Your intention matters before God

GMC Sermon Your Intention (79) 20th May, 2012

Written By Rev Law Hui Seng
Posted By Teresa Han

John 6:1-15
Objectives: a. To teach the congregation to come before Jesus with the right intention.

                    b. To teach the right intention (motive) will result in worship of God.

A. Introduction

- Do you still remember what I preach to you last year 29th May? It is about one year later, I now ask you this question. My sermon then was, ‘Can your life testify for Christ?’ based on John 5:31-47. Today, I am going to continue from there. I pray that every time I come back as your former pastor, I shall be able to preach and continue from where I stop. I pray that through the gospel of John, Jesus will transform you to be like Him.

- Let us see what Jesus has to offer you today. At the end of the day, I pray that you will at least remember one point that strikes you. And the next time I ask you the same question (what was my last sermon about?) again, because you have practised what has been preached, you will be able to tell me the answer.

- After reading and studying the great miracle of Jesus on feeding 5,000, I decide to focus on verse 15, “Jesus, knowing they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.” I used to focus my interpretation of this passage on the provision of God. This time, I notice something very special about the comment that John made about Jesus after feeding the 5,000. I begin to ask why John commented that ‘Jesus, knowing they intended…’ I discover the key word here is intention. Hence, I entitle my sermon, ‘Your intention.’

B. The Context of Intention

- John must have sensed the purpose of Jesus’ action for him to write a statement like that.

- It was such a great miracle that Jesus did, why did He not stay around to perform more miracles to convince people that He is the most powerful on earth? Why did He not prove that He was God who became a man right there?

- A great clue to the answer is found in verse 14, “After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

- These people whose stomach were full and amazed by the miracle of Jesus, they were familiar with Deuteronomy 18:15,18, they thought about Moses said about God raising prophet like Moses; and through Moses, God had provided food and water for the Israelites in the desert in the old days. This is how they see Jesus – a prophet who had come to provide for their food.

- Through the feeding of 5,000, Jesus is directing people to Him as the Son of Man who provide of eternal life. That is why He says in verses 26 and 27, “…I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do now work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

- Jesus claims Himself to be the Son of Man who offers eternal life but He read that these people only come for food and regarding Him as a prophet only. They want also to eventually make Him as a political who could save them from Roman ruler. It was a great honour, right? It was a position with great authority and power. If Jesus became a king, the whole race of Israelites and Jews would be at His command. Peoples’ surface interpretation of Jesus’ power in performing the feeding of 5,000 with 5 barley loaves and 2 small fish was mere prophet. They could not see how Jesus was offering eternal life.

- The interpretation of the miracle and the way they see Jesus were totally out of God’s plan for Jesus. Jesus knew their intention of coming to Him was all wrong. It is not in line with God’s intention/ mission for Him in this world.

- The original Greek word for knowing is ginosko; a few other versions of the Bible translated it as perceiving. NIV translates it as knowing their intention. In normal Greek, it means absolute knowledge.

- Jesus has the ability to discern the wrong intention, ginosko. When knowledge of the intention of people is wrong Jesus knows. Jesus did not buy into the prophet position and kingship though both these two bring great honour and status. He had the courage not to buy into it; not to say yes to it; not to identify with it; not to agree with it; to resist the wrong mission/ intention. I pray that you will have that Holy Spirit given courage also when you are tempted to do something that is not of God’s will. A lot of Christians do not ‘switch on’ this courage given by Holy Spirit when they are tempted and so they sin and suffer the consequences of it.

- How could Jesus resist such huge temptation of honour, status, position of power and authority? Of course it comes along with lots of money and all kinds of rewards being King and prophet.

- As a result of my meditation of the move of Jesus not to buy into kingship and prophet position, I strongly believe that Jesus holds on very tightly to His mission purpose on earth. What was He coming to the world for? Was it to become a political king as the Jews very much expected Him to be? So, what is His mission purpose on earth? To pay with His life, to die a sacrificial death, redeeming death, in exchange for penalty of our sin, that is eternal death and punishment in hell. He held it dear to His heart. He did not compromise on it. He did not allow earthly political kingship to distract Him. He was very focused on His mission on the cross. Actually, nowadays, we are faced with the same test. Regardless of what happens in life (sickness; disappointments in ministry and with people; discouragements experienced because there is lack of support from the church and from your own family members), can you still stick to; persevere to bring the message of the cross? Can you still focus on the cross; the crucified Christ?

- When your focus is the mission of the cross, then, you will be very strong, the spirit of Jesus (the Holy Spirit) will produce the great character of humility in you. Jesus focuses very much on the mission of the cross and therefore, He could humble Himself and resist the temptation of the kingship; instead, He chooses the path of suffering and death.

- I want to put it in a very simple manner, only if your focus in life is the mission of the cross or Jesus Himself or His teachings, then, you can humble yourself to do God’s will on earth. Now, let us apply these 2 points into our lives.

C. Application

- Brothers and sisters, with all conviction, I speak to you Jesus knows our every thought (this is always in my thinking), therefore, you do not think He does not know your intentions. I dare to say the same for non-Christians, He created them, of course, He knows their intentions also. Jesus who is living in your heart knows your ginosko. For this reason, I always practise honesty with Jesus, people and myself; for this reason, I always tell myself to be able to face Jesus who is God; be able to face people (my wife and 4 children, my loved ones and my relatives, my fellow pastors and SCAC top leaders, my neighbours, government servants, private sectors, top politicians both from Barisan National and Pakatan Rakyat, and everyone out there) – and I always learn to see them as Jesus sees them; they need God in their lives; and be able to face myself as I am own greatest enemy.

- Jesus knows whether your intentions is greedy or not, self-centred or not, lying or not, self-pity or not, pride or not, lustful or not, stubborn or not, love Him or not, serve Him or not, worship Him or not, love your wife or husband or children or not, take revenge or not, hate or not, angry or not, you witness or not, you do mission or not, you let Him down or not… Therefore, do not think that things you do in secret as long as people do not know, nobody knows; but Jesus knows will tell your husband, wife, children, parents, your colleagues, your bosses, your relatives…

- Here comes the most powerful application in your life and my life: If Jesus minds about your intention of doing things, then, He must be the master of our lives; your intention must be godly; based on the word of God; your intention must be submitted to Jesus; your intention must be right, only then, Jesus can bless you and empower you to do His will. Jesus wants to have a say about how you live your life every day (not just Sunday) with yourself, people and God.

- The first point of application, as Jesus knows your intention likes He knows the intention of the crowd to make Him as the King, your intention must pass His test. Why your intention matters so much to Jesus? Your intentions are very much coming from your heart and let us hear what Jesus has to say about the heart.

Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Matthew 5:28 “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Matthew 6:21 “For where treasure your is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 15:18.19 “But the things that come out of the mouth comes from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Matthew 22:37 “…Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

- This last verse is the greatest foundation stone of my intentions before; all my the practice of my loving God and man (including myself) hang on this verse. This verse guides my intention very much because if my intention is not loving Jesus, the Holy Spirit will tell me in a still small voice.

- The second point of application is this: Jesus will only bless the right and godly intention. Do you agree with me? Do you say amen to it? I strongly believe in it. When your intention is right, Jesus is with you to make sure your intention is carried out for His glory; He is with you’re and give you all the resources to materialize it. Therefore, whatever this church needs or you as individual disciple of Jesus need as your intention is to serve Christ’s purpose or the message of the cross, you can trust Jesus to provide. I experience this in my thesis writings. The books I need I get them in time; ideas just flow and flow; there are connections from ideas to ideas. God uses the church and His disciples to provide for our needs.

- A very important word for those of you who are doing mission as you make the sacrifice; leave your comfort zone to do mission both locally and overseas, mission is always a spiritual warfare. In the spiritual realm, the evil spirits are all the time trying to stop mission. Therefore, as your intention is to serve Jesus’ purpose; the message of the cross, you need to always go to Jesus for protection from accidents, diseases and attack of the devils. You need to be filled/ empowered to pray for the sick for healing; to ask Jesus for whatever you need in the mission field.

- The third point of application is this: as Jesus humbles Himself and let go of the kingship, you need to humble yourself to let go of all honour and status. If there are any conversions, transformation of lives and baptism as you serve in Sunday Schools, i-youth, BB and GB, young adults fellowship, small groups, discipleship course, visitation, LCEC, worship and music team, prayer ministry, prison ministry, outreach and in your personal evangelism and discipleship effort, by all means humble yourself to attribute all the success, breakthrough and growth to Jesus. He is the one and only who transforms life! We can give testimonies as instructed by Christ and give glory to Him. When you are able to focus on Christ and His humility, no matter who is the pastor here, you will serve well; who are in LCEC; who encourages you to serve and make disciples, you will do for Jesus.

- At the end of the day, through you and GMC, mission of Christ in making disciples continue.

D. Conclusion

- In my conclusion, I pray that you will not underestimate/ ignore/ push aside, what the word of says. That is when you serve Jesus with godly intention, whatever it may be, you have the divine power to overcome all challenges. The power which raises Jesus from death is available to you as by taught by Apostle Paul to the Ephesian Christians. You tell me what problems you have that Jesus cannot overcome. Do you have such faith to believe that Jesus gives you all you need to serve Him.

- As your intention is to serve Christ, I pray that Apostle Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:17-20 will be materialized in your life. I pray as Apostle Paul prayed that Jesus will give you spirit of wisdom, and revelation so that you may know Jesus better; I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know the hope in the rich glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe - the power which raises Jesus from death, to be available to you.

AMC Sermon What is Salvation? 

6th May, 2012 

Written by Rev Law Hui Seng

Posted by Teresa Han

Acts 16:25-40 Main Idea: Meanings of salvation Objectives:

a. To explain the meanings of salvation 

b. The change in life that salvation brings. 

c. To teach to use life circumstances to preach the gospel. 

 A. Introduction - Today we are dealing with a central doctrine of Christianity. A doctrine we cannot miss in our lives. It is one of the very fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Some of us can be very familiar with it and yet we may not fully appreciate the importance of it in our daily living. - To a non-Christian, the term or the concept may be a totally new idea to them. So, you need to explain to them its meaning and relevance for their lives. For the non-Christians, we are actually offering them a totally different worldview. When you talk to them about salvation, their response may be why do they need to be saved. To many of them, if they first hear about the word salvation, and you talk about Jesus saving them from their sins and gives them eternal life, they may be wondering what you are talking about because they are doing well in life; happy and satisfied with life. - They may ask what salvation is. - How do I arrive at the topic today? What is salvation? - It all starts with the jailer’s question of, “What must I do to be saved?” Have you ever asked the question? It was a most genuine question in the jailer context.

B. What must I do to be saved? - Let us take a close look at how the jailer arrives at the question. See the process involved. - Paul and Silas were jailed in the dark prison at Philippi for delivering a slave girl from spirit possession. It caused her owners to lose a lucrative income for she was no more capable of fortune telling. (If you are imprisoned in jail because of preaching to the Muslims, what do you do in jail?) - Before the great encounter of the jailer, we were told (verse 24) the jailer exercised his full authority to put them in the darkest inner jail (you can imagine without light; smelly, warm, stuffy and horrible atmosphere) and fasten Paul and Silas’ feet to the stocks. - Though the jailer was just following the order, he was harsh and cruel to them. Paul and Silas might have been badly injured by the attack of the crowd; and ordered to be beaten and flogged severely; and let us imagine they must be bleeding and experiencing exhaustion, feeling great pain, the jailer was so merciless, he still treated them like that! May be he was very proud to carry out the order also. And it was at night, he felt so secured that he went to sleep. In his mind it was possible for them to struggle and let loose the stocks and chains. - On the other hand, the spirit of Paul and Silas were not dampened (depressed) at all. Only the presence of the Spirit of Jesus and empowerment by Jesus could explain this behaviour of joy. (Can your faith in Jesus/ relationship with Jesus produce such calmness, peace and hope? We need to work towards this kind of faith. Especially when you are sick, so disappointed with people and your failures, can you still persevere with great trust in Jesus to bring you out of the bad circumstance. Or, you give out on Jesus totally) They must have caught the rest of the prisoners by a great surprise! In great injury and physically weak, they still had the spirit and mood, and the energy to pray and sing and the other prisoners listened to them in verse 25. - Either it was coincidence of an earthquake or it was a powerful genuine act of God that caused huge shake. All prison doors flew open and everybody’s chains came loose (verses 26). If you were Paul and Silas, what would you do? - The proud jailer was so depressed that he wanted to suicide ( verse 27). He had better killed himself, rather than been put to shame and executed for the escape of prisoners. In the case of Peter’s escape from the prison in Acts 12:19, Herod killed all the security guards who allowed Peter to escape. So, you can imagine the great stress, hopelessness and shame the jailer faced that caused him to be so depressed to suicide. - At that crucial moment, I believe the divine moment, where Paul and Silas, with all the opportunity to escape they could grasp, they decided to stay back to do evangelism. They ceased the divine moment to save the jailer and direct him to Jesus. (This is a great learning point for us in evangelism. Do you sense the divine moment that Jesus has provided for you in your life circumstances?) - They shouted to the jailer at the top of their voice so that in the midst of chaos, jailer could hear clearly and saved himself, “Don’t harm yourself, we are all here!” (verse 28) - I strongly believe that this daring move of Paul and Silas to stay behind was a step of faith; and it caused a paradigm shift/ a change in worldview for the jailer, and coming to know Jesus and be saved. - The jailer was so surprised to see Paul and Silas and other prisoners who were still around and not escape. He must have sensed that it was an act of God they stayed back. He must felt these 2 persons were truly sent by God. This explained why he fell trembling before them. May be by now, in his mind, he flushed back about what he heard in verse 17, when the girl who was spirit possessed who shouted crazily, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” - It was because of the deliverance of the girl that caused the duo to be imprisoned. Right at that moment, he must have linked all these events together, and he out of reverence towards the duo for saving his but also he truly believed in the message of the girl and also the gospel message spread by the duo, he asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (verse 20) - The duo gave what is the most needed by the world today, and it was recorded in verse 21, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.” Their preaching did not end there, this jailer must have ignored all the prison rules and brought the duo into his house and allowed them to explain further the word of the Lord (verse 32) and eventually it led to the baptism of the whole household (verse 33). Methodists use one of the many verses like this to support our argument that there were children in the family who were baptised by the duo. - It was the message of salvation that Paul and Silas preached that caused them to end up in jail. What is this salvation that is so precious that caused life transformation and change of worldview? - Take note of the change in attitude after the conversion of the jailer. The jailer was so daring to break prison rules to bring the duo home; the jailer treated their wound (verse 33); he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God (whole family); asked them to leave in peace. - But Paul, for the sake of well being of the fellow converts and believers in Philippi, he ‘jual mahal’, he brought the magistrates’ officer to the attention of their identity as Roman citizen which they were not supposed to beat without a trial. They wanted the authority to treat the future Christians according to law. They did not want to leave secretly but wanted an escort to show that things were done legally. Then, they proceeded to Lydia’s house.

C. Applications on the salvation 

(1) What is the salvation? Saved from what?

  - Most of us will give a standard answer of we are saved with eternal life. That means our soul will be saved in heaven with Jesus. This is evangelical right answer but it is a very simplistic answer that will not help us to commit to grow as disciple of Christ. Basically, the answer only tells us to wait on earth and live until we see Jesus and to be with Him. - That is why a lot Christians stop to grow into Christian maturity. We have no problem in accepting Jesus as saviour. We also believe that Jesus has forgiven our past, present and future sins. Some Christians as result can take the liberty to sin. May be he or she can end up even worse after accepting Christ. Some have this idea that since Jesus is always forgiving me and he has guaranteed me an eternal life, I have all the freedom to sin and ask for forgiveness. I am a married person, at my convenience, I can see prostitutes, practice one night stay, after all Jesus forgives my sin. I am a pastor and I know Jesus forgives my sin, I can take my liberty to tell lies to gain personal interests. I want to seriously ask myself has Christ saved me from the sin or the power of sin? Is Christ my saviour? - Brothers and sisters, we are saved from what? We are saved from sins that lead to the eternal destruction in hell. If we say that Jesus is my saviour or my salvation, it means also mean that Jesus has empowered us to overcome sins of all kind. That was what happened to the jailer, his life changed after he was saved. His attitude changed; his worldview changed. There must be some changes from sinfulness to holiness all the time, between now on earth and the day we Jesus. - An important point I want to preach to you today is you are saved from your sin. Yes, you may sin but Jesus who is your saviour will empower you to overcome your sin. You will love to repent and admit you are wrong; you feel sorrowful about your sin; you will hate sin; you are sensitive to sin; you want to distance yourself from any temptation to sin. - A rich man interviewed 3 prospective drivers. Which one you think he will employ. The first one says, “I have the best skill in the world, I can drive you to the cliff and I make sure the car is one meter away from the cliff and we will be in a safe position.” The second one wants to beat the first one, “I will drive you so near the cliff until the tyre is only one centimetre away from the cliff.” The third is most humble, he says, “I will make sure the car is as far away from the cliff as possible. I expose you to no danger.” At the end of the day, which driver will be employed? Of course, the third one. - If you claim you are saved from sin, this should be your attitude towards sin. You want to be as far away from it as possible.

(2) If one claims that he or she is saved, you must expect that that person is all the time desiring changes in his or her life towards Christ-likeness.

  - Every now and then, he or she may fall; he may be imperfect, but he or she will always become like Christ. - Following Christ is the goal and top priority in his or her life. Apostle Paul in 1Corinthians 11:1 exalted the Corinthians to follow his example, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” - Brothers and sisters, you have the whole life to do it. To help yourself on that journey, you need the word of God or teachings of Jesus to lead you.

 (3) As Paul and Silas grasped the divine moment in the jail to preach the gospel to the jailer and resulting his whole turning to Jesus and be saved, we need to sense the divine moment that Jesus provides for us in our daily circumstances for us to help people to come to know Jesus and be saved. - I just want suggest some divine moments for you to consider: when people experience emptiness in life (a good sign to watch is when they ask you what the meaning of life is); when someone is seriously sick; when people experience failures of all kinds; depressed people; people experience crisis in life (marriage, finance, etc)…  

D. Conclusion - Christianity is most powerful because of the saving power of Jesus over sin. However, if we as disciples of Him do not want to turn on that power; exercise that Jesus power within us, we need to ask ourselves, are we saved or not?

E. Small Group Discussion Questions 1. Discuss the meanings of salvation. 2. Discuss the some divine moments that Jesus may be calling you to share your testimonies (or preach the gospel or render help in any way you can) with others. 3. Share with one another what Jesus is doing in your life so much that you feel others can be encouraged by your sharing.