Let’s do a brief exercise today. Find a person next to you
preferably someone whom you seldom talk to. Spend two minutes each answering
these questions:
What is one thing you can be thankful for in CDPC Puchong
this morning? “I am very grateful to God this morning that though we are many,
we are one body in Christ. It’s always enriching to worship together with
brothers and sisters from diverse culture, language, nationality, age group and
ethnicity.”
Maybe today is your first time here. If you are our guest
this morning, just share what is your first impression stepping into this
place?
It’s great to see the church and especially children in
Sunday School writing thank you notes to their teachers and to God for the
blessings of being part of this community.
Humble Service in the Body of Christ
3 For
by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more
highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in
accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For
just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all
have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form
one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We
have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is
prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if
it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if
it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is
giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CDPC Puchong was born on
She will turn 4 years old this coming Friday. Look at how
fast our children have grown: Rosie, River, Andrew, Lee Yi, Yoong Zhen… They
are about same age as this church.
4 years of worshipping and living together as a community in
Christ…
4 years of sharing of our joys and sorrows, the ups and
downs of life together.
4 years of serving Christ and building His church together.
Today I would like to look back on our journey so far and
remember with you what God has done in our midst. We want to celebrate and give
thanks for what His sovereign grace has wrought in this church. There is much
to be grateful for. And it’s also a good time for us to look ahead to where we
want to go in the year ahead. And there is much to look forward to… (We look forward to rejoicing with Yih Khai and Jessica as they tied the knots this coming Saturday)
In the Scripture passage we read a moment ago, Paul is
laying out what it means to live in light of the gospel. What are the practical
implications of the good news? In earlier chapters, Paul wrote that we know of God
as Creator, we perceive His power and moral law yet we exchanged His glory to
worship lesser things. But instead of punishing us, God gives us a
righteousness that comes not by observing the law, but through faith in Christ.
Christ became an atoning sacrifice for our forgiveness. When we turn away from sin,
we look outside of ourselves and we look to Christ who justifies us (He
declares us as righteous). We look to Christ who sanctifies us, making us
righteous through His Spirit and one day, He will return to bring us to glory.
It’s all about Christ, not about how good we are.
In light of that good news, Paul says: By the grace God has
given me as an apostle I say to every one of you: “Don’t
have too high estimate of yourselves but rather think of yourself with sober
judgment. Have an accurate, balanced and humble evaluation of who you are. But
how? How do we have a sober judgment? Well, you do it by reference to the faith
which God has distributed to each of you. It could mean that God gives
different measure of faith to different people, and since it is God’s gift and
not of our selves; there is no room for boasting or envy. But the phrase “in
accordance with the faith God has given you”… may also mean that you have sober
estimate of who you are only when measured by the faith… the gospel is the real
yardstick of who we are… only by the cross, we can measure how deeply broken
and sinful we are because God himself has to die to redeem us… and only by the
cross, we can measure how deeply loved and treasured we are because God himself
would die for such as us. Only through the cross, we see ourselves as we truly
are… both saints and sinners at the same time.
CDPC Puchong… what does that mean for us as a church? Coming
to our fourth year as a church plant, it’s good to do a sober evaluation of how
far we have come. We are who we are because of God’s gracious gift. So we can
look back and give thanks. We can also accept our shortcomings with hope for
change.
When you step into CDPC Puchong, you’d probably observe the
sofa arrangements, a wonderful children’s library, storybooks and toys lying
around and a feeding room. There’s a monthly kid’s talk. There’s a Sunday
school and English language tuition ministry. There’s also a Rosie fan club. You’d
hear children running around, making lots of noise. You get the feeling that
this is a family-friendly place, don’t you?
Last year, we focused on building
strong families (and healthy marriages). Every month, we watched a video together
on “Sacred Parenting”. We learnt from Gary Thomas that God uses our children to
shape and mold us to be more Christ-like. Parenting is not a distraction from
following Jesus. It is the means of our spiritual formation and the instrument
by which God shaped us to be a disciple. We had the chance to share what we
learnt in small groups and pray for each other as a family. Huey Fern and Sook
Yee also started a covenant group for couples to build strong Christ-centered
marriages.
That’s how we lived out the
letter ‘L’ in our SIMPLE DNA. These are not just words on our website. They are
guiding values that are important to us.
The other DNA that we focused
on last year was I – “Integrating faith and work”. If you hang around for some
time, you’d notice that almost every week we have a unique conversation with
various people on how their faith makes a difference in the marketplace. We
pray for our sister or brother as they follow Jesus in a fallen world with very
real challenges and temptations. We lay hands and send them out as a truth-telling
journalist, as a student-witness in the campus, as a lecturer who doesn’t only
lecture but be available his students and so on. Through sermons on how the
gospel transforms culture, movies, politics and spirituality at work, we remind
each other that Christ is Lord of every area of our human life - be it in the
factory, classroom, home or office.
Each church has her unique character, strengths and
weaknesses. And we are no different. So
over the years, you begin to sense these SIMPLE values begin to shape how we do
things here in worship, at home or at work.
For “S” (Seek and Celebrate God), we are grateful for the
unassuming, faithful excellence of our worship team. Their creative
arrangements breathe new rhythm into old hymns and our PA team that ensures the
sound system works and the sermon podcasts are available on the website. The
ethos of our worship is a blend of old hymns and new choruses. Even though
worship leaders have their own styles and personality, we seek to have one
thing in common: Our worship tells a story. We want to tell the gospel by the way
we worship. So as we worship week
in week out, this liturgy… a pattern of adoration, repentance, assurance of
forgiveness and dedicating ourselves to God’s purpose reshape our hearts and
minds to pursue Him with all our hearts.
For “M” (Making disciples), we are grateful for the
opportunity to share Jesus and do a Bible study on the gospel of Mark with
students from various parts of the world. We are grateful that Mandy could
share the Christmas story with children from the library. We can also see how
people are transformed and their discipleship deepen when they commit to one
another and feel safe to share their lives with each other in a covenant group.
Last Monday, Uncle Lawrence (our sister Janet Tan’s father)
went home to be with the Lord after a brave fight with cancer. Pastor Wong and
other members of the church went to Penang to attend the
funeral and mourn with her family. Even when he could not speak, Uncle Lawrence
encouraged so many people including the doctors with his inspiring trust in
Christ that overcomes fear of death. I could only wish that I could stare death
in the face with similar confidence. Janet has shared with me how the
community, especially her covenant group has been a source of courage and
support during this time.
And that’s what church ought to be
like. It’s not a social club. It’s not a multi level marketing company. Though
we are many, we are one body in Christ. If our hand is hurt, the whole body
shares the pain. Our eyes tear up, our mouth cries out, our face becomes
contorted. We belong to one another.
Unfortunately I can’t tell you what
a covenant group is like. You have to experience it for yourself. We are
encouraged to see signs of growth, community life and leaders emerging from
these small groups. But it’s not something that has permeated the entire church
yet. Some of us still go through tough times in silence and alone. Others
remain as an observer, rushing off right after the service. You may wonder if
there’s more to church than this.
So let’s talk about other areas
where we can improve. Last Sunday, Steven shared from his heart about how we
could neglect prayer and relying on God’s strength in the midst of our busyness
and activities. We could certainly be more intentional and effective in
reaching out to others with the gospel. For ‘P’ (DNA for “Plant churches”), who
is aware that there is a church plant being planned in KL? Various individuals
like Ian, Micah and Pastor Wong are part of that conversation. But it doesn’t
feel like something that we as a church have actively owned it through our
prayers, financial support and growing/sending out leaders. Many of us are
probably not even aware of it. So for that reason, I think we have yet to
cultivate a missional church planting culture in our midst. It’s
probably something that we should work towards over the next few years.
When it comes to “E” (Embrace Reformed theology), we
have been committed to no-frills expository preaching from Scripture, aiming to
be Christ-centered and letting the gospel shape every corner of life. That’s
something we desire. But we could probably help each other improve in our
preaching through mutual feedback and sharing best practices. Personally, I
take it as a good sign if members are comfortable to invite non-Christian friends
or eager to share sermon podcasts online because they know that church is
always a scene of evangelism. People are confident to bring friends because no
matter what Bible text we preach on, every message is ultimately pointing us to
the gospel of Jesus and applied to people’s heart. We’re not there yet but
that’s the goal we aim for.
That in a nutshell is where we have come so far. As we
reflect and pray and look forward to the year ahead, we see the need to major
in the major and minor in the minor. If we focus our time and energy on a few
priorities like evangelism, discipleship/spiritual care and raising leaders, it
would make a big impact on the church as a whole.
You may ask: How do we measure signs of growth in the church? How do we know if we are going in the right direction? What is our Key Performance Indicators (KPI)?
Sometimes you hear it said
that “God requires faithfulness, not fruitfulness.” But the reality is that God
requires both
faithfulness and fruitfulness. When the seed of God’s word fell on good soil,
it grew and produced fruit – some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold and some a
hundred times. There is no category for unfruitful good soil.
The question is not whether
you will bear fruit. The only question is: How much? What kind of fruit are we
expecting? If we make disciples,
if we become disciples ourselves: What kind of growth are we seeking for? How
do we measure spiritual growth?
When you look into the life of this church, our spiritual
growth can and should show up in all sorts of ways. I think Romans 12 paints a beautiful
picture of how that is going to look like. Scripture
says: We have different gifts… We have
different functions according to the grace God
has given.
.
You see, the church is like a body with different
gifted members. The big idea is not to have
ministry of a few, but to empower ministry of every member sitting on the pew.
Speaking the gospel in people’s life and making disciples is not only the job
of full time ministers. All of us play different roles as God’s people in
loving, serving and building each other up, Sunday by Sunday. We all have a
one-to-one ministry of the people, by the people and for the people of God.
Each of us can be a disciple-maker in our own way.
If that’s your understanding of what the church is…if
that’s your ecclesiology… As you step into church, your thinking will not be:
“Where should I go for lunch after service? Bak kut teh in Klang or Kungfu
steam fish in Puchong? Or will Wee Lern play my favorite worship songs this
morning?” You won’t think like a consumer or a customer. Instead, we will pray
as we come: “Lord, where should I sit this morning? Lord, please guide me this
morning to someone who needs encouragement, whom I could show friendship and
hospitality. Would you lead me to someone whom I could pray for and serve this
morning?” I know of a sister who visited our church and on her very first
visit, she sat next to our Indonesian sisters and translated the sermon to them
in Bahasa… Nobody asked her to do it. She just intentionally sat next to them
and humbly served.
If CDPC Puchong makes progress in this area, we would
go a long way towards obeying Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations. If
we make progress in this area, we would see signs of different members
exercising their gifts in this way. So think of your own role in this journey
together as we look at the spiritual gifts listed in Romans 12.
If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy
in accordance with your faith. None of us is divinely inspired like the prophet
Elijah or the apostle Paul. None of us can tell the future infallibly. We
cannot prophesy in that sense, but there is also a sense that prophecy in the
early church refers to “telling forth something that God has spontaneously brought
to mind that we would not otherwise have known”. And this must always be
measured by what the Scriptures say. It cannot contradict God’s written word.
For example, a friend recently had a mental picture of a house perching precariously on a rock, about to fall
and then the word, "family" came. He sensed
the Lord urging him to ask the person sitting next to him: “How is your wife
today?” The person replied: Why you wanna know? So he shared that it seems that
the Lord put that impression on his mind. And his friend goes: “Wah! So you can
see one ah?” (bomoh with bamboo binoculars) and so he shares that his wife has left
him recently. That opens up a chance for him to counsel this person.
There is also another sense in Revelations 19 that “the
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Testifying about Jesus is also a
kind of prophecy, forth-telling His truth. We see spiritual growth in CDPC when
more people rise up and say: “David, I’ve enjoyed sharing the gospel with the
students from overseas. I wonder if God is calling me… Or I love to invite my
Omani friends to church, could the sermon address some of her apologetic questions
and existential concerns? Instead of top-down programs and events, people
spontaneously come up and say: “Pastor, I want to start an evangelistic Bible
study with young people but I’m a little nervous. Would the church please
pray?”
If it is serving, then serve.
Steven and Han Meng serve as deacons in managing the church’s finances and
well-being of our church premises on top of spiritual care for the
congregation. Constance and the Kopitiam team serve us today in preparing food
and even the dish-washing because there is no water supply today. Sophea served
us by baking a nice cake for the anniversary. They would need your help to
serve in setting up the tables for Kopitiam after the service. I think we see
signs of growth when members make personal and even career sacrifices so that
they can serve others. For example, we hope to hear stories like: “Hey, did you
know Tom turned down a promotion three times at Sunway
College
If it is teaching, then teach:
We see signs of growth when parents intentionally disciple their children in
the faith. That’s what Mandi and Sandy
will help us do in the “Family Worship” covenant group. It’s encouraging to see
people step up to be Sunday school teachers to teach and equip our kids in
catechism, Bible study through songs, activities and crafts. It becomes ever
more important to clearly teach and equip our young people, not just to entertain
them. If our children who have grown up in church know more about how to sing “Kumbaya”
or they get more excited about Justin Bieber or Katy Perry, than they do about
Christ, the Scriptures or how to wrestle honestly with doubt, then we have a huge
discipleship problem.
If it is to encourage, then give encouragement: We can measure growth when regular members sense a fresh sense of their responsibility in encouraging newer members. When after service, we gather for conversations and prayers that build up and encourage each other in our life struggles and problems. We begin to think: “Hmmm…Who is new to CDPC in the last 6 months? Do they hang around after church service? Maybe I should invite them to come over for lunch?” Like Steven said last week, the hour after service is a key window of opportunity when personal, one-to-one spiritual care and discipleship happens. If everybody rushes for the door after the benediction, we’re in trouble.
If it is giving, then give
generously: We cannot measure growth by the size of our budget but
sacrificial cheerful giving is a sign of discipleship. We hope to hear husbands
and wives having this conversation even in times of rising costs: “Darling, the
Lord has provided for our needs. We have enough to live by. Maybe we should
plan how can we cut fifty ringgit from our monthly budget in order to support
World vision?” In every revival, there are generous givers behind the scene who
provide resource so others can proclaim the gospel. Behind the Great Awakening
revival was a wealthy Lady Huntingdon… behind the first translation of the
English Bible was funding from a businessman named Humphrey Monmouth… behind the ministry of Jesus were supporters
like Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Suzanna… They were unsung heroes, visionary,
risk-taking, and generous men and women who were active partners in great
spiritual movements. They often chose to remain anonymous. CDPC Puchong has
also been blessed financially by such gospel patrons… I could name some of them
but I want to honor their decision to remain unknown.
If it is to lead, do it
diligently: For a church to be healthy, we need godly and able leaders, elders,
pastors and deacons. We need gospel-centered fathers and mothers to lead a
family. Last year, we are so encouraged to see Doris and Victor leading our
young people in the Christmas play and Sandy/Mandi leading the children library
Christmas program. When we see more covenant group leaders being trained and stepping
up to serve others, that’s a great sign of healthy spiritual growth.
If it is to show
mercy, do it cheerfully: There are brothers and sisters in our midst who
are in need. Some are being persecuted for their faith. Others are in need of
support raising children with special needs or dealing with marriage issues. There
are less privileged children who need education to escape the poverty cycle. We
can see that the gift of joyful mercy happening in the English tuition ministry
for the Enggang Flats kids. I think we can measure growth when we see more members
share their time, energy and resources to show practical help cheerfully to
each other.
So as we celebrate our fourth anniversary, we are reminded
that because of Christ’s broken body and shed blood, we are now one in Him and
we belong to each other. We have seen some signs of spiritual growth and unity
in CDPC Puchong. So we give God all the glory. And we look forward to more
growth and adventures ahead as we continue to humbly serve each other in the
body of Christ. We need everyone to be on board.
It’s easy to see if we
ourselves are following Jesus. The spiritual life we have will multiply,
reproduce and bear fruit in making other disciples. We will see that passion rub off on others.
Others will catch the fire if we are on fire.
Comments