Matthew 25:14-30 Sermon Reflection

Why do we give?

Discovery:

The parable of the talents is found in the middle of two teachings of Jesus. In Matthew 25: 1-13 we see the parable of the 10 virgins. This parable tells of 5 foolish and 5 wise virgins who were waiting for the bridegroom. The wise ones came prepared with oil for their lamps and thus were ready when the bridegroom came in the evening. The foolish ones were not prepared and thus had to go and buy oil and thus missed the arrival of the bridegroom. The moral of the story is that we need to be prepared for the coming of Jesus.

In Matthew 25:31-46, we see the story of the sheep and goats. This describes the return of the Son of Man in which he separates the sheep from the goats. The ones that are chosen and blessed are those who showed mercy and compassion to the "least of these brothers of mine." The ones who are separated and judged are those who didn't not serve the least, the last, and the lost as if it were Jesus Himself. These are led into eternal punishment. The moral of this story is that we will all need to give an account for our lives.

The parable the talents is perfectly placed between these two stories. If the parable of the virgins is about anticipating the return of Jesus and if the story of the sheep and goats is about the judgement of Jesus when He returns, then our story is about the "in-between" time. It is essentially a lesson of how we should live our lives.

Each of the servants were given wealth (talents) that the master wanted invested and multiplied. It is a story of biblical stewardship. In verse 15 it says that the servants were given talents "each according to his abilities." Our parable reminds us of a very simple yet powerful truth: everything is from God and we are merely stewards of God's wealth.

The sad part of this story is in regards to the one bad servant. While the other two invest and return the initial investment two fold, the bad servant doesn't do anything with it. He simple buries it and is content in not losing it. His remarks in vv. 24-25 tells us of his view of the master, "Master I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. so I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you."

My main point in my sermon was that bad theology leads to bad giving. If our view of God is small, tight-fisted, legalistic, and ultimately cold-hearted then our giving (as many other areas of discipleship) will be limited and shallow. But if we know that God is gracious, generous, extravagant, and flowing with love then our lives will reflect our theology.

Application:

My view of God has become too small.

My good friend Pauline Fong came and shared with us this past Thursday at our monthly Joint Soul Care about her ministry with InterVarsity and her new position as Regional Director of the Northwest region. As I was hearing her speak, I was fondly reflecting on my days as a campus staff worker with IV. I remembered how hard it was to fundraise and the internal turmoil that I experienced from it. I remember having to overcome my parent's objection to me being a "full-time beggar" and my own personal sense of failure and inadequacy in this area of trusting God. And yet, it was through fundraising that I truly experienced living by faith. When I first started, I didn't know if I could raise enough to be on staff for more than a year and yet God provided so that I could spend 5 of the best years of my life living, trusting, and serving Him.

The challenge for our family now is to continue to be stretched in terms of trusting God with our finances. I have to keep remembering the thrill that I received every time I would get my monthly statement from IV and see a new name on my donor list. One of the best donation was a gift of $5 from a elementary student at MVCCC. This little girl was just someone that I got to know when I came back and served at the church during the summers. To see someone who was so young take the time to give $5 to my ministry was so touching... in fact it was inspiring.

I realize that I am now on the giving end of the exchange with my fellow ministers of the gospel. I need to remember to think, pray, and support those who are on the front-lines of ministry and missions. I need to remember the call to be not only be a good steward of my money but to be a great steward of God's blessings to those who are actively serving the King. I still need to walk in faith in this new phase of my life. I still want to experience the thrill seeing God come through and save the day.

"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" Acts 25:35

Prayer:

Remind me of the countless ways that you blessed me throughout my life. Help me be a great steward of the ability to bless my fellow brothers and sister through the share of Your wealth.

Name Change for MVCCC Worship!

This week's entry will be a departure from the ordinary.

Check out and support Ellie Fun Day:

On Sunday, we had Elton and Sarah Lin come and share about Ellie Fun Day. I would encourage you to go and check out their new social enterprise. http://www.elliefunday.com/

What's the new name?

The main thing that I wanted to write about was the name change for our English congregation's worship. Here is a little description of the new name: "Intersect."

James 1:22 states, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

The vision of Intersect is to be a Church Family that hears the Word of God and applies it together. Our Sunday Worship is a time in which our lives intersects with God's activity. As we worship, pray, fellowship, and learn, we want God to speak into our lives and to transform us from the inside out.

What's behind the name change?

Over the last year or so, God has really been blessing our congregation and church. We are "growing up" and beginning to form our own unique identity. In the past, I have balked at the idea of a name change because I didn't want to do it just for the sake of change. But it became clear that our church family was entering into a new stage of life in which a name change seemed appropriate.

The reality is that our church family has been striving to "intersect" with God's Word for a long time. There are stories upon stories of our members wrestling with the implications of God's Word upon their lives. As I have been saying as of late in many of my sermons, "It is all about application!" and to see our church members strive to do this has been really encouraging to me as a pastor. The names "Intersect" isn't really anything new... it is just a word that articulates what has been going on here in our Church Family for some time.

Personal Note:

When I first became a Christian, my youth pastor taught us how to do our Quiet Times. He first told us to get a journal and then he said that we should write in it every day. He told us to divide it into two major sections.

The first section was "Discovery." After reading the Bible, we were suppose to write down the various things that we learned from that day's reading. What new things stood out to you? What are particularly interesting or convicting about the text?

The second section was "Application." What does this mean in your life? What was I suppose to do with what I just learned? What was God wanting me to change?

He told us that that the section on "application" should always be bigger than the section on "discovery." It's good to learn new things about God but it far more important to spend the time to write down the applications for my life. It is far easier to find the things from God's Word that was interesting but than it is much harder to find specific applications for one's life. Ever since I started journaling, I have struggled to find enough honest things to write down in my "application" section so that it would as long as if not longer than the "discovery" section.

20 years later I am still struggling with this challenge and yet still dutifully press on in trying to apply what I read each and every day. The rhythm of my devotional life has not changed since I first started. Discover and apply. Discover and apply. Discover and apply.

This is what we are trying to do together at Intersect...

Mark 6:30-44 Sermon Reflection

"How Do We Serve?"

Discovery: The question of how we serve is not about mechanics or methodology. It is about understanding and living out the heart of God. In our passage today, we see Jesus' heart. Our challenge is to emulate it.

After a successful ministry venture, in which Jesus sent out the disciples two by two to proclaim the gospel and to drive out evil spirits, the whole group gathers for a time of debrief. In v. 31, Jesus noticing that the crowds were gathering again and thus not giving his disciples even a chance to eat he suggests, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."

When they do get to this quiet place, our text tells us that people had already gone ahead of them and were already there when they landed. Our key verse is v. 34, "When Jesus landed and saw the large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things."

Application: How would you have felt if you were one of these disciples? Your expectation was that Jesus was going to give you a time of rest and now it feels as though the needs of other people are creeping into that space. In the sermon, I talked about the whole story of how Jesus responded to the people and what it means to follow in his footsteps.

For those who have gone through the InterVarsity Mark Manuscript study, you may be familiar with one of the key questions and observations from this passage. Who was the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 for? Was it for the crowds or was it for the disciples?

Clearly the crowds benefit from this miracle. They see the compassion, the wisdom, and the power of God all manifest during this time. But the ones who were most impacted by this miracle had to be the disciples.

Jesus is teaching, demonstrating, and modelling what it means to have God's heart. When Jesus looks at the crowd, he doesn't see them as a nuisance or inconvenience but rather as an opportunity to show the mercy of God. By recruiting the disciples to break the groups into small groups of 50 and 100 and to hand out the food, Jesus is pushing them out of their comfort zones and reminding them this simple truth: ministry is about interacting and touching people's lives. By taking the 5 loaves and 2 fish and performing a miracle of provision, Jesus is telling the disciples: I can take what little you have a multiple it a hundred fold.

This is the lesson for the disciples and it is our lesson as well.

Prayer: Jesus, help me see every person who comes across my path as an opportunity to serve versus an obstacle to overcome. Help me get back to the "bread and butter" of discipleship by getting back involved in the lives of our church members. Take what little I have and what little I give and multiply it for Your glory sake.

1 John 4:19 Sermon Reflection

"Why Should We Serve?"

Discovery: Many things in life are "caught" and not "taught." This is very true in the Christian life. The principle of serving and loving is not something that we do because someone told us to. It is something that is modeled to us and thus we learn to emulate it. 1 John 4:19 tells us this: "We love because he first loved us." God set the example of how to love and serve. We need to simply reflect this to the world around us.

Application: It's one thing to know the truth but it is another to live it out. This love that God demonstrated to us is not some sort of philosophical idea or intellectual principle. It needs to be a living reality. We need to ask ourselves the question, "Am I experiencing the love of God for myself firsthand?" In addition, we need to be asking the question, "Am I loving and serving others in the same way that God loved me?" We need to do a little inventory of our lives to see if love is truly flowing in and out of us.

The reality is that being loved and loving others is not easy and thus there are real barriers and obstacles that prevent us from doing it. For some, they have never experienced the love of God at all. They have not acknowledge the fact that God is the seeker and savior of the lost. Others have become calloused in their hearts and thus have forgotten that they were once counted among the lost. One way to know if you have a calloused heart is if you have fallen out of the practice of repenting of your sins. As we get "older" in our faith, we begin to simply accumulate our sins until it reaches a boiling point before we come to the cross and repent of them. For others, they simple stop coming to the cross at all.

The only way that we can love and serve is to ask God to pour out His love anew into us today. We need to remove things such as sin that blocks our ability to receive this love but most importantly we need to choose to turn our hearts towards Him again. We can't settle for a broken, defeated, lesser life. We need to settle for nothing less that experiencing His love on a daily basis. This is why we love and serve... because He first loved (and continues to love) us.

Prayer: Lord I love being at the foot of the cross. Help me find my way back "home" to this place each and every day.

Luke 9:18-27 Sermon Reflection

"Who is called to serve?"

Discovery: In vv.18-22, Jesus asks two questions of His disciples, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" and "What about you? Who do you say I am?" Jesus is not interested in doing some market research here. He is wanting to know if His disciples truly understand the meaning of following after Him. Even after Peter responds, "You are the Christ of God," Jesus goes on to tell them what that statement truly means.

He says that road to the cross is marked by three things: denying self, taking up the cross daily, and following Him. In vv.24-27, Jesus acknowledges that there are real temptations that would prevent us from following in His footsteps. The temptation to save one's life and to attempt to profit the world are real and tempting alternatives to the three-fold call to follow Him. Jesus warns however that there are real consequences to these choices and He ends our section by pointing to the promise of eternal life.

The simple answer to the question, "who is called to serve?" is this: anyone who chooses to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. The road to the cross is not easy and there are real temptations and challenges but the heart of serving is found in following His example.

Application: The question for us today is what is your faith marked by? Are you someone who is saving your life or are you someone who is losing it for Jesus and the gospel?

Is you life marked by vanity and success? These are just two ways in which we are holding on to our physical lives and striving to accumulate the "toys" of this world.

Is your life marked by immaturity and irresponsibility? These are two others ways in which we are trying to hold to a mirage of our lives being free from responsibility and duty and seeking to fill ourselves with the pleasures of this world.

Is your life marked by control and rigidity? We want to be in the driver's seat of our lives and thus it is difficult to allow Jesus to lead us and direct us in directions that we are unfamiliar with.

Ultimately we need to evaluate our lives through the three-fold call to follow after Him.

Is your life marked by the ways that you deny yourself and elevate Jesus and others?

Is your life marked by the ways that you take up the cross daily and strive to live your life in service to Jesus and to be His ambassador of grace to the world around you?

Is your life marked by the ways that you are following after Him? Does your day start by asking that God's will be done in your life rather than your own will?

Prayer: Lord, help me take a long look in the mirror so that I can truly see if I am following in your footsteps everyday. Help me get back to the basics of discipleship of starting each day asking that Your will would be done in me and through me.

2 Cortinthians 13:5-11 Sermon Reflection

(I was guest speaking this past weekend and I never got to post the final sermon for our Corinthians Series. So here it is)

"Parting Words"

Discovery: At the end of the movie "Saving Private Ryan," Tom Hank's character last words to Matt Damon's character Private Ryan is this: "Earn this." As we see at the end of the movie, we see how these parting words totally changed his life. I only hope that my last words would leave as powerful of an imprint on someone's life.

Paul's parting words in his letter to the Corinthians is also meant to leave an indelible imprint. Paul mentions in the beginning of chapter 13 that he plans on coming and visiting again for a 3rd time but that the nature of this visit may not a pleasant one. As always, there is something that needs to change in the lives of the Corinthians. In v.5, Paul says, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith: test yourselves." Paul is not telling them to doubt their salvation nor is he questioning the authenticity of their conversion. Paul is merely turning the tables back on those in the church who had been testing and questioning Paul's apostleship. Paul is merely placing a mirror in front of their faces and asking them the same questions that they had been asking him. It reminds me of Jesus' words in regards to judging others, "How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye" (Matt. 7:4).

Paul continues in v. 8 by saying, "For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth." The litmus test of whether or not one has "failed" the test of faith, is to look at the evidence in one's life. Paul uses the term "truth" here. The definition of truth is "a standard or guide." But truth is not merely propositional statements or doctrinal beliefs. Truth is where our beliefs intersect with our actions. All along in his defense of his ministry, Paul points back to the truthfulness of his life's action. His beliefs and actions line and point back to the "truth" in his ministry. He challenges the Corinthian church to do the same.

Application: The call to do this serious self-reflection and personal accountability is a daunting challenge. I found myself this morning in one of my regular struggles. I love my children. I am so grateful for them and I know that I am blessed to have them in my life. Yet at the same time, I find myself losing my patience with them all quite frequently (especially in the mornings as I try to get them to school on time). In my frustration and anger, I usually snap at them or raise my voice. After I drop them off and my emotions settle down, I find myself time and time again feeling guilty and ashamed. I always question why I can't be more patient with them and my prayer is always the same: "Lord help me be a more patient father."

It struck me this morning that I just want God to to take away my problems. I just want Him to "zap" me or something so that I don't have these bouts of frustration or anger. It dawned on me this morning that I am not willing to put in the work to become more patient and loving. I realized that I know the truth (be a patient father) but I don't always live it out in my life. It felt as if God was putting a mirror to my face and asking "what do you see?" and "what do you want to become?"

Similar to the Corinthian church, there is always something that needs to change in my life. I want my life to be marked by this kind of truth where my beliefs and actions intersect.

Prayer: Help me Lord live and grow in truth. Let my convictions and beliefs continually intersect with everyday challenges and opportunities. And thank you again for my kids. :)

Why We Worship: Isaiah 6:1-8

"The Movement of Worship"

Discovery: There is movement in worship. We move into the presence of God and in doing so we are moved by Him. This is what happens to Isaiah in Isaiah 6:1-8.

Isaiah has a supernatural and transcendant experience of being in the presence of God. He sees seraphs who have a total of six wings. Normally wings are used for flying but in the case of these seraphs, two pair of wings cover the eyes and feet. This symbolizes the humility required to be in the presence of God's holiness. In fact, in v. 3 these seraphs were calling out to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."

Isaiah's reaction is initially strange but understandable. He cries out in v. 5: "'Woe to me!' I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." Isaiah realizes that he is standing before the holy God and unlike the seraphs who have their eyes and feet covered as signs of respect for God's holiness, Isaiah is looking at God face to face.

In vv. 6-7 we see a seraph taking a live coal from the alter and putting it to Isaiah's "unclean lips" and thus sanctifying and purifying him.

Finally in v. 8 we hear the voice of God calling out, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" Isaiah responds by saying, "Here am I. Send me!"

Application:

The reason why we worship is because we need to have a change of heart similar to Isaiah. The first part of worship is moving into the presence of God. In doing so, there are things that are praiseworthy (i.e. Isaiah seeing the Lord high and exalted and the train of His robe filling the temple), there are things that are awe-inspiring (i.e. the voices of the seraphs causing the doorposts and thresholds to shake and to have the temple filled with smoke) and there are moments of repentance (Isaiah's honest and heartfelt confession of sin).

But the movement of worship doesn't allow us to stay where we are. Instead true worship moves us to change and to be transformed. We see that God purifies Isaiah, we see God calling Isaiah, and we see Isaiah responding. I love the movement of Isaiah's heart and attitude throughout this passage. He goes from being awe-struck, broken, and repentant to becoming purified, redeemed, and emboldened.

This is what should happen to us as well as we worship the Lord. I remind you that God is holy. There needs to be a healthy measure of awe and reverence for Him. I also remind you that we need to seek to be purified. We too are a people of unclean hearts and lips and we live among a people of unclean hearts and lips. We need to seek God's forgiveness and grace everyday. In addition, we also need to hear the call of God and seek His Kingdom. He wants us to move from places of fear and insecurity to places of faith and boldness. He wants us to share the Good News of His saving grace that we ourselves have experienced firsthand.

Prayer: Let there be movement in my life! Purify my heart of all the sin that so easily entangles and free me to be bold in living my life passionately for You.