Mark 2:13-28
Today's sermon was given by Dr Simon Chan (I think that is his name), who is a guest speaker.The Calling of Levi
13Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
If the saved only mix with the saved, who else would know about the goodness of God? Won't we become just a very exclusive coterie and not be able to spread the word of God and continue Jesus' work? Something that I have been thinking a lot about as one of my friends have told me before to mix less with the unsaved. I disagree with quite a lot of her views actually. I won't mention them all here, but in the course of my posting as time passes, I may just write them out here. Let's call this friend K (alright her identity is obvious to those who know us).
Sure, I get her point about not seeking the counsel of the unsaved, but not mixing with them is totally out of what God would want us to do, I think.
(Perhaps those who know me personally would think I have no right to comment on this because of my status, but please understand that this is just my point of view.)
Jesus Questioned About Fasting
18Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"
19Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
21"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."
The part about the bridegroom shows us how God has designated different moments for us to do different things. In other words, there is a time for everything (reminds you of Ecclesiastes 3 doesn't it? I kept flipping to Ecclesiastes during the sermon :P I think I'm starting to like that book a lot. Shall cover my thoughts on it some time in the near future =) ) and we shouldn't obey rules for the sake of obeying at times.
The part about wineskins is about how we shouldn't simply judge people. The speaker said he has a friend who used to be extremely foul-mouthed and didn't seem like the sort who would ever be saved and go to Heaven, but many years later, he called up the speaker to ask for help and encouragement to maintain his faith in the midst of opposition from his family to his faith during his father's funeral. He had become a Christian during the period of time he had not met his friend! Moral of the story: Don't ever think that some people will never be saved and start judging them from there and depriving them of God's love. Of course, it doesn't mean that you show God's love so as to "recruit people into the religion" as in the crude words my aunt put this idea in when I met up with her last year for lunch. (she had wanted to treat me to congratulate me for having completed my junior college education and getting reasonably good results as she had promised to do so when she had encouraged me to go to JC)
I think that showing God's love to people is something that comes naturally as long as you are filled with His love. It's not something that is forced. If you love someone, won't you want him/her to know God and His goodness and go to Heaven? Yeah that's what I mean. Again another point that is in a way related to how we shouldn't purposely limit ourselves to only befriending the saved. Anyway, I make it sound like I'm very great, but I have to confess that I'm very afraid of evangelising because I'm afraid to offend my unsaved friends. I know how it's like to not want to believe in something and when someone keeps telling you about that something, you would somehow get irritated and not want to talk to that person as much anymore. So all I do now, I guess, is to show God's love and always be there for my friends as much as possible and hope for a miracle :P
Lord of the Sabbath
23One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
25He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."
27Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
As the speaker had said, Jesus was not being a radical or whatever, but He was just showing that it is silly to obey old traditions so blindly that you end up being a slave to them. Do you know that it was defined somewhere that on the Sabbath, you are not allowed to thread a needle, ignite a fire or put out a fire (like, for instance if your house were on fire, you are not even allowed to put it out or you would be considered as having broken the law of the Sabbath!)? We ought to do what is right in God's eyes and not be enslaved by traditions.
There! I finally finished posting what I wanted to say. I think there is more that I had thought about in church today, but at this very moment, I don't remember them. :P I was ruminating on all this so much and was so excited about starting this blog that I missed parts of the sermon here and there. Bleah.
Anyway, praise God that I finally managed to get my lazy self to start on this. I pray that I would continue to have the passion to keep this going =)
posted by andriTz* @ 1:02 AM
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