CMCA Methodist News 241 (Eng)

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SHARING E12 SOCIAL HOLINESS James Lau Sherwood MC In this modern age, we see social problems everywhere, regardless of where we live. Christians today have a responsibility to spread social holiness throughout the land we are living in. Social holiness has been proven to be the most effective means of reducing social ills. If we look at Jesus’s earthly ministry, he preached, taught the truth, healed the sick and delivered those in bondage from evil. Our Lord has set such a good example for us to follow. We as followers of Christ ought to emulate what Jesus did while he was on Earth. Even the founder of Methodism John Wesley emphasised the act of spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land. Scriptural holiness includes personal holiness and social holiness, which is in line with Jesus’s teaching on Earth. Wesley once claimed that there was no holiness except social holiness. Only by living out personal holiness and social holiness through faith and behaviour can the world experience God's love for his Christians and accept Jesus as its personal saviour. Early American missionaries came to Sarawak, Malaysia. They built churches, schools, clinics, orphanages and hospitals, and helped poor families. People’s lives started to change and they saw and felt God’s love in a personal way. They believed in God and spread this good news to their neighbours, relatives and friends. More people came to know Christ, and the churches started to grow and multiply. These early American missionaries cared for the underprivileged and marginalised. They truly followed the Wesleyan spirit in the fight against social injustice, poverty and social ills. They collected money, food, clothes and medicine for the poor. They were willing to sacrifice their own comfort and bring these essential things to the needy in the very rural areas of Sarawak. These early missionaries focused on practical love for the poor and the needy. As a result, many lives were touched and many souls were saved for the glory of God’s kingdom. John Wesley tried to understand the causes of poverty, encouraged hard work, and challenged the rich to help the poor and to find ways to eliminate poverty. Even in the affluent society that we live in today, we are surrounded by many social problems and ills; drug addiction, alcoholism, broken families, gambling and robbery are all on the rise. Today’s Christians have a heavier responsibility to spread social holiness throughout our entire land. The police, military and government have tried their best to minimise social problems, but with limited success. Through our Board of Christian Social Concerns, we have tried to spread social holiness in this land. There are five issues that I want to discuss here. As we consider them, we must bear in mind that we are not to isolate ourselves from society; we are here to connect to society and to make a lasting impact on our community for God’s Glory. a) Alcoholism & Smoking: Due to our fallen nature, we human beings are easily influenced, and we pick up bad habits in school or at our workplace. Once a person becomes addicted to such a habit, he cannot by his own power or might get out of it. All these bad habits will further lead to social violence and broken families. Individuals and families are destroyed by its use. The church must become a healing and redemptive fellowship for those who suffer from these habits. We Christians need to share the Gospel to these people and help them to accept our risen Lord as their Saviour. Only our resurrected Lord can deliver them from such bondage. b) Drug abuse: Drug trafficking and abuse seems to be the biggest social menace in the present age. “Once in, always in” seems to describe it best, since once a person gets into drugs, it is very difficult to get out of it. A parent’s tears, medicine, the police, military power, political power, economic power… none of these can do anything to help a drug addict return to a normal life. It is only the risen power of our Lord Jesus and the Bible that can help a drug addict regain a normal life. Breakthrough Missions in Singapore is a good witness to this truth. They have turned many drug addicts back onto the right path. Many of them get married and some even go into full-time ministry and give wonderful testimonies on how Jesus changed their painful lives into meaningful and free ones. Once they were under bondage, but now they have been set free by the risen power of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even the government of Singapore has praised the organisation for their achievements because it had already given up on them. Breakthrough Missions succeeded in restoring them to normal lives. Indeed, we have to give glory to God for his marvellous power. c) Gambling and the lottery: We need to be proactively concerned about the increase in the inclination to gamble in our community. We know that a person’s hard-earned money can be easily and quickly lost through gambling and the lottery. This in turn will create family problems, and might extend into stealing and robbery. We Christians need to spend time with these people and share the Gospel with them so that they can be set free from this bad habit. As an act of faith and love, Christians should abstain from all gambling, and should participate in efforts to minister to those victimized by this practice. d) Crime and rehabilitation: Prison ministry is one of the most
challenging and difficult ministries for churches to engage with. Churches should organise more prison visitations as this is the best time to bring our Gospel to prisoners. Once a person is locked away in a cell, he doesn’t have freedom anymore. If we share the Gospel to them, they will have the time and hopefully a humble heart to listen to the Gospel or testimony. Many times, God will use our sharing and the power of the Gospel to touch and save a prisoner’s soul. e) Sacred sex and marriage: Social holiness begins with the church itself and we should extend it to our community. In this era where a lot of western countries are legalizing homosexuality, our Christian society should stand up and voice our stand on this issue and influence our nation to preserve the teaching of the Bible in this land and God’s intention for creating men and women, which is to populate the Earth so that the human race might have stewardship over the world. To conclude, social ills have been prevalent since the beginning of civilisation, and a lot of efforts and resources have gone into trying to prevent or reduce social problems. Government efforts, community participation and individual efforts to eliminate social ills have been met with limited success. Christians and churches should step in to spread social holiness across the land, as social holiness has proven to be an effective means of turning people back to normal lives like Breakthrough Missions in Singapore. Social holiness not only reduces social unrest, it can also win more converts for the church. It benefits both the church and the community at large. SHARING E13 YOUTH WITH PURPOSE JEREMIAH 1:4-12 Rev Meng Tee Gan (Retired) Camberwell MC When the Bible was written, the beginning of “youth” was when people could join the army, which was at the age of twenty (Numbers 1:3). The upper limit of youth, according to some old Hebrew and Greek writings, seemed to have been the age of forty. Too many youths live without purpose It is sad to see so many young people in our society nowadays who live without purpose. Many youths don’t want to work and prefer to depend on the government for welfare. They smoke and drink and take drugs. They want the pleasures of the body and the excitement of sexual relationships, but they don’t want to take responsibility for them. They are rude and crude to each other, and they are even ready to use violence against those they don’t like. These youths don’t care much about tomorrow because they have no purpose in life. All they want today is to have pleasurable and exciting experiences. What do you want? “Pleasure and excitement!” When do you want it? “Now!” This is the tragic scenario among too many youths today. Dear youth, heed the wisdom of the wise. God has given you his Word, as it is said in Psalm 119:9, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to thy Word.” God wants you to keep your way pure for his purpose. Do not be seduced by the world which tells you that youths should be free to make their own mistakes. Too many never learn precisely because they mistakenly assume that they are free to err. Of course, we do make mistakes because of our fallen nature, and we must be humble to admit that we are not perfect. Therefore, during Holy Communion, we confess that “we are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us.” But for those who have no purpose in life, these misdoings have no significance beyond spoiling their pleasures of today. And so they continue to commit errors in life without much regret or sorrow, for they say, “I am just a youth.” But what does the Word of God say? In Jeremiah 1:7, our Lord admonishes us, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth.’” Life is not meant to be purposeless. Youth is not a good excuse to continue living in error, for God wants us all to live with purpose. God wants you to live with purpose A life of purpose is a life in which we know what we are living for, a life which makes us feel good living it because we know it is worthwhile in the eyes of God. Let us think about how we can be “Youth with Purpose.” Let us begin our meditation with the call of the prophet Jeremiah. 1. It is God who gives you purpose for your life The Lord came to Jeremiah and said, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5).
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CMCA Methodist News 241 (Eng)

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