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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] interesting today's future reading is taken from the book of matthews chapter 16 verses 13-23 when jesus came to the region of caesarea philippi he asked his disciples who do people say the son of man is they replied some say john the baptist others say elijah and still others jeremiah are one of the prophets but what about you he asked who do you say i am simon peter answered you are the messiah the son of the living god jesus replied blessed are you summoned simon son of jonah for this was not
00:00:46 revealed to you by flesh and blood but by my father in heaven and i tell you that you are peter and on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hades will not overcome it i will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the messiah from that time on jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to jerusalem and suffer many things at the
00:01:20 hands of the eldest the chief priests and the teachers of the law and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life peter took him a sign and began to rebuke him never lord he said this shall never happen to you she says turn and say to peter get behind me satan you are stumbling belong to me you do not have in mind the concerns of god but merely human concerns this is the word of god hi good morning everyone good morning happy new year to all of you uh i would say singing singing until all of you who speak
00:02:04 chinese as well happy lunar new year to everyone before i begin can i quickly get the monitors on so you can see the slides today what we're going to be talking about is actually on matthew 16 verses 13 to 23 it's on the messiah and his church so we're only going to be processing two different things the first one is who is jesus and the second one is why does it matter two different points very simple only right so let's begin by word of prayer father thank you for today that you bring us here to
00:02:49 to hear your word lord pray that your word will go forth and not return void i pray that you help me to be to speak your word and help us to really understand the essence of the gospel and why do you come to save us thank you lord be with us interesting pray amen all right now today's scripture actually starts at verse 13 and as amanda i was reading thank you so much it is jesus what happened was this when jesus came to the region as caesarea philippi he asked his disciples who do people say the son of man is
00:03:26 who do people say i am they replied some said john the baptist others said elijah and still others jeremiah or one of prophets but in conclusion what people thought was that he is maybe and most a good person a prophet that was the most that he would be and so jesus asked what about you he asked who do you say i am who do you think i am this is the first part that we look at who is jesus actually it's a question that all of us need to think about and we need to make a decision to actually decide who is
00:03:58 jesus but before we continue to process this a bit let us understand the background of this a bit more this passage happened in caesarea philippi and this place looks like this sincere philippa is actually a pagan area and is famous for all the idolatry that's happening there there are temples and temples there's so many temples over there and i'll quickly just explain to you what they are so there was a temple of zeus zeus is considered the king of all gods there's actually the temple of augustus whereby the
00:04:32 uh caesar at the time actually caesar's augustus had a temple uh for himself he's actually called the son of god right i'll explain it more later as well and there's this court of pan so there's a temple to the god called pan and so pan it depends both places actually at the area so there's a lot of sacrificial happening there there's a upper tomb temple there's a lower tomb temple what is significance of this basically over there this is a place of worship this is a place that people go there for
00:05:01 sacrifice for salvation they go there because they want something that's first thing we need to know but when they go there for the sacrifice and go there for their religious practices what they do over there is quite not normal to what we have over here first thing they bring their male goats and female goats to the upper tomb temple and low tomb temple and the male goods male goats and the female goats will copulate over there okay i'll choose my words very carefully after that when things get very rowdy they
00:05:30 drink and all that when things get very audi uh humans and goats copulate together as well that's what happens over there and so it was really a place whereby any good jewish boy would not go okay any good jewish boy would not go there it is a place to consider a red light district nobody wants to go there and so why did jesus bring them over there but at the same time this is actually the gates of hades there was a very big cave over there and at that time this cave was actually filled to the brim
00:06:00 it's very deep you cannot actually swim over there and water actually came out from there so it is being said this is the birthplace of pan what they believed at the time was that pan is a god that goes to sleep in the winter you go into the cave and go to hades and sleep over there so what they need to do is they need to arouse pan they need to make pan get excited so they make noise they do all the sexual acts to get pan to come up why so the pan will bless them because pan is a god of fertility
00:06:32 so the first thing to understand is why would people want to actually pray to pen for you if i ask you would you do that i think most of the answers we know as well but why why do we worship pen and this is actually pen you've seen this in some some shows before maybe this is how he looks he's actually half goat half human and the reason why people do it is because they want something from pen what they want is fertility for us what's the relevance i don't understand what's fertility let me put
00:07:00 it in words so you can understand fertility in their times means wealth means power if your goats can actually have more baby goats you get rich if your agriculture has a lot of produce you get rich but if your goats do not have more goats your children your your wife cannot have children weapons you die of starvation because that's how it is for them at the aggregate society at the time this is actually the most human thing they need fertility they need production so people go over there to worship and at the same time why do they
00:07:34 worship caesar augustus why do we do that since augustus is actually considered the son of god now if you read this what i've stated over here you see a very big similarity between caesar augustus and jesus he's considered the son of god because julius caesar is deified he's considered a great savior number three he ushered peace to rome so it was believed that the roman kingdom under him actually did very well and people actually worship him and his birthday is considered evangelion which means good news it
00:08:07 looks exactly the same as christ and so people worship him why why were people on the bus ship scissors orchestras the answer is because they want something as well they want safety do you want safety unconscious one safety they want roads without roads you cannot come here right so they want prosperity they want safety from war and these are things that augustus is giving to them so people go and worship over there now so at this point jesus asked this question who do you say i am and simon peter answered you are the
00:08:40 messiah the son of the living god now when we see these words we just thought oh okay and if you continue reading it says jesus replied blessed are you simon son of jonah for this was not revealed to me by flesh and blood but by my father in heaven what it means is that simon son of jonah you're very blessed you know this thing that you're saying right that i'm the messiah is not something that you knew it's not because you're smart you got to know it but because you're blessed is god that revealed to you no amount of human
00:09:07 effort can actually get to know about this right so god actually revealed this too to peter but the question that sometimes we look is what was so good that you said that uh simon says actually jesus is messiah what's so important now a better background for you to know is we have a history of 2000 years behind us when we actually look at this we know who jesus is we know jesus died on cross we know all the things that he did but for that for peter at the time christianity or following jesus was a
00:09:36 minority there were only a handful people actually knew who jesus really were the disciples were few but at the time roman religion was big the pagans were strong jewish was just a small little uh country or rather people that have been conquered at this point what happened is he is able to say that he is gonna see through all this and he has the guts and the bravery to actually say this that you are the messiah you are the one who will come and save us you are the son of the living god compared to caesar augustus who actually
00:10:12 his father has died and if the god has died you are the son of the living god the god that for 400 400 years being quiet has come to save us who has heard our prayers that is the context of it is that you are the messiah you have come to save us after that but i want to switch gears very quickly and jump to verse 20 with you if you see verse 20 to verse 23 suddenly it's very strange jesus told them not to tell anyone that he was a messiah okay don't tell anyone that messiah you say quietly but don't tell anyone that
00:10:45 messiah continuing from that from that time on jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders the chief priests and the teachers of the law and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life now if you look over here jesus actually explained them what would happen to him these are teachings that he'd never done before it's actually the continuation of teaching is actually telling people telling the disciples that now continuing from here i will
00:11:11 need to go to suffer peter took him aside and began to repeal him peter said no you can never this cannot happen to you so maybe peter was very happy you know i said the correct thing i'm the best disciple out there and you are going to be the king you know you're going to be the messiah i'm going to be your you're actually the right hand man i'm gonna be the person that you trust you know i need to give you some advice and you don't know what you're doing right so the answer is you cannot do that you know how can you die
00:11:36 that's not allowed but jesus turned to peter and said get behind me get behind me satan you are a stumbling block to me you do not have in mind the concerns of god but merely human concerns okay so this is what happened but why the sudden switch from a moment where peter is considered a blessed person now is considered satan what happened over there the answer is what is jesus jesus jesus saving us from in peter's mind what is jesus saving him from can tell me sin no what jesus was saving him from in his
00:12:17 mind was that this is how jesus looked like in his mind jesus is actually holding a rifle he doesn't hold a cross he holds a rifle he's supposed to come here and liberate the israelites from captivity just like how moses came and actually saved aryan from either from the egyptians from the pharaoh over here what happened is jesus is supposed to come and restore the kingdom of israel and bring forth the kingdom of god this is exactly what jesus is supposed to do now what we need to understand is i
00:12:46 actually struggle with this sermon a lot yeah i don't tell you how much i actually went through but what happened was this it's very hard to understand this part in in peter's mind what we have and what he thinks is almost the same you see what in simple terms what peter has is the theology of glory what it means is that the theology of glory assume that there was basic continuity between the way the word is and the way god is which means that if i believe that romans are bad god will believe that romans are bad if
00:13:17 i believe that god must come and save me from romans god will come and do it that is a trilogy of glory basically it means that god is as expected i can know who god is and god will do what i need if i connect over there he actually continues saying that he's then menstruated through raw power on earth which means this if let's say we believe that strength is demonstrated through raw power on earth then god's strength must be infinity if we believe that strength is good if we believe might is good what will
00:13:45 happen is god with infinity god is basically a multiplication of me if wealth is good god will have a lot of it okay if suffering is bad god with none of it that is the trilogy of glory and this is actually by martin luther in his heidelberg disputation so it's a point that i myself find a bit hard for to understand but it basically means is i put a table for you to see the theology of glory is contrasted to the theology of cross which was mentioned just now by jesus you see in the trilogy of glory is what we are accustomed to a
00:14:21 lot of times in christian we believe in the victorious living yes or no when you become a christian happens to you fong san soy you know you become wealthy you become prosperous so it can even come into a case where you ask people come up for testimonial it starts with this ever since i became a christian you can feel the blank sorry my business became better all my sickness gone away my wife got three kids after that okay my business got better uh my health is better everything became better that is
00:14:50 actually the trilogy of glory but the theology of cross is totally different it says that god does not conform to us god does not meet our expectation in fact he's totally the opposite of our expectation in the trilogy of glory we are on the path of progress which means that we are actually not the bad one you're quite good one you know but we just need god to tell us a bit you know just steer us a bit and we can go to the direct the right direction in the theology of cross what it means is we are to die with
00:15:17 christ it means that you are totally useless you cannot save yourself you need someone to save you what you have must be totally destroyed that is the difference in theology of glory it is about self-preservation it's about god coming to help me to become better and better for telling your prose there's no guarantee of self-preservation preservation it's not that god will definitely give you suffering but there's no guarantee you may suffer you may not but that is beside the point that's sort of besides
00:15:47 the point kingdom heaven is realized in theology of glory but in the theology of cross we understand that the kingdom of heaven is not fully fulfilled now it's in a ready and not yet situation already anointed kingdom and finally the theology of glory suffering will reduce as you obey god if you come to church you pay your tithes right you serve right you place your music you be usher you help in life group you will have less and less suffering because you good now because you go god will save you god will protect you god
00:16:20 will help you that is the belief but in the theology of the cross christ is hidden in our suffering which means that even when they're suffering god is there god can use suffering for good it's a very big difference over here now if i put it into practice where you see this is a sample of what happens if you have the triology of glory in your minds this is in us and they actually this is a family of members of u.s congress and this is their christmas greeting photo so it's just a chinese new year for them
00:16:49 it's christmas their christmas photo looks like that do you see something wrong christmas can you can you actually how do you square this christmas and guns how do you put these two things together but for them they can you know why because in their minds god is manly and viral i had to google and see what this word means that's very macho he's powerful is strong god is like that in my mind guys like that so i'm also like that huh okay i have guns i'm powerful that is their belief because for them
00:17:21 god is exactly what i think i'm supposed to be but a hundred times a thousand times more at the same time for us we will have this as well in chinese you have this thing uh we have this all chinese will love this word okay foo and this is saying food lingman which means that the five blessings the most important five blessings of the world comes to your doorsteps and these are five things that people want first one given longevity they want to live long long okay so this is actually what my son said um
00:17:49 we had this ceremony we have a chinese new year we actually asked my son that you give tea to us and actually my my son said i want to set this to mama i want mama live long long i want mama to be around so longevity is something good what we want wealth health character and ending well so wealth and health i think we all understand we want to be rich you want to do well health you want to be healthy character in the chinese culture actually it says that they want to be a good person as well they want to be known to be a good
00:18:19 person they have good character you know be a nice person we don't want to just be a rich guy that everybody hates like we don't want that we want to be a nice guy and finally we want to end well we're going to die peacefully we don't die with cancer we don't but die in a situation whereby we are actually suffering that is the blessings that we want but if you have a theology of glory what it means is jesus will give you all this your belief will be that jesus will give you all of this there's no compromision so if you have
00:18:46 suffering in life you'll be wondering what did i do wrong maybe i didn't pray enough maybe i didn't serve enough maybe the money i give no and i must give more so what you see is actually this belief right is similar to what happens in caesarea field by where people go over there to give okay they sacrifice over there they sacrifice their goats into the kids of hades and hopefully pan will accept it if pen accepts it then maybe they will actually get blessings but for us you can see can you see the same transaction what you see
00:19:16 over here is not just for prosperity gospel i would say that even in normal in general christians this is very common we have a certain belief in god that god will be exactly as our expectations god will listen to me and god knows exactly what i want because i'm right if you pull it a bit longer a bit more this is what you'll see first thing is this a person that tells you a glory may still do that since prayer they still believe that i'm a sinner right i'm just saying okay like you say i do something wrong i pray long i say
00:19:52 the sinner's prayer but after i say the sinner's prayer i continue to sin anyway i continue to gossip i cannot do things in sure there's no change in their life you want me to do this this is a process meaning a sinner's prayer it's just a small little hindrance and small little things i need to do in order for me to get the blessings i want at the same time you want me to pay tights i'll pay la it's just it's like a tax department like that every week you come you pay tax and you go but after you pay taxa
00:20:16 you don't catch me anymore don't catch me okay okay you asked me to serve ask me go to live group ask me do anything no i don't do all these things on okay because why i've done my part already okay i've done my part so this is something that is possible for us to fall into a trap whereby our understanding of the gospel is still not complete and why would we say so because if peter can actually get it wrong we can get it wrong i can get it wrong it's very common so the cross and repentance for a lot of
00:20:46 us has become just an unnecessary inconvenience so happened god said i must do i do law that was it right but what all this came about was actually because yesterday i gave a call to arnold i was asking him a question when actually look at the the passage right i couldn't understand why does jesus need to suffer actually why how can i give you an answer why does jesus need to suffer the logical answer i can give you is that oh because jesus must pay for a sins ma right so because the penalty of sin is
00:21:16 death ma so he must suffer for us but if you actually see right the main thing that jesus was doing is in his life what he's showing is obedience in philippians 2 verse 8 it says that and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on the cross the key point of salvation when jesus came is he's showing us the way what's the way the way is obedience for us to say no to ourselves to die to ourselves and to say yes to god and follow him exactly that is the
00:21:49 essence of the gospel for us to turn remember we learned about repentance before we are going this direction and we decide to repent which means we return and go this direction that is in essence the gospel but that is so hard for us to remember but this is what god wants us to do to obey even unto the point of death to follow god no matter what he says so if you want to understand how much jesus obey is like imagine you being a human and you love this little mouse that you own a lot of them so what happens you transform into
00:22:24 little mouths and stay in the long gangnam the drain together with all the other mouse and to tell the little mouse you know how to live a good life in the end the other mice bite you and kill you you know rats are very violent animals i actually got two hamsters for my kid and immediately within two days the first one died and i got another one the other one came back and bite the other one and they died as well so i bought three hamsters i only got one left right but that's beside the point consider this jesus actually died for us
00:22:58 so if you want to see the comparison it's not that you die for someone good you know it's not human dying for human is that you dying for a rat will you do that that is extent of gospel or even more than that the energy i can give you is only until he only but that is jesus obedience to this level so the theology of cross is actually stated over here in matthew 16 verse 24 which a passage will go through next week in verse 24 it says then jesus said to his disciples who i want to be my disciple must deny themselves and take
00:23:29 up their cross and follow me for whoever wants to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for me will find it that is the essence of christianity that is essence of following jesus you follow him and you give up yourself you give up all your rights and you whatever he asks you do you do it it's not necessary if you give you suffering but the answer is i will follow you regardless i'll sign a waiver give you a blank check whatever you want i'll do for you that is it i will cover more of this i
00:23:59 will let pastor josh do this next week yeah but the essence that everyone understands this when we say what is jesus coming to what is jesus saving us from we said jesus is the messiah we understand he's the savior coming to save us but what is he saving us from the answer friends i want to share with you is he's actually saving us from ourselves when he says saving from sin it sounds like oh you know just a notion just an idea of sin but the actual fact is saving us from ourselves because we are destroying ourselves we don't know
00:24:31 what we're doing we like to harm ourselves you have to inflict more harm to ourselves you sleep and you wake up and you continue watching your netflix until one am to end one sleep uh some of you maybe you're doing this if you're not doing it and you're very good okay i've done this before but this is what we do we like to torture ourselves and do things that are wrong and yet we do it but jesus has come to save us from ourselves that is the essence of the gospel so and why why why are all these blessings all
00:25:00 what is important to us because actually these are all temporary as well what you see here is all these things are good but they're just foreshadowing the actual blessing which is what god will be giving us him himself i read during chinese i went to meet some friends and as you grow older you guys at life is a bit different from what you expect um when you're young you think you know everything is awesome if you watch lego movie you know the song everything is awesome you think that you just keep on
00:25:30 doing well you work hard and all the things you check your box everything you do well and life is at that but as you leave your life suddenly i said it's not so simple you know as you leave right when go back and meet my relatives some of them have cancer my mom had a stroke two years ago thank you for your prayers she's okay now already but you see that life is not so simple that is not really your fun function everything must be nice and easy on life is actually all these blessings you see are actually very temporal very
00:25:59 quickly they will all be gone a lot of times we just don't realize it okay a lot of times we don't realize that very quickly all this will be gone and if you can have all this don't worry death will still come so i think we don't talk about death but we still need to right so these are things that we need to understand these are all temporary blessings so when you when they go to caesarea philippi and do the sacrifices they want blessings but the true blessing actually is only from god so who is jesus jesus is the messiah
00:26:30 who has come to save us from ourselves okay that's the first point the second point is very easy the second point is why does it matter why does it matter why does jesus matter to us why is it so important to know who jesus is over here what you see is our proximity to the truth of jesus changes our future inside for somebody's example here you know in the bible it says that i'm the vine you are the branches he that stays in me and i in him they will bear much fruit so if you actually know who jesus christ is and you hold on to
00:27:04 the truth and you follow him and you live your life your life will totally transform your life will totally change now if you see the next verse over here what happened is this is a story of peter who is peter peter was just an ordinary fisherman in john 1 verse 42 is where he actually got to know peter jesus got to know peter so and he brought him to jesus jesus looked at him and said you are simon son of john you will be called cephas okay which when translated is peter so please sign over here at this point
00:27:39 he will be called peter he's still not yet peter he's simon right but if you go on to the passage we have over here in matthew 16 verse 18 what happens is peter said correctly who jesus is and jesus replied and i tell you that you are peter and on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hades will not overcome it to explain it to you what it means is this since you can since you said correctly that i am a messiah let me tell you who you are now you are peter because of this belief that you have because of you clinging on
00:28:19 to this truth that i am the messiah you will be this rock that i can build my church on okay peter will be this rock that i can build my church on and the gates of hades will not overcome it which means that the church is the church is indestructible i'll give you the keys of the kingdom heaven whatever you buy on earth rebound in heaven and whatever you lose on earth will be loose in heaven now let me explain to you when we say that why is it why is it so important to know who jesus is look at this way when
00:28:50 jesus actually got to know peter he changed long long time ago this was him a fisherman a galilean basically is a guy that's not so refined when they talk they can from their dialect you know that this guy's not so smart okay so you know from components not not so high caliber people uneducated and he has a lot of bad records correct not when you say peter normally this is a lot of bad records that you can remember he denied jesus three times denied jesus three times he's always rash he's the first one to say the wrong
00:29:23 things do the wrong stuff he also cut off the high priest servants gear okay when he wanted to capture jesus he's the one who actually go and do these are things so he's a very rash person who actually is very quick to do things very quick tempo as well and this is him but when he got to know jesus by holding on to this truth that jesus is a messiah okay he got to know the truth that jesus is messiah his life changed look at what happened to him if the first to confess jesus the messiah he is the only disciple
00:29:54 following jesus when he was captured a lot of times we don't give him credit for this we said that he actually denied jesus three times right but you understand what's the context the context is every single disciple flee they all ran away they got so scared they ran away but peter was the only one that followed jesus to go and see what happened to him so a lot of times we look at people young people are smart even people who are actually talented but god looks at the heart and this guy i would say that
00:30:23 it's better to have more peters in the church than the lesbians your education your talent is secondary okay or the last thing that god thinks about the key thing is where's your heart he's also the first to give a sermon during pentecost right when holy spirit came upon them is the first he gave the first miracle after resurrection at a beautiful gate when there was a person who was lame who actually hold on to him and ask him for some money he actually said silver and gold i have none but what i have
00:31:00 i give to you in the name of jesus christ you stand up and walk and that is a peter that you see but you don't understand it is not because he was a fisherman they can do this it's not because he's uneducated suddenly because it's not because he's hard working it is because of his proximity to the truth it's because of him holding on to who jesus christ is and that changes your life totally friends if you want to have a different in life you know in the year 2022 that we are in now if you want a
00:31:33 change in your year if you want a new life the way to do it is not by working harder it's not by doing a checklist and making sure you do it but it's this one question do you know who jesus is and do you hold on to this truth and you live based on this truth so there's all these things they have and vision from god of of for the gentiles and pillar of the early church that is bitter that we know so in fact if you read over here in acts 4 13 when he saw the courage of peter and john and realized that they were
00:32:02 unschooled ordinary men they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with jesus you see everyone could to know that it is impossible for a fisherman to behave like this it is impossible how can you be so well in your speech how can be so smart in debating in talking in arguing and the only tone of one thing because they had been with jesus and friends when your friends look at you when your family look at you what do they see or you are doing so because you ran in the right industry
00:32:38 because you bought the right stock that's how you got richa you were so many kids because uh i don't know you have a good wife i don't know what it is right but when people see you what do they see right what do they what do they see but over here jesus actually transformed peter and everyone could see it and that is how the fact is so there's a bit of clarification we need to make at this point this passage causes a lot of debates on it on this point that we mentioned just now that peter being the rock we need to
00:33:14 understand a few things this is an analogy okay when people say that peter is a rock they worry that hey does it mean that it's actually this uh talk about papa say about the pope that peter is a pope now says no this is an analogy okay jesus in this context is the builder and peter is the rock okay in his conventional capacity because of his belief he's knowing that jesus is the messiah in this capacity he is a rock first among equals there are many many rocks in the future as well and the keys to the kingdom as mentioned over
00:33:44 there is actually given to all apostles in matthew 18 verses 18 as well so this is not the talk about papacy right and so for example over there jesus in acts 4 verse 11 jesus is stone you builders rejected which has become the cornerstone this is what peter said as well so we can see that in this example over here there's no talk about pope or on our union that oh there's only one church that exists but it's basically saying that whoever actually has this belief in christ that holds on to this that is what jesus can
00:34:19 use to build his kingdom why does it matter why does it matter to us it matters to us on who jesus is because jesus is doing three things first one jesus is calling you out from the world jesus is calling out from the world okay the word ecclesia means that it's an assembly of people you you call people up for gathering assembling people together right and that is what's happening jesus is calling us if you believe that he is the messiah and you follow him jesus is calling you out from the world
00:34:53 number two jesus is then sending you into the world again okay as he builds his church he requires our people okay his believers to go and be the light of the world to share the gospel to let people know of who you are or just by you living your life people can see that you i don't know what is it about you but something i cannot hold on to and when they find them when they discover it because you've been with jesus that's why you're different that is the key point that we need to understand from here it
00:35:26 matters because jesus is sending his reward and when you go you go in the name of jesus the third one is jesus is building an indestructible church the gates of hades will not prevail the gates in the old times means the stronghold of the city it also represents authority because in the case this is where meetings happen the elders the people who are the leaders of the city we meet there it's like a place of meeting they make decisions and all the administration matters happen over there what jesus is saying that i'm building
00:36:00 my church and the gates of hades all the powers of hell will not prevail there's no way that they can destroy you okay so there may be many different things church may be messy there may be things that you don't like the meetings people there's growth then there's people leaving there's people coming but what jesus is promising us is this you are not building a church jesus is building a church so you don't even worry about it your job is just to follow and he has promised that the church is in that indestructible
00:36:34 jesus wants you to follow him and go where he wants you to go so i didn't ask for permission on this i'm sorry sorry uh peter has that way i got some photos coming up because this happened yesterday and me after midnight so there's no way i can call you but it doesn't share with you on what you guys are doing over here on what fpc is doing you see this is peter and sorry for those of you know they got married i think on 8th of january even remember correctly right 8th of january but i want to share with
00:37:02 you is these are the people who are actually building the church of jesus if you see over here you don't realize it but when jesus builds his church he doesn't build alone he actually gives you the privilege to build it together with him and these are people who are building the church with jesus the wedding is 8th of january on 31st of january they're still doing the what they call the new year's uh watch night service you think you're going to get married in eight days time you still sell free
00:37:34 honor okay but they can't do it because why because they love the church because they are building a church with jesus there are a lot more other people these are friends you know the soup kitchen ministry right with andrew and the rest over here and so we are all building in church together doing mco all your policies all sops come from andrew as well we all working together to build church during vbs if you're children you've gone to vbs vacation bible school and these are people who actually took out
00:38:09 four or five days of their work day you take holiday to go where go holiday right you take leave to go holiday but these people they come to church to serve okay so this is what we are doing why we do this because jesus builds his church through his people and over in first corinthians 15 50 it says this therefore my dear brothers and sisters stand firm let nothing move you always give yourselves fully to the work of the lord because you know that your labor in the lord is not in vain every single thing that you do for god
00:38:47 maybe people see it people don't see it but you understand you're not building the church alone jesus is building a church there okay through you so one day okay you buy shares uh you don't want to talk malaysian she has talked about uscs uh recently i bought this share called c okay it's a shoppie or all of you shoppie right the price dropped from 100 dropped to i think 60 within about one month less than that so when you invest in the world it can collapse anything can go wrong facebook dropped
00:39:21 by 30 or 25 within one day one day you know 25 but when you invest your time and give your time to god it will always generate returns for you in eternity that is an assurance you have should guarantee even better than any government guarantee okay that is what we have over here so give yourself fully to the labor of the lord you work a lot because your labor will not be in vain and finally as we end over here and let you know one thing as well this word fork that we like actually comes from a change of uh is a transformation of
00:40:01 how you look from the oldies until now so on your left hand side that is actually the oldest writing over here if you see over there what you see is actually two hands can you see at the bottom they're actually two hands and they're holding a cup of wine can you see that on the left hand side two hands holding a cup of wine and on the right side that small little pung and they called it i don't know why it's called in english okay that actually means that you're doing this to the gods so how do you if you want even blessing
00:40:34 what must you do you must sacrifice you must give wine you must offer sacrifice to the gods in order for you to get your blessings so the five blessings i mentioned to you those are the five most important blessings to the chinese culture and that is what we believe so this is evolution that happens over here so the chinese got it right you know there's one thing i got right if you want blessing you cannot get it yourself you have to sacrifice to to god to get something but it's only in jesus christ we realized realize that
00:41:06 the sacrifice didn't come from you you don't need to give your wine to god there's nothing you can give that can actually fulfill what god needs but in only in jesus christ we realize that the sacrifice came from the top without you asking without you even knowing when you were still sinners christ died for you that is the beauty of jesus and so what is your blessing what is the true blessing in this chinese new year over in jeremiah 17 7 to 8 it says this blessed is a man who trusts in the lord whose confidence is
00:41:47 in him they'll be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream it does not fear when he comes his sleeves are always green he has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit what is real blessing the real blessing comes when you are in proximity to the truth which is jesus christ being the messiah and he came to save you from from yourself from myself that is the gospel my friends
