Pastor Vincent - 4 June 2015
Doing Nothing, Yet Believing Everything
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Corinthians 1:17 NIV) In life, we are subjected to various circumstances and decision points that propel us to mobilize our human wits to do something, find something, or solve something right away. Our human nature always draws us to focus on the signs and outcomes of things, and thus it activates our big self easily, causing the big self to drive us. Yet, the big irony is, it's also this big self that hinder us from magnifying Christ, ie the biggest victory before we ever activate anything. When Christ sent His disciples to preach the gospel, those who were sent included people like Peter who was a mere fisherman, lowly educated he was. But God has a message for us -- a lot of times, we focus a lot on the outcomes eg whether one will believe in Christ, whether our family will be saved, can we fulfil our key performance indicators at work etc etc... But when Christ commissioned His people to preach the gospel, it's because the gospel itself is all that we ever need in evangelism, not our eloquence nor human wits. The gospel, in its inherent nature, has all its power to effect the outcome God has intended to bring on. But it's only when man looks upon God with a believing heart can he participate in the glorious fulfilment of God's work. As we continue on our pilgrim's journey, God wants us to do nothing out of our human nature, but believe in everything because we genuinely and sincerely hold onto God's promises. When we rest ourselves on the right platform (eg the unchanging promise of God), it will activate all our spiritual senses and propel us to live by faith.
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Battling Inferiority, Indifference, Lack of Zeal
In this fast-paced society and highly demanding era, we are trapped in a system, both knowingly and unknowingly. What is this system? At first thoughts, this system seems to sound like laws and institutions. Yet if we inquire further, this system is in fact a godless and man-centric mindset, which very quickly develops into a disbelieving culture. As believers of God, we can be easily immobilized by such a systemic culture. We involuntarily subscribe to a certain way of thinking in this system of ours, be it with regards to merits, successes, achievements, problem-solving skills, etc. Such a system hurts the human soul and makes it grow cold. Consider, what happens to the fallouts of this system? They are constantly battling with inferiority (about self), indifference (about life), and lack of zeal (to do what ought to be done). May God open our eyes to this reality so that we can be sensitive to the needs of this era, and with that, relate the Gospel powerfully and relevantly.
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