Susan Boyle was the 47-year old Scottish woman who applied to the TV show Britain’s Got Talent.  When she presented herself, the judges and the crowd didn’t believe she could sing.  She didn’t look like a singer.  When she talked, she didn’t sound like a singer.  Then she started singing.

Susan Boyle was chosen as a finalist, although she was not the kind of finalist you would expect.

When God saves people, whom does He choose to save?

1) God chooses whomever He pleases.

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.  So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9:15-16)

2) God chooses the minority.

“For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14)

3) God chooses people you don’t expect.

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are…” (I Corinthians 1:27-28)

Susan Boyle did not look like a singer, but she proved she could sing, so people accepted her.  In contrast, God sees us as foolish and weak and low and despised.  We have all fallen short of his glory and cannot prove otherwise.

We could never expect God to accept us on our own merit.  Yet if you are born again, He has chosen you.  To what end?

“… so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”  (1:29)

Susan Boyle has something to boast about — her singing.  Christians have nothing to boast about, because our new song comes from God.  Everything we have comes from Him through Jesus.

Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Ben Kwok

This post is the fourth of a 4 part series.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

My first three posts in this series as one could tell all focused on the truth of the gospel; from the sinfulness of man to his need of redemption to Jesus Christ who redeems man through His blood. The reason I spent this time going through the gospel in these posts is because frighteningly most Christians don’t know the gospel or how to articulate it. If you have read Jerry Bridges book “The discipline of Grace” you would have probably been as shocked as I when he mentions that at a certain evangelical conference a questionnaire was given to define the gospel and only one person got it close to right!

The fact is you can’t preach what you don’t know. Unless you have a firm understanding of the gospel yourself you will be hesitant to share that understanding with others. That is the problem with a lot of evangelism courses out today. I see churches teaching methods to their congregation when what they really need to learn is the gospel message itself! (Another problem I would argue is the belief in decisional regeneration but I digress) Methodology changes from culture to culture and from one generation to another but the gospel truth is timeless.

We need to know what the gospel is to share it. We need to know it like we know are names and addresses. Without the knowledge of the gospel itself we will do evangelism course after course in vain and people still won’t go out and share the hope that lies within them!

Even more important is the fact that since we don’t know the gospel we won’t live the gospel. We will  fall into one of 2 extremes. We will either firstly be so discouraged by our own sinfulness we will be useless for service. We will live in sin and see no hope we may even live in constant fear of our condition not knowing if we are in the faith or not. Otherwise if it is not discouragement due to our sinfulness we will fall into a high view of ourselves and a low view of sin. In other words we will take sin lightly thinking we are essentially good people slipping up. Both conclusions are false and are not pleasing to our God.

The gospel is a constant reminder of our own depravity and the forgiveness we have in Christ. It keeps the scales balanced and when we live our life in light of the gospel we will live a life in victory. Without a gospel centered life we cannot live our Christian lives in victory, the gospel is the key to live victoriously. We may fail a thousand times, we may break promises to ourselves and we may find ourselves yet again drinking from those broken cisterns but if we turn back to God, confess our sins, remember the price paid and the forgiveness guaranteed; we will a life of victory in our Savior Jesus Christ.

“The gospel was a message of some complexity, needing to be learned before it could be lived by and understood before it could be applied. It needed, therefore, to be taught”

J.I. Packer “Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God”

This post is the third of a 4 part series.

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

So far we have seen the depravity of man, his inability to save himself and his need of Jesus Christ to save him from his damnation. This week we’ll briefly look at the cost paid to secure our salvation; that is the death of Christ on the cross. This is something that is quite often overlooked.

This week I don’t want to “beat a dead horse” so to speak but I do want us to reflect on the cost paid by Jesus Christ to bear the penalty for our sins. When Jesus went up on that cross He knew full well what sins we have done and will do but that did not deter Him from dying on the cross for us. He bared the shame and He took the excruciating pain for us. We all are probably familiar with what the cross entailed so I will not labor on that point but I would like us to focus on the cost of our sin. Sin always has a cost.

We may be familiar with the concept of sin finding us out and we may very well abstain from certain sins due to the fear of getting caught but we should realize that their is not just earthly consequences to our sin there are also eternal consequences. If we are without Christ we will bear the punishment for our sins in hell. As we have already discussed even what we may consider the lighter sins, the so called white-lies and so forth demand the death penalty every time.

If we know Christ then we face Him with what we have done with our life. How much should we fear to face Him when we have wasted our lives away on the inconsequential. Eating, drinking and being merry all the while we have our back turned to Him and living as if He were not present with us watching! Following Jesus Christ isn’t just attending church on Sunday’s and maybe during the midweek. It isn’t that at all. It’s a personal relationship with our Lord and through love and reverence to Him we obey Him and follow His will. I am fearful of how much of the precious time God’s given to me I have squandered. How much more fearful if we been wasting so much more of our time in sin.

Lastly and more importantly we should once again focus on the cost paid by Christ when we sin. That lie, that lustful glance, that bitter attitude; it’s all paid for by Jesus Christ. This isn’t a license to sin but a sober reminder. It should make us all the more consider what Jesus has done and bow ourselves before Him in worship and adoration.

“…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”      Matthew 5:16

Each month, volunteers from our church spend a Saturday morning working in bushland near Rouse Hill.  We are part of the local council’s Bushcare program, which includes training and supervision.

The bushland reserve is located in a residential area.  Most of the time is spent removing weeds by hand, so that native plants can thrive.  A thicket of prickly lantana covers the whole area and we have gradually cut a swathe into it.  I hate lantana.  It’s toilsome work and will probably take years to complete the project.

As we sweat, many dog walkers and joggers pass by on the footpath, watching.  People normally do yard work if they own the place or if they are paid to work.  We’re serving because we want to love the community and “let our light shine.”

Often, locals have expressed appreciation for the project.  Some have recently applied to join in.  This is the first church ministry I’ve worked in where strangers want to help.

Community service does not replace the Gospel.  There are more threatening weeds to uproot!  Yet there are many ways for people to see our good works and glorify the Father.

Ben Kwok

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

There is a lot of different ways man can put himself in a situation where he can feel there is no hope, no way of breaking free. Sometimes it’s financial debt, he may have spent and spent and spent money on all the latest gadgets and all the latest fads but his credit card bill is looming over him. He sits defeated in a home he does not own, surrounded by possessions he does not own and a slave to the credit card that promised him of great and glorious things. Time is running out and the party is coming to a close but there is nothing he can do within himself to free himself from his immense debt, a debt that will take a lifetime to pay. There is no amount of hard work that will take care of the problem.

Another scenario is that of a drowning man. He had no problem getting himself into the mess but his salvation does not rest in himself. He can by no means pluck himself out of the water than he can turn that said water into wine.  He is in desperate need and the answer lies in the external. Someone else needs to help him and just like a drowning man needs another to pull him out of the depths of the sea so does the one in debt needs someone to bail him out in his hour of need. I hope we are beginning to see an important spiritual truth in instances like these.

As we saw in the week before last week’s post, man is in a serious predicament. Just like in these real world situations the answer lies outside the one in trouble so to are we in need of someone to bail us out of our trouble. As we saw last week man is a sinner who is completely depraved. He is stained by sin and he must bear the price of sin: Death in hell. There is nothing we can do to pay its cost. We can do no good, we can do no redemptive work on our own behalf and because of that we are consigned to our fate to bear the punishment for our wrongdoings.

Yet, just as we mentioned last week that God is holy, just and righteous we musn’t forget that He is also loving, compassionate and caring. God in His redemptive plan provided us the solution to our sin problem. Seeing that we cannot save ourselves and knowing that our sin needed to be righteously punished sent Jesus Christ His Son to bear the iniquity of us all. He acted as our substitute to pay for our sin and allowed God to not only punish sin but offer forgiveness of sin through Him who saves us from our sin.

In Romans 5:1 and 8:1 we have amazing truth. When we are in Christ we have moved from death to life and from condemnation to standing justified. As we have seen here so far man has racked up a debt he cannot pay and he suffers eternal consequences, he stands condemned before God. We can look at these verses and think “Great!” but the next though on our mind is “How do I move from condemnation? What does it mean to be in Christ?” Well in light of what we looked at, and if we understand our position before God we can claim this truth quite easily. We just need to look at 1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Next week we’ll continue on with a more focused look at the death of Christ.

“He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.”   I Corinthians chapter 3, verse 8

In church culture, it seems that the one who actually leads a person to Christ is the one who gets the most credit.  In God’s eyes, the one who plants and the one who waters are the same.

This does not mean that your work doesn’t matter in the end.  Some workers plant the Gospel — they will be rewarded according to their labour.  Some workers see growth arising from the Gospel and they nurture that growth — they will be rewarded according to their labour.  Some workers get to reap a plentiful harvest — they too will be rewarded according to their labour.

It’s interesting that in God’s economy, there is perfect equality among workers that communism could never achieve, yet there is also opportunity to be rewarded on an individual level.

Ultimately, all the credit goes to God.  He gives the opportunities and causes the growth.  In contrast, we are not “anything” (v. 7); we are “servants” (v. 5).

But God also calls us his “fellow workers.”  This word is used only one other time in the New Testament, in I Thessalonians 3:2, where Paul calls Timothy “God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ.”  The word “fellow” is the word for synergy, where you have two working together for more productivity.

How would you evaluate your own labour for the Gospel?  When was the last time you mentioned gospel truths to a non-Christian?

It’s encouraging to know that as you share your faith with someone, you are never by yourself — you are working alongside God!  How gracious He is to consider us as partners.  He will bless your work.

Ben Kwok

This post is the first of a 4 part series.

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

In modern society we can recognize the depravity of one who breaks the law continually. We therefore take precautions to appropriately punish the offender so as to protect society and serve as a warning to others who are considering the same path. Despite this when people sin against God people assume that He looks on only with love and compassion not realizing that He also looks on at sin with eyes that are holy, just and righteous.

Just as man is accountable to the human authorities, he is also accountable to God. We fail to realize that we too are habitual offenders against God and require the same heavy handedness. Though only few crimes require the death penalty by man’s standard, God requires it for each and every one of his laws. All of God’s laws require a death sentence when broken. Not just some, not most but all. All of them. We know that if we offend in one point it’s as if we have broken the whole law. That is something we should consider when we think we just slipped or missed the mark.

When Adam ate of the fruit the result was sin and death came through him. If eating fruit that had a figuratively speaking “Do not touch” sign resulted in death then we need to consider how great is the judgment for us to come if we break what we consider other unimportant or insignificant laws.

Laws that we may consider miniscule and unimportant are not treated as such by God. Some of the sins we consider minor are listed along with some of the most heinous sins we can imagine. Let’s look at an example here in Romans 1:28-32:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Covetousness, envy, gossip and disobedience to parents are mentioned along with murder, God haters and inventors of evil. Do we look at these sins in the same light as God does or do we try to downplay the severity of the sin? There is more to this list though.

When we look at Romans 1 we see a decline in man, a descent into depravity. We may be tempted to think that this descent was gradual up until a certain point when we as a race hit rock bottom but this is not so. When we look at Adam’s first son Cain we get a horrifying picture. Humanity delved into complete depravity in its first generation. Let’s look at Cain’s account in Genesis 4:1-16:

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

How does this account of Cain compare with our account in Romans 1? It’s amazing to see that most if not all sins listed there Cain exhibited in one way or another in this brief picture into his life in Genesis 4. Humanity’s descent was steep and it was immediate.

From then until now man has had the same wicked heart. We are totally depraved, sin has affected our entire condition and our whole being is inclined to evil just as our ancestor Cain. We all share the same nature as those whom we consider especially wicked; we all are habitual offenders against God.

The Bible paints a dark picture of man, one that he isn’t willing to take. We all think that we are essentially good people who slip up, miss the mark. Yet as we can see this isn’t the case and God won’t treat sin as lightly as we would hope. We are all totally depraved and the end of sin is death. We reap what we sow and we have sown death in hell for eternity. This is the end for all the depraved.

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

– Romans 5:8

But. One of the greatest words of hope in the English language. In this dark tunnel of depravity and despair as we look into humanity’s condition we can see a ray of light, a ray of hope and we’ll look into that Hope in next week’s post.

From that perspective, you can also sense the challenge of Jesus’ great commission.  How can we reach more of the city — and our nation — with the Gospel?

Recently I attended a fundraising dinner for City Bible Forum.  City Bible Forum’s vision is to present the Gospel “to every worker in every major business district of Australia.”  Based in Sydney, CBF’s ministry is gradually spreading in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, and Melbourne.

CBF has a strong rationale for outreach to the workplace, especially in the central business districts.  People are massed there and spend most of their time at work.  The workplace is a community in itself, where people also get to see Christians at close quarters.  For many people, the best place to be exposed to the Gospel is where they work.  (this may refresh your perspective toward your job!)

Public forums are held on a regular basis, featuring Bible teachers or Christian speakers who focus on a Bible topic and interact with the audience.  For example, a city worker might hear a talk from Ecclesiastes or the teachings of Jesus or the Christian worldview on current issues.  The team follows up those who are interested to learn more.

Another core ministry in Sydney is street evangelism.  Several teams go out to engage strangers and share the Gospel one-on-one.  There are also prayer teams, outreach to uni grads, women’s events, and Bible study luncheons which help to encourage Christian workers.

The dinner presentation provoked a few thoughts:

1. Workplace evangelism is frontline work.  Rather than waiting for non-believers to visit church, these Christians are bringing the message to them, where they live.  This is a great opportunity for church leaders, evangelists and Christian workers to get involved.
2. CBF’s approach is normal, in that they are basically teaching the Bible, having Gospel conversations and praying.  Reaching the city seems insurmountable — numerically (there’s too many of them!), logistically (how can we reach them?) and spiritually (can we really win these souls?).  There is no magic solution.  The only way forward is to intentionally speak the Word in prayerful dependence on God, wherever we live.
3. The ministry reports we heard shows how incremental evangelism and discipleship can be.  A conversation here, an event there — God uses various means to speak to hearts, in His time.  We should not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Ben Kwok

This time of year is a great opportunity to reflect on Jesus’ death and resurrection. Here are some insights gleaned from John Stott’s The Cross Of Christ:

“In the Christian theology of history, the death of Christ is the central point of history; here all the roads of the past converge; hence all the roads of the future diverge.”  (Stephen Neill, page 49)

‘The cross of Christ “is the event in which God makes known his holiness and his love simultaneously, in one event, in an absolute manner.’”  (Emil Brunner, page 131)

Defining the substitutionary atonement

“God, because in his mercy he willed to forgive sinful men, and being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against his own very self in the person of his Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved.”  (Charles Cranfield, page 134)

“In Pauline thought, man is alienated from God by sin and God is alienated from man by wrath.  It is in the substitutionary death of Christ that sin is overcome and wrath averted, so that God can look on man without displeasure and man can look on God without fear.”  (David Wells, page 173)

‘No verse specifically declares that “God himself” died on the cross….The reasons for this are not difficult to find.  First, immortality belongs to God’s essential being….  So he became man in order to be able to do so.   ….The second reason … is that “God” in the New Testament frequently means “the Father” and the person who died on the cross was not the Father but the Son.”  (page 154)

“The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us.”  (page 159)

The offence of the cross: “All other forms of religion — not to mention philosophy — deal with the problem of guilt apart from the intervention of God, and therefore they come to a ‘cheap’ conclusion.  In them man is spared the final humiliation of knowing that the Mediator must bear the punishment instead of him.  To this yoke he need not submit.  He is not stripped absolutely naked.”  (Emil Brunner, page 162)

On liturgy: “…all progress in the Christian life depends upon a recapitulation of the original terms of one’s acceptance with God.”  (page 265)

On the problem of suffering: “There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolises divine suffering.”  (page 327)

On witnessing: “It is the crucified man that can preach the cross.”  (G. Campbell Morgan, page 341)

They have named the new work Lismore Bible Church and you can email them by clicking here. Pete can give you all the service times and location of their meetings, etc.

Lismore is large regional city conveniently located between Coffs Harbour and Brisbane. It has its own university campus.

So if you know anymore in Lismore or in the surrounds who are looking to attend a good Bible preaching church then tell them about this new endeavour.

Planting churches is still the most Biblical and effective way of fulfilling the great commission and seeing lasting fruit from evangelism and preaching.

At the very least please pray for this new work and even consider sending an email of encouragement to the team.

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he  who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.1 Corinthians 3:5-9