Sunday, 7th June 2015
Rev. Daniel Poon
“How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word” (Psalm 119:9).
Before going into his topic, Rev. Daniel shared with us an interesting story. There was a young boy, born in a Christian family, and received Biblical teaching since young age. But as he grew older, one day, he told his father that since he’s not a child anymore, he decided not to follow his father’s believe. His father asked why, and he said, “everyday I prayed and read the Bible, every week I go to church, but I have never felt anything, heard anything, or received anything from God.”
The father was very wise, he said to his son, “It’s your choice to believe in this faith or not, but before you decide, can you do me a favour?” The son agreed, and the father asked the son to fill water in a bucket and bring it back to him.
It seemed like an easy joy, but when the son started to fill water in the bucket he got from his father, he realised that the bucket had many cracks, and could never be filled. When the son brought back the empty bucket, the father asked him to do it again until the bucket was filled with water. The son waited for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 1 hour, 1 hour and 30 minutes… but the water kept flowing out from the holes and cracks. Finally the son ran out of patient, and told his father that it was impossible to fill the broken bucket with water.
“You felt it’s worthless to fill this old and broken bucket with water,” the father replied, “but you didn’t see how clean the bucket has become!”
Rev. Daniel reminded us that every time we read the Bible, do a prayer, or attend the church, God is doing the cleaning through His Words in our lives. We may not recognise it, but it’s already happening bit by bit. If we don’t have faith in God, then we will feel our lives are very hard. Our marriage, work, study, etc. will always face challenges and troubles. However what we don’t see is how God builds us up little by little each time we read His Words or pray to Him.
Church is so important to every individual, because in the world, we get competitions, but in church, we receive love and our faith will be built up in Christ. Jesus always loves us, and it’s us, who need to practice receiving His love. We call each other brothers and sisters in Christ, because we are telling each others that we are all members of this big family, living together by love. Love is to give first, not to wait for others to love us then we love back. Rev. Daniel reminded us that love is so powerful and it can change the world, just like how Jesus loves us and died for us.
Today, our lesson is not to see our failures, weakness, or troubles, but to recognise how clean our bucket has gradually become day by day, when we receive the Word of God!