The song of James: Praising in the wilderness
“Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You” (Psalms 63:3).
I sincerely welcome all of you to this praise night. I am very happy that our church Korean Ministry (KM) praise team has prepared a praise night so that we can have the time to praise God with our heart. When I think of my dear brothers and sisters in Christ who prepared this praise night, I want to say that this praise night is “Praising in the wilderness.” Of course, when we look at them with our own physical eyes, they are not living in the wilderness. Actually they live in the middle of the city. But when I think about their hearts, wanting to praise God out of love for Jesus Christ who is the oasis in the wilderness, I want to say that their praise in praising in the wilderness. Praising in the wilderness is like King David in Psalm 63:3, who made the wilderness the sanctuary (v. 2) and praised God for His lovingkindness in the midst of persecution and suffering, our church KM praise team has prepared the songs to praise God because of His lovingkindness. I personally spent time reflecting on my own life thinking about this praise night. And I divided my life into six praises:
I was born a Christian. I was born in a Christian family. My father is a pastor so I am sure I went to church even when I was in my mother’s womb. I still remember my childhood in a place called Sang-hyun church in Sang-gye-dong, South Korea. When I look back at that time when I used to go to that church that my father served as a senior pastor, I still remember I used to sing a Korean gospel song ‘With money, we can’t go to Heaven.’ Although they are three verses of lyrics, I can only remember the verse 1 and the chorus: (v. 1) With money, we can’t go to Heaven. With power, we can’t go to Heaven. (chorus) If we are born again, we can go to Heaven. If we have faith, we can go to Heaven.’ If I think about it now, why I still remember this song among the many songs I sang when I was little, maybe it is because the word “money” that comes out in the very beginning of the verse 1. Haha.
And when I was 12 years old in Korea, I graduated from elementary school and immigrated to the United States with my parents and lived in Los Angeles Korea town. At that time, I didn't even know the alphabet. But when I went back to elementary school again, I had to take a test and I had to memorize 20 vocabularies. When I came to the United States, I had a hard time adapting to American life because of cultural and language differences. Maybe that was why I enjoyed hanging out with only my Korean friends. Then I went into high school and I wandered around with my friends. At that time, I didn’t miss Sunday's service because I was a pastor's kid. And the books that I encountered at that time were the books written by Kim Hyung-seok and Kim Dong-gil, former professors of the well-known universities in Korea. As I read their books, I became a little philosopher and asked myself such questions like 'What is the purpose of life?', ‘How can I enjoy happiness?’ numerous times and sought to find the answers in this world. At that time, it was the dark age of my life so if I look back now, I can't remember the praise that I sang at that time.
Then, when I entered a college, I attended the college retreat at this church as a freshman. At that time, I attended the retreat reluctantly because I was a pastor's son. But on the second or last evening of the retreat meeting, an incredible thing happened to me when I heard the miracle of Jesus feeding 5,000 men with two fish and five loaves of bread in John 6. When the guest speaker challenged us to come forward if we wanted to offer our lives to the Lord like a boy who offered his two fish and five loaves of bread to Jesus, I was walking forward toward the pulpit. And I remember kneeling down and crying and wailing. I'm not sure why so many tears came out. I think it was because I met Jesus and encountered the presence of my Lord Jesus whom I knew with only my head. As I remembered all the sins I had intentionally committed, I just wanted to ask God for forgiveness (Tears of Repentance). And I was very thankful. I just thanked Him for calling me who was and still is like just two fish and five loaves of bread (Tears of Thanksgiving). And the Holy Spirit worked in my heart to offer my life to the Lord (Tears of Commitment). At that time, I was determined to be a pastor and prepared to go to seminary. Until that time, my purpose of study was money, but after that night of the college retreat, my purpose became Jesus and the glory of God. From that time on, my favorite song of praise is “I Offer My Life”:
“Lord, I offer my life to You Everything I've been through Use it for Your glory
Lord I offer my days to You Lifting my praise to You As a pleasing sacrifice
Lord I offer You my life
Things in the past Things yet unseen Wishes and dreams that are yet to come true
All of my hopes And all of my planes My heart and my hands are lifted to You
Lord, I offer my life to You Everything I've been through Use it for Your glory
Lord I offer my days to You Lifting my praise to You As a pleasing sacrifice
Lord I offer You my life.”
From that time on until now and until I die, this is the praise of my heart that has been written deeply on the tablet of my heart. Around that time, I learned to play the guitar by myself. The reason was because I used to come to Los Angeles every weekend and met my friends but after I met Jesus and offered my life to Him, I could no longer hang out with my friends, drinking, smoking, partying, and hang out. Although in the past, I had ignored my conscience and continued to wander in guilt, but I no longer wanted to do so. So every weekend before I put a sleeping bag on the church meal table in order to sleep, I went outside of the church and looked at the night sky and thought about where my friends would be at the moment. I was lonely so I began to learn how to play guitar by just looking at the back of the Korean gospel song book where there was the guitar cords. So I started learning how to play D code, G code, A code, etc. And the first song that I was able to play guitar was "God is so Good" because it was the song with the simplest guitar chords. Haha. “God is so good, God is so good. God is so good, He so good to me.”
And since I believed in Jesus, God gave me a desire to serve in the Christian club in my college life. So I had an opportunity to serve as a personal manager and served my brothers and sisters in Christ. Personal manager is not a special thing, but when they contacted me through my beeper, I picked them and gave them ride and so on since they didn’t have car. Haha. If they wanted to go to market, I picked them up from their dormitories or apartments and gave them ride to the market. And if they wanted to go to a church to pray, I gave them ride to the church as well. It is just fun memories. Haha. At that time, it was very difficult to take care of the couple of sisters in Christ because I felt love toward them so I had to suppress and repress my feeling. Haha. At that time, the words that I learned deeply in my heart while studying psychology were the words “suppression,” “repression” and “rejection.” Haha. At that time, I learned English praise as I was rejected by couple of sisters. It was the song by Benny Hester “Nobody knows my like You.” I still remember I sang that song louder as I was driving toward the beach near the college after I was rejected by a sister in Christ whom I confessed my feeling towards her. Hahaha. At that time, the chorus of the song was especially comforting to me:
“Nobody knows me like You Put Your arms around me You bring me through
And there's many times I don’t know what to do Though some know me well
Still nobody knows me like You
All of my secrets to You I tell You saw each time that I slipped and fell
And all of my faults yes, You know them well
But You’ve never turned me away, no, no, no”
After I graduated from college and after I graduated from a seminary, I met my wife now. When I met her I was about to get License to preach in my church denomination. I still remember the hymn that we sang together during our wedding ceremonial worship. It was “Thou, My Everlasting Portion”:
(v. 1) Thou, my everlasting portion, More than friend or life to me;
All a long my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee.
(v. 2) Not for ease or worldly pleasure, Nor for fame my prayer shall be;
Gladly will I toil and suffer, Only let me walk with Thee.
(v. 3) Lead me thro' the vale of shadows, Bear me o'er life's fitful sea;
Then the gate of life eternal May I enter, Lord, with Thee.
(chorus)
Close to Thee, close to Thee, Close to Thee, close to Thee;
All a long my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee. A-men.
At that time, I and my wife couldn't help but shed tears of thanksgiving.
And the song that my wife and I can't forget is the song that the Holy Spirit enabled me to sing to God after our first baby Charis died and after spreading her ashes into the water. The song is “My Savior’s love for me’:
(v. 1) I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me, A sinner, condemned, unclean.
(v. 2) For me it was in the garden He prayed: “Not My will, but Thine.”
He had no tears for His own griefs, But sweat drops of blood for mine.
(v. 3) In pity angels beheld Him, and came from the world of light
To comfort Him in the sorrows He bore for my soul that night.
(v. 4) He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary, And suffered and died alone.
(v. 5) When with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see,
‘Twill be my joy through the ages To sing of His love for me.
(chorus)
O how marvelous! O how wonderful! And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful! Is my Savior's love for me!
I believe in the power of praise. For example, the power of praise is when Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God in prison, suddenly there came a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened (Acts 16:25-26). Likewise, I hope and pray that when our church praise team sing song of praise to God, may God open our hearts widely so that all our chains of this world may be removed so that we may be free in the Lord. Furthermore, when the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped (v. 27). But eventually, the jailer and all his family believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and were saved and rejoiced greatly (vv. 31-34). Likewise, I hope and pray that there is amazing and marvelous work of salvation tonight through the praises of the wilderness tonight.
Wanting to praise God until my last breathe in this earth,
James Kim