Church problems

Yesterday, there was like one of the worst sermons I have ever heard. The whole sermon was about Buddhism rather than Christianity. A friend of mine suggested writing a letter to complain about the preacher. He was a retired pastor from another church. I told her I think the sermon is bad, but I doubt if that's a useful or wise gesture.

Last night, I talked to another friend. Apparently, there was an attempt to complain our church's chief pastor to the deacon's board. It failed because the letter was written anonymously. The person who told me about this said she'll sign the letter if I write one. Honestly, I wanted to write one too.

We have ALL been very ANGRY about the state of our church and its problems for a long time. Last night, I was seriously considering doing that.

Today, I listened to a sermon given by one of the preachers who had left earlier this year. He preached this particular Bible passage to us last year in our fellowship.

This time, when I heard it, (of course there're lots of new examples, some bad ones from our church, though he did not mention the name of our church...) it's been enlightening to me.

It's about Joshua 5:13-15. Just before Joshua went ahead to Jericho.

The Fall of Jericho (NIV)

13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

14 "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?"

15 The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

When we serve God, we're serving God, not ourselves. We do things in God's way.

"Are you for us or for our enemies?"
"Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come."

We all worked for God. No one is God's enemy. We should seek God's way in doing this.

And we have to take off our sandals. When we took off our shoes at home, we stayed there, and do not planned to go off in our own way. The same thing when we submit to God. We submit to God and do things His way.

The problem now is whether he's doing things his own way (the pastor I mean), or is it God's way (however unfathomable that is)? And whether if complaining is the best way? Or is it just us doing things in our own way again? What if God is planning something behind all these?

Haha!! Thanks to God

I actually managed to be civil to a certain guy I disliked a LOT today. This MUST be God's work. I could never do that by myself.

If you don't know that guy, you are probably wondering why I need to thank God for that! If you know him, you know the extent of God's work.

A new call

A few days ago I was reminded of my work for God during a conversation with a friend. I can't see exactly where I'm going. (General direction, yes. Precisely, no. I've always felt a deep desire and call to serve God by teaching God's word. I've been working hard in this direction, e.g. studying, teaching for some time.)

A lesson again. Not to complain unless you expect God to answer.

Yesterday, a colleague of mine called me because of her wife's difficult labour. And he asked me to pray for her. He has been in a difficult time for a while. Afterwards, I met several group of my friends and talked about various subjects and various people. Oh no, I almost forgot, things started right after I left home, I ran into an old friend of mine who hasn't been to church (other than for weddings) in almost 10 years.

My eyes were opened. Suddenly all at once, not just my colleague, the needs of several people were revealed before me. As if a veil has been lifted. I saw so many things in one day. I knew I was called by God to help.

I have always knew my vocation was to serve believers, to make them know their God and their religion more. And experience the depth of Christianity. However, when I saw so many Christians in need of God IN ONE SINGLE DAY, I was really sad. Christians should be with God already. Why so many are still struggling?

I knelt down and prayed and cried last night. I asked God to grant me the wisdom to tell all these people what they need to know. And share with them all I have learnt from Him.

Now I know why God has put me at this point at this time. At least I think I know. Maybe more will be revealed later.

Trust

While I was preparing my teaching on Ruth last night, I was thinking more and more about the trust issue. (More detail here.) I realised my problem is not trusting God to give me what I want. And it seemed that it has come to this point again. I had this struggle like ten thousand times before, every time God wants to to relinquish something into His hands. Sometimes over the same issue. I just hated losing control and God wants that.

And I discover that just like forgiveness, trust is also a matter of constant practice. You can trust someone for a day. Then grab the reins back on the next.

And then there's the problem in what God gives you is very different from what you want. For Naomi, for instance, I think for her, she want her sons back. Yeah, now she got these "grandchildren" from Ruth. So what? (She is not EVEN related to her.) Naomi has not said a word on this.

How does she feel? When she looked at her "grandchildren", was she reminded of her sons? Is this one of the loud silences used? If only these are my true grand children? If only my son had not die? If only? Why? When we read the Bible as a kid, we would imagine a happy-ever-after ending, was it really like that?

Of course, we know. We have the benefit of hindsight. If her sons had not die, Ruth would not have married Boaz, and David would not have been born. The fate of two seemingly inconsequential widows was tightly interwined with history. They never would have known that during their lifetime.

I let go again.

I imagine I have to struggle all over with this later on again. That's me. God, thank you for your reminder.

Joshua 3:1-5 Sermon

Before entering Canaan, Israelites waited (v1) before crossing River Jordan. Then they needed to follow the Ark of Covenant. "Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But you need to keep a distance of about a thousand yards (900 metres) between you and the ark; do not go near it." (v4) "Joshua said, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you." (v5)

1. When we need to wait for God, we need to trust God. (An example: All the people were gathered in a church to pray for rain because of a drought, one girl sat there wearing a thick rain coat. People asked her if she was hot, why she wore such a coat. She said, "How can I get home dry when God answered our prayers and I don't have my coat?" How do you wait??)

2. We need to give some space in between. When we're following someone too closely, all we can see is someone else's back, and we will not be able to find the way again next time. And the Ark of Convenant represents God's will.

3. Consecrate yourself. It means we need to be devoted to God ONLY.

In summary, what does this mean?

Paul said the most important thing is faith, hope and love.

When we wait, we have faith in God doing the right thing. And when we're hoping for something, we do not have that thing yet. When you said, "I am yours only", it means that you love someone.

And then God will do amazing things among us.

For me, waiting is the most difficult part. I hate waiting. I always work very fast. Second most difficult part is devoting to God only. Too many distractions and temptations in the world. A very good reminder.

The Great Omission

A pastor mentioned this book in his church's website. Interesting title. If you're interested, you can read the article here, it's in Chinese though.

We, the "evangelicals", often place our emphasis on spreading the "Gospel". The most important thing in the world is to get someone to believe in Jesus. Then maybe getting that person to go to church, every week preferably (most of the time this is not possible). Then our job gets done.

Hey, a little reminder here, what's the Great Commission?? Matthew 28:19-20.

And what's the Great Omission then?? To teach people to observe all that Jesus taught us.

In order to obey Jesus' in His teachings, we need to pray, think, plan and act. All these through conscious acts. How often do we do this ourselves?? Not to mention teaching others to do this.

What is a good spiritual life??

Is it merely equal to a good "devotional time"? Feeling good every day??

Spiritual life includes everything in your LIFE. You need to apply your religious principles in your life in order to get a boost your spirituality.

I am so sad when you just devote like 15 mins of your time every day (maybe even less) and expect "feeling good" for 24 hours. Yep, "feeling good" is not the same with being close to God. I can feel miserable yet I know I'm very close to God.

Maybe I should blame all these on some of the modern Christianity teachings. Everyone was just told that they'll get peace and joy from God, while all the suffering parts were ignored.

It just makes me angry.

The paradox of praying

Praying in Christianity is a lot different from that of other religion. For Chinese people (I'm a Chinese), most of them prayed to their idols in order to get the things they desired.

For Christians, we sometimes tell God what we want, but in the end praying is more about putting yourself in God's hands and submitting to God's will. This is what I have learnt through years of praying. This is exactly what I'm experiencing recently.

Again from Tom Wright' book, here's a little excerpt on praying and meditation. He's talking about 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5.

" Here again is the paradox of Christian living: because the Lord is faithful and will guard us, therefore we pray that he will do so. This always sounds illogical to those who aren't engaged in it. Those who are will know that prayer has a power and sense which operate below and above logic. Our praying hearts, minds and lives are put at the disposal of the living Lord, who remains sovereign, but who also longs for our collaboration in his work of strengthening the church and guarding it from the evil. ... Go on focusing heart and mind on Jesus himself, Paul says, and as you meditate on his patience, and his strength under suffering, something of that patience will be given to you."

Tired of being "good"

People always say "helping people makes you happy." I doubt if it's always true. I was miserable a couple of days ago after helping others and unselfishly giving people what I had wanted...

I prayed to God and asked why it seemed that I was always denied the stuff I wanted either by Him or by myself (coz I am a Christian and I have always try to consider the Golden Rule for my every action.) How come I felt so bad, and I had to work so hard to be a good Christian??

Yesterday, as always, I read Tom Wright's book (I used it for my daily devotional material.) He's talking about 2 Thesslonians 2:13-17.

"All mature Christian thinking has this two-sided nature: God is powerful and will support you, therfore you need to stand firm and hold tight. We easily suppose that, if God is in control, we can relax; or that, if we have to struggle and work hard, it means that God isn't as powerful as we has thought. That misses the point. The way in which God's power is exercised is precisely through the love, the comfort and the teaching of the gospel, which don't work as it were automatically, without our conscious involvement, but which on the contrary stiffen our resolve and energize our flagging spirits. We see exactly the same balance when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.10 that he worked harder than the rest-- yet it was not him, but God's grace that was with him."

I was so touched by this immediate answer of my prayer.

Pistos ho Kalon

"The one who calls you is faithful." 1 Thessalonians 5:24

Someone wrote this on a card to N.T. Wright the day he was ordained. "It was and is a wonderful phrase."

It's not just about a vocation of ministry in church, it's also about our daily lives. In Thessalonians, one of the main themes is God calls us to be Holy. "To be Holy is hard work, but we believe it is God Himself... who enables us to get on and do it."

"Some Christians, emphasizing the boundless love of God and the doctrine of justification by faith apart from works, run the risk of underestimating the call to holiness, which Paul-- who is after all the great exponent of God's love and of free justification-- never did."

Well, this is exactly the problem I've seen for many years, but N.T. Wright put it in better English than I could, haha. I'm really sad when the church emphasized so much on "justification by faith. Not that it is not an important doctrine, but when people said you have to believe in this doctrine in order to be saved, it's just too... bad. Because of the Reformed tradition, I guess, Protestants always emphasize on this point.

For those of you who know me, you may have heard me saying this before. I don't believe you need to know that to be saved. ok, you can quote me on this and brand me as a heretic. =)

Seriously, I think many people doesn't know about this, for example, illiterate old people in China who simply trust God despite Cultural Revolution and everything... I don't think I'll say more on this.

Just that, I need to work even harder to be holy. Let's all work hard on this.

Thoughts on Sermon 8/10/06 (Matthew 22:36-40)

I love listening to the sermons of this particular preacher. He always quotes Jewish sources for stories/explanations. This time on explaining this particular passage (which was originally from Deuteronomy), he used some Jewish examples again. I'm paraphasing a bit, because I can't find the original quote (I don't know the name of the guy who said this), and this is translated from Cantonese in my memory... (Please tell me if you know who said this.)

A certain Jew wrote this before he died in a concentration camp during the Holocaust (after all his other family members has been killed), "God in anger, you wanted to destroy my faith, but you have failed. You have failed to destroy my belief in you, even with all the things you have done."

This is what I believe in. Like Romans 8:35-36. Nothing separates us from God.

I have always believed Christianity is about suffering, self-denial. Nowadays, "believing in Jesus" has been portrayed as the "solution for everything". Not that it isn't, but not in a "living happily ever after" kind of picture.

I am so sad when I heard the so-called "Gospel", when people are called to believe in Jesus so that you can get peace and joy, and NOT mentioning the cross-bearing life of discipleship. Christianity is NOT about what you can get. Like the preacher said today, Christ helps you change your personality, and with your changed personality you can face whatever crisis you encounter in your life.

Also, when you love God, you love other people. This is even more difficult. Love is not an emotion. What I'm trying to do is do whatever I want to be done to me. Not always succeeding.