Preaching – Page 7

Category: Preaching

Preaching a Christmas sermon

26 December 2020 blogpastor Leave a comment

This meditation was written during the Christmas of 2016. I read it again this morning as I was tidying up my website. It has a freshness and relevance to it. I decided to repost it:

INCREDIBLE TRUTH

The wonderful truth, the magnificent truth, the incredible truth of the Christmas story is that God came to this hopeless, blinded, wayward world dressed in robes of humanity to live with us and suffer for us and die in our place. God dwelt among us as a babe, as a toddler, as a child, as a teenager, as a working young adult. He identified with our suffering, divided, and uncaring world. He revealed himself to us so we could know him through his words and deeds. He came to make salvation and union with God possible. Without the incarnation there would be no salvation, as much as without the cross and empty tomb there would be no redemption.

PREACHING DURING CHRISTMAS SEASON

There are many characters or “lampstands” in the Christmas story: Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, wise men, shepherds, Simeon, and Anna. However, when we preach about the characters in the Christmas story we need to hold before the congregation the main thing: Jesus was God incarnate who came to reconcile rebellious humankind to himself. The characters were like menorah lampstands shedding light together so that we can all see that God sent Jesus to save us from all our sins.

Without ignoring this contextual truth, we can look at some smaller picture highlights and use them as focused points of relevance. I am thinking of all the seniors. There are four of them and their journeys lend secondary insights that we could apply to lives of seniors today.

MANY SENIOR CITIZENS IN CONGREGATIONS

There are so many seniors in the churches in Singapore. During the heyday of the revival among evangelicals and the charismatics many youths came and followed Christ fervently. Most of these people are now gray-haired and white-haired and no-haired in our churches. If ladies stop dyeing their hair for a year we will indeed get a clearer impression of the ageing of our congregations. And there is a spirituality for seniors just as there is one for the kids in Sunday School. The seniors have to learn to navigate in a godly way some of the transitions and experiences they will encounter from 55 to 95. The four inspiring seniors in the Christmas story addresses some of them.

Seniors will face a faith challenge. As they near the end of their life, they will think more deeply about faith and life after death. They will think about God, about religion, and about death and eternity. Zechariah’s story of a disappointed faith restored is a good story to inspire people to think about the quality of their own personal faith, and how God wants to assure them when they have doubts.

ELIZABETH’S STORY

Elizabeth’s story is one of deep disappointment, shame, sadness and barrenness. She would have often recalled her past and felt she had failed to make a meaningful life. However, the angel came along and intercepted her pain and tears and delivered the impossible. In her senior years, her life took on purpose and meaning for she and her husband would have the privilege of rearing John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah. This inspiring senior prods us to realize that even in senior years and beyond retirement there can be a higher purpose and great weight attached to living out our faith till death or Jesus comes.

SIMEON’S STORY

Simeon was another godly senior, a prophet without a card. A man ahead of his time. 400 years of silence – no prophetic word to Israel. Suddenly Simeon filled with the Spirit, guided by the Spirit declares by the Spirt the destiny of the child Jesus when the parents came to do Mary’s purification rites and the child’s dedication. Then he prays, Lord I am now ready to go home. I am ready to die. I have seen the Messiah and it is enough. Simeon was able to pray like that because he lived well –he walked in the Spirit and did not gratify the lusts of the flesh. Seniors in our churches need to learn to live well so that they can die well.

ANNA’S STORY

Finally, there was Anna. Great material for inspiring seniors. Seniors will need to learn to grieve well for they will lose loved ones, lose health, lose investments, lose their beauty and they would need to learn to grieve well. As well as Anna who lost her husband at the probable age of 21 after seven years of marriage. The text is silent after that but indications are that she grieved well and had no bitterness towards God or man for she spent her years in dedicated prayers and fasting, serving God and his people and the Temple. What an inspiring elder.

Advent has four Sundays leading up to Christmas day. Do consider preaching a series on inspiring seniors in the Christmas story. Singapore churches need to hear a relevant word for them. Let’s not always focus on the young; speak up to meet the needs of the elderly and inspire them to finish well.

Guest preaching at Church of True Light during covid 19

31 August 2020 blogpastor Leave a comment

The Church of True Light entrance looked unusually quiet. For a moment I thought the church was closed. Oops, I was looking at the wrong doors. Two women were there at the front desk. One greeted me and asked for my name. I said, I am the guest preacher for the English congregation. She checked my temperature, and briskly showed me to the lift.

The worship hall was a welcome sight. They had done modest renovations and the place looked more conducive than before. Later, I found that I sounded good over the microphone. They must have upgraded the PA system too. Wonderful.

A tall, tan Anglican priest with silvered hair welcomed me, and I suddenly felt more at home. I have known Revd Vincent Hoon for close to two decades. We met as strangers put together to share a room in a Love Singapore Pastors Prayer Summit ages ago. We have since become prayer partners through thick and thin; fellow-pilgrims and fellow-servants in the Lord’s vineyard.

I met with their new vicar, Revd Barry, formerly from Marine Parade Anglican Church. He was newly posted to this church. This means he must be effectively bi-lingual. Later, at the end of the service, they showed a superbly done video introduction of him, and he came off as someone with confident, decisive, humorous and authentic. The former vicar, Revd Winston had retired, and as in any change of leadership, much prayer and patience and grace is needed in order that God’s purposes be fulfilled by His man in that new season the church is in.

Future priest Aaron, Revd Vincent Hoon, and myself with the plastic face shield

With some curiosity, I took a selfie to see how I look like beside the priests there. I look like some lau hero in a movie about containment of some infectious disease. I cannot say I felt like one when it was my turn to mount the stage and take the pulpit. It felt awkward. I chose a lapel mike. The crowd was sparse with thirty plus folks, and a battery of young adults at the end where the equipment for live-streaming and sound control were. Evidently, the Chinese services would be starting physical gatherings soon and were there to learn how to operate the equipment. So speaking to this disparate groups seated apart from each other except for couples felt different. “Are they listening to me?” I asked myself, as I felt a bit of nervousness. “Am I getting through?” As I reached the final third point I panicked because I realised I had missed a whole chunk of explanation in the second point. Since it was live-streamed I needed to keep it concise to 20 – 30 minutes, I had been reminded earlier. “Doesn’t matter…just carry on. The Lord is able to work with mistakes like this. He will make good come out of it.” Sometimes, people feel relief with short sermons. Hope that at least it is the case here.

The service began at 9am and ended at about 10am. Is this the “new normal”?

Eventful “circuit breaker” week

10 April 2020 blogpastor Leave a comment

This has been an eventful week. The rolling out of the “circuit breaker” to halt the Covid 19 from spreading further in Singapore had commenced. On Tuesday, most businesses and offices closed or began operations from homes. On Wednesday, all the schools began online lessons. On Thursday I fetched my daughter home from a hotel in Orchard Road. She had spent 14 days there in isolation because she flew in from the United States. That very afternoon, I rehearsed and then had my Easter sermon pre-recorded together with the Holy Communion. And today is Good Friday. I went to the Teban Market to buy back nasi lemak and bread and eggs, while my wife bought vegetables in a rush. She said, It’s like Chinese New Year Eve, nobody bothers even though the price of vegetables have gone up. What a long week it had been! I felt relieved the recording had been done. I now hope the media team will give it an editing makeover, and enhance what was done using my son’s Fuji camera, and Zephaniah’s Rode wireless mic. I was anxious about how I was going to figure it our by myself. I was tempted to ask my niece Bethany over to help since she’s 10 minutes drive away, and she is from the media team. However, I was reminded by concerned people that this is contrary to the spirit of what the government is seeking to do – strict social distancing. I tried to rationalize things, Isn’t preaching an essential service that calms and strengthens people’s faith and give hope? After a struggle, I decided to err on the safe side. In the end, God worked all things for good, and my daughter after her release from quarantine, and a video call with Zeph, our media team head, provided the know-how to video my sermon and the Holy Communion for Easter Sunday’s online worship experience.

I tried to use the teleprompter on iPad but somehow it showed too clearly on camera that my eyes were leering off-centre. So I discarded that and held and referred to my sermon notes on my iPad. I hope it turns out okay. We started taping at about 5pm using the light from the windows, the ceiling light, and a table lamp. By the time we taped the Holy Communion, the room had darkened and we had a good laugh. We would need great editing from the media team, or maybe a miracle, for this home-made stuff to be usable on Sunday. It was a good experience.
THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED!
Hallelujah!