작성일 : 26-10-13 09:05
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10/11/2026 영어설교 sermon "In God Move His Heart" Ezra 1:1-11
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Sermon English / Austin Korean First Presbyterian Church / AKFPC
Gospel Message / October 11, 2026 / Rev. Dr. Yongjin Park
“In God Move His Heart” (Ezra 1:1-11)
May the grace and love of God be upon you who is listening to God’s voice today in this worship.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson officially proclaimed October 9, 2026, as “Hangeul Day” in the city to honor Korean heritage, language, and community contribution. Official recognition is to celebrate the history and cultural significant of Hanguel, the Korean alphabet, which was created by King Sejong the Great. Williamson County recognized it as well.
On 1989 UNESCO began UNESCO king Sejong literacy award giving yearly a group for literacy contribution through funding from Korea government.
On 1443 king Sejong of Chosun dynasty of Korea created an outstanding 28 alphabet, 17 consonants and 11 vowels, for common people not for elite to learn easily and to use conveniently to express their own thought and mind. But elites refused that letter keeping their power with communication skill. They monopolized literacy for their dominion.
So, for almost 500 years the alphabet has not been used officially in public, and it has been used within common people not in public.
But missionaries from US, Canada, Scotland found this wonderful alphabet to contain all sound from human voice and adopted Bible translation tool to Korean.
One of them was John Ross, a Scotland missionary translated at China Luke’s Gospel and John’s Gospel in 1882 and Matthew’s Gospel and Acts in 1887 by Korean first with some Korean young men who came from Yeujoo, Korea. This became the first Korean language Bible in history.
Appenzeller, a missionary of US established a school “Baejae Hakdang” in Seoul for Korean young men from elite families and a publisher in the school, “Three languages Publisher”, Sammoon Chulpansa, for publishing missionaries reports by English and Korean Bible and Chinses Bible. The charge person of it was Homer Hubert, a missionary from US and main contributor was George Johns who published many books about Korean cultures and history as “The Japanese Invasion”
There were many Korean young assistants as typesetter from students, and they were influenced from the missionaries work to let people know God and world. Joosikyung was one of them. He became a pioneer of establishing Korean alphabet and language grammar. He was a great linguist who designed Korean by adopting English excellent grammar system as word spacing, quotation marks.
He published many books as “Voice of Korean” “Korean Grammer” and he named this language as “Hanguel.” His colleges began to proclaim “Hanguel Day” then. Japanese government oppressed in occupation time on Korean language and scholars.
This year is the 100 the anniversary of Hanguel Day and 580 th anniversary of created Hangeul by King Sejong the great in 1443.
I remembered some part of the introduction of “Hunminjungeum” which was the proclamation of alphabet of king Sejong, learned in my high school class.
The first paragraph I remember is
“Because the language of our nation is different with Chinese so that common people of mine cannot express their own thoughts with much inconvenience. I created new alphabets for all of you, so, practice it and use it every day for your convenience and become comfortable life.”
Some missionaries said, God prepared this alphabet for His people through King Sejong long time ago. And after long sleep of 500 years later, this letter became wonderful tool to deliver gospel of God, and this alphabet became the best language for smart phone and AI era to fit with. God planed it and prepared for us to work for kingdom of God for salvation.
Today Bible let us know God’s another preparation for His people.
Let us read together Ezra 1:1-4,
“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing; “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem. And the people of any place where survivors may now be living are to provide him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.’”
On B.C. 586 temple of God in Jerusalem was corrupted by Babylon and a all people exiled from their home country to Babylon. After 70 years king Cyrus the Great proclaimed emancipation for people of Judah to go back their home country for rebuilding the temple of God in Jerusalem. The king permitted whoever wanted to go back and whatever they wanted to bring.
The Cyrus recognized the role of worshipper to God from people of Judah so that he sent them there to restart the worship toward God, that has stopped for long time.
Verse 5-6 say,
“Then the family heads of Judah and Bejamin, and the priests and Levites, everyone whose heart God had moved, prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with good and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.”
People of Judah responded to the order of the king. They left immediate to their home country for building worship and temple of God.
King Cyrus returned all items for worship when they left toward Jerusalem. And he added more treasures and properties on the people returning to begin worship again at temple of God.
Verse 7 say,
“Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god.”
King Cyrus helped proactively them to have worship God through all his power. This is different with the Pharaoh of Egypt in Exodus, which blocked proactively the work of God and received ten disasters from God when people of Hebrew left the Egypt with Moses.
But people of Israel forgot the grace of God after reaching the Promised Land. They refused God and did sins and worship idols before God in their history.
God sent many prophets to warn them, but they did not hear it. God gave up them as worshipper and their temple as worship place. God used Babylon to punish them, and they lost their nation and temple and be exiled for 70 years.
After repenting God gave them another opportunity to be worshipper again. God used Cyrus and they could build temple again and became worshipper before God.
Brothers and sisters in the Lord,
God has been working for salvation in human history. Anyone and any nation cannot avoid from the sovereign of Almighty God. God that we believe is love and righteous.
Let us follow His wonderful characteristics with love and just.
Moses confessed as this,
Exodus 34:6 say,
“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
David confessed as well as this,
Psalm 145:8 say,
“The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.”
We are the keeper to have love of God, and the witness to have confess for Lord of all creations, the worshipper to praise Him.
God used Ezra, Seshebasar, and Cyrus as He saved his people in the history. Paul was helped and protected by many officers of Roman empire while persecuting for gospel to deliver in his era. God sent them to help His servant work for God.
A husband has provided rides to his wife for church attending for several years and he became a believer later according to faith invitation. He was a diplomat and became ambassador to China. He has completed his job successfully through his faith to God. Many hard works were with him in his term of office, but he always prayed to God and worked for glory of God. So, God helped him always. He experienced many miracles in his faith journey. He confesses that God made everything. His name is Hajung Kim, was the secretary of Reunification of Korean government. He has served his church as elder to support pastor and congregation sincerely until retirement. His faith journey was successful as well because of trust to God.
Psalm 146:5 say,
“Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.”
God be with all of you, Amen.
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