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Alright~! Got a great week this week?
Typhoon or not typhoon? Rain, everything.
storms,
good week days, good. How many have a lousy week? Terrible, horrible week.
you don't wanna raise your hand and say anything. So.
Yeah! I'm glad your here today.
Today, we're going to finish up on the last of a series of key questions that
we've been asking
and
And the, the last several weeks, I keep saying that I'll keep it short for us,
and I'm trying to do it that today to
get us out of here by by 10:30
but, I'm not making any promises.
I, I mentioned before that,
next week we are planning of having a bit of church
forum that asked about
how we're going to go forward from here we're looking to
going into 2 services. As you look here this morning, right now!
you might say, well, if we cut this half, we go to services than that immediately
kind of makes things look sparse again
and
yeah I understand that. There's kind of a buzz, when we have a whole lot of people
in here and there's people crowded trying to get in.
And and we're gonna we're going to keep this up until it gets to be rather
uncomfortable. We don't have any set date.
I'm just talking about this, because I'd like you to start thinking about it and
here's why I'd like to start thinking about it
I there's no question but but what
God has blessed Grace Church
even a year ago
our attendance is up over a hundred from a year ago
and that's
fairly unusual I would say but
I really enjoyed the fact that we have a lot of people coming.
I wanna say this and I wanna see it nice and kind that
I don't know they were really expanding the kingdom I think we're just shifting
the kingdom
and I think there's a lot of folks at come here because up
maybe because at the children's ministry or
the Youth, so forth and that's always a good thing. Please don't get me wrong. But,
I really want us
to begin to focus on expanding the Kingdom not just
shifting the Kingdom. You understand what I mean? Instead of having people
go from church to church or and so forth wherever
wherever
things are happening that we should be bringing in new Folks.
And one of the reasons why, I would really be interested in starting
a second service because it really gives us more motivation
when there's empty seats to be bringing friends and
family in and their colleagues to say hey
Won't you come to church with us you know we have plenty room. That If you don't
come with us, there would be too much room so
and just it with the idea
we want to be getting people don't normally come to church
to come and to be under
just enjoy the their the time that we have together share with them
And. So.
I totally understand really honestly I have been a church planter
I know what it's like for going years and years and years of having twenty and
thirty people come to church on Sunday.
I also know what it's like the excitement the buzz
having a house full and having a house that's
so full that not everybody can get in.
I love it
but I also understand that
that our responsibility is to
has to be reaching out. Is to be expanding the Kingdom. Growing it. To be
and bringing people in. Its all that's where I would like for us
Our focus to be thinking. and frankly, I
honestly speaking, I'm not really excited about going to a second service because
it is a ton of work. And I'm going to ask you, when that time comes to make some very
serious commitment. As to
what your parts is going to be. At this point, we're just talking about
we're just getting it out there, because we believe that work God wants us to go.
Originally, we were going to talk a little bit more about it in depth
next Sunday. But as I mentioned earlier I'll be preaching up in the Chinese
congregation next Sunday.
So, we're going to put it off until 20th,
18th, 15th the 15th.
Sunday the 15th. We also on Sunday the 15th have
a baptism. Yesterday, we had a membership meeting
and I had that one young lady showed up I was expecting
a few more.
I do want to say something about membership here and where we are as
a church
at as Grace Church
in our statement of faith, we give we give some specific things with
regard
to
ah~!
how to join a church, in what we believe as far as joining the church its concern
and one of those things has to do with baptism
and the reason I bring this up is just to make it
very plain to you, when we gathered together as a group of men,
we talked about what our church stands for,
we discussed the whole raft of issues and had to come to some decisions about
where we stand as a church. I want you to understand that when you look at our
statement of faith we are not saying
that hey~! its our way are the only way, we're the only ones right.
because I understand some issues there are things, where people have differences
of opinion. Hopefully we'll have a different opinion on who God is or
Jesus is. Because those are pretty much
mmm
those are none issues here. But, some with regard to baptism there are those who
come from a tradition where their church they were sprinkled
they were washed, poured or something and not immersed. We talked about that
in our church and in our group, when we were discussing where we stand as a
church
and we decided to take the plain biblical meaning
as much as possible we tried just to take the plain
biblical meaning.
and the word baptized, in the Bible would be translated immersed.
back every time you see that you could just change with the word
immersed and you'd have the same meaning.
I'm glad that the translators did not do that
at least into the English. In the English they anglicized the Greek word
baptistal, baptizal
that baptist and that made it baptist so we used the word
baptist in our work in our Bible instead of the word immersion.
That helps because, it makes the whole
idea of baptism a little bit more than just getting danked in water
you know?
You don't say: Yeah man~!, I was immersed or swimming would be immersed.
there's a difference between being immersed being
baptized. So, I'm glad the translator made
that decision, but, for us as a church
we just took the plain reading of the scripture of what was immersion.
And for some, that has been kind of a
block door for getting into the getting into the church here,
getting into our church because that's one of the things that
we expect them, that the baptism would be by immersion.
That's where we stand as a church. Let me just say this:
I to you then and that is
I have no argument at all with other forms a baptist
I'm not going to question that I'm not questioning your motives and a question
whether it's right or wrong. It's just that we as a church
had to take some places on these issues and this is where we stand.
So, my point to you is simply this. It's not asking whether or not you should be
immersed or not.
it simply asking where does God want me to be?
because just then Robinson was asking about the fact that
that we need teachers. Yes, we do.
and we need teachers who are committed to this church in
his body of believers. We also need leadership
we also need those who will be a part of the leadership.
and so, in order to be that you need to be a member of the church
so I'm simply saying, you need to ask God
where he wants you to serve?
If God wants you in this church to be a part of it,
then,
my advice is
just be immersed, be baptised.
And it's not a reflection of what you did before, is just simply saying that
requirements at this church baptism are
are immersion.
and so,
I'm never going to argue with you about whether or not
what you should do? This is a matter between you and God.
And if you're quite a peaceful tough guy settles things in your life I will be
too
but I'm simply saying to you that for us as a church then, we're simply we
we
we discussed these things went too long
I want don't wanna say arguments, but long talks about it and
this is just is where we stand as a church
and not in any way saying that a
we absolutely are the only way we're the only ones who got it right.
It's who we are and its some place, some way we had to define
who we are, what we stand, that's why we have a statement
of faith.
If you can, believe that this is where God wants you to be,
I asked you, join up.
Be a part of us. Because this is where God's working board, where we plan as a church
to go forward from this. I talk to their leadership a couple weeks ago and asked them
the question
do you believe that it's possible
for an english-speaking church in this area to have say six hundred-members?
Where we have three hundred.
I'm only talking a possibilities. Of course, the part answer is everything is possible
with God. But, that was not my question.
And we really believe that God
is doing the work here. I know it's not
I know it's not a gimmicks
I don't think we have any gimmicks, we have a web page right now
And most people come here by word of mouth
I want to encourage you to be speaking to those who are not in church or not
church
and they will come the first time, maybe the second time,
but you know when we start praying for people like that it's amazing
with God does. It's amazing how God brings them around.
to say, Hey would you mind if I come? I could tell you stories and stories about
that is work with people who
in my lifetime I never thought they'd darken door of the church
mature enough God works in their life.
a couple things is just to be using word about the tell people about
what you think Grace Church? That's a positive thing,
and this the second thing is just the start praying
praying for people who you know
really need to know Jesus Christ our Saviour
I don't think church will save you,
I believe though that and I want that when someone comes here they'll hear the
message
of Jesus Christ
being the one
who fulfills our needs for forgiveness and peace
and fellowship with God. Talk a little bit about that today.
Alright. So, that just kind of leads me into where we're going today with these
key questions. Just before I get into that I'd just mention that I'm not using my iPad
today
because whatever reason it just
couldn't come up with the message when I need it. So, I can on my iPhone
this is one reason why I love Apple
it all works
together
it just works and like when you come here to church you expect to find your
sermon on your iPad it's not there
you just can't be fool around trying to figure it out make it work it just
as work so anyway, thanked the Lord for this and
Steve Jobs. Right? So.
Ah~!
The other part of the story is, I had my
I was going to a youth school about in DongHu
and I had my iPad in my satchel
bag whatever it is
and for one reason I don't know why, I set my satchel down to go to my car
drove off and left my satchel
sit on the side of the road there and
drove off.
And I got to DongHu, which is about a 45-minute Drive
I got out there, I realized,
What in the world, I remembered I have it with me, I forgot to put in the bag.
I forgot the bag.
and I couldn't turn around and just say
it would be an hour and a half and it would be over.
I prayed, and I say: God, you gave me this thing, if you wanna take it, it's yours.
I got to do what I have to do and thank the Lord
But, I went back immediately afterwards. I went back
sure it is there's my black bag, sit right there, nobody fool
around it and there it was.
And I was thinking, wow!
This is an amazing place. I can promise you,
I can promise you in the country where I come from
that would never happen and not only that
yesterday the same time as I was driving my car back
and as pulling up at a bus stop where there was a red light and
and the buses pulling off
and there somebody it left something just like this
on the bench
at the bus stop on the side of the road,
and I watched half a dozen people walk by and pointing at it
keep walking on by
I was astounded. How many of you left something at a Taxi of
great value and you got it back? You know I don't
in any way think Taiwan is a righteous country I got tell you man
that's amazing there's not too many places in the world let that happen. Not
too many places at all.
So, I was thanking God that number one I live in Taiwan
and number two I got it back
number three, and number three even though it's not working
I still have iphone, so, anyway.
we're talking about these key questions and these different key
questions that we've been going through.
I just want to
go through a rather briefly
are some other reviews concern
ah!
the purpose then asking these questions is to help us to live
intentionally.
The first question is that asking
Why am I here? What am I doing here?
What's my purpose and reason for being here. If you haven't been here for
a very long, I'm just going to, I go through these
trying go through these
real quickly, okay?
In companies and corporations
there's books are written about true north. What's the objective?
What's the one objective that you want to do above all else? And
there is another guy
can't quite remember his name but he wrote a book
entitled True North and
it's really good for corporations and companies and so forth be focused on
that. But,
I really think for us a person as a person and as an individual we need to
know what that is our
our objective is, because that's kind be that's going to be a strong
foundation, so we ask the question why am I here
now if you're not a religious person
if you're not spiritually inclined at all in
religion kind it is something that you don't want to have anything to do with them,
it's not that easy question. I mentioned the fact that our world you so very
important because if you don't believe in God and you don't believe in a
creator
then
without a creator then what's our reason not
a creator makes something for a purpose
if we've not been created by someone then what purpose do I had basically we
have to come up with our
own purpose. If your a religious person but you're not a follower of Jesus
then you need to ask your God, because
whoever that is, where your Creator is you need to be asked that creator
who you really is? 'coz I understand to some not everybody is a
a follower of Jesus Christ I understand I'm not everybody believes in God
but what do you believe in God or not the question still say
what in the world are you doing here?
Do you have any sense of purpose and reason and why do you
why do you believe that way? What is your drive for that?
but for us christians and
you may have a book or you may have one of these books but we have the word
from God. For us, in God's word, he tells us what that purposes and why it is
we're here.
Then
at the core of that, why we're here?
Why am I here? It would be to give glory to God.
to give glory to God the purpose of the creation
is to give glory to the creator.
And so, in giving glory to the creator for in making us
he's made this for purpose that brings us to the second question
and the second question is when I wired
okay and it made for a purpose
how did got wire me to complete, to fulfil, to accomplish
that purpose. So since I believe in God
and I'm created by God, that he created be for a purpose
therefore I come to the conclusion I've been wired by God. I'm gifted by God
for a particular reason
our Bible tells us we are uniquely
gifted to perform that which is given us to do.
Now,
my experience has been
and this week too. I'll just
really busy week whatever reason and I there sometimes I get up in the morning
I just walked back and forth
and I'm thinking what I need to do? What I need to do? What I need to do?
Finally, I just sit down
and I sit down I say: you know God
I'm running like a chicken with its head cut off
I need some direction, as to where to go?
What should I do and it's like God said to me
Son, what is that you need me to do, to accomplish my will for you?
but what is it that you're really designed and wired to do it that's
well that's the reason I'll go at that is because
that is what I can hardly wait to get involved with
and I believe that what are the ways that we bring glory to God
is when we understand how we're wired, we understand what that gifting is and then
we work to improve it,
to develop it, to use it to the very best of our ability
to bring glory to God. He made us for His purpose, He wired us for His purpose,
we bring Glory to Him by seeing that fulfilled by seeing that
develop.
We ask the next question: Where am I headed? Where am I headed?
Am I headed in the direction of accomplishing God's will
for me. Is that the direction I'm headed in?
and in doing that we come to the idea that
we want to live intentionally, intentionally.
The book that I've been that this book has ten questions, we're not going for ten
questions.
Makes me too long to get 5 which was ten so
the book is written by T.J. Addington
and its called Living Intentional
and 10 key questions.
We learned from that though, that there's a certain principal
about intentions in that intentions don't get us going in the right
direction
It's direction and
not intention,
that gets us to our destination.
That I think is very important to us but another thing that we
I don't like mention too much before that is
if we want to know the direction then it requires that we be submitted to God
Submission to God
not our talents, not our information,
not our insight, submission to God
is the key
to all good intentions and direction
and this is where some people choke
because it's not all that easy just to submit to God
we saw last week we talked about trusting in God with our whole heart
acknowledging him in all our ways
What I'd like for us to see that is that I think by submitting to God, what
we're doing is we're recognizing
that God has a plan
for us
that's better than our own plan.
Ah~! we read a verse last week,
I think that verse is next up, from Jeremiah
okay how do I get the girl next there it
the heart is deceitful above all things and
desperately sick and wicked
I desperately sick, who can understand?
You know that
that's pretty rough language, it goes against
a lot of what this world tells us
this world wants us to believe that we're basic fundamentally good but God says
the heart is deceitful above all thing and so the shocking
truth is that we cannot trust
ourselves. Well, you can if you want to
really you can
but this is what God says about ourselves he says the heart
is desperately wicked, desperately sick
that's why it's important for us that we submit to God
we discover his gifts we put it to use in accomplishing His will for us
and we'll find in doing that, regardless of whatever circumstances we find ourselves
in
whether they be good or bad it difficult or ugly the circumstances will find all
that when we're
in that place for God wants us to be using that abilities given to us
there's a satisfaction of knowing it
I doing what I'm supposed to be doing and I'm where
I'm supposed to be apt. Now
today I want to ask questions
so obvious, that its amazing
and the question is this: Who is God? Who is God? I can promise you we won't come
up with the answers today.
I have a book in my library
its 1,152 pages
very small print
written by its waste repair shops written by Stephen Charnock
he's a Puritan writer
from a around the 1600 I think he died in 1687
died at the young age of 58
I would imagine he had written a book that big it be enough to kill anybody
but
but the title of that book is the Existence and
Attributes of God
what a huge undertaking
the Existence and Attributes of God and he spent much of his lifetime
writing this very big book. You can
buy it at Amazon Kindle
for two dollars and twenty five cents
check that out a 1,152 pages
it would be your reading material for the next three years, two dollars and twenty five
cents
amazing book but the reason I say that is because we asked the question who is
God here someone who spent years and years
researching and writing before they came up with this huge volume
and in the next term 20 minutes or so we're going to discuss that very same
question
though we're not we're not planning on going the same direction certainly not
going
the same depth that he went. However,
I think that it's important for us on a personal basis that we should ask the
question you might say
why didn't we start up with asking the question who is God
would that have put this in the right perspective
well the thing is we asked the question and
and you think about it, why am I here? How am
I wire
Where am I headed? How am I going to get there?
so we ask all these things with regard to ourselves but we asked them an answer
them within the bigger context in which we live
as believer in God not only believers in God but
believers in Jesus Christ. Who is God and believers
in the Word of God that speaks to us in school we put that in that context and
last week
It was trust in the Lord with all your heart
lean not into your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge Him
and he will direct your path. And so, it comes right back to the spokes of
God and again I think it's important for us to pause
and wait a minute and to stop think again
who is this God?
because when we think about God
there's a lot of different ways that people think about and
that's the issue okay that's the issue when we're asking who is God?
and we're trying to answer, when we're trying to answer, who it is? What it is?
that it is that
we believe when we say
God
and His word is used
in lots of our his name is used a lot of different ways
so, if we ask ourself about this
Ah~!
God we can look at it Three ways
God, Gods or no God
God, God's or no God we think of
big G God.
big G God, we think I've God as being the one and only
true God that's why we put the big G on and it
which distinguishes from the other kinds of God
in the chinese-language the word for God is
神Shen
and that could be the same word or don't have capital Shen
and small shen, it's Shen
but in the Bible when this God is identified as being
v God
there's a blank space that's left before his name
if you're reading the Chinese bible you come down to a blank space before the
word Shen
then that's talking about big G God
and it's a Manner of
respected honor to be that gap there kind a
show that there's a bit of a separation
and
when the Jewish writers were writing the Bible whenever they came to the word for
God they stopped
put down the pen, wet wash their hands
and got a brand new pen to write
the name God before they continued on with the rest of the passage
you know to us today it's like are you kidding me
people really did that
I mean for us today
I don't know if we really understand what it means
to
be in the presence or to be writing about
big G God
big G God is the creator
the ruler of the universe the source of all
moral authority he's
who we would call the Supreme Being
Supreme Being no one greater than Him, we as Christians
we as Christians go a step further we say
that this God is Jesus
so
if I were to ask you this question
when we go to heaven and we see God
what will we see
because the Bible tells us that
in the book of John, God is a spirit, they
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth we understand that
but we also know that there's a physical manifestation
of God His name is Jesus, who was born by a ***
came here died on the cross for us we also realize
to that we believe that there's God the Holy Spirit
God the Holy Spirit and is that