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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father and the Lord

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Jesus Christ.

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Amen.

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Dear friends in Christ.

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I bring you greetings on behalf of the multi Asian Gathering that will

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be having its inaugural event, this afternoon.

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And in commemoration of that wonderful events.

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I hope that all of you have received a pair of commemorative

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chopsticks.

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And in case you do not know how to use chopsticks.

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Let me give you a very quick lesson.

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You place the Chop Stick between your thumb and index finger and then

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you grasp the second Chop Stick between your thumb and index finger

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like you would hold a pen or pencil.

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And now you should be able to pick up and use this pair of Chopsticks.

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If you do it correctly, you can also use it with your left hand.

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That is how you use, chopsticks.

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Chopsticks came naturally to me.

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It was very simple.

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When I was a child

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if you did not use your chopsticks, you did not get to eat.

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But for some of us using Chopsticks is a challenge, but that is one of

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my talents.

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In fact, I even participated in a talent contest where I played

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Chopsticks the song Chopsticks with a pair of Chopsticks.

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Now, it wasn't using two hands playing Chopsticks.

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I took the risk of playing Chopsticks with one hand.

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Needless to say, I did not win that Talent contest.

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How to use chopsticks, how to do certain things, you know, we are

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pretty good at that these days.

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If you want to learn how to do something, you can ask your parent, a

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friend, someone who may have experienced that before or you might go

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on the internet and you can look up just about anything.

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How to fix the leaky faucet. How to cook your favorite Asian dish. How

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to do all kinds of things.

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You can simply look it up.

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How to then becomes very easy and we become very good at that.

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We do how-to's in our Christian Life.

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We know how to pray.

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Our Father Who Art in Heaven.

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We know how to confess our sins.

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We know how to follow the Liturgy.

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We know how to share our faith with others.

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We know how to welcome people in the church.

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We know how to do church. If I were to say the Lord be with you.

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You know, how to respond.

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If I say Christ is risen, you know how to respond. In church

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we know how to.

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And so it is also in the Seminary, we learn how to conjugate, our

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Greek verbs.

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We learn how to exegete scripture.

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We learn how to preach and use different styles and preach

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without notes.

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We learn how to write sermons.

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I've been trying to learn how to preach a 10-minute sermon with my

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allotted of time today and to teach you how to use chopsticks at the same

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time.

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We know how to we do it

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well.

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And because of that, sometimes we forget why.

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Why do we do the, how to's?

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Why do we do what we do?

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We need to ask that question sometimes but it can be an annoying kind

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of thing.

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You ever have a conversation with a child.

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Maybe a grandchild.

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You tell them eat all your carrots.

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And they look up at you, and ask,

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why?

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Because they're good for you.

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Why?

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Because they're full of vitamins?

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Why?

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And after a while those, why questions become annoying and so we want

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to avoid them and we prefer to just do.

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Today, we have a lesson from Zachariah, chapter 8. Zachariah a prophet

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of God who wrote about five hundred and twenty years before Jesus.

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He was a contemporary of Haggai.

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He was a part of the people who return out of Babylon in Exile, back

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to Jerusalem.

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He was in favor of

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what Ezra and Nehemiah were doing rebuilding the Jerusalem wall and

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rebuilding the temple.

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And Zechariah had a powerful message to remind us.

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Why?

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He says thus says the Lord.

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Five times in our lesson today.

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It says thus says the Lord.

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Ten times, it says, thus says, the Lord in the whole of Zechariah

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Chapter 8. 400-plus times in all of the Old Testament

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thus says the Lord and often.

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We might think it's a command.

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It's a law, we have to do something.

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But here in Zechariah

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we remember that

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it's also a promise.

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It is gospel promise.

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Thus says the Lord.

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Look at the last of the five

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verses 7 and 8.

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It says, thus says the Lord behold

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I will save my people.

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That is a wonderful promise.

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That is why we do our how-to's, thus says the Lord.

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I will save my people from the East country and the West country, all

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the people of the world.

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God will save.

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That is the good news message that we have to share.

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Thus says the Lord, it is a promise a comfort knowing that God is at

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work.

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He is the one doing this among us.

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He is the one who 

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has promised the Messiah, our Lord Jesus.

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He is the one who we proclaim at Easter.

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He is the one

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that we love and cherish who has given us

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great faith.

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He is the one whose death and resurrection means victory for us

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and we celebrate that wonderful blessing of life.

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We know there is forgiveness in that Word.

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Thus says the Lord, I will save my people.

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I remember then

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that gift of forgiveness that we have in life.

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How as far as the East is from the West so far

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God has removed our sin from us.

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And he says, I will gather my people in Jerusalem. Back into that city.

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The city that has hope. The city that we do ministry, among all people,

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and all people groups.

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And our Lord says, to us very clearly.

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I will save my people and I will bring them to Jerusalem, and they

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shall be my people, and I will be their God in faithfulness and

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righteousness.

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It tells us thus, says the Lord, God is telling us who he is.

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One, who is faithful and trustworthy, one, who we can rely upon.

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He is righteous, not our own righteousness, but his righteousness.

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He will do all things to save us.

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We know how to

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and we know the why. And that's why we can celebrate our common faith

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knowing that, our Lord saves, people from all countries.

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Today you have learned about Chopsticks.

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You might have seen one of those martial arts movies.

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They take a pair of Chopsticks, and the guy just snags a fly out of

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the air.

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I hope you can practice and do that too.

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It has actually happened.

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My younger brother has actually done that.

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Now, I wasn't there when it happened, but my mother was and I will

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believe my mother

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Of course, since Mother's Day is coming up. And not only did he do it

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once my mom tells me, he she witnessed him doing it twice.

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He knows how to. My only question for him,

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my brother would be why.

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In the name of Jesus.

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By his power for his glory.

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Amen.