Study of Haggai

by Pastor Calvin Lee

The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.

Complacent to commitment (Haggai 1:1-15)

Ezra 4:24

4 important points :
(1) an inexcusable Complacency (Haggai 1:1-4)
- wrong belief
- wrong behaviour (started well but end badly)

(2) an inevitable Consequence (Haggai 1:6-10)
- much but more disappointment
- more but more dissatisfaction

You don't get what you should get because you don't do what you should do - Pastor Benny Ho

(3) an important Consideration (Haggai 1:11)
- are you heading in the right direction that you should with the lord?

(4) an intentional Commitment (Haggai 1:12-14)
- Reverence
- Repentance
- Honour Him
- Honour Him in His house

** The leaders set the example **

Puntuality
Non Attendance
Dress Code
Attention

Intellectual Approach

by Pastor Lee Meng Cham

Why do you believe Jesus is the Son of God?

Intellectual approach is being logical and rational about our approach to the gospel.

The example from Paul :
Acts 17:16-34
A. Determining the context for apologetics
- Paul is combating truth and knowledge
B. Delivering the content of apologetics
- Paul build a bridge, not barrier
- Move from Known to the Unknown (v 24-28)
- Go from insight to application (v 29-31)
- v 32-34

Most people do not have a reality of God but they have a problem about the nature of God
(Isaiah 55:6-7)
(Jeremiah 29:13-14a)

The exhortation from Peter
1 Peter 3:13-17
- Real hope endures (v 13-14)
- Real hope reveres
- Real hope answers
- Real hope invites (v 15-17)

Dorothy L Sayers :
"For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is— limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.”

The incompleteness of intellectual approach :
- belief as a Verb
- faith as a Leap
- the gospel as Foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:22-25)
- apologetics as an Unveiling

"Sister/Brother, I hope you know Jesus. He is everything to me in the world"

Interpersonal Approach

by Pastor Calvin Lee

Luke 5:26-32

5 very important principles we need to understand :

(1) Being intentional in developing relationships with pre-Christians
A. Engagement
- friends, neighbours, family, co-workers, associates
- the Christians demonstrates caring and compassion through a genuine friendship
- the Christian seeks to understand the needs of unchurched friends
B. Enlargement

(2) People don't expect perfection from Christians, just honest ones
A. Transparent
- we need to be opened with others to say that we are not perfect, be humble, say sorry
B. Transformation
- people need to see the transforming works, ie. the change in us by the Holy Spirit for the Glory of God

(3) A person we perceives as being "hardened to the gospel" may actually be receptive if approached correctly
- be patient and be prayerful

(4) there is such a thing as a position of greater influence
- authority and arena

(5) Beware of valuing friendship over truth telling

** What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but loses his soul?**
** At the end of the journey of life, what then?**
** When God's people are relevant, God becomes relevant to a lost world. When God's people are irrelevant, God becomes irrelevant to a lost world **