Sermon that I preached in Nov 2018 that serves as a testimony

Good morning and Happy Sabbath. You know, as much as I teach, I haven’t actually preached much. And I think it’s because preaching takes so much time to prepare. You spend days on and even weeks on end to prepare to speak for 45 minutes and it’s stressful. This time, it was particularly stressful for me.

Normally, I already know what I want to preach about a month before I come up. And in that last month, I just spend time thinking about my topic over and over again, praying about it, and by the week before, I’m already prepared and ready to go. I can choose my appeal song, I can choose what special music song I want, I know what I’m going for. This time however, even up to the night before, I was just really struggling. And I realize, God let me go through this struggle, so that I can share with you today exactly why.

But first, as always, before we even attempt to talk about spiritual things, let’s invite God into our presence to make sure, this is God talking. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, I thank you for allowing me to come up to your pulpit to speak. I am not worthy, nor qualified to stand here, nor do I personally enjoy it, but I thank you because I recognize that it is a privilege to stand here. Now please, give me Your Holy Spirit, put Your Words in my mouth, that I may not speak, but rather, allow you to speak through me. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

The title of my sermon today is - Get Real.

Let me ask you this question:

• Have you ever struggled with feelings of shame, low self worth, and a feeling of God’s disapproval?

Or what about,

• Struggled with, I’m never going to be able to have victory over sin, or struggled with I’m not like the other goody two shoes in church, or struggled with God is so ashamed of me?

Have you said these things before?

• I feel like I’m such a mess. I’m such a wretch. It’s hopeless. I might as well just live a life filled with sin because I’m never going to be able to overcome this.

Or perhaps, you’ve said this.

• I like this. I don’t want to overcome this. I know I should, I know I have to, but I really like this. I really enjoy this. I don’t want to give it up. Why am I even sitting here in church? I feel like a hypocrite. And I know people know I’m living in sin, they judge me. But if I don’t come to church, they’re just going to judge me even more.

You hear these thoughts:

• You’re nothing but a loser. God doesn’t love you. God has precious missionary workers in the church, faithful believers. You’re reading your Bible and you’re not changing. You’re wasting your time. It works for everyone else but it doesn’t work for you.

Have you ever struggled with these?

Betting’s not Christian, but as a figure of speech, if I could bet, I would bet that everyone here, has struggled with this before.

If you’re sitting there and shaking your head on the inside, either you’ve forgotten, or you’re just really proud to not be real and admit, that these are actual, human struggles.

And I find, that this is a big problem in our church.

We spend so much time going out, so much effort, trying to win the people outside our church, when the people inside our church, are neglected, are left out, are judged.

And, for these people who are struggling, when your reaction to them is to say "God is able to fix everything, you need to repent, why can’t you just surrender?" It just hurts them even more, and pushes them further away.

You know, we look at our leaders in the church - and they all look like they’re so perfect. Every week, they’ve got something wonderful to praise God for in the corporate prayer. Every week - they’re experiencing miracles. Every week, some person is up there preaching about how good God is and the power to overcome.

And for us who’s struggling, really, really struggling. It becomes discouraging. It becomes embarrassing. Because I don’t want to admit, I’m struggling with something. I don’t want to ask for help, because what everyone in church is going to tell me, the same thing - that I need to repent if I want salvation.

So I’m going to talk first, to those who are struggling.

God tells the story of the potter. It says, “look, if you let me mold and shape you, if you come back and repent, I can make something good out of your life.” But they don’t want to believe, and the people choose not to believe. In their responses, “we are hopeless so we will walk according to our own plans and everyone will obey the dictates of their evil heart.”

God promises that if you repent and come back, I can make something new out of your life. But you feel like you’ve gone so far you can’t. You’ve done it all. You’ve studied and read it all. You know Daniel and Revelation. You know the doctrines, man you can even teach the doctrines. You know 1844, 2300 days, 7 last plagues. You know you need to repent. But. You can’t. You won’t. You don’t want to.

This is a scary thing to admit. That you don’t want to repent. Because you like your sin. You know it’s important to do your devotion. So you read the Bible, you pray. But you cling on to your sin. Because it’s nice. Get real. Sin feels nice or nobody would do it. Sin makes you feel happy, happier than when you were doing things for God and suffering when you were doing things for God.

The first thing you need to do, STEP ONE, is get real.

God knows everything. Don’t you think God knows you don’t want to give it up? Don’t you think God knows you’re struggling but you don’t want to struggle and you want to give in? God knows it all. But you need to get real for yourself - and admit to yourself, you don’t want to give up your sin.

Here’s what I want to define now. Now, some of you may have heard of this before, some of you may have not, so I’ll briefly just go through this.

What you’re feeling - feeling bad about your sin. That’s a good thing. That’s a normal thing. The real issue that it comes down to - is understanding the definitions of guilt and shame and condemnation and conviction. Let’s define our terms.

• Guilt is the feeling that I’ve done something wrong.
• Shame is that I am something wrong.
• Guilt is that I did something wrong.
• Shame is that I am something wrong. Please, please, notice that.

For those of you who think you’re not struggling with something, I need you to notice this as well - because this will affect how you treat others that you talk to.

Guilt - I feel bad that I did something wrong, but by the grace of God, this will not be part of my story forever.

Shame - I’m nothing but an addict. I’m nothing but a sinner as opposed to I am wrestling with sin.

There’s a big difference between these two. So guilt is healthy in that it can actually lead us to Christ - the very one who died for our wrong doing. This is healthy. We need that accountability. We need that balance.

But shame on the other hand, fills us so full of all the unworthiness and unhealthy views that it actually keeps us away from Christ that we think we can’t come to Him because we are nothing. God wants nothing to do with me.

God uses one, and Satan uses the other.

Conviction comes from guilt. Condemnation comes from shame.

Conviction is of the Holy Spirit - to awaken us to the fact that we have the need of a Saviour who has died for our wrong doing and who wants to transform our lives. That’s healthy. That’s a good thing. We see that in John chapter 16.

Condemnation however - this leads to those thoughts that you’re no good, you’re never going to be good enough. God doesn’t like you. You’re wasting your time. You’re even trying to do good - you’re reading your Bible but you’re no different than you were yesterday. Why continue? Satan sets us up for shame and condemnation by leading us into failure and then convincing us to believe that we are a failure. He creates these lies and throws them into our hearts and into our minds.

Let me show you some pictures of shaming.

We think it’s cute, but imagine, we had to hold up this sign in church every week, for every sin we commit.

• I cheated on my wife

• I watched porn

• I told a lie

• I broke the Sabbath

• I don’t read my Bible

• I hate going to church

But, thankfully, God doesn’t deal with us this way.

When you hear these voices - that you’re nothing but a loser, that God doesn’t love you, that God doesn’t want to take you back, that you’re long far gone, you’re reading your Bible but you’re not changing, you’re wasting your time, it works for everyone else but it doesn’t work for you - you can be rest assured, this voice doesn’t come from God.

You're not just feeling guilty, you're feeling ashamed, like how Eve felt when she hid from God in the beginning.

The question is - have you confessed your sin?

You know. Sometimes I hate this question - because while it pricks the heart, the last thing I need when I know I’m sinning, is a hammer to my heart - to tell me I'm a sinner.

Sounds wrong for me to say this, isn’t it? That we shouldn’t tell people they’re a sinner in need of Christ?

No, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m not saying sin is okay. I’m not saying we should condone sin. I’m saying, hate the sin, love the sinner. I hope you understand what I’m coming to.

When people are struggling with sin, most of the time for Christians, they know it’s sin. They know they need to repent. They know they need to confess.

Sorry, I should say this again, we know we need to repent. We know we want to confess.

Remember my step 1? Get real.

If we know we need to confess and repent and we don’t want to. Get real, be honest to yourself. Because this is the only thing you need to do.

Acts 5:31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.

You know why you don’t want to repent and confess?

Because repentance comes from Jesus.

The human heart does not want to repent. That desire even, comes from Jesus. I want to tell you today, that while it is not okay to sin, it’s normal, to struggle with sin, and struggle with overcoming it. God doesn’t hate you because you’re struggling. Praise God you are struggling.

Step 2 - is telling God that you need His help to even want to give up sin. Tell God. Be real. Be honest. God, I like this thing I’m holding on it. I really like it. It makes me happy. It makes me unfulfilled, it makes me lonely, it makes me bored of life if I give it up. This is my happy place. Tell God. He knows already! But you need to tell Him. So you can ask Him, God, while I am struggling with this, I know I need and want salvation, because I’ve gone far from when I first loved Jesus - give me repentance. Give me the desire to give up my sin. Give me the want to give up whatever I’m holding on it.

We always say the first step to confession and repentance is willingness. But some of us, we are not even willing to give up sin. We are not willing, we don’t want to. So pray for God to give you that willingness. Step 1. Be real. Step 2. Ask God to give you willingness.

And you know what, there’s no step 3 or 4. Because that’s all you need to do.

But it all starts with being real.

Now, let me speak to those who are sitting there, and shaking their heads at my fellow brethren and I who are struggling with sin.

You know, many a time, the reason why Christians leave church, is because they feel no love in the church. They see all these leaders, all these professed believers, doing miracle after miracle, bringing in people after people, but wonder, why am I not cared for? Why am I not something that they would pray for, that they would visit?

Because they’re perfect. They’re goody two shoes. They’re Sabbath keepers. They don’t want to associate with me. They don’t want to talk about what I like to talk about. They don’t like to do what I like to do. They’re the holy righteous faithful church goers.

But, really, are we?

Don’t look at your leaders because leaders struggle as well. Don’t compare yourselves to church leaders. You don’t know what happens behind closed doors. Leaders, don’t put up a facade and snide when others struggle. Because many a time, it comes across as our church doesn’t care. Our church doesn’t really care. Our church judges. Our church reproves. Our church holds up the Bible and the need to keep the Commandments, and that’s great. But it’s not great, when our members feel like the church doesn’t care when we struggle.

Because then, because it looks like we don't care and all we are out to do is correct people and tell them they're wrong, our members don't look for counsel when they need help. Because they're ashamed of what the church may say. They're afraid the church will gossip. They're afraid the church will just tell them what they already know and look at them like they're a lost cause.

I understand why Adventists are viewed as judgmental. Before I became an SDA, I attended the SDA church a few times before leaving to go overseas. I remember, my one and only impression of the SDA church is - why are they so judgmental? Why is everyone else wrong, and they think they’re always right?

We have to be real

We all have struggles going on. And while I’m not saying - confess your sins publicly in corporate prayer, or tell everyone you watched this video or did this thing, I do mean, that we need to have an authentic community in church.

We talked about this in the strategy meeting as well. And it hit me.

We need to start being real. We need to have an authentic community. No more fake stuff. No more hypocrisy.

The last thing that someone who’s struggling needs is a hammer to remind him of how bad his sin is. The person needs to know - where can I go for power to get out of this situation.

They’re not coming to you because they need to be told they’re sinners. They’re not coming to you because they need to be reminded that they need to repent and confess when they can’t.

It’s because they needs help. It’s because they needs help.

So I’m going to challenge us, myself included, as a church, to create an authentic community. No more fake stuff. No more pretending. It needs starts to with me. I want to be the one creating it. It starts with me.

Be real. What’s real - people struggle with different things. People struggle with video games. People struggle with sexual immorality, with porn. People struggle with alcohol. People struggle with self-harm. People struggle with pride.

All you have to do. Is just listen.

Jesus, when looking at the woman caught in adultery - did not tell her, “Woman! Adultery is wrong! You’re a sinner! Repent, confess!”

Instead he told her “Neither do I condemn thee.” Did he say sinning was okay? No. “Go and sin no more”. But He also told her - “neither do I condemn thee”

We always focus on "Go and sin no more". But Jesus also said, "Neither do I condemn thee".

So if Jesus didn’t condemn, neither should we.

Again, I’m not saying, confess your sins in public, or to a priest or pastor. But I am saying, be real. Don’t be the modern day pharisee.

Why am I sharing this? Remember how I said this time, my sermon was especially hard to prepare?

I’ve been struggling with God for a while now. Since we left for our honeymoon in September. I’ve been struggling with actually, just one thing - games. Which is odd, because growing up, I never really liked games. I never played them, I found them boring, a waste of time, and not stimulating.

But one day, I saw this ad for a game on instagram, and decided to just download it to try.

That try - led to me getting really addicted to it. I spent real money on it, I had real friends on it, my real life schedule even ran according to the game schedule - Monday and Wednesday nights clan war, Tuesday and Thursday pageant, and so on. I would arrange my day schedule around my game.

You may think that, it’s such a small thing isn’t it? Murder, adultery, stealing, sins. But, having a game on a phone? Hmm, that’s nothing really to talk about.

I stopped doing devotion. The first thing I looked at in the morning was that game. The first people I talked to when something went wrong, were my friends in the game, I was even bold to call them my closest friends at one point in time. When Shaun brought me out on dates, I was constantly on my phone, never listening, never spending quality time with him. I was ruining my new marriage, and my relationship with God. I stopped praying. I knew this was wrong. Because I knew this was becoming more important than God.

I asked myself - God, if you came tomorrow, would I give up this game today? I was afraid, because my answer was no. How could it be, that a full time ministry worker, would rather give up salvation, for a phone game?

That’s what Satan does. It’s the small things that really get to people. I tried to stop teaching. I tried to stop taking up responsibilities. Every time I heard a sermon, I knew, God was trying to tell me to come back to Him.

And every time, every prayer I muttered, I would tell God, I’m a fraud. I’m an eloquent talker. People love my teaching. But I’m a hypocrite. I’m a pharisee. I don’t want to give this up. I know my spiritual life affects the lives of those I am in contact with because I’m a leader, so when I suffer, they suffer too. But I don’t want to give this up. Because I don’t have meaning to life. Hints of my depression came back. I wasn't just feeling guilty, I felt ashamed.

And one day, I heard this sermon on Audioverse - where for the first time, I heard someone say - God doesn’t need you to be willing. God will help you to be willing, if you just ask Him. God doesn’t need you to repent, God will give you repentance, if you just ask Him.

And so, I began to pray, God, I am not willing to give up this game. Please make me willing.

I began to pray, God, I don’t want to give this up, please, help me.

I don’t want to delete it, quit cold turkey. I like it. Please, make me willing.

I was even selfish enough to say - God, I know people always say do all that it takes to save me, but I don’t want that Lord. I’m scared of what You can do. Don’t cut me so low that I can’t show my face in church anymore. Please have mercy on me, but please help me.

Now, it wasn’t fast. I prayed this prayer for weeks. I would tell Shaun I don’t want to give up my sin, but I’m asking God to help me.

And, while I believed I was all but a lost hypocrite, deep down in my heart, I had that little thread of faith, that somehow God would do something.

Now, most of you know, that I don’t have a phone right now. That’s because at the Bible worker retreat in Cameron Highlands, Amanda pushed me in the kids pool with my phone in my pocket. My phone didn’t actually get wet, because I fell on my left, and my phone was in my right pocket, but when I took my phone out of my pocket, somehow, my phone fell into the water, after it was safe.

Nunuk pitied me and asked me why wasn’t sad about my phone.

But you know, I couldn’t be happier, and I couldn’t thank God more, that He sent Amanda to throw me into the water to get rid of my phone.

I couldn’t be happier to lose a phone. Because it never felt better to be able to quit.

For the rest of the retreat, I didn’t have a phone. It felt amazing. I didn’t even miss the game.

This is the best bible worker retreat, or any retreat, that I’ve ever had.

I heard God speak to me in sermons. It was amazing to hear God again after so long.

I still don’t have my phone, even now. I want to be phone-less for as long as I can go, for as long as I need to.

I’m sharing this, first, because I need to ask apology from the church, for being a leader who had cherished a sin, yet still tried to teach the Bible.

Secondly, because if I want to preach about being real, I need to be real myself as well.

And thirdly, I am hoping that my testimony, while small, will help you to see how patient and kind our God can be, that He will not only answer my prayer about giving me willingness to give up sin, but He will answer my selfish prayer by being merciful about it.

My sermon today is no frills, no hyped up, no hit you with feel good so that you can go home and think man, that was a good sermon.

My sermon today is honest, it’s low, it’s painful for me to admit. But it’s one that if I want to challenge our church for, it starts with me.

I’m going to list you some names that might sound familiar.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, William Miller and Ellen White.

It’s an interesting group of people - they’re probably the backbone or spine of the Protestant Reformation.

But let me tell you something about them that maybe you don’t know. Every one of them suffered from feelings of shame, low self worth, and the view of God’s view of them that was negative and unhealthy.

(Credit given to a speaker on Audioverse who put these together, forgot who it was)

But when they came to believe the things about themselves that God believed, the world became a different pace.

So what did they come to believe? They came face to face with the greatest act of belief known to man. With an understanding of God’s undying love for them that He would risk the eternal existence of His Son to see them saved. We’re told in 1 John 4:8 that God is love. And in 1 Cor 13:7 that love believes all things and hopes all things.

God believes all things and hopes all things about you. That means that you don’t need to become something more, for God to believe all things and love all things about you. God already feels love and belief towards you because you are something more. You’re His beloved. He paid an infinite price for you because He already saw something of value in you whether you deserved it or not.

In fact there is nothing you can do to deserve it. You already have it. So what if the very person that you’re afraid of disappointing the most - God, actually believes in you? Scripture is abundantly clear that He does. He wouldn’t have sent His Son on such an expensive errand to see you saved if He didn’t. Ironically enough it’s because the enemy believes in you, that’s why you’re wrestling with these thoughts to begin with. He sees what you can become in Christ. And when you think this through, that means the only person in the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan that doesn’t believe in you is you.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesly, Wilimar Miller and Ellen White, were capable of a great work for God. The enemy knew this and he heaped dark clouds upon them to discourage them from going any further. But a day came when they refused to believe those lives any longer and this world was changed as a result.

What about you? Will you take hold of God’s belief in you today? This is my prayer for you - that God will grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might through His spirit in the inner man. That Christ would dwell in your heart through faith. And that you being rooted and grounded in love would be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the width and length and depth and height that you may know the love of Christ that passes knowledge and that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

*Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling for you and for me
See all the portholes
He's waiting and watching
Watching for you and for me

Come home, come home
You who are weary come home
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling all sinners, come home.

All for the wonderful love he has promised
Promised for you and for me
Through all our suffering
He has mercy and pardon
Pardon for you and for me

Come home, come home
You who are weary come home
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling
Calling all sinners, come home.*

Every time this song plays, I cry, because I hear Jesus calling for me to come home. Because He doesn’t condemn, but He welcomes the struggling, the sinning. He pleads for us to come home to the One who truly loves them.

Do you hear Him calling for you?