Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 Y
Post title : learnings about "trial and sin" and "submission to authority"
♥ nothing is impossible for him.
Recently, I went to this church website to listen to their sermon.. my shepherd recommend me to go and listen..
http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trialQuite good.. I learn alot from there too.. :D
I was listening to 2 sermon yesterday about "trial and sin" and "submit to authority" ..
It makes me recap n reflect alot..
It touches on the book of 1st and 2nd Peter..
In trial and sin sermon, I learnt that we are living in a world of exiles..
Our real home is with Jesus.. We are living in the world of wars with the Satan and all of us here are targeted by Satan..
We can never find satisfaction in the world.. We want to excel in many things, but ultimately we can never feel belonged to this world. because we came down to the earth to suffer and is just a trial for us to test us in our faith and love for god..
After I hear this, i truely agree.. our lives is a just like a cycle that everyone just wanna to go through and at the end of the day, we are just running aimlessly..
We go through child --> school --> good career, car, house --> family --> grandchildren --> die
It is just like a cycle in our lives.. As a child of god, I don't want to fall into this trap to follow suit what others are doing.. my friend.. relatives.. I wanna do something different for god..
E.g. I am facing a life transition period right now to choose whether to study or to work.. I was worry, i cannot give a definite answer to people around.. I am concern about the family, my future and what god wanna me to do..
But ultimately.. God will show me the way as long as I stay close to him.. I am convicted that whatever I am choosing now, god will show me the way out and it will benefit his kingdom..
I also learnt that fear of man --> comes in between the relationship with Jesus and you.. It is controlled by people, worship the person, put trust in that person.. It is sometimes causes by peer pressure, or another term which is called the core dependency.
(E.g. Jesus ask Peter how much he love him in John 21:15-19.. He asked him 3 times whether he love him and Peter denied Jesus 3times in John 18..) Peter deny Jesus 3 times in the bible because he fear man rather than God.. He was scare of the persecution from the people.. )
When I heard this, I reflect upon my lives, alot of times I fear of man than god.. I choose to obey to them than god.. It is sub-consciously that i make this decision sometimes.. I really gotta repent over this matter.. :(
The 2nd teaching called the submission to authority makes me reflects too upon my leadership, my people and myself..
I learnt that these are the causes of people not submitting to authorities:
1. Pride
2. Rebellious by nature
3. Selfish (self-centred)
4. 1st instinct is to go against authorities
5. Don't like rules and regulations
6. Authority is abuse
I learnt that in 1Peter 2:15-16, It talks about the phrase " ignorant and foolish people to speak against you".
These people tend to have :
1. Misinformation --> Hear wrong information about the leaders.
2. Personal Attack --> They don't like the leaders
3. Bring friend along by taking up an offence --> gather people to gang up to talk bad about the person.
4. Stereotyping
Pastor Mark said that the way to respond to them is to serve them and love them.. :)
Christianity is a minority group. We should not cover up anyone who do evil in god's eyes or keep it confidential.. We should not use our freedom to do evil/cover up evil..
Therefore, We need to be honest to everyone and rebuke/punish anyone if they do wrongly..
But we should disagree or rebuke in a lovely manner and should directly tell the person if they done wrong, don't criticize them..
We are living in a world with high conviction and low in commitment..
These are some of the questions we need to ask ourselves:
- Have I been trashing and gossip about the leaders?
- Have I reflect upon my lives about the authority in my lives?
I like this teaching alot as it makes me reflect upon my leadership and my people's growth. I believe all of us will have shortcomings in our lives that needs to grow in and I think this allows me to reflect and improve in my leaderships and relational skills with different kind of people.. :)
Hope this sermon I have learnt will make an impact to people outside too! :D
