Ecclesiology: Humble Service In The Body of Christ

Let’s do a brief exercise today. Find a person next to you preferably someone whom you seldom talk to. Spend two minutes each answering these questions:

What is one thing you can be thankful for in CDPC Puchong this morning? “I am very grateful to God this morning that though we are many, we are one body in Christ. It’s always enriching to worship together with brothers and sisters from diverse culture, language, nationality, age group and ethnicity.”  

Maybe today is your first time here. If you are our guest this morning, just share what is your first impression stepping into this place?

It’s great to see the church and especially children in Sunday School writing thank you notes to their teachers and to God for the blessings of being part of this community.

Humble Service in the Body of Christ

³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. ⁴ For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; ⁷ if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; ⁸ if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

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  Gospel Community Mission (Ecclesiology) - CDPC Puchong by Dave

CDPC Puchong was born on 21^st March, 2010. It’s easy to remember her birthday: 321.

She will turn 4 years old this coming Friday. Look at how fast our children have grown: Rosie, River, Andrew, Lee Yi, Yoong Zhen… They are about same age as this church.

4 years of worshipping and living together as a community in Christ…

4 years of sharing of our joys and sorrows, the ups and downs of life together.

4 years of serving Christ and building His church together.

Today I would like to look back on our journey so far and remember with you what God has done in our midst. We want to celebrate and give thanks for what His sovereign grace has wrought in this church. There is much to be grateful for. And it’s also a good time for us to look ahead to where we want to go in the year ahead. And there is much to look forward to… (We look forward to rejoicing with Yih Khai and Jessica as they tied the knots this coming Saturday) 

In the Scripture passage we read a moment ago, Paul is laying out what it means to live in light of the gospel. What are the practical implications of the good news? In earlier chapters, Paul wrote that we know of God as Creator, we perceive His power and moral law yet we exchanged His glory to worship lesser things. But instead of punishing us, God gives us a righteousness that comes not by observing the law, but through faith in Christ. Christ became an atoning sacrifice for our forgiveness. When we turn away from sin, we look outside of ourselves and we look to Christ who justifies us (He declares us as righteous). We look to Christ who sanctifies us, making us righteous through His Spirit and one day, He will return to bring us to glory. It’s all about Christ, not about how good we are.

In light of that good news, Paul says: By the grace God has given me as an apostle I say to every one of you: “Don’t have too high estimate of yourselves but rather think of yourself with sober judgment. Have an accurate, balanced and humble evaluation of who you are. But how? How do we have a sober judgment? Well, you do it by reference to the faith which God has distributed to each of you. It could mean that God gives different measure of faith to different people, and since it is God’s gift and not of our selves; there is no room for boasting or envy. But the phrase “in accordance with the faith God has given you”… may also mean that you have sober estimate of who you are only when measured by the faith… the gospel is the real yardstick of who we are… only by the cross, we can measure how deeply broken and sinful we are because God himself has to die to redeem us… and only by the cross, we can measure how deeply loved and treasured we are because God himself would die for such as us. Only through the cross, we see ourselves as we truly are… both saints and sinners at the same time.  

CDPC Puchong… what does that mean for us as a church? Coming to our fourth year as a church plant, it’s good to do a sober evaluation of how far we have come. We are who we are because of God’s gracious gift. So we can look back and give thanks. We can also accept our shortcomings with hope for change.

When you step into CDPC Puchong, you’d probably observe the sofa arrangements, a wonderful children’s library, storybooks and toys lying around and a feeding room. There’s a monthly kid’s talk. There’s a Sunday school and English language tuition ministry. There’s also a Rosie fan club. You’d hear children running around, making lots of noise. You get the feeling that this is a family-friendly place, don’t you?

Last year, we focused on building strong families (and healthy marriages). Every month, we watched a video together on “Sacred Parenting”. We learnt from Gary Thomas that God uses our children to shape and mold us to be more Christ-like. Parenting is not a distraction from following Jesus. It is the means of our spiritual formation and the instrument by which God shaped us to be a disciple. We had the chance to share what we learnt in small groups and pray for each other as a family. Huey Fern and Sook Yee also started a covenant group for couples to build strong Christ-centered marriages.

That’s how we lived out the letter ‘L’ in our SIMPLE DNA. These are not just words on our website. They are guiding values that are important to us.

The other DNA that we focused on last year was I – “Integrating faith and work”. If you hang around for some time, you’d notice that almost every week we have a unique conversation with various people on how their faith makes a difference in the marketplace. We pray for our sister or brother as they follow Jesus in a fallen world with very real challenges and temptations. We lay hands and send them out as a truth-telling journalist, as a student-witness in the campus, as a lecturer who doesn’t only lecture but be available his students and so on. Through sermons on how the gospel transforms culture, movies, politics and spirituality at work, we remind each other that Christ is Lord of every area of our human life - be it in the factory, classroom, home or office.

Each church has her unique character, strengths and weaknesses. And we are no different.  So over the years, you begin to sense these SIMPLE values begin to shape how we do things here in worship, at home or at work.

For “S” (Seek and Celebrate God), we are grateful for the unassuming, faithful excellence of our worship team. Their creative arrangements breathe new rhythm into old hymns and our PA team that ensures the sound system works and the sermon podcasts are available on the website. The ethos of our worship is a blend of old hymns and new choruses. Even though worship leaders have their own styles and personality, we seek to have one thing in common: Our worship tells a story. We want to tell the gospel by the way we worship. So as we worship week in week out, this liturgy… a pattern of adoration, repentance, assurance of forgiveness and dedicating ourselves to God’s purpose reshape our hearts and minds to pursue Him with all our hearts.  

For “M” (Making disciples), we are grateful for the opportunity to share Jesus and do a Bible study on the gospel of Mark with students from various parts of the world. We are grateful that Mandy could share the Christmas story with children from the library. We can also see how people are transformed and their discipleship deepen when they commit to one another and feel safe to share their lives with each other in a covenant group.

Last Monday, Uncle Lawrence (our sister Janet Tan’s father) went home to be with the Lord after a brave fight with cancer. Pastor Wong and other members of the church went to Penang to attend the funeral and mourn with her family. Even when he could not speak, Uncle Lawrence encouraged so many people including the doctors with his inspiring trust in Christ that overcomes fear of death. I could only wish that I could stare death in the face with similar confidence. Janet has shared with me how the community, especially her covenant group has been a source of courage and support during this time.

And that’s what church ought to be like. It’s not a social club. It’s not a multi level marketing company. Though we are many, we are one body in Christ. If our hand is hurt, the whole body shares the pain. Our eyes tear up, our mouth cries out, our face becomes contorted. We belong to one another.

Unfortunately I can’t tell you what a covenant group is like. You have to experience it for yourself. We are encouraged to see signs of growth, community life and leaders emerging from these small groups. But it’s not something that has permeated the entire church yet. Some of us still go through tough times in silence and alone. Others remain as an observer, rushing off right after the service. You may wonder if there’s more to church than this.

So let’s talk about other areas where we can improve. Last Sunday, Steven shared from his heart about how we could neglect prayer and relying on God’s strength in the midst of our busyness and activities. We could certainly be more intentional and effective in reaching out to others with the gospel. For ‘P’ (DNA for “Plant churches”), who is aware that there is a church plant being planned in KL? Various individuals like Ian, Micah and Pastor Wong are part of that conversation. But it doesn’t feel like something that we as a church have actively owned it through our prayers, financial support and growing/sending out leaders. Many of us are probably not even aware of it. So for that reason, I think we have yet to cultivate a missional church planting culture in our midst. It’s probably something that we should work towards over the next few years.

When it comes to “E” (Embrace Reformed theology), we have been committed to no-frills expository preaching from Scripture, aiming to be Christ-centered and letting the gospel shape every corner of life. That’s something we desire. But we could probably help each other improve in our preaching through mutual feedback and sharing best practices. Personally, I take it as a good sign if members are comfortable to invite non-Christian friends or eager to share sermon podcasts online because they know that church is always a scene of evangelism. People are confident to bring friends because no matter what Bible text we preach on, every message is ultimately pointing us to the gospel of Jesus and applied to people’s heart. We’re not there yet but that’s the goal we aim for.

That in a nutshell is where we have come so far. As we reflect and pray and look forward to the year ahead, we see the need to major in the major and minor in the minor. If we focus our time and energy on a few priorities like evangelism, discipleship/spiritual care and raising leaders, it would make a big impact on the church as a whole.

You may ask: How do we measure signs of growth in the church? How do we know if we are going in the right direction? What is our Key Performance Indicators (KPI)?

Sometimes you hear it said that “God requires faithfulness, not fruitfulness.” But the reality is that God requires both faithfulness and fruitfulness. When the seed of God’s word fell on good soil, it grew and produced fruit – some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold and some a hundred times. There is no category for unfruitful good soil.

The question is not whether you will bear fruit. The only question is: How much? What kind of fruit are we expecting?  If we make disciples, if we become disciples ourselves: What kind of growth are we seeking for? How do we measure spiritual growth?

When you look into the life of this church, our spiritual growth can and should show up in all sorts of ways. I think Romans 12 paints a beautiful picture of how that is going to look like. Scripture says: We have different gifts… We have different functions according to the grace God has given.

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You see, the church is like a body with different gifted members. The big idea is not to have ministry of a few, but to empower ministry of every member sitting on the pew. Speaking the gospel in people’s life and making disciples is not only the job of full time ministers. All of us play different roles as God’s people in loving, serving and building each other up, Sunday by Sunday. We all have a one-to-one ministry of the people, by the people and for the people of God. Each of us can be a disciple-maker in our own way.

If that’s your understanding of what the church is…if that’s your ecclesiology… As you step into church, your thinking will not be: “Where should I go for lunch after service? Bak kut teh in Klang or Kungfu steam fish in Puchong? Or will Wee Lern play my favorite worship songs this morning?” You won’t think like a consumer or a customer. Instead, we will pray as we come: “Lord, where should I sit this morning? Lord, please guide me this morning to someone who needs encouragement, whom I could show friendship and hospitality. Would you lead me to someone whom I could pray for and serve this morning?” I know of a sister who visited our church and on her very first visit, she sat next to our Indonesian sisters and translated the sermon to them in Bahasa… Nobody asked her to do it. She just intentionally sat next to them and humbly served.

If CDPC Puchong makes progress in this area, we would go a long way towards obeying Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations. If we make progress in this area, we would see signs of different members exercising their gifts in this way. So think of your own role in this journey together as we look at the spiritual gifts listed in Romans 12.

If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. None of us is divinely inspired like the prophet Elijah or the apostle Paul. None of us can tell the future infallibly. We cannot prophesy in that sense, but there is also a sense that prophecy in the early church refers to “telling forth something that God has spontaneously brought to mind that we would not otherwise have known”. And this must always be measured by what the Scriptures say. It cannot contradict God’s written word. For example, a friend recently had a mental picture of a house perching precariously on a rock, about to fall and then the word, "family" came. He sensed the Lord urging him to ask the person sitting next to him: “How is your wife today?” The person replied: Why you wanna know? So he shared that it seems that the Lord put that impression on his mind. And his friend goes: “Wah! So you can see one ah?” (bomoh with bamboo binoculars) and so he shares that his wife has left him recently. That opens up a chance for him to counsel this person.

There is also another sense in Revelations 19 that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Testifying about Jesus is also a kind of prophecy, forth-telling His truth. We see spiritual growth in CDPC when more people rise up and say: “David, I’ve enjoyed sharing the gospel with the students from overseas. I wonder if God is calling me… Or I love to invite my Omani friends to church, could the sermon address some of her apologetic questions and existential concerns? Instead of top-down programs and events, people spontaneously come up and say: “Pastor, I want to start an evangelistic Bible study with young people but I’m a little nervous. Would the church please pray?” 

If it is serving, then serve. Steven and Han Meng serve as deacons in managing the church’s finances and well-being of our church premises on top of spiritual care for the congregation. Constance and the Kopitiam team serve us today in preparing food and even the dish-washing because there is no water supply today. Sophea served us by baking a nice cake for the anniversary. They would need your help to serve in setting up the tables for Kopitiam after the service. I think we see signs of growth when members make personal and even career sacrifices so that they can serve others. For example, we hope to hear stories like: “Hey, did you know Tom turned down a promotion three times at Sunway College so that he could continue devoting himself in the college ministry?”

If it is teaching, then teach: We see signs of growth when parents intentionally disciple their children in the faith. That’s what Mandi and Sandy will help us do in the “Family Worship” covenant group. It’s encouraging to see people step up to be Sunday school teachers to teach and equip our kids in catechism, Bible study through songs, activities and crafts. It becomes ever more important to clearly teach and equip our young people, not just to entertain them. If our children who have grown up in church know more about how to sing “Kumbaya” or they get more excited about Justin Bieber or Katy Perry, than they do about Christ, the Scriptures or how to wrestle honestly with doubt, then we have a huge discipleship problem.

If it is to encourage, then give encouragement: We can measure growth when regular members sense a fresh sense of their responsibility in encouraging newer members. When after service, we gather for conversations and prayers that build up and encourage each other in our life struggles and problems. We begin to think: “Hmmm…Who is new to CDPC in the last 6 months? Do they hang around after church service? Maybe I should invite them to come over for lunch?” Like Steven said last week, the hour after service is a key window of opportunity when personal, one-to-one spiritual care and discipleship happens. If everybody rushes for the door after the benediction, we’re in trouble.

If it is giving, then give generously: We cannot measure growth by the size of our budget but sacrificial cheerful giving is a sign of discipleship. We hope to hear husbands and wives having this conversation even in times of rising costs: “Darling, the Lord has provided for our needs. We have enough to live by. Maybe we should plan how can we cut fifty ringgit from our monthly budget in order to support World vision?” In every revival, there are generous givers behind the scene who provide resource so others can proclaim the gospel. Behind the Great Awakening revival was a wealthy Lady Huntingdon… behind the first translation of the English Bible was funding from a businessman named Humphrey Monmouth… behind the ministry of Jesus were supporters like Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Suzanna… They were unsung heroes, visionary, risk-taking, and generous men and women who were active partners in great spiritual movements. They often chose to remain anonymous. CDPC Puchong has also been blessed financially by such gospel patrons… I could name some of them but I want to honor their decision to remain unknown.

If it is to lead, do it diligently: For a church to be healthy, we need godly and able leaders, elders, pastors and deacons. We need gospel-centered fathers and mothers to lead a family. Last year, we are so encouraged to see Doris and Victor leading our young people in the Christmas play and Sandy/Mandi leading the children library Christmas program. When we see more covenant group leaders being trained and stepping up to serve others, that’s a great sign of healthy spiritual growth.

 If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully: There are brothers and sisters in our midst who are in need. Some are being persecuted for their faith. Others are in need of support raising children with special needs or dealing with marriage issues. There are less privileged children who need education to escape the poverty cycle. We can see that the gift of joyful mercy happening in the English tuition ministry for the Enggang Flats kids. I think we can measure growth when we see more members share their time, energy and resources to show practical help cheerfully to each other.

So as we celebrate our fourth anniversary, we are reminded that because of Christ’s broken body and shed blood, we are now one in Him and we belong to each other. We have seen some signs of spiritual growth and unity in CDPC Puchong. So we give God all the glory. And we look forward to more growth and adventures ahead as we continue to humbly serve each other in the body of Christ. We need everyone to be on board.

It’s easy to see if we ourselves are following Jesus. The spiritual life we have will multiply, reproduce and bear fruit in making other disciples.  We will see that passion rub off on others. Others will catch the fire if we are on fire. 

Let us pray. 

Presbyterian Training Institute: Understand Other Faiths

  Worldview-Introduction DNA 2010 by Dave

  What Is Worldview? Why is it important? by Dave

  Worldview-Why Are We Here DNA 2010 by Dave

  Worldview-Who Are We by Dave

The Call To Discipleship

Do you remember these characters from the movies? Here’s Yoda training his padawan Luke Skywalker in the way of the Jedi… “Fear is the path to the dark side… Fear leads to anger… anger leads to hate… Hate leads to suffering. May the Force be with you”. On top right, Mr. Miyagi is father figure to the karate kid. He protects this young boy from a group of bullies and teaches him self defense through daily mundane activities like waxing a car and painting a fence. Wax on. Wax off.  And the last one is Master Shifu teaching Po the panda kungfu using food. A mentor/disciple relationship is a favorite theme in movies… It reflects our own longing to have someone guide and teach us as well as our desire to bring out the best in others.
I’d like to invite you to stand and find a partner. Someone you don’t usually speak to.

Question 1: In what ways, are you a disciple or student learning from someone else? If you are not yet a Christian, you can share: Is there a mentor figure in your life? What have you learnt from that person? If you are a Christian, maybe you can share how has someone discipled you and what you have learnt from this person?

Question 2: In what ways are you a discipler? How have you discipled someone else? How can you help someone grow as a follower of Jesus? Or how have you been a role model or teacher in some ways to someone else?

You can start like this: In what ways am I a disciple? In high school, there were two Sunday School teachers Sister Lai Kum and Sister Poh Yoke who loved Jesus and taught me to pray and to love the Bible. They gave me the first opportunity to stand behind a pulpit and preach to a group of teens in Cantonese. That was around Form 5 or Form 6. It was a horrible experience. I bored everyone to tears. But that was how I learn. Now it’s my turn to try and help young people in our church to read and understand the Bible and encourage them to serve too. Sometimes I still bore them to tears. That’s how I try to disciple someone else now.
OK please spend two minutes each person: Share with your partner in what ways are you a disciple and in what ways are you a discipler?

^“16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Debrief: How many of us have someone who has helped you grow as a Christian? How many people have actually made disciples? Which question is easier to answer? It seems that many of us find it easier to be a disciple than a discipler. As you share, I hope you realize how indebted we are to someone who took the time to disciple and how important it is that we do the same.

Let us turn to Matthew 28: 16-20 at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. The context is after Jesus has completed his ministry on earth, He was betrayed and crucified but raised to life again. He gathered His scattered disciples, encouraged them and sent them out on a mission: The Great Commission…

Imagine the disciples making the journey up the mountain to meet Jesus. It seems like only yesterday when all was despair. Their leader was arrested and killed. But here they were surprised by hope. Jesus has just risen from the grave. He has shown himself to be who he claimed to be – the Son of God. Like what we are doing this morning. A mixed group of followers… some see and worship Him. But some wrestle with doubt. But He didn’t reject any of them. He is big enough for our questions.

And He has defeated the powers of sin and the enemy. All authority in heaven and earth are now with Him. And how we the Malaysian church needs to see that? With all the provocations, Molotov cocktails and false accusations that we hear these few years, when we look at all the possible yet depressing scenarios of how the Allah issue will pan out, we need the confidence and assurance that above all authorities, Jesus is still on his throne. He is king of kings and lord of lords. He is in charge. Therefore… go and make disciples of all nations.

  Gospel Community Mission (Discipleship)

The first command in the Great Commission: Go make disciples. Every Christian knows it by heart. It’s in our SIMPLE DNA. But how many of us are actually, really making disciples in our churches today? I saw a funny Youtube message by Francis Chan this week called “How not to make disciples”. He says something like this: Have you played this game called “Simon says”? Simon says: Pat your head and you pat your head. You do it. Simon says. But it’s so weird that in church today, “Jesus says” is such a different game. When Jesus says something, you don’t have to do it. You just memorize it. You study it and discuss it. Jesus says: Go make disciples. But who are the people that we are discipling today? When I look behind me, is there anyone following? But of course, I memorized the Great Commission. I may even read it in Greek but do I do it? When was the last time I help someone be a disciple?

That’s not just a challenge for Puchong. It’s a challenge that churches around the world are wrestling with. As I talk to friends from various churches, I hear the same refrain: How can we follow Jesus and make disciples? It’s just not happening very much.

Why? There are many reasons but let’s talk about one. For the longest time, we function as if there were two categories of Christians. If you accepted Christ as your Saviour and say the sinner’s prayer, you were saved. You had Christ in your life. You would go to heaven when you died. You attend church, listen to sermon, sing songs, don’t smoke or drink. You are a respectable Christian. But if you were really serious about your faith, you would then commit yourself to spiritual disciplines, radically serve others. You would sacrifice comforts and do serious stuffs like reading the Bible regularly and actively lead others to Christ. If you were really serious about the Christian faith you would become a disciple. Mentoring others is a pastor’s job. Or a covenant group leader’s job. But disciples-making is an optional add-on for ordinary Christians. It’s only for those who are a bit over the top… You have an option.

But there’s something seriously wrong and unbiblical about this understanding. Jesus says: Go make disciples. It’s not optional. He didn’t say: “Go make converts. Or go make consumers. If they are interested, maybe they can move on to be my follower.” As a result of this, we have a kind of flabby, nominal, bare minimum, maintenance mode kind of Christianity where converts never graduate to be a disciple. (Rwanda) But you can’t have Jesus as Savior if he is not also your Lord. Your Master. Yes, we are saved by grace alone, and therefore we do not earn God’s favor through works. But that doesn’t mean that grace is cheap. It doesn’t mean that holiness is optional. It doesn’t mean that discipleship come easy. It takes effort, discipline, sacrifice, counting the cost. It takes dead-serious effort empowered by the Holy Spirit. At the heart of the Christian faith is our relationship with a Christ who says: Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the Gospel will save it. (Mark 8:34-35 NIV)

For some of us here, Jesus is calling you to give up all that you are in exchange for all that He is. You’ve been searching and seeking… but He has already come to seek for you and gave his life for you. And Jesus says: “Let go of what’s holding you and follow me. Learn from me. You can’t find life if you don’t lose it. If you lose a self-absorbed life, you find true life”.

For some of us here, whether you like it or not, you are already a disciple and discipler in some ways. If you really trust in Jesus, you would listen, obey and follow Him. The command to make disciples is not an optional upgrade.

But be careful… If we are a leader, we need to keep in mind that these are not OUR disciples. “Gabriel is my disciple, you cannot talk to him”. We become controlling and possessive. There is only one ultimate Master… one Teacher and that’s Jesus… But He chooses to involve us. So our role is to help people to follow Him by being a follower ourselves. Imitate me as I imitate Christ, Paul says. It takes humility to be a discipler and it takes humility to be a disciple. Your spiritual growth will be forever stunted if your attitude is like I don’t need to learn from anyone. I’m self-sufficient. It’s God and me – I don’t need anyone else. I have my sermon podcasts and books. But that’s not how discipleship works.

So what does the word “disciple” really mean? It basically means a learner, a student. Perhaps a better word is: an apprentice. An apprentice learns a skill, a trade from the master by practicing with him and observing him at work for years. There is close personal relationship.

And you can see this in how Jesus made disciples. He called His disciples so that they might be with Him, to be in a relationship with Him. He instructs them in the way of His kingdom (Sermon on the mount), He corrects and rebukes them when they messed up, He delegates responsibilities to them and sends them out two by two to preach the gospel, He trains them on what to do when they were rejected or when they were well received… then when they returned from their assignment, He debriefed them and rejoiced with them. When a disciple sinned and denied him 3 times, He restored him. He lived with them as they travel and serve people together.

Think about what it means if we are to follow Jesus’ way of making disciples. I’d rather not confront people when they sin. People will not like me very much and I want to be liked. But from Jesus, I realize that I need to create an atmosphere of open, honest feedback giving permission for others to speak the truth in love so that we could help each other grow in Christ.

Community: Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The second command in The Great Commision is to “baptize” – this act of being immersed in water signifies us dying to the old way of life and rising again in newness of life. There’s a new priority. It signifies that we give up sin and live in relationship with the Triune God (Father, Son and Spirit). At the heart of God is interpersonal relationship, mutual self giving in the Trinity. Through baptism, we are now incorporated, adopted and grafted into the family of Christ...  into the body of Christ… into the people of God… into the community of disciples. 

Jesus didn’t leave behind an empire or a monument or a book. He chose 12 disciples, invested His time in them and trained and equipped them. It’s no coincidence that he chose twelve persons. The King is reconstituting the people of God (the 12 tribes of Israel) around Himself… They learn the truth and live out the truth together in community. Stanley Hauerwas: God’s truth is credible to the world only when it sees a community shaped by the truth. If the gospel is to be heard, it must also be seen.

But the reverse is also true: You cannot have a community unless you go and reach out to people so that they also know Christ and be baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are a community that exists by mission, on mission and for mission. We exist for mission for the glory of God and good of the wider world. Not just a holy huddle for its own sake. 

So which is more important? Evangelism or discipleship? But that’s like asking whether the brain is more important than my heart to stay alive. Both tasks are actually one: “Making disciples”. If we grow better Christians they will be concerned about evangelism and disciple others. If we want to be effective in evangelism, we must also help people to grow in character to be more like Christ, fight sin and to serve others.

But there are a million distractions that draw me away from the mission to make disciples. My personal ambition. My desire to be liked and admired. I need a community (fellow travelers in this journey) to keep me focused on the mission. Stay on course. Stay on the mission, David.

You need a community where you can practice giving and receiving love, practice serving and being served by others. You need a community who can correct your blind spots and yet love you in the process. There can be no discipleship apart from relationship with the Trinity and this gathering, this community called the local church.

That’s why we have covenant groups. That’s why it’s key component to our discipleship in CDPC Puchong. There’s learning, Bible study and at the same time, you experience this personal modeling of the Christian faith… you have opportunities to serve and pray others… In principle, we would want everyone to participate and experience what a covenant group life is like. Some of us may feel not ready for that yet and that’s ok. But if you want to go deeper in your walk with God, this is where more meaningful relationship and discipleship happens. In a community.

Third command: Teaching them to obey all I have commanded you

You can’t make disciples by just sitting through a few class room teachings, homilies, lectures, sermon podcasts, take some exams and get a certificate of attendance. Don’t get me wrong. A new believer needs to know how to read the Bible, know basic beliefs of the faith and why they believe what they believe. We desperately need something like adult Sunday school, definitely (The Academy and PTI).

But if that’s all that we do, we miss out on Jesus’ way of teaching. That’s just not how Jesus made disciples. It lacks His focus on relational, hands-on, life-sharing, everyday ministry. Most of the lessons Jesus taught were over the course of ordinary life… at Lazarus’ funeral… at a wedding at Cana… while resting by a well… visiting a tax collector’s home… while traveling on a boat… Lives are changed through relationships. Through modeling a transformed life in everyday circumstances…  

Tyler Dirks… “Map of the world”… Spending time alone with wife… fetching son to school and pray… “Your car” (stewardship) naturally intentional… he would invite neighbors to Halloween gathering at home… planting a church… conversations with students… Teaching what it means to be a disciple.  

If you are a parent, you cannot escape from being a mentor and a discipler. Clearly you are called to disciple your child. And Yoong Zhen is my first responsibility.

Through parenting or a covenant group, we learn to be a spiritual friend… we learn to mentor a disciple. We learn to care, share and dare. It takes intentional effort. It’s time consuming. It’s not very efficient. You can’t mass produce disciples. You invest your life and love in people but you don’t know how they will turn out to be. There is no guarantee you won’t get a disciple like Judas. Making disciples requires transparency. People will come to know your strengths and weaknesses. You can’t maintain a mask of being someone who has it all together.

Why go through all these troubles? Because our goal is not just an informed person but a transformed person who can in turn make disciples. Because if we settle for anything less, we are just playing church and not making disciples. And the cost of non-discipleship is much greater than the cost of discipleship.

It’s not going to be easy, But Jesus promised: Surely I am with you always till the very end of the age. 

As we make “Evangelism. Pastoral care. Growing leaders” our priorities this year, you may think: Oh, the church is on a recruitment drive. We wanna get bigger by setting numerical targets, more programs, events and meetings. That’s not it. Actually, what we want to do is to go deeper… you can only make disciples if you are first a disciple. If we are disciples and care for others to also follow Jesus, then the question of growing bigger takes care of itself. We are more interested in sending disciples into the marketplace as salt and light to make disciples than having more sales targets and marketing gimmicks.

The church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning. Where there is no mission, there is no Church.  It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It will ignite other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out. A fire that does not burn is an oxymoron.

It’s easy to see if we ourselves are following Jesus. The life we have will multiply, reproduce and bear fruit in making other disciples.  We will see that passion rub off on others. Others will catch the fire if we are on fire.

If we make disciples, if we become disciples ourselves, how do we know if we are growing and progressing? What kind of growth are we seeking for? How do we measure growth? When you look into the life of this church, our spiritual growth can show up in all sorts of ways.

Last week, Jacob wrote a beautiful tribute to his mother who has passed away.  Members of the church have come to show support at the funeral. The tribute included an email from Valerie:  "Aunty you will be missed. You were my role model in life. You had given me the encouragement to face all the obstacles in my life. You had made me understand what the real meaning of suffering in life is (Romans 8:18). You have made me understand how important it is to have faith in God no matter what happens. Today because of your testimony I Know who I am in Christ and I know no matter how tough, God will always hold our hands and walk through with us. Thank you for being such a blessing to people around you"

When we look back at the end of a lifetime of discipleship, may we see many testimonies like this of how people come to know Christ more deeply because we step up to serve them. 

Joseph: Overcoming Sexual Temptations

Sexual temptations come easy these days. I’m sure they have always been around but with virtual dirty chats, porn downloads and livestreaming video feeds, they are much more accessible to more people, more discreet and so much more deadly, isn’t it? And it’s big business too. I came across an online dating website on Facebook recently. It has 21 million members and growing fast. Its niche market is for married people looking to hook up for sexual encounters. The tagline: “Life is short, Have an affair”.

 In the Scripture passage we read a moment ago, we read of a story about sexual temptation, a story of Joseph’s encounter with a desperate housewife. If we back up a little in the story, we read that Joseph was sold as a slave by his brothers for 20 pieces of silver. He ended up in a faraway land, in Egypt, where he worked for Potiphar the captain of Pharaoh’s guards. But God was with him and blessed all that he did. Whatever projects were assigned to him, they were on time, within budget and of such quality that his master was very impressed and put him in charge of everything except his food. We are told that God’s favour was on Joseph and that he was also a good looking young man. “Handsome in form and appearance,” we are told.

Unfortunately that worked to his disadvantage. Because Potiphar’s wife took a liking to him and she tried to seduce him. “Sleep with me,” she offered. She wanted a bit of fun and passion on the side. How bad can that be? But Joseph refused her flat. “Thanks but no thanks. Your husband put me in charge of everything but he didn’t ask me to take care of you. Because you are his wife. Not mine”. And he would be right because sleeping with Potiphar’s wife was never part of his job scope. It would be a breach of trust to his boss.

 But Joseph went beyond that: “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” You see, Joseph could have said, “I’ve been dealt a cruel hand by Fate. I didn’t deserve to be a slave here in Egypt so I deserve this little bit of pleasure.” Or he could have rationalized: “I’m so successful in my career now. My boss will never find out anyway. I’m in charge of everything now. I deserve this pleasure”. Both self-pity and pride would have added fuel to the fire of his temptation. But he saw this choice in a God-centered way. Before adultery is a sin against his boss or his desperate housewife, it’s first and foremost a sin against God himself.

An affair is a betrayal of trust, absolutely. But you cannot commit any sine without first committing the sin of betraying God’s trust, of violating his will, of deriving pleasure apart from Him who is the source of all happiness. And Joseph knew that – How can I sin against heaven? Favour with God and right communion with Him is much better than any sex he was offered. So he refused her not once, not twice… but day after day, as she doesn’t take no for an answer. But one day when nobody’s at home, she caught him by his garment and tried to seduce him again. So he quickly ran away and left his garment in her hand. As the saying goes, “Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned”. With the garment as evidence, she accused Joseph of trying to molest her and her husband got so angry that he kicked Joseph into prison for sexual misconduct. Poor Joseph, he was punished for a shameful crime he did not commit. He suffered for something he did not deserve.

But the Lord was again with him and showed him steadfast love so that he prospered in all that he did even in prison. In the bigger scheme of God’s plan, we can see why He is taking Joseph through this painful route. We can see a huge contrast between Joseph’s life of purity in Egypt and Judah’s sordid family affairs in Canaan (Genesis 38). There are major moral problems in Jacob’s family – his grandsons were marrying pagan Canaanites, they did such wickedness that God had to put them to death. Even Judah the firstborn solicited cult prostitutes. They were becoming like the corrupt culture around them instead of being a blessing to the nations. They are losing their covenant identity. But here in Egypt God is now moving and preserving Joseph’s life in purity, preparing him to be the instrument that will save his family not only from famine but from the spiritual corruption in Canaan that would have wiped out God’s covenant family. Because unlike Judah, Joseph kept his heart pure and God’s favour was with him every step of the way.

So that in the fullness of time, the family line would be preserved from which the Messiah Himself would come. For He too would be sold by his brothers for a few pieces of silver. He too would refuse the lust of the eyes, the flesh and the pride of life for the sake of His Father’s will. He would also be slandered and made to suffer for something He did not deserve. He too was punished for a sin he did not commit. Jesus says: If you look at a woman lustfully, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart. And all of us have fallen short on this score. He died a death on the cross that we deserve so that sexually corrupt and adulterers like you and I could be forgive
n. So that God’s favour and steadfast love could now rest on all who would trust and obey Him as Lord.

 When that happens, everything changes. There’s no room for self-pity because you are unconditionally and dearly loved by God. So much so that He died for you. It costs him everything. There’s no room for pride because all our success is a gift from God who prospered what our hands are working on. It’s His favour. That takes away the fuel that feeds the flame of lust. The problem is not that our desire is too strong. It’s too weak. We settle for far too little. When you embrace this costly love of God, when you see and savour Christ for all He is, you begin to experience the expulsive power of a greater affection, a greater desire that overcomes the lure of sexual temptations.

Picture source is from here

A Manifesto For Evangelism

Once upon a time, there was a village of fishermen who loved to fish. They gathered to form a fishing society with the vision to promote fishing all over the country. They published books on the benefits of fishing as a hobby and as a career. They organized seminars on the latest technology for boats, baits and fishing equipment. At these forums, they sang songs about the joys of fishing. They also hired experts to research on the migration patterns and breeding habits of various fishes. They were so busy with all these activities that there was no time left… to fish.

Until one fine day, a young girl actually decided to sail out to the ocean and cast a net into the waters. Lo and behold, she caught a huge load of fish. Instantly she became famous. She was invited to write a book about her adventures. She was asked to share her amazing experience at fishing conferences and travel the world to lobby for cross-cultural fishing. Of course, she too became so busy that she forgot… to fish…

This is a parable... Spend 2 minutes to discuss what this parable is about. When Jesus called his disciples, He said: Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.  This is a call for them be with Him, to give their lives to Him and bring people into His kingdom. It’s a call to evangelism… to make disciples of all peoples. And you can’t make disciples unless you are first a disciple. We find those fishermen funny but more often than not, we Christians can be a lot like them. We can attend trainings, read books and sing songs about evangelism so much so that the only thing we forgot to do is to evangelize. Really… how much of our personal life or even our church activities can really be intentionally evangelistic?  

Ouch… this is going to be a tough sermon this morning. Whenever the topic of evangelism crops up, I think a lot of us squirm with a sense of guilt… a sense of inadequacy… believe me, I know that feeling all too well. But there is hope because Jesus says come to me, follow me, learn from me, trust in me and I will make you fishers of men. There’s a promise. He will do it. He will make us fishers of men. But will we follow?

Romans 10:13-15

For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

  A Manifesto of Evangelism by Dave

CDPC Puchong: We are a SIMPLE church. We are committed to preaching through chunks of Scripture week in, week out to see how all of them point to our Savior the Lord Jesus. Our desire is for all of our lives (in the workplace, family and in the city) to be shaped by His truth, His grace and His justice. One of our key values is to make disciples of all people groups… ergo, City “Discipleship”. This year, we really want to focus on Making Disciples (through evangelism, pastoral care and growing leaders). That’s our top priority. Why? Because we want to be a gospel-centered church. Because if we don’t do that, then we are not living up to our name. And because “gospel”, “community” and “mission” are at the heart of the book of Romans.

As you may know, this month, we are continuing our exposition on Romans 9-11. We have journeyed through 8 chapters last year and it’s good to just back up a little bit and see where we are. What is the purpose of this letter? Well, Paul is writing because he plans to go and bring the gospel to Spain. And he plans to stop over at the church in Rome first for evangelism, for ministry and for mutual encouragement. So it’s like a mission newsletter – Paul needs some assistance to preach the gospel somewhere which no one has gone before. He needs the church’s support in prayer, help and perhaps finance. Mission is always a community project, a church project. Even an apostle doesn’t want to go it alone. But the church in Rome doesn’t know him personally so he wrote this epistle to introduce himself as an apostle to the Gentiles and what his gospel message is all about. He ended up writing up one of the most important and influential books of all time but it’s good to remember that he didn’t set out to write a theological textbook. Its core concern is missional. It’s a manifesto, a public declaration for evangelism.

And the other main purpose of writing the epistle relates to a problem faced by the church itself. It was culturally mixed with a Gentile majority and a Jewish minority. The controversy of whether obeying the law and circumcision as boundary markers that segregate you as a member of God’s people was unsettling the church. There were those who wanted to obey food laws and ceremonial regulations, and others who didn’t. Paul wanted to step in and say: The people of God are defined by faith in Christ alone. Your cultural, ethnic differences are transcended by Christ so you now stand united in the gospel of grace.

Guess what? That means gospel, mission and community are at the forefront of the epistle. David Chong didn’t come up with these brilliant ideas by himself, in case you are wondering. It’s not just a CDPC idea. It is a biblical priority. They are all central concerns in the book of Romans, and if you miss those things, you haven’t grasped it yet.

From the passage we read just now and the rest of Romans 9-11, we can see at least 3 things about

1)      The urgency of evangelism

2)      The hope of evangelism

3)      The purpose of evangelism

If you recall, the broad outline of Roman goes something like this imaginary chat. Paul says: “I am eager to preach the gospel. I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of salvation for everyone who believes (first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles).”  Why, Paul, who do they need to be saved? “Because God’s holy anger is revealed against all who suppress the truth in wickedness.” 

Well, how have they done that? “The Gentiles have suppressed the knowledge of God available to them in creation and the moral law written in their hearts. They are without excuse. The Jews have the revelation of God’s written law but they break the law. They cannot keep the law. So all of humanity have sinned and come short of God’s standards.”

What then is the solution? That’s why the gospel is so urgent. Why it’s so necessary.   

We need the righteousness of God that is given though faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. All who believe are declared righteous (not guilty) on the basis of what Christ has done on the cross. He redeemed us from sin. He turned away God’s holy anger through His sacrifice for us, on our behalf. Not by obeying the law, but by what Christ has done for us – His life, death and resurrection.

That’s why there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, bumiputra or non-bumiputra: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Saved from what? Our universal need is to be freed from the guilt of sin. From the controlling power of sin. From the condemnation of sin. Saved from God’s holy judgment. There is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, Indonesians, Malaysians, Egyptians and Americans. We are all sinners and we all need Christ for salvation. All nations (the entire human race) must hear the gospel. That’s the scope of evangelism: It’s world-embracing. Among us are young people who have traveled hundreds of miles, away from home and family, to be here in Malaysia precisely because of this urgency, this longing to see Christ lifted up, adored and treasured in hearts of peoples from every nation. A sister here told me of a Bible study she’s part of with a Mongolian, Mainland Chinese, Omani, American and Egyptian. Like United Nations. Wow, wouldn’t you like to be part of a Bible study like that? Isn’t that beautiful?

My heart’s desire for CDPC is that we become partners in the gospel with these young people and support them in any way we can. My heart’s desire is that we all catch a glimpse of Paul’s heart, his longing, his agony, his yearning for the salvation of people… “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel.”  (Romans 9) Of course, it is not possible for him to trade places with anyone… but he so loved his people so much, that if it were at all possible, he could wish that he was condemned in hell for the sake of his people, that they may know and enjoy Christ. Can we say the same thing for anyone who is spiritually lost? Paul can’t die for anyone’s sins, but Christ was cursed so we could be blessed. Christ was cut off from the Father so we may enter into His fellowship. There is only one Savior.

But Paul is reflecting His Master’s heart… he yearns for their salvation so much that he was ready to cursed for their sake. That’s the heart of carrying the cross. The only people for whom I have that kind of anguish and sorrow are for my own father and mother who are not yet believers. For them, yes, I could gladly and willingly wish if it were at all possible to trade places with them. But that’s nowhere near the kind of sorrow and love that Jesus and Paul had for the salvation of even their enemies. Those who rejected and opposed them… So our prayer this morning is that the Holy Spirit would melt our hearts and give us the same intensity, the same love and longing. That’s the heart of mission, the urgency of evangelism.

The hope of evangelism:

To call on Jesus’ name is to ask Him to save us according to who He is and what he has done. See, you are the one who must call on the name of the Lord. Nobody can do it for you. And everyone who calls on His name will be saved. There is no such thing as a person trusts and obeys the gospel but gets turned down by God. “Sorry, I know you decided to put your trust in Christ alone but so sorry, you are not one of the chosen ones.” It doesn’t work that way. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  

But the problem is: there are a million and one reasons why people would not want to call on His name. They are too busy. They are too obsessed with what the world has to offer. They are too self-satisfied with their own achievements. They thought it would cost them too much freedom. You know, if you have ever tried to share the gospel, there are just so many, many obstacles/excuses that people give for not coming to faith. What hope is there for us to bring our friends into our homes, into this church to listen to the gospel? It seems like a distant fantasy… Maybe in our hearts we have given up hope long ago so we have stopped even trying. What’s the use? What’s the point? I know that feeling…

But then again, that’s exactly how we once were, right? We too were once hardened in rebellion against God, we too were once too proud to acknowledge Him, we too were once substituting other gods instead of worshiping Him. We were too worldly. We were just like that. What hope did we have?

That’s why Paul says in Romans 9: “It does not, therefore, depend on your human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. He has mercy on whom he has mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” There is no hope unless and until God overcomes our rebellion by His love. There is no hope unless and until He opens up our blind eyes by the light of His word, and until the Holy Spirit melts our heart of stone and replace it with a heart beating with new life.

The only thing that prevents evangelism from being pointless is the sovereign grace of God… The only thing that gives you and I hope in pressing on with the gospel is the effectual call of the Holy Spirit. The only thing that keeps us going when all hope is lost is the assurance that God so sovereign that he can bring the most hardened sinner to faith… That’s the hope of evangelism that drove missionaries and evangelists to the ends of the world. That’s the hope that drives us (CDPC) to be salt and light in Puchong.

Back in those days, people do not have the Internet or television so important news from the king travel by means of a herald. The herald would run for many miles to the marketplace and announce the good news: Our king has returned to Jerusalem. He will restore the nation. You will all return from exile. So Paul quoted Isaiah: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace and salvation. The logic is simple there can be no salvation without calling on Christ, and no calling on him without faith, there is no believing in Him without hearing him, no hearing without the preaching of the gospel and no preaching without preachers sent. And so Christ sends you and I to be heralds of the gospel.

Now, what is the purpose or goal of evangelism? Evangelism is not an end in itself. Mission exists because worship does not. Evangelism gathers and unites us with the people of God, an inclusive community that transcends racial barriers… a family united in Christ of both Jews and Gentiles. In Romans 11 the picture is that of an olive tree where believing Gentiles like wild olives are grafted in and believing Jews are grafted back. We share the same history of faith that extends back to the promise to Abraham. We stand in solidarity with the persecuted people of God all over the world. The way we worship together, the way we serve each other and treat one another especially when we disagree and have theological differences should model the gospel of grace.

But the ultimate goal of evangelism is the glory of God! That’s why Paul ends chapter 11 with worship – “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen”. All that exists came from Him… He is the creator… all that we are and all that we have are sustained through Him… and why everything came into being and what is the reason for their being? The answer is: For Him and to him are all things. He is the source, the means and the goal of all things.

So we have seen the urgency of evangelism, the hope of evangelism and the goal of evangelism… You may wonder: How can we evangelize? What should we practically do?

Let me share this true story from Michael Ramsden, whom I met at a youth conference in Bali. He is an evangelist in Europe: 

Conversations over the course of normal, ordinary life that points the way to Christ … Sometimes we just plan a seed, other times we soften the soil. Sometimes we water the plant, other times we reap the harvest. It is God who makes it grow and bear fruit.

And I really have nothing more profound to say today than that.

Talk to the people you meet in church this morning… especially those whom you have never met before. Our guests who are here for the first time… The last thing you want to see when you bring a friend or student from Oman to church is to see her checking her Facebook alone at one corner while the rest of us were chatting among ourselves… Be welcoming, get to know people and where appropriate, pray for them… invite them over for lunch… Show them the hospitality of Christ… Serve them… Fetch them home, if necessary… Befriend the families who come to the library… Play and read story books to their children… It is holiday season with the Lunar New Year coming this Friday. A lot of us will balik kampong, visit relatives, friends, colleagues and open houses… Those are the contexts in which conversational evangelism can happen. 

Let’s not become fishermen who were so busy singing and talking about fishing that they have no time left to fish.

  

Gospel. Community. Mission.

New year, new beginnings. It's timely to start afresh in 2014 reflecting on our journey so far in 2013 as well our 2014 priorities. 

Last year, we have focused on Integration of Faith/Work (regular conversations/prayers/sermons on movies, culture, politics) and Loving Families (Sacred Parenting talks and open sharing on the challenges/opportunities for Christ-like growth in families, marriages). 

This year, we are ready to tackle another aspect of our SIMPLE DNA. M stands for "Make Disciples of all peoples". Nothing fancy. Back to basics. We are called to make disciples who follow and obey Jesus, not mere converts who signed a decision card. 

Every church needs to gather together around the gospel (community), grow together in the gospel (discipleship) and go together with the gospel (mission). 

How do we get there? We need a road map and some action plans. 

1) Pastoral Care: Church is so much more than just a few hours on Sunday. We want to be an authentic community that speaks the truth in love, comforts and cares for members who suffer, help each other to grow in Christ and fight sin in our own lives. For that, we encourage every member to be part of a small Covenant group where transparency, honest feedback and mutual help is possible. We need to train every believer to apply the Gospel in our personal life, families, parenting, work and church relationships. Especially when dealing with conflicts, suffering, depression and sin. All of us are broken people in need of the gospel. It's a dangerous illusion to think that we are in control of life. 
    
2) Outreach: Reaching our community with the gospel. How? We discern two areas where God is at work in CDPC Puchong to connect the gospel with the wider community i.e. The Children’s Library (families, play groups, books, story telling) and the Student Ministry (fun, friendships, evangelism, Bible study). 

3) Grow Leaders: To do the above, we need to intentionally equip, mentor and provide freedom for members to grow as servant leaders who will reach out and provide spiritual care to others. 


Gospel. Community. Mission. by Dave

The Gospel, The Reformation & The Reformed

For more details, check out Gospel Growth Fellowship

What Is The Bible? How Do We Know It Is God's Word?

Can I have a show of hands? How many of you here have read the entire Bible at least once? 

No matter what your view on Bible is, whether you have confidence and trust in it as being from God in any special way or not, I would like to encourage you to pick up a Bible and read through it with an open mind, with a critical mind at least once in your life. Even if you are Christian or not, the Bible has such a profound impact on the English language as literature (it’s the number one best seller of all time) and on human culture and civilization that some Bible knowledge is essential just to make your educational development more complete. If you do not have a copy, just google BibleGateway.com and you are ready to go.

Now, what is the Bible anyway? Is it historically reliable? Is it relevant for our lives today? These are the three questions I like to address today.

What’s the Bible?  

Here’s a trick question: How many books am I holding in my hand now? The answer is not one. Actually, the Bible is a collection of 66 books written by about various authors (kings, prophets, fishermen, poets, wise men, song writers, even a doctor named Luke), in three different languages (Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic). They were written over a period of approximately 1600 years (1500 BC until 100 AD). It has been translated into more than 2000 languages around the world in either complete or partial form. And the Bible contains many different styles of writing such as poetry, songs, stories, history, law, letters, proverbs and prophecy. To understand what they say, we need to read them in context of those styles.

Even though everything seems so different, the amazing thing is that the entire Bible tells one Big Story. In spite of all that diversity and complexity, there is an overarching unity of theme. Now some people think the Bible is a book of moral rules, to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. Well, there are some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should do. It’s about God and what He has done for you.

Other people think the Bible is a book about heroes of faith, showing good examples you should follow. There’s truth in that but people have been quite shocked when they find that these heroes in the Bible like Moses, Abraham, King David, Samson, Solomon, Peter and Paul are often not very good role models after all. All of them made some pretty horrible mistakes, sometimes on purpose. The fact is: they are all broken people (sinners) just like us and they are all signposts that point us beyond themselves, they show us the only one true Hero in this Story: His name is Jesus the Christ. By the way, Christ is not his last name. It’s His title – the King, the Anointed One, the Chosen One.

That’s why the Bible is divided into two parts: Old Testament written before the coming of Jesus and New Testament written after His life, death and resurrection. The Old Testament prepares and promises the coming of this perfect King. It gives people clues, hints and symbols about who He is, where and how He will come, what He will do and so on. The New Testament records eyewitness accounts, it reveals and explains to us what Jesus has taught and done in history about 2000 years ago. So Christ is prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. He is the main character in the story.  

For Christians, this unity in such diverse writings and fulfilled prophecies are not by random accident. The Bible itself claims to be inspired by God: “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus Himself says: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” God is the Author behind all the human authors.

Now, what is this Big Story that runs through the whole Bible? What’s the message?

Well, to summarize it briefly: you can think of it as a love story with 4 chapters. A story of how God loves His children and comes to rescue them… Right at the beginning (in the first book called Genesis), we are told that God made the whole universe and everything in it – the oceans and mountains, whales and lions, planets, quasars, atoms and human beings – the wonderful design of our bodies, nervous system and encoded DNA in every cell. We are created in God’s likeness with great worth and dignity – with special ability to think, feel and we can have a special relationship with God and with one another. Life is full of purpose, beauty and harmony when it works according to His original design.

Until the day when everything went terribly wrong. In Chapter 2: We decided to run our lives and seek happiness apart from God. We became self-centered, our desires turned inward. As a result, we seek our own good above others' and exploit the world out of greed and violence. But there is no happiness apart from God. Death, sorrow and sickness entered the world. The wonderful relationship with God, with each other and with nature itself was broken. Evil has corrupted our hearts.

But God loved the world too much to leave it that way so he came to our rescue. Chapter 3: At the heart of this Story is God coming to earth in the form of a human person – Jesus. Not because of how good, humble or smart we are. Jesus lived the perfect life that we should have lived. He died the sacrificial death that we should have died for our sins. He died an innocent death on the cross and came back to life again so that our relationship with God can be restored. Last chapter: Jesus will return one day and His kingdom will turn back all that is evil and heal all who suffer in the world. Every tear of sorrow will be wiped away from our eyes. Death shall be no more. In the meantime, Jesus invites all who follow Him to live in the way of His love, justice and grace.

 So that in a nutshell is the big Story in the Bible.

You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true. If the Bible is just about moral rules, it doesn’t matter if all this is just a fairy tale. Even myths can tell you to do good without being historically true. But the gospel or good news is not about what you do but what God has done. So it’s important that Jesus lived and died and rose again 2000 years ago.   

Which brings us to the next question: Is the Bible historically reliable? Did it really happen?

More than any other book, the Bible has been analyzed, criticized, dissected and defended by scholars, scientists, philosophers and historians for hundreds of years. So you can easily find arguments on both sides disproving and proving the Bible on Google and Youtube. And this will go on forever.

So first, let me just say something about the discipline of archaeology and history. We need to know that only a small part of ancient artifacts or documents survived the ravages of time, war and humid weather. And only a fraction of ancient sites were found and dug up for research. Some of them were never found. So the evidence that we now have are fragmentary, limited and partial in nature. They cannot finally prove or disprove the Bible because new findings may come.

So archaeology is valuable to tell us more about the historical context and background information of the Bible, but not to prove the Bible. And the absence of evidence is never proof that something did not happen. For example, for a long time, people doubted if King David and Pontius Pilate the person who sentenced Jesus to death ever existed because we cannot find the evidence: Ahh… this is just a myth. But with further research, documents and inscriptions have now been found to confirm that they both existed. Sometimes, we just have to be patient and wait for more evidence.

When it comes to the life of Jesus, we are lucky that quite a few ancient documents outside of the Bible (even by enemies of the Christian faith) provide details about him. Talmud (Jewish source): “On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged.”

Lucian (2^nd century, Greek writer): “The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.”

Tacitus (A.D. 55 - 117, Roman historian): “Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus…”

But the earliest and most complete historical source about Jesus’ life is the Gospels and other documents in the New Testament itself. The life and death of Jesus are historically verifiable, not an imaginary fairy tale. There were eye witness accounts. Faith is not blind, “take it or leave it”. Biblical faith is based on historical facts that can be checked.

Now, how do historians check whether an ancient document is reliable or not? Well, they ask these questions:

1) How many surviving copies of that ancient document do we have to compare and test? The more manuscripts we have, the easier it is to detect differences and check for any copying errors.

2) What is the time gap between the oldest surviving copies and the writing of the original? The closer to the original, the more confidence we have in the manuscripts.

First let us look at the statistics for non-biblical texts:

Caesar's The Gallic Wars has 10 surviving manuscripts with the earliest copy dating to 1,000 years after the original writing; Herodotus' History (8 manuscripts; 1,350 years elapsed) and Tacitus' Annals (20 manuscripts; 1,000 years). The best preserved of ancient non-biblical writings is Homer’s Iliad with about 650 surviving copies (500 years elapsed).                          

In comparison, there are more than 5,000 existing Greek manuscripts that contain all or part of the New Testament! They were was written from about A.D. 50 to A.D. 100. Two major manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus (A.D. 325) and Codex Sinaiticus (A.D. 350) date within 250 years of the time of composition. Most fascinating of all, the earliest fragment of a small portion of John’s Gospel dates about A.D. 120.

If skeptics dismiss the Bible as unreliable, then they must also throw out virtually everything we learn from ancient history. 

OK, so far we have seen how the New Testament is a basically reliable historical document but is it really God’s word? A lot of ancient documents can be historical but we don’t think that they are from God. How is it relevant to my life as revelation of God?

That’s a great question and we need to start with Jesus who is at the center of the Bible’s Big Story.

You see, Buddha did not claim to be God. Moses never said that he was Yahweh. The prophet of Islam Muhammad did not claim to be Allah. Yet Jesus said: He who has seen me has seen God the Father (John 14:9). From the Bible, we also discover that Jesus claims to have authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:5–7) and equal with God (John 5:18). He claims to be the Son of Man who will judge the world, rule over the nations and receive worship from all peoples (Matthew 26:63-65).

Someone who claims to be equal with God cannot be just another human teacher. He is either mad or bad or really, He is Lord of all.  

When some religious teachers said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. Show us a miracle to prove that you are from God,” Jesus answered, “Just as the prophet Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 28:38-40)

Three days after he was dead and buried in a grave, Jesus rose back to life and proved that His claims were true. The resurrection is a miracle, a sign that vindicates His claims to be true. All his disciples except Thomas had seen him alive. So Thomas said he would only believe if he could put his fingers on the nail wounds of Jesus’ hands and into his pierced side. So finally Jesus appeared and told him: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side.” 

Thomas cried out: “My Lord and my God!” and worshipped Jesus. Jesus accepted his worship: “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway.” (John 20)

Jesus conquered Death to prove His claims to be true. Therefore we trust and accept His teachings that the Bible is not only historically accurate but also God’s word for our lives. Therefore we receive the answers Jesus gave to the big questions: Where do we come from? Who are we? What is purpose of life? Where do we go after death? All these questions are relevant to our personal lives.

If the Bible is a reliable record of God's word, then it is essential that we take time to read and study it. It is sad indeed that many Christians can devote hours to their hobbies or studies but often give so little time to studying His written revelation. Many Christians have never read the whole Bible even once, despite coming to faith years ago. If you are not already in the process of studying the whole Bible, let me encourage you to do so.

Not only should we read the Bible, we must also live it. 'Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.' All of us are dying and it is the message of the Bible, that alone can give us hope and salvation.

As you read the Bible, don’t take it as just moral laws or religious rituals that teach you to be a better person. The purpose is not that you may impress God and earn your ticket to heaven by good deeds. The Bible shows you God’s holy standard is so high that you will never reach it on your own. It shows you what God has done in history – Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He doesn’t just show you the way. He is the way. You come to God through Him alone. He is your hope. If you turn away from living for yourself and trust in Jesus as the One who rescues you from your sin and as the King who now rules over your life, you can have a living relationship with God. Today.

He can cleanse you from all your guilt and sins. Then the Bible will be a joy and a fountain of wisdom to you. Because it always points you to Jesus, the God who became human and gave His life up to save you.