We have 10 articles of faith. These 10 articles of faith make the True Jesus Church holy. Because the word holy means “to be separated for God”. These doctrines give us the way to salvation, and make us different from the other Christian denominations. In addition to its obvious spiritual efficacies, the 10 articles of faith are also a blueprint of people’s principles to lead our daily lives.

In previous sermons, we have talked about our belief of the one true God and the principle of authority. We have talked about the Bible and the principle of truth. We have talked about Sabbath and the principle of rest. This sermon will talk about the Holy Spirit and the principle of seeing things from a spiritual perspective.

Let us not imagine that the spirit and physical are mutually exclusive. In fact, they intersect. The most obvious intersection of the spirit and the physical is Man - life.

Gen 2:7, Eccl 3:21, 12:7
Because we have the spirit, we are alive. Nowadays we hear a lot about AI (Artificial Intelligence). AI is humans trying to program computers to think like humans. Intelligence means: able to learn, able to make decisions, able to take action. In most cases, computers can’t learn; they simply do what they’re programmed to do. Now they try very hard to make the machine so called learn. But the speaker just read an article that said that they’ve tried very hard but they’re trying a different tech. So they asked psychologists to see how babies learn. Because babies need to see just a few cats and they know it’s a cat. A computer needs to see millions of cats before they can figure out what a cat is. So they try to figure out how babies learn. The truth is: they will fail. Because if you think of Artificial Intelligence as what was described, Human Intelligence is actually divine intelligence, because God programmed man to think like God. He made a hardware, which is our physical body, and breathed spirit and life into us. How the brain works. Even as we read just now in Ecclesiastes, even animals have . Even animals are smarter than computers because in some sense they can learn; mothers teach their babies. The difference is that there is a SPIRITUAL aspect to life.

In Genesis, animals and human beings are called living souls, but not plants. Plants are not considered living souls. Because they can’t learn; they have no intelligence. So we are the intersection of spirit and flesh. When God gives the Holy Spirit, something else happens, because now we have in some sense 2 spirits - the spirit of man and the spirit of God.

There is a spiritual presence in this world. Because of that, we ought to have a spiritual perspective in many things that we do. This sermon will talk about some applications of looking at things with a spiritual perspective. These are practical things.

1. The presence of God
   When we come into church, when do we feel the presence of God? Do we feel the presence of God? Are we aware of the presence of God? If we are, then we should consider our worship and our service procedures. Which do you think is the most spiritual part of our service? The speaker thinks we’d agree with him it’s the prayer. But sometimes, we forget. We forget that prayer is talking to God. So sometimes during prayer, we do things which we should not do. Sometimes we say: during prayer, everyone close their eyes so I do this and that. Nobody can see me!

But God is seeing. He’ll say, “How come you’re not talking to Me but doing this and that? Can’t you do it during other times?”

“God there’s no other time!”

But if we have no choice, do it during hymn singing lah!

“People can see leh!”

But the spiritual perspective is not like that. It’s not whether people are seeing or not. It’s what’s happening during prayer.

One thing the speaker is most irritated by is when he’s praying and someone shakes him, “Can you move your car?” He understands if it’s really urgent for example if there’s an ambulance that needs to come in. If not,
can’t it wait 2-3min?

If we have a spiritual perspective and we imagine if someone is talking to say the Prime Minister of Singapore and you want to interrupt, will you just say, “Excuse me can you move your car?” Means it’s really important. You have to say excuse me to two persons - you and the PM. So even when the speaker is interrupted while praying he’ll say a prayer in his heart to say excuse him.

This is what happens when you’re conscious of the spiritual aspect.

Let’s look at other things in Heb 5:7.
When we pray for the Holy Spirit, we open our mouths and cry to the Lord. Some people don’t want to do that. They say, “Whether I say out loud or not, God knows.” But the Bible says Jesus prayed out loud. Let us remember what it means to be an intersection of the spiritual and the physical. It means sometimes the spiritual affects the physical. For example, some people are demon possessed and their physical strength changes. Sometimes the other way: the spiritual action has a physical effect. If in your heart you really want the Holy Spirit, it comes out as a physical action. Most importantly, we take our guidance from the Bible. This is another thing that makes our church special.

Phil 2:1
Why do we kneel in prayer in our church? In many denominations, they don’t kneel. Because this physical act is a spiritual action. We recognise that the greatest is here, and we should kneel in prayer.

Our personal logic on why we do this and that has to be routinely re-examined. Sometimes we say: “Oh because of this matter we have to change our worship!” Yes, we can re-examine, but do not forget the spiritual perspective. It’s very important.

1. We have to rely on the Holy Spirit
   1 Thess 5:19, Eph 4:30
   Many people have received the Holy Spirit. That increases the intersection between the physical and spiritual in us. Yet sometimes it’s surprising that people with the Holy Spirit do not kind of believe in God or are not zealous. These two verses are very important.
   “Do not quench the Holy Spirit”
   “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit”

Receiving he Holy Spirit is a GREAT thing. Maintaining the Holy Spirit in us is a NECESSARY thing. It is strange that sometimes, some people say, “I don’t know whether God exists.” And they’re supposed to have the Holy Spirit.

Heb 11:6
“Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He exists.”
This is the most fundamental aspect of faith. Especially if we have the Holy Spirit in us. Can you imagine you’re sitting in a room with other people. Your good friend comes in. “Hi!” Somebody you don’t like comes in, you look away and say “hmph”. Then somebody else comes in and sits beside you and talks to everybody else while pretending you’re not there. That’s perhaps the most offensive thing to do. When you say to God and other people that you don’t know if God exists, and you have the Holy Spirit, that grieves the Holy Spirit. You offend God. You have no faith. And that is very very dangerous. The speaker says this because there’s no advantage for him to point it out to somebody that this is a very serious sin. But it is a very necessary warning that your faith is at its lowest and it is very dangerous. Some people think being very nice and kind to a person who says they don’t know if God exists can solve the problem. But according to this verse, you don’t please God. You offend Him and grieve the Holy Spirit. You must get out from it as quickly as possible.

Heb 10:29 as a reminder.
We all sympathise with a person who has gone through hard times. And sometimes people say these things because they’ve been through hard times. But if someone says that, the solution is not love. It is a very dangerous thing to do. How can you blame and offend God, saying He doesn’t exist because you have problems? Job and Elijah all had problems but they never denied the existence of God. Instead they talked to God. They complained to God.

While we encourage one another in church, let us remember that such a saying is already a very dangerous state of faith.

1. The power of the Holy Spirit
   We ought to be aware of spiritual things. And so in the work of God, There’re some spiritual aspects that necessitate prayer and the laying on of hands.

Mark 16:15-18, Matt 10:1, Acts 1:8
When we preach the gospel to new areas, we need the power of God. Work in the Last Days must be accompanied by the power of God in signs, wonders and miracles. Even in see Matt 10:1, the 12 disciples had not received the Holy Spirit yet. And yet it was necessary for them to have this power so people would wake up and listen. The church is different from other churches because it has the power of God. People will wake up. And then we teach them the 10 articles of faith and if they believe, they will be saved.

It’s not that we can convert other people because we’re so good at using Hebrew and Greek to explain the Bible. Was that how Jesus talked to the Pharisees and people? Was that how Paul talked to the people?

First you need the bang which is power and miracles. That is how our church started in China. The truth is there. But if you want explosive growth you need the power. And the elephant in the room whenever we discuss why isn’t our church progressing, why aren’t we growing, is because we do not have this power yet.

So we pray and we grow, but we do not go astray and think there are OTHER reasons why we aren’t progressing exponentially. We imagine our doctrine is not very clear and that we need to make it even clearer. Maybe this traditional belief is wrong because the Greek seems to say that and then we change it. It’s not how it is to be in the Last Days.

Rev 11:3-6
Here we are pressed at everywhere part, even now it’s hard to preach. The world and morality is twisted upside down. Homosexuality that God hates is now considered the top/best of love.

In the Last Days, we will have two superheroes. They can do all those things: shut heaven, stop rain, then water to blood, strike the earth with all plagues. May not be only two. That is the way people pay attention to us. Whatever we put on in social media: witnessing, our doctrines. For every 5 likes, we’re going to get 5000 thumbs down. We will never win by social media. It’s so hard to explain in words; to type it out. We need these two witnesses: the power of the Holy Spirit. And that’s what we should pray for. That’s what we should prepare. And we should not go astray there are other ways like ‘improving’ our gospel, or writing books.

What happens when we preach to a new place and signs, wonder and miracles are lacking?
Titus 1:5
When Paul preached, he didn’t employ full time workers in church. They employed lay workers - elders and deacons in the church. When signs, wonders and miracles are lacking, we should concentrate on nurturing a small self-sufficient congregation. We’re doing badly in many countries because we think we get some full time workers, when we’re away they’ll preach and form more churches.

But two things missing: (1) they don’t have the power of the two witnesses [Rev 11:3], (2) they’re recent converts.

Titus 1:5
This is for deacons and elders. More so for full time workers. So what happened to our churches in Myanmar and India is that they ordain people too quickly. No power. Recent convert. Later they’re always asking for money. And many of these preachers have left.

The speaker went to Myanmar in the year 2000. 6 young men were trained to be full time preachers. 4 have left our church altogether (3 have left, 1 died). 1 is in trouble. It’s just against the Bible to do such a thing. Too eager to spread. No spiritual awareness that there’s no power of God there.

So in Malaysia/Sabah/Taiwan, in the beginning, deacons read the Bible, preached, they were steady. If you ordain a recent convert too quickly, you get trouble.

Finally when we’re aware there’s a spiritual perspective to life, then we need to know that there is the spirit of God in a person guiding the congregation.

Num 11:17, 25
How does the spirit of God work in a church, in a person? At that time, Moses was the one full of the spirit of God. He could do everything. But he was very tired. So he told God he couldn’t do it. God said, “Okay I’ll get 70 people to help you.” Then in a very physical way, God took some of the spirit that was in Moses and gave it to the 70. God didn’t give them ‘new’ spirits but took the spirit FROM Moses. So how God dwells in us as a personality as a person is different from how the Holy Spirit works in us.

The spirit can be quenched and grieved. But the spirit can also work as a power/intelligence. Sometimes we ask, “Does a person who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit know the word of God? Does he have love?” Yes he can. Because the spirit of God can still work in him.

It is quite dangerous to say a person without the Holy Spirit’s love is not spiritual love because he doesn’t have the Holy Spirit. His wisdom and understanding is not from God because he doesn’t have the Holy Spirit; it’s just his own cleverness. That is very dangerous.

We have already read that God’s spirit works in different ways. When we have spiritual awareness, we need to realise if a person speaks because he is inspired by the spirit of God. We cannot say, “Oh he’s not a minister, so cannot be!” “He’s only a deacon not a preacher, so cannot be.” “He doesn’t have the Holy Spirit. Cannot be inspired by God!”

If we have spiritual awareness, we know God can work in a person because God is in this church.

Job 32:4-8
v8 “there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding”
Elihu did not receive the Holy Spirit like we did. We are blessed to have this confirmation of sonship. But Elihu was inspired STILL by God. He could not have said these things without the inspiration of God. So we need to be aware that God’s spirit can inspire people in various ways. We shouldn’t have a packing idea of who’s most inspired and who’s closest to God. We have to understand the Bible to recognise the voice of God.

We believe the early workers were inspired by God to know our beliefs and teachings. The Bible uses the word “the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding”. The word ‘inspiration’ comes from the word ‘breath’. Enlightened is another word. We should use Bible words to understand biblical contexts.

4 points have been discussed in this sermon:

1. If we have a spiritual perspective, we will be aware of the presence of God and not imagine when we close ur eye, we can do whatever we want. When eyes are close in prayer, that is the most sacred.

2. We must rely on the Holy Spirit. And doubting the existence of God is offensive to God.

3. In preaching we need the power of the Holy Spirit. Signs, wonders and miracles. While we wait and prepare for this power, let us not get sidetracked and believe there is another way to propagate the church.

4. Finally we must understand how God inspires people by the Holy Spirit.

The speaker hopes what he says are the words of God. He doesn’t take this lightly. But try not to contradict him behind his back. If he has spoken the word of God, then doing sobwould he contradicting the word of God. Talk to the speaker if you disagree. If he did not speak the word of God, he would have learnt something.

May God guide us.