Message by Rev Hwa Yung on 29th Jan 2012 @ SSMC Sunday Celebration

1. ‘I will build my
church, and the
gates of hell shall
not prevail
against it!’
Mat 16: 13-20

2. Introduction
Mat 16: 13-20; ‘I will build
my church…’

3. v. 16: ‘You are the Christ, the
Son of the Living God’
• the ‘Christ’
• Peter recognised that Jesus is
the Messiah, promised in the
OT

4. v. 16: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of
the Living God’
• ‘Son of the Living God’:
• Not likely that Peter understood fully
what his own words meant;
• But he recognised that Jesus had a
special relation with God
• That He is more than just the Messiah
of Jewish nationalistic hopes!
• Note: A major paradigm shift in Peter’s
understanding!

5. v. 18a: ‘And I tell you, you are
Peter (petros) and on this rock
(petra) I will build me church’
• Not just Peter,
• but Peter as the one who has been
blessed with God’s revelation, who
understood the true nature of Jesus, and
as the leader of the band of Apostles!
• Cf. Eph 2: 20; the church is ‘built of the
foundation of the apostles and the
prophets’!

6. v. 18b,19; ‘the gates of hell will
not prevail against it’, ‘keys’,
binding and loosing:
• All the above point to Christ’s
divine authority
• which He now entrusts to his
apostles and his church, and
• which assures us of the final
victory against all forces of evil!

7. v. 18b,19; ‘the gates of hell will
not prevail against it’, ‘keys’,
binding and loosing:
• Another paradigm shift—
•The apostles have now been
entrusted with Jesus’ delegated
authority;
•this is the basis of the church’s
understanding of apostolic
authority.

8. Is the Malaysian Church making
the necessary shifts?
• If the Malaysian church is going to fulfil God’s
purposes for His people in this country, to be
truly salt and light, and real blessing to this
nation,
• we must be prepared to undergo some
fundamental mind-set changes or paradigm
shifts!
• Are we prepared for this?
• Examples of Paradigm Shifts—or the Failure to
Change

9. Modern science developed in the
west out of a few paradigm shifts
• The earth went round the sun, and not
the other way round
• Modern science developed when scientist
realised that there are laws governing the
physical universe; and not fate or ‘spirits’.
• But in the last hundred years, scientists
like Einstein showed that the world was
even more complicated! Another paradigm
shift!

10. Paradigm shifts are fundamental
in industry and business today:
• Steve Jobs died in Oct 2011.
• But in 30 years, Apple grew from nothing
to become the most valuable company in
the world.
Apple pips
Exxon to be the
world’s biggest
firm

11. Paradigm shifts are fundamental
in industry and business today:
• A good example the failure to change:
• Swiss watch industry dominant for the last
couple of centuries.
• Quartz digital mechanism was invented by
Swiss engineers but they ignored its
importance.
• In the 1970s, some two thirds of the Swiss
watch industry was wiped out!
• Has the Malaysian Church Woken to the
Changing Realities in our Nation?

12. Why am I saying all
these?
• Reason:
• Can it be that we have
not fully grasp the
changing realities in our
country and in the world?

13. Are we aware of the
changed realities?
• Before Merdeka, we lived under British colonial
rule. The church had certain privileges—land,
schools, missionaries, government officials were
friendly to Christians, etc. But all of us know that
things have undergone a great change!
• We no longer have most of these privileges. We
face a government and officials who are
generally far less sympathetic and sometimes
hostile to the church: land for buildings, the Allah
and Al’kitab issues, problems with mission
schools, JAIS raid, etc.

14. But unfortunately, many of
us function as if nothing has
changed!
• Mission schools: We keep asking back
for the old privileges!
• We take religious freedom for granted!
• So we carry on in the same old way in
our ministry, without asking what is it
that the church must do to survive!?
• E.g. Challenges facing the bumi church
in E Malaysia!

15. What are some of these
changed realities?
• National situation has changed
drastically:
•Rising ethnic and inter-
religious tensions;
•migration and brain drain;
•drop in educational standards;
•rampant corruption; etc.

16. What are some of these
changed realities?
• Secondly, Islam in the world has changed
drastically since Merdeka.
• Whereas at that time, Muslims were quite
happy with the Constitutional provisions which
merely gave Islam a privileged status, without
making Malaysia an Islamic state, this is no
longer true for many Muslims.
• What many want now is to make it an Islamic
state of some sort or other. It does not matter
whether it is PAS or UMNO—the pressures from
both are similar!

17. What are some of these
changed realities?
• Hence the pressure will continue
on non-Muslims:
• the State will place increasing
restrictions on the freedom of
religion for Muslims and non-
Muslims;
• growing encroachment by
supposedly sharia prohibitions.

18. Perhaps, most important of all,
we need to look at history:
• Every church under majority Islamic
rule has weakened, and many have
died.
• Why do you expect it to be differently in
Malaysia?
• But the church today functions largely
in a way that is no different from the
way we did 50 years ago!
• Unless we are prepared to undergo a
major paradigm shift, we are in trouble!

19. Learning from the Early
Church
• We must be willing to learn
from the Early Church.
• They had to make some
fundamental paradigm
shifts—otherwise they
would have died!

20. The first concerned the question:
‘Who is Jesus?’
• We need to remember that for the Jew to
conceive of a man being God is as difficult as
it is for the Muslim to accept the Trinity!
• Yet, the Early Church had to change their
thinking: ‘The Word became flesh!’
• Still it was not till 451 AD that the church
came to a clear intellectual and theological
clarification of the nature of Christ!

21. But the NT church had to make at
least two other major paradigm shifts:
• that God is concerned about
the Gentiles, as much as for
the Jews; and
• that true spiritual authority and
power comes not from the
things of this world but from
the HS!

22. A paradigm shift about the true
source of power
• Do you think it was easy for the Early
Church to understand the power of
the Holy Spirit? No!
• Mao: Power comes from the barrel of
a gun!

23. A paradigm shift about the true
source of power
• Jews were no different!
• They were a violent people and fought
wars of liberation over hundreds of
years. (Just look at Israel today!)
• For them, power comes from money,
sex, military might—the symbols of
power in this world.
• That’s why they prefer Barabbas to
Jesus!
• What good is a dead Messiah on the
Cross!?

24. The Early church had to
make this fundamental shift.
• Cf. Paul in :
•1 Cor 1: 18;
•2 Cor 10: 4f
• Illustration: The Chinese
church in 1920/30s and
Sung’s prophecy.

25. The question that we have to
ask is:
• Do we really understand the power of
the Holy Spirit ?
• Or, are we still thinking as the world
around us thinks?—
• Depending on our money,
• our numbers, our schools, our
history, etc.?
• What are we really depending on? This
question must be faced honestly and
squarely!

26. Jesus promised authority
and power:
• Mat 28:18;
• Act 1:8;
• John 14: 12

27. But where is the power and
authority today?
• IF the church is going to survive, grow and
remain vibrant,
• IF the church is to be a source of blessing
and instrument of transformation for this
nation,
• We must recover the power of the
Holy Spirit.
• Without that we will die!
• And if we do not believe that this is the case,
we might as well packed up and go NOW!

28. A paradigm shift about the task to
which God is calling us
• The tension over the Gentile question? ‘Are they our
equals? Are the promises of God for them as well?’
• These are not easy questions: Jewish men in NT
prayed every morning, ‘God, I thank you that you did
not make a woman, a slave or a dog!’
• The Gentile question was resolved after long
discussion and debates over a number of years, and
finally settled in Acts 15.
• But what if the Gentile question had not been settled?
The church would have died an ingrown Jewish sect,
with no relevance to the wider world!

29. 2nd Paradigm Shift : to rethink
the way we carry out ministry
and mission
• Examples of mind-set changes
needed:
A. Corruption :
• We are unhappy with corruption.
• But is the church any better?

30. B. The need to Strengthen
our Bumiputra churches.
• 60% of the Malaysian church is
bumiputra.
• How much help have we given
them?
Sarawak 852,198 Sabah 691,096
Pop. Census 2000:
No of Christians in
West Msia. 485,511

31. C. Reconciliation in the nation:
• Why should the Malay and the E
Malaysian bumiputra trust the
Chinese and Indians?
• We have done well (through our
education, culture, generations of
experience and networks), often
at their expense!
These are merely some examples of
areas in which we need to go
through fundamental paradigm
changes!

32. Conclusion
• Recently, LKY commented that the
future of the Chinese in Malaysia is
very uncertain! How they respond
in the next 10-20 years will
determine the final outcome.
• For those of us who are Chinese
and Indians, this may well be an
encouragement for us to pack and
go!

33. The church is at cross-
roads. The next 10 years
will be crucial.
• We are like a man caught by a python,
and slowly we are being squeezed.
• And if no help comes, we will die slowly
… like the churches in Middle East, N
Africa, Central Asia, Iraq today, etc.
Can we afford to keep thinking and
functioning in the same old way!?