Sunday, 5th August 2018
Rev Daniel Poon
But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9)
What is the first question God asked human? Why did God ask this question? Of course God knew where Adam and Eve were! He created the garden and He knew His creations so well! But today God is asking us the same thing, “Where are you?”
God knows where we physically are, but is our heart really with us? We must also ask ourselves where we are? When we come to church, we worship God and listen to the sermon, but is our heart really focusing on God? When we are at work, is our heart really focusing on what we are doing? When we are at home with our family, is our heart really there? Or are we wondering around thinking about the past or about what to do next?
My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. (Psalm 31:15)
When David was persecuted by his enemy, he did not give up hope, because he knew who God is, and he knew God was on his side. Today, Rev Daniel is sharing with us the four core values of Kingdom Culture, because if we have these core values, then we can stand strong like David, even when the whole world denied us, we know who we are and where we are, we are God’s children and we’re in God’s hands.
1. GOD IS GOOD
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:8-11)
A lot of different religions talk about punishment, making people grow fear in their gods. But our God is different to all other gods. He is compassionate and gracious, He is slow to anger and has abundant love. God will teach us and correct our mistakes, but His love for us is the same. God is good.
When we know God is good, then we will be able to dream big. When we know God is good, we will know everything He prepares for us is good and the dreams He has given to us are the best dreams!
2. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)
The Son of God tells us, everything is possible. When we firmly believe in this, then we will not follow this world. We will not let the world tell us what to do, because in God everything is possible and we can dream big, take risks and do great things for God! We should not stay in our comfort zone, to be satisfied with what we have, who we are, or where we are at. We will become actively knocking on God’s door, we will be willing for God to come and partnership with us, to let the miracles happened, to let the impossible become possible!
God wants to promote us to become the lighthouse, He created us to be the salt and light of this world. Don’t let the world tell us what to do, but to tell the world what we want to do! Through God, nothing is impossible! Rev Daniel reminds us to be patient, to have faith and to continue to hold God’s hands, He will show us the miracles!
3. IT IS FINISHED!
“And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.” (Hebrews 10:18-19)
When Adam and Eve hid in the bush, of course they knew God can find them, they knew how powerful God is, but they didn’t know about God’s forgiveness. They only saw their own sins, but didn’t know about God’s goodness. Jesus Christ already came 2000 years ago and died for our sins. Yes we are sinners, yes we need to repent, but Jesus Christ’s blood has covered all our sins, and it is finished!
Enemy will lie to us, telling us we are not perfect, telling us that we are not good enough, and telling us that we cannot do anything well. The world will judge us, we will judge ourselves, but Jesus has already dealt with our sins! We don’t need to struggle in making ourselves a perfect person, we should develop our strengths to cover our weaknesses, not to focus on our weaknesses and think we are not good enough.
When we know that it is finished, we will trust in God. Proverbs 3:5 says, “trust in the Lord with all your heart.” Through Jesus’ blood, we can come to the most inner place and meet with God face to face.
4. WE ARE SIGNIFICANT!
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)
Jesus looks at us not as sinners, not as trouble makers, but as people with significance! We are important in God’s eyes and He has great plans for us, greater than what we can every imagined. We need to remember who we are and whose we are. Often we look at ourselves from the perspectives of the world. The Egyptians looked at Israelite as slaves, but God looked at them as His people! Just as Moses said on behalf of God to Pharaoh, “let my people go!”
Maybe today we feel like a failure, we feel defeated and we feel that our paths are closed ahead of us. But God is telling each one of us, we are significant, and we are born to serve God! If we are not worthy then why would God let us serve Him?
THE GREAT COMMISSION
God wants us to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. We were born to serve Him and to carry out the great commission.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)
We need to go out, we need to live a life of mission, wherever we go we should share the goodness of God. We should not be ashamed in the gospel, on the other hand we should honor God wherever we are, in our workplace, our family, our school and in our community. We were born to serve God, and we are here to carry our His Great Commission!