Encountering God in Faith

Bro Koay Kheng Hin

This message is fresh from the oven. When I said fresh I have to confess that it was all finally done at 10.45 just now. But it is also something that's in my heart.

We can actually summarize our walk with God in one word, encounter. But the problem is we often see encounters as a manifestation or something dynamic. But what I want to say is an encounter where we have a sense of having met God and that He is in you.

Today's message is titled Encountering God in faith. I was wondering how I go about it.

This week we have two views of faith. One was when I read about the write up in The Star, about the image of the Virgin Mary on the window pane. The thing has subsided because it has been removed and is now in a Catholic Church. What I want to say is that a lot of excitement was generated.

Why? It's because of the miraculous. The people that flocked there will be 3 types.

First the curious. Really meh? True or not. They just want to know more.

The second type is the religious. They have been brought up this way. They will hope the glass panel can be in their home to pray to. And they will put their faith on it. If a thief comes in and steal it, there goes their faith out the window.

Then the third type will be those going through a difficult time in their life. Health, finance, relationship or they may have a crisis in their life. They go there so that their needs can be met.

What I want to work on is the third one. They flock to the miraculous because in that supernatural manifestation their needs will be met.

My cell members asked me why this happened? It looks real huh? So as rabbi, that's what some of them call me, I answered him and I think he is happy with my answer.

In the Roman Catholic Church, they will first want to see if it is something natural. To find out if it is a natural phenomena. Or whether it is man made. And finally when all explanations are exhausted, they say it is supernatural. So my friend asked if it is the third one, then how? To me it's simple. Any image, epiphany that does not lead you to God is not real. This is because the bible's supernatural always leads you to God.

Are we like that? When we have faith, what do you think of? Are you thinking of the miraculous that meet your needs or are you thinking of the God of miracles? In short, are you thinking of the promises of God or the promise of God that Christ will bring salvation to the world.

At this point of your walk with God, is how your temporal needs are actualised by God or are you thinking of God himself. The blessings or the blesser?

I pray that the spirit of God can show you that the focus of faith is in the God of promise and not the promises of God. Does that mean I do not believe on the promises of God? No. I am talking about the focus. The focus has to be on the God of promises and not just His promises.

In my home and household, I have seen many miracles and answered prayer and through the years my family and I have also learned that it is all about Him.

Hebrews 11:29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned.

This is God answering Moses's prayer. Here you see the Lord is indeed mighty. We praise Him.

Hebrews 11:30 By Faith They Overcame
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days.
Another miracle, an impregnable and thick wall collapsed when they marched round it.

Hebrews 11:31 By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.

Deliverance and it was one lady that took a risk but was delivered.

Hebrews 11:32-35 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: 33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again.
Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
A message can be preached here and that message will focus on the promises of God and His miraculous work. You read and how do you feel? When you are on a crisis and you read this in the middle of the night and you will feel YES! The Lord will deliver me. Miracles? Yes.

So why am I looking at this? It is because Hebrew does not end here. In verse 35, he said they were tortured. "Better resurrection" means "mati" already. Jeered and chained and put in prison. And stoned and sawed in two. Then put death by the sword and destitute, persecuted and mistreated!

Now, I am very careful. If I preached from 35-38, then you will feel "takut". But if I preach from 29-34, then it is only good news. Bad news no need.

But we must see that all these people who were not delivered, what does the bible say as far as their faith is concerned?

I have heard this kind of preaching. To those who have been blessed, who gain prosperity and is blessed, I commend your faith. To those who is not blessed, who is going through difficulty, the preacher said, it is not God, it is your faith, go back and examine yourself. I want to tell you this is not in scripture. When you have committed to God and walk in holiness, yet you go through persecution and difficulty, verse 39 is the key, how the people responded.

Hebrews 11:39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise,
Whether they were delivered or not, they were commended for their faith.

The key is how do they hold on to their faith when they gave up their life? The bible said none of them received what they have been promised.

This is where I want to say the promise of God and the promises of God is different. The promises of God is temporal but the promise of God is deeper.

Verse 13 "Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." is the key to understanding what is promised by God and

verse 16 "Hebrews 11:16
But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them." made it clearer. All these heroes of faith as much as they lived on earth and saw Gods work on a daily basis they knew their home is not here. It is the big picture that is most important. That they have a heavenly home.

All miraculous act of God is a point of contact and not the point of focus. It must lead you to Him. That's where you will find rest in the God almighty. But many of us is still locked in at the point of contact. Our point of contact becomes the point of focus.

Why is this important? This is because if we only focus on the point of contact, then we are no different from those that "Pai Ang Kong", those who worship idols. When you enter a Chinese house like mine that pray to idols, you'll see all these different idols with different names for different purposes. All different shape and sizes and placed in different places of the house.

Why I say this? Were they religious? Yes. Why so many? I also don't know but I believe they started with one. And it served them well for some years. Then when an occasion occured when it didn't work, a friend may recommend another God that can work and they got another idol. And so this went on until there are many. Here is where they are interested in the God that serves their needs, the God that meets that need. Do they have faith? Yes. But it is stayed on their need being met.

If we look at Jesus in the same manner then Jesus is not your Lord. He is probably just your "Ang Kong".

When you ask a Christian do you want to go to heaven or hell, you will find that all will tell you they want to go to heaven. When you ask why, it's a little more difficult to answer. They may answer, that's because I don't want to go to hell. Is he wrong? No. We cannot fault him.

Another may answer I am not so negative, I want to go to heaven because it is a beautiful place, no more pain or sorrow. No more tears. Can I fault him? No.

But let us look at Paul. Why did he want to go to heaven?

Philippians 1:21-23 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 For I am hard- pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.

Paul here will tell you because my Christ is there. As disciples of Christ, the bride is meeting the bridegroom. You will get 100 marks, A+ if you answer this, that you want to go to heaven because Christ is there.

Beyond the temporal promise is an eternal promise, that of a heavenly country. In Hebrews 12, the focus of that heavenly country is who?

Hebrews 12:1-2
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Heaven is tied to Jesus. That is why we want to go to heaven. That is how we move from focus on the promises of God to the promise of God, who is Jesus. First you will find that focus, looking, fixing your eyes on Jesus is important. Are you focused on his work or on Him?

I remember the most embarrassing moment in my life. I was at the school sports and running as the first contestant in a relay race. As I take to the starting line, I was focused on the second runner waiting for me to pass him the baton.

Then I heard the shot being fired. I sprinted on and ran as fast as I could, all the while focusing on the runner ahead waiting for my baton. I can hear the crowd cheering. Imagine hundreds of spectators watching the race. I kept running.

Then I realized when I looked back, I was the ONLY ONE running. What happened was I didn't hear the second shot as there was a false start. You can imagine my embarrassment as I walked back to the starting line. Everyone was laughing.

The next day in class, I was so upset, I scolded my students why they didn't stop me. They said "Cikgu, we shouted stop stop but you kept running". After that, I think for two weeks I didn't go to town (laughs).

That is what happen when you are focused. Like the song "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full on His wonderful face, and the things of the earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace"

If today we can begin by just looking at Jesus, the things of the world will slowly fade. You will be a different Christian. It is the cross that symbolizes everything.

First you have to understand that when the writer wrote, Jesus endured the cross and its shame, do you know when Jesus was up there he was still the Lord of the universe. He is the King of glory yet he was hung by mere men. And the shame of sinful men was on Him, a perfect and sinless man.

Matt 26:53, when he was arrested, Jesus says that He can call mire than 12 legions of angels to come down. 12 legions is 72,000 angels. What damage they can do. In Hezekiah's circumstances you can see how one angel can destroy 185,000 Syrians.

Jesus was not helpless at the cross. He could have summoned the angels. Yet he suffered everything while holding back His power. What held Him there? It was love. And surprisingly, it was love for the very people that put Him on the cross.

Second, we are very familiar with the author and perfecter of our faith. Jesus is the one that perfect our faith but He is also our leader. We have to understand that Jesus was man on the cross. If you think that it is easy for Jesus because He is God then you miss the point. An old theologian says this "He remain what He is but He became what we are." That is the humanity of Jesus. When He was on the cross, the focus was on His humanity and His suffering is real.

When Jesus said "It is finished" to the world, it is a cry of defeat. Like my classmate said as an unbeliever, the bible say "It is finished" means gone case. But this cry is a cry of victory. In the bible it actually means He is the blessed one. At that point He was not resurrected yet, but He saw the victory. It is finished was something He cried out in triumph in His most difficult circumstances but Jesus has seen the triumph, He was certain and sure of the victory. Our faith in Jesus must be so grounded based on the faith like Jesus, a faith that sees beyond, not received but the reality exists.

We do not need the image of Jesus on a window pane. I know and I know that Jesus and heaven is real.

I want to end by quoting Martin Luther. His code of arms is the Luther's Rose. Designed by him himself. He said this rose is a symbol of his theology. His rose has a cross inside the centre and it is black. It symbolizes the death of Jesus on the cross. But set around the black cross is a red heart, and he says even though the black cross hurts, he says the cross in the end offers life. And then surrounded by the picture is a white rose, showing that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace. And finally the background is blue which is the joy of heavenly glory. (For the official interpretation, please see excerpts at the end of this transcript). Would Luther's Rose become your rose?

Acts 7:56-59 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

While they were stoning him, he saw Jesus.

The question is where I started. Are you believing Jesus or do you believe in Jesus?

If you believe in Jesus, then He becomes the focus of your faith. On the person of Christ and with Him all His promises.

Official Luther's interpretation of his seal

In a July 8, 1530 letter to Lazarus Spengler, Luther interprets his seal:

Grace and peace from the Lord. As you desire to know whether my painted seal, which you sent to me, has hit the mark, I shall answer most amiably and tell you my original thoughts and reason about why my seal is a symbol of my theology. The first should be a black cross in a heart, which retains its natural color, so that I myself would be reminded that faith in the Crucified saves us. "For one who believes from the heart will be justified" (Romans 10:10). Although it is indeed a black cross, which mortifies and which should also cause pain, it leaves the heart in its natural color. It does not corrupt nature, that is, it does not kill but keeps alive. "The just shall live by faith" (Romans 1:17) but by faith in the crucified. Such a heart should stand in the middle of a white rose, to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace. In other words, it places the believer into a white, joyous rose, for this faith does not give peace and joy like the world gives (John 14:27). That is why the rose should be white and not red, for white is the color of the spirits and the angels (cf. Matthew 28:3; John 20:12). Such a rose should stand in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that such joy in spirit and faith is a beginning of the heavenly future joy, which begins already, but is grasped in hope, not yet revealed. And around this field is a golden ring, symbolizing that such blessedness in Heaven lasts forever and has no end. Such blessedness is exquisite, beyond all joy and goods, just as gold is the most valuable, most precious and best metal.This is my compendium theologiae [summary of theology]. I have wanted to show it to you in good friendship, hoping for your appreciation. May Christ, our beloved Lord, be with your spirit until the life hereafter. Amen.[1][2]