Hey 'guys' .. here's Ps Khong's sermon on 8 Nov preached at Ps Cal Chinen's church in Honolulu. All 22 of us were there to accompany Ps.
The scripture was taken from :
1Thess 1:2-3 "We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, & yr endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ps Khong preached on the last part - "Endurance inspired by Hope in Jesus Christ". It was an apt msg on hope to finish the race at that moment. The church adopted the Moanalua High School Football team & since then they have provided coaching, spiritual & physical covering over the players. Both teams, the varsity & JV teams emerged as champions of their league because the teams were coached to practise & play acc to kingdom principles.
The players were called to go on stage & everyone in the church celebrated their victory. They had never emerged as champions before so this was an important moment of triumph.
If you look at the 2nd pic, they have a girl on the team & she doesnt even look like a tomboy!
Endurance is a big thing coz we are talking about the tenacity to finish whatever we have started. It takes hope to endure to the end and the football teams had done just that.
Do you have a dream - to dream is to hope. It is imperative that we have to dream in our sleep according to a research done on 2 groups of people. Both groups had the mandatory 8 hrs of sleep. 1st group went to sleep, with wires hooked up on their brains. The minute any1 of them started to dream, he/she would be woken up, before he/she could get back to sleep. This was done sev times but the 1st group still had their 8hrs of sleep. 2nd group sleep was not interrupted & they had the freedom to dream in their sleep. Outcome - 1st group became negative & listless while the 2nd group had a more positive outlook.
Hope is about dreams and purpose. God wants us to dream in our waking hours.
WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO DREAM?
1) To dream for God is to look positively in the future. Then you will no longer live in the past or live in pain. A man with a dream will move on.
- Everything in the past prepares you for the future.
- Everything in the present works towards the future.
Let your dream drive you.
2) Dream keeps our life focused. There is power of a focused life.
Take 2 non-alcoholic companies - Coke & Pepsi. Pepsi's initial biz was in drinks but later decided to expand into food in which they were not familiar. Anyway, they acquired Pizza & Kentucky and they had 24,000 restaurants around the globe. Coke on the other hand concentrated on drinks & performed better than Pepsi. Last year, Pepsi was valued at US$110b while Coke was valued at US$140b. That's the power of focus, your attention is not diversified.
Also when you have a focus in life, you will not have time to sin to mess you up.
3) Dream causes you to live in faith. It forces every ounce of faith in you to rise up. It causes you to do the impossible.
It was such a powerful msg that when Ps Khong gave the invitation to receive Christ in order they have a hope, about 20 people came forward. Many of the players including some of their parents invited Jesus into their lives for the first time.
So dare to dream ...
Love
Mum