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Building God’s Church Part 2 - Mind and Heart
Ephesians 25 February 2007
Andrew Lim
We are building thus new church and we are exploring the question:
Just what are some aspects of church life / that we need to embrace
that will promote and nourish life /
What are some values we want to emphasis in this church
Just how does God want of us in this church?
What’s the heart-beat / the throbbing pulse of Christ Sanctuary?
I want to explore two traits which should mark our church
Let me begin to explore the first one this way
According to the New Testament / a Christian is a person
who believes the truth / receives the truth
upholds the truth / and look for ways to promote the truth
The NT speaks of those believers who have received the truth
and were seeking to be “rooted and built up”
The NT warns us about false teachers
We are not supposed to be like children swayed / tossed about
by every wind of doctrine / but people full of faith and understanding
Paul has fears that our understanding might be undermined
He is afraid young believers who might be seduced by Satan’s cunning
and have their thoughts led astray
from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ
In 2 Tim Paul warns us / He says the time is coming is coming
when people will not endure sound teaching / they will have itching ears
they will want to accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own liking
and they will turn away from listening to the truth
and wander into myths 2 Tim 4:3,4
Paul tells Timothy: / “Guard what has been entrusted to you”
“Contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints”
But how can we guard the faith and contend for it
unless we diligently study make a study of God’s Word
And Paul has a word for all ministers and pastors of the church
He says: / The pastor “must hold firm to the sure Word as taught
so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine
and confute those who contradict it” / Tit 1:9
Now / all these verses teach us / that being a Christian
is not merely about having an experience
it involves believing the truth / teaching the truth / guarding the truth
And this / is what as a church / we must do
We need to need to know it so well
to be able to teach it / and sniff out an error and refute it / Tit 1:9
Let this church be marked by sound teaching
Let this church teach the truth without fear or favour or compromise
Let this church be marked by a love for the Word of God
God puts a high premium on the need to understand the Word
When God wanted to reveal Himself to human people / what did He do?
Did He reveal Himself primarily through dreams or visions
or through some mystical inner experience
No / Instead God chose to reveal Himself through a book
Have you ever thought about it this way
Men and women / can come to know the living God
simply by sitting down and reading a book / the Bible
In fact / in a time in the ancient world
when people generally do not know how to read and right
the Church / was already promoting and nourishing literacy
In ancient Israel
when many of the surrounding tribes / didn’t even have an alphabet
even in a time like that / every Hebrew boy
was learning how to read the Word of God
And during the Middle Ages / most people including the wealthy couldn’t read
Even then / it was the Church that promoted literacy
by laboriously inscribing the Word of God / word for word / by hand
and teaching it / and passing it on
In fact the great universities of Europe
such as Oxford and the Sorbonne were founded
to train the ministers of the Church in Scripture
And much later / historic American universities
like Harvard and Princeton / and the majority of all private colleges
were founded upon the same purpose
- to train the ministers of God / in the Holy Scripture
If no one else is able to read and understand the Scripture
the minister / at least / ought to be able to do so
just so that he might be able to teach the Word of God
In fact the word clergy and the related form of the word / clerk
often referred to someone who read
It is interesting that as late as the 19th century
a criminal could escape hanging by claiming what was then called
“benefit of clergy” which he did / by proving that he could read
- a skill that was too valuable / to lose to the hangman
Why did the Medieval Church fell prey to superstitions and error
Why did the Medieval Church
favour the tradition of men over the authority of Scripture
It was partly because there were so very few Bibles
and so very few people who could read them
Many churches did not even own a Bible / and the priests
had allowed themselves to become shamefully uneducated
But with the advent of the printing press / universal literacy became possible
But it has always been the church that took great interest in learning
Even in our own day / missionaries all over the world
work hard in teaching people how to read and write
So right from day one / Christianity puts a high premium
on reading / and learning / and understanding the Word of God
Read the Book of Psalms and you’ll be blown away
by how an ordinary man on planet earth
can attain to such an electric / magnetic connection with the divine God
David connected powerfully with God
because he had such intimate knowledge of God
Knowing God / comes from knowing the Word
How is it that some Christians can face the most severe rigorous crisis
and come away from it unscathed / while others cave in at the smallest trial
What enables one Christian to stand tall in the storm
and another to simply to cave in the smallest trial
Daniel has the answer: / Daniel 11:32
“The people who know their God shall be strong and do great things”
When everything is said and done / the bottom line is this:
It is finally the knowledge of God / that strengthens and delivers us
And knowledge of God comes from the Word of God
All the great prophets of God were delivered from great grief
because they each stood by the Word / and did not falter
John Bunyan / the writer of “Pilgrim’s Progress” was a man of God
He loved God and gave time to study and understand His Word
And it has been spoken of him:
“Prick him anywhere and you will find that his blood is bibline
because the very essence of the Bible flows through him”
If we would live up to our names as Christians
we’ve just got to get the Word to saturate our heart and mind
This is a non-negotiable
You can’t live as a Christian if you do not know the Word
But why? / Why did God place such a high premium on learning
It this: / Learning is important / because truth is important
In some sense our ability to grasp the truth / depends on how well we learn
And God wants us to keep learning
because He does not want the truth to elude us
Is it any wonder why / in ages gone by
Christians were known / as “people of the book”
In no other religion / are its followers commanded to study its holy book
And yet / look! / Here it is!
“Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God
approved / a workman who has no cause to be ashamed
correctly analyzing and rightly handling / skillfully teaching
the Word of Truth / 2 Tim 2:15
The Bible actually commands us to study it
It is tragic if we became a church that does not take biblical teaching seriously
Someone once said this: “Whenever I go to church
I feel like unscrewing my head / and placing it under the seat
because in church I never have use for anything above my collars
- its all heart / nothing of the mind”
I hope this will never be spoken of about our church
Let us once again be called the “people of the Book”
Let us / like the Bereans / search the Scriptures daily
to see if these things that were said is true
Let us have groups that come together to study the great prophets
the letters of Paul / the writings about the end-times
Yes / be a church that loves God with all our hearts
But / also be a church / that loves God with all our minds
And that brings me to my second prescription / And that is this
But we’re not asked only to be a “people of the book”
If all we care about is the mind / we will become very unattractive people
For there are Christians who have become so intellectual
there’s no soul left in them
- they write all the fat books about God which touch no one
- they can spit out all the right verses at all the right time
but deep inside / they’re cold / and detached / and uncaring
The mind can often make us hard / cold / dry and unemotional
Yes we’re called to study God’s Word and know it well
but we’re also called to be people
who have no one other than the Holy Spirit of God
filling us and empowering us
One / if walking in the flesh brings fear
then walking in the spirit brings trust / hope / and confidence
Let us beware that become all mind and no spirit
Let us beware that we not become all head and no soul
Yes! / God wants us to grow in knowledge of Him
But He also desires for us
to be filled to the brim with the life-giving Spirit of God
He wants us to impart to us / a life empowered by the His own Spirit
He wants us to have the joy knowing we are keeping in step with the Sp
He want us to pray in the Spirit / worship in the Spirit
In short He wants to baptise us with His Spirit
however that praise may be interpreted
Remember how one day the prophet Ezekiel is conscripted by God
He is taken into the middle of a valley of bones
Imagine being led into a valley full of human bones
The prophet feels / that God the Bone Maker / has conscripted him
for he says to us: / “the hand of the Lord was upon me”
In this valley of dry bones God begins to talk to the prophet
God says to Ezekiel: / “Son of man” / Can these bones live?”
Ezekiel finds it hard to give an answer
Because he is a prophet / and of course he believes in the power of God
Be he can also see / that the bones are relics / fossils / very dead indeed
So he gives a classic evasive answer / He says to God:
“O Lord God / You know the answer to that!”
But God comes back to him / says to him
“Tell these bones / O dry bones / hear the word of the Lord!
I will cause breath to enter you / that you may come back to life
I will attach tendons to you and make flesh grow back on you
I will cover you with skin
I will put breath in you / and you will come to life
Then you will know that I AM the LORD”
And Ezekiel stands there / in the valley of dry bones
And as loud as he can / he proclaims those words on the dry dead bones
And this is what he tells us / He says:
“And as I was prophesying / there was a noise and a rattling
and the bones came together / bone by bone
And the tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them”
But as Ezekiel can see / there is no life in them
just a host of corpses / lying there / but there is no breath in them
And God comes to Ezekiel again / and says to him:
“Pray now to the Wind / Son of man!
Pray to the Spirit / and say to the Rhuah
Come / Holy Spirit / and breathe over these dead bodies
that they may live”
Then Ezekiel tells us / I prophesy as He commands me
and the Breath of God is breathed into them / and they come to life
and they stand up on their feet / a mighty army
What a vision!
For one after another / the corpses stood on their feet and come to life
The same can happen today today
God desires to breath the breath of His Spirit / into us to fill us with life
Could some of us here be suffering from a kind of a spiritual anorexia
We will not have the nourishment that God wishes to give us
We may be Christians / but we can be so malnourished / spiritually
How haunting / to have churches / that are really boneyards full of bones
- no different from being caverns full of corpses
- everywhere we see bleached bones lying lifeless / shimmering in the heat
We may know our Bibles well
and still not have the spiritual vitality to go with it
and be totally deflated of any spiritual power
We may have an impeccable grasp of Scripture
and yet our hearts have never been set ablaze by the Spirit of God
We lack the radiance
that comes only from having been in touch with the Spirit of God
We do not sense that we have touched God or be touched by God
We seem to detect no spiritual pulse coursing through our veins
Not very much seems to be happening in our lives
It is tragic but quite often / when you’re were asked to give a testimony
you find ourselves reaching back a couple of years
to come up with something relevant to share
But if the Spirit of God / fills us now / in all His fullness
then / like the butterfly emerging from a cocoon
we’d be metamorphosed
There was once a young man who felt called to the ministry
He had the most severe speech impediment you could ever come across
He stuttered badly / he stammered hopelessly
Sometimes / he would even splutter / embarrassingly
And no matter how hard he tried / he just couldn't shake it off
And your first reaction / when you hear him speak
you’ll say to yourself:
“No way that guy is going to go into the ministry of preaching”
So as politely as they could / friends and relatives tried to dissuade him
But he stopped his ears from listening to them
He had such assurance that he’d heard the call of God
And what that poor man had to go through
to pit himself / against all those dampening voices
telling him to forget about his calling
But he fought hard every step of the way
- he ploughed through Bible seminary / he graduated
and he went into the ministry
And today he is one of the finest expositors of the Word of God
But you know something - he still stutters
And on some bad days / from the beginning to the end of the message
But the amazing thing is this:
Whenever he spoke / the people would hang on
to every intelligible syllable that came from his mouth
Why? Because his heart was filled with the Spirit of God
and he preached with the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit
When he has spoken / you knew that GOD HIMSELF / has spoken
And therein / lies all the difference
And because of that / he is / in a sense
one of the most lucid speaker / any one will ever hear
God is not content to have as be dry dusty disciples
He wants to breathe into our lifeless frames / His breath of life
The wind of the Spirit wants to blow over our deadness
and refresh us with new life
Over the years we’ve had people / experiencing the Spirit of God
coming in touch with the Spirit in a way they’ve never experienced before
And they feel the hand of God upon their lives
- they have a special love for people and for God
- they become someone they were not before
- some of them have been given to speak a language
they have never known before
- some have been given gifts they never imagined was there before
They pray easier and more confidently / they frequently fast as they pray
and they find it easier to tell people about Jesus Christ
They’re just not the same anymore
These people have had a genuine experience of the breath of God
they’ve had a real brush with the fire of God so to speak
they’ve had a genuine touch from God
When people decide to get serious with God
When people confess their sins / repent of them / renounce them
When people commit themselves to doing God’s will
When people choose to die to themselves
and begin to deal radically with the idols in their lives
When people yield themselves fully to God
and believe that Christ is going to empower them in a new way
that / often results in such people receiving a touch from God
Such confession / such repentance / renunciation / and commitment
if they are genuine / can only bring them right to a point
where they can actually be touched / by the breath of God’s Spirit
And it often result / in people being transformed
- their minds are renewed / their will surrendered
- their spirits in touch with God’s Spirit
- there is greater effectiveness in their prayers
a new desire / to plunge into the Word
and to tell other people about God
Where previously they had been timid and fearful
there’s now a boldness and confidence that can only come from God
including the ability to use spiritual gifts
that had not been theirs before
Many of will know of D.L. Moody that great evangelist
He was an energetic preacher / extraordinarily hard working
It was almost impossible to keep up with him
he tired out the men and animals who worked with him
He had a tremendous desire to do something for God
But as he would later confess / he had no real power
and to a large degree / he worked in the energy of the flesh
Then two women began praying for him
that God would fill him with the Spirit
And he tells us that one day as he was walking down Wall Street in New York
right in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the traffic
God’s Spirit came pouring down on him
He rushed to a room to be alone with God and was there for hours
Moody said that the power of God came upon him
in such away that he had to ask God to stay his hand
lest he die on the very spot
From that day on Moody was never the same again
The same thing happened to Charles Finney
Finney holds the credit of having conducted the world’s greatest single revival
At Rochester in New York / in 1830
100,000 people came to Jesus Christ as a result of his preaching
One morning he went outside of town and found a secluded spot
and there began to pour his heart out to God and was saved
Finney experienced a new-found sense of peace in his heart
Later / as he was on his knees pouring out his heart to God
the Spirit of God fell on him in a strange way
In his own words / Finney said:
“Without any expectation of it / without ever having the thought in my mind
that there was such a thing for me
without any memory of ever hearing a thing like that mentioned
by any person in the world
the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner
that seemed to go through me body and soul
I could feel the impression / like a wave of electricity
going through and through me
Indeed / it seemed like waves of liquid love
for I cannot express it in any other way
It seemed like the very breath of God”
And Finney tells us / that this went on for several hours
I want to relate a personal experience here / to encourage you
something I have never spoke about in public / until now
The year was 1971
Five of us were meeting in a remote part of the country
We felt a heavy burden for the Lord and we prayed for several hours
praying in an open field / praying into the night
I still remember vividly
that as we prayed on into the small hours of the morning
we became shrouded by a thick fog
enveloped by a strange heavy dew / that seemed to settle on us
And as we prayed / we began to weep
I still remember the weeping to this day
It wasn’t a weeping of self-pity / or confession or remorse
The strange thing about it / is that it was as if someone
was doing the weeping through me
And it was like the tears of someone
who is jealous for His Name to be upheld / and vindicated
It was as if the Spirit of God was expressing through me
a deep desire that the Name of Jesus be glorified
And we must have wept for a couple of hours
We had had no pre-conception whatsoever / when we started praying
of what might or what might not happen
We didn’t even come with a list of things to pray for
We just felt the great need to go out into the open field to pray
And the Spirit of the Lord fell upon us
And from head to toe / we were each filled / with a strange warmth
a terrible sensation
And at the end of the morning
like a horse broken in / we felt as if our spirits have been broken
subdued / but with a kind of a submission and contentment
And a year later / from that / in a mountain retreat
the Lord’s Spirit felled on me again
and this time He gave me to speak a language I never knew before
A language for me to talk to Him in prayer / when ordinary English fails
to help me say what is so deep in my heart
And to this day / I’ve used that language in my private prayers
But what confirmed it all for us / that this was a visitation from God
is that within a brief span of 5 years / after that incident in the field
all the four of us / quite independently / had each left our jobs
and went on to serve God in full-time ministry
That was nearly 36 years ago
And today / all four of us are still in the ministry
I am not saying / that we need to expect Moody’s or a Finney’s experience
I am not saying / that when you become filled with the Spirit
that you will have the same experience as these men
I am certainly not saying / that when the Holy Spirit fills you
that you will necessarily spontaneously speak a new language
you may / you may not / that’s not primarily the issue
But I will say / that like Moody and Finney
we desperately need / to seek the Lord / for the filling of Holy Spirit
Call it “the filling of the Holy Spirit” / or the anointing of the Holy Spirit”
call it “a new empowering” /or perhaps “a new fullness of the Spirit”
some find it helpful to call it the “baptism of the Holy Spirit”
Call it what you will / if it is a genuine experience of the Spirit of God
you will know it
And God waits to give it to anyone of us here
Jesus said:
“Which one of you when your child asks for bread will give him a stone”
And He goes on to say:
“How much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask”
We have paid too high a price for our fear of the experiential
We have missed out on the blessings the Holy Spirit wants to give us
When we could have been touched by the Spirit
we have not allowed ourselves to be touched
God come to us this morning and He says
You’ve guarded your heart too tightly
You’ve not allowed me room to move in your life
You’re too cautious / You are actually afraid that you might be embarrassed
If you will not give your child a stone / neither will I
If you will not give your child a scorpion / neither will I
Ask /and I will give you the Spirit / in a measure you’ve never known before
How we need for each one of us here to be filled with God’s Spirit
How deeply I desire to see us all becoming less guarded before one another
and before God
I like so much to see all of us making a deliberate choice
to become vulnerable and transparent before God
and before one another
- reaching out to one another / really loving one another
Will you choose in the next few following days
to catch up with your walk with God
Confess your sins / Repent / Renounce them
Ask God to help you deny yourself / help you die to yourself
And ask Him to take over the control of your life
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