Bro Vive Supramaniam
Introduction by Rev Gideon Lee
Today we have a special speaker all the way from Nepal. They went there for a short mission trip. Pastor Steven Teoh met them there at Nepal. They decided to do this all on their own. They kept me updated trough WhatsApp so that we can pray along. As we do our Harvest Mission Promise it is good to have him share with us.
They say whenever you go to a Nepalese church they say "Jirehsee" which means praise to the messiah. It is a privilege to come here to share with you. In 2014, we planned a holiday. We wanted to go to Vietnam but somehow Vietnam didn't turn out as we had an opportunity to go to the holy land, Israel. But Egypt went through some conflict so we decided to put Israel aside. Somehow this Nepal came along so we offered to join pastor Steven in Nepal.
He said I just have to preach one service. We landed on 24th but was told to preach in their Christmas service. Then we were supposed to have a few days holiday but I was told again I was to preach on Sunday in a church. Including sharing in a bible school. For me it's a life defining moment.
I will be joining the 40's club soon and I was asking God what he wanted us to do as a family. God spoke to us and he is really good.
This morning it is good that God is bringing us to a new season. From the called out once to Arise! Shine! My title is to move from success to significance.
When I was in Nepal, I met a man name Jason Dai. The word Dai actually mean the elder brother. 16 years ago he came to Nepal. He was trained as a pilot but he felt this is not what God wanted him to do. So he quit the Air Force. His superior told him in Singapore you don't quit the Air Force, we sack you. So his superior who is also his church brother said they'll fail him.
His vision was to have 200 churches with 200 members by 2020. In Nepal life is different. When you order food it takes 45 minutes. Things are slow there.
Today, Jason has started 150 churches in Nepal. He raised up leaders, village pastors. When I say villages don't think Malaysian village. To reach a town he had to walk 15 hours and a long bus ride to the town. His requirement is that he will support them with RM200 a month. He has an incentive, if he can get 200 members, they will get a piece of land.
The village churches is like the photos that Deswyn sent. Cows come to your church service (laughs).
Another person is architect Wong. Jason is one of his main sponsor. Architect Wong has been sponsoring about 50 such lands. He did this even before he became a Christian. He is now saved. Praise the Lord. Today they are building a Hotel in the village to bring transformation and social work to Nepal.
The next person is CK. He is from Brunei in car business. He impacts Nepal in an interesting way establishing old folks home. He pays for everything. The church thinks strategically and single mothers going to work are welcomed to leave their kids there free of charge and many mothers are coming to the Lord. They are now planning a kindergarten to reach the lost.
When did the first Malaysian church I started? Don't know your history meh? In the 14th century. The first church in Nepal is 1941. 50% of churches in Nepal is more than 1,000. Their church service is 3 hours long and they are in church half an hour before service. No chairs, no aircon, no carpet. Malaysian church, what happened to us? That's why I said it is a life defining moment. God challenged me.
This morning I want to talk about moving from success to being significant. When young we are already being pushed for success. How many of you tell your children it's good to be hopeless. Or tell them to fail, fail more. We are taught and it's imprinted into our DNA to be successful.
In Nepal they collect offering in a plastic. Some bring vegetables. No Kangkong (laughs).
One very important thing in life is to go into survival mode to be a success. It's never enough. We want to be more and more successful. But there is importance to move from success to significance Rick Warren said.
According to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, Life goes through the three “S” stages – Surviving, Success and Significance.
It's good to be successful but we must learn to be significant in our walk with God.
John Maxwell is his article Success or Significance says the following:
“I know a lot of people who believe they are successful because they have
everything they want. They have added value to themselves. But I believe significance comes when you add value to others – and you can’t have true success without significance”
Glenn Bland, in his book Success (published fifteen years ago), gives the best example I've ever seen of the importance of priorities. It shows vividly that success and money alone can't buy happiness and peace of mind.
Bland tells of a meeting in 1923 of the world's most successful financiers held at Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel. In terms of money, these financial giants almost literally ruled the world.
Look at their names and positions:
Charles Schwab, president of the largest steel company in America; Samuel Insull, president of the largest utility company; Howard Hopson, president of the largest gas company; Arthur Cutten, the great wheat speculator; Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange; Albert Fall, Secretary of the Interior in President Harding's cabinet; Jesse Livermore, the great "bear" on Wall Street; Ivan Krueger, head of the world's greatest monopoly; and Leon Fraser, president of the Bank of International Settlements.
These men were "movers and shakers," the kind many people envy and wish to be like. Yet something went terribly wrong with these men's lives.
Twenty-five years later:
* Charles Schwab went bankrupt.
* Samuel Insull died in a foreign land, penniless and a fugitive from justice. * Howard Hopson was insane.
* Arthur Cutten was insolvent and died abroad.
* Richard Whitney had just been released from Sing Sing prison.
* Albert Fall had just been pardoned from prison and died at home, broke. * Jesse Livermore committed suicide.
* Ivan Krueger committed suicide.
* Leon Fraser committed suicide.
I am not saying material success will end badly. But it is the use or abuse of wealth that determines the outcome.
In fact, power, position, prestige, pleasure, and prosperity are rather amoral-neither good nor bad from a moral position. It's the use or abuse of these that determines the outcome.
The story reminds us about Solomon who sums up every of his success in one word : Meaningless
Ecclesiastes 1: Everything Is Meaningless - 1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” 3 What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun?
This morning we are going to look at the Word of God and what God is telling us of managing success.
Luke 12:13-21
The Parable of the Rich Fool
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable:“The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. ’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? ’
21 “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
What is Success?
The WORLD thinks about success as the accumulation of business skills, knowledge, natural wisdom, financial resources, emotional/relationship skills and personal health sums up pretty much what most people today think success is all about.
This year our company stock has been doing very well. Everyone is talking about stocks and the Vice President was telling us every dollar the stock rise he earns 100,000.00 dollars. Everyone is talking about wealth and material.
Those things are good to have provided of course you use them for a good purpose. It is not wrong to want to be successful. But there is a bigger thing in life than being successful: being a person of SIGNIFICANCE.
The world often promotes the following view on success : “I worked hard, I earned it, and it’s mine to do with as I please”
The world suggests that we are “entitled” to any outcome of success. But the BIBLE has a different view on this is different. The Bible teaches all we have or receive comes from God. God has “entrusted” it to us. There is big difference between “entitled” and “entrusted”.
The bible says differently. We are entrusted with our wealth. The blessings come from God that we may use it wisely.
King David understood this when he thanked God for the money and talents that God’s people generously and freely offered to build the temple
1 Chronicles 29:11-16
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
12 Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.
14 “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. 15 We are aliens and strangers in your sight, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. 16 O Lord our God, as for all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name, it comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you.
What is Significance then?
We can define significance in this way: significance is a measure of the value you add to OTHERS.
Ephesians 2:10 - 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
1. God’s plan for us is to be successful
God wants you to be fruitful, productive, effective, blessed, and successful. Being successful itself is a testimony of God’s goodness in your life.
Look at Joshua 1:8: " 'This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.' "
We see this in the lives of many men and women in the Bible.
For example, the story of Joseph in Genesis chapters 37-50? By the world’s standards, he was doomed from the start. The young Hebrew had been beaten and sold into slavery by his own
brothers, and for years he lived a life of servitude and imprisonment. However, in everything Joseph did, God made him thrive.
In those important chapters of Genesis, we see Joseph as a shepherd boy, then a slave, later as a prisoner, and ultimately as the prime minister of Egypt!
Surely God had planned for the faithful servant’s good fortune, even during those years when all seemed hopeless.
We see similar accounts throughout biblical history. Moses, David, Nehemiah, and Joshua all demonstrate this same kind of greater divine plan for distinction. And, of course, let’s not forget the apostles—they thrived in the first century and spread the good news of salvation around the world. No doubt, their mission must be considered a success, or we would have no churches or record of Jesus Christ at all.
In each of these examples, people discovered what the Lord wanted them to do, committed their lives to it, followed godly principles, and achieved their goals. In the eyes of God, they were all successful.
2. Success is not the end product.
Biblical success, I believe, is the progressive realization and internalization of all that God wants me to be and do
In the parable of the Rich Fool - The rich fool erred in his understanding of the purpose of wealth. The rich fool was foolish in that he saw his possessions as his security, and as the basis for his ceasing to be productive.
Success is usually the steppingstone to significance. It a journey and it might rock our comfort zone.
The success of Joseph in Egypt moved it further to be significant by being a blessing to his siblings and to Israel. God saves Israel through Joseph.
Genesis 45: 6"For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvesting. 7"God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. 8"Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
Google about Jim Nobel, where his King's Restaurant's proceed was given to the benefit of the poor and hungry.
Jim Noble is a pastor and a renowned chef living in High Point, N.C. He owns four very exclusive restaurants in the Charlotte (N.C.) area. By every definition we choose to use, Jim Noble is a very successful person. Almost two years ago, he decided to open a nonprofit restaurant called The King’s Kitchen. One-hundred percent of the proceeds from the meals served in that establishment go to feed the poor of Charlotte. Last year he donated over $50,000 to projects that support food banks and social service agencies. In that same facility, he provides job training and a number of other programs that help people get back on their feet. CNN decided to interview Jim Noble, to do a story on this ministry that nourishes the soul; you can see the interview on YouTube.
When asked why he opened a restaurant where everything he took in would go to feed poor people, his reply was, “At some point, you have to make a distinction between success and significance
NOBLE’S MISSION:
Our mission is to operate restaurants in a spirit of excellence. We are committed
to being among the best in the world, operating approachable, friendly, relaxed, comfortable restaurants for all guests. We will serve great food, clean, simple, and reasonably priced.
Service is the key to our success. We appreciate our guests with sincere, professional, congenial and humble service. We will strive to provide a great family-friendly working environment for our staff and seek out people of strong character to be part of our team. We will develop leaders of honesty, integrity and accountability; exemplifying Christian and Godly principles.
His punch line - Through profitability, our restaurants will help fund the Great Commission.
Deuteronomy 8:18 - 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who
gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
When in Nepal there is a restaurant called SingMa. It's a Singapore-Malaysian restaurant. If not you only eat dhal dhal dhal. It was started by Christians to get in roads into Nepal. They are opening SingMa in different places meeting needs and creating job opportunities.
We don't have to be famous to be significant. Every kind deed, kind word, thoughtful action, is significant. Added up over a lifetime, in God's eyes they make a life both significant and truly successful.
We can do something significant in the kingdom of God here. There is a lot that is being planned but let's be significant. We visited a church at Gertak Sanggul where they sang 15 songs for worship. I like the tambourine man. He had stroke but he will come up for one or two songs before he rest again.
This is a year of significance where we need to rise up. We are going to need board members soon. Many letters were sent out but many say cannot. 2014 is not the time to say cannot.
We have bibles being confiscated. When is the church going to wake up. If we don't rise up to being significant, we may become like the US and UK. Don't seat and warm the pews. Cushion chairs. Wake up.
Don't say you retire and let someone else serve. When we sing Amazing Grace for you, then you can retire. Success is great but significance is lasting.
When the emphasis is on success not significance, we lose sight of what we are really called to do. And if we focus on success, we could miss out on being significant.
God gives us all we need, so we can give to others in their need. Blessed to be a blessing.
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