Last weekend, I decided to attend Saturday evening service instead of Sunday morning as I had a few activities lined up for Sunday (which I eventually ended up missing a few as my plans went awry).
As I am not a morning person, I found it easier to focus on speaker Chris Abner’s message for the day, on irreverent worship. The message hit me hard. There were two main points I would like to highlight here, lest I forget.
- How do you trust someone if you don’t know him/her?
Chris told us a story about a man who just withdrew $10,000 from a bank. Looking around, he passed it to a stranger and asked the stranger to keep it for him. He would then come and retrieve it later. The stranger looked at him and asked: “Are you crazy? You don’t know me. What makes you think I won’t run away with your money?” The man replied “I trust you”. But we all know that example doesn’t make sense.
What if the man instead replied to the stranger “I know you. I’ve watched you. I’ve studied your life. I’ve followed you everyday. I know your habits, your patterns, where you live, what you do. Because I know you, I have faith in you, I trust you. Please help me take care of the $10,000.”
Of course, this situation is then applied to our faith in God. How can we trust Him if we don’t know him? If we don’t take steps to learn about him, would we fully trust Him? We may, but it may be blind faith. It may be easily shaken. Doubts may arise. It may be superficial. Only when we take steps to properly know Him, that we are able to place our full trust in Him.
2. When we Worship, do we really mean the things that we say?
Songs have lyrics. Some of them make statements. We may not necessarily mean it. For example, “I bow my knee” or “I will go, Lord”. How many times have we worshipped blindly without actually meaning what we say? I am myself sometimes guilty of this, and I write this here as a reminder to open up my heart and try my best to put words of truth in my worship.
Thank you God for the timely reminder through this sermon.
::: Darryn K Y Chiew ::: 