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00:00 a little bit late but I will not uh do very chong.
00:06 Let's come before the Lord in prayer. Lord we to 10:45.
00:11 Lord we thank you as for today is the first message of 2014
00:18 and Lord we start the year uh uh with shadows over our head as the Christian
00:26 community in this country comes under attack. So Lord, as we start off 20114, we ask
00:33 ourself an important question. Why are we here in FBC?
00:39 Why do we come to church? Are we a church or are we something else? So
00:45 Lord, for the next uh half an hour, although it's been a long morning, grant us attentive ears. Uh grant us your
00:53 spirit, Lord, that we hear and hear what you want to say. And we say this in
00:59 Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, let me begin by telling you a
01:05 story. Two men were on the way to the gates of heaven. One man was a church
01:14 member. The other was not. And the church member started to brag to the
01:20 other guy. He said, "You know, I'm very active in my church. You know, I sing in church. I'm involved in the youth. I
01:28 teach Sunday school. I go for seminars. I carry on every one of my church. So
01:34 you're telling the other guy when I get there sure God give me a very big house.
01:40 See because my works are so good. So the other guy say well if that's how God
01:46 judges everyone then I should have no problem. I may not be a Christian but I'm a member of the Lions Club. Any
01:55 Lions members here? Okay. Now he says, then the other Christian say, "Oh, no,
02:00 no, no, no, no. You must be a Christian like me." He said, "Oh, well, what's the difference?" He said, "I also get involved in my youth. I'm involved in my
02:09 kids. We call it Lion's Cup. Our youth is Leo. I also sing with the lions. We
02:15 got our own song book. I also invite everyone to come for lions."
02:21 And after a while he started to tell this churchgoer that in fact there's very little difference between the lions
02:27 and the church. We got our youth, you got your youth. You go and do work among
02:33 uh poor people, we do work among poor people. You got great speakers, we got great speakers. What's the difference?
02:39 So when we go to heaven, you tell God you're a church member. I just tell God I am a lions member. I should be able to
02:47 get in. So this morning we throw a challenge to everyone. This is the our new year message. What's the difference
02:54 between the church and many other welfare organizations, community organizations, people with purposes,
03:01 Amnesty International on social justice, green peace with the environment, SPCA
03:07 with animals, the Rotary Club or even Lake Club members. Lake Club member do a
03:13 lot of charity, you know. Okay. or the golf club member. So we ask ourel
03:18 question are we a church or a community club and what's the difference between
03:25 the two and we this morning I want to just do us an overview on the book of
03:30 Ephesians. The book of Ephesians is a great epistle is a queen of epistles and
03:36 I'll take you through this week and next week. Today we'll do an do an overview
03:41 and we'll do the first few verses. episode. If you open your Bibles, we'll look at Ephesians chapter 1:es 1-2. And
03:49 we'll study this morning what we call the salutation. And the salutation is interesting. And Paul says this in
03:56 Ephesians 1:es 1-2. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the
04:04 saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace and peace to you
04:09 from God our father and Lord Jesus Christ.
04:15 Uh this is a picture of uh what happened in the Jordan International Airport and
04:23 uh this happened to a fair few of our brothers and sisters who went for the holy land trip. Now you look at text
04:30 here verses 1b Paul says something very interesting. He says to the saints in
04:36 Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. So if I take off Ephesus and I say
04:41 Jordan International Airport, that's how it sounds like. Now what is Paul saying? Paul is saying you are in Ephesus but
04:49 you're also in Christ. You are in the airport but you're in Christ. And this
04:55 is a story those of uh those who went to the Holy Land trip will tell you. I heard it from many sources. The story is
05:02 this. is they were stuck at the airport for a very long time. The flight got delayed for really really really really really long and after a while they all
05:09 got frustrated and what happened was a bunch of Brazilians or South American
05:14 Christians started to sing in Spanish. Then afterwards
05:20 some Filipino Christians came along and sang the same song in Tagalok.
05:26 Then after a while, the Indonesians came and sat there and the Indonesians started to sing in Basa Indonesia. And
05:34 then of course the local Malaysians, the most shy group came at the end and
05:39 started to sing in English. And of all the few people I spoken to who went for
05:44 the Holy Land tour, they told me this was the highlight to have a group of Christians sitting together singing
05:52 songs in their own language. It was beautiful. It was a form of protest, you know, at a delay and it was
05:59 something an experience you will never get. Now, why am I bringing up all of this?
06:05 Because the point is this. You are in Brazil, but in the Lord, you are in
06:13 Philippines, but in the Lord, you're in Indonesia
06:19 in the Lord. You're in Malaysia, you're in the Lord. in Rwanda, in the Lord, in
06:26 the states, in the Lord. And when God's people gather together as a community,
06:32 when God's people gather together to worship, they realize whether they sing
06:37 in Tagalog or Spanish or African or or Indonesia, they are a community of
06:45 people. They are the saints and they are faithful in Christ Jesus.
06:52 Now the book of Ephesians is often seen as the book to the church or the gospel
06:57 to the church. So I want to start off this new year by challenging you one question.
07:04 How important is being in the Christian community to
07:09 you? In other words, how important is it to
07:15 be a member of First Baptist Church? You see what we have done very often is that
07:20 we have reduced the Christian faith to an individual faith. This is what the western westerners have taught us. So is
07:27 about personal evangelism. Is about personal discipling. We forget very
07:33 often that the Bible very much focuses not so much on the individual but on the
07:41 community. And John start say the epistle to the Ephesians is Paul's gospel to the
07:48 church. And let me just do you a sweep. I gave some verses up there but you just look there from chapter one all the way
07:55 to chapter 5. If you just do a glance and just sweep through the entire letter
08:01 to the Ephesians, you find much of it concerns the church. Now what does that
08:08 mean? It means being a church member is very very important to God. But to a lot
08:16 of us uh being a church member means coming on Sunday and that's it. So this
08:22 morning I challenge you in light especially what's happening in our country today.
08:28 How important is it to you and me to be a member of the body of Christ here to
08:35 be a member of First Baptist Church. Now the salutations has three parts to it
08:41 and they're quite interesting. The first verse Paul describes himself and you can see is a description of
08:48 authority. The second part 1B there's a description of the recipient. This what
08:54 you call a henistic letter. It mean this how olden letters people write to greet.
08:60 And then the third one is what you call a well-wish and it uses the word grace and peace. And if you read all the
09:06 epistles of Paul, you just take a glance through whether it's Galatians, Thessalonians, Corinthians, Philippians,
09:14 you find he uses the same word grace and peace. Now, it's very loaded. You know,
09:19 I give you example. When you greet a person, what you say means many things. When you meet an
09:25 Australian, an Australian will say, "Good day, mate." Oh, yeah. How are you? That's good. Fine, thanks. You meet an
09:30 English man is good morning, sir. How are you? I'm fine, thank you very much. You mean a Chinese?
09:37 Why? Why do Chinese say meaning for you non-Chinese speaking? Have you eaten?
09:43 You mean a Chinese anytime? Why? No. Now, if if you if you
09:49 understand the history of the Chinese, the the greeting came about because a
09:54 long long time ago, Chinese people were starving because of civil war in China.
10:01 So when a Chinese person sees another person and says have you eaten? If I say
10:07 I have eaten, it means you are blessed. It means a lot. So greetings say a lot
10:13 of intention. You you you ask yourself during the new year many people will send you SMSs. We
10:19 wish you uh happy new year. What is the next thing that follows? We wish you what? Prosperity.
10:25 I wish you wealth. I wish you health. Now you get a new greeting from Rama.
10:30 Pastor Rama, what did he greet you? What did he greet? Grace and peace.
10:36 You go and check it out. So Paul hijacks a henistic greeting and tells them grace
10:44 and peace and then he describes them. And how he describes the church is
10:50 critical because this to Paul is what a church is. So what is a church? A church
10:58 is made out of saints. St. Arnold.
11:03 Nice ring, huh? St. Arnold. I like that. The church is faithful.
11:10 The church is full of grace. The church is full of peace. And what is the glue
11:18 that ties everything together? In Christ. This is what a church is.
11:26 But very often although we hear this, we do not see a church in that way. And
11:32 there are three common misconceptions of what a church is which I want to share with you. Number one, the church is
11:38 about the people. But very often we think it's the building. That's why we say we go to
11:44 church. We think about facilities, programs, activities. Point two, we think if a
11:51 church grows very big, wow, this church doing very well. Point three, we think
11:58 if a church is full of activities, Monday got something to do, Wednesday something to do, Saturday something to
12:05 do, is a healthy church. Now, there's nothing wrong with growing in numbers.
12:10 There's nothing wrong with a church full of activities. There's nothing wrong having a nice building. But it doesn't
12:16 make us a church of saints. It doesn't make us faithful. It doesn't make us people full of grace and full of peace.
12:24 This is how you build a church. This is how to grow a big church for dummies.
12:30 Okay. Rule number one. Do you know where most church growth is
12:35 coming from? Is coming from migration. You know, so some people in Australia
12:40 know you have a church, boom, the church population just grows, but the overall Christian community number stays the
12:46 same. Church growth is great but in in the book of acts the church growth is from
12:52 new disciples but nowadays what we have is people are just shifting around no you know like
12:59 you go for supermarket you know don't like this I go that I go that so I shop for a church so there's a lot of
13:05 migration going around and people realize that the moment you realize that
13:10 people are migrating around in marketing terms you know what we call this we call
13:16 this target group. This is my target group. And when I got a target group,
13:21 what do I do? I give them a service to make them feel good. I give them a
13:27 polished service. I give them a fantastic Sunday experience. After that,
13:34 what do I do? I break them in, you know. I put them into uh small groups. I give
13:41 them intimacy. After that, what do I do? I do my own audit like any organization I audit. I
13:49 audit five ways you know. I look at attendance. I look at tights. I look at
13:54 new members signing up and I see how many from this big group of people shift
14:00 to the small group. And when I finish it, what do I have? I have church
14:06 Synrian Bahad. I have a consumer group.
14:12 And nowadays if you want to grow a church you position the church you tell
14:18 people you come to church is is slick you know you have speakers who are very slick you know some people say it refers
14:25 to me even so let's let's pop children shouldn't call k black but slick you
14:30 tell people you come to church there's love acceptance friendship protection
14:35 see what this fellow says it's cool to come to church and then you teach people
14:41 about money. Who don't want to hear about money? The moment we do this, you know, and I package it nicely and I put
14:47 ads with pretty girls like that with t-shirts like this, I tell you all the hot blood meal to pack the church.
14:54 Now, this is our kind of church. This is positioning.
14:59 This is branding. But when we look at the first three verses, what we see is
15:05 man looks at brand but God looks at the heart. And the tragedy nowadays is that
15:12 it is very easy to position, to market, to brand, to use techniques to grow the
15:20 church. And I'd like to suggest as we move into 20114, we must check and
15:25 balance ourselves because a consumerdriven church
15:31 will not stand when persecution comes. A consumerdriven church will scuttle and
15:39 leave when people threaten the church. A consumerdriven church comes to church to
15:46 see what they can get, not because they want to be disciples
15:52 and because they prepared to abandon everything to follow Jesus. There is a
15:58 big difference. And those of you are YouTube savvy, you should really check this this website this on YouTube. Do a
16:04 link, type this in in YouTube, there's a video, what if Starbucks is marketed like the church? It is really really
16:10 frightening. And in the video it shows that the story is like that. If Starbucks marketed like the church, the
16:18 sales of Starbucks will go through the roof. And in the video it shows you how church grows primarily today
16:26 via technique, you know, via technique. From the greeting of the door to the
16:33 giving of the money to the preaching to the moving to the small group, it is church 101. Is to make you feel so good,
16:42 make you feel so wanted, make you feel you can get so many things from the church. Hey, I think I'll go to church.
16:50 But you're not going to church. You're going to a club. You're going to a
16:56 community club. And David Platt says this. We can so
17:01 easily deceive ourselves mistaking the presence of physical bodies in the crowd for existence of spiritual life in a
17:09 community. And Matthew 7:21 23 not everyone who
17:14 says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. Who says Lord Lord?
17:21 Church goers you know many will say on that day and this one is quite frightening. Lord, Lord, did we
17:28 not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many
17:33 miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.
17:41 Who in church will prophesy in Jesus' name? Who in church performs miracles
17:48 and drives out demons? church leaders, church preachers,
17:56 church people of importance. Just because you and I think we are Christians doesn't make me a Christian.
18:04 And we start off this new year by asking a question again. Why are you why are you why am I in FBC? Are you here to get
18:13 something? If it is, you're in a club. Or are you here because Jesus says this,
18:20 he says this, anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy
18:27 of me. So I want to give three foundations of a healthy church. Number
18:33 one is entirely gospel- centered in all its endeavors. Number two, put biblical
18:39 authority first over all authority. And the last one and I tell you I in love
18:45 this is very lacking in many churches is accountable to each other.
18:51 Let me look at the first one. How how do we know a church is gospel centered? Look at the book of Ephesians. Just just
18:57 look at it. The first heading you have is what? Spiritual blessings in what? In Christ. Chapter two, what's the heading?
19:04 Made alive in what? In Christ. Then the next heading one in Christ. In chapter
19:10 three, the title shift is Paul the preacher to the Gentiles. Yet, you know what he says here? He says in verse 7, I
19:17 become a servant of this gospel in Christ. Chapter 4, unity in the body of
19:24 Christ. And when he ends Ephesians chapter 6 verse 19, when he
19:32 ends the book of Ephesians, he says this, "Pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so
19:39 that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel."
19:46 And the gospel is about grace, is about peace. A gospel- centered church
19:54 is a church that the gates of hell will not prevail.
20:01 And I want to just pick up one word, two words we look at today, saints and
20:07 faithful. And what does it mean to be a saint? And Paul brings it up three
20:12 occasions in the letter here. the first in the greeting and secondly in verses
20:18 uh three chapter 3 verse 17 he says I pray that you being rooted and
20:24 established in love may have power together with the saints and lastly in chapter six he says in
20:32 prayer be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints so here's the
20:37 news s an s Rama
20:44 saint Harris, saint everybody.
20:51 Do you feel like a saint or not? That's the point, isn't it? You're a saint.
20:56 You are a saint positionally. There's one other point we forget.
21:03 You are a saint communally. You're a community of saints. You are a
21:10 called out people. You are a priesthood, a royal priesthood.
21:17 Now, just now, sister Rebecca shared with us wonderfully about how she went to
21:23 Philippines. And David Platt says this again. Now, he says, "No, we
21:29 care for or offers not because we are rescuers, but because we are the
21:35 rescued." What's the difference when a Christian group does work in Typhoon
21:40 Hayan and say the Leo Club or the Interact Club or many other secular
21:46 organizations. The difference is this. A secular organization does it to bring
21:51 glory to themselves. So that when they go to heaven or they see God, they say, "Hey, see God, this is my CV." You know,
21:58 I went and do work in typhoon. You know, you see, I gave money to the poor. No.
22:03 But for Christians, we do it. Why? We do it because we have been rescued by the gospel. Because God so loved us, he
22:11 saved us. And because he saved us, we now go out in the world to save others.
22:17 We don't just save others spiritually. We saved others physically. That is the
22:22 difference. We are saints positionally. And Paul tells us in chapter 2, for it
22:28 is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this not from yourself. It is
22:34 a gift of God, not by works so that none can boast. Now there's some implications
22:39 in this. It means this. You know, you see in in some churches there there's
22:45 two groups of people. No, some people call it clergy and lady. Another one is
22:50 the power brokers. No, the preacher, the pastor, this the one who very very
22:56 you know, then the rest of us all like that. You know, the moment we start to think like that,
23:02 we are not thinking like saints. What what what Paul is saying? Paul is saying I am no difference from anyone
23:10 who sits down there or anyone who comes in churches two weeks ago. Whether I'm
23:15 in church for 30 years or two days, we are all saints. The danger of churches
23:21 nowadays is to provide and make an environment for spiritually elite
23:27 people. Then they become very self-righteous. I actually think all preachers should wash the toilets, you know.
23:34 I I mean it. I I seriously believe. I think all preachers mandatory should
23:39 wash the toilets because it reminds us we are the same. I
23:45 mean uh uh uh pas uh pastor what does it say Steven brother Steven Sia that day told me a
23:52 story you know he baptized a few people baptized people I baptize you then he
23:58 told me the next day he was car park attendant but it that is the wonderful thing of
24:04 being saints the wonderful thing about being saints that you must get it in your mind you know I am no different
24:11 from anyone here you are no different from another person. We are saints positionally. Why? Because of God's
24:19 grace. That has tremendous implications. Because when we do that, we realize one other thing. When you are all saints and
24:26 you're a community of saints, you cannot have clicks in church.
24:32 Because the biggest danger of big churches is everyone forms what we call holy huddles. You know this is my
24:39 ministry. You don't come in my territory. I I call here. This isn't your ministry. You don't. You come in.
24:45 You must think like me. Do my way. Cook the way I cook. Teach the way I teach.
24:50 Lead Bible study the way I lead. Dress the way I do. Listen to the jokes I listen. You don't like, you don't come
24:56 in. But if we are community of saints, we won't have that problem. And and here's
25:02 the thing about churches nowadays. Churches nowadays, wrong churches are
25:07 geared towards extroverted characters. That means the more you're able to talk
25:12 to welcome newcomers, you will fly in the church, you know. And we neglect many people. We neglect people who are
25:21 quiet. We neglect people who are maybe poorer. We neglect people who maybe have
25:27 some struggles in their life. And other people we elevate, you know. And in this great book, you know, by Adam McHugh, he
25:33 says this, no, for some churches, spirituality is equated with socialility.
25:40 The mark of a progressing faith is familiarity with a growing number of people and participation in increasing
25:46 number of activities. And that's utter what he says utter very correct.
25:53 We are a community of saints. Whether you are poor, you're rich, you're
25:60 whatever race you are from, whether you're local or not, whether you from Roma hope or this condo, we are all
26:08 saints. The question is this. Do you believe that?
26:14 Number two, do you act like it? You know how the lim must test? What happens
26:20 after church today? Very simple. After service, whether you go back to your gang mak and drink
26:27 coffee, do you go back to your little click and talk? And if you do that week
26:32 after week, month after month, can I tell you in love, you're in a click.
26:38 You're not behaving like everyone else are saints. There's one other group of people that
26:44 we cannot have. So here's the thing. We are all saints. There's no place for spiritually elite. There's no space for
26:50 clicks. And lastly, there's no space for additional furniture
26:57 or we can call this wallpaper. Some furniture are here from Monday to
27:04 Sunday. Other furniture only appear on Sunday.
27:09 He appears on Sunday from 8:45 and normally he's waiting by 10:45. So
27:16 quickly you very ch the furniture disappears. Next Sunday
27:21 the furniture reappears again. Now can you honestly go before God one
27:28 day and say God I was in church every Sunday. God will say where?
27:34 I tell you God will say where were you? You are what saints
27:41 as we start the new year. There are some of you who commitment to
27:47 church is one day a week 8:45. Actually now already time to go back already.
27:55 You cannot do that. You're not a saint. We are saints.
28:00 Let me quickly go on to look at Paul's authority and is expanded in Galatians
28:06 where Paul says his authority is not from men nor by man but by Jesus Christ and it's
28:15 important in a in a biblical church that we understand biblical authority. Here
28:20 the second point a healthy church is gospel- centered. Secondly, a healthy church is centered on biblical
28:27 authority. There was this famous movie which is really really really boring few
28:32 months ago called the life of pie. It's so terribly boring.
28:38 Okay. Oh, some of people object to it. But the the movie is very fascinating because you you read a blogs and I I
28:45 like to read movie blogs, you know. The movie concerns this 16-year-old boy who stranded in uh the ocean uh for 256
28:54 days, something like that. Yeah. Okay. With a few animals. There is a zebra, a
28:59 hyena, an orang utan, and the key character, a bunga tiger called Richard Parker.
29:05 Now, at the end of the movie, they land is a spoiler. You don't want to see the
29:10 movie, you better close your ears. You want to hear they're going to spoil the movie for you. Sorry. Yeah. They land,
29:15 you know, at land after 256 days and the tiger disappears mysteriously into the forest. and he's interviewed by some
29:23 Japanese investors on how did he survive 256 days. So he tells them I survived in
29:29 a boat with a tiger orang utan zebra and hyena. So of course in Chinese call
29:37 not possible you are crazy but the fact is the story is he was in a
29:44 big ship when the ship sank there was actually a animals on that ship is a zoo owned by his father. So they were these
29:51 animals. So it's actually quite possible. But it just sounds ridiculous.
29:56 So they say it's not possible, boy. 16 year old the tiger eaten you. You is not possible. So he tells another story, a
30:03 much darker story. In this story, the zebra is a sailor who dies of his
30:10 wounds. The hyena is a cook who was very mean to them on the ship. And the hyena
30:18 kills his mother which is represented by the Orurang Utan. And he kills
30:25 the hyena and he is the tiger. And the story is much more plausible. And it
30:32 means that it was so dark. He was so horrified by the events. He changed
30:38 reality to be all these animals. And these animals represent people.
30:44 But it doesn't change the main story. The point is how did a 16 year old boy survive 256 days in the ocean and the
30:53 movie is interesting because it doesn't tell you which is the ending and you
30:59 read a blog ask which is the reality is it real or not real was it really a tiger or no tiger but it missed the
31:05 point which the book picks up you know you see in one small part at the end of the movie pi says this to the reporter
31:11 which story do you prefer and the reporter says the one with the tiger is more interesting interesting and the
31:17 ending is very cryptic and so it is with God and Yan Martel if you read his
31:25 interview says the story is actually about God you know what he's telling you God
31:32 is whatever you want to be whatever story you want to create
31:38 you want him to be a bunga tiger he's a banga tiger you want a darker version reality you do it you create your own
31:45 stories in in your life and you put God wherever you want him to be. And today
31:52 if I Christmas gave you all these books, which of the truth?
31:59 You know what I'm trying to tell you? I'm saying this. No, I could stand up here today and say this. No, God's will is that you all should give a lot of
32:06 money to build a new extension of church. Empty your pockets out now and give $1 million. God says so. How do you
32:14 know? I'm not telling you what God says. Yeah, it's true. I could tell you
32:19 tomorrow another story. I could say, you know what? God wants all of you to have a another experience. All of you must
32:26 speak in tongues. How do you know what I'm telling you is not true? Or I could tell you, I want all the women to veil
32:33 your heads. Women sit one side, men sit the other side. How do you know what I'm
32:38 telling you is not true? Now, here's a question. A lot of you been in church for a very
32:43 long time, you know. Do you believe what you listen every Sunday as what the
32:49 Bible teaches you? Or is it somebody telling you is it your own story?
32:57 Is it my own story? Or is it the story of the Bible? You see, the apostles
33:03 authority is biblical authority. The Bible is God's story. And in any story,
33:09 there is a center. The center of the story is the gospel. So here's the second point.
33:16 A good church teaches with authority what scripture emphasizes as important.
33:23 It teaches the Bible centering on the gospel. It allows for differences in opinion for nonritical issues and
33:30 encourages each church member to read and understand the Bible for themselves
33:36 and has humility to be teachable. Meaning if the preacher say wrong thing, you take him outside and you hammer him. Hammer him in love.
33:43 So here are few new year resolutions. New year resolution number one. All of
33:48 you are saints communally. Should can you start the new year by not
33:55 being so clickish? All of us are inclined to be clickish. New year resolution number two,
34:02 know your Bible. Not everything everyone says out here may be the truth. You know, if I tell
34:08 you this, you go back and check. I don't know whether what Anna says is right. You do that, we're a biblical church.
34:16 And let me end with this. Uh it's already 10:40. I don't want to keep you too long. I want to end with this word.
34:22 He says the faithful in Christ Jesus. And the Greek word is pestos. It's quite
34:28 interesting word because it has two meaning. One is to be trustworthy and the other it means to have fidelity like
34:34 in a marriage. Let me end with this. We'll be looking at what the church is. So, let me tell you first by ending on
34:41 what the church is not. Number one, the church is not a community club. A
34:46 community club tries to earn its own salvation. We are not. Our salvation is
34:53 by grace. A community club, people go there to get things out of it. We come
34:58 to church to be disciples of Jesus. Number two, the church isn't an entertainment center.
35:05 No matter how many jokes the preacher tells you, no matter how great the music is, no matter how good you feel out
35:11 there, you get more value by paying $15 and go to see GSC. Pay a bit more can
35:16 get 3DS or more. Don't waste your time coming on Sunday. The church isn't here to entertain you. The church isn't a
35:23 supermarket. You know, you know what supermarket is? You shop. Now these
35:28 people shop for churches. You know, shop what you can get value for money.
35:33 So people are inclined to brand the church. This is not a supermarket.
35:39 The church opens its doors for everyone. The moment you come to church to see what you can get out of it, you're in a
35:45 supermarket. You're here to be disciples. The church isn't a merry goround. You know what a merry goround
35:52 is? Is only good when you're on it. When you get off it, you no no kick already.
35:57 A merry goround is a church where gives you program after program after program. You finish this, finish that, you do
36:03 that. The moment I stop the merry goround, hey, what to do. We are not a merrygoround.
36:09 The church is the bride of Christ. Now, it's a very strange word, you know, which Paul uses at the end of chapter 5.
36:18 But why bride of Christ? And married people will understand this. When you
36:24 say bride of Christ, you then understand what it means to be faithful. Because in
36:29 a marriage, yeah, two things happen. Number one is a covenant.
36:35 That means when you get married, you covenant to be faithful to one another.
36:42 And if we say we are church members and we are the bride of Christ, all of you
36:47 here are in a covenant relationship with Jesus. It means this. You know, you cannot take
36:54 your church attendance and your church role and your church responsibility
36:60 flippantly. You're in a covenant relationship. Number two, when husband and wife get
37:05 married, the two become one. Now, at the road to Damascus, when Paul, before he
37:12 was Paul, when he was Saul and he was persecuting the church and he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, what did Jesus
37:18 say? Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting the church? What did he say? Why are you
37:25 persecuting me? Why are you He wasn't persecuting Jesus. He were persecuting
37:30 the church. But the church and Jesus are so bonded as one
37:38 that Jesus saw the church as the fulfillment. Paul would bring out the fulfillment of
37:45 the church is Christ. So when people come into church, they do not see us as
37:51 individuals. They see Christ. And when the church goes out there and says, "No,
37:57 what you're doing to us is wrong, is against the constitution." They don't see Christians. They see Christ. When we
38:04 see this, we are a community of saints. Now, how does that happen? It happens in
38:11 few areas. Number one, how faithful are you outside the walls of ABC?
38:18 Secondly, how transparent in the church is the handling of money in this area? I think ABC is doing very well. I'm not
38:24 going to go into it. And lastly, I think the most difficult, who are we accountable to in church in our
38:32 struggles with sin? Let me just go past all of that. In a in a telephone survey,
38:38 you know, Bar telephone survey in 20113, it said only 5% of people say their
38:44 church does anything to hold them accountable for integrating biblical beliefs and principles into their lives.
38:50 Now, here's the frightening truth. You can come to church every Sunday, get involved in many things. Uh,
38:57 you could be a wife beater. You could have a pornographic addiction. You could
39:02 be cheating your taxes. You could be a liar. You could we have all sorts of bondages. And here's the frightening
39:09 thing about lot churches. You can keep going on in church for 20, 30 years and
39:14 no one cares. No one's going to ask you. And the more you get involved with church, they're going to pat you on the
39:20 back and says, "You're a good brother. You're a good sister." Because no one
39:26 knows what you and I do behind closed doors.
39:32 And I think I want to close with this. This is our biggest struggle today to be
39:38 accountable to one another. Why is that important? Because we cannot go through being
39:45 Christians ourselves. We are a community of saints. When we are accountable for
39:50 one another, we build people who are strong. How does Paul end
39:57 the entire epistle of Ephesians? He ends this in verses 10 of chapter 6 with
40:03 these words the armor of God. Now when you understand the armor of God doesn't
40:08 apply to one person but to a community of saints. You know what he's saying?
40:14 He's saying the church are soldiers. You know, for the church to be a church that can
40:22 prevail against the gates of hell or people who will raid us without due
40:29 process or people who intimidate the church by protesting outside us. We must
40:36 be a community with the armor of God. And you can only do that if we are
40:44 accountable to one another. The biggest danger of a programdriven church is that
40:50 it dilutes that. We think we are holy because I'm preaching or because I'm
40:55 involved in worship or because my church life is so busy. Wow. Well, you just
41:02 become a community club member. I want to end by this as we start off
41:08 2014. Start off 214. Three resolutions. The
41:13 first we are all saints. a community to uphold one another. Number two, know
41:19 your Bible. Number three, be accountable to each other. Because if you're not
41:26 accountable to each other, the day will come when the church will be attacked.
41:32 The church will be attacked internally by division or the church will be
41:38 attacked externally. And when that happens, we will then see how healthy
41:43 the church is. When the testing comes, we will then know whether we have on the armor of
41:51 God. I want to close with to me my favorite verse right now of the Bible. Romans 8 verse 35. And if you will turn
41:60 to me, we'll close with this and then I would like to invite the worship team up here now. If we can, the worship team to
42:06 come up as we prepare to close in song. Romans 8 and we'll start with verse 35.
42:14 Who shall separate us? Not me, not you, us. That means who shall separate FBC
42:22 church? If I replace that, who shall separate FBC church from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
42:30 persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or the sword? Verse 37.
42:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For
42:42 I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither
42:49 the present nor the future, nor the powers, neither height nor depth, nor
42:54 anything else in all creation, neither people who will persecute, intimidate,
43:00 go out and demonstrate, raid our church. None of this will be able to separate us
43:06 from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Can you say amen to that?
43:12 Amen. Can you say amen to that? Amen. Are we a healthy church? You ask me
43:19 honestly, I don't know. You know why? Because we haven't really been tested.
43:24 And we start off 214. And perhaps as we go through 214, the church will have internal crisis.
43:31 Perhaps we have external people pleasurizing us. And when that happens, we will then know whether we are a
43:38 community of saints with the armor of God who will stand and we will then be
43:44 the church which Peter which Jesus told to Peter where the gates of hell will
43:50 not prevail. Shall we pray? Lord, we start off this uh uh 20114 by
43:58 just praying a challenge to each one of us that we are saints. Oh Lord, we cannot meet you one day and give you our
44:05 church attendance. We cannot come before you and also tell us that we've been involved in church
44:11 programs. Lord, we ask ourselves this morning why are we here in FBC?
44:17 Remind us Lord we are in a covenant relationship with you. That we are one with Christ. That each one of us, every
44:24 single person sitting here in this hall has a role to play. We are saints, a
44:31 community of saints, oh Lord. And as a community of saints, teach us to move
44:36 forward with the word of God and that we will be faithful to one another. teach us to have the culture of confessing our
44:44 sins to one another and to uphold one another. By that, Lord, then we will be
44:49 strong and we will be a church where neither depths or heights or or
44:56 persecution or trouble or famine will separate us from the love of Christ
45:02 Jesus. And we say it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Okay, we want to thank the Lord for brother Anna Lim's message. Let's uh
45:09 please arise as we sing the closing song, Deep Calls to Deep.
