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00:02 As uh last year we started a new mission for the church, gospel community
00:09 and missions and uh last year was very much restructuring the church. This year we have started to get into the details
00:16 and one thing we have started to do is really move our hardware our you know
00:22 our inside and excel groups are now really on fire. Last Friday I attended a
00:27 new live group. The worship team is starting two live groups. The women's groups are also starting some live groups and we're trying to move the
00:34 church into accountability. In parallel, the church is also looking into the needs of the family. And we
00:41 have started discussions with a and a small little community to look at family needs. And we want to ask if anyone of
00:48 you are interested to be involved in this ministry, you can talk to sister Magdalene and Gary, the names are there
00:55 and brother Brendan Lim or you can talk to me and how we are doing this as part
00:60 of our mission and vision. Last Sunday, last month I spoke on the church and
01:07 today we're going to talk about the family. You find these two are really in a symbiotic relationship. So let's bear
01:14 with me as we just go through this. Uh so if you're interested the numbers are there and we're going to be birthing
01:19 this ministry and God willing we'll be unrolling out a few seminars on
01:24 parenting uh marriage pre-marriage and u to help all of us strengthen the
01:30 families. Now let's just talk a little bit of families and um it doesn't matter whether you
01:35 have kids or you don't have kids everyone here is a kid to a father or mother and some a lot of you have
01:41 children. So this is a family in China and uh they don't look very healthy. Six
01:48 months later, this is how they look like. Where's Brandon and Stevens here,
01:53 you know? So uh it's quite quite amazing. So those of you who know me,
01:59 right, you know I'm a little bit into fitness, but this look at the dad, man. That is Whoa.
02:06 Now I'm not here to try to sell you a fitness program, right? So I just want to be very clear. But how did they get
02:13 into this shape? Because the family worked at it together. Healthy families
02:19 do a lot of things. And so it is true on the physical plane. It is true also on
02:24 the spiritual plane. So uh this morning we really want to look at families. Now let's look at the opposite side. Let me
02:30 just ask a a question. We got a lot of youth here. This message is geared a lot to the youth. What is one film? You guys
02:38 all know this film is a series of films which deals a lot about families and is
02:44 about generations of families. Come on, you guys know this film. Anybody throw
02:50 it out to me. It's probably one of the most famous films. I will guarantee at
02:55 least 90% people in this hall would have seen it, if not 80%. Is a series of
03:00 films and it talks about generation after generation after generation. And
03:05 the last installment which just happened in February was into the third generation. Come on guys.
03:11 Sorry. Yes. Star Wars.
03:16 Star Wars. You see why is Kylo Ren a bad guy?
03:24 Is it because he's got Anakin Skywalker bloodline in him? And because of the
03:31 sins of the grandfather who became Darth Vader which he worships, he now became
03:39 bad or is it not because of nature is more of nurturing because his uncle Luke
03:46 Skywalker tried to kill him and because of that he got scarred or he turned up dead. How many Star Wars people here
03:53 lost Star Wars fans? Star Wars guys raise up your hands. Star Wars are going to be oh dear. Today's sermon is all
03:59 about Star Wars illustrations, you know, if you don't get it koa already. So today we're really looking at about the
04:07 family and it's a series I'm going to be doing every first Sunday of the month is
04:13 about the gospel and emotionally healthy spirituality. This Sunday we'll talk about families
04:20 and next Sunday the month after we'll talk about the individual. So we go from the church to the family to us. So let's
04:28 come before God in prayer. Lord I ask this morning you humble me. Uh
04:36 any misplaced arrogance oh Lord I just cast it into you. Lord teach me to come
04:41 with fear and trembling that your spirit only your spirit speaks not the wisdom
04:48 of man. Lord, teach me not to be theatrical, to be overconfident with
04:53 jokes and illustrations, to feed off the public, but let me really go in the
04:59 spirit and that your voice and your voice alone will be heard. And we say this in Jesus' name, amen.
05:06 Uh this is the big picture which I want you to take home. There are two main points. Point one, the way we function
05:13 as a father, wife, husband, son, daughter, daughter-in-law, son-in-law,
05:20 etc. is more often shaped by our culture
05:25 and family upbringing rather than in our new identity as disciples of Jesus
05:31 Christ. That is your main take-home lesson. Absorb that, take that back. Today
05:38 there's only that one point tying to that very heavily is this spiritual
05:43 disciplehip is both the responsibility of the church and the family and this is
05:49 our theological statement for the family life ministry you can ask Brandon
05:54 every ministry needs a theological statement that's our statement you get point one wrong you get point 2 wrong
06:01 they interconnect let me just give you a few verses just take us off for example Deuteronomy 6:es
06:08 5, love your Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul. And then Moses says what? Teach it
06:15 to your children. He didn't say ask the Sunday school to do it.
06:21 He didn't say, "Ask the youth to do it. I'll teach my kids maths and science and do well in school. We're going to
06:27 subcontract that out to the church." Malaysians love to sub things out, you know. He didn't say that.
06:35 So that's very, very important. Here's a very simple example just to start this off. Uh who
06:42 is Paul's toai?
06:48 Who is Paul's disciple? Key disciple. Come on guys, Timothy. Do you know where
06:53 it came from? It came from his grandmother. It was Ununice who brought up him, then
06:59 the mother, and then Paul took over to Bon. What is missing in that picture?
07:04 Where's the dad? So very likely it's possible he came from a dysfunctional family but the
07:11 grandmother took over the baiton and so did a mom. So we're going to look at this and we're going to look at three
07:17 points generational identities generational relationships and the last one which is
07:24 quite painful is generational strongholds and is that's quite a heavy topic. I'm
07:31 going to come clean and tell you this is an uncomfortable topic. But like pastor Daniel Ho says, God's job is to make the
07:38 comfortable uncomfortable and to make the uncomfortable comforted
07:43 by God. And I given this an Asian context because I've read quite a lot on
07:48 this and Asian families are very diverse. We have for example very big
07:54 nucleus families. We have now the modern single mother. A lot of that's coming up
08:01 with the number of divorces going up. That's why we starting the family life ministry. We have many generations and
08:08 steep in traditions and we have mixed marriages. So we're going to be discussing this in this context and
08:15 we're going to look at genealogy. Genealogy is probably one of the most boring things people like to nobody
08:20 likes to read genealogies but we're going to do that today and we go look at a genealogy which is not very well known
08:26 is found in the book of first Samuel. So people ask me why no Bible reading God is four chapters. You read that today
08:33 you the host will be one hour already. So go back and read 1 Samuel we and the
08:39 way to do it is particularly chapter 2 and chapter 3 and we're going to go a little bit to chapter 8 and I'll give
08:46 you a little bit of the story of this and we look at first at who is Eli and
08:51 here we have basically the genealogy of Eli. He had two sons. He had a prodigy.
08:58 He had an apprentice. He had a padawan. Okay, the Jedi master had a padawan. And
09:05 out of that padawan, he had two sons. And then he had another son called him. You can track the timeline for that. But
09:10 who's Eli? Eli is a big shot. He's the descendant of Aaron the high priest. No.
09:17 So don't play play. No, come from important family, you know. And his line
09:22 had the privilege of being high priest. In fact, the line, the generation comes
09:28 from the time of Egypt. From the time of Moses, God had picked his family and
09:34 this entire family were the high priest. On top of that, this is the time before
09:41 the line of kings enters Israel, before Saul ascends the throne and he was the
09:48 judge. Now, that's very important. In not so many words, Eli was probably the
09:54 single most influential and powerful figure in Israel.
10:00 Don't play play with Eli. Now, let's go back. We don't talk a
10:05 little bit. Now, he had a prodigy called Samuel. The story is that Hannah wanted
10:10 to give birth and had a son and she dedicated the son to the Lord's service.
10:17 In many ways, Eli raised Samuel as an old man. So Samuel is not just an
10:23 apprentice, is very much like a foster son. Get the family line right and we
10:28 can get into the story. Now we look at the two sons and the father is such an
10:34 important man, big short tan. The two sons are like a lot in Chinese culture.
10:43 Bad news, man. Wow. Are these two sons really chalat one? You know they are bad
10:50 news and we mean bad. And chapter two the verse starts off the sons of Eli had
10:57 no regard for the Lord. In the Hebrew version it says the sons of Eli behaved
11:04 as the sons of Blay. That's the son of the devil. They were not just bad. They
11:10 were really bad. What did they do? Go back and read it. But they did two things.
11:16 Father Big Shot Ma they are priest ma so they the tollkeepers see so in your view
11:23 in the olden day the high priest whatever food the best goes to the lord you find this in levaticus in the grain
11:30 offering and then some is left for the priest so the same with the meat the meat goes in there you get is bald and
11:36 then they put a fork in there they'll take some how can my father the most
11:42 important person I take lef over so they put a toll in front of the temple. Any
11:47 meat that came to the offering to the god to god they checked the meat first and they took the best the rose beef is
11:54 cautious so no pork the one with all the good things they took the leftovers they
12:00 gave to God that's a big affront you know and nobody could stop them somebody says you can't do it they took it by
12:06 force who's going to stop them actually only one person could stop them who's
12:12 the father got really listen to this we're going to talk about father and sons today. I can
12:17 tell you it's a bit uncomfortable. After that, nobody stopped them. They go and play play.
12:24 They go and sleep around women. You going to stop me? So they slept with
12:30 women in the temple. And so the text says, "The sins of the
12:35 young men were very great in the Lord's sight, for they were treating the Lord's offering with contempt." You must
12:40 understand the high priest basically represents the covenant with Israel. I'm
12:46 going go a little bit into that when we talk about, you know, the punishment, but it was a severe sin. Now, what did
12:54 Eli do about it? I'm going to read you the story and you can go by and you can
12:59 go back and read it. So, people go back and say, "Hey, your sons are like that one." No, what are you going to do? Like
13:06 most fathers, I will talk to my boys. So, he sits the boys down. Son, you
13:12 cannot do this. It is very wrong. In not so many words, the two sons gave the
13:17 father the finger. Nah, I didn't show it. This is what I think of you. This is
13:22 actually what they did. And so the practice went on unabated.
13:28 And God's anger was very high. And God sent a man of God to pronounce a curse.
13:35 Now here hear this. The punishment was onto Eli,
13:40 to the sons and to the generations. He put a generational curse onto the
13:50 line. And this where we all say, whoa, what did the descendants do to deserve
13:56 this man? And go into a little bit of that. So let's go to the story. All right.
14:02 I have some clients who are DTS and sanseries. The children are a different kind of
14:10 character. Sorry any I know we have some children of DS here. So please no referencing to
14:17 anybody. I better make sure I don't look at certain people they say you see
14:22 really not referring to anyone in church. But when you're a son of somebody important you tend to have an
14:27 attitude. The word is called entitlement. You know who my father is.
14:32 You talk to me. You know who my father is or not. That's what they tell you.
14:38 And so it was with Eli's sons. Son of the most important person. You don't
14:43 come and play with me. You dare to touch me. And so we see this in Malaysia. That's why they always say Chinese are
14:49 the Jews or the orient. You see when you are rich you got an attitude
14:56 because you are not used to struggling and entitlement often comes with abuse.
15:03 Now what this is saying is that your identity as a person is framed by your
15:09 family background and you don't realize it. You think you're special because
15:15 your father did many great things. No my father invented the iPad. I'm not saying
15:21 you know but my father market cap 300 million US
15:26 my father has how many listed companies my father built the city you know my
15:32 father is involved in a tunnel in Pinang or maybe that's a bad example you know uh in in in Genesis chapter 4
15:40 after uh Abel's son Abel passes on two lines come out Seth and Cain if you look
15:48 at the line of Cain Wow. The first town planner, he built Putra Jaya. The first musician, they
15:56 built all the music instruments. The first guy who did agriculture,
16:01 all of them. The line of Cain is a line of achievers.
16:06 But there's only one problem with the line of Cain. They had no respect for God.
16:12 They were playing around with women. They started polygamy. They started vengeance. They started boardroom
16:17 politics. The line of Seth, if you read it, oh nobody you go read, what did they
16:24 do? Nothing. But the line of Seth is a godly line. So
16:30 here's the lesson to us. God doesn't care if your father is very important,
16:37 has a trey or a ded sheep or whatever. God is not saying that's wrong. But
16:43 don't let that unconsciously affect your identity. Remember, behavior
16:50 is 90% unconscious. Now, what if it's the other way around?
16:56 What if you're not that? What if you're the son of a No, we can't fill it in.
17:01 You know, Chinese when they score you, they like to score your mother. You know,
17:07 I won't even say it. It sounds like throwing a shoe in Cantonese. I can't say it. But all the Chinese really good.
17:13 They would like to they like to use your mother because they're trying to imply something about your upbringing. The the
17:19 word is simply this because your mother your father was normally they like to use mothers you know for some reason.
17:25 That means you also have that trait. Now let's go on the other side. Okay.
17:30 And follow me as we follow this story. Yeah. Now we look at his prodigy Samuel.
17:37 He got two sons also. Guess what? jobs the sons did. Come on, take a guess. Especially if you don't
17:44 know your Bible. If Eli's two sons were priests and Eli was a priest and a
17:50 judge, guess what job the two sons of Samuel did? Come on, just throw a guess.
17:57 They were judges. 50/50 chance. And every commentator
18:03 picked it up. The sons of Samuel monkey see monkey do were all so bad
18:12 and every commentary picked up the parallel. The sons of Eli used their position
18:20 to uh for greed and so did the sons of
18:25 Samuel and they did this very good dear judge. What can judge do? I him.
18:32 So they became very loaded. They were corrupted to the core. Oh, this one really must have got Malaysian
18:38 blood. What? Surely got Malaysia line in there. Now, see, let's just see what happens
18:44 after that. Now, the text tells us the line is cursed. We'll read the curse later. And the house of Eli will lose
18:52 its priesthood. Before that, a lot of things will happen. They will all die young. They
18:57 will become poor. They have to beg. But finally in Kings we find the last priest
19:04 is replaced by the house of Zadok and the line ends the same way the line of
19:10 Cain ends at the flood but the line of Seth continues on to Christ and you find
19:16 that genealogy in Matthew or Luke. Now we find that Joel has a son. Now
19:24 following the same theory is that sun curse. Now here we want to talk about something
19:31 which people like to tell you out there and I say this in love. Huh? And I love
19:37 my charismatic friends. I I I'm I'm considered semi-arismatic but sometimes people come and tell you
19:43 you know you got a generational curse. You got a soul tie you know not tie tie
19:48 as in soul tie and you got to break it. They tell you, you know, your behavior
19:54 can be traced back to your great-grandfather because he was a priest. I I've heard this with my own uh
19:60 he was a priest in the Hindu temple and you have the spirit of CA
20:06 and they'll get three people to lay hands of you and break that and they tell you all your behavior will trace
20:12 back because your grandfather was a priest in Hindu temple. You could do that in the Buddhist or tawist temple.
20:18 So that's why in some churches when you become Christian they go to your house they go and clean the whole house out
20:23 Chinese New Year you cannot have dragon because there is the tie and they come
20:28 and tell you a lot your problems is you need to break that generational curse. You break it your life is okay. I want
20:35 to suggest to you humbly there is no biblical basis for this. Now let me just
20:40 go through a bit of the curse and the curse is actually found in uh the second part of chapter 2 goes back God sends a
20:48 man of God to put pronouncement on the house of Eli but before that Eli talks
20:54 to the sons like any good father he tries to rationalize and he says this after Eli tells the sons what they did
21:02 were wrong the verse tells us his sons however did not listen to their father's rebuke mean meaning the sons
21:09 chose to not listen. But the next verse is interesting. For it was the Lord's
21:14 will to put them to death. So these two go in parallel. One, God made a decision
21:22 on the destiny of the sons. Two, in parallel, the sons rejected God. And you
21:27 can almost hear echoes of the story of Pharaoh because we are told at the time
21:32 of Moses, God hardened the heart of Mo of Pharaoh. But Pharaoh had decided to
21:38 turn away and not listen to Moses. So this is something you must understand about divine providence and human
21:44 decisions. If God says, you know, I curse your line, it means that line also
21:51 decides to disobey God. It is never a case of a person where God curses that
21:58 line. That line honors God. The curse still goes on them. This is what they're teaching you. That is nonsense. But more
22:05 importantly, I want to pick up this verse. All right? And we we look at verse, if you have your Bibles, verse
22:11 22, when he talked to the son. This is what he says. Uh verse 23. So he said
22:16 today, "Why do you do such things? I heard from all the people, but the wicked deeds of yours. Know my son is
22:22 not a good report that I hurt spreading around the lost people." Now, here's the key verse. If a man sins against another
22:27 man, God may mediate. We're looking at mediation between God and man for sin.
22:35 But if a man sins against the Lord, who will intercede for him? And what Eli is
22:42 saying, look, if if you sin against someone else, no, I can God can
22:47 intercede, but you're sinning against God. The only person that can intercede
22:52 for God is God. And so when we look at that, we remember the words of First
22:58 Timothy. And 1 Timothy says, "For there is one God, one mediator between God and
23:05 mankind, the man Christ Jesus." Now, let's wrap this up a bit. Number one,
23:10 generational curses is what we call covenant language. It's a covenant
23:16 curse. It is unbiblical to go to everyone to say, "Hey, no, you got you got a bad
23:21 temper. It's because you have a spirit of a snake in you because of your mom or your dad. You have you you you have this
23:28 lustful behavior is because I trace it back to somewhere in your uncle and he had a very bad addiction and so that
23:34 line came to you. That's unbiblical. What we're having here is covenant language. Covenant language is this. God
23:42 says I have given the line to Eli and Eli must go in obedience. And we say
23:50 this okay uh in verse 30 he says I promise that your house and your father's house would minister before me
23:57 forever but now the Lord declares far be it from me. Meaning God had covenanted with Eli.
24:05 You disobey the covenant breaks. Same pattern. God says Saul here is the covenant. You
24:13 didn't destroy the Canaanites. I break that covenant. Israelites I will bless you. I will be
24:19 your God. You will be your people. You disobey me, I break that covenant. It goes to the Gentiles. The issue isn't
24:26 about curse and blessings. The issue here is about obedience and
24:31 disobedience. Now, in the New Testament, we are all in a covenant with Christ. That covenant
24:40 dependent on obedience. If you willfully, willfully, willfully break
24:45 that covenant, there is no covenant. So here's let me wrap this a little bit theology up.
24:53 If you feel you have a struggle, claim the power of Christ.
25:00 We just sang a song just now. No power can resist your throne. No curse can
25:07 assert you. There is no curse the name of Christ cannot break. Amen. You have
25:15 to believe that because Christ mediates for us.
25:20 Don't let someone tell you my problem is because I have this issue from the past. You claim the power of Christ. But let
25:27 me just wrap this up a little bit. And we see this Hmon becomes somebody very
25:32 respectable. He breaks the line. And a lot of people believes is the same Hmon who wrote Psalm 88. And you read Psalm
25:40 88. One of the interesting verses he says, "I was afflicted since young." He
25:45 had a bad father but he grew up right. It's the same with the story of Ruth
25:52 Moabitete widow bad line and out of Ruth comes the line
25:60 of Jesus. So let me wrap up this point. You see some Christians telling this no
26:06 my family ran a very successful company for many generations. I need to take the company to higher heights or I will be a
26:13 failure or the dad will tell the kid your grandfather doctor I was a doctor
26:18 what are you becoming architect you're a failure in life so your
26:25 identity is framed by family pressure here's another one my dad beat my mom we
26:32 were poor my grandfather was poor my whole line was rubber tappers I'm
26:40 You see where we going with this? This curse is self-generated.
26:47 You're letting your family line define your identity. In my family, we don't we
26:53 cannot lose faith. My family very well known in our village. We don't talk about problems. In fact, we don't talk
26:59 about it full stop. No face. You got problem, you bury it inside.
27:08 Dust has it been for generations. And this one I heard really sadly from
27:14 somebody. I heard it from a sister. In fact, she came here. I will divorce twice. My
27:23 fortune teller told me I will be lucky in business, not lucky in love.
27:29 You You don't laugh. You know it's true. You know, you get divorced once, you already feel that, you know, I'm
27:36 probably not much of a woman or man. Second chance breaks down. There must be
27:42 something wrong with me. But my genes are bad.
27:48 But Christ says, "We are a new creation.
27:54 We are a new creation." You see, when you're in the world, you have a
27:59 conflict. Your family ties pull you. The outside
28:04 friends pull you. Like Luke Skywalker, I am a Jedi like my father before me.
28:13 That was many, many, many generations ago. All you young people, please watch your history. Yeah. But as of February,
28:20 he says it's time for the Jedi to end. He's conflicted.
28:25 But the good news for us as sons and daughters of God
28:32 is that our identity is in Christ. And there's no Jew, Greek, slave, free,
28:39 male, female, do tons, a single parent, abused family, whatever you are, sons
28:46 and daughters of Christ. And I want you all to take that home because you really
28:51 got to never realize the extent of how your family background just shapes you.
28:59 So let me go to the second point. Generation relationships. I want to take three sub points. Beware of family
29:04 idols. Beware of a compartmentalist life. And beware of living in denial.
29:10 When we think of family idols, we think this. So you know when I was younger I know some of my friends became Christian
29:17 and then around Chinese New Year they say oh I'm Christian no you know Chinese New Year they pa I don't eat the food w
29:24 like very proud you know then the Chinese family say wow you all what kind of western religion you take back
29:32 no respect for your family no respect for your generations so we tend to think of idols in this way but let's go back
29:40 to the text again and a man of God came to Eli verse 27 chapter 2 and he prophesied against Eli and now let's see
29:48 what exactly did Eli do wrong and the curse happens in verse 30 therefore the
29:54 Lord the God of Israel declares I promise your house and your father's house will minister before me forever
29:59 but now the Lord declares far be far be it from me and here's a key verse those
30:05 who honor me I will honor but those who despise me will be disdained
30:13 The time is coming when I will cut short your strength and the strength your father's house so that they be not for
30:18 old men in your family line. Now where is the basis of this? You find in verse
30:23 29. Why do you score my suffering sacrifice and offering that prescribed for my dwelling? And here's the key. Why
30:30 do you honor your sons more than me? Now
30:37 that's a subal idol. You see, idols don't have to come with you with a red sign and blinking lights.
30:44 What was Eli's idol? His sons. And God charged him that you put your
30:53 sons above me. You see, you must understand something about Eli. He's not just priest. He's a judge.
30:60 If it wasn't his sons, he would have put whoever was doing this to death.
31:07 In simple illustration, let's just say my daughter comes to church and eats a hot dog
31:13 in church during the Lord's supper and she puts a plate in front put
31:19 masters and eat hot dog and people say hey there's an son eating a hot dog you know then they tell me your son your
31:26 daughter eating hot dog I say I go home I talk to her is that right
31:32 no I should kick her out I should tell her you stop eating hot dog and you get out now you are
31:39 profaining the house of God right because God comes first
31:46 now let me tell you we have a lot of subtle idols we don't pick up
31:51 marriage children your perfect family here's one which is
31:58 really for the Chinese children's education
32:03 if someone tells you you know your kids are going to Call 9A I got this system
32:09 and then guarantee you get scholarship don't need to pay money only one thing
32:14 you need to do miss church for the next six months would you do it or not I tell you you
32:22 and I will be tempted we will do it and then we will rationalize it we will be like Eli what
32:28 do you want me to do I talked to my boys already ma they don't want to listen to me what more you want me to Oh,
32:35 you see all these idols are very subtle, but they're very real.
32:42 But put God first and God assures you that if you honor him, he will honor
32:49 you. Those who honor me, I will honor. Let me give you a positive example of this.
32:55 If you have a fight in your family, your wife, husband, la, your father, fight with you, your mother, your children,
33:01 name it. What do you do after that? Most people after that will retreat.
33:08 Some people I know a friend, she was in Bangsa. She got a spare room. That room
33:13 was was kept for a friend who always fight with the husband. Every time the husband and wife fight, the wife would
33:20 go to that to Bangsa and stay in that room that night to cool off. The tragedy was that wife was a wife of a pastor.
33:27 And this happens to everyone. Some people when they fight, they go driving middle night drive because need
33:34 to clear their mind. My wife knows if I have an argument not with her. I mean honestly lately God has been very good
33:40 to us but we have a family issue. I will go down to the pool there and sit. But here's the good news.
33:47 You can go to God because the moment God is above all
33:52 these things, God is just saying you honor me. I tell you I've tried this. These things don't grapple you because
33:58 nothing nothing messes up your day than a family argument. Correct? You try to have a
34:07 fight with your wife or your father and then go to work. You see whether you can perform in work the whole day you cannot
34:12 think properly. But the moment God is your anchor, you pull yourself away from
34:18 that because as you're driving to work, you say, "God, did I honor you in that fight? My father just called me names.
34:24 Or my wife just called me names. Or my husband just said, "I was useless. I was hopeless. And if you say, God, I did
34:31 right. I honored you. I'm now going to learn to forgive him. I'm going to go by grace. You will have a better day."
34:37 Honor God and God will honor you. Let's go to the second point.
34:44 Compartmentalized life. Now, we go a little bit to chapter three. I won't read it. But what happens is that
34:49 because Eli is so thick skinned, God doesn't just send a prophet to warn him.
34:54 God uses Samuel. And the story goes is that God speaks to Samuel, but he
35:00 doesn't get it. So Eli trains Samuel to hear the voice of God. And in fact, if
35:06 you read the chapter, he even rebukes Samuel when Samuel doesn't want to tell him certain things. But what am I trying
35:11 to tell you? Eli was a great mentor.
35:17 Lousy father. He was a great preacher in church.
35:25 Lousy dad. See where we're going with that? He was a great Bible study leader, great worship leader. He was great. Eli
35:32 was fantastic. Really, really messed up at home.
35:38 Now, let's do a little bit of research. David was a bad dad. Look at
35:45 his sons. Look at Abselum. Look at Solomon. Look at Rahobam.
35:53 You think Abraham was a good dad? Look at Isaac. Look at Jacob. Look at Joseph.
36:00 The Bible is full of dysfunctional fathers. Hey, what happened to the mothers?
36:06 The mothers are much better. Ruth and Naomi, Ununice.
36:13 But the guys, fathers, man, the Bible is telling you guys something. You know, you guys
36:20 better step up to be head of the household. Now, compartmentalized life is one of
36:26 the biggest problems of the church because you know what it does? You think because you're serving in church, God is
36:32 pleased with you. But the church has just become your idol.
36:38 Hey, how dare you say I Anolim bad Christian. You know what I do for FBC? Not you know what I do for all of you.
36:44 Go back Taro my daughter then that everything I do has no meaning.
36:50 So be very careful of compartmenting the life. Now here's something which I think scripture is teaching us.
36:57 We have to be authentic. I I got this from Dr. Herbert from the SS Methodist Church. You know some of us we keep
37:03 thinking we are Christians. We got to be very goody two shoes. We got to do that. Actually, it's that's that's a lie. Kids
37:09 when they look at you, they don't want to see parents always smiling. They want to see real life. Fight, but
37:18 make up. Because when you make up, what do they see? They learn forgiveness
37:24 because they see forgiveness. And if mom and dad can forgive, then you tell your
37:30 kid, "Jesus died for your sins." They get it. But if they don't see
37:36 forgiveness at home, they don't see grace between mom and dad, husband and wife. Anything you teach them is
37:42 academic. So we got to tie the two together. And
37:48 this is really, I think, center to our faith. And here's uh a classic case of
37:56 compartmentation. Here's what I wrote. I grew up in a church my entire childhood. I prayed to
38:01 Jesus save me as a child. Got baptized at 12. tried to have a prayer life throughout my high school and college.
38:06 When I got older, I realized I was just talking to the sky. And the real believers I knew were tongue speakers
38:13 who tried to do miracles which never worked or the only miracle they actually did work were cheap politics. And once
38:20 you got to know them, they were the most manipulative, insecure, betraying people
38:27 you ever met. compartmentalization who would do and say anything to convince you that their relationship with God was
38:34 real. I decided I wanted nothing to do with it if that's what the relationship
38:39 with God looked like. And here's a guy who grew up in a Christian environment. You know, I got this from. Don't go to
38:46 this website unless you're a teacher of the word. It's calledChristians.com.
38:53 Wonder whether they got the FPC people there. Actually, somebody told me that. No. And when you go to that website is
39:00 you read the stories almost half of them gave up their faith because of their
39:05 families. That's the reality of it. They couldn't
39:10 reconcile the church life which they say everybody was an actor and when they were at home they saw the real character
39:18 and they say all of this man is rubbish. So let us go to the last point. Okay you
39:23 all doing Star Wars today. I'm so sorry if you don't get this. Of course, for all fanboys, one of the biggest things
39:30 is that when we saw episode seven, we all want to know who is Ray's parents.
39:35 You know, is there a new bloodline that has got a force? And of course, those of
39:40 you who just saw the last installments and Kylo Ren asked Rey, why do your
39:46 parents leave you? And we finally find out they left you because you were a
39:51 nobody. They abandoned you. And of course, the movie tells you what she did
39:57 was she suppressed it so far inside. She couldn't come to terms to accept that she was a nobody. The dad and mom just
40:05 left her. She went on to wait for them. What do we call this? We call this
40:11 denial. We have another one which is obviously gone back to episode five, the
40:16 most famous line in Star Wars. I am your father, Luke. And of course he goes,
40:22 "No, where are we going?
40:28 Beware of living in denial."
40:33 And this is what God says to Eli through the man of through a prophet. At that time I carried it out against Eli.
40:40 Everything I spoke against his family from beginning to end. For I told him I will judge his family forever because of
40:46 the sin he knew about his sons. Bless him God. and he failed to restrain them.
40:54 Now, you can't say he didn't do anything. He tried to reason with them, but he didn't restrain them.
41:03 Now, I I really don't want to make this a depressing sermon, but we got to be real before the comfort comes in.
41:11 Mom, dad did this to me.
41:18 What? That's your father. You know, how can you say your father did that to
41:24 you? Your father will not do that to you, mom. He's been doing that for me for a year.
41:30 I don't want to talk about it. Denial.
41:37 You think it doesn't happen in church. You think church is a place where people
41:43 smile and these things don't come out. We have a culture of silence. This
41:49 recent case where the doctor of the US gymnast who was jailed
41:54 and now the entire board of directors of the USA gymnastic had to resign. Why?
42:01 Because they asked you mean you never knew 100 over girls
42:07 they turn a blind eye. You see sometime the truth is so horrible we choose not
42:12 to believe it. Here's a simple example. Your kid gets into a fight in school.
42:18 The parents, the teachers call you and says, "Your kid just punched the other boy. He's a real troublemaker. Who's the
42:24 last person to believe that? The mother or the father? How dare you say my my son is like that? My son has my jeans,
42:31 you know, and you telling my son going whack people. It's probably the other boy who started it." Correct?
42:37 Because we get emotionally involved. We can't see it. And in Malaysian families,
42:43 you don't talk about these things. Eli couldn't come to terms.
42:51 His sons were dead because he loved the boys and he paid dearly for them. This
42:59 morning I want to challenge you in a very difficult truth that all of us have issues from
43:07 our childhood. And I think sometimes what we do as
43:12 evangelicals, we bury them inside because we don't want to talk about it, but they will spring out, you know,
43:20 they'll come out occasionally and they'll damage your life. And this morning, I want to challenge you to pull
43:25 this out. So, let me end with this. I know it's getting a little bit depressing, but let me end this and then
43:31 we will find some victory and we look at strongholds because all these things are strongholds. So, we just look at the
43:37 line of Eli and Samuel. We saw how the two sons had similar problems again.
43:42 Star Wars. Sorry to all Star Wars. Episode five,
43:48 uh, Luke Skywalker's hand gets chopped off by the father. Episode six, what
43:54 happens? Any Star Wars guys can tells me the father's hand gets chopped off by
44:01 the son. It's very profound. You really got to see what And there's a moment in that
44:07 movie where Darth Vader is very conflicted. He looks at his hand and he
44:13 sees the son's hair and he realizes that the damage has been going on from
44:18 generation to generation to generation. So, we understand there's no such thing as
44:25 this generational curse, but let's give our charismatic friends some respect. At
44:32 least they talk about it. We evangelicals, we don't talk about these things. I'm going to show you some
44:38 church. Let's look at the line of Abraham. Now, you familiar the word, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
44:45 Okay? I mean, you look my daughter, they say she's a clone of me. You put in a crowd. Yeah, that's an son. She's not
44:51 just a clone of me. She's got a lot of my traits. You really got to pray for her, man.
44:57 Now, let's look a little bit. I'm going to give it through. Abraham lied about his wife's identity when there was a
45:03 famine. I will give you the verses you're interested is in the Bible study notes. Two chapters later, the son lies in
45:11 exactly the same manner. Abraham lied when he went to see the king of Egypt.
45:16 Isaac lied when he went to see the king of Philistine. The verses is almost cut and paste, you know. Then to prove a
45:24 point, his son Jacob was was a deceiver. I think Peter brought this up last week.
45:29 Lie to the brother twice. And now the mother gets into the act. The mother teaches the son how to lie to the dad.
45:36 Hey, you know, give him some tasty food, put on some some heavy clothes, and then the father's half blind. You'll get the
45:42 blessings. And then when you read the story of Laban, Laban lies to Jacob in
45:49 exactly the same manner, almost parallel. He gets the guy so drug she sleeps with
45:56 the wrong woman and say sorry that's your wife mate and then the daughters lie to the father to steal in a very
46:03 very terrible way of lying the 10 sons lie to the dad about Joseph they kept a
46:09 family we call this a family secret and Joseph lied to the brothers now do you
46:14 see a trail you don't see it we are all blind the
46:20 question is why does the Bible tell tell you this. Is the Bible tell you this? Oh, because
46:26 we just writing you a narrative. The Bible is trying to tell you something. And in case we're too thick, we don't
46:32 get this. Here's another one. Abraham's son, Isaac, Ishmael's didn't get on.
46:38 Jacob and Esel didn't get on. The sons of Jacob didn't get on until the end.
46:44 There is a pattern. And God is telling you that same
46:51 generational pattern happens today,
46:56 to me, to you. Why do some of us have anger management
47:03 issues? Why do some of us have bitterness issues, lust issues? And you
47:08 trace back, you find your family, some of them had the same issues. They call
47:14 this nurture versus nature or the scientific term is called genetic
47:20 determinism. In the same way good traits can be
47:25 passed on, bad traits can also be passed on.
47:31 And we call this strongholds.
47:37 And failure to recognize this, you become like Eli.
47:43 He passed that on to Samuel and he went on to the sons. And this morning in this sermon, I want
47:50 you to just find a way doing this. In episode 7, Luke goes to the father. He
47:55 says, "You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of the hate.
48:02 Easy to say, hard to do." So today we all talking about Star Wars.
48:08 But in reality, it isn't Star Wars. It's Spirit Wars.
48:14 Now, don't don't take this wrong. The devil works in many ways. Our
48:20 charismatic friends are not that wrong when they say, "Let's pray and release the stronghold." We get all worked up
48:27 theologically, but at least they're doing something about it. And this morning, I want to challenge
48:33 you. I know it's a painful sermon. If there are issues in your family
48:41 and you have buried it so far down deep inside,
48:47 take it out. That is not the life God wants you to
48:52 have. I spent enough time counseling this church to see this.
48:59 Do not think this church is immune. Anything you read out there, the abuse
49:06 or everything happens in every church, generational identities, relationship
49:14 strongholds. And this morning, God is saying he has a better plan for you. For when the son of
49:21 man came to set you free, he set you free. I'm going to ask the worship team
49:26 to come up. I want to read you the words of Isaiah. And it says about Christ. He will despise and rejected by men. A man
49:34 has sorrows, familiar suffering like one from whom men hide their faces. He will despise. We esteemed him not. Surely he
49:41 took out our infirmities, carried our sorrows, all your sorrows. Yet we will consider him stricken, smitten by him
49:48 and afflicted, but he was pierced for transgressions. He was crushed for iniquities. The punishment that was
49:53 brought us peace was upon him. By his wounds, we are healed. And this morning,
49:59 I want to challenge you. every emotional wound to take it to the cross. How do we do that? Just one simple lesson and uh
50:06 perhaps we can just have some music playing and it's just this just this. I'm not going to give you three points.
50:14 All of us need an encounter with God. And when you encounter God's love, when
50:21 when Paul says this in the the book of Ephesians and he says, "Wow, the love of
50:26 God, the love of God is so deep. the love of God. I pray that out his glor I
50:32 pray that you being root and established in love in Ephesians 3 vers 18 may have
50:38 power together with the saint to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is
50:44 the love of Christ and to know this love surpasses knowledge that you may be filled in measure of all the fullness of
50:50 God. Father, right now we pray for that, oh Lord, that as we seated here, that
50:55 this love just manifests itself in wounded hearts right here. And after
51:01 Paul says this, guess what he does in chapter five, he talks about what? Wives and husbands, children and parents,
51:11 if you are at least do it for your children,
51:16 but more so do it for your walk.
