The Hidden Season | Jon Koo

Hey there, you're listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray that the

word of God today will challenge, change and channel you into your God given

destiny. Now let's get started. We know in nature there is some spring,

summer, autumn, winter, four seasons. Right in Malaysia only two

seasons, and in life the many seasons, right. But I want to

talk about a season that is hidden. It's the season between the seasons.

There's a lot of seasoning today. There is a hidden season between all days,

in all our seasons in life. And this hidden season is something that

sometimes a lot of us don't take note off, but we encourage you to

pay attention to the hidden season that you're in. Some of you may be

in it right now, some of you may have been in it for a

long time or slightly coming out of it. Some of you are probably just

about to enter into a season that is hidden. And what I mean is

about this hidden season is a season of transition. The transitions between the natural

seasons are very obvious. Like from spring into summer, it gets hotter,

summer into autumn, the leaves turn brown. Autumn into winter, the leafs

turn, the leaves fall, and that snow right, Whereas here, once

we smell the haze, we know the hay season is here, and after

that we are going to pray for the rainy season. Right. But they

are the transitions that actually happen. And sometimes these transitions are very nuanced.

There's a lot of elements to it, and sometimes we may miss it,

and if we miss it, sometimes we might be stuck. And so there's

a scripture that kind of sums up and explains or best described this hidden season,

this season transition. So if you have your Bibles with you, you

can highlight this. Turn to the Book of Ezra, chapter three, verse

twelve to thirteen. I'm going to read from the ESV. And all the

people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation

of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and

levites and the hates of the father's houses, old men who had seen the

first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this

house being laid. Though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people

could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's

weeping. But the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was

heard far away. How does this explain the seasonal transition? In this passage,

the Israelites were going to rebuild the temple. The temple was destroyed and

they were in exile, so the old temple was destroyed, and the didn't

want to rebuild a new temple. But in this whole process, as they

were laying the foundations, the dimensions of the temple were the same as the

previous one, but because they were in exile, they didn't have as much

resources. They didn't have a lot of the materials. Also, whatever they

could get, and the King of Cyrus gave them the resources, but it

wasn't as the same as the previous house, which was the temple that Solomon

built. Solomon's temple was the most glorious temple of all right. It was

the most ornate. And so when they saw the foundation being laid, and

when they saw everything being set up, there were two loud cries, one

of joy and one of weeping. Now take note of some of these elements

here. The people that were laying the foundations was the new generations or Levites

and noblemen, Yeshua and zero Babel Yeshua is the head of the Levi's the

high priest Zero Babel was the nobleman. So you had you had the priesthood,

who were the worship team members, the pastors, the leaders of the

church and all that, and you have the noblemen, the businessman, the

the people in politics and in power, and they were coming together as one.

Now, the group of the Levites were twenty years old. Before that,

Levites were appointed at thirty years old, but David King, David brought

the h down to twenty. So we are seeing a new generation of builders,

priests, worship team members, leaders of the church, even noblemen you

know, coming together. By the same time, we also have in this

picture here multiple generations experiencing this transition. Now, the past few weeks,

past and Day has been talking about building this church. We are the church

the people. If you've been hearing the messaging, it's about us as generations

setting up. This is our fifth entering into our fifth month. Correct,

and in five months, almost five months, look at how far we've come.

But at the same time, look at how much further we need to

go. Right, this is not the building that we own, and who

knows how long we'll be here. We knew that we were going to move

from chatanting, you know, number seven, to come here. There was

one transition, and now we're in another transition. But beyond the building,

beyond the stage, beyond all the equipment, as we are building this church

together, as we see the generations come together, I begin to recognize that

we're in, we're gonna we're actually in a long season or transition. But

I'm not going to talk about just a corporate field of transition, because a

lot of times transition is felt personally. I think every one of us have

come from a place two generations, meaning you're still in transition yourself. Some

of you left your previous church. Some of you have been away from church

for a long time. Some of you come from different parts of the world

and have come back here. Some you are waiting for something that happened in

your life and not just about church. Some you're in between jobs. Some

of you have retired. Some of you are going to switch from from high

school to from from primary school to high school, high school to college and

union. There's going to be so many transitions. Some and for us,

we are in transition because we're gonna expect maybe number three right, Oh,

everybody, she's pregnant really, ah? Yes, And and so there's so

many things. Some of us have come up, come out from a breakup,

someone has lost a job maybe and come in transition between jobs. Some

us probably have been stuck in transition for the longest time, four years.

And so today I just hope that this message will encourage you and speak to

your hearts, and I pray that the world God will move you and open

up. Have you see that as an opportunity even in the season. So

of course I like to use different enalogies, and I find that there's one

analogy that I love to use with this, especially with this scripture, and

it's actually the life cycle of a butterfly. Now we know what a caterpillar

looks like, We know what a butterfly looks like because we know what a

cocoon looks like, But do we know what the inside of a cocoon looks

like? Not sure? Right, So transition feels like that it's not the

caterpillar face, it's not a butterfly face, because the butterfly face is the

face that we want to be in. That's where we want to come out

and spread our wings, you know, express ourselves and be free and turn

into the butterfly. But transition feels a lot of times like being in a

cocoonon this is the face, and when the when the caterpillar is getting ready

to turn into a butterfly, it goes into the cocoon face. And this

cocoon face can last up to three weeks. That is very interesting. I

discovered this as I was trying to understand this whole analogy. Do you know

that inside the cocoon, when the caterpillar begins to metamorph right, metamorphosis.

So, but caterpillar morphs into the cocoon phase, the caterpillar literally breaks down,

not has an emotional breakdown. The caterpillar's external structure begins to liquify.

It's interesting, right, So it liquifies, all right, and what remains

is actually the basic structure of the creature. And this basic structure carries the

code, the source code the DNA, and these are called imaginal discs.

Okay, say with me, imaginal discs. So I'll talk about that in

a bit. But it's very interesting. So now the caterpillar no longer looks

like a caterpillar, it doesn't look like a butterfly. When you do a

scan right, m I scan of the cocoon, what's inside is caterpillar soup

with probably you see veins like structures, and the only structure you probably see

is like a form of sort of like a head taax body and some organs,

but everything else. If you can't open the cocoon, what ooze us

out is the caterpillars guns. I don't know what you're gonna have for dinner

tonight, but I would suggest you can try some on day on day right.

But this is the most interesting part. The caterpillar has to surrender to

the process of transition. Caterpillar can't fight it. And we know the caterpillar

is just like that. It's like it doesn't do anything but eat and wait

for its turn to become a butterfly. A man of its sometimes might feel

like that. The way we're in this transition stag. We feel like we're

in a cocoon because there's nothing else we can do. We don't understand the

season. I like the caterpillar, sometimes we just have to surrender to the

process. Some of wors may take three weeks, three months, three years.

The issuelcs took forty years as they transition in the desert, wandering around,

and probably some almost have gone to that, but you know that there's

no choice in that sense. And I like to call this, and I

hope this doesn't trigger anybody, but think of it as an identity suicide,

not a physical suicide, but an identity suicide. The caterpillar's identity becomes nothing,

is indistinguishable. What remains are imaginal discs, So it's no longer a

caterpillar, it's not a butterfly. And for three weeks, the caterpillar doesn't

know what it is anymore. We cannot recognize it. Sometimes we cannot even

recognize the person we are in this season on transition. There is a sense

of meltdown in our identity that happens previous version of ourselves, letting go attachments

of attachment of our identity to our jobs, our ministry, locality where we

used to be, our functions, our roles, our finances, our money,

our ego, attachment to mindsets, personalities, and even theology. Maybe

some of us have our have maybe going through a deconstruction of our faith,

and that's because we are questioning everything that we kind of learned in church.

I went through that. So just very quickly going to share about this.

When I left my previous church, Glads Hidings. Right when I resigned as

pastor there, I literally went into a cocoon face. I did not contact

anybody. It was in a pandemic granted, so it was just me and

my family every single day. And once I resigned and had the last send

off service online, I didn't even show my face because it was all online.

They just show picture, you know, and made their announcement and then

that's it. So nobody saw me. Nobody saw my son because that year

he was about to be born. In fact, right, you guys are

the first people to see my son when we first joined generations because the people

that have that saw him recently have only seen him at this age. They've

never seen him as a baby or young toddler. So anyway, so what

what was interesting is I had attached my identity to my job, my ministry.

I was pastor. I kind of enjoyed being called pastor during that time

because you know, young young minister, right, you grew up in the

church. Are you walk your way up hierarchy? Right? I was the

youth pastor. Now you're the youth assistant youth pastor, campus pastor. And

then became the worship pastor. And I resigned as the worship pastor because after

worship pastor is like assistant, senior pastor or whatever. I mean, it's

that's that level ready, Right, So I got so used to being called

that attached to the title, to the ministry, to the job. And

when I resigned, right, I went into this existential crisis. I had

no idea who I was, even though at home I was still called baba,

I was still called honey, I was still called Oi. I had

three identities at home, but I could not detach from the whole pastoral thing.

It took me actually a year and a half to let allow God to

just shift my mindset. And this is very interesting, So there's a previous

version of myself. I did not just had to deal with the emotional,

psychological, spiritual detachment. I had to also detach from being the fat guy

in church. I was ninety six cages diagnosed with type two diabetes. I

was given like a long death sentence. Doctors say, you don't take medication,

you're gonna die young. I was huge and I was battling with so

many things. So so remember this that the last time people saw me,

right, I was really fat. I'm not fat shaming here. I'm just

giving you a picture that I was twice this size. I didn't wear glasses.

I did not have tattoos, usible tattoos. I had hidden tattoos because

I was very cautious. I did not dress this way. I was like

buttoned down shirt, slacks, you know, jeans, very straight kyla.

And the last the last time people saw me. The next time they saw

me was at a funeral. I remember it was at a friend's mom's funeral.

I had long hair, rainbow long hair. I dyed my hair and

I multiple colors rainbow long hair, ponytail. I had a goatee, and

I tried to grow whatever this chinaman can grow two years, right, I

could only grow this small little patch. I have visible tattoos. I dressed

in all black. I lost twenty other cage's in just that one year I

went to this funeral. Now people have not seen me right the woman they

saw me, they're like, and I wore glasses, Like, who's that?

You could see the confusion on their face, right, familiar but not

familiar the when they finally realized that's John or that's Pastor John. So after

the funeral procession that the whack some came up to talk to me x Worship

team members. This was their first question, see John, sorry, second

question. First first question was how are you hell? They know, see

how are you doing? Second question, what are you there? Caught me

by surprise that really I was taking so aback what I used. So I

shocked. I was done for a moment, like shots the kid, I

am what you see? I am this is what you see? Is what

you get? That was the only answer I could think of at the time.

Now I went and they couldn't. They couldn't, they couldn't understand it

like, oh okay, and they were. They were actually very mean in

the conversation. They started making fun of me. It was the our first

conversation I've ever had coming out of the pandemic, entering back into a community

I once recognized and people who I used to pastor. It hurt, actually

it hurts so deep because no one could recognize me and no one could care

for me anymore. That's why I felt at the time I went home,

I shared with my wife, and I said I don't want this anymore,

and so I broke even more. My identity began to be crushed and disintegree.

But that made me wake up to realize that I had every opportunity to

rebuild, reset, and allow the process to shape me. There might be

people who will have a previous version of who you are in your minds,

and there will always be people have not seen you, even for weeks or

months, even if they've seen you every other week, right they always have

a particular version of you. Please be encouraged that that does not define the

version of you right now, of who you're going to be. It does

not define who God has called you to be. Please remember that. And

so I also went through disconstruct deconstruction of my theology, my faith, everything

I once knew growing up in church. I was interested since I was nine

years old. I went in the Bible school, I was I was trained,

you know, had to. There was this way of doing ministry in

glad Tidings. It's very unique. There's no one, no one else.

I don't say that like it's a very proud way. I just say that

like there was. It was a weird experience coming out of here, I

just realized that we're and taught about theology, about God, about faith,

about prophecy, prophetic, you know, ministry, and all that worship in

a very interesting way. So that all broke down. So there was this

identity suicide was going on in me right and in this hidden season. This

isn't transition. Maybe many of you might feel this, And this is no

judgment, this is no shaming. Please don't take this the wrong way.

I'm just describing what I probably went through. Most of it a lot.

There was a lot of mental break down. I cried so much in the

silence. I made a lot of poor choices. I had a lot of

anger issues. I was let me be very honest and real here guys,

if you're okay with that. I was punching walls when I was so frustrated

because I couldn't find an answer or a footting or just to anchor my soul

because maybe not substance abuse, NOA, but I did. I did drink

a lot in the in the pandemication affected my health, and that's also that

also woke me up. I realized, oh okay, no, no,

cannot cannot it a confusion I was fearful. I didn't take prescription medication.

Of course that was good, but sleepless nights loneliness. It was the loneliest

season of my life because I had no one else. I lost all my

community, all my friends. Now I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm not

I'm not even saying, you know, whatever you're going through, there's this

judgment upon you. I'm just saying I get it. I totally get it.

It's okay. So if we're in this transition phase, we may not

sound and look like saying. There will be people who dislike it, and

someone will celebrate it, like the people who are shouting for joy and the

people who are weeping when they saw the foundation being laid. Someone celebrate your

transformation. Some will celebrate the season of transition you're in, and some may

don't like it. And then my criticize and you know what, that's not

on you, it's on them. So it be hard to distinguish the emotions

and voices sometimes because there might be people who will say, what are you?

There might be people who say I don't I don't like you anymore,

don't recognize you. I like the old you. Why because some of the

old you was the person that they could uli. The old you was a

person they could maniplate, and I had that. I had so many people

who spiritually abused me when I was in ministry. I'm just being very honest

and real right here that happens at times, and not saying that that.

You know, you should be be very jaded of church. You know that

they're all all pastes are not good. IM not saying that there are people

who display such behavior and all I can say is God is going to deal

with them. But you know, in this season transition, if you're feeling

confused, you're not sure, go back to the voice of God his word,

because this is not your final form yet. If this is not your

final form yet, then what is your final form? So remember I talked

about imaginal discs. Imaginal this is like a sect like epithelial structure found inside

the lava of insects that undergo metamorphosis. Once the lava turns into a pupa,

almost all the lava tissues degenerate and the imaginal discs turned into external structures.

Right Like I said, it carries the source code the DNA for the

new being, and so let's go back to the scripture nixt like so in

next one. In the earlier passages, we read twelve to thirteen. The

early Passages, Verse two to three extra describes this. Then josodaics son of

son, Josodic's son, Yeah, sure, and his brothers got up along

with shirttails son. Zerebbel I mentioned them and his brothers. They built an

altar of the God of Israel in order to offer burn offerings as prescribed by

the law of most is the Man of God. Right, this is taken

from the International standard version. Even though they feared the people in the neighboring

regions, why because all of the people in the neighboring regions were Eagan worshippers.

Now Israel, they don't have a city, a temple. They were

vulnerable. They will exile, right, the neighboring nations could attack them,

wipe them out easily. And so this was a step of faith and courage

to build the altar. And it wasn't just a small altar. The auto

looked like that. Like the priests woke up the remp and offered burn offerings

there. This is the main altar of burn offerings. They rebuilt the altar

where it had stood before. Commenters commentaries say that they rebuilt the altars on

the ancient foundations, meaning the original location of the altar. Why am I

highlighting this because in this season transition, they did not build the temple first.

They built the altar first. This is the corporate decision. I want

to encourage you today as your personal season transition is to build your altar first.

It's not about the external, it's not about which church you decide to

go to. I want to say is that this could be a halfway house

for you. This could be a transitional church for you. We don't know.

Only God knows where he will place you. Right. But what's important

is that we build our altars first on the ancient foundations. That we don't

have an ancient foundation for ourselves right in our context, our ancient foundation are

our imaginal discs. Our faith is always anchored on a few things. You

may not understand a lot about theology. You may have been confused about it

or disillusion but one thing, the few things that remain is Jesus is lord

of our lives. God is sovereign, Amen, God is in control.

God's promises are yes, and amen, God will never fail you. God

will fight for you. We carry imaginal discs if I can say that we

carry the ancient foundations in our hearts, because when we accept the Christ as

a Lord and Savior, we came before the Cross of Christ. Every one

of us encountered the Cross of Christ. That is our heritage, our foundation

as believers. And so this is what they did in the early days of

worship. They had to offer a lot of sacrifices, right, but because

they could only do this, they couldn't build a temple. Yet they built

the only They only built one altar, and it was the main altar.

And this is what they did because they didn't have any other materials any other

time to do anything else. They did the essential, the essential to their

faith. Right next light, the burn offering is, if I were to

take the parallel of the New Testament, the burn offering is actually to remember

the sacrifice of Christ. Christ was the ultimate offering, the sacrifice for our

sins. Correct, the meat offering is actually a personal worship and act of

surrender. The act of offering meat is not that to feed God, God

doesn't need to eat, but our meat offering is our personal worship, our

daily surrendered to God in this season of transition, and the drink offering is

our communion with God. Have you seen in movies where sometimes friends, right,

they go on the last mission, they cheers, and then they pour

the drink and then they got a mission to fight, and like don't know

whether they're gonna live or die. Right, this is the same. It's

the same symbolism. As we offer a drink orfering, right, we're saying

God, I'm with you all the way. It's a drink offering unto the

Lord. Because we are we are proclaiming and recognizing our friendship with God.

Now we may not feel as though we are near God. Maybe in this

season a transition we are. It's dark. We don't understand it, like

God, are you near? Are you here? Are you even? God?

Or if we stick to the essentials, we just say, God,

you have called me your friend because I have been faithful in the past.

Maybe I've done something and I told you to God. No, in that

season, I say God, please remember me because the step I'm about to

take, I have no clue whether I'm going to be disobeient or not.

I have no clue what's going to be a hit. But all I ask

is this that my relationship with you is remembered for the days that I silked

you with all my heart and soul. Please remember me next like well,

maybe lonely and a vulnerable season. Your personal alter is what keeps you secure.

So this callar, say this, The ruined Jerusalem was better guarded by

that altar than if its fallen walls had been rebuilt. Let us think in

your altar keeps you secure. In God keeps you safe, keeps you protected

more than running to a building, a church, per se, more than

building everything else. Your personal altar before the Lord is what keeps you safer

in a time of war destruction than anything else. Why So again I talked

about the surrounding nations. They build their altar first. Right Once the nations,

the enemies of Israel, saw that the altered was being built, it

meant that Israel had turned back to God and in According to past records,

if anything, when God is for Israel, everybody else right will run in

fear. It struck fear in the hearts of nations. That's what the Bible

tells us when God fought for Israel. So when the neighboring nations saw the

altar was being built, Gigi super gg. No way they could attack your

read. That's why this guys said it better guarded by an altar. When

your altar before the lord is secure, the enemy can't touch you. Then

they would try to shake you in your seasonal transition, trying to confuse you,

try to throw things your way, try to tear you down. Can't

even cut open the cocoon to let your mush out because your alter keeps you

secure. Next, like, there cannot be a temple without an altar,

but that may be an altar without a temple. God meets men at a

place of sacrifice, even though there may be no house for his name.

You know how much God loves you and I even if he doesn't have a

house, if you have your altar before him, that's all he needs.

That's all he needs, And so I won't leave you with this whole feeling

of like, oh, transition or cocoon or identity disintegration, are feeling all

loneliness or pain because when the season of transition is over, the season to

become a butterfly happens, and that means that there is a new season in

store for you and I next night. Because no one puts new wine into

all wine skins or else, the new wine will burst the wine skins and

be spilt, and the wine skins will be ruined. But new wine must

be put into new wine skins, and both are preserve. And listen carefully.

I'm about to do a new thing. Now it will spring forth.

Will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in

the wilderness, rivers in the desert Isaiah forty three, verse nineteen. God

is going to do a new thing. Say new thing, tell yourself new

thing. And so what do we all want to crisis are firm foundation.

God will not fail you. God is doing something new, and you are

fearfully and wonderfully me. Thank you for listening to the Generation's Church podcast.

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