Sunday Message

17/12/06
<Matthew 6:5-13, 6:25-34>
PRAYER THAT IS NOT HITTING THE AIR, LIFE THAT IS NOT HITTING THE
AIR

• Our Lord still loves us despite the fact that we are sinners. However, He does
not love our sins
• The Lord wants us to establish a Covenant with Him. However, we may be
asking, what is there to establish?
• God’s eyes are always looking at us regardless of whether we see Him or not
• To establish a Covenant does not mean we need to do a lot of things using
our own efforts
• The success of our Lord is already in us. Thus, we need not strive to be
successful
• We are always looking for God because we fail to realise that He is actually
with us everyday. He is with us now.
• God has already prepared the path that is right for me. However, as we do
not want to walk on God prepared path, we are living in agony
• Not only do we want to walk our own ways, we often walk in the opposite
ways which God had prepared for us
• We shouldn’t look for God for everything with the intention to resolve our
problems only
• We shouldn’t be using our strength to worship the Lord. God wants us to
receive strength instead
• Do we need to use a lot of strength when we go to Church and worship God
weekly? Or do we receive strength when we meet God during the Sunday
Service?
• Worship that will give us strength means that when we worship God, we will
realise that we do not have anything and that even our lives come from Him.
Thus, we want to see Him during the worship.
• We do not worship God for the purpose of resolving our problems only
• We worship God because we love Him
• We do not worship God in the hope that we will receive better things the next
day
• We may easily end up taking the path of destruction if we refuse to follow
God’s path yet we’d received success in this world
• The definition of success should be the ability to follow God in all things
• By establishing the Covenant, it makes us certain that God has prepared
everything for us. Since we know that God has prepared everything for us, we
need not be fearful or crack our brains anymore
• A person who believes only when he receives an answer after he’d prayed, is
a religious person
• Our prayer isn’t about hitting the air. We pray in accordance to the Covenant
that God has given us
Read <Matthew 太 6:5-13, 6:25-34>
v6 We pray to see God, our Father and not to fulfill our own purpose
v7 Some people always repeat their sentences in their prayers. This is
because they do not have the assurance of being God’s children
v8 Our Father in Heaven had already know all our needs
v25-34 This is the result of correct prayers
v25 We will not be worried over anything if our prayers are correct
v30 “you of little faith” refers to those who look down on the identity as God’s
children

1. Establish the Covenant: God’s Children (truth [assurance])

• What is the result for establishing a Covenant?
• The result is that we would be very certain that we are children of God
• The truth is we already are God’s children. Thus, we should not be trying
to become one
• Do we still need to be fearful of anything since we are already God’s
children?
• After becoming children of God, we are:
1) Driven by Promise
• Our thoughts will definitely be different if our lives are really driven
by the Promise of God. Otherwise, our thoughts will be driven by our
inferiority, or past failures
• To be led by the Covenant means that we should be thinking of
everything with the perspective of God’s love.
• The Covenant God has given us is: God is with us regardless of our
condition. It means God loves us
• The Covenant also means we should not accept any thoughts that
contradict this truth
• Therefore, we should adjust our feelings and thoughts. We should
use the perspective of God’s love to view all things
• E.g. We should not be feeling inferior because we have low
education level because God can use us regardless of what our
education level may be
• God surpasses our knowledge

2) Driven by God’s purpose

• God’s purpose for us is to glorify God, benefits others, building His
Kingdom and the Four Gospelisation
• It is not a matter of whether we should follow God’s purpose or not.
We have no choice
• We can only follow the footsteps of Lot or Abraham
• We must take the footsteps of a prince since we are already princes.
A prince must know how to treat his people and interact with them.
This is not a choice.
 • No matter how weak we are, we have a burden over the lives of
people
• E.g.: No matter how weak we are, we won’t be satisfied and be joyful
when only we have received salvation and don’t bother whether our
parents or children know God or not, right?
• We have such thoughts and burden because we are already God’s
children. We are the princes of the Great King
• Since this is the case, the sooner we live our lives as God’s Children,
the less sufferings we have to bear
• The sooner we realize that we need to use God’s purpose to view
and do all things, the fewer will be our ironies
• A person who lives in accordance to the identity of God’s children
will have the most freedom and will be the most beautiful
• God’s people and kingdom is our people and kingdom. We must
accept this truth, or else we will only continue to struggle and suffer

3) Driven by Authority
• The Royal family will naturally have authority
• Do we live our daily lives with authority?
• Speaking loudly, having great physical strength or having an
attractive charisma will not enable a person to have greater
authority
• Those kinds of actions will not bring forth true authority. Of course,
it doesn’t mean we will have more authority by speaking very softly
• True authority comes from our identity of being a Prince.
• Since we know our true identity, we should be proud of all the
conditions God has given us
• Regardless of what conditions we possess, as long as we do
anything in accordance to God’s measure, we will have authority
• E.g. do we have a low education level? It can be used to comfort
others. People will be at ease when interacting with us
• E.g. some people may have received a very high level of education;
however, they may offend people with their speech because they
are boastful and proud. Such people will not have real authority
• No matter how high the position a person is in, he will not have true
authority if he lives as a hypocrite. People will only treat them well
superficially
• Do not think that we can become more beautiful just by spending
more time and money to doll up ourselves. We are the most
beautiful when our hearts are beautiful
• If not, by dressing ourselves up, we might even cause others to fall.
Sisters who are not as pretty might receive hints and hurts while
those prettier ones will always want to compare and become
competitive
• We can only make others listen to us when we have God’s perfect
will in our lives. This is true authority
 • We should just put the complete conditions, that God had placed in
us, to good use
• We will only have authority when our perspectives are changed. We
need to resolute in order to have this changed perspective. And we
need to confirm after we have resoluted. Confirm means to
communicate / converse with God

2. Converse with God

• A prayer is deemed as correct only if we are able to converse with God in
prayers. It is not a prayer of ‘hitting the air’
• We will not really converse with God unless we’d established the Covenant
with Him
• We should not base our prayers on feelings
• A person who lives his/her life basing on feelings alone will not be able to
sustain his/her life for long
• Eve talks to the snake because she has feelings for it. This is also the
weakness of many sisters. They tend to do things based on feelings alone
• Brothers tend to make insensible decision and that is their weakness
• Prayer is not about repeating our requests, fearing that God doesn’t hear it
• We should learn how to pray like Jesus Christ from the Lord’s Prayer
<Matthew 6:9-13>
v9 We should pray to God with the heart as God’s children and know that
we are driven by God’s promise
We are talking to our Father in Heaven, not the air
v10 God’s will is already fixed in Heaven. Thus, we will not have ironies in
our lives when we live our lives on Earth in accordance to His will. We
are driven by God’s purpose
What is discipline and what is crown?
There is only a fine line between discipline and crown. Everything
we’d receive not in accordance to God’s will is God’s discipline. On
the other hand, as long as we do things in accordance to God’s will,
the things we do, be it good or bad, will become our crowns
v11 We can ask God to fulfil our needs when we want to fulfil God’s will.
What are our needs? We shouldn’t be asking God for food or drinks.
We should ask God for spiritual strength, wisdom, physical strength,
financial power and manpower
We will not feel that our lives are in ironies if we ask these in order to
fulfil God’s will
On the other hand, a person who has not restored his/her identity as
God’s children and has never established a Covenant with God will
feel uncomfortable when he/she asks from God. This is because
he/she has already been accused by Satan
v12 We will receive answers when we pray to God. And we will also
acquire God’s desire for us, which is to love God and man
v13 Only by doing so, we will not be tempted but be delivered from evil.
Evil here means all our hardship
 In fact, a Believer will only face temptations or hardship. However, a
Believer who really loves God and man will not be attacked by Satan
so easily
• We know that we are victorious the moment we finish our prayers. To
be victorious means we know that God is pleased with our prayers

3. Be together with the mainstream

• We can overcome temptations and evil only when we stay together with
those who have the same identity, will of God and purpose of God
• Though we are always with the people of this world, we have very
different values and perspective from them
• Most of them are after the material things or worldly fame. No matter how
weak we are, we will not be able to accept and agree to all their views and
desires
• Therefore, a lot of Believers are very selective in the conversation topics
with their friends in order to sustain the friendship. They will try to avoid
topics that they know that they can’t have an agreement with their friends
and talk only about issues which they can agree
• Such friendships are not true friendship
• Believers who are very selective in their conversation topics will have split
personality easily
• The Bible did not teach us to be selective when meeting people or friends
beside us. In fact, Paul teaches us to ‘become all things to all man’
• What Paul teaches is like asking the sheep to be among a pack of wolves
• If that’s the case, we should be able to talk about anything when we are
with our friends. However, we must be careful not to be affected by them
or have the same desires as them. We should try to change their
perspectives if possible
• It is not easy to do the above. It is impossible for those who are not willing
to follow the mainstream (i.e. refuse to follow the pulpit message) to do it
• Take up this challenge: Be serious and restore all the four weekly
meetings. Do this for one year! Be serious in following the timing and have
the correct atmosphere
• Remember: No matter how we touch or hold on to our problems, they will
not leave

Sharing and Prayer Topic

1. God’s children already have the “promise” of ‘unable to fail’.
Therefore, is my life promise driven, purpose driven, and power
driven? ’We must establish a Covenant with God before year 2006
ends. Live the rest of our lives with the assurance as God’s Children

2. Are my prayers connected to the promise, purpose, and power? Are

my prayers the prayers made by God’s children? Refer to The Lord’s
Prayer. We must have answered prayers all the rest of our lives

3. Examine: Am I weak in my congregational living in year 2006? How

can I renew it in year 2007? Resolute: Continue to live a mainstream
centered life no matter how weak I am (i.e. centered on the
fellowship and message of the mainstream)