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Cambodian Countryside
Last week Aidan and I were in Cambodia for 6 days to visit pastors who we know and are working with. They are doing a great work in the nation. We also were exploring options for RHC’s involvement in Cambodia, and look forward to taking some teams there next year.
We arrived on Monday night, and were met by Dave Reed who has planted City Life church in Phnom Penh. He took us to see the building that RHC helped their church rent, which is fantastic, situated in a good part of town, and can accommodate about 30 people to live, plus their church services, and offices. It was fantastic seeing what they have and how it is being used. God is working through them in Phnom Penh in a wonderful way.
The worship hall in their new facility
After seeing the church facility, we had some of the best dumplings one can have in PP, Dave being our trusty tour guide! Dave and Kascha have been in Cambodia for about 4 years, arriving from Taiwan to plant the church and learn the language. It has been a tough few years for them, but they have had some breakthroughs and the church is doing very very well.
The next morning Aidan and I rented 2 Honda XR 250′s, and headed off for the 4 hour ride to Kampong Thom. It was glorious. Riding bikes through countryside is one of my best hobbies, and to be doing it in South East Asia with Aidan to go and visit / preach to pastors makes it one of the best combinations!
Best way to travel
We arrived in Kampong Thom on Tuesday after a beautiful drive through countryside and floodplains. It took about 4 hours to get there, with our bags tied to the back. The Cambodian countryside in October is beatiful, with the green rice paddies and blue sky. We were spared the rain which we were really grateful for! We arrived and went to meet Sokhon and Esther at the church property, which has the orphanage on it as well.
Sokhon and Esther
Sokhon and Esther have close ties to RHC, as Aidan has visited them about 7 times and Simon’s dad Steve performed their wedding about 4 years back. Aidan is loved as a brother by many in the church. It was wonderful for me to see how the church responded to Aidan, and the affection between them.
Sokhon and Esther planted the church a few years ago and have done incredibly well. Their current church facility is full and they are building another church site and orphanage. In addition to this, they have established feeding sites in 16 villages where they are now planting churches. One morning, we took a long drive out into the villages to see a feeding point for children, that has developed into a church plant.
One of the girls at the feeding point
Wednesday we preached all day at a gathering of all the pastors of the new church plants. Our preaching over the few days we were there included going through sections of Philippians, teaching on Gospel Centered Ministry, and worship training (which Aidan did!)
One afternoon we had a few hours spare and took a 35km ride on dirt roads to find the Sambor Prei Kuk temples, an ancient site where 35 temples were constructed (some dating back to the 7th Century!) as part of what is regarded as the earliest civilisation in Asia. We had a thrilling ride out, including stopping to swim in the flooded plains, and seeing the Cambodian village life.
Village Life in Cambodia
After spending some good quality time with Sokhon and Esther, and encouraging them, we headed off on Friday to ride back to Phnom Penh. Our ride back wasn’t as easy as the one out, mainly because it rained the entire trip, which made it slower, colder, and more challenging. Arriving in Phnom Penh we spent some more time with Dave Reed, before flying out.
We are already planning to take a large team of people from RHC to Cambodia next year, and are looking at doing something around March / April. Due to the vast amount of opportunities at both the church in Phnom Penh as well as Kampong Thom, we will be encouraging people who could be a blessing in many ways, including: preaching, teaching english, worship, helping out at the childrens home, building facilities (fences etc) at their properties, helping with feeding program, training teachers, etc.
Jesus loves these people
One of the reasons that God has established Redemption Hill in Singapore is so that we can be a blessing to South East Asia. This is a wonderful way of us being able to do so, and we are looking forward to it next year!
I’m really looking forward to launching this series in October, trusting for many to find Christ!
Find out more at www.askanything.sg
I found this devotion in Spurgeon’s Evening by Evening on June 29 to be very challenging and true. I shared it on Sunday at RHC in my message on the Kingdom of God’s view of people, and thought I’d post the devotion here:
“How be it, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart.” 2 Chronicles 32:31
Hezekiah was growing so inwardly great, and priding himself so much upon the favour of God, that self-righteousness crept in, and through his carnal security, the grace of God was for a time, in its more active operations, withdrawn. Here is quite enough to account with the Babylonians; for if the grace of God should leave the best Christian, there is enough of sin in his heart to make him the worst of transgressors. If left to yourselves, you who are warmest for Christ would cool down like Laodicea into sickening lukewarmness: you who are sound in the faith would be white with the leprosy of false doctrine; you who now walk before the Lord in excellency and integrity would reel to and fro, and stagger with a drunkenness of evil passion. Like the moon, we borrow our light; bright as we are when grace shines on us, we are darkness itself when the Sun of Righteousness withdraws himself. Therefore let us cry to God never to leave us. “Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from us! Withdraw not from us thine indwelling grace! Hast thou not said, ‘I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day’? Lord, keep us everywhere. Keep us when in the valley, that we murmur not against thy humbling hand; keep us when on the mountain, that we wax not giddy through being lifted up; keep us in youth, when our passions are strong; keep us in old age, when becoming conceited of our wisdom, we may therefore prove greater fools than the young and giddy; keep us when we come to die, lest, at the very last, we should deny thee! Keep us living, keep us dying, keep us labouring, keep us suffering, keep us fighting, keep us resting, keep us everywhere, for everywhere we need thee, O our God!”
Much has been made of the ‘Apostles teaching’ in Acts 2 and that the early believers ‘devoted themselves to it’. What exactly was this apostles teaching? For us to understand what it means today, we must understand what it meant firstly in that context.
Firstly it was the teaching of the Apostles. Those whom Jesus had left behind, and Matthias who had replaced Judas. At the time of Acts 2, these were the Apostles.
Secondly, what did they teach? When we read through Acts we see that there was one common thread through everything that was taught by the apostles, which was the gospel. A quick study of all of the teaching / preaching of the Apostles in the book of Acts reveals this very quickly. As can be found in the previous post here, every time an apostle opened his mouth in scripture he preached the gospel. In fact they would find a way to jump from their present circumstances straight to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus! This was the apostles teaching!
As Paul says ‘when I came to you I resolved to know nothing among you except for Christ and Him crucified’. And surely, when we see the clarity with which the apostles preached the gospel would we be able to understand how Paul could say ‘the church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets’. The prophets in the Old Testament had spoken of Christ to come, the apostles in the New Testament declared him crucified, risen and ascended.
The devotion to the Apostles teaching in Acts 2 gets worked out in so many other practical ways in the chapter, it’s hardly surprising it’s mentioned first. The devotion to the gospel led to fellowship, breaking of bread in celebration of Christ, and praying to the God with whom we now have access! They claimed none of their possessions as their own, they sold things for others, shared their lives with each other, any many got saved.
Jeremiah was right, new ways are always just a form of old ways (Jer 6.6). If a man today would claim to live in any shadow of an apostolic gifting then scripture makes it plainly clear that his first love is God and his first message is the gospel. This is what establishes churches, this is what strengthens churches, and this is what matures churches.
This is a summary of every time that an Apostle spoke in the book of Acsts. It’s quite illuminating. An explanation and conclusion will be given in part 2.
Acts 2.14: Peter
Departure Point is the outpouring of HS as promised / prophesied
Jesus of Nazareth – A man attested to you by God
God did mighty works and wonders through Him
You crucified and killed him
God raised Him up, he couldn’t he held by death
Being at the right hand of God he’s poured out the HS
God has made this Jesus who you crucified Lord and Christ
Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins
Acts 3.12:
Peter: Departure point: Healing of crippled man |
God has glorified Jesus
You killed the Author of Life
God raised Him from the dead
Faith in his name has healed this man
This death & resurrection was prophesied by prophets
Repent for the forgiveness of your sins
Acts 4.1:
‘they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead’
Acts 4.8: Peter
Departure point: Healing of crippled man
Jesus
You crucified
God raised from the dead
Jesus is the cornerstone which you builders have rejected
Salvation in no one else, no other name under heaven for salvation
Acts 4.33:
‘with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus’
Acts 5.28:
High Priest accuses them of teaching in Jesus’ name and filling Jerusalem
with their teaching, intending to bring Jesus’ blood on their heads.
Acts 5.29: Peter:
Jesus
You killed by hanging on a tree
God exalted him to his right hand as Leader and Saviour
For repentance and forgiveness and sins
Acts 7: Stephen
Departure point – history of God’s people and his defense
Killing of Jesus Christ, the Righteous One
Acts 8.5: Philip
Proclaimed to them the Christ
Acts 9.5: Jesus
Appears to Paul personally
Acts 9.20: Paul
‘immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying “He is the Son of God”’ and verse 22 ‘confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ’
Acts 9.27: Paul
Paul preached boldly in the name of Jesus
Acts 9.28: Paul
Preaching boldly in the name of the Lord
Acts 10.34: Peter
Departure Point is God showing no partiality to Gentiles
Good news of peace through Jesus Christ
Attested by God (anointed with power and HS for miracles)
Crucified
God raised from the dead
Resurrection attested ‘ate and drank with him’
He is the judge of the living and dead
Forgiveness of sins through His name
Acts 11.19
“Those who were scattered preached the Lord Jesus”.
Acts 13.17: Paul
History
Jesus a Saviour
Crucified
Buried
Raised from the dead
Appeared to many
Forgiveness of sins through his name
Freedom that was not possible through law of Moses
Acts 14.7
‘they continued to preach the gospel’
Acts 14.8: Paul
Preaching and heals but there is no mention of Christ!
Acts 14.21: Paul
Preached gospel at Derbe
Acts 16.10: Paul
Sees vision and concludes God has called them to preach the gospel to them.
Acts 17.1: Paul
Attested to Christ from the scripture.
Christ to suffer and rise from the dead
Jesus is the Christ
Acts 17.18: Paul
Departing Point is idolatry
Preaching Jesus and his resurrection
Then goes on in verse 22 and concludes with resurrection of Christ
Acts 18.5: Paul
Jesus as Christ
Acts 18.28: Apol
Attested to Christ from the scripture
Jesus as the Christ
Acts 19.8: Paul
Paul preaches for three months on the Kingdom of God
Acts 20.20: Paul
Testifies of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus
In Romans 1.15 Paul says that ‘I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome’ but he is writing to believers! The gospel is not only for unbelievers, it is for everyone.
Summary is that the majority of the Apostles preaching consists of the following main common denominators:
1. Jesus being attested to by either : Scriptures, God, signs and wonders, witnesses of resurrection
2. Jesus the son of Mary and Joseph as the Son of God, the Christ
3. Jesus crucified for our sins
4. Jesus resurrected from the dead
5. Forgiveness of sins in his name
As we start 2010 I would love to encourage pastors to increase the amount of time that they commit to preach through books of the bible. I started the church in November 2008 by preaching a 4 part series through Habakkuk, and ended 2009 with a 9 part series on Philippians. In the first 56 weeks of RHC, we preached Bible book series’ 75% of the time, did another one series which took up another 10% of the year, and the rest (about 15%) was from standalone sermons by either guests or myself. My plan for 2010 is to keep it roughly the same.
Although I grew up in a church that did very little expository preaching, I have found it to be excellent for myself and the church on a number of levels and I highly recommend it for the following reasons:
1. Series are a great way for the church to get onboard and move in one direction over a period of time. Homegroup studies can be easily put out through the series (as we have done on our website), the kids ministry can follow the preaching series as well (at RHC, the Kids Ministry follows the preaching schedule almost exactly).
2. It forces me to study the bible in depth, beyond my devotions. This is something all pastors should be doing (and even if you are preaching through books you should study more in advance). I love that I have to get a few commentaries per book that I am studying, and really dig deep.
3. It gives me a text to preach for the week, and therefore my preparation is far more focused. It doesn’t lighten my load at all, if anything it’s more work to prepare but the work is more focused. I don’t spend time wondering what to preach, but wondering how to preach the text. This means that the quality of preaching is improved.
4. I can deal with difficult subjects without anyone feeling picked on. When we are talking about homosexuality, it’s because the text says so, nor because I discovered someone struggling with it in the church. The same with money, marriage, etc.
5. It forces me to preach the full counsel of God. My pet themes don’t always come out every week in a different form. The text is there and I have no option but to preach it. This forces growth for both myself as the pastor and the church. It’s biblical and wonderful.
6. It keeps me preaching the great themes of the bible in their correct proportion. I have found that ecclesiology isn’t really that big a deal! Christ’s finished work, redemption, the personal outworking of the gospel and scripture in our lives become the major themes that dominate the scriptures.
7. One of the reasons I love preaching through books the most though, is that I have to really wrestle personally with the texts before I preach them. I have found most of my personal spiritual growth has come from wrestling with texts in the week before I preach on them. How can I stand up and say ‘To live is Christ and die is gain’ unless I have come to the point before God? How can I preach on faith unless God is stirring my heart?!
8. You can go away for a weeks study break every 4 months and really thrash out large portions of preparation at this time. Your study has a specific focus and outworking. If your plans change and you don’t end up using all your prep, you have wasted nothing. These times of getting away and getting refreshed become incredibly helpful.
Some may have various reasons in mind why they shouldn’t do this. Here are some of the common reasons, and what I would say to them:
1. “We want to be Holy Spirit led”. I have often found that this reason is not really that people want to be Holy Spirit led but that they want to leave their prep / planning to the last minute. If God can tell you what to preach on the Thursday before the weekend why can’t He tell you 2 months in advance? I find that having a text beforehand makes me come to it in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to guide me in terms of what to say and emphasize in the passage.
2. “We want to do something relevant”. I would say your job as a pastor is not to give people life lessons with a few scriptures. That is not able to make disciples. Teach them to work through passages of scripture, especially the tough ones. There is nothing more relevant.
3. “What if there are many people sharing the pulpit?” I have found this only helps with training preachers and keeping the church on one track even when many others are preaching.
4. “I feel I want to preach on something different every week”. This is probably the best objection actually, and I have no real way to counter this except to say that you will likely find that when you preach this way, you don’t end up covering the full counsel of God, and most likely just cycle through your favorite subjects in one form or another.
I would greatly encourage you to explore preaching through books of the bible in 2010. My encouagement is that even if you start small, make that start and allow God to grow you in this area of preaching.
This post is taken in entirety from here.
Over at Enjoying God Ministries, Sam Storms, gives some helpful instruction on preaching.
In the second of three articles in his series An Appeal to All Pastors: Why and How Should We Preach, Sam gives us eight reasons why pastors should be committed to biblical preaching.
- We must preach because of the power of the Word of God to change human lives and to transform the experience of the church.
- We must preach because preaching is God’s ordained means for making himself known to us.
- We must preach because preaching not only communicates truth about God, it also mediates the very person and power of God.
- We must preach because preaching (aside from reading) is the most effective means for transmitting the truths of Holy Scripture.
- We must preach because preaching is the fuel for worship. Preaching fans the flames of passion for Jesus.
- We must preach because preaching is not simply the fuel for worship, preaching is worship.
- We must preach because preaching is the catalyst for church growth, renewal, and revival.
- We must preach because preaching is the means by which the glory of God is revealed and imparted to those who listen with faith.
Last week I sat down with someone in the church who humbly wanted to talk about preaching and being more effective. As an encouraging, supportive brother I was more than willing to listen to him. One of the points he raised was that I typically try to cover too much material in my preaching, with the result that I am often saying so much that the one clear message gets lost in the blur.
As we spoke about it, we came to the conclusion that this is not a biblical issue. No where does scripture say that you must only have one main point, or that there should be one unifying theme, however we realized that this is a point of great wisdom for improving the clarity of your message.
As we spoke, I realized that often I come to the task of preaching with a ‘teachers’ hat on, rather than a preachers. They are not very different, but if I could attempt to distinguish them I would say that a teacher teaches truth that could be delivered to any people anywhere at any time. It stands alone apart from it’s audience. Preaching seems to be to take the truth that teachers bring and apply it in a specific context, to a specific people at a specific time, with a far clearer sense of action required. In short, preaching is far more prophetic in nature.
I realized that in my prep I have been trying to cover everything that the text says (for fear of leaving something else and not preaching it in context), instead of trying by the Holy Spirit to find the one main thing that God is speaking to this people about through this passage. This feedback and the subsequent discussion has lightened my load. I still need to study the passage as thoroughly to see what it is saying, but then I can zero in on the one unifying theme, not feeling a sense of compulsion to deal with everything else.
I have posted some notes that I took mainly from the abridged version of Richard Baxters book ‘The Reformed Pastor’ which is republished under the title ‘The Ministry We Need’. I make it a habit to read these notes regularly to remind me of the seriousness of the task and the dangers of treating my task as a career. Other great writings of a similar nature are John Piper’s book ‘Brothers we are not professionals’ and the chapter entitled ‘The ministers self watch’ by Charles Spurgeon from his book ‘Lectures to my students’.
Here are the notes I regularly read over:
In ministry, strategy and techniques, plans and changes can all be clutching at straws. What people need are shepherds whose own hearts have been warmed by the gospel, blazing for Christ. ‘Churches are dead because preachers are dead to the person of Christ’.
The Oversight of Ourselves
1. Be diligent to keep myself in a spiritually fit and healthy condition.
Preach your sermons to yourself first. Your people will notice if you have spent much time with God and they will benefit. Brethren, watch your hearts. Keep them free from lusts and passions and worldliness. Maintain your faith, love and zeal. Spend time with God. I think a minister should be especially careful of his heart before public ministry. Read some spiritually stimulating book, or consider the great importance of your message, or think of your people’s great spiritual needs.
2. Make sure your life agrees with your teaching.
One proud word, one flash of temper, one selfish action can soon destroy all your labours. How strange that some preach so carefully yet live so carelessly. Your lives should condemn sin and inspire godliness in every way. I urge you to be generous and compassionate. Use your material resources to meet the needs of others. Buy spiritual edifying books for your people. He is no true Christian who has anything he is not ready to give away, if Christ asks for it.
3. Make sure you have what it takes to be a good minister of Jesus Christ.
We have duties that are too difficult for many to do We have to warn people about many subtle temptations so that they escape them. We have much prejudice and obstinacy to overcome. Great skill is needed to make the truth plain to everyone’s conscience! Much ability is required to answer all the devious arguments against the truth.
The Motives for Watching Over Ourselves
You can preach about Christ and yet neglect him, about the Spirit and resist him, about faith and yet remain unbelieving, about conversion and stay unconverted, about heaven while remaining worldly. If you are not careful your treacherous heart will soon find an opportunity to deceive you. You will not even see the hook or line, much less the subtle angler, while he is tempting you with his bait.
Application: Section 1 – The Need for humiliation.
1. Pride
It afflicts even the best of us. Our speech, the company we keep and even our appearance. It follows us into our studies, God wants our message to be clear and simple for everyone to understand, but pride prompts us to be witty and clever. Pride makes us aim at impressing people rather than edifying them. In this way pride gains control over our ministry. The truth may be preached, but it’s manner may do more to advance Satan’s cause than God’s.
After pride has affected our preparation it then follows us into the pulpit. It affects our preaching style and prevents us from saying anything offensive no matter how necessary. Pride makes us please our audience, seeking our own glory rather than the glory of God. Pride then follows us down from the pulpit, making us eager to know what people thought of us. If they were pleased we are overjoyed, but if they are unimpressed we are dismayed. We hardly bother to know whether anyone was converted.
True godliness cannot exist unless pride is hated, mourned over and fought against. Pride is Satan’s main characteristic. No one lives more for self and less for God than a proud man. Therefore watch yourself and in all your studies – make sure you do not forget humility.
2. We do not give the Lord’s work all the energy it requires.
Speak as though people’s lives depended on it. We must reason from the scriptures so clearly that sinners must either accept the truth or deliberately reject it.
3. The worldliness amongst us.
Our excessive involvements in the ways of this life.
Our lack of generosity and failure to use all we have for Christ.
The management of personal work:
1. It is vital people are convinced of their pastors ability and love for them. If his ability is suspect they will not value his teaching. If the sincerity of his love is questionable they will not trust him. If ministers tried harder to win people’s affection their ministry would be more effective.
