Hope Korean Presbyterian Church of Yakima

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Our Core Pastoral Value — A ministry that forms lives centered on the cross of Christ

The cross of our Lord is the only way by which a corrupt and unworthy sinner, who could never approach God, may come before Him; it is the sign of grace by which we are united with God. This grace was made possible through the death and resurrection of Christ, and it is the gift given to all who confess that they, as sinners, were united with Jesus and crucified with Him.

A true Christian, then, is one who not only believes and confesses that Christ's death is his own death, but who — as the apostle Paul said, "I die every day" (1 Corinthians 15:31) — in the concrete moments of daily life and in every situation that comes hour by hour, counts himself dead to the world and alive to God alone (Romans 6:11), and lives praying that the Father's will be done on this earth.

"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24)

Just as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness and told everyone bitten to look at it, so today we look upon the cross of our Lord, who said, "The Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him" (John 3:14-15). Believing and confessing His death as our own death — confessing that our own judgments of good and evil, and the desires and dreams born of the old self's cravings, have also died on His cross — the believer who lives, as the Lord's Prayer confesses, longing that God's perfect will from heaven be done in our lives today, whether in life or in death, is a Christian living in the grace of the cross.

Therefore the center of a Christian's faith and life, and the value of our ministry, is this: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). People who live for themselves, who live as if nothing exists beyond themselves, who live unaware of the heaven outside themselves — that they may hear the gospel of the cross of Christ, repent, receive forgiveness of sins, and live in obedience so that self dies and Christ fulfills God's will within them; that they may live dead to the earth and alive to heaven, pilgrims seated in heaven while living on earth, happy sojourners walking with the Lord — to serve and guide people into such a life is what we believe to be the core value of our ministry.