Mother: the Most Beautiful Word in the World
Bishop Ki-Hoon Kim, Continental Director for the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) USA, speaks on the only Daughter of God, our True Mother during a sermon he gave at the Family Church in New York City on Sunday,September 7, 2014. Below is a clip taken from his sermon expressing his insights into the heart of a mother.
Does everybody know the Bible scripture of John 3:16? “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Without him, no one can be saved to go to the Kingdom of God. We’ve been waiting for the last 6,000 years, and it is clear that our Heavenly Parent sent His and Her only begotten son, Jesus Christ, 2,000 years ago.
The Only Begotten Son—Yesterday and Today
Centering on Jesus, Christianity over the last 2,000 years has gone up and down; we have been glorifying Jesus and our Heavenly Parent, but for many hundreds of years we suffered as Christians. The mission of Christianity 2,000 years ago was to testify to God’s only begotten son. We call the only begotten son the coming messiah, our savior. Today, True Mother speaks of the mission of the only begotten son: to find the only begotten daughter.
When I first heard about the only begotten daughter in True Father’s volume of 600 speeches, he spoke of God’s only begotten daughter over 400 times. True Father came to the earth as Jesus did 2,000 years ago as our savior, but we don’t understand him and True Mother so deeply and so well.
We need to understand God’s providence and the only begotten son: the messiah, the savior. These days the terminology of “messiah” and “savior” are not popular. Even in our own community, it’s not popular, but True Mother mentions it every time when talking about testifying to True Parents.
Who Is the Only Begotten Daughter?
Many scholars are now awakening to what “only begotten daughter” means. This is True Mother’s position. Do you know what is considered to be the most beautiful word in the world? What is the most beautiful word we can imagine? One organization from England on cultural research surveyed this question and the answer people gave was “mother.”
My mother always believed in me. When I caught a cold, she was the first to notice. She noticed first when I was doing well academically. She noticed everything before anybody else in my family. True Mother is the same way.
We believe the Divine Principle clearly mentions that in the Last Days the savior is coming as parents. Without True Parents, no one can be saved. We believe True Parents are the only begotten son and only begotten daughter. Two thousand years ago, God sent Jesus as His only begotten son. Only through him could you be saved and feel God’s love. But today we all have heard about True Parents’ life and history and understood that True Parents came on behalf of Jesus. True Parents are saviors for the sake of humankind and for the sake of this world.
Unification family members: We are writing a new page of God’s history.
Our Need for a Savior throughout History
When people are thinking about and struggling with how we can realize Cheon Il Guk, God’s Kingdom, have we thought about how we can build it and how long it takes? Will it be ready in 2020? Or in 100, 200, or 300 years? When the time comes when we can say, “Thank you, God, today I have joy. I have love. I have peace. I have happiness for all of my life. I can really see that I am in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Whenever we feel all four of these life elements—joy, love, peace and happiness—we have arrived there already.
However this is impossible without True Parents, the messiah and savior. How did Christianity win over the Roman Empire, the most powerful sovereignty in the world at the time? How did they claim victory and become a national religion? Yes, they struggled and were persecuted. They were also disciples of Jesus. Christianity started based on the Pentecost experience. They believed in the coming messiah through the experience of the Pentecost in which the 120 disciples saw the resurrected Jesus who appeared to them and promised, “I will come back and I am with you.” They had that kind of relationship with Jesus.
These disciples believed in Jesus 100 percent as the savior. This is the condition. Even Paul and the second generation Christians experienced Jesus, who appeared to them. Then they saw him and experienced a spiritual awakening and felt Jesus with them, even though he had returned to God. They maintained their life this way: pure. They maintained their purity centering on Jesus.
Even through the spirit they still believed and shared Jesus’ love through preaching, practicing and supporting others. Living for the sake of others, they created this culture and could win over the Romans, bringing God’s victory after 400 years. Should we wait 400 years for Cheon Il Guk? We learned so many lessons through all the chosen families and their failures as well as our history. When we practice and believe in True Parents as the second coming of the messiah and savior, we have the experience of a spiritual awakening and can maintain the blessed family ideals. True Parents want to build this culture of living for the sake of others.
Understanding the Value of Family
Once, I was the regional leader of the Unification Church in Minneapolis, and then True Father called regional meetings in Texas. At one breakfast meeting I was the youngest one there. True Parents told me to go to the Unification Theological Seminary (UTS). I was planning for True Parents’ speaking tour in the Minneapolis region, so I could not leave my mission to go to UTS. But I did. It was not easy, but True Father’s call was a good idea. For Minneapolis to prepare for True Parents’ arrival without a regional leader is a good idea. I wasn’t needed in the end.
I prayed for 40 days at the Holy Ground at UTS asking, “Why am I here today?” The answer came to me not as an answer but as a question: “What would you like to do after you graduate from UTS? 1) Do you want to be a great pastor of a mega-church? 2) Do you want to be a great businessman making big money or the leader of an NGO organization? 3) Do you want to be a good Unificationist pastor?” So I answered, “Number 3.” After that, an answer came to me: “What you have to do is to know and understand that True Parents can make you the best pastor in the Unification community.” A divinity course and my thesis on True Father’s family ideals concluded in my understanding True Parents very deeply, as well as the framework of a Blessed Family (a family that is conceived after receiving the Holy Marriage Blessing from True Parents) and what True Father practiced, preached and shared with our worldwide Unification community.
Many people believe that True Parents gave us the Holy Marriage Blessing for the sake of our own family, but True Parents gave us this blessing for the sake of God.
Our Mission
We are not just followers or members of the New York Family Church. This is our mission: not just to be ordinary members, but to pledge to own Cheon Il Guk.
Can you see Cheon Il Guk? Who are the subjects of Cheon Il Guk? We are. We are the owners of Cheon Il Guk. This is God’s nation and the subjects are my family and your family.
We heard and we see True Mother’s point to forgive, love and unite. I was very shocked to see that phrase again since it was last seen at the time True Father used it for the Richard Nixon scandal. However, now, I actually use the same phrase when I speak to a new church. Without forgiveness we cannot have give and take relationships, and without that we have no power. Love is power. The most powerful thing is God-centered love, with which we unite together. True Mother is bringing this phrase and message back today for our community and the world—centering on God’s only begotten son and daughter. This is the only way you can save seven billion people.
Earlier this year True Mother asked, “From now on, where is our destination? How can we all arrive at the same finish line?”
According to the Cheon Seong Gyeong (Holy Scriptures of the Unification Church), we need to do three things:
1) We need to inherit True Parents’ tradition. Even at the cost of our lives, we need to practice their legacy and their tradition. This is God’s first blessing.
2) We need to complete the family ideals as taught by our True Parents. When I was studying at UTS, a Catholic priest told me that the Unification ideals are too ideal to realize, too idealistic to practice. But if we study them closely and deeply, we find it’s not “too” ideal. People realized them once before.
3) Let us complete and fulfill our portion of responsibility of tribal messiahship (ministry for ones extended family) to establish the kingdom in our own families. Without this, we cannot make the leap into Cheon Il Guk. If I’m not ready and my family is not ready, my tribe is not ready. Even if True Parents and God prepared Cheon Il Guk, it will be difficult to envision without preparing this first.
We have great hope in America. God and True Parents prepared this land, and when we build the Kingdom of Heaven here, it’ll be all because of True Parents, ourselves, and the youth who are really stepping up. Let us support them to do well. Thank you and God bless you!