News > North America

LeHigh UBF, US
Febryary 28, 2014

THE LORD SEATED ON A THRONE

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.” (Isaiah 6:1)

I. 2013 Annual Review

Last year 2013, we finished studying John’s gospel, which we had started in 2012. We had just moved into a spacious church building near Lehigh University. I wondered what we should do with the huge sanctuary, which we could not fill up even 20% of its capacity every Sunday. Then it seemed that God was telling me we should preach the gospel of life, not worrying about the size of the sanctuary. That’s what we did. What happened exactly through the study of John’s gospel? We don’t know. But I am sure the seed of the gospel was planted in the hearts of those who heard it, week after week. God promised, “…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11) One of those who listened to the Sunday messages week after week without missing a single week was John, a pianist in his sixties, whom I met at McDonald’s about the time we had moved into this neighborhood. He is a wonderful man, who loves music, books, and the Bible. We all love him. He has been a life-time smoker. Recently, he was found to have lung cancer. Today, he will have his first chemo-therapy treatment. I pray that he will hold on to the word of God from John 11:25-26, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

In the middle of last year, having finished John’s gospel study, we began Ephesian’s study. While Dr. Bill and I were taking turns to deliver the Sunday messages, one word from Ephesians 3:20 touched my heart. (It seemed it touched Dr. Bill’s heart also since I heard him quoting it in his prayers from time to time.): “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, …” At first it was hard for me to believe this. But once in a while when I was close to my “right” mind, I kind of believed it and even sensed that God was going to really accomplish what he had promised. After all this is the word of God. Whether or not I believe it, truth is truth. But I pray that I will really believe it and see the glory of God. (cf. John 11:40)

Last year as Dr. Bill and I were giving Sunday messages in turn, Steve Gan led the Romans group Bible study for young adults every Friday. He is an engineer and taking MBA courses from Lehigh University. So he is quite busy. I saw him studying Romans and preparing for his Friday Bible study almost every evening when he did not have homework for his MBA classes. He and I study Romans one on one. Yesterday, we studied the last chapter of the book. He seemed to be inspired by the house church of Priscilla and Aquila. Actually it is his prayer to do house church ministry. He is a most eligible bachelor. If I had a daughter I would give her to him. But I don’t have one. So we are praying that God will send him a woman of faith to establish a house church. He donates much of his income as an offering to the church or as sponsorship for the needy children from the third world country and other philanthropic causes. We pray that God will send him a woman who is mission-minded and who can handle the way he uses his money.
I just read our Lehigh annual report of 2012 and learned that I had mentioned Lynal and Saran’s marriage at the end of 2012. Lynal is almost done with her PhD in environmental engineering at Lehigh. Saran is an electrical engineer and was working in California. So they were many thousand miles away from each other over a year after marriage. Finally Saran’s job was transferred to Lehigh Valley and he begun working there from the first week of this year. Saran and Lynal took the initiative to form a mission group and named it “Kingdom Mission.” At the end of 2013, they took a month to visit poor villages in India and did philanthropic/evangelical work. He visited a family, which takes care of 35 orphan children plagued with AIDS and delivered school uniforms to poor children in another village and did a few other things. This year, their prayer is to hold a youth retreat in India and preach the gospel to them.

God strengthened and increased the number of members of our praise worship team from two to four. God added Mike, a saxophone player, and Juliana, a pianist to original members, Charles and Danny. With extra help of good acoustic of our sanctuary, being an old fashioned church building, our praise worship sounds really good. We are greatly uplifted every Sunday.
I give thanks to God for our precious mission coworkers, especially the elders of the church. Their prayers sustained the mission work throughout the year. Their sacrificial financial support through tithes and other kinds of offerings enabled us to maintain the church facility, which is much larger than our capacity. I only wish that I had spent more time with them in fellowship, besides our regular prayer meetings and Bible studies.

My 2013 key verse was Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” I pray that we will continue to grow in intimate relationship among ourselves, devoting ourselves to studying the Bible, prayer, and fellowship.

II. 2014 Vision and Strategy

My 2014 key verse is Isaiah 6:1: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.” I also thought about choosing Mk 11:22,23 as my key verse: “’Have faith in God,’ Jesus answered. ‘I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” But I realized that before trying to move a mountain and do “great” work, I must first pray to God to remove my spiritual blindness, which prevents me from seeing His glory. When I see the glory of God, filling the whole earth, my “great” or “small” work really doesn’t matter. I pray that God will take away our spiritual blindness and enable us to see His glory and make us a part of His great work of moving a few mountains in 2014. Amen.

Wesley Jun