Forgiven and Free

by Pastor Scott The

John 7:53-8:11

** Example of a bicycle with a flat tyre
** Example of a woman who committed adultery

What is one thing in your life that need God to change you? It is not the physical although you change church, change outlook, attend church every Sunday as though everything's alright. However, if your tyre is flat, no matter where you are, you still have a flat tyre.

(1) You need to change your flat tyre
(2) Jesus can forgive and set you free

We need to spend more time in the presence of God. God can set us free in the bondage of sin. Sin will not stay secret or in the dark. God will forgives us. He will not condemn us.

Leviticus 20:10
Both adulterer and adulteress shall be put to death according to Leviticus. But in the case of John 8, the adulterer was not been brought to Jesus. The accusers were not concern about the woman's fate, they just want to trap Jesus.

"Secret sin on earch is open scandal in heaven"

Your sins and mine will be revealed one day. It is evidence of God's grace and mercy. What are you going to do about it?

Galatians 6:1
The objective is to restore sinners, not destroy.

Why did Jesus not throw a stone at the woman? Because Jesus was on the way to the cross to die for her. He is going to take the punishment for us at that time. We will be forgiven because of Jesus.

If we do not forgive someone, it will hold sin in our hearts. It is indeed difficult to let go of the stone from our hands, but God will help to take the stone away from our hands.

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 **