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Sermon notes (.pdf) sermon Acts 2_14-41
Having just finished the preaching series on the Gospel of Mark, everything from this book is still very fresh to me. Our FIG (Friday night International Group) is also studying Mark using the Swedish method led by Mike at the moment. Last week we studied the passages from ch. 9 “Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit”, one guy from the group said that the application for him was from v.24 “I believe; help my unbelief!” Isn’t it exciting?
It is also exciting to hear this whole book is being performed in many theaters by Max McLean, and the show has been welcomed by the secular press.
[Between two worlds] An interview with Max Mclean
The Gospel of Mark DVD from Amazon
Have you ever lacked for evangelistic materials – the bridge, two ways to live, christianity explained/ explored, or evangelism explosion? Have you ever been trained to use these tools?
On p.35, the challenge is “we have produced plenty of creative evangelistic materials, but little to help Christians connect their faith to the whole of life.”
Many churches often organize camps for evangelistic training every year – a set of program, very busy. But people are still having trouble for actually doing it, or ironically have no time to do it – too busy to do training – church service, prayer meetings, social at church, Alpha etc – these things occupy all our time. Haven’t we ever thought that the best places to present what we believe are work, school, college, sport, arts, leisure, rest? and the best way to present is to simply live out?
The vast majority of Christians have not been helped to see that who they are and what they do every day in schools, workplaces or clubs is significant to God, nor that the people they spend time with in those everyday contexts are the people God is calling them to pray for, bless and witness to. So we pray for our Sunday school teachers but not, for example, for schoolteachers workign 40 hours a week in schools among children and adults who on the whole don’t know Jesus. We pray for overseas missionaries but not for Christian electricians, builders, shop assistants and managers in our towns … We have simply not been envisioned, resourced and supported to share the Good News of Jesus in our everyday contexts.
How does this idea impact the way we pray each day or during Sunday service? What we pray for on Sundays usually reflects the way we do church, isn’t it true?
Also, there are things that prevent us to live out our faith, one of them is the ghetto mentality – “We think of church as the faithful few, backs against the wall.” Thinking positively, we need to see that in fact we are dispersed throughout the world. We are already infiltrating the kingdom of Satan.
“The challenge for us is to make the gospel the centre of our lives not just on Sunday mornings, but on Monday mornings” At this point, I just realized that this is actually a rebuke for my sermon preparation as well. It reminds me that the applications must be for people to take home for next morning use.
We need non-full-time leaders who can model whole-life, gospel-centred missional living. It means thinking of our work-places, homes and neighbourhoods as the location of mission. We need to plan and pray for gospel relationships.
This is the strategy of “Total Church”. And now the question is how to prepare myself and others to do this?
Microsoft’s REAL Vision of the Future from Gizmodo
Sermon notes (.pdf) sermon_Acts2
[20/05] – an additional note
Kevin pointed out to me this morning that in my sermon the way I called myself “evangelical deist” is confusing. What I really meant was that although I am not a deist (I don’t believe in deism as much as I believe in God’s omnipresence) in theory, I’m still operating like a deist in practice. This is the sin I must confess. I borrowed this title “evangelical deist” from John Woodbridge’s lecture at the SMBC preaching conference. He used this title to refer to those who are evangelicals yet operating like a deist in practice.
Deism doesn’t seem to be that popular today, however, its subtle influcence in our daily practice is still alive, even in churches today that take their stand on the Bible. We don’t say this out loud that God’s interference in people’s lives came to a halt sometime in the past (in the apostles’ time, or at the Reformation or the revivals, but surely before our time). However, “our meager prayer lives, our anxiety, our dependence on novel techniques in evangelism, our hope in techonolgy to solve spritual problem, our doubt that loving discipline can restore wandering brothers or sisters to repentance and reconciliation – all these testify to our unspoken assumption that God’s real action is in the past and in the future, but not in the present. We act as though Jesus wound up the church and then flung us out on our own when we say, ‘Our church cant’ grow in this neighborhood,’ or ‘I won’t apologize until she does – and sho won’t!’ or ‘He says he’s sorry, but he’ll do it again,” or ‘What will become of us?’” (Dennis E. Johnson The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption, P&R Publishing, 1997)
I have to say that God has spoken to me loudly through the mouths of the speakers at the Preaching Conference. There is much I can reflect on and here are three main things
3. Vision
I need to pray and think through and understand and commit to the essence of my ministry. Bryan Chapell’s famous FCF (Fallen Condition Focus) provides the answer.
Firstly, the people I serve are those who lack wholeness as a consequence of the fallen condition in which we live. Aspects of this fallenness that are reflected in our sinfulness and in our world’s brokenness prompt the instruction and construction from the Bible.
Paul says in Romans 15:4, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Our ministry is the ministry to give people HOPE by pointing to the Scriptures and God’s grace.
So our task is to identify the gracious means that God provides for us to deal with the human brokenness that deprives us of the full experience and expression of his glory.
As we help our people to face the reality of our brokenness, we also point out God’s gracious means to heal our brokenness. Our ministry is the process of filling up people with love for Jesus. And this should be the vision of our ministry.
Therefore, the motto of our ministry can be:
“To fill up people with love for Jesus”
I have to say that God has spoken to me loudly through the mouths of the speakers at the Preaching Conference. There is much I can reflect on and here are three main things
2. Believe God is bigger when I think & pray
John Woodbridge gave us a ‘birds eye’ view of the movements of the Great Awakening and Billy Graham crusade. The challenge to me is: do I have a gap between the theology I hold and what I actually believe? As he challenged us I have to confess that I am an “evangelical deist” – I believe too little of God, and am lacking in prayer. John reminded us that “we don’t get because we don’t ask”.
1857-58 Awakening started from grass-roots prayer meetings and multitudes were converted. Have I ever prayed that God would change the hearts of the people in Hurstville? Do I truly believe that people here need Jesus? These are fundamental questions, and I guess my answer for both is NO. That is why Woodbridge calls me an “evangelical deist” – I don’t really believe in my heart that God is at work here at Hurstville. He can and will break out the power of this age at Hurstville.
I have to say that God has spoken to me loudly through the mouths of the speakers at the Preaching Conference. There is much I can reflect on and here are three main things
1. Personal life
My Personal Salvation Kanishka Raffel’s talk on Hell makes me appreciate much more how God’s grace and love overflow into my sinful life. Kanishka was emotional during the talk and at the end of the talk, when we were all standing singing, tears just came out of my eyes. I was reminded of how much God has done for me so that I could stand there to praise Him.
Kanishka quoted from John Piper – “understanding of Hell deepens our appreciation of God, redemption and our present and eternal life.”
The nature of Hell is striking – “the horror of Hell is not its duration, but its separation.”
The significance of the Cross – “the cross is everything that makes Hell Hell, but is also what makes heaven possible.” “Without Hell we would not understand the cross. Without the cross we would not have love for God.”
I don’t really know how to articulate my feelings and thoughts. What I was before Christ gave me a taste of hell already. What I am now in Christ is a foretaste of eternal life. This talk on Hell just overwhelms me with how God’s love has filled me up with hope and joy.
My Daily Living Jerry Bridges called us to self-examine the “respectable” sins – pride, envy and jealousy. In these instances I need to realize that the ministry I have been given is totally by God’s grace. Two passages spoke very loudly to me – 1 Corinthians 15:9-10 and Ephesians 3:8. If Paul calls himself the least, there is nothing for me to boast about. It is a privilege to be where I am now and all God has given to me is given (I haven’t and will never earn anything). I need to remind myself everyday and believe in my heart this fact.
This week I found two testimonies about how they face death while they know/knew exactly when they would die – very moving and powerful. Two cases in one week, I wonder what God wants to teach me…
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed– in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:51-57)
(Canon 50D 08/05/09 1/30 f4.5 EF24-70mm at 55mm ISO400)
(Canon 50D 08/05/09 1/30 f4.5 EF24-70mm at 32mm ISO400)
Sora was able to come to our place by himself the first time last Friday since he got his driver’s license. It was great to see him again. I met Sora in 2004 and have been his friend since. He is from the people group called Oromo – the largest people group in Ethiopia and about 8 years ago he fled to Kenya due to the civic war and had spent three years in a UN refugee camp before his arrival to Australia. It is truly a miracle to see where Sora is now considering how he survived from the refugee camp.
