Revelation from Sermon "Power To Receive | Pastor Darren Sim | NCC Leaders & Servers Meeting (8 Sep 2020)"

 Pastor Prince and Pastors Darren Sim of New Creation Church (Singapore) shared a powerful sermon about receiving greater revelation from the Word, and how leaders are formed, how pastors are able to better lead their congregations.

There were a couple of points which I wanted to expand upon in the sermon.

The first theme that stood out for me in the sermon touched on the issue of familiarity vs. humility. Do we get so used to church and church people, that we stop learning? Do we get so accustomed to what we know that we become self-satisfied, puffed up, and ultimately useless in the grand design of ministry and missions?

Here's the slide which Pastor Darren shared with the audience:

Pastor Darren then brought up a great question: "How do you teach humility? How do you teach "teachability""?

Indeed, this is a very probing question. We want people who want to know more, learn more, be willing to grow more. Yet what seems to happen in many church circles, especially in church leadership, is that people get satisfied with themselves, so it seems. They get stuck in a rut of self-effort, or self-congratulation. The teaching, the leadership, the ministry become stagnant, and the church then atrophies, dies.

What is the solution? How do we ensure that leadereship does not fall into this trap of turning stagnant and lifeless?

When I was meditating on this passage, when I was pondering this deep concern, I remembered previous questions and concerns which I had faced when I was younger. "What if I go astray? What if I find myself doing the wrong things, or end up in the wrong places for whatever reason?"

These kinds of questions assaulted my mind, gave me great pause, insecurity. All of this came from my mother, who was determined to control what I thought, what I did, who I lived my life.

Since then, what I have learned is that Christ Jesus is so intimate with me, that I cannot be separated from Him, and that is the truth, regardless of my thoughts and feelings, regardless of my actions for good or for bad.

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

Like Paul, I had to be persuaded that nothing would or could separate me from the love of God. For a long time, I was in bondage to the lie that what I was thinking, what I was feeling, or what I would be doing could separate me from the love of God. How foolish I was, but in large part I struggled with this problem because I did not know how to rightly divide the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15)

Today, I know and believe that Christ Jesus will not leave me nor forsake me. That is a promise (Hebrews 13:5)

Jesus is my life (Colossians 3:4), and we are one with Him (John 17:21-23). We need to disabuse ourselves of this strange notion that Jesus is not actively involved and infused in our lives. In fact, the greater revelation that He is our life and that He is living in us--that is precisely how we grow in grace (2 Peter 3:18)

So, how do teach people to be humble? The truth is, humility is something that is caught rather than taught. The more that we hear about Jesus, the more that we understand the fullness of the Finished Work that He accomplished at the Cross, and the more that we undestand that apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5), the greater our humility.

Humility, at its core, comes down to "I cannot. He can."

How do we get to this place? This status, this revelation cannot come about by teaching it as a matter of knowledge. Each of us comes to this recognition, this revelation based on our walk with God. We face trials and hardships which we are unable to overcome in our efforts. We struggle with internal battles and external foes, and we grouse and cry out to God for help. The truth is that we need more than God's help. We need to rest, to stop our striving, and let God work in us:

"13For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

So, how do we "teach" humility? We preach Jesus, and we underscore the Biblical truth and divine fact that we were dead in our trespasses (Ephesians 2:1-4), then brought to life in Christ Jesus. This is not a life that we live in our strength. The Christian life is Christ is in me, and I let Him live. The more that understand how consummate and complete His supply is for our walk in this world, the greater our humility.

Hence:

"Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5)

And this verse draws us back to the points which Pastor Darren shared with this audience!

What I Finally Realized About Sihol (and Other Ex-Gays)

 Last year, I finally connected with Sihol Situmorang.

He gave a compelling testimony as part of the TrueLove.Is ministry. I was so impressed with what he shared, and it was very moving.

I found him to be very attractive, too, and so I really wanted to reach out to him. 

I found his website, and I was able to contact him. He contacted me back! I was really surprised, and he was willing for me to connect with him, too!

We spoke a few times by phone. The second time that I called him, he reproached me, and out of nowhere:

"I need to remind you, that the most important thing is to preach the Gospel." I corrected him, poiniting out that God's greatest will and wish for us is "Beloved, I wish that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." (3 John 2)

When all of that is taken care of, we cannot help but preach the Good News, and witness Christ Jesus work through us to save others! Sihol shot back, pointing out the Great Commission statement at the end of the Gospel of Matthew:

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:" (Matthew 28:19)

Sihol contended that this is the most important calling, since Jesus said it before He ascended.

I asked God for wisdom to respond to this, and He showed me:

"12I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. 13Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come." (John 16:12-13)

Jesus had many things to share with us, beyond what He had shared on the mountain before He ascended. Sihol was wrong. I found him to be very work-centered, and Christians who are work-centered, in their flesh, tend to reproach and judge others.

I was really offended by that. Why was he talking to me this way? Why was he talking down to me like this?

Then I told him that I support President Trump, and he shamed me: "Well, President Trump is not the Messiah."

I know that. I knew that. There is nothing wrong with supporting elected officials who are bringly godly, Christ-like restoration to our countries.

"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn." (Proverbs 29:2)

The more that I have learned and seen about Sihol, I see him as someone with a love of pre-eminence (3 John 9). He feels compelled to tell others how to live their lives. He feels the need to instruct others, but is he allowing the grace of God to instruct him? (Titus 2:11-12).

I was confused and very disappointed. I was hoping to connect with someone who would understand how I felt, what I was going through, and all the rest. I was really confused. I was not sure what was going on, and how to reconcile his beautiful testimony with his unjustly provocative behavior.

Of course, one of the things that I had to learn was not to have unfounded expectations of others. Furthemore, I had to recognize that everyone is on a different journey, learning different things, getting free of different troubles and hardships.

Since then, I have learned further that Sihol was still under law to some degree. He thinks that he has to work for God, rather than God working in and through Him. We serve others because God first served us. We make a difference in other people's lives because Christ Jesus made the ultimate difference in our own lives. In fact, we have life because of Jesus. He gave us Himself!

In his autobiography "Not the Same Love", what I discovered was someone who was still trying to do stuff for God. That's not God's best. God's best is that we rest in Him, and He works in us. The most glaring proof of this problem became apparent to me when I read Sihol's take on Luke 14, specifically verse 26:

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26)

Jesus placed this ultimatum on crowds of people who saw Jesus as a pattern to follow, or as a celebrity to enjoy from a distance. They did not see Jesus as He is: Savior.

In contrast to this revelation, Sihol actually suggested that we need to love God, love Jesus enough, that our love for our friends, family, and fellow man appears as hatred. This is wrong. This is all wrong. In fact, we cannot love God so completely, so fully. I am sorry, but I must admit for myself that I cannot love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.

So, Jesus loved God the Father with all of His heart, mind, soul, and strength. Jesus fulfilled the law for us:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matthew 5:17)

Jesus fulfilled the law. Today, we are free from the law:

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2)

and

"For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." (Galatians 2:19)

Sihol had been provoking me in the past, and he still did when I spoke with him recently. He gets upset when I make a point about something: "Well, of course!" I started to have a bad sense about him when I would talk to him.

Then I realized: Hey, you don't have to talk to him anymore if you don't want to. Just because he is not pleasant to interact with now does not mean that his testimony is any less valuable. And that gave me peace.

But this long-standing interaction here and there revealed something deeper for me. Just because individuals break out of the gay lifestyle does not mean that they are walking in the Spirit, or that they have fully entered into His rest (Hebrews 4:3). In too many cases, people neck-deep in sin, the knowledge of evil, swing into the knowledge of good, but they do not have life.

Or rather, they do not alive the life of Christ Jesus to flow through them. It's very sad, very troubling. But at least it makes sense when some of these ex-gays become unpleasant to deal with. I am glad that I could take the time to write about this. For a long time, I was very unhappy that I was treated so rudely. I was really hoping that I had found a community of people who understood what I was going through, and therefore I could safely talk with them and share with them my struggles.

I now realize, by the grace of God, that it's all about the grace of God. What has made the greatest difference for me regarding the testimonies from TrueLove.Is is that I am no longer ashamed. Yes, indeed, people can talk about the internal struggles and temptations, and they do not have to be ashamed anymore. As Jason Yolt shares at the end of his testimony: "God has set me free from shame and self-condemnation." When we are set free, when we recognize that there is no condemnation for us in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1) indeed the power of sin has ... no more power! AMEN!

Final Reflection

I am at peace now at this stage of my life. After listening to two sections of "Choices Ministries" from Singapore, I realize that I am pretty much bored, put out about all this fuss and focus on same-sex attraction, same-sex temptation, same-sex behaviors, etc.

On top of all this, I must add that I do not accept this notion of "micro-minority" to reference Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction. In fact, the Christian life is not about struggling, but about resting in Him. If there is a struggle, it is a struggle to rest more and more in the grace of God.

"Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." (Hebrews 4:11)

I find this to be a considerable problem in the Body of Christ, and it plagues some of the men and women who have abandoned the homosexual lifestyle. They still think that they have to serve God in some fashion. They still think that they have to do for God, when it is God who richly supplies us all things, and that He works within us both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

I must extend my criticism to the identity issue. Again, I do not accept the argument that homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, pansexuals, etc. somehow compose a "sexual minority." These are destructive behaviors. but they are not static identities in any way, shape, or form. We should stop treating them as identities, but recognize that they are manifestations of sin, that man is dead in his trespasses, but that Christ Jesus has made us alive and that God the Father has seated us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Amen!

Christ is the Core, Center, and Aim of All Scripture, of Everything

 The Bible is not an instruction manual on how to live.

The Bible is a Book which reveals a person, The Person: Jesus Christ!

It's about Himself. It's not about us. It's about who He is and all that He is doing.

It's not a guide on how to life. It's a guide which reveals Life Himself.

This is important. This is an essential revelation. We cannot deviate from this revelation.

Scripture is about Jesus, and Jesus is our life.

As long as we keep looking at the different passages of Scripture as opportunities on how we should live our own lives, we will find ourselves failing.

We cannot live this life on our own. We need Christ Jesus to be our life. He is our life. This is not a joke. This is not a game!

Everlasting Righteousness, and Rest for My Mind

This is an incredible revelation all the more.

So much so, that I have to write about it in this fashion.

I never understood how important, how worthwhile, how essential is the gift of righteousness, but now more than ever I sense its power within me.

Thank you, Jesus, for being my righteousness!

For the longest time, I believed that what I was thinking, what I was feeling, all of that would knock me off that place of rest, that place of peace, that stance of righteousness.

Despite all the times that I heard Pastor Prince explain to me "Don't fight or struggle against bad thoughts. Replace bad thoughts with good thoughts," I was still struggling with those bad thoughts. Lustful thoughts, bitter thoughts, angry thoughts, whatever thoughts that were coming to mind.

My head would get very stiff, tight, upset. I was trying to block or stop those thoughts. It's amazing how much these habits become ingrained in our bodies. It really takes time to be set free. Grace takes time, but it is so worth it!

I am now realizing that bad thoughts, bad ideas, disgusting fantasies, disturbing intimations cannot knock me off my rest in Christ Jesus, the righteousness that I have been made in Christ Jesus!

My righteousness cannot be unmade! No matter what is going on around me, no matter how I may feel, or the upsets, the concerns, the heartaches around me, I will shout as Habakkuk the prophet:

"Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation." (Habakkuk 3:18)

The wicked may surround me (Habakkuk 1:4), but the righteous by faith live! (Habakkuk 1:4)

The very word "Habakkuk" speaks of God's loving embrace! He embraces me, even in the midst of these hard, tough, harsh times, and whatever hard, tough, harsh thoughts I may be thinking or wrestling with.

The most negative, embarassing, hurtful events that have happened to me cannot take away my standing, my righteousness in Christ. This is incredible!

What's more, I used to fear allowing myself to be spared from the sense of shame and guilt following wrongdoing. Yet the Bible is very clear: "The goodness of God leads to repentance" (Romans 2:4). People have this crazy idea that telling people that they are righteous, apart from works, apart from their efforts, will lead them to go crazy with sin.

It's not grace that does that. It's the desire to be free from bondage, it's the need to break away from stultifying restriction on self. Once we receive and keep receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, we reign in His life (Romans 5:17). Sin does not have dominion over us anymore!(Romans 6:14)

Righteousness is a gift. It does not matter what follows or does not follow. Two + Two = Four even if some people cannot add properly, or they mistake the sum of two parts, or if they are deliberately trying to cheat. It's a divine, accomplished fact that through Christ Jesus, we are made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21)

I no longer have to fear what is going through my mind, or what may go through my mind from day to day. This life is no longer a life of trying to catch my bad thoughts before they happen. I do not have to wonder or hope that I do not have bad thoughts as I go through from day to day.

This is the everlasting righteousness that Daniel prophesied (Daniel 9:24)

My Blood Pressure is Decreasing, Because (Awareness of) His Love is Increasing

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

I am learning so much more about the Love of the Father.

For years, I used to think that bad thoughts, bad feelings would hinder my ability to understand, to receive God's love for me.

I actually believed that God's presence, His loving caress, depended on how I was feeling and what I was thinking.

Can you imagine going through life thinking that how you feel, what you think, is going to affect your standing before God? The torture, the trauma that it created it was just beyond comprehension.

The tension, the trauma, the terror was so great.

I am finally understanding how real, how present, how prevalent God's love is for me. It's really exciting.

I can lose my temper, I can have wayward thoughts and feelings, and yet God's love is still there, still present, still refreshing and rolling over me.

For decades, I was stressed out internally, constantly playing catch-up with my feelings, trying to keep a lid on sexual temptations, lust, anger, fear, etc.

Fears was particularly damaging, because I feared that because I felt fear, that would make God angry and He would not answer my prayers.

This verse started to make so much more sense:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18)

God loves me and cares for me not because of anything that I have done or will do, but because of everything that Jesus has done! The Angel of Death passed over the houses of the Israelites with blood on their doorposts, regardless of how the family members may have felt. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, not our belief in the blood.

Now, we do need to believe in His gift of salvation. We are saved by grace through faith. It's not a work that we have done, and it's not some universal salvation. A gift has to be received, after all!

At any rate, the stresses, the pressures, the upsets, uptight sentiments which were so prevalent in my body caused my blood presure to go up! It's incredible! This kind of thinking and feeling was so common in my day-to-day life, that I hardly noticed it.

After suffering a stroke, after giving up all the diet soda, and after giving up much of the fast-food, I did notice that my blood pressure was going down considerably. I got off the blood pressure medication at one time, and then my blood pressure shot up again. It was really strange how this kept happening.

Since then, I have begun to realize that there were a number of stressors that had been working within me automatically. I was constantly looking at myself, trying to catch myself so that I was not fearful, angry, or falling into bad thoughts and feelings.

Now that I recognize that His love is completely independent of my actions, i.e. I don't earn it, I can let feelings, thoughts, bad ideas come and go. They have no chokehold on me, they no longer serve as a hateful stronghold over me, because I know that the love of God has taken hold of me.

Faith Has Nothing to Do with Feelings, Even Bad Feelings

This has been one incredible journey for me.

All these years, I was so obsessed with my thoughts and feelings. I was convinced that what I was thinking, what I was feeling, was going to frustrate God's work, God's Word, God's will working in and through me.

When I think about the passage in Philippians, however, I start to realize how mistaken, how misplaced my views really are:

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

God's work and will is ongoing in me. It does not depend on me, including what I am thinking or feeling.

God is at work! He is in love with me, and He lives in me!

This was so hard for me to grasp, since for the longest time I was so caught up, preoccupied with whatever I was thinking or feeling.

It has taken me a long, long time to recognize that unconditional love is precisely that -- unconditional. Once I understand this wonderful gift, that God's grace is able to flow in my life.

So many Christians believe that if we know that all our sins are forgiven, then what is to stop people from sinning?

Honestly, I wonder how these individuals can forget how bad sin really was for them, and how bad it has always remained!

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

I am not interested in death. I have known and experienced the goodness of God!

"O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him." (Psalm 34:8)

and

"Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." (Psalm 16:11)

and

"Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" (Romans 2:4)

But let me get back to the subject of faith and feelings.

I used to think that my faith was marred if my feelings were off, were bad.

I used to think that if I was feeling or thinking the wrong things, that it would frustrate God's grace, God's presence in my life. I had not understood how present He is. For so long, I was stuck thinking that God was present or absent, His love was here and there.

How untrue all of this is!

I used to think that faith and truth were all about feelings! No!

What is faith?

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Faith is all about seeing based on what is in God's Word, not in man's senses.

He is active, present, real, not based on what we are thinking or feeling.

My goodness--even Cain heard from God, even though he murdered his own brother beforehand!

No, faith has nothing to do with our feelings. God's love and grace do not stop flowing in our lives just because of how we are feeling, for better or for worse.

Don't get me wrong: understanding how much it is worth my while to rest and receive has been quite a challenge for me. I was so convinced that I had to "conjure up" God's presence in my life depending on how I was feeling or what I was thinking.

The simple revelation has had some complex implications for me, and I thank God that He has been so patient with me!

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)

Why I Had Such Terrible Headaches

For a few years, I used to work very hard to keep bad thoughts, feelings, hurts out of my head.

I would remember from time to time that when there was a break from the pain and torment in my mind. I would suddenly have this peace in my head, in my spirit. I did not feel ravaged by negative thoughts and feelings.

I felt that that release from bad sentiments would come and go arbitrarily, so whenever that sense of peace would roll over my mind, my thoughts, my emotions, I would go on long, long walks.

I was meditating on this previous development when I was realizing more and more that it does not matter what I am thinking. God loves me and is actively caring for me in this life, regardless of how I feel.

In those previous years, I often wondered how I was able to suddenly have such peace. What did I do? What was the right thoughts or feelings that I had engaged, encountered?

I have no finally, fully realized that I rested in the fact that God was always present, available, active, loving me, caring for me, living in me. It had nothing to do with me, and it never had had anything to do with me, either!

All this time, I had been so busy policing my thoughts, because all of this time I had believed that what I was thinking, what I was feeling was affecting whether God was working or not able to work in my life.

It's just crazy, but that's really what I believed.

And all of this is a perverse result of the fact that I was so imbibed with AA ideology. That awful cult would teach me, and teaches everyone who reads and adheres to that folly, that our thoughts, our feelings can cut us off from the 'Sunlight of the Spirit'.

What utter nonsense that is!