Pastor Koay Kheng Hin
29 December 2019
Today is the last Sunday of the year. I will be preaching the last sermon for the year 2019.1 have been reflecting on what to preach, what areas or topics may God wish us to reflect upon. I have ascertained that it is good if we work on a summary of what it means to be a Christian on earth, not merely a Christian residing in heaven. I have titled today’s sermon “A holistic Christ-centered faith’.
I wish to begin with a story. About 20 years ago, I went along with a brother in Christ to visit a man who was not well. I shared the gospel to him. He was not really open to the message of salvation that we were bringing to him. I still distinctly remember his reply to us, “I cannot work now with my present condition. I am concerned about the practical daily provision for me and my family. I do not have time to think about God.” As I went home, I wondered about the message that I shared with him, whether I had separated the heavenly and the earthly in so clear a line that he could not see the relevance of God in his situation.
20 years have passed and I am still going around sharing the gospel but today I have become well aware that relevance is a key aspect in regards to our evangelistic efforts. I was biblically and technically right. I began with sin from the blood of Christ cleansing his sin and right up to the death and the resurrection of Christ. I was biblically right. But why the reply “I’ve no time to think about God?”. My sharing has separated the heavenly from the earthly.
He says right now, I can’t work and I have to provide for my family and I’ve no time to think about God. Today I have only one question and after one hour I have only one answer. My task is to set out that to all of us that there may be a fallacy and there may be a wrong understanding on the perception of the spiritual and the secular. We often use these two words like this is secular and that is spiritual.
I believe our believe system is carnal. I think therefore I am. But in the layman terms, we are taking it in a practical perspective. How I think will determine how I live. We are so charged up about living that we don’t see what we are thinking.
We may think about saving a marriage but have we thought what being married is supposedly okay means? For example you may think marriage is thinking about how to make me happy, then it may not work. It’s about how both of you try to make each other happy. Then the perspective changes. Right thinking is the key to how we can have a blessed life.
As it applies to our faith, is being a child of God about heaven per se? In the past it became an accepted form that Christians became hermits and divorced the self from the daily life and locked themselves in a tower to connect to God. They were sincere Christians but their thinking is that being truly close to God is to stay up on the mountains or tower and is the right thing to do. So it defined how they live their Christian life.
Today we don’t have that issue. But Christian thinking has swayed to the other extreme. We think that we are a blessed people because our sins have been removed. And those blessings are primarily earthly and nothing to do with the spiritual. To become a Christian is to be successful and accumulate a lot of wealth and to be recognised in the world.
To a certain extend our century sees the materialistic world. I’ve given much thought to this. I’ve not many many years to live this life. As I set this context I want to say what is spiritual and what is the secular? Do we see our devotional time spent with God as spiritual while cruising in the Mediterranean as secular? When I come to church on Sunday, I’m engaged in the spiritual. On Monday at the office I’ve to take off the spiritual cloak and enter the secular.
So in the secular I shout at everybody so that they do their work. Is it defined by the type of activity we do? Are there spiritual activities like prayer, while playing badminton is secular? Running a marathon is secular but a Bible marathon is spiritual?
Is this the way to look at it? Or is there a better way to define the spiritual in relation to the secular ? I wish to answer this question today.
Let us go to the Word of God. Genesis 1:26 states that man is made in the image of God.
Genesis 1:26-27 (NIV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
What constitutes the image of God, the likeness of God? The very use of the word itself does not give us a clear definition. However, it is best interpreted in a holistic sense. As we look into the attributes of God, we discover five attributes that are clear about God.
- God is spiritual.
- God is holy.
- God is love.
- God is intelligent. 5. God is relational.
We serve an intelligent God. Something we rarely say. In this sense I want to say this. When we say the image of God it should cover these 5 attributes.
On these attributes alone, we who are created in the image of God, must necessarily be spiritual beings, be moral beings, be emotional beings, be intelligent beings and social beings. That’s why we have modern technology.
I want to work on this that there is one addition.
Genesis 2:7 (NIV)
the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
As we move into Genesis 2:7 we see God fashioning a body before breathing into Adam the breath of life. We are therefore embodied spiritual beings. In the Incarnation, God became such a being through the person of Christ.
It is a fallacy to think that when we go to heaven we float around without a body. We are not complete without a body. We will receive a glorified body. We will once again reside on earth. We are embodied spiritual beings. Jesus himself embodied himself and became a man. Christ took on the nature of a man. The likeness of humanity.
To be someone who live the sort of life that God wants us to live but we just take care as spiritual beings, our moral life, our emotional life, our social life and relationships and the fact that we are embodied, we have to take care of this body like eating our “Char Koay Teow “or “Wanton Mee”. The young adults will know about this.
They had this game at the Cellos Christmas dinner and all of us participated and is supposed to know what hawker food the other person picked. Everyone quoted their favourite food so I picked Wanton Mee. They have this cloth to separate us and this Sharon remembers I’m Wanton Mee and shouted even before I can open my mouth. And to think the next round, of all people it’s her again!
We have to eat and support our family life and this earthly life is real. We just have to take all of it into consideration. What was wrong with my sharing?
I was thinking of the heavenly. And there was this disconnect. The physical and emotional and the moral was not addressed. I want to encourage you that in the image of God, God a sees all of you.
The second one I want to show you this slide. About our badminton tournament. It involves the children from the community. Here are all the participants and helpers. The key person who put time into this is our official coach, Bro David Ng. Why I show you this?
This morning Bro David came to see me. He shared a testimony with me. He said on Saturday two kids came and Bro David taught them how to play. You may think it’s easy but it’s not easy. They couldn’t get it until when they got to hit it he saw their face lit up in pure joy. Seven year olds. They were so happy. And Bro David felt the joy of the Lord. He said a ministry like these is not about producing champions but the joy of seeing them learn to play badminton.
How did this come into the sermon, because I forgot to show in the beginning. It’s a holistic life. If we look in the spiritual, we say how to get these children saved. But in a holistic view, we see these children’s joy and their ability to play badminton is part of blessing these children and it is the holistic view of God as part and parcel of being made in the image of God.
The Lord blessed us with an evangelistic CHC Christmas with 120 there with many non-Christians. We prayed a blessing for all, that they will be blessed financially and blessed with good health even if they have not accepted the Lord. I see them close their eyes and it is relevant to them. It is holistic.
When we told them we are really concerned about them and that their kids will be successful in life. They nodded their heads. You know why? I told them my father was a trishaw rider. My mom said don’t follow the footsteps of my father. I’ve nothing against being a trishaw rider but my mom said Ah Hin, that’s what she calls me, you must work hard, my mom said because I don’t want you to follow your father. You only have education to lift you up and I believed my mom. I may not be very smart but I was very hard working.
I told myself if my mom don’t sleep I will not sleep. My mom has this gift, she can iron while sleeping and not burn the clothes. She was like that and sometimes I want to sleep but my mom does not sleep after 1.30am. Now you know why I talk so much about my mom. I became a teacher and today I became a pastor.
Some of you may be better than us but some of them were in poverty and we are doing one small part, that education is their social mobility.
I did not share anything theological. I share my life and the people’s life. Because our family experienced the glory of God, the things of God is in God’s timing and I believe if you walk along with God long enough you will never fail experiencing the glory of God.
The image of God is holistic and covers every area of your life.
Now I come to the next part. What is the spiritual in relation to the secular.
Whether you are running a business or a teacher in a school or playing badminton or in church or attending Bible study, it is not the activity that separates the spiritual from the secular.
So do you mean all the activity is spiritual or secular? I said holistic life. I preached messages and you’ll know how I live my life. Many years ago in our CG, I was told to talk our walk but someone else say we have to walk our talk.
So I was told your health not important because you go to heaven. That’s why I always check my blood sugar every morning. Today I didn’t check. Because today I play badminton and eat a little so tomorrow I’ll check. It’s real to me. If you say pastor, you don’t have to worry about money. I want my Wanton Mee but I still have to pay. My relationship with my wife is like all of you. If I have a bad day with Sis Rachel, I cannot be hallelujah and say don’t care even of Sis Rachel’s not happy about me. I’m just like all of you.
That day Rebecca went to Hong Kong and I prayed because I’m concerned. Esther is doing her diploma and I pray what she’s going to do next year. Your pastor is just like you. And God sees his image in me and he sees the spiritual image in me and he bless me. He sees the relational image of him in me and he blesses my social life. He gave me that body and I will take care of it but the day will come when he gives me a glorified body.
My address is at Pantai Jerejak and is not heaven yet. But God sees and knows and will bless us. God sees everything about you and it is an expression of the likeness of Christ in you.
So what’s spiritual and secular?
Romans 12:1 (NIV)
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship.
The Greek word body is the embodied spiritual being. It’s about your whole life. We are to offer our whole life wholly to God and is the act of spiritual worship. A holistic worship. Worship as directed to God in Christ. And this is the answer.
And it’s captured in Galatians 2:20.
Galatians 2:20 (NIV)
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
It sets the stage for what I wrote, the Christ-centred life.
Philippians 1:21 (NIV)
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
That Christ-centred life is what defines the spiritual from the secular. If what you do is Christ-centred then it’s spiritual. If it is not Christ-centred then it’s self centred. For the whole purpose of life is that Christ may be exalted and glorified in our lives.
It’s secular when you’re thinking of something else when you’re singing to Christ. You are praying a spiritual activity, the form but your mind is elsewhere then it’s secular.
How do we define the spiritual from the secular? It is not the issue of the type of activity you are doing. You can be singing praise but it’s secular or you can be doing business and it’s spiritual. It’s about the motivation. It’s very simple, bringing glory to God and blessing to men.
You do business and negotiate but you want God to go with you, then it’s Christ-centred then it’s a spiritual activity. And blessing to men means you do not exploit people. You have to make money but people but also needs to make money. Win-win. A Christian will always approach negotiations with a win-win not a win lose.
In Convent Greenlane I’m at the top class and when I enter the class you can hear a pin drop. All want to score A’s. We have 6 classes. You go to the last class got fire cracker you also cannot hear it. I go in on and off I will pray. God gave the children to me and by the grace of God it’s easy for teachers to like students who response well but many teachers don’t say nice things about the students. But by the grace of God the last class likes me and they tell me bad things about other teachers (laughs).
I know they are weak in studies so I encourage them and they ask me for more questions. I use relational skills. They still remember me. Be a blessing to them. God brought them to you, be a blessing. We can be a blessing.
In emotions, the Bible records that Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus his good friend. That is emotion. Paul wrote one of the most intellectual pieces of the Bible, the book of Romans. That’s the intellect. The disciples of Jesus loved him. The Ephesian elders loved Paul. That is social and relational. Paul worked at his trade. He was a tent maker, but it is God who provided for him. That is provision. Matthew 6:33 comes to mind. Life on earth in all its aspects is real. Our earthly life is an expression of our heavenly focus
I want to move to Colossians 3.
Colossians 3:17 (NIV)
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
A holistic Christian faith covers all areas of your life. We must hold this clear. Our home is not here.
I went to visit somebody at the hospital on Friday afternoon. The person was not doing well. I didn’t feel very good that day. When my mom was not well and there are times when she will want to eat. Like “Ice-kacang” or “Teow Chew” porridge and she may just take a taste and not eat. When they reach that condition, they will lose their appetite, weight and be left with bones.
When we see the condition, we will feel a certain sadness. This is the lot of the earthly life and we await a glorified body. I saw and I didn’t feel very good. When I saw, the first reminder was my mom, so I felt sad. The next thought was I just checked my blood sugar and I was thinking about my kidney. Pastor also can fall sick so I commit to the Lord. But what gave me assurance is that the body we have will waste but we await a future body.
Having said this, live your life in the context of a holistic life that’s real. But in a spiritual sense be Christ-centred to glorify God and be a blessing to men. And you’ll be living the sort of life God meant for all of us. But at the same time know that our life here is temporary and there is that glorious body and new heaven and new earth and you have the right reality of life and live it to the fullest.
I am walking in that direction and I pray you all can see that reality.
Use your life well. Be a blessing. God gives you good emotional skills. Good understanding of social skills. Bring communities together.
In conclusion, I wish to summarise that the true separation between the spiritual and the secular lies not in the nature of the activity. It is deeper than that. It lies in the focus and the motivation behind the activity. The real question is whether it is Christ-centered (Colossians 3:17). I end with the 5 C’s that are markers of Christian maturity: Content from Christ, Communion with Christ, Community in Christ, Character of Christ and Charismata for Christ to serve as a guide for all of you in living out a holistic Christ-centered faith.
Temperance, moderation, harmonious. We will pursue a balance, moderate or a temperance and harmonious Christ-centred life. We do not want to be so heavenly focused that, like in the beginning, I’ve no time to think about God.
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