Preacher Huijun - 23 July 2015

Be Wise, Choose Christ

Mt 2:1-23 In our christian faith, do we often find ourselves sitting on the fence? While we do not reject Christ, do we truly accept Him? Do we truly seek Him for who He is instead of how we want Him to be? Do we truly yearn to have fellowship with Him in our spirit, and delight in knowing His heart for us today? If we’re to introspect our hearts today, we will often realise that our relationship with God is often contaminated by hypocrisy and selfish motives - sometimes, we subconsciously come to God for certain personal gains, not genuinely convinced that God has already prepared the best for His children, all He really want is our inner joy in Him first. There’re also many moments in our lives when we’re just contended with our outward worshipping of God (going to many church meetings, serving fervently out of our self-will) that our hearts start to turn numb towards the truth of God. We have grown to know the truth of God on the outside, without connecting it with our hearts and let it becomes the substance of our thinking, speech and living. We sometimes run into the danger of thinking the truth is not something we can do at this point of time, and want to test the threshold and wait a little more before we want to submit to God, and be led by Him. Familiarity breeds contempt. As time goes by, the indifferent spirit deepens and takes roots, giving the devil increasing foothold to work in our hearts to doubt the love of God, to belittle the promise of God, to give up on the fellowship with God and His people. Through the message shared today, may the truth once again shines upon our hearts and expose the indifferent spirit within us. When God exposes us this hidden channel of Satan’s work, it’s because He wants to protect us from turning to a King-Herod-like man who rejected Christ and became the slave to sin. He’s always working in our lives to carry His perfect will to completion, and He delights in us being in partnership with Him and enjoy the glory together with Him. Choose life by choosing to fight the indifferent spirit in our life, so that we can grow in genuine fellowship with God. When our strength seems to be running out in the fight, God being God He is, will add on strength and grace to continue fighting, for He is always on our side.

From Series: "Synoptic Gospels"

Gospel Series for EYF

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Prone to Stray; God to Save <Mt 18:10-14>

Every one of us is prone to stray from God. The pull of the world is ever so strong – things of the world, they prick at us, stir up our desires, our feelings of lack, unworthiness, discontentment, etc. Our own sinful inclinations are very real, so is the cunning work of the devil. All these made us turn our attention away from God to pursue something apart from Him. Even when God’s people have a genuine heart to follow God, the devil can also mislead them into false teachings or half-truths.
 
But the good news is, the Good Shepherd never gives up on His lost sheep. No matter how lost or weak His sheep is, the Greatest God cares for the least of His sheep. Every one matters to Him.
 
Through this familiar story, we realize that in our Christian journey, we take turns to be either the one straying sheep or 99 other staying sheep. God reveals His heart to both kinds of sheep. When we are weak, lost and powerless, God wants us to be assured that He will take the initiative to seek us back. Thus, we should find evidences of how God is constantly seeking for us. On the other hand, when we are following the Shepherd closely like the 99 sheep, we need to know that the Father is not willing for any of the little ones to perish. Hence, instead of looking down at the wandering sheep, we need to evangelise to them, build them up and disciple them. Indeed, even the 99 good sheep have the tendency to stray as well. However, if we are meaningfully occupied with God’s purpose, our hearts can be better guarded when we are mission-centered. God desires that we imitate Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Therefore, we need to reflect on how we can practically help the ‘straying sheep’ of God.

 



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