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Hebrews 12:1-2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great crowd of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." 

1. Review of 2015

First, Missouri Valley Staff Meeting. It was held in January 9th and 10th in Kansas City. Those attended were Dr. Jim Rabchuck from Western Illinois University; M. Paul Choi, M. Luke Yang, and M. Abraham Park from St. Louis; Dr. Abraham Koo from Columbia; Matthew Chiesi, Dr. Martin Mun, M. Sweety, and M. Noah from Kansas City. We shared our 2015 new year key verse testimonies, studied 2 Corinthians 4:1-18 through a group Bible study. Then we planned the Missouri-Valley Spring Bible conference.

Second, Missouri Valley Spring Bible Conference. It was held in April 10th through 12th. The theme of the conference was "Baptized in Jesus' name." Alloch Burton served the opening message from Mark 1:1-8 with the title "He baptizes with the Holy Spirit." Matthew Chiesi served the first main message from Mark 15:1-41 with the title "The King of the Jews." Mary Lim served the first symposium message based on Acts chapter 8 with the title "Philip's ministry of Baptism." Lewis Do served the third symposium message based on Acts chapter 16 with the title "Paul's ministry of Baptism." Sandy DuPree served another third symposium message from Romans chapter 6. 

The closing message of the conference was delivered by Dr. Isaiah Lim from Mark 16:15-20. At the time of delivery, he was just his dissertation defense away from his PhD in Physics from the University of Washington in St. Louis. In his message, he testified a moving testimony how he was accepted into the PhD program of the University of Washington. Shortly after the conference he moved to the Washington State University as God provided him a post doc position in the Washington State University. He and his wife M. Dream Lim are continuing their life of faith in Washington State University by serving Sunday worship service from Matthew's gospel. 

Third, Midwest-Missouri Valley Summer Bible Conference. It was held in July 16-19 in Springfield, IL. The theme of the conference was "Follow me." From Kansas City UBF, Blake, Mark, Max and Gloria's friend Elly attended. The conference was well prepared and it was one of the best conferences, if not the best, I have ever attended. 

Shepherd Dan Bockenfeld from IIT served Main lecture 3 based on Luke 9:18-27 with the title "Follow Jesus' Gospel Lifestyle." The key verse was Luke 9:23, which says, "Then he said to them all: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." I was touched by what Dan said based on this ley verse: "It has been nearly thirteen years since I first decided to follow Jesus and serve him at IIT. Some of those days were really hard, like I was dying. In April 2009, just months before my wedding, I lost my job because of the economic down turn. My degree is in mechanical and aerospace engineering, but Chicago is not an aerospace hub. So I could not find a job in my field in Chicago, but I chose to stay in Chicago to serve Jesus at IIT. I held tightly to that decision and took a job at Northwestern University as a web developer. It was a blow to me because all my education is being forgotten."  This testimony of Shepherd Dan Bockenfeld taught me that it is possible to raise up disciples of Jesus from among American students even in our post-modern generation.

I was also called before the conference to be a prayer servant for eight morning devotion messengers for the conference. They are Rita Mizra (Chicago), Michael Mark (Chicago), Tim Sagel (Triton), Jack Magardician (Chicago), John Dang (Milwaukee), Paulina Lee (Toronto), Moses Kim (Trenton, NJ), and Tom Guihan (Chicago). They all served Friday morning devotion message from Mark 4:1-20. I was supposed to help their messages. Since giving comments on others' messages is not my gift, for a while I was burdened. But all of them poured their hearts into their message, and their first drafts were already good. All I had to do was to write encouraging words to them in my emails to them.

Fourth, Dr. John Dang's interview with UMKC Medical School. One of the eight morning devotion messengers I came to know a little through their morning devotion messages was Dr. John Dang. I never imagined that he would have a post-residency job interview with UMKC Medical School. But he came on the Labor Day for his job interview. It was a job for one year beginning from July 2016. All our coworkers had a dinner with him on the Labor Day, and the next day he had his job interview. But when I heard that he would have one more interview in some hospital in Chicago and that hospital had six positions available, while only one position was available in UMKC Medical School, it seemed that it was not likely that he would come to Kansas City. Besides I heard that his wife Sarah Little and his mother in law Little Sarah were praying that he might come to Chicago. But I thought "Who knows?" Then we heard in October that he was offered his job in both places, but decided to come to Kansas City in June, 2016. We thank God for sending him and his family to Kansas City for one year.

Fifth, Christmas worship service. I believe that Jesus, who is Immanuel, which means "God with us," helped us in our Christmas worship service held on December 13 in UMKC Student Union room 402.

First of all, God sent Dr. Abraham Koo from MU ministry as the messenger. He served his message based on Matthew 1:18-25 with the title "They will call him Immanuel." In his message Dr. Abraham Koo told us the following testimony: "As an assistant professor, I have worked hard to remain productive. I managed my research group, taught students in classes, wrote research papers and grants, gave seminars at meetings, and served administrative duties. I was stressed out and was always busy. Even as we attended the Midwest UBF summer Bible conference, I sneaked out to local libraries to finish writing research grant to meet the deadline." We prayed that Jesus, who is Immanuel, be with him and grant him a federal grant he has applied for. Then five days later Dr. Abraham called me and told that his grant was granted. I only think Jesus, who has blessed him with his grace of Immanuel. 

Second, God established four testimony shearers, namely, Ben, John Hiram, Blake, and M. Mary. 

John Hiram said in his testimony: "I could say the ability to win a fight was not one of the Lord's gifts to me. Hard as he tried, my dear loving father did not succeed in teaching me how to fight." What he said was about physical fight. But I think that he is a real spiritual fighter. His last name is "Fargo." If he allows me to say this, his last name is made of two words: the word "far" and the word "go." If these two words are reversed, they become "Go far." I think that John Hiram is the person who can go far in the race of faith. He finished his testimony by writing, "Jesus will always keep me safe, secure from all my fears." That was his testimony that Jesus is his Immanuel.

I can only thank God for the testimony of Blake. The following lines of his testimony really surprised me: "I came to UMKC being able to count on my hand the people I knew at first, maybe three or four people. I did not know where to turn for guidance and I went to various faith groups, but none of them seemed quite right for me. I would go to a few meetings or events and quickly lose interest. I even went to a few Bible study events though I always found a reason not to go after the first few sessions. However, this all changed on day, when I least expected it. I attended a Tuesday night service. I was slightly intimidated when I walked in, seeing mostly non-students and mostly elderly individuals. For some reason, this was the first time I felt comfortable at a religious group." Blake finished his testimony as follows: "I look forward to my continued time with you all as I will start my master's program in January and should be here until at least May of 2017." May Jesus, who is Immanuel, continue to be with him and do his further work in his heart and life.

When I look back the year 2015, there were some highlights.

First, God established Ben Main as a faithful presider for our worship service. He came from Springfield UBF. When he was in Springfield, he had one-to-one Bible study with Dr. John Lee, but did not attend worship service. I heard that when Dr. John heard that Ben has been attending Kansas City UBF worship service and even presiding for it, he could not believe what he heard.

Second, God has raised John Hiram as a co-worker. During last summer, Sunday lunches after worship service have been served by two families in turn. But in the Fall semester sometime John Hiram volunteered to serve lunch every third week. He reminds me of Acts 34:36, which says, "Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, which means Son of Encouragement." John Hiram is a Barnabas among us.

Third, Blake has studied one-to-one Bible study over two years faithfully. But in the Fall semester until toward the end he did not come to worship service at all. So I thought that he was slipping from the life of faith. But toward the end of the semester he attended the worship service several times and his graduation testimony shared in our Christmas worship service shows some evidences that God is working in his heart and life.

Also I would like to mention my fall on my face on December 30th. This was a pretty hard fall on my face. It left me seven noticeable scars on my face. But in the hindsight I can only thank God because he was with me in my bad fall on my face. My neck could have been broken or some my front teeth could have been broken. But those things did not happen. So I thank God for his protection.

2. Prayer for 2016

My 2016 key verse is Hebrews 12:1-2: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great crowd of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." 

There are two reasons why I chose Hebrews 12:1-2 as my 2016 new year key verses. First, Dr. Abraham Kim, the general director of UBF, is going around six continents and serving the director conferences with Hebrews 12:1-2. So Hebrews 12:1-2 are actually UBF 2016 key verses. Second, I served the new year message from Psalm 19. In doing so Psalm 19:4b-6a reminded me of Hebrews 12:1-2, for which I will talk about later.  

In verse 1, the author of Hebrews says, "Let us run." He has in mind the Olympic games, where all the different tribes of Greece were gathered together in general assembly to compete in many areas including foot-race. So the author of Hebrews makes this foot-race an illustration of the Christian life. 

Verse 1 tells us that this race is a tough race. Spurgeon wrote: "This must be a tough race as it requires of throwing off everything that hinders and the sin so easily entangles. Who is sufficient for this race? How can we poor limping mortals run in such a race as this? Even the starting is beyond us: how much more continuing in this race with perseverance! See, how we are driven to grace that may help us. This race set before us most clearly reveals our helplessness and our hopelessness apart from divine grace. This race involves devotion (because we need to throw off everything that hinders), holiness (because we need to lay aside the sin so easily entangles) and perseverance. When we read these items the author of Hebrews puts forth in verse 1, we are compelled to bow the knee, and pray for help. How can we begin or continue the race for which we are so unfitted? Who will help us? To whom shall we go? All these very naturally introduces us to verse 2.”

Now verse 2 says, "fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." 

There are many things in this verse. But I would like to consider just two things.

First, "fixing our eyes on Jesus." KJV renders it "looking unto Jesus." Again Spurgeon said, "The Greek word for 'looking' is a much fuller word than we can find in the English language. It has a preposition in it which means to turn the look away from everything else." Indeed, the Greek word rendered "looking" is "ap-horao." It is a compound word between "apo," which means "off" or "away," and "horao," which means "to stare at." So as Spurgeon observed, the author of Hebrews, is telling us to turn our look away from everything else and stare at Jesus." In fact, if we are looking at things in this world, we will lose all our hearts to run the race of faith. Only when we stare at Jesus, our hearts will be encouraged to the run the race of faith. 

There is one more thing to think about from the phrase "fixing our eyes on Jesus." Literally it says, "looking away from other things and looking into Jesus." Again Spurgeon wrote: "I want you to look at Jesus with so penetrating look that you can look into Jesus. Do not look at Jesus mere outwardly, but look into his heart." Indeed, looking at Jesus superficially will encourage no one to run the race of faith. But if we are touched by the heart of Jesus by looking into him, we will run the race of faith.

Second, Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Here the word "pioneer" is from the Greek word "archegos." This is also a compound word between "arche," which means "chief" and "ago," which means "to lead." Typical meanings of "archegos" are "a chief leader, pioneer, author, or prince." New NIV renders it "pioneer." But I wonder whether in the context "a chief leader" may be a suitable translation of "archegos" in Hebrew 12:2. I think this way because Hebrews Chapter 11 already listed many pioneers of faith. According to Chapter 11, Abel was the first named person who lived his life by faith, and many other pioneers of faith were mentioned in Chapter 11. So I feel that calling Jesus as the pioneer of faith seems not quite adequate here, and think that calling Jesus as "the chief leader of faith" seems a more proper translation here. 

In light of Psalm 19:4b-6a Jesus is "the champion of faith" or "the champion of the race of faith." Psalm 19:4b-6a say, "In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run its course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other." In this verses David is talking about the sun. He compares the rising sun to a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, then he compares the sun that makes a circuit from eastern end to western end to a champion rejoicing to run its course. The phrase "a champion rejoicing to run its course" reminds me Hebrews 12:1-2.

As I am, I am unfitted to the race of faith. So I ask divine grace which will enable me to continue in my race of faith. Not only so, I am encouraged even to pray that I may run the race of faith like a champion by looking away from all other things and looking into Jesus, who is the champion of the race of faith. 

One Word: Run with perseverance the race marked out for me.