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[0:00] We're going to pray together now. This is out of Galatians 5. It's going to be responsive prayer together. Merciful God, we think of the freedom that Paul speaks about, and too often we accept it as the freedom to do what we like, rather than being obedient to you and serious about reflecting your character into this world.

[0:23] So we confess this morning with shame that whenever we've taken and devoured one another, such things as discord and factions exist, even within our faith communities together.

[0:36] Forgive us when we use our freedom to be self-indulgent instead of serving one another in love. We confess that we fail miserably when we try on our own to live lives shaped by love, joy, and peace.

[0:51] Patience, kindness, and goodness. Faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So forgive us when we fail to be led and guided by your Holy Spirit, who enables our lives to produce such fruit.

[1:06] Fruit which enrich and enhance our lives, and through us, the lives of others. So merciful God, we confess also our failure to seek the empowerment of your Holy Spirit.

[1:18] When we are confronted daily with the challenges of following Jesus, when we look at the cost which Jesus sets on his discipleship, we confess that so often we fail to meet that cost.

[1:30] So forgive us when we fail to take Jesus' demands on our lives seriously enough, forgetting that our love for us, he has already walked the hard road, the way of the cross.

[1:43] Let's pray together. Gracious and loving God, in and through Jesus Christ, you have given us the freedom and the power to live by your Spirit and to be guided by your Spirit.

[2:00] May our acceptance of these gifts be visible as we bear profusely the fruit of the Spirit and as we faithfully follow Jesus on the challenging road of discipleship.

[2:11] This we pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Everybody, amen. Today's scripture reading is found in Galatians chapter 5, verse 1 and verses 13 through 25.

[2:26] Please follow along in your bulletin. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

[2:39] You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command.

[2:54] Love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

[3:10] For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want.

[3:21] But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery. Idolatry and witchcraft.

[3:33] Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage. Selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy. Drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

[3:44] I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

[4:05] Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

[4:19] This is the reading of God's Word. Please be seated. Today is Pentecost. This is the day we celebrate and commemorate when God poured out His Holy Spirit on the church.

[4:35] This is the church's birthday. Happy birthday, church. And I'd like you to turn to your neighbor, at least to two others, and say, happy birthday, church. Happy birthday.

[4:47] Happy birthday. And how old are we? Give or take a year or two, 1,980. I'm sorry that Walter Mark is unable to produce a cake that size with 1,980 candles, but we have said happy birthday, church.

[5:06] Now most of you know that we've been going through Paul's letter to the Christians in Galatia. And today we're going to explore together chapter 5. And appropriately, our theme for today is life in the Holy Spirit.

[5:21] Life in the Holy Spirit. Now here in this remarkable letter, the Apostle Paul speaks of the Christian life in three ways. First, it is the life of faith.

[5:34] In chapter 2, verse 20, as the Apostle Paul reflects and muses on his own life, he declares, I have been crucified with Christ.

[5:44] I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.

[5:56] I live by faith. So the Christian life is a life of faith. And then Paul, secondly, speaks of the Christian life as a life of freedom.

[6:07] So when you turn to the sheet you have of our scripture reading, Paul begins by saying, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

[6:23] Verse 13, you, my brothers, were called to be free. So it's a life of freedom. We no longer live under the constraint and shackles of the Old Testament law with all its do's and don'ts.

[6:37] We are free people. We have been delivered by the Lord Jesus Christ and our life is to be expressed by freedom. Then thirdly, it is life in the Spirit.

[6:49] And we'll zoom in and focus on that thought and theme for this morning. Life of faith, a life of freedom, the life of the Spirit.

[7:00] All these are like three strands in a row. They're all intertwined. You can't separate them. But today, we're going to explore together life in the Spirit. Now, let me comment a bit on freedom.

[7:14] During these past Sundays, we've been looking at how the Apostle Paul warned the Christians in Galatia not to be hoodwinked but the Judaizers. They were saying, yes, trust in Jesus, accept the gospel, plus add on the works of the law.

[7:32] Then your salvation can be guaranteed. But the Apostle Paul is saying, no, we have been delivered from the law. And he says in verse 1, do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.

[7:47] This is surprising. If Jesus came to set us free from sin, we accept. Our theology resonates with that. But some of us still find it very difficult to understand how we are freed from the law.

[8:02] Isn't the law of Moses God's law? Did he not receive it on Mount Sinai? Was it not mediated by angels? How can we be freed from this law?

[8:14] Now, you must understand that law was given in order to guide Israel to be the covenant people of God. And law included the ritualistic law, the civil law, and also the moral, ethical law.

[8:30] And in Galatians, Paul says in chapter 3, verse 23, the law imprisoned us. We were kept in jail by the law. And then he also says the law is like a very strict schoolmaster or disciplinarian by the Gogos.

[8:47] And that is a household steward who would be in charge of the education and tuition of young children. You can almost have the image of a teacher with a cane in his hand.

[9:00] You write something wrong, say something wrong, whack. And the law was like that. And yet, why is it that we don't want to run away from the law if it's so depicted that way?

[9:12] By the way, do you have a favorite fruit? What is your favorite fruit? Some of you might be oranges, apples, for those of us who come from Singapore or Malaysia, durians.

[9:26] And there are kinds of things like strawberries and so on. But if you were to ask a Jewish rabbi, what is your favorite fruit? Do you know what his answer is? He would say a pomegranate.

[9:39] Why? Because in Israel, the pomegranate has 613 seeds. 613 seeds. And that is the number of regulations in the Jewish law.

[9:53] 365 prohibitions, the don'ts, and 248 commands, the do. Don't do this, don't do that, do this, do this, and then you will live.

[10:06] Now the Jews, sadly, they thought that if they kept, observed the law of Moses, then they would earn their brownie points from God. They would be loved, accepted by God.

[10:16] So they worked their way, did all they could. And Paul says, that's not the way to get right with God. It's not the way of justification. We are all justified in Jesus Christ alone.

[10:29] But then someone might say, all right, Christ has set us free from the law. Does it mean because I'm now under grace, I can do what I like?

[10:43] And of course, some of us remember the freedom days of the early 70s, the hippies in California, when there was free love, free sex, everything free, and you can do what you like, and licentiousness crept in.

[10:55] Remember those days? But freedom is not like that. Freedom is towards a responsibility because in our text, we are told in verse 13, brothers, you were called to be free, but, here's a strong conjunction, but, do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful nature, the flesh.

[11:17] Rather, serve one another in love. The new law, the entire law, is summed up in a single command, love your neighbor as yourself. And so here, we are told very clearly that freedom is to a responsibility, to love the Lord our God, and also to love our neighbors as ourselves.

[11:38] So freedom is to responsibility, not to anarchy. Now, someone might ask, what's the difference between a Christian who is set free, who has the Holy Spirit, and one who's not very aware that the Holy Spirit recites him, leads him, and empowers him.

[11:56] Now, some of you have been to China, and you've seen on the busy roads of Shanghai, or Beijing, or Chengdu, bicycles. And these are motorized bicycles.

[12:07] They are powered. There's an engine there. Now, suppose you were to ride one of these bicycles, and then rev up the engine, and you find that you'll be able to ride speedily, and you would rejoice in the new freedom, the new power that your bike has.

[12:24] At the same time, if you say to yourself, I can do what I like because I've got this powerful engine, does it mean you can neglect, break the traffic law, ride to red lights?

[12:38] Or, you say, now that I've got this power, I can just bang my bike against a wall, a stone wall, and everything be okay? Of course not.

[12:49] It's just like when your child grows up, those of you who have children, you say, look, you must learn to love your brother. And then the son says, yeah, I love my brother, I love my brother. And the next moment, you find that he bites his younger brother.

[13:02] I love. There's no law now, I can do what I like because I love. That's not true because we still obey some of the ethical guidelines of the law of God.

[13:15] So here, we must remember freedom is to serve, to love God. Freedom is to be able to love and serve our neighbours. But now let's look at life in the Spirit.

[13:27] Life in the Spirit is a normal Christian life. It's not for just a few elite believers, it's for all who name Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

[13:39] We began life with the Holy Spirit. We are born again of the Holy Spirit. He regenerates us, He gives us new life. He brought us and applied the wonderful benefits of the cross to us so that we can be called God's people and He's the one who sets us free and life begins with Him.

[14:00] And that's why in chapter 3 of Galatians, Paul rebuked them. He says, how did you start your Christian life? Galatians 3.3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

[14:18] We begin with the Holy Spirit and we continue with the Holy Spirit. That is life in the Spirit. And let's look at this life.

[14:30] And if you look at your passage, the first thing is that we are to be led by the Holy Spirit. Glance at verse 18. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

[14:45] Now in the Old Testament, and for most of these Jewish believers and especially the Judaizing teachers, the law was the guide, the leader to life.

[14:56] Because the word Torah means direction. But then, Paul says, no, that's all changed. In the New Covenant, when Christ came, when the Holy Spirit was poured out, our new leader is the Holy Spirit.

[15:12] Step aside law. You've done your shift. Now, it's the Holy Spirit who is going to lead us and to guide us. We are to be led by the Holy Spirit.

[15:25] The Holy Spirit displaces the law. He is our new leader. Now it's very interesting that today, Pentecost, we call it, the Jews call it Shavuot, which means the Feast of Weeks.

[15:38] It's also a time when they commemorate the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. So, their Pentecost, Shavuot, commemorates the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.

[15:49] And yet, in God's dispensation, on this very day, God is saying, there's a new leader that I'm entrusting for you, church, and that is the Holy Spirit Himself.

[16:01] And that's why, both individually and corporately as a church, we are to be led by the Holy Spirit. Now, if we are led by the Holy Spirit, what would happen?

[16:13] In Romans 8, verse 14, we are told that as many as are led, same phrase, by the Spirit, we are the children, the sons and daughters of God.

[16:25] And in Ephesians 4, verse 4, we are told, God sent His Son at the right time into the world to rescue us, to deliver us, and then God also sent His Spirit into our hearts, a double sending, the sending of the Son, the sending of the Spirit.

[16:42] And what's the sending of the Spirit for? That we can call God Abba, Father. That we can appreciate and embrace our identity as children of the living God.

[16:55] And so the Holy Spirit does that. when we are led by the Spirit, we can say to God, now, I don't have to fear you as the judge, as that heavenly policeman who's trying to see whether I break the law and then whack, you penalize me.

[17:09] No, you are now Abba, Papa, Daddy. And I enjoy an intimate relationship with you. But who makes that identity real? Who reminds us of that precious relationship?

[17:22] The Holy Spirit. So if we are led by the Holy Spirit, we have an entirely new perspective of God who now becomes not the fearful judge, but our loving, intimate, heavenly Father.

[17:37] And we call Him Abba. So the Holy Spirit leads us into mercy. And then the Holy Spirit also leads us into holiness. And this is very important.

[17:49] One of my favorite passages is 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17, 18 onwards. And Paul was saying, and we, we believers, we will unveil faces as we behold the glory of God.

[18:03] We are changed from one degree of glory to another. He's saying that when we look into the face of Jesus, as we sing the song, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, look full in His Wonderful Face, when that happens, what will take place?

[18:21] We'll become more and more like Him. Now this week, I happened to glance at an article called Mirror Neuron. And this tells us that in the front of our head, all of us have this particular neuron, biological phenomenon, which helps us to empathize with other people.

[18:42] And in the case of married couples, if they have a happy marriage because they spend time together, they look at each other's face, what happens? They become more and more like each other. Now don't look at me and my wife, don't look at Tobin and Christina, but this is quite true because you become like the object that you spend time with.

[19:02] So when we look at Jesus, we become more like the Lord Jesus. We become Christ-like and this is what the Apostle Paul tells us. If we are led by the Spirit, we become more and more like Him.

[19:16] Now one day, there was a man who was praying this prayer, Lord Jesus, I want to become more like You. Holy Spirit, I want to produce Your fruit, the fruit of love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, and so on.

[19:30] Will You help me do that? He was praying this prayer. And then, on Monday morning, he was rushing off to work. And as he rushed to work, just as he was about to ascend the steps to catch his MTR, what happened?

[19:45] He knocked over a fruit store and all the fruits went tumbling down. What was he to do? Because he had been praying that day that he would be more like Jesus, that he would have the fruit of the Spirit and he was already quite late for work.

[20:00] So as he was about to run up the steps, he suddenly stopped and went down again and began to help the vendor who incidentally was blind. The blind vendor.

[20:11] He began to pick up the fruits and place them back in their right positions. And after everything was done, this blind fruit seller got hold of his hands and asked this question, are you Jesus?

[20:28] Are you Jesus? So what happens is that when the Holy Spirit leads us, in our character there's a tremendous change. We become more and more like Jesus.

[20:42] The problem is that individually and also as a church, so often we want to control our own lives, we want to set our agenda, we want to control the Spirit rather than the other way around because we should be led, controlled, guided by the Holy Spirit himself, led by the Spirit.

[21:02] This is the mark of a life in the Spirit. And secondly, we are to walk or live by the Spirit. Verse 16, so I say, and this here is Paul's rallying cry, so I say, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

[21:21] Or in some translations, walk in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not only the guide, He's also the pathway. Walk in the road, the path of the Holy Spirit, the way He opens up to you.

[21:37] Now we know that one of the New Testament descriptions of the Holy Spirit is He's the paraclete, Greek parakletos, which means one who is called to stand alongside.

[21:49] In legal terms, your advocate, your defense counsel or attorney, He's called to stand alongside you, to defend you, and to walk with you. And here, Paul says that we are to live by the Holy Spirit, to walk by the Holy Spirit.

[22:08] In other words, every day, the Holy Spirit is to guide and lead us. Then the amazing thing is this, as we walk with the Holy Spirit, as the parakletos walks alongside us, does it mean we're going to have a leisurely, gentle stroll?

[22:25] Everything will be well? We'll be on cloud nine, we'll have blue skies, and no problems at all? Not at all. Because when we walk with the Holy Spirit, something happens.

[22:38] We begin to be aware of a fierce internal conflict in our lives. Because if you look at the text again in verse 13, do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather serve one another.

[22:56] And then, here we are told that verse 17, the sinful nature or the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature or to the flesh.

[23:10] Now, the flesh is not the meat that clothes your bony skeleton. It talks about our sinful nature with its propensity to sin, to do evil. And here, we are told that the Spirit and the flesh or our sinful nature are in conflict with one another.

[23:29] And that's why Paul says to us that we must allow Him to lead us, to guide us. So he says, live by the Spirit.

[23:40] or walk by the Holy Spirit. So here, our Christian life is set, as it were, in the tension of a conflict. And in order to know more and more about life in the Spirit, we have to be guided and led by Him.

[23:56] Because those who are led by the Spirit know that we are the children of God. we want God to run our lives completely.

[24:07] So we are to live by the Spirit. This is His rallying call. But once we try to live by the Holy Spirit, we begin to sense that in us there are two natures.

[24:18] A lower nature called the flesh or sin, our sinful nature. And the other one is our new nature, which has been saved, recreated in Christ Jesus.

[24:32] And there is an ongoing tension. And Paul says to us, we are to be led by the Holy Spirit. We are not to be dragged down by this sinful nature.

[24:44] We are to allow the Holy Spirit of God to lift us up. And that is what the Apostle Paul is saying to us. Live by the Holy Spirit and also to keep in step with the Holy Spirit.

[24:59] So here is Paul's rallying cry. We will experience all kinds of eternal conflict, but we are to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, especially when we fight this civil war between our flesh and the Holy Spirit.

[25:16] And this raging conflict can only be settled if we allow the Holy Spirit to take over, to govern our lives and our decisions.

[25:27] Christians. So, here we are told by the Apostle Paul very clearly that we are to live and walk by the Holy Spirit.

[25:41] It's Paul's rallying cry. Because you see, it's the Holy Spirit himself who leads us to tell us that we are the children of God.

[25:53] It's the Holy Spirit who reminds us that we are his sons. He's the one who leads us into intimacy with God himself. And he's the one who makes us more and more like Jesus Christ himself.

[26:09] This is life in the Spirit. So, my dear brothers and sisters, as we live our lives together, we have to ask ourselves who is guiding, who is leading us.

[26:23] Can I ask you to pray for a moment because I sense a bit of confusion. Let me be very honest. As a preacher, something is happening because in the heavenlies and the Holy Spirit wants to speak to us but also the spirits that are not for us are so against us.

[26:39] Can I ask you to pray for a moment? Pray with me, please. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[26:56] Lord, we thank you so much that you are here. Will you come now and work in our lives that we can follow you, love you, and trust in you?

[27:08] And Father, I do not know what's happening right now but I just ask you to come and pour your Spirit in us that we may live lives really pleasing to you.

[27:21] And Holy Spirit, come and take over so that the life we live may be a life that's really pleasing in your eyes. In Jesus' name.

[27:33] Amen. So we are talking about living.

[27:44] Can you just pray for me for a moment because I just sense, as it were, a kind of strong spiritual attack from the powers of darkness. And this is a very real ongoing battle.

[27:56] So can we just pray? Lord, as we come into your presence today, we thank you so much that you are here.

[28:15] Will you lead us? Will you strengthen us that we may be able to understand your word to love you? And I don't understand why there is this very big spiritual attack going on.

[28:26] But I just pray that we may learn to know the power of your Holy Spirit and in Jesus' name we command all spirits of fear, doubt to leave so that we can be alive through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

[28:44] so Holy Spirit come and take over in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. By the way, water's something sometimes in preaching there can be also the powers of darkness coming to stop the clear word of God from being spoken and I find suddenly like the enemy is trying to sow seeds of confusion here I'm telling you as a preacher some of the battles we face and we try to expound God's word so let's just ask the Holy Spirit to come again

[29:48] Spirit of God you are here in Jesus name I take authority and command all spirits of confusion to live and I also want to pray that you Holy Spirit will come and take over so that we can know your presence and your life and also the reality of you guiding us today in our exposition so we commit this time to you Lord and ask that you will direct our thoughts and our minds in Jesus name Amen my mind has just gone blank for this is very unusual I don't know what God is doing in our midst that's good I'm going to ask is Mark here we had the worship team come up and we're just going to spend some time praying and going into a time of just continued worship and as they go I just want to pray for our time here and Father we just thank you

[31:04] Father we thank you that you are the one that is in control of all things Father we just pray that your spirit would be with us we thank you just for your word which continues to show us the power of your son and his spirit that comes into our lives Lord we pray as we come before you even now I know that even as I think through this passage and we so often struggle with what it means to to walk in the spirit and to walk and be your children Lord and I realize that there's even some people here right now who are wondering what that even looks like for them and they don't know you Lord we pray for them Lord that even in this part in their life that they would realize their need for you they'd realize that they have tried to be God in their life for so long but as they look at their life they realize that these things just aren't things that can sustain their soul and bring them to you Father we pray for those here that you would enter into their life and they would feel your presence and know that you're real and true and that you are the power to save them

[32:09] Father I pray for the rest of us here who are in your family but often we go off on journeys apart from your spirit we try to pedal the bike without the engine and the power and we wonder why we get so tired and frustrated and lonely and feel hopeless Father I just pray for those of us here who do that and we all do that your word says in our journey that we would come to you and we would just lay our lives before you that we'd surrender our desires that we'd surrender our trying to work out our salvation and complete it we would surrender trying to add something to your gospel which is already perfect and whole and true and that we would trust in you Father I thank you for my dear brother here Pastor Troi pray that you would be with him that you would strengthen him Father I thank you for all of us that we all need you and we need your strength and power as we enter into this time to worship to be with you please ask your spirit to be with us and to change us and we love you in Jesus name

[33:27] Amen why don't we just continue in prayer worshiping I think sometimes when we come up here to bring God's word you feel like okay if I've worked out this speech I've got it all set up and it should be great and you don't realize what happens if God is there and he meets you and he has something else to share in your life and you don't understand the spiritual dynamics sometimes I think as a pastor you take those things for granted I shared with you one time about two weeks ago that you guys just hear these sermons for one time and then you're gone and we have to think of them for months and allow God's spirit to hit us and to change us and in the middle of that you see that this spiritual battle is real that the world we see and we see on TV is just the physical but God's word says there's so much more spiritually around us there's angels there's demons and not to fear that to realize that God goes before us and we walk in the power of Jesus Christ we can trust him who vanquished all those forces on the cross so in some ways you just got a better visual of what it means to walk with God and walk in the spirit than you could have heard in a sermon our hope and our prayer prayers that you wouldn't forget today but you think about what it means for me to walk with God what does it mean for me to walk in the power of his spirit what does it mean for me to trust him and do I do that or do I rely on myself and how eloquent I am and how competent I am in my business world we are leaving here about one o'clock for a beach party we would love for you to join us there's two big massive buses downstairs we would love for you to meet us on those buses and come to

[35:53] St. Stephen's Beach there's little flyers to pick up on the way out it's going to be a great time of fellowship and just continuing to talk about what it means to be a family that we are a family and that we do this together also there's some CDs for sale of Mark and Carrie and they've been here we know when we started the church we prayed about people who would come in and mentor us Pastor Chua is one of those and Mark and Carrie have been on this journey with us for two months and there's some CDs of theirs out in the lobby for sale and I encourage you to pick one of those up yesterday I was at the training time for the kids club so I think the volunteers freaked out when I walked in there because I just wanted to see what it was like to get trained as a teacher for the kids that God has put into our world and it was a great experience I mean the teacher Susie is incredibly competent and it was fun and you can see on the Facebook page our picture of that time but one of the things that hit me spiritually when I was there was the lack of guys and I just started praying from yesterday and I was praying that God would bring five men who would be willing to commit one Sunday a month to love on the kids that God has brought to us and to encourage them and to point them to Jesus so I'm praying for five men to come up today today at the beach sometime this week and say hey

[37:35] I want to join you on this journey because we need men and there are some great guys in those classes but we need more of those five guys one Sunday a week and it would change the life of the kids that you minister to we sent off the university ministry on a mission to the Philippines all the support that you guys gave them plus $40,000 that they're taking to help plant a new church in Manila so since God has allowed this church to plant you guys as a family have been a part of helping three other churches plant in Japan in Hong Kong and Manila and that's why we believe that God has us here so I'm going to pray for the offering we don't take offering and we talk about that all the time they're in the blue purple envelopes as you feel like God has led you and you give in response to that in these kiosks but I'm going to try something we've never done before

[38:42] I'm going to pray for the offering because I feel like God wants us to use it in amazing ways for his kingdom and I think we need to be praying that we're in step with his spirit as he leads us in that direction let me pray for us Father we just thank you for this day we thank you that you are in control and we are not we thank you that despite all of our best plans that they they don't mean anything if you're not there and if often they don't mean anything if you're there because you change those things and you teach us something different you teach us something about yourself and you teach us something about you and so Lord I just pray for today as we think about what it means to walk in your spirit that we would be people who would trust you as a big God to change our lives to empower us with the power of your Holy Spirit that we would feel your presence that we would walk in that power and that strength and your kingdom would be different as we walk in that way and Lord we thank you for this tithe these money it's kind of funny it's your money it's kind of like our kids asking us money so they can buy us a Christmas present it's our money and we give it to them and they buy something amazing or something not so amazing and we act amazed but it's our money but they give it back to us and in that same way we come to you and we present your money back to you and we know that even as you do that your word says that you're amazed and so we pray for the tithe today and the next couple weeks as we continue to be about planting and reaching out and planting churches we pray for the money that you've entrusted to us that we would be faithful stewards of it and use it to expand your kingdom and Lord I confess even now we don't know actually what exactly that looks like because you're continuing to bring new things into our lives and into our family here but I pray that we would be open to those things

[40:57] I pray that we'd be open to your spirit moving in our life and so we pray for the university and that church they're planting right now that it would make a difference in the Philippines and lives would be changed and your son would be lifted up and glorified and exalted and so Father I pray for our church family right now I pray especially for Pastor Trois that you would be with him that you would strengthen him that you would block aside the attacks that are happening in his life right now that he would feel your presence and your goodness and I pray for all of that all of us because I know that if we are your children we experience that too in our journey and so we pray for the food and for the sun and for the fellowship and for the beach and for the community and for Cyberport and for the west side of Hong Kong Island and for the 200,000 people here who speak English who don't know you 94% and for the thousands of people who speak Cantonese and Tagalog and so many other languages who are walking in darkness help us to be faithful help us to be a good family to show them your son we love you and we pray these things in your son in Jesus name amen okay so this is just so you won't miss me at the beach

[42:24]  I'll be wearing this okay so we'll see you at one o'clock for the buses and if not at one we'll meet you at St. Stephen's Beach there's a lot of food a lot of drinks and God bless you and we'll see you here or there take care