[Sermon notes / 설교노트 ]
Grass Withers, We Are Knit Together
Psalm 37:1-2 | 시편 37:1-2
풀은 시들고, 우리는 엮인다
Subtitle : Evil Unites to Fall. The Weak Unite to Stand
부재: : 악은 뭉쳐도 자멸하고, 연약한 우리는 함께 산다
1.Biblical scripture / 성경본문
(시편 137:1-2, NIV11)
“「1」 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. 「2」 There on the poplars we hung our harps,”
(시편 37:1-2, 새번역)
“「1」 악한 자들이 잘 된다고 해서 속상해하지 말며, 불의한 자들이 잘 산다고 해서 시새워하지 말아라. 「2」 그들은 풀처럼 빨리 시들고, 푸성귀처럼 사그라지고 만다.”
2. Live Notes / 설교 노트
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Sermon Manuscript
03/01/2026
Grass Withers, We Are Knit Together
Evil Unites to Fall. The Weak Unite to Stand.
Scripture: Psalm 37:1-2
「1」 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
「2」 There on the poplars we hung our harps,”
Key Sentence: "Evil communities unite through fear and hunger, only to destroy themselves. True communities survive — knit together through reverence and love directed toward God."
【Introduction】 The Dwarfs in the Stable
I want to begin today's message with a scene from the last book of The Chronicles of Narnia — The Last Battle.
Aslan has finally appeared. A true feast is spread out before everyone. Light floods the world. Rich food covers every table. And all around, great trees stand with their roots deep in the earth, together forming a forest.
But in the middle of it all — inside a stable — there are those who cannot eat. They are starving. They are the Dwarfs.
They sit in the darkness, chewing on rotting straw, smelling filth. Even when Aslan himself places food directly in front of them, they cannot taste it.
Why? And why won't they come out of the stable?
They have a motto.
"The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs."
They had been deceived too many times. In the name of religion. In the name of leaders. In the name of community. They had been used and betrayed.
So they made a firm decision: "Never again."
That decision locked the door of their hearts from the inside. And in doing so — just as today's Scripture describes — they became like grass that withers quickly, like a plant that is cut off from its roots.
And locked inside that door, in the very middle of a feast, they were starving.
This is the word we are sharing today.
"Evil communities unite through fear and hunger, only to destroy themselves. True communities survive — knit together through reverence and love directed toward God."
【C-1】 The Devil's Dilemma
"The dwarfs refused to be deceived — and lost the feast."
In the preface to The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis draws out an ancient dilemma the devil has always faced.
The devil wants two things from human beings at the same time.
First — to make them stop believing he exists, so he can quietly manipulate them without resistance.
Second — to make them feel his presence acutely, so he can dominate them through terror.
But he cannot have both at once. This is the devil's dilemma.
The dwarfs thought they had escaped deception. But in reality, they had fallen under a far more subtle power.
So what is the devil's best solution? Lewis called it the "Materialist Magician." A person who completely denies the existence of anything spiritual — yet is genuinely controlled by what they vaguely call "Forces." Someone who believes they are living rationally and independently, but is in reality excessively shaped by trends, algorithms, the opinions of others, salary figures, and performance metrics.
Isn't this our reality in Boston?
We don't believe in superstition. We don't practice magic.
But — every morning we unlock our phones to check the market. We compare ourselves to a colleague's latest LinkedIn update. We hit refresh to see if our paper has been cited again.
That is today's altar.
"The dwarfs refused to be deceived — and lost the feast. And today, in trying to be rational modern people, we are being ruled by a different kind of power."
【C-2】 The Reality of Evil Community
"They speak the name of God — but in reality, they control and consume people."
Evil communities are held together by two things: a common enemy and a common prey. Milton says it. Lewis says it. Evil unites to oppose God together, and to devour human beings together.
The disturbing thing is that they never abandon the name of God. They quote Scripture. They demand obedience. But the actual purpose of that obedience is one thing — domination and control.
And the fruit that grows in those communities is unmistakable: competition, discrimination, vanity, inferiority, exclusion, factionalism. People use each other to vent their hatred, release their frustration, and satisfy their selfishness.
Then, the moment the common enemy disappears — they turn on each other.
This is what Lewis said is the essence of hell: "I want to absorb you into myself." A community that unites only to self-destruct.
The Psalmist says: "Do not fret." The moment we look at an evil community's success with anger and envy, we are pulled into their self-destructive logic. They are grass. They are cut flowers — brilliant in the vase for a moment, but without roots. They will wither.
But here is what matters for us in Boston. What happens to those of us who have been wounded by evil communities?
We become like the dwarfs. We lock the door of our hearts. "I need to protect myself." And that instinct — that very thing we think is keeping us safe — is actually pushing us deeper into isolation. We build our own stable. We become our own prison.
"They unite only to self-destruct. And we — we cannot survive by enduring alone."
【C-3】 True Community — The Only Answer
"Evil community's fear is the terror of being consumed. True community's fear is the reverence of being unworthy of God's grace."
Many people in Boston refuse to put down deep roots here — because they know they will be leaving in a few years. So to avoid being hurt, they keep a careful distance from one another and avoid real connection. They live inside a stable they've built for themselves and named "Boston."
It's not the leaving itself that is the problem. It's the fear of leaving — that fear becomes the reason they refuse to be knit together at all. They build the stable before the wound even comes.
And I want to be honest with you. That stable is not just outside these walls. It is inside our homes, too.
Even in our community — fear and hunger are present. The devil works to create fractures through fear — between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between friends who have been together for years.
When economic pressure quietly dismantles a family. When a husband and wife wound each other and then show up to church the next Sunday as though nothing happened. When the children watch and absorb it all in silence —
I know that pain.
And into that home, the devil plants seeds of fear. "Nothing will ever change." "This person will never be different." "I'm the only one holding this together." That fear shuts mouths, locks doors, and isolates people from community.
Being a Christian family does not protect you from this. In fact, the thought — "We're a family of faith, we shouldn't have problems like this" — can deepen the isolation further.
The devil uses that shame.
Evil community's fear is the terror of being consumed, exploited, abandoned. That fear isolates people and turns them into prey for one another.
But inside a true community, there is a grace that is altogether different.
When the dread rises — "this person will never change" — true community does not suppress that fear. It brings it into the light. People genuinely turn toward one another and pray. And in that moment, when the despair of "I cannot save this family on my own" shatters at the foot of the cross —
Fear becomes reverence.
True community's fear is the fear of not responding adequately to God's grace. We call this reverence. And going further — true community carries a particular hunger. A longing to know God more. A hunger to love the person next to us. We call this love.
Lewis wrote: "Mathematically, four is twice two. But two is not twice one. Two is two thousand times one." Samson fought alone — and fell. Elijah collapsed in the wilderness, crying "I am the only one left." But William Wilberforce endured for twenty years — because he had the Clapham community. People who prayed together, fell together, and rose again together.
A single tree falls in the wind. But a forest holds — because its roots are intertwined.
We are a forest.
"Are you living right now in a stable you've built to avoid being deceived — or are you walking out into the feast where people are knit together?"
"Evil community's fear is the terror of being consumed. True community's fear is reverence toward God. True community is the only answer."
True community, the deeper it grows inward, the more it overflows outward. The fragrance of life that a real forest breathes out inevitably drifts beyond its own borders. So how does the fragrance of this true community flow out into the world?
【C-4】 Kingdom Outward — VIP
"When evil communities unite through competition, I will live a life of hospitality toward my VIP."
When we first open the door of our own stable — the stable of selfishness and fear — and step into the feast where people are truly knit together, our lives are fundamentally changed.
And now we become something the people still trembling inside their stables desperately need: a faint but unmistakable fragrance that seeps through the cracks.
The people around us who need Jesus — they don't realize how deeply they are shaped by trends, by the opinions of others, by algorithms. They believe they are living rationally. But in reality, they are ruled by anxiety.
We cannot explain this to them in words. But we can show it through our lives.
Instead of seeing a colleague's LinkedIn promotion and feeling the familiar dread of falling behind — being the first to leave a genuine congratulations.
Instead of spending thirty minutes refreshing to see if your citation count has gone up — spending those thirty minutes genuinely helping the researcher next to you work through stuck data.
Just as the fragrance of a real feast drifts into a dark stable and whispers to the dwarfs, "this darkness is not everything" — your comment, your thirty minutes, may be the only fragrance that pushes open someone's locked door.
A life that does not compete. A life that is not anxious. A life that extends hospitality even at a cost.
That life creates a question in the people around you.
"Why is this person different?"
That question opens the door to the gospel.
"It is not explanation but witness that creates the question — and it is the question that opens the door."
"Are you a Christian?"
But what if the ones giving off this fragrance are still living inside a stable themselves? That is exactly what we need to talk about now.
【C-5】 Kingdom Community
"The place where people courageously expose their weakness — that is true community."
A wounded person cannot open the door on their own. A hurting family cannot unlock their stable from the inside. Someone carrying old wounds is simply too afraid to speak first.
No matter how strong someone's faith appears. No matter how long someone has been walking with God. The devil still finds cracks — through fear.
"If you show your weakness, you will be judged." "If your family's problems become known, you will be ashamed."
That voice locks us each inside our own private stable. That is why courage is required. And that courage cannot be produced alone.
When a pastor's servanthood and prayer, and the Holy Spirit's healing work, create that space first — then even the most wounded person can find the courage to step forward.
That is the kind of church we are. Not a perfect church. But a community with a deep commitment to practicing and inhabiting the Kingdom of Heaven right here, right now.
Second Corinthians 1:3-4 says — God comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the same comfort we ourselves have received. Sanctification is not a personal development project. It is the process of becoming entangled in the pain of another person. The center of gravity shifts — from ourselves, to the person beside us.
We have known so many goodbyes. And in May, more will come. That is one of the particular griefs of this community.
But hear this. Our farewells are not simply the sadness of leaving and being left. We are no longer dwarfs who shut our hearts because we are afraid of the next goodbye.
The leaving that comes in May is not a tearing-up of roots. The roots we have grown into one another here in Boston will be transplanted — carried out into corners of the world where nothing has taken hold yet. And there, in that hard ground, they will become the seeds of another true community forest beginning to grow.
Our goodbyes are an eternal victory. They are a sending.
It is okay to be weak. It is okay to be wounded. Let us have courage. Let us be knit together. Let us live — together.
"The place where people courageously expose their weakness — that is true community. No matter how weak we are, we live together."
【Conclusion】 Once More — The Key Sentence
We have shared this word together today.
Evil communities unite through fear and hunger. But when their purpose is achieved, they turn on one another. They wither like grass.
The dwarfs starved in the very middle of a feast. The stable they built to protect themselves became the most certain prison of all.
But we are different. Weak as we are — like a forest whose roots are tangled together, holding on through drought — we are knit together, and we live.
"Evil communities unite through fear and hunger, only to destroy themselves. True communities survive — knit together through reverence and love directed toward God."
"Evil communities unite through fear and hunger, only to destroy themselves. True communities survive — knit together through reverence and love directed toward God."
This week, let us practice one thing.
"I prayed for you today."
Send that text to your VIP. That short message will be the first fragrance you breathe into the cracks of Boston's great stable. The walls of the stable will come down.
The feast is still spread before the dwarfs inside the stable.
Today, we walk out into it.
We close with one sentence of prayer.
"Lord, take back the heart I have wasted envying what will soon wither — and give me the courage to reach for the hand of the person beside me. Amen."
3. Week Notes / 주중 노트
WEEK Notes is a devotional journal for reflecting on God's word throughout the week.
WEEK Notes는 말씀을 한 주 동안 붙잡고 살아내기 위한 짧은 묵상 노트입니다.