Here I Am

Bro Koay Kheng Hin

Today's message is titled Here I Am. I'm actually working on Ps Ronald's theme that he has been working on for the past month. The past months we have had speakers talking about missions and the commission and also on ministry and I'd like to round up on what we have been working on for the past month.

And I also think it is a good time for this message because we are starting on the first day of the fasting and as we look at the theme of prayer we are looking at consecration to the Lord.

I want to work on what we call the two Ms. That when we give our life to Jesus what exactly do we mean? Do we mean we are giving our finances to Jesus or do we mean we are giving our dreams to Jesus or do you think we are giving our hurts to Jesus? What I just mentioned are all valid reasons of what we actually mean when we say we give our life to Jesus.

And today I want to summarize it up into these two Ms. And these 2 Ms refers to Maturity and Ministry. Most of the time the messages we hear are often in bits and pieces. And it has to be because the preacher is not a miracle worker per se where he can deliver everything in the Bible in one hour. So today we need to focus and it is on one aspect I want to zero in to.

So what happens when after you hear messages for twenty years, you will find that you will compartmentalize bits and pieces. Faith is like that. Hope is like that. Love is like that. Ministry is like that and maturity is like that. But at the end of the day you will find you will end up with a lot of disconnect. Because the Christian faith involves the life of God manifested in us. And that life of God, that eternal life that is manifested in our life does not come in bits and pieces. It is a whole. So here is where I want an hour to connect just these two that most of the time we hear ministry we will sit there and hear about evangelism, about putting our hands to the plough and how we can put time in to further the kingdom of God.

The next day the preacher come up and talk about Christian maturity and then it's a different ball game. We are talking about holiness and how you are going to pursue the Christian life and then we compartmentalize again. So today I want to connect these two.

Some hold that Christian maturity and spiritual ministry are just two phases of one course. Of course now we have the Internet and access to all these media and we read a lot of things. We read about ministers who had fallen into snares and we wonder how come a minister of God also can fall into snares and we say how can he do this and that.

As a church we can do three things when we hear news like that. We want to take the picture nothing is wrong with the church. And that everything is alright. Sometimes things are not alright. The second is that we bury our head in the sand. And then the ostrich says I see no evil, I hear no evil. The third one will be, we try to understand and we try to know what went wrong.

So the question is this. Is the person who is very involved in the work of the ministry must necessarily be spiritually mature? The second question is the other extreme. Can we grow in maturity without being involved in ministry? Can a person continue to grow in God if he or she is not involved in ministry? These are the two ends to a question.

One is someone who puts his hands on the plough, someone who is very involved in ministry, can he still be spiritually not mature? And someone who does not want to get involved, can he really be matured? And this is where I want to connect maturity with ministry.

And I want to begin with our dear friend Moses.

Exodus 3:3-4

3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”

The title to my message is Moses' answer to the Lord's call. Here I am. This is Moses' encounter with God. The burning bush encounter.

What does Moses' reply entails? Here I am. It is a phrase often said in the Bible. When Abraham took his son to be sacrificed and God called out to Abraham, Abraham said here I am. When the prophet Samuel was called by God, he said here I am. Isaiah 6 when God asked who will go forth, and Isaiah said here am I, send me.

So this "here I am" when we read it from the Bible we have seen it from the perspective of the call of God. The call of God for a certain commission. We are seeing it from a ministry perspective. And it is true, if you read Exodus 3 and when it comes to verse 10 the here I am, God says now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt. 

When God called him, he said here I am. But when God told him what he wanted him to do I think he panicked. For the rest of Exodus 3 and 4 you will see the conversation where Moses said not me, not me. So is that all there is to the here I am or is there something more to the here I am?

Is the here I am connected to a specific commission, where the here I am is connected to a ministry that God has called you or is there something more? That when God calls you and you say here I am, that mandate we have given to God to use you, is there more to it than just ministry? This is where we want to discover by looking 1400 years after Moses and we come to the New Testament.

Here I want to look at one of the last few letters that Paul wrote. When Paul wrote to Timothy it was believed that he was in this thirties, still young. And Timothy was caring for the church at Ephesus.

1 Timothy 4:12-16

12 Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. 14 Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

15 Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. 16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Here I want to encourage those of you here who is young and sharing your faith, don't let anyone discourage you because you are young.

I want to say that verse 12 do not actually refer to ministry. Verse 12 refers to a Christian life that young Timothy was actually expressing and when people see him people can see someone whose  life is right with God. In speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. Someone who has the love of God. Someone who's life is in the pursuit of holiness. This is Christian maturity. And when Paul wrote to Timothy, he's saying your life is important because people will not see you through your ministry per se but they will see you through your life. Be an example, be a pattern, be a model. And this verse 12 is in respect to spiritual maturity.

Immediately after this in verse 13, it refers to the ministry of Timothy. In verse 12, Paul emphasizes his life but in verse 13 Paul emphasizes what he does. In verse 12 Paul tells him to guard who you are. In verse 13, Paul tells him to focus in what he does. There is this connection of maturity and ministry. The two must go and in hand. They are two faces of one coin.

In verse 15 when Paul says be diligent in these matters, it refers to these two, guard your life and fulfill your ministry. The word progress here means we can all see you growing. When you are in a particular ministry there is always space for you to grow in that ministry. It can be in the intensity or the diversity of your ministry, but it can always expand in your ministry.

Last year, the Lord impressed upon my heart to be more kind. The world can do with a little more kindness. For some of us, we can be a little bit more kind to our children. For some of us, a little bit more kind to our spouse. Or to be a little bit more kind to our parents. I am not talking about ministry. But about the family. All of us have got more room to grow in kindness.

My mother is a very insightful person. When I was a new Christian I was very involved in the church running here and there. I would go sweep the floor and wash the toilet. So one day when I'm home she just said "wah in church so hardworking, sweep the floor and wash the toilet, but come home do nothing but sit with legs up and watch TV." So I told myself I better don't come and sweep the floor in church so that I don't have to sweep the floor at home. (Laughs)

I'm verse 16, Paul emphasizes it again. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Here the word doctrine also meant Timothy's teaching ministry. Watch your life and ministry. That you are rightly dividing the word of God so that the truth will always be revealed in your ministry. Paul does not separate maturity and ministry.

If you pursue maturity without ministry, you will not grow. You may say I love God but serving in church is another thing. If a person love God, he will grow in spiritual maturity and will also love the church, the body of Christ, the people of God.

On the other hand, if you pursue ministry without maturity, then you will become like Samson. I'm not talking about anointing. Look at Samson. Samson was born and chosen by God. And he was anointed by God with supernatural power. And if you look at Samson's life, was the will of God fulfilled in his life, the answer is yes because he kept the Philistines away from the Israelites. God raised up Samson so that Samson can protect the Israelites. Samson did his job. But was God's purpose in Samson's life fulfilled? God meant for Samson to be holy and righteous. Samson failed in his life. The life of Samson ended badly. Samson was blinded and lost his power. It was a little sad but I want to emphasize this. Some people who are most spiritually resistant are not the unbelievers but people who have put their hands to the plough, did much for ministry but for one reason or another have not grown in maturity and fallen into snares. They can fall into the snare of bitterness. Some into the snare of brokenness. The problem does not lie in ministry but in maturity.

I have met quite a few people and I have seen some who put their hands to the plough and they work and work and work but they are not happy. They have lost the joy of ministry. To those who are in that position, I want to encourage you, if you have lost the joy of ministry, something is wrong. Because the ministry is meant to be a gift. When you first accept Christ, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And everyone who receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, there is at least one gift that will be given to you to do his will. Don't say you don't have a gift. Everyone has. It can be the gift of mercy, the gift of help, the gift of prophecy or the word of knowledge and many more. I want to say that it is a joy to be in ministry and if you have lost that joy, you have to go back and look at the maturity part.

What is your motivation behind your ministry? You must look at how you're doing the ministry and why you're doing the ministry. Spiritual ministry is very different from secure work. In the secular world you go to the office and the boss doesn't ask you why you're doing this and how you're doing this, the boss only tells you I give you a job, get it done. In secular world, it is just about getting it done. But God is different. The spiritual ministry is a ministry, it's not a work. He is more interested in the process than the result. 

When you grow in maturity, you will grow in ministry. When you grow in your ministry, the ministry is a means in which you grow in your maturity. I want to give an example about gym work. My good friend Andrew has recommended me to go to gym. So I say I have to think about it. I asked him why go to gym and he gave a very good answer. He calls me sifu, and he said he enjoys the results of going to the gym.

It's the certain feeling when I crossed the line of the only half marathon I took part in. When I was asked to join I said what for. And have to wake up early for preparation and practice before the run. So much hard work. But when I crossed the line, I thank God I signed up. It was fulfilling.

Ministry is like that. There is always that joy. When the Apostle Paul was about to be beheaded was he crying on his bed? No, a man like him will be singing his praises until the end. The joy of the ministry is very very important.

And here, I'm not talking about just teaching and preaching. I'm talking about you being a helper like when last time we had the big party, about you washing the dishes and driving the people up to Teluk Kumbar. The ministry is the means through which God builds your maturity. You may think you have only a small ministry but you must understand the Christian ministry in the kingdom of God, the result of what you do is very different from the corporate world.

In the secular world, the result can be quantified and the result is short term. In the kingdom of God it doesn't work like that. Spiritual growth cannot be seen overnight.

Recently I came across this thing that really talked about spiritual ministry and ministry in the kingdom of God. It was called the butterfly effect. This theory came from weather forecasting. Weather forecasters have these computers with their modelling for weather forecasting but  they can also get it wrong.

One fine day, this scientist decided to just limit his computer reading to just 6 digits. He thought it was just a fine change. What surprised him was that by the time the computer churn out everything, suddenly the whole weather pattern all changed. And he was so surprised that just a small change in temperature can affect when the tornado will hit and whether there's a tornado or not. And so after studying this came the theory. The layman explanation is this. When a small little butterfly spreads its wings in Brazil, it can determine whether that particular year there will be a tornado in Colorado. He's trying to say a small little change somewhere, it spreads it's wings and move the air a little bit, it affects everything. There is no such thing as an insignificant small change.

What I'm trying to tell you is that you may serve as an usher. A small little thing. But because you shook that hand and smile at the person along the way when the gospel was shared to that person your smile actually made him very open and he accepts the gospel. And the best part is he becomes an evangelist and someday, when we traced back from his big ministry is the fact that you shook his hands and gave him a smile. And this was specifically what happened.

One Sunday school teacher one fine day decided to go and see this person. This person was a book salesman. But he was wondering if he'd be busy if he goes to visit him. He went and nearly turned back when nearing the shop. But in this Sunday school teacher's heart he said he has to go. So he went in and spoke to this book salesman. If I get my statistics right, this book salesman spoke to 100 million. He was the greatest evangelist. His name is DL Moody. But do you know if that Sunday school teacher on that particular day just turned back and DL Moody had not accepted the Lord, it would have been all different. It's a spiritual butterfly effect.

Every little thing that you do for God will have a lasting effect when God piece it all together. I want to encourage all of you. In the kingdom of God there is no small ministry. Every little thing you do in ministry has far reaching results you may never know.

And now I want to ask this question. I'm talking about ministry. That you know as putting your hands to the plough. But when I talk about spiritual maturity, what exactly is spiritual maturity? You may be thinking, oh, must know the Bible a lot. Pray a lot. Is that spiritual maturity? There are many ways to look at it.

One way.

1 Timothy 6:11

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.

These are the signs of spiritual maturity. The two key words are flee from and pursue. When you flee, what are you fleeing from? Then you have to look at verse 10.

1 Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

This is about maturity and money. And here it is talking about the love of money being the root of all evil which you can see how verse 6 addresses it.

1 Timothy 6:6

But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Here it is trying to tell you what are you trying to pursue? I'm not talking about money per se. Whether you are rich or poor. A person who is well off may not have the love of money. The love of money is about greed. On the other hand a person with not much money may actually have a love for money. It's all about the attitude towards money.

Put it simply, what do you pursue when you wake up in the morning? If from the time you wake up in the morning and through the day, the decisions that you make revolves money per se, then you have a love for money. But if you wake up in the morning, what you focus upon is what  Paul is talking about. Are you pursuing righteousness or godliness. Are you pursuing faith or love, gentleness and that reverence for God, this is what is important. That will mark your spiritual maturity. It's marked by what you pursue.  They are important.

1 Timothy 6:13-14

13 In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,

You will find when you pursue righteousness and godliness it is always in the context of Calvary in the person of Christ. It's always to him be the glory.

1 Timothy 6:16

who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

Before I end, I want to look at our Lord. In Jesus  you will see perfect maturity and perfect ministry. The Bible tells us that Jesus led a sinless life. His life was a perfect life. That is perfect spirituality maturity. But when he went to the cross it was the ultimate ministry, dying for the sins of the world. So when we look at the life of Jesus we see that perfect maturity and ministry merged into one. It is that perfect sinless life that became the basis of that perfect sacrifice.

Now I want to turn back to our friend Moses. I looked at verses 3 and 4 and I stopped there.

Exodus 3:3-4

3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

If you look at the following verses.

Exodus 3:5

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

This word Holy has two emphasis. One emphasis is that God is a being that's different. An otherness about him. But the most common understanding of holiness is that in God there is perfect goodness and no darkness in him. God is perfect morally.

It is the same with Isaiah. He saw the holiness of God when he say Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty.

As much as Moses took that rod and parted the Red Sea and with that rod took the people out of Egypt, it is Moses answering that call of God for ministry but he is also the man who brought out the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Moses is the man who actually gave us that perfect moral character of God that forms the basis of the Mosaic Covenant. He is also the man that wrote down in Deuteronomy that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.

Moses was not only a minister, he was a spiritually matured minister. I would like to encourage all of us. There is no big call and no small call. We are called to put our hands to the plough and it encompasses us saying Here am I.