Date: 18-05-25
Preacher: Ps Henson Lim
Title: Awakening Faith
Awakening Faith
As the message progressed this morning I felt less and less worthy to end my role as chair for the day. That feeling was borne out of awe for a God so great that I felt totally out of place and it was also due in no small measure to a speaker so anointed in the form of Ps Henson.
He is the founder of Archippus Awakening and indeed I believe he must have awakened the faith of the congregation through his message this morning and more.
I like his opening when he mentioned that many Christians stopped short at salvation faith and missed out on everything else. Hence many of us feel weakened and even defeated because we don’t experience abundant faith. We attend service every Sunday, do what we think is a bit of God’s work and life goes on.
He then mentioned the caveat in his message which I think is the backbone of Christian living and that is GREAT FAITH IS USELESS WITHOUT A GREAT GOD.
That caveat above is bound to three principles: An Unchanging God, His Unfailing Word and Our Unwavering Faith.
Faith is not twisting God to get what we want. It is always going back to who God is: His unchanging principles, His unchanging ways, His unchanging Word and His unchanging Plan. In short an Unchanging God.
Next Ps Henson asked an important question: If we know this then what are we doing about it? He drew a parallel of God’s nature with the typical Singaporean way of wanting a guarantee for all that we do in life including the buying of durians. He then remarked that faith is taking God at His word, so as much as we love His blessings we must also heed His warnings too. Ps Henson then asked why do we then only believe His words for salvation and then doubt His words for our daily life? It’s like we believe His promise of eternal life but doubt His promise of an abundant life now. (That is my awakening too.) Then having known a God that is rock solid unchanging, we must then align ourselves with His purpose and move according to His plan. We certainly cannot change His word so we must change our heart.
The congregation must have been inspired by his many personal testimonies which he unselfishly shared to illustrate his points and to point to the glory of God. Chief of which is how he set out to go full time with a young family of 7 children and a stay-home wife to do God’s plan without a salary. Each time Ps Henson put on the human side of his calculations on available resources, fear gripped him but with an awakening faith to commit, God always provided and is still providing for him and his family.
His message for a victorious abundant life is to have a faith grounded in His word based on who He is. Then we would be able to withstand God’s shaking when the time comes.
