0:00 So, let's start off by reciting our memory verse. Yes. So, Joshua 1:8. Ready? Okay. This book shall not depart from your mouth. Be careful to do all 0:15 that is written in it. Joshua 1:8. All right. So, good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to share today a little bit about what I believe God has been trying to teach me in my life, and that is to fight lukewarmness and to have a desire 0:33 to run this Christian race seriously. And I'll start off with a passage from Revelations chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3 and verse 17. The context is this is the letter that the Apostle John writes to the church in Laodicea. 0:51 And he says in that letter that the church in Laodicea was lukewarm. And he gives a reason for why that church was lukewarm. This is in Revelation chapter 3 and then verse 17. And this is what John writes. He says, "Because you say, I am rich 1:07 and have become wealthy and have need of nothing." And that's the reason, one of the reasons, why the church of the Laodicea was lukewarm, because they said, "Hey, I'm rich. I'm wealthy. I don't need anything." And I apply it to myself like this, that 1:21 it's very possible for that attitude to come in in my life to think, "Hey, I go to a nice church. There's nice teaching here. My kids are here. I help out with some of the activities at church. I'm doing pretty good. I'm rich. I'm 1:36 wealthy." And I believe that God has been warning me that if I rest on the things that God has done through me or I've done in the past and not take the Christian life seriously today, then I'll be at risk of becoming lukewarm and 1:49 I won't run this race seriously. And speaking of running, I used to take a gym class when I was in high school, and the teacher would always say to us, "Hey, run around the field to start the class." And some kids, when they ran, 2:01 they would sprint. They sprinted around the field. Other kids would jog, and some kids would walk. Now, did every single kid listen to the teacher? Technically, yes. They all would run around the field, but there's a big 2:14 difference between sprinting and jogging. And I believe that's what God's been warning me to say, "Wen Hao, you need to be sprinting and not simply jogging, content with whatever's happened before." So, practically, what does it mean to 2:28 take the Christian life seriously? What does it mean to run the Christian life seriously? And there's two things practically I wanted to share on today. And the first thing is to believe deeply in God's love for me. That's what I want to do to take this 2:44 Christian life more seriously, to believe deeply that God loves me. Everyone remembers that story from John chapter 6 when Jesus fed the the 5,000. And after he fed the 5,000, remember people came to Jesus and they can they 2:58 were talking to him saying, "Hey, Jesus, what was what must we do to do the works of God?" This is in John chapter 6. You can turn with there turn with me there if you like. Okay, John chapter 6, and it's verse 28 and 29. 3:12 And people said, "Jesus, what shall we do so that we may do the works of God?" And Jesus said, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him." And it's interesting that Jesus' response to that was to say, "Just believe." I would have thought Jesus 3:25 would have said, "Hey, if you want to do the works of God, why don't you go and spread the gospel?" Or maybe why don't you go help the poor, get more involved in in church. But his response was, "No, simply believe in me first. That's the 3:37 most important thing." And I think of an earthly example like this. Um I have kids, and let's say I tell my kids, "Hey guys, keep your room clean." And they listen to Daddy, and the room is completely clean. No toys at all on the ground, which is amazing. 3:52 And whenever they see me though, and they see me walking to home, they're a little shy. They're a little scared. They're their shoulders up and they're always not quite sure if daddy's happy with me. They're not quite sure if daddy's a 4:03 little angry with me. Do you think as a dad, if that was my home situation, you think I'd be happy with that? No, I'd be very sad. I would rather have rooms that are completely messy, full of toys, and I would rather have the kids feel free to come up to me 4:18 with open arms and say, "Daddy, come help me here. Daddy, come play with me." I would rather have that. And in the same way, I believe that's God's heart as well. To say, "I can do all these things for God. I can help out at church 4:29 activities and all these things." But if I have a little doubt in my heart about God's love for me, I don't think that's something God would be so happy about. I think he would rather have me have a full assurance that God loves me deeply. And then I can 4:43 do all these different things. But the first thing is to make sure that God loves me deeply. I need to have that as a foundation. Now, I remember one of the sermons that a brother Sandeep shared with us last year that really stood out to me. And he was 4:56 talking about metrics in the the Christian life. And how do we know that we're making progress in the Christian life? And I I really like that sermon. And the first thing he said in that sermon was lovedness. To see how much we are loved by God. The 5:09 more we believe that we are loved by God, that is a good metric to see how much we are progressing in the Christian life. I really loved that cuz it completely changed my view towards the Christian life cuz I always thought it 5:19 was about doing something, doing something, doing something. And practically, I I apply it like this. Um let's say I wake up in the morning. Okay, it's dark. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to go to work. I have a long day 5:30 ahead of me. And I sit there in bed and I think, "Uh what's God thinking about me right now? Maybe he's got a little frown on his uh his face because I didn't wake up in time to to do my my devotionals or read the Bible." 5:42 And then it's in those moments where I realize I I to fight that feeling and say, "No, Lord, your word says that your mercies are new every morning. So, therefore, this morning, when you think of me, you have a smile on your face." 5:54 And I can reject that feeling of you frowning at me. So, that's what I mean practically growing in in lovedness. It's these different situations in life where suddenly I'm presented with a thought, "Hey, maybe God doesn't love 6:06 me." That's where I need to exercise that faith and say, "No, Lord, according to your word, you love me deeply and I'm going to hold on to that." That's what I believe it means to grow in in lovedness as our brother Sandeep had had shared. 6:18 And I really like Paul's example. If you were to ask Paul and say, "Paul, do you think God loves you?" And I love what he says about that. So, if you turn with me to Galatians, Galatians 2:20, I love how he describes how 6:38 he believes God loves him. So, this is Galatians 2:20. This is the second half of that verse. And he says, "The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me." And so, if you were to ask Paul, "Hey, 6:56 Paul, what is your gospel?" Well, Paul would have said, "Yes, there is John 3:16 where it says God so loved the world." That's true, but that wasn't exactly Paul's gospel. Paul's gospel was God who loved me and gave himself up for me. So, that's a 7:09 big difference there. There's a big difference between God who so loved the world versus God who so loved me and died on the cross for me. And I just love the way Paul takes that love of God and he personalizes it. Makes it 7:22 personal. Say, "This is me. God loves me." And it's amazing, especially that Paul could say this cuz he had done so many bad things to the church before he became a Christian, killing Christians and um taking them to prison. And yet he had so 7:35 much faith in what the blood of Christ could do. He knew that God had forgiven him completely and he could say, "God who loved me." And so, that's the example I want to follow of someone who's so secure in God's love. God who loved me. 7:48 And so that's the first thing. Uh the second thing I want to share uh briefly practically about running the life serious Christian life seriously is to to fight uh distractions. And uh I like to share from uh Luke chapter 8:02 uh Luke chapter 8 from the parable of the sower. There's a lot of distractions I find in life these days. Uh especially things we see on our phones, on the news, a lot of distractions. And in this parable Luke chapter 8 verse 8:16 13 verse 14, sorry. Jesus talks about a type of seed which fell among the thorns. And it reads like this, "There's a seed which fell among the thorns, and these are the ones who have heard. And as they go their way, they are choked with worries and riches 8:31 and pleasure of this life and bring no fruit to maturity." So if you visualize that parable, you have a plant that's that's growing up, and then slowly these thorns just grow around this plant, and slowly it just gets closer and closer, 8:45 and it eventually just chokes it, and the plant dies. And the emphasis here in this picture I think is the word slow. These are things that happen slowly over time, but eventually it leads to death. And practically I apply it to my life like 8:58 this. Uh my days are pretty busy. I have work meetings in the morning, kids wake up, and then sooner later it's it all of a sudden it's like 10:00 at night, and Crystal and I are tired. But I have these little pockets during the day 9:09 where I have a little bit of uh free time. And I've noticed that if I use that free time to do things that are just very distracting, maybe it's just going on YouTube, looking at some silly videos and stuff like that, I can go a whole 9:21 day without talking to God. And then I do it one day, I do it a second day, I do it a third day, and I realize, "Oh wow, it's been a couple of days, almost a week. I haven't talked to God at all this week. What happened?" 9:31 And that's what I mean by distractions, where it's not going to kill you the first day, but as this goes slowly over and over time, it's eventually going to choke the life out of of me. And so that's something I feel like God has 9:43 been working with me on just to be really careful about those little nuggets of time that I can have to connect back with the Lord and don't throw them away. Don't throw them away to to distractions. I want to end with a a promise in here 9:55 that has really encouraged me as it relates to distractions. It's a prayer from Psalm 119 verse 37. I'll I'll read this real quick. It says, "Turn my eyes from looking at vanity." Another word for vanity is distractions. "Turn my 10:10 eyes from looking at distractions and revive me. Give me new strength to walk in your ways." And I believe that's something the Lord will help me with in the days to come. That's all I want to share. Thank you so much for listening 10:21 and um Brother Sison, thank you. I want to read from uh 2 Corinthians uh 1 3 and 4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies 10:38 and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. I would like to speak about two things 10:56 in this context. Becoming an overcomer and a forerunner. When trials come, he doesn't want us to carry uh the burdens. He wants us to yoke with him and he will do the rest. He will also give the power to endure. 11:15 If we have to be overcomers, we ourselves have to go through all these trials, experience the trials, and then come out of it with the power of the Holy Spirit. We ourselves should have felt the warmth of the God, His presence, His guidance 11:30 throughout the trials. The trials will help us to be have faith much better than gold purified in fire. So, we went through these trials and now became overcomers comforted by God. What next? And that's what I wanted to emphasize 11:49 today. We must become forerunners. Paul could say that follow me as I follow Christ. I'm reading the verse again, 2 Corinthians 1:4. It says, "So that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with 12:06 which we ourselves are comforted by God." So, what are the what are we supposed to do after we became an overcomer? We must comfort others who are facing similar trials. I have a niece who wants to get married and she was 12:24 having a lot of confusions. While trying to encourage her in faith, um I asked her uh she she lives in India. I asked her, "Why don't you spend time with some of the sisters who are going through the similar situation and you know, have fellowship with 12:43 them?" Then I Then she responded me and I was really sad to hear that. She said, "I don't have any personal connection with anyone who could comfort me in the church." I was thinking, is it her fault alone? We will face similar situations in our 12:59 church also. If you are taking if you are not taking time to spend time with the body of Christ and comfort others where we are forerunners. My children might be going through problems dealing with an angry father. My daughter might need encouragement to 13:19 get baptized and become a bold witness for Christ. My wife might be going through some situations where she has some hormonal imbalance, but there are other sisters in the church who have overcome it through prayer and uh faith. 13:34 I'm always encouraged when Brother Win High and Brother Thomas always share their boldness um and their burdens uh for the unbelievers in their families. I have foreigners who consistently pray for their families in the hope that one 13:51 day they will know God. I had the fear of proclaiming my faith to my parents, and I remember uh a brother challenged me, and I when I overcame it, it came with a lot of boldness and a lot of abundant blessings, and I share this 14:07 wherever I go. The essence is the one who has overcome and the only one who has overcome can comfort others. Because Jesus has gone through every temptation, even secret, and overcame all of those. He became our forerunner, 14:24 and that's why he's able to guide us and comfort us. When I was dealing with lust and thoughts that I will never be able to overcome it overcome it, I remember a brother came to me and uh he comforted me with his testimony how 14:41 God helped him and how he could flee from such thoughts. That was such a relief for me. If one member in the body of Christ is suffering or going through a trial, one of the purpose of the trial is patiently endure the suffering and 14:59 serve as an example and source of hope for source of hope for others of the in the body. We read in Matthew 5:14, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do pe- nor do people light a lamp 15:16 and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and gives and it gives light to all who are in the house. Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father is in 15:31 father in heaven. All this while I had this light on. None of you saw it. It must come out. Similarly, I have to come out of my comfort and I must shine. Only then others can see me. 15:50 See the light in me. Only then we can build the kingdom of God. So, I pray that let our light shine. Let Holy Spirit help us to fulfill the calling we have in the body of Christ. Hey family. 16:08 Um I'm want to share a bit of what the Lord spoke to me in the memory verse in Joshua 1:8. And I found myself um kind of doing a little history lesson in in these uh books in Joshua and Judges. 16:25 So, um the the memory verse is Joshua 1:8. Going to read it. He says, "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall 16:42 meditate therein day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein, for then you shall make your way prosperous and then you shall have good success." And I thought this is really exciting. 16:55 This The context is here. Joshua is um about to take the people into the promised land. And they know they have a bunch of battles to fight. They're going to fight out and drive out the the giants in the land. And I couldn't help but think about how 17:11 in our walk after we're freed from slavery and after we're growing in the Lord, maybe in the desert. Um where now in our lives driving out the flesh, the giant in our lives. And so I thought, oh, this is really cool. This is the 17:25 intro into that fight. And um maybe there are those among us who are younger Christians who have just come out of slavery, so to speak. This could be an encouragement to you. It continues to be for me, but it could be encouragement for a new Christian. 17:41 You're going to go and this is the word for you. Do not depart from the book law. And as I was reading that, I was looking for the part where Joshua says um but you can't do it. You can't do it. Um it's too hard for you. I remember that. 17:55 I remembered, where is that where is that? Um it's not in this verse. I thought it was I thought this was the same section where Joshua says um are you going to continue cuz you can't do it. And then then then Israel says, no, no, no, we will, we 18:07 will. That actually is at the end of Joshua. Um at the end of Joshua in chapter 24, Joshua's saying his last message. And it's interesting that he says this after they have already conquered a bunch of cities and they've have settled in the 18:25 land of Canaan. So a new context here. And I thought, hey, maybe this is a good message for myself. Maybe I've been a Christian for some time. And um what what does the Lord encourage me when um when I'm in this point where I fought 18:40 some giants, but there are still yet cities to conquer. And I think a lot of us in this room might find ourselves in that situation. Um maybe more of you here have been Christians for some time. What does the Lord How does the Lord encourage us to 18:54 continue? Um it's funny. I I won't read it all cuz it's kind of long, but in Joshua 24:13, he says, I have given you a land for which you did not labor and cities which you built not and you dwelt in them of the vineyards and all of yards which you 19:10 planted and do not eat. Um that's how we gained ground in our lives, right? The Holy Spirit with us helping us. He did the work. We even talked about this uh last week from Exodus 14:14. Stand still and and um I will fight for 19:26 you. So, that's that's true here. And um he says in verse 15, "If it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve." Verse 16, the people answered, "God forbid that we should serve for and that 19:41 we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods. For the Lord our God is he that brought up us up and our fathers out of the land." Joshua says in verse 19, "You cannot serve the Lord. He is a holy God." He challenges them. And then 19:58 in verse 21, "No," the people respond, "No, but we will serve the Lord." So, really interesting um kind of goading, I think, from Joshua. He's trying to pressure trying to encourage them, pressure them, "Go on, you can do 20:10 it." But, also challenging them. It's a challenge. Um and I I thought to myself, "How might the Lord challenge me um where I am today before I as I go on to the next city and the next giants in my life?" I don't think he 20:26 tells me "You can't do it." "You can't do it." He's not trying to goad me and pressure me to say, "Yes, I can. Yes, I can." Um I have a different relationship with the Father than the children of Israel had at this time. 20:38 He's not saying, "You can't do it." He's not trying to get us to stir within ourselves this uh yeah, I can. I can. I can. I I know we can. Um he's with us. He he's not leaving us like Joshua left the people. And I thought, "How might the Lord tell 20:55 talk to me in this time?" And you know, everything that Wen Hai said really resonated with me because this is the life we find ourselves in, a life of continue um a life of continuing to conquer. More to do, not a more race to run, 21:10 um more sprinting to be done, not just walking. Um So, I found myself at the end of uh 1 Timothy, I think Timothy um is a man who is getting encouraged by Paul, who in a similar similar way, right? 21:28 Paul is encouraging Timothy in his life, and he wants him to continue to fight the good fight. So, um turn with me to the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 6, and this is what he says to him. And I like to think of myself uh 21:47 like it's a similar to like Joshua encouraging the people before they go on. But, um in the but Paul might say to me, um in verse 12, 1 1 Timothy Oh, I'm in 2 Timothy. 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 12. 22:05 Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto you are also called and have professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give you charge in the sight of God, who quickens all things, and before Jesus 22:18 Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that you keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable until the until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, until the appearing. Um I I would say whatever everything that 22:35 Wen Hai said, place that in this encouragement to continue fight the good fight. We find ourselves maybe in a Revelation 3 scenario. There's more to go. There's higher calling. There's more giants to conquer. There's more ci- Excuse me, more cities 22:48 to take, that is um the the battles that we find in our flesh. And um that was a really big encouragement to me. Um Uh lastly, uh to continue the history lesson in the first chapter of Judges, um you find how the people responded. 23:05 They conquered cities, but they did not utterly drive out the the Canaanites in that land. Chapter 1, it says it again and again, they captured the city, but they didn't utterly drive out. And then this tribe that captured this area, but they didn't 23:17 utterly drive them out, and there were consequences. And so, my encouragement to you is the same one that I got in this little history lesson, that we continue to fight the good fight, go higher, and um not like not like Joshua who said, "No, 23:33 you can't do it." But but the spirit says to us, "Yes, you can. Well, I'm with you. We'll do it together." So, hope that encourages you. Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. Thank you, Brother David and Brother Sajan for 23:50 the word you shared, and Brother Sajan for that illustration of not may having the light hidden. Now, let me ask the children below the age of 15. I usually like to start with a little quiz. Who, other than Jesus, was named in the 24:06 Bible as the humblest person on the earth? The most humble person on the earth. Quiz. Anybody below the age of 15. Raise your hand if you know. Who was the humblest person on the earth? Then if 15 doesn't answer, I'll go to 20 24:23 25. Anybody below 15? 20? Okay. Anybody in the room? Moses. Good. It was Moses. So, Moses was named as the humblest person in the earth, and I was thinking to myself, you know, Moses was also regarded in Egypt as probably the 24:43 smartest person, maybe the strongest person, the most athletic. And here was Moses, and what do you think was Moses' goal once he was on fire now for God, and he left the the pleasures and and all of the attractions of Egypt and then came back. 25:00 What do you think was Moses' goal? He wanted to take the uh people of Israel to the promised land. That was his goal. Lord, I want to take this this is not my burden. Yet, we read in Joshua 1 this is now God speaking to Joshua and 25:18 Moses was not allowed to go to the promised land and those of you know the story, I think it's in somewhere in Numbers at Meribah Kadesh, God's asked him to speak the rock and he instead he struck the rock. Maybe he had anger issues or 25:30 whatever have you. And just for that one small mistake, Moses was not able to go into the promised land and instead this chapter was the commission to Joshua. Um so, first off it was a tremendous as I read this chapter Joshua 1 is one of 25:46 my favorite chapters. Joshua like Daniel is one of my heroes of the Bible. Um and and when I was actually in school as a high school student, we used to take Bible. Some of you are in class. We had to memorize Joshua chapter 1 and 25:59 write the whole chapter out and I still remember many of the verses and I'd encourage you every one of you, especially the young people, read that verse. Young men especially and ask yourself um if you have a plan. Joshua 26:10 is a picture of Jesus. Um everything that is said here can be said of us because we now are in the new covenant and God can give us the grace to be even further and better than Moses. Um and and here is the the promise, the one 26:26 that where obviously we memorized Joshua 1:8 is about the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night. And that's the reason why we encourage every one of you children. Why is it encouragement to all 26:41 of us adults to start the day with the word of God. Start the day with something that tells the Lord you are first in my life. In the beginning God. It might be the daily devotional. It might be reading a chapter in the Bible. 26:55 It might be saying, "Lord, when I wake up the first thing I'm going to do is not re- grab the newspaper. I'm going to grab the Bible and I'm going to devote my life to you." Then um many of the things that are also said 27:07 in this chapter which are good to just meditate on meditate on this. It really a tremendous promise for us to lay a hold of. No man I'm just reading from Joshua chapter 1. Um a little further up in the in the in the in the top of the chapter. 27:22 No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Think about that. If you're a young person who's worried about a bully in your school, no person will be able to stand before you any of the days of your life. You'll 27:35 never be bullied. If somebody in your workplace is harassing you, if you're being the victim of politics, no one will be able to stand before you uh before this before all the days of your life. Just as I've been with Moses, the 27:47 humblest person on the earth, I will be with you. I will never fail or forsake you. Be strong and courageous. Only be strong and courageous. He says this so many different times and be careful to do all the words of the law. 27:58 And then this is the part that's so um you can read this in the context of Joshua who's eventual accomplishment was conquering the land of Canaan. But you um it says here I will um do not turn from it this book access it but you 28:14 shall meditate on all day and night and he says you'll be prosperous and all you succeed and he says I will give you um victory over all of the of the the land of Canaan all land of Canaan. And that this is a picture today of the 28:29 lust of our flesh and everything that we battle. And that's the most important thing to me that is the benefit of meditating in the Lord's word. When we meditate in the Lord's word as Joshua was asked to do, the benefit isn't the 28:42 victory in the land of Canaan the physical land of Canaan but the fact the Lord can give us a victory in the spiritual now giants that we conquer. And I think when you listen to this, this was a small discussion we had on 28:54 Tuesday night that I'd end with. Many of us can listen to the words that we have. It's a new year. And especially for those who were you are young, but maybe even for some of us adults, there may be times when it feels like this is a heavy message to bear. 29:08 How can we um you know, maybe some message that comes to us um is heavy for us to bear. It's a heavy burden. Um and despite, you know, um Jesus saying, "Come to me all of you who are weary and uh cast on me your burdens. Learn from 29:24 me who are weary." It may still feel uh busy. It may feel very heavy. And I was thinking about John 6. We can go there for a second. We discussed this on Tuesday night and I thought I would just end on this word of encouragement. 29:39 I think if you were a disciple of Jesus, it must have been really hard to follow him because his standards were so high at the time when he was alive, but it's probably just as hard today. And here was Jesus, it says in John 6, 29:52 um one instance after the other, he is uh laying out the many, many things. I am the bread of life. Um you know, and and basically telling people they have to eat of him, which is eat of the suffering, die to self, and so on and so 30:08 forth. And then at the end of it, many of the disciples, it says if you further read down in John 6, around verse 60, many of the disciples were leaving because they felt this was too onerous. And it's very easy, especially those of 30:21 you in teenage years, to feel like this is too difficult. I can't I can't really uh go that next step. And Jesus looked at them one by one and then he looked at his 12 and says, um in John 6:67, "Do you also want to leave now?" 30:38 And Simon Peter, the flawed Simon Peter who later on uh denied Jesus and until the the day of Pentecost was not anointed with the Holy Holy Spirit. He says, just like he said when he was uh falling and um sinking in water, he 30:53 says, "Lord, who can we go to? You are the ones of eternal life." And I pray that each of us would have that helpless even when we feeling like we're sinking, Lord, and it's difficult. And there times when you may be discouraged. 31:09 Lord, there's nobody else. This is the body of believers that I want to be with. NCCF, thank you for putting me in this church. Thank you for giving me brothers and sisters who I can walk with a great cloud of witnesses with. I can't 31:21 do this alone. You are the one uh only one that can uh the ones that can that can give us eternal life. So, I pray that that will be true in our lives, and I pray that all of us can follow this example of Joshua who is now the example of Jesus.
