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Harvest Is plentiful But Workers Are Few

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng spoke about the important moment in time now to evangelize and bring in many souls. The 3-fold ministry of Jesus which was teaching, preaching, and healing and this is a ministry we must all emulate. The Lord called his 12 disciples to follow in this ministry, so we must be those disciples. Disciples are the ones who bring others to the Lord.

In sending out his disciples, he gave a long teaching to them. He told them to go to the lost sheep of Israel, continuing on the history of God. He told them to preach about God’s Kingdom as we must do as well. He also told them to live relying on God, which speaks to us to not live money-centered. The work of evangelism is blessing others, we are giving the gift of eternal life. If some don’t accept that gift, the Lord comforted us saying that the peace and blessing returns back to us.

The Lord further comforted us by explaining how many will persecute and go against God’s work. However, all sin and evil will be revealed and judged. There is a final judgment that the Lord spoke to us about. Those who have faith in Jesus Christ, can take comfort in God’s sovereignty which protects and cares for all. Therefore, even though many may oppose us, even our families, we should continue forth to gain rewards in heaven. The greatest rewards are for those who evangelize and save lost souls.

May the members of Gratia Church be the ones to bring in many lost souls of the harvest to faith in Jesus Christ and the glory of God’s Kingdom.

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Esther 2-8 Esther and Mordecai

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng shared the story of Esther and Mordecai, how by God’s grace, Esther became queen to the powerful King of Persia. However, one of the King’s wicked advisors plotted against the Jewish people, because of his hatred towards Mordecai, who was Esther’s cousin. Esther was asked to plead to the King, but she was afraid that approaching the King without permission could be death. However, Mordecai encouraged her saying that perhaps she was placed in the royal position as Queen for such a time as this. It is a message that speaks to us, whom God has prepared by His providence in the time, place, and position I am now.

Esther answered with faith, listening to Mordecai, and heeding to God’s Will. Her famous words were “If I perish, I perish”. Her fear turned into faith and trust in God. She now understood that her life was only meaningful in God’s Will. What kind of fears to we have living in this world? Perhaps we try to “play it safe” and not risk ourselves. Apostle Paul said to live is Christ and to die is gain. It speaks to how our life is meaningless in the world and meaningful only is the bigger context of God’s Will. If we perish, we perish, but we still believe in God’s great power to bring resurrection.

Afterwards, Esther appeared before the King and by God’s grace was accepted. Then through a series of events, Haman was executed. Later, Mordecai and the Jewish people were lifted up. This is how God works so mysteriously in the background. When everything seemed to be going against the Jews, and even genocide was imminent, God worked to turn the situation around. This is God’s faithfulness towards the ones who live righteously by faith. As Christians, we also do not fear death and have faith in God who has the power of resurrection.

May we be guided by the Holy Spirit in our lives, believing in the power of the resurrection, and live for God’s glory and Kingdom.

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Jesus Walks on Water – What Faith Can Do?

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng spoke the wind and the waves that may rock our lives. It makes us realize we are not in control and the unknown feeling puts us in fear and anxiety. However, faith is understanding that God is sovereign and in control of this world and He does not leave us alone. The disciples thought Jesus was a ghost, but he actually came by walking on water. In the same way, God doesn’t just come to us mystically, but He helps us practically and tangibly in our lives.

Peter also does something amazing by walking on water as well. It shows that he has love and courage and was willing to change his thinking. Peter would not have been able to walk on water if he didn’t get out of the boat in the first place. It’s the same with us, in order to have the miracle of walking on water, we need to get out of the boat that we are stuck in. This is about changing our hearts and relying on God is in control and helps us walk on water.

What started off as love and courage, however, ended up with doubt in Peter and he fell when he saw the winds. Doubt is being double-minded, while faith is being single-minded and having simple obedience to the Lord. At no time does the Lord shake, he is in complete control even amidst the wind and the waves. We must have faith in order to go straight and continue on absolutely.

That being said, Peter’s story doesn’t end badly, because he did have faith in the salvation of the Lord. He said, “Lord, save me” and Jesus did reach out his hand and save Peter. Faith in salvation is the basic Christian faith. Without faith in salvation, who would ever go beyond their boundaries? However, Peter got out of the boat, he walked on water, fell in doubt, but was saved by the Lord in faith. This kind of dynamic life is one that we must live as well for the Kingdom, trusting in God who saves us.

We are all limited, but may we all be the ones who walk on water like the Lord, and follow him in faith.

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The Parable of the Ten Minas

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng explained how the minas represents time. While it may seem that God gives us each different amounts of time in our life, this is not a quantitative measure of time, but a qualitative measure of time. In God’s eternity and love, He gives us all our own individual time and treats us in this time in the same way.

This treatment of time is that God gives us a responsibility, a purpose to use that time. Although God is almighty in His providence and sovereignty, taking responsibility for all things in our lives and for the Kingdom, we still have a responsibility in our time. It is to receive God’s purpose in our life joyfully with love because He is the loving God.

The final servant regarded God in a “hard” way, pessimistic, cynical, and lawful. The logical conclusion to this heart is due judgment. Rather, may we receive the time and responsibility we’ve been given by God joyfully. God will allow us to bear fruits and allow our lives glory.

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The Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng spoke about the prayer of the Pharisee which tried to use outward actions to gain righteousness before God. However, we cannot gain peace by our own actions compared to others. It may temporarily ease us to compare ourselves to others, but even the richest and most powerful people have anxiety and lack of peace. This is because our peace only comes from God.

The prayer of tax collector had radical sincerity in it. We can compare this prayer to the calling of Matthew, the tax collector, who Jesus reached out to with radical love. A sincere person will pray to God with a sincere posture like the tax collector did. Jesus himself prayed in this way, with struggling sincerity at Gethsemane.

Whether it is the prayer of the Pharisee or tax collector, we find that we are all completely limited. Even in the heart of trying to be humble, we can be prideful at the same time. Therefore, it’s not as if we can resolve self-righteousness and pride on our own. We need the grace of God from above and that is accepting the love of Jesus on the cross.

May we have the faith in God’s love that is completely beyond us and be sincere in our relationship with Him.

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He Was Transfigured Before Them

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng spoke about the meaning of the scene of Jesus being transfigured before the disciples. The context of the scene is Peter’s confession of Christ. This confession of Jesus Christ is something all believers go through and forms the basis for our faith. It changes our eternal destiny and gives us the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

After Peter’s confession of Christ, the Lord took him up to a mountain where he was transfigured before the disciples. In this event, he was next to Moses and Elijah and Peter was seemingly happy and comfortable with this. He even offered to build a shelter for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. However, after the voice of God came down, Peter realized that Jesus was on a higher level than the other two and fell down trembling in holy fear.

In the same way, we can become comfortable with our faith in Jesus Christ after we confess he is our Lord and savior. However, the event of transfiguration needs to happen in our faith. We shouldn’t be satisfied with our faith and our faith needs to take the next step and we must open our eyes even more to the Lord. His Word must burn in our hearts and we to know his calling for all of us, including the dream of the Kingdom of God.

We may be small like a mustard seed now, but the love of Jesus has the power to transform us. Also, Gratia Church may be small right now, but we must live truly like the early church and God has the power to change transform us into a beautiful church in His glory.

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Run In Such A Way

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng spoke about running the race in this year and in our lives. People of this world run the race enslaved in the sinful structures of the world. However, the people of Jesus Christ have been set free. However, although Paul proclaims his freedom in Jesus Christ, he says he makes himself a servant to everyone. We also are free, yet we serve others in order to evangelize them and save them for Jesus Christ.

As we run the race, we should know the end goal of this race of life, this race in this year. The end goal is the eternal crown we receive. The temporary crown of this world fades away, but treasures in heaven will remain. Therefore, we should run knowing the eternal crown and live bearing fruits for God’s glory and Kingdom.

In this way, we won’t live our lives aimlessly. Depending on your goal, you will run the race differently. If we know the goal of God’s Kingdom, then we will self-discipline ourselves and for the freedom of God’s Kingdom. This is the greatest fruit that we should run for. Let us have self-discipline this year, not because we are forced, but because we are free, yet it’s to serve everyone and to serve God’s Kingdom.
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The Parable of the Rich Fool

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng introduced the scene in which Jesus gave this parable, in that a person with greed in his heart was attempting to get Jesus to help him. However, our faith shouldn’t be so shallow, as if faith is just trying to get things from God. This is conditional faith in which we only do good things to get good things. A deep faith is simply loving, trusting, and being with God in a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

However, the hubris of mankind is that we seek to desire control in our lives, particularly with this acquiring of money and things. Money and wealth end up being a gateway to storing up so much sin in our hearts and being controlled by that. We may try to sugarcoat our heart with faithful words saying we will give to God if we’re able to gain a huge wealth, but God sees the depths of our heart and we are too limited and weak to control our greed. That is why Jesus gave us the wisdom to pray for daily bread instead.

The truth is, our life can end at any moment, just like this rich fool. Therefore, we must not store up wrath and sin in our hearts, but rather store up fruits of love and treasures in heaven. Hell is a small place of pride where we lock ourselves in with the sin and wrath we stored in ourselves. Rather, if we open our hearts to Jesus, God pours down amazing blessing upon us that we store in our hearts and we can take to heaven.

When we have faith that Jesus Christ has given us eternal life, then we also can have the common sense wisdom to live for eternity.
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I Press On Toward the Goal

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng spoke about the pain of the Apostle, being in jail, and possibly facing death. Though he longs to be with our Father in heaven, he feels that there is ministry work left to be done. This is the pain that we may have felt last year in 2021, that we didn’t accomplish everything we should have. Yet, we see in the Apostle, that he forgets what is behind and goes powerfully ahead because God is the one who overturns everything.

The Apostle has a challenge mindset in him, which is the same challenge mindset that we need also. God is pushing this Kingdom forward here on earth and we should be a part of that. The grace of God is that He lifts us all up at once, changing things so that they are greater and faster this year than any year before.

The more mature in faith we get, we realize that we haven’t obtained all of this, but God has more in store for us. We should focus on the Word of God more. At the beginning of the year, we should focus on preparing our nets, waiting to catch many people that God has waiting for us. Let us prepare well to do Bible Studies and evangelize a lot of people.

With Paul’s challenge mindset, let us have an active faith to push on towards the goal of Jesus Christ and God’s Kingdom in 2022.
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David – What Is Our Goliath

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In the sermon, Pastor Tzeng spoke about the faith of David and asked the question, “What is our Goliath?” Goliath was a Philistine champion, over 9 feet tall, strong, with heavy armor, and representing the greatest of human strength. In our life, there are imposing things of the world we must overcome whether it be the obstacle of sin or even victory for God’s Kingdom. Goliaths speak to our fears and insecurities in the world. The Israelite army faced Goliath with fear, but David only had the holy fear of the Lord and faced Goliath with faith in God.

Like the rest of the world, Goliath puffs himself up with a fake form on the outside, but has nothing true and eternal on the inside. David has the form of a weak shepherd boy, but he has a big heart of love for God on the inside. What image do we have? Rather than the fake outside form of the world, we should go with the image of God. Saul wanted to fit David in his armor, but it didn’t fit him. Instead, David went with what God has given him – a staff and 5 smooth stones from the river.

Finally, very famously, David strikes Goliath on the forehead with a stone and defeats him. This is the method of faith. He doesn’t use the tools of the world, but went with what God gave him. The staff is the Word of God that God has given us. He’s also given us all the tools we need. We should find the 5 smooth stones around us that we can use to gain victory. God has already given us everything we need to defeat Goliath. The victory is with the Lord. God is the one who overturned the cross of Jesus into the resurrection.

May we walk with the glory of resurrection and victory that God has given us as well.

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