jesus

Chasing after the Promise of Christ in Acts:   the power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us

/ Al Ngu, MDiv / Leave a comment

Acts 1:8 (ESV)

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

I think the number one obstacle for Christian Church growth, expansion and advancement of the kingdom of God, is the lack of the excitement for evangelism in our churches today. And that results in a number of undesirable consequences: 1) No motivation for evangelism, 2) Nobody is even talking about Church growth or church expansion, 3) Even if anyone desiring to start a new church, he’s probably not looking at evangelism by some other church transfer growth. If it is goal of evangelism, there will be minimal. And that’s a sad state of the church completely different from the book of Acts early church pattern.

The reason for lack of evangelism today is due to a number of factors. First, it’s the fear of rejection. Somehow today it’s just not conducive for talking about God, and with the enlightenment and the secularized culture so strong in anti-God And the antichrist forces at work, we can’t even mention God or discussion of God in our corporate workplace, etc. There is just not a sense of excitement and openness for the gospel in our daily lives today in most places, especially in the city where we live, case in point, New York City. That openness and hunger is seriously lacking, and that really handicaps our effort for evangelism. If church growth or expansion is by transfer growth from other churches, and not primarily from conversion and salvation of unbeliever’s background or atheist or secular or backslidden Christian background, there is really no net growth of the kingdom of God and that is very alien to the call of God in Christ. Jesus Christ called us to make disciples of all nations. It does not mean to make disciple and re-disciple those who are already disciples.

There’ s a dying need to discover something, the potency and the power of the Holy Spirit as Jesus promised us in Acts 1:8 that you shall receive power from on high.

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

We need to honestly question ourselves why we are not experiencing the power that Christ promised us before he ascended back to heaven, and sent his Holy Spirit to us. And you can see that the promise of receiving the power comes when the Holy Spirit has come upon us, and we see the purpose of the power is to be witnesses for Jesus in Judea, Samara, New York City, and all over the world. The fact that majority of us Christians and churches are struggling to reap the harvest of souls does make us wonder what happened to that promise. Or what happened to us? Many of us have given up and just gone on a non-power mode of living day by day. And that makes fulfilling the great commission to make disciples of all nations incredibly challenging, if not downright impossible. And because Jesus said, unless the “Unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain”, that adds more to the futility, and also frustration and a sense of helplessness.

Frankly, that explains the state of the church today in America and many parts of the world. The only thing that brings in new growth, sort of triggering into the church is more for people invited to come to church through friendship, persuasion, through prayer and nothing straight through evangelism and reap in the harvest like what we see in the book of Acts by Paul. That’s why I am very intrigued and interested to analyze the life ministry of Paul in the book of Acts and to glean how God worked through him and pray that God will do likewise through us today.

(to be continued…)

How do you struggle to take delight in the Lord’s Day?

/ Al Ngu, MDiv / Leave a comment

How do you struggle to take delight in the Lord’s Day? How could the WCF’s teaching on the Lord’s Day be applied to your life, or the lives of those in your church to help in seeing the beauty of the Sabbath?

I will admit that it is a challenging and difficult process to take delight in the Lord’s day in the sense of what Westminster confession talking about keeping the Sabbath holy unto God By making preparation of our heart and ordering our common affairs beforehand, and observe a holy rest all the day from our works, words, thoughts and our worldly employments and recreations. But also, to be taken up the whole time in the public and private exercise of his worship in the duties of necessity and mercy.

This is a very strong dedication and setting aside the Lord’s day as a Sabbath day holy unto God that require essentially almost a complete holy rest from all our works so as to be taken up in worship on the Lord’s day. This practically is almost impossible because of the heavy schedule of bi-vocational seminary student and a full-time job so as to catch up all the assignments and paper and preparation on the weekend is crucial just to barely stay on top of it.

I would say Isaiah 58:13-14 helps me a lot in the perspective in terms of the word “delight”. Isaiah writes that if we turn back our foot from the Sabbath, from doing our pleasure on God’s holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, and the holy day of the Lord honorable, if we honor it, not going our own ways or seeking our own pleasures then we will take delight in the Lord, then God will make us ride on the heights of the earth.

To me this is insanely motivating and powerful to make us ride on the height of the earth just by putting pleasure on God’s Sabbath as a day of the Lord. I see this as God wanting our heart for a day that He sets apart every week instead of taking our own ways, this surely bring much pleasure to the heart of God. It’s like my way of God’s ways and if I submit to God’s way on the day of holiness called Sabbath day, He promised that we will take delight in him. I think it is more than just honoring the Sabbath day, makes us delight in the Lord, but it is the process of setting our time for God weekly is in in itself taking delight in God!

I believe we will grow overtime in it. Now the question of how we do that practically on the Lord’s Day i.e. Sunday is that I quite agree with Dr Duncan’s lecture saying that a great way of spending Sabbath day is have two worship services on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, that pretty much fill up and dedicate the day of the Lord and keep it holy to the Lord.

I look forward to writing on the height of the earth in the Lord. Amen.

Isaiah 58:13–14 (ESV)

13    “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,

from doing your pleasure on my holy day,

       and call the Sabbath a delight

and the holy day of the Lord honorable;

       if you honor it, not going your own ways,

or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;

14    then you shall take delight in the Lord,

and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;

       I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

How to explain and actually use “Election & Predestination” in our thinkings and ministry

/ Al Ngu, MDiv / Leave a comment

Some have argued that the topics of election and predestination should be avoided in preaching due to their complex and difficult nature, and even that they are a hindrance to evangelism. Do you agree or disagree? Provide rationale for your position.

I would say that it is not easy to talk about election and predestination in our evangelism correct, however there are some phenomenal truths that can be very appealing to the non-believers in evangelism. For instance God from all eternity by His most wise and holy council of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass and yet he is not the author of saying, and also he does not violate the free will of the creatures, neither is the liberty and contingency of secondary courses being taken away but rather established. That to me is a very appealing voice of the attribute and the character of God. Because he’s totally in charge in control and yet he gives us the free will to respond he doesn’t control his creation robotically. And also the liberty or contingency of the secondary causes are not taken away but rather established. That means what we do matter and we are not going towards fatalism.

JI Packer also expounded that the whole Bible is the outworking of God’s sovereign purpose for his world, the purpose that led him to create, the sin that disrupted, and his work of redemption is currently restoring. I think that’s a really appealing message that in this broken world which non believers will acknowledge, to know that God is currently restoring the world, it is a real message of comfort and encouragement and relevance of God. And the purpose of all this restoration is the endless expression and enjoyment of love between God and his rational creatures- love shown in their worship, praise, thanks, honor, glory, and service given to him, ending the fellowship, privileges, jaws, and gifts they give to them. Bible tells us that what God has done to advance God’s redemptive plan for sin damaged planet earth, and they look ahead to the day of its completion, when planet earth will be recreated in unimaginable glory. They proclaim God as the almighty creator Redeemer and do all constantly of the multifaceted works of grace that God performs in history to secure for himself a people, a great company of individuals together, with whom his original purpose of giving and receiving love can be fulfilled. God has shown himself absolutely in control in bringing his plan to the point and working out everything according to his own will and completing his redemptive project.

Considering the area of pastoral care alongside of preaching/evangelism (you hint at an answer, but aim it toward this question): How might you discuss election & predestination with someone faithfully attending your church, who did not grow up in a Reformed church, but who wants to talk to you about how they believe “election and predestination don’t have any practical use,” instead, they say: “these doctrines just seem to make people complacent in their faith”?

Topics of election and predestination should be avoided in preaching due to their complex and difficult nature?

I would say that while election and predestination is highly mysterious, and we cannot deny it as its plainly written in the Bible. And WCF has really articulated it beautifully, though, hard to swallow sometimes, because, the reality is its still hard to understand fully, but we have to remember that we are his creature, and He is God. And He reserves the right to mystery that He hasn’t revealed, and He has the perfect right to reveal what He chooses to His creatures, as in: Deuteronomy 29: 29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

An important point is that God doesn’t violate our free will. WCF: “God does not violate the free will of the creatures, neither is the liberty and contingency of secondary courses being taken away but rather established.”

That settled, I would then focus on the restoration of this broken world, as JI Packer puts it, “The whole Bible is the outworking of God’s sovereign purpose for his world, the purpose that led him to create, the sin that disrupted, and his work of redemption is currently restoring.”

God’s sovereign purpose and work now is the work of redemption that’s currently restoring what’s been destroyed by sin, and it’s that restoration, we believers in Christ, we are honored and called, to take part in. And it’s the highest calling for all of us all.

God’s covenant with us enables us to experience Christ’s salvation for us

/ Al Ngu, MDiv / Leave a comment

First of all the distance between God and humans is so great that we can never have any fruition of him as our blessedness and reward except by God’s condescension upon us, which he has expressed by way of covenant. So, God has chosen to relate with us and to reveal himself to us through a covenantal way like the Abrahamic covenant, Mosaic covenant, and eventually the new covenant by the son of God our Lord Jesus Christ himself. All these covenants are in fact the covenant of grace not of law. So, covenant is the means whereby we enjoy God as our blessedness and reward. Therefore, our justification and sanctification in life completely depends on the revelation and the relationship of God with us through the covenant which is the only means we can enjoy his blessings and reward.

Our justification is completely dependent on Christ’s fulfillment of the covenant works which is the first covenant God made with man whereby life was promised to Adam, and in him his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. That covenant of works points to the terms of conditions on which the blessings of the covenant continues. Man by his fall has made himself incapable of life by that covenant of works, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; Whereby he freely offered unto sinners life in salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring them of faith in him, that they may be saved and promising to give unto all those who are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe. Now this is a huge promise because fallen man like all of us will not be able to be willing to believe in Christ if it were not for the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, those of us who are the elect. In the covenant of grace, there is blessing despite disobedience. The covenant of grace conditions are fulfilled by Jesus on our behalf. Our faith is required of us in the covenant of grace but it is not the basis of salvation. It is merely the means to receive the blessing which Jesus has obtained on our behalf. Therefore our obedience is tied up with Christ’s fulfillment of the conditions.

The only way we can go on in our lives sanctified is by and through the mediator of our Lord Jesus Christ to stay in grace. Like Westminster says we are brought into this covenant by grace and stay in it by our mediator our Lord Jesus Christ. Our ongoing sanctification depends on our obedience to Christ. Our obedience can only follow from the active and passive obedience of Christ because Christ fulfilled the conditions of the covenant of works, our salvation is by grace alone and by faith alone in Christ who has obeyed perfectly the covenant of works on our behalf.

This is hugely encouraging to folks in church to understand that it is not by our effort to continue to be sanctified and walking with Christ but it is rather Christ has already won the battle on the cross by his perfect obedience, and that we are drinking in that benefit and walking in him by the Holy Spirit, commonly called abiding in Christ. And then we are justified by Christ because he fulfilled all the conditions of the works of covenant which our forefather Adam failed. And now we can continue to be sanctified because of his complete obedience that our obedience is tied up with Christ fulfillment of the conditions and because he has fulfilled it, we can be overcomers in our Christian walk with God.