worry about getting deported to Korea, and now I can travel to different countries with one of the most power passport in the world. A passport is a powerful document. Passport certifies a person’s citizenship and gives authority to travel to different countries. When you have a passport while visiting other countries as a guest or traveler, your citizenship of the U.S still remains no matter where you are, and you also get certain amount of protection from the government. And when you finish traveling and it’s time to come home, no matter what your skin color is or what language you speak, your passport guarantees your safe re-entrance. As wonderful as it is to have the U.S. citizenship, the Apostle Paul tells us that we have something even better. He reminds us that we are the citizens of heaven. He have the spiritual passport, which guarantee of safe entrance into heaven when we are done traveling in this world and when our physical body dies.

Everybody in this world are going to die eventually. Doesn’t matter how much money you have, how strong you are, how healthy you are, how smart you are we are all going to die in someday. But I heard Asians live a little longer. Anyways, we all going to die someday, but the only thing that is going to live forever, eternally is our spirit. Our flesh and our body are going to disappear when our physical body dies and it be buried in the ground, but our spirit will live forever. Even though our physical status is U.S. citizen or Korean citizen, or whatever it may be, we still need an assurance of our spiritual status. When we were chosen by God to be in this world, and God gave us life, he created us perfectly in his own image. He called us to be the children of heaven, ambassadors of God’s kingdom and disciples of Jesus Christ. But the thing is He only called us to be his children, and the citizens of God’s kingdom, but, he didn’t enforce us. A baby born in the United States is automatically become a citizen of this country. But it’s not the same in God’s kingdom. Even though we were born to be the children of heaven, it is still our choice to make whether or not we want to be a part of God’s kingdom. We have to make a choice, and God gave us an option either to choose the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of this world.

I was born in Christian family. Matter of fact, I was born as a pastor’s kid, but that did not guarantee me to be the citizenship of God’s kingdom. There are two spiritual families in the world: the family of God and the family of the devil. When we were born, we don’t automatically become the family of God, we have to receive it and obtain it.

So, the question is how can we become a citizen of heaven? In order to become citizens of the U.S. I had to fill out bunch of paperwork, pay money, wait for long time, take a test and finally swear oaths then I finally became a us citizen. But, to be a citizen of heaven, all you have to do is you have to born again. Jesus said in John 3:3 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” To be born again, we must truly believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God, we have to truly believe that he died on the cross for my sin and resurrected on the third day to save us and forgive our sins. To be born again, or to be a citizen of God’s kingdom, all you got to do is put your faith in Jesus that Jesus died on the cross for my sin, and resurrected for our eternal life. You don’t need to pay money, you don’t need to study to take a test, or join the army. All you got to do is receive Jesus Christ as your savior and born again. When you are born again, that is when you are saved, you become a citizen of heaven and receive a spiritual passport. And the visa is not stamped in black ink, but your passport is stamped with in the blood of the crucified Jesus Christ, that guarantees your safe entrance into heaven after your tour on this world is complete.

The moment someone gains US citizenship; they instantly receive all the rights that come with that. You can vote in US elections, receive access to public benefits, and hold government jobs.  In the same way, the moment you put your faith in Christ, and become the citizen of God’s kingdom, God adopts you as His child. When you become a citizen of heaven, you instantly receiving all the rights, privileges and benefits that come with it for the glory of God. When you pray, God will answer. When you ask, it will be given to you, when you knock, and the door will be opened for you when they aligns with God’s glory. Your earthly citizenship may still be in America, Korea or some other country, but your eternal citizenship will forever be in God’s kingdom. And when we become citizens of God’s kingdom, we should think on heavenly things instead of earthly things. When I put on my army uniform, people can easily identify me as a soldier. Because of the cross that I have on my uniform, people can easily identify me as a chaplain. In the same way, people should be able to identify you as a citizen of heaven because of the clothes we wear, the attitudes we display. We should take off the clothes of sin and put on the clothes of righteousness such as patience, forgiveness, compassion, humility and love. Our position in Christ should affect everything.

We are not citizens of the world. We are citizens of heaven. Therefore, it is not O.K. to act and live as the world does. When you go to Chinatown in New York or Los Angeles, there’s no question where those people are from. They live as if they’re still over in China. When I was in California, I also live near Koreatown, and people in Koreatown still live as if they are in Korea. People don’t really need to speak English to live here. Everything is done in our language. We eat the same kind of food as we will do in Korea, we talk in Korean, and we even celebrate Korean customs and holidays here in Koreatown. That is how Paul is encouraging us to live – in such a way that it’s obvious to others that heaven, not earth, is our home. Even though we live in this earth, God wants us to live like we are in God’s kingdom, just like how Koreans and Chinese people we still live in their cultures in the United Sates.

I will conclude my sermon. As faithful citizens of God’s kingdom, I want you guys to live without fear in this world, because your spiritual passport is going to protect you anywhere you go, and you have all the privileges that God promised to give us for his glory.

 

(072524, Pastor: young hoon, Cho )