THE GLORY OF STARTING ANEW

Footage of the 6th Year Anniversary Celebration of EPKSA Fires Ministry (ICOC-KSA)

Text:

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  All this is from God,who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Introduction:

We all love NEW things. It brings us joy to have something new.  New clothes, shoes, utensils, gadgets (tablet, smart phones, watches etc.), new house, new toys to the delight of children.

As much as we love NEW things, we are also so keen about FRESH things. If we are cooking,  we always want that all ingredients are fresh. Fresh fish, vegetables, meat, egg, etc.  And so, it is always tastier to have freshly cooked food.

We like the feeling of freshness after we took enough rest in a very fine day. We eat ice goodies or drink ice cold drinks during summer season to be refreshed (Halo-halo, ice cream, juices and soft drinks). We go swimming or soak ourselves into the tub or pool.  Some visit the nearest spa, have a massage session, and then feel totally refreshed afterwards.  There are people who take advantage with the cool breeze of summer by having picnic at the farm or forest under the trees, camping beside beaches, rivers, falls or lakes.

During my childhood days, I usually had no stuff to do during summer vacations but play with my neighbor kids.  There were no computers, tablets or anything that will preoccupy our idle moments.  I used to tie two strands of ropes at both ends  of a large rice sack and hung them on the strong branch of star apple tree in our backyard to make it a swing.  I lie down on that swing and take a good nap under the tree during the day.  And when I wake up, I feel so good! Totally re-charged, physically and mentally.

Why don’t you do this exercise: 

Close your eyes and imagine yourself strolling in a large and beautiful green garden, surrounded by lovely and colourful varieties of flowers. You hear no other sound but the singing birds and rushing water. You see plenty of butterflies flapping happily in the air.  It is a very large garden surrounded by well-trimmed trees and bushes.   In the middle,  there is a  spring of gleaming crystal clear flowing water.  While enjoying the cool morning breeze and a warm refreshing sunshine, you slowly walk towards that spring and touch the icy cold water.  It is so refreshing……. It feels so good!  Meanwhile enjoy the coolness of the spring.  Let the chilling freshness flow starting from your fingertips, through your spine and spread around your body.  You walk free… free from worries, free from pressures, free from all sort of negative emotions.  Just deliberately walk beside the flowering plants humming a tune and smiling. Enjoy this moment and let your spirit fly higher and higher….. free…….Let your soul soar high hovering with the larks and eagles…….enjoy the wind blows.  Let the cold breeze embrace you with new hope and renewed purpose in life.  You wear your most wonderful smile … smile of genuine joy, smile of contentment.  Smile that dissipates all melancholies. A smile of determination to face life without fear. And,   as you open your eyes, that smile should remain.  You may now open your eyes. 

I'm sure, if you perform that,  you feel refreshed?

  

Usually, I do that meditation whenever I feel pressured and tired in the office.  I just close my eyes a couple of minutes and perform that exercise.  After that, I’m ready to plunge myself into the next task, fully recharged.  Our mind is like  smartphone, you also have to recharged at times. I call that, MY IMAGINARY GARDEN.

Yes, we are always happy about NEW things in our lives, we want things FRESH and we love being REFRESHED.

We are in the first month of this Year 2016.  A brand new start for everyone.  Some listed their personal new year resolutions. Maybe one has this statement in his/her list; “This Year 2016, I will forgive all those who wronged me and forget about the bitter things and conflicts that happened in the past year. I will start a new.”

And another may include this item in his/her list; “I will start with my diet program, enrol in gym or zumba sessions, and jog twice a week.” or, “I will keep watch of my weight and be conscious of my health this year”.

If not in the form of New Year Resolutions, some started the year by creating personal goals and targets.  In our respective companies, it is customary for us to set our 2016 Performance Objectives and have that fresh determination to meet or even smash them.  We have that excitement to map new execution plans and create better strategies to be successful.

How about us?  How did we start our year?  Do we think we started it right? What are the NEW things we want to see happen in our lives? Will this year be a different year for us?

Brothers and Sisters,this is the perfect time for us to decide to start driving our lives towards God. In this message, I will be putting-in three points.  Taken from our Biblical Text for today, these are points that will guide us in making a BRAND NEW START for this Year and make a significant history in your life as believers in Christ.

            Point No. 1:  Have Spiritual Point of View About Others (vv 16-17)

            Point No. 2:  Be Reconciled with Christ (vv 18-19)

            Point No. 3:  Be Ambassadors of Christ (vv 20-21)

Point No. 1:   HAVE SPIRITUAL POINT OF VIEW ABOUT OTHERS (vv 16-17)

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 

We mingle with various people everyday and our behaviour varies from one person to another, from one nationality to another, from one with lower status to one in authority, from our friends to our acquaintances.  We also elicit various level of trust and confidence, depending on how well we know the person and based on our past experiences with them.  The truth is, it will never happen that we treat all people equally.  We will always have the preferences and standards governing our relationship with others. At times we don’t mingle with least likeable people and there are those whom we find pleasing and we easily get ourselves acquainted with them.  We use virtual rulers and weighing scales to measure how appealing a person is for us, and these metrics strongly influenced the way we behave on them. Often times, people who wronged us once will receive bias feelings from us no matter how good they were to us.  And those who helped us once will receive the highest respect from us.

The question is, “WHAT ARE THE PARAMETERS WE SET IN QUALIFYING AND CHOOSING FRIENDS?”

Did we set a standard on: the physical form? On the person’s behavioural attributes? On their educational attainment or professional achievements? On the advantages and benefits we derive from being close to them?

Know the fact that these parameters are merely standards of this world and not of God .  It is what we call, “Worldly Point of View”.

Remember, we have this biblical admonishment to “view others through spiritual eyes”, that is, imitating how God views and treats mankind.

-          God is not looking at our personal appearance but checks the heart. (I Samuel 16:7)

-          God forgives and forgets our sins.  He showed mercy and grace. (I John 1:9)

-          Jesus mingled with the sinners (Mark 2:13-17)

-          Jesus always had heart for the poor (Luke 14:13 and Mark 10:21)

-          Jesus said, “Learn from me.  For I am meek and lowly in heart.” (Mat 11:29)

-          Jesus never judge and told us not to judge (John 12:47 & Matthew 7:1)

The Be-attitudes have much of things to say about how we treat others. (Mat 5:1-12)

-          Humility, meekness, being poor in spirit, peacemaker, mercifulness, purity in heart

We should practice “loving others as we love ourself”  (John 13:34-35)

Reflection:  When was the last time we meditate and examine our views, attitudes and behaviours when dealing with others?

Challenge:   THIS NEW YEAR, WE HAVE THE CHALLENGE TO START DEVELOPING THE SPIRITUAL POINT OF VIEW OF OTHERS. REMOVE PREJUDICES, BIASES AND GRUDGES.  CHANGE IT WITH RESPECT, WHOLESOME ACCEPTANCE AND LOVE.

Point No. 2: BE RECONCILED WITH CHRIST (vv 18-19)

All this is from God,who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 

Had we been involved in a serious fight with our siblings or with a close friend, one that severed our closeness with them for a long period?

My father’s aunt (a loving grandma) got a long-term sentence for murdering his husband’s niece whom she got so jealous of, accusing the victim of seducing her husband. She could not really proved the accusation in the court during her trial but the crime was just a result of her being drunk at that time.  She stayed behind bars for 15 years until she was awarded parole.  Since the day she was set free, she was hiding from the family of the victim for fear that they would be vindictive. By nature, my father’s aunt was very helpful, loving and cheerful to all neighbours, relatives and friends. But due to the crime she committed, she became miserable and lonely. She would barely socialize with others, except with her husband and children. Psychological healing came when they left our province, and migrated to the city. By the constant follow up of her sons, who are active in a church, she studied the Bible and became a true believer.  Her hardest challenged was to go to those people whom she offended and ask forgiveness.  No matter how hard it is, she swallowed her pride, wear a handful of courage, and visited the aggrieved relatives.  To her utter surprise, it turns out that family of the victim received her gladly before she even speak a word. That fact made her very remorseful, twice as guilty as she were, and all the more felt that she was undeserving of their good treatment. All this she carried for sometime until she learned how to forgive herself.  Long before her death few years back, she had a happy reconciliation with the aggrieved relatives.       

Reconciliation = The Hebrew word used in the original biblical writing is  “KAPAR” and Greek work used is “KATALLAGE”.  – Reconciliation:  The state of being forgiven and enjoying fully restored relationship. 

Reconciliation is not a COMPROMISE where two parties  meet halfway to be able to restore a severed relationship.  It is not a TRUCE where both parties agree to stop the act of offending each other just to end a conflict, usually this runs within a certain period only, until both parties comes up with a real resolution to end the trouble.  Truce does not really call anyone to resolve underlying relationship issues.  It has no intention to eliminate hatred and grudges but to only stop the opposing parties from throwing explosives at each other. 

Paul, in using the word, “KAPAR or KATALLAGE”, he meant “FULL RESTORATION OF OUR ESTRANGED RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD THROUGH HIS MERCY AND GRACE.”  Mercy or Grace is something that is not based on contractual agreement.  It cannot be bought for a price, but it is freely and willingly given, out of strong compassion from the one who was offended.  Reconciliation is “totally forgetting what is behind and starting a new relationship with unwavering trust and commitment”  as though nothing happened in the past.

The Bible called us to be reconciled to Christ, our Lord.  How do we obtain this?

Romans 5:6-11

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!  Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

a)       Recognize your sins and be remorseful over them because you are perfectly aware that your sins hurt someone.

b)       Confess them to the Lord, if they were committed against His teachings.  If you aggrieved your fellow men, talk to them about it.

c)       Ask forgiveness with genuine sincerity and regret.

d)       Allow the power of God to change you into a NEW being, a person reconciled with the Lord.  This will be a total surrender.

Reconciliation then is not a result of peace-talks, compromise agreements or a truce.  It is the “HUMBLE AND TOTAL SURRENDER” to the one whom we ultimately offended, GOD, through our unwavering faith in Christ.  This Total Surrender should activate the promise of ATONEMENT from God. Atonement is God’s act of cleansing a sinner from all the wrongs he committed through Christ’s blood, and he/she will be considered pure again.   If you fragment the word “atonement”, you will yield to; AT-ONE-MENT.  It is always good to be AT-ONE with God, right? – that is to be reconciled with our Creator whom we always disobey, disrespect and hurt.

Reflection:  When was the last time you prayed and told God, “ Lord, to you I surrender all” and you really meant it? 

                    Did you truly repent from all your sins, may it be a significant sin or subtler ones?

Challenge:  For those who did not reconcile with Christ yet, I challenge you to study the Bible and learn what it says about being one with Him.  I can only say much within this limited time, but the Bible is always there to guide you through.

            
           For the more mature Christians here, I challenge us to reflect further on the degree of our commitment in our relationship with God, especially that we are entering another year in our Personal Ministry.  Let us think about how we can make a stride closer to Him, make positive difference in our prayers, in our quiet times, in repentance, in following His commandments; and lastly, in our commitment with the Body, the Church.

Point No. 3: BE AMBASSADORS OF CHRIST (vv 20-21)

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

From the time that God created all beings, He purposely put MAN as His first priority because we have the full intellect and faculties to bring glory to Him, just as He created us in His own image.  We were commissioned to lord over all His creations. In this sense, we became little gods who should be dominating the earth.  After the fall of man, his relationship with his Creator got severed.  In His holiness, God couldn’t tolerate sin within His realm so He had to expel Adam and Eve from the garden.  But, because He still loves man despite the sin, He just couldn’t stand to see them suffer because of the guilt.  So He put up His plan, the Plan of Salvation, expressed in different ways from generations to generations… and then came the ultimate execution of the plan, the birth of Jesus Christ, His only Son, who willingly died for us on the cross and bore the punishment for our sin.  Through this, we were offered the opportunity to be reconciled to God.  In our expression of total surrender, we should respond positively to the call of being AMBASSADOR OF CHRIST, an instrument for others to be reconciled to God as well.  God envisions every man here on earth to be reconciled to Him and He will use everyone as well to execute this plan.  Jesus came to set the pace and showed the perfect example of living as God’s ambassador of reconciliation.  All Christ’s disciples, including us,have to take this seriously. 

Let us then consider Christ direct calling to us:

-          “I will make you Fishers of Men”  (Mat 4:19)

-          “If you truly love me, Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17)

-          “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Mat 28:18-20)

-          “You are the Salt of the Earth … You are the light of the World” (Mat 5:13-16)

Luke 15: 1-10 = If we are successful in bringing souls to reconcile with God, there will be great celebration in heaven.  And because we became instruments in finding and guiding them towards God, we will never go unrewarded.

Reflection:  Do we really understand how to be an ambassador of Christ?  

       What impression do others have about us? Do they love us or the other way around?

       Do others see pure goodness in us? Or, we are a stumbling block for them?

                    Do they see Jesus Christ in us?  

                    When was the last time we sit with a friend and talk about Christ?

Challenge:  Have the personal decision today to start being an ambassador of reconciliation.  If you don’t have enough knowledge about being a spiritual ambassador, I challenge you to read and study the Bible.  Pray that God will enable you to understand how it is to be a Disciple of Christ.

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Brothers and Sisters, as I said, this is the perfect time for us to decide to start driving our lives towards God. Let us start the year with these decisions:

            Point No. 1:  Have Spiritual Point of View About Others

            Point No. 2:  Be Reconciled with Christ

            Point No. 3:  Be Ambassadors of Christ

Let me end this message with another writing of Paul, this time to the Church in Ephesus.

Concluding Verses:  Ephesians 4:22 –24 and 5:1-2

 ²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

¹ Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

To God be the Glory.  AMEN.