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When you read scripture, do you find that at times it's a tall order to really obey God and take his words literally? Let's look at the scriptures together with Pastor Daniel of Eastern Christian Church.

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So this morning I would like to explore with us the divine paradigm. The divine paradigm or the way God chooses to conform and to go us towards. I wonder when you read the Bible, you read scripture, you whether there are times where you find that it's a tall order, you know, it's so difficult to really obey God and take his words literally. I think that's one of the greatest challenges. You know, when we read the Bible and we read verses that say, Love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you. Or when when we read uh the story of the rich young ruler who was told to sell all your possessions and come follow me, you know, when we read such verses, usually uh what we do is we just skip it through. We say, Maybe this is not for me, maybe another time God will work in me. But if we believe that all of scripture, all of God's word is applied to us, then it is a word for us, right? And and sometimes when we open up the words of scripture, it seems that we are looking into another world, another world that it seems to be not an earthly world, not congruent to perhaps our own present reality, you know, uh striving uh in some ways at our workplace, uh very common nowadays to multi-head, and uh one person can fulfill two or three persons' role because of the nature of how companies are downsizing, works get uh uh work gets tighter, more things need to be done within a shorter time frame. So we face all these challenges. And when we open the Bible and when we open scripture, it seems that it's calling us to another world, a divine world that uh for some of us, even for myself, at a particular point in my spiritual journey, I find it's it's really another world. You know, it's so hard to uh really apply God's word to our lives. Nevertheless, it is scripture uh that has been given to us, and it's uh something that we should face up and square up to the challenges and demands that God placed on us to grow in Christ's likeness. So Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 1, exalts the believers in Corinth to be imitators of me as I am of Christ. So Paul sets the example to the people of God in Corinth who were far from perfect. If you read the Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, you realize that it is a carnal church, a church that is uh full of dissension, factions, and also sexual immorality. So, into that context, Paul wrote to the believers there and said, Be imitators of me as I am of Christ, meaning that follow me as I follow Christ. In 1 John 2, verse 6, John also reminds us that whoever says he abides in him, anyone of us here who say that we abide in Jesus ought to walk in the same way in which Jesus walked. So this is the standard in which God calls us to live, to be imitators of Christ, to walk as Jesus walk. So the divine paradigm is set for us in scripture. We are to imitate Christ and to walk as Jesus walks. So easier said than done. How do we, as God's people today in the 21st century, facing many constraints and challenges at our workplace, how can we uh walk as Jesus walks? How can we actually imitate the life of Jesus? I'd like to uh suggest to us that the nature of life in the kingdom of God uh is revealed especially in the Sermon on the Mount, which is uh from Matthew 5 to 7. But because of time, again, uh the short time I have, we will definitely definitely don't have time to go through uh the three chapters. But what I want to do is just to have a big picture view of the beatitudes. Again, the beatitudes, uh there are eight beatitudes. We don't have time to dive into each one, but what I want to do is to give us a framework to understand what are the beatitudes telling us to do, what is the way of being that God is calling us to embrace. So as we embrace those uh beatitudes as a way of living in our lives, it is a pattern of how God wants us to imitate Him to live. So we'll look briefly at the beatitudes in Matthew 5, verses 1 to 10, and then we will draw implications of what it means then, now that we have gone through briefly the beatitudes, what does it mean to live it out in our life? What does it mean to live out the beatitudes in our interactions and in the way God chooses to reveal Himself to us? So just reading a couple of verses from Matthew 5, verses 1 to 10, it says, Seeing the crowds, Jesus or he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and Jesus opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So if you look at the beatitudes, there are actually something called the match pass. So commentators, one commentator has tried to group the beatitudes according to a certain basic meaning. That means uh beatitudes that share a similar meaning is classified and grouped together so that uh it helps us to understand uh better how it works out in uh in terms of its uh explanation. So the beatitudes can be grouped in this way. So the poor in spirit and the meek goes together. So if you are poor in spirit, oftentimes you are meek also, and the merciful are also the peacemakers, always seeking peace, always seeking mercy. And those who mourn uh is linked to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and the pure in heart are those who are persecuted for righteousness. So this is like the framework or the outline I like to bring us through very quickly, just going through uh each point and to bring us to a better understanding of how these beatitudes work out in our lives. So the poor in spirit and the meek. The poor in spirit and the meek comes from the root idea of the Hebrew word anal. So uh when you draw the meaning of this, the root meaning of uh being poor in spirit and meek, uh uh commentators discovered that it's related to the root word, Hebrew word anal, which means humble. Which means humble. So when when someone is humble, the person will exhibit the attitudes of being poor in spirit and being meek. So there are many interpretations, what it means uh to be humble, and we we don't have time to go through all the interpretations, but I just want to focus on one point which is uh very poignant for our growth. It says, being humble comes from the idea of being poor as sinners, being poor as sinners, needing God's help and intervention, and that's biblical because we see in the gospels, especially those who draw near to God, saw themselves poor in spirit, needing God's intervention in their lives. In other words, they often saw themselves as sinners, needing God's mercy. So we see that played out in the ministry of Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, uh, how he has called, he's calling the tax collector a Levi to him in Matthew 9, verses 9 to 13. The healing of an unclean woman with a discharge of blood in Matthew 9, verse 20 to 22, and the absorbing of the sins of a paralytic, saying that your sins are forgiven. So, all this reveals the solidarity of Jesus with poor sinners, those who are outside the fringe of society, those who are not recognized as a sideline, these are the ones who recognize that they are poor in spirit. They are poor sinners needing God's intervention. In Matthew's gospel, a posture of humbleness or humility to see ourselves as sinners will lead us not to judge others. That's why in the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus said, judge not and you will not be judged. If we are humble, we maintain a posture of humility. We will often refrain, refrain from taking the speck, uh the plank out of our brother or sister's eye. But instead, we focus on ourselves, on the ours, ourselves as sinners in need of God's mercy. As we genuinely seek forgiveness for our own sins, we will also not withhold it from others. So we see the importance that Jesus placed in the Gospel of Matthew uh on reconciliation. He says, if you know that a brother has sinned against you, uh, before you come to worship at the altar and bring your sacrifice and show forth your piety, first go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5, verse 21 to 26 and 38 to 42 draws about that kind of posture. So in turn, those who exhibit a posture of humbleness is also the posture of the meek. The meek uh is defined in scripture as those who are gentle and non-resistant, non-violent person, someone who is accepting life as it is. Uh, probably someone unlike perhaps a typical uh Singaporean, like we like to complain, right? Everything complained, this is not good, that's not good, this is better, that should be better, right? I mean, it's all part of our culture today. Not that it's very good, but sometimes I'm also guilty of that. So we tend to complain a lot, but meek people accept life as it is, and so uh it comes from a posture of humility or humbleness. So, a good example of this uh is in the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector. I think I shared this with us. We won't look at that again, but I shared with us before the posture of two men that went to pray in Luke chapter 18. Uh tells us that two men went up to pray uh in the temple, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. So the Pharisee was confident of his own spirituality, of his own righteousness based on what he has done. So uh he he stands and says that thank you, God, I'm not like all these people, extortioners, the tax collectors, I'm not unjust, I'm not an adulterer, I'm not an adulterer. I did I do everything right. I fast twice a week, I give tithes, you know, I come to church, I go to the synagogue to worship. But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. So Jesus says that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone, the principle Jesus tells us is everyone who exalts himself, everyone that is confident in his or her own spirituality, spiritual state will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. I move on to the merciful and the peacemakers. The practice of mercy by the merciful begins with a dependence on God's mercy. The presupposition, in order for someone to be merciful, the person must receive God's mercy. So to receive God's mercy also presumes that you need to come in a posture of humility to accept what God gives to you. So peacemakers are those who have received God's peace and now charged with proclaiming the good news of peace in the gospel message. So those who aspire to be peacemakers also have human feeling as their starting point. Because peacemakers, at one time, they realized that they are estrained from God without hope and without God in this world. But Jesus came at the point of our need and brought peace to our hearts and our lives. So those who are merciful and those who are peacemakers have their foundation on being poor in spirit, as apart from Christ, making peace and coming to us at our point of need to reveal his mercy and peace, we are helpless. Move on to those who mourn and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Those who mourn again is a picture of someone who is humble or a person of humility. Because those who mourn are those who humble themselves to express their penitence, often through fasting or abstinence. Their spiritual hunger is seen in their hungering and thirsting after righteousness. After what is the will of God? The word righteousness, uh, in some translations use the understanding of the will of God. Someone who seeks after righteousness is someone who seeks after God's will in every situation. So the scripture tells us, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God's will to be done or for righteousness, because uh they will be filled with that. They'll be filled with a knowledge of God's will in their lives, in their going in, they're coming out, they're walking about, they're lying down, they'll be filled with a sense of discernment, what God is leading them through. We see a similar experience in Jesus' temptation, recorded in Matthew 4, verses 1 to 11. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He was fasting, perhaps as a way of humbling himself. Jesus set an example for all of us to follow, even before he began his public ministry, before he became the well-known healer and exhaustist and teacher. He was first sent uh to uh to the wilderness uh to go through uh a time of testing. And he was fasting because he wasn't eating for 40 days. So he was humbling himself. Jesus set us the model. He humbled himself, he subjected himself to fight the fleshly temptations and to overcome it. Yet it tells us his spiritual hunger for God's righteousness, to live by God's word and God's will, was stronger than his physical craving for food. So Jesus overcame, because when the tempter came to him and said in Matthew 4, verse 3 to 4, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But Jesus answered, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. In other words, man lives by God's will, not by our fleshly desires. So Jesus demonstrated for us in his uh abstinence from food, in his fasting, in his subjecting himself to humiliation by withholding food and seeking the Lord through prayer, shows us an attitude of someone who mourns, someone to hunger and thirst for God's will to be done. Lastly, the pure in heart and those persecuted for righteousness. The psalmist tells us in Psalm 24, verse 3 to 5 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, who shall stand in his holy place, he who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. The pure in heart are those with an inward disposition of a single undivided heart. They are those who can say uh uh the great commandment uh to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. They are those who live that out in their lives because they have an inward disposition of a single undivided heart that makes a generous response to the total demands of God. Those who faithfully endure persecution for righteousness in persisting to do the will of God are the pure in heart because the they are focused on righteousness and on doing the will of God, regardless of the cost in their lives. So when you move to one country to another, I'm not sure uh any of us here, I'm I'm probably I'm sure a congregation of our size would have that experience. Or maybe for a job placement, we move, let's say, from Singapore uh to China or to India or even to the UK, one of the big cities there, uh, or even to the US. I'm sure there's a lot of adjustment, right? It begins when you start looking out, go to the library, NLB, and get a travel guide. So understand a bit more about the culture and and and the place, what to do, what not to do, how to exchange money, how to buy food, how to look for the toilet. I mean, all these are basic things, right? Whenever you travel for an extended period, maybe three months or more, you will you do some research, find out more. But it still has not begun until you take the flight and you land. And we land on the in the place. There's still an adjustment, right? Because all you read about and learn about in theory from books gets uh enfleshed into the actual work conditions. So you start to observe people, how they how they trade, how they speak to one another, how business is being done, you know, what is needed to get things done, you know, how do you move about, what is the culture of the people, what to say, what not to say. So there are numerous things that you need to learn. So this also happens. I like to suggest to us when someone becomes a Christian, when we become a believer of Jesus, you know, God desires that we grow different attitudes and values from those around. In other words, we need to warm up to what it means to live in the place where God has called us to. The Beatitudes provide a very distinct way of seeing and relating to the world. If we would want to imitate Jesus following the divine paradigm, then we will need to embody his values and attitudes contained therein. I'd like to suggest to us that the link that connects all the beatitudes together is the first one, and that is of being poor in spirit. It is the defining value and attitude of Jesus' kingdom. It is those who are poor in spirit that inherit the kingdom. It's those who have nothing to give, uh, not confident of his or her own spirituality before God, are those who receive the most. It is those who are humble, who humble themselves before God, they are those who receive the most from God. So it's a reversal. It's a reversal from how the world sees us and how we see uh one another. You know, it's not about position, prestige, or power, but it's about humble service to God. So I'd like to explore with us two implications of what it means to be poor in spirit. Two implications that I hope that we will continue to mount over. As we think about the divine paradigm that God desires for us, what are some implications of being poor in spirit? Firstly, humility would be the hallmark of our lives. Humility, the difference to one another, the consideration of one another better than ourselves would be the hallmark of someone who says that we are in the kingdom or we are following Jesus. If there's no humility, there's no humbling of ourselves, then it'd be very hard for us to say that we really model or what God desires revealed in his word. In the Greco-Roman society, it's a very status conscious society, like some of our, in fact, I think in Singapore also, it's not spoken out, but we know uh what strata of society you are by certain uh status symbols. I won't go into that. But in the Greco-Roman society, the higher your status in society, the more servants you have, right? So if we see uh someone coming with uh entourage of servants, we know the person is rich. Just as how during the time of Abraham, the amount of cattle and flock you have shows your riches. Okay, but today, of course, it's it's in our investment portfolio and in uh financial instruments and investments. So it's different today, right? So but during the Greco-Roman society, it is actually the servants as a yardstick. So uh a servant actually has no status. Uh servant has to just do the job the master commands. Um the higher your status in society, the more servants you have. Rank was also a prize possession, and the projection of status was crucial. Who you are, what's your status, how you relate to people, what's your position in society was something very, very uh important because Rome was a hierarchical society, different levels relate differently. You know, depending whether you are a patron, meaning that you are a person of elevated status, you are able to engage uh certain uh common people as your clients to give them benefits. So, as a patron, maybe it's like a businessman, I have clients, right? I give benefits to them, and I expect them to give me certain mutual benefits to help me in my business or certain things. So it's a very uh hierarchical society. Um such that even at the time of Jesus, there's such understanding, the place of honor, you know, the prestige of uh following uh Jesus as a rabbi. We see that played out in Matthew 20, verse 20 to 28. The request of the mother for her sons, the sons of Zebedee. Reading uh from Matthew 20, verse 20 to 28. Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to Jesus with her sons and kneeling before him, she asked him for something. And he said to her, What do you want? She said to him, Say that a typical mother, right? One the best for the children. So uh we're saying, I think my sons deserve honor. You know, follow this rabbi Jesus so many years, and and I think they should have some honor. So the mother, as usual, being uh capable, go up to Jesus and say, Say to these two sons of mine who are to sit, one at your right and one at your left in your kingdom. Then Jesus answered in verse 22, You do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? They said to him, We are able. So uh he said to them, You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my father. And when the Tang heard that, they were indignant at the two brothers. I mean, but why do they ask to for the place of honor? I mean, these brothers are so there's a bit of uh disgruntledness among the disciples, you know, like sometimes we do in our own family, right? You know, why do you ask such questions? I mean, you want the place of honor, how about us? So perhaps they were also jostling for some prestige, some position, or some place of honor. And then Jesus uh threw in the the bullet, so to say, and the radical statement he made in verse 25. Jesus called them to him and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, persons of authority, uh, patrons, rulers, they lord it over others, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But Jesus said these uh very words from Jesus' mouth, it shall not be among you. In other words, Jesus said, None of you who say that you want to follow me and imitate me as my disciple ought to have this kind of understanding. He says, But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. So it probably confounds them because in their own thinking, as they connect, well, that's the worst place to be. To be a servant means to be the lowest in society. In other words, I must be the very least of society. And then Jesus goes on to say, Whoever would be first among you must be your slave, the lowest rank in society, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Self-importance, the desire to be noticed and acknowledged, the jostling for power, position, and status, it's not a value of Jesus' kingdom. In fact, if we we have to be the very opposite of it, if we are going to imitate Jesus more. Jesus tells us whoever would be great among us must be a servant. Whoever wants to be first must be willing to be slave. As the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. And one of the tests we do uh as pastors for people who come to say that they want to serve full-time. The question we always ask, are we willing to do anything? Are you willing to serve even beyond your comfort zone? Yeah, because if someone comes into ministry and they pick and choose, I want to do this, I don't want to do that, you know, this is not for me, this is a cleaner's job, you know, then we realize that the person's heart is not quite ready. You know, probably you can survive that way in a circular world, uh, in that kind of context. But in in the Christian context, we probably say that you have a bit more growing up to do before we will consider you for uh full-time ministry. So that is the that is the posture. Posture of the servant means we we are willing to do anything, anything the Lord calls us, even if it's beyond my ability, I will look for help. I won't pick and choose and be selective and complain too much because I'm a servant. I'll do what my master tells me to do. So, how does this work out? How does an attitude of humility work out in our lives? Can we honestly say that we are willing to be a servant and slave of all? What are some ways that God may be using to humble us? I'd like to read uh uh some response, a dialogue uh between some of the sayings of the desert fathers from Egypt, because uh the church fathers have a lot of wisdom in telling us how to live our lives. So, among them, the desert fathers from Egypt offers a lot of wisdom, you know, when we think about the issue of humility. So, this is what he says. An old man was asked, What is humility? And he said in reply, humility is a great work and a work of God. The way of humility is to undertake bodily labor and believe yourself a sinner and make yourself subject to all. Then a brother said, What does it mean to be subject of all? The old man answered, To be subject to all is not to give your attention to the sins of others, but always to give your attention to your own sins and to pray without ceasing to God. What wisdom there is, right? You know, and a lot of times we I find myself sometimes guilty of that. I'm so much uh paying attention to other people's sins, what they are doing wrong. But actually, if I want to go in humility, I must point, you know, take the speck out of my own eyes more than what others do, right? So look at yourself. In other words, the the old man is saying, you know, look at your own sin and pray without ceasing to God. Right? Then another old man, an old man said, every time a thought of superiority or vanity moves you, examine your conscience to see if you have kept all the commandments, whether you love your enemies, whether you consider yourself to be an unprofitable servant and the greatest sinner of all. Something we don't like to hear, right, in modern world, you know, because we we want all the good things. But this is what this wisdom from the desert fathers. Even so, do not pretend to be great. Sorry, even so, do not pretend to great ideas as though you were perfectly right. For that thought destroys everything. In other words, don't see yourself as good, you know, but beat your own body, see yourself, examine your conscience. Know that, you know, as we examine our conscience and focus on ourselves, even our own sins, we build and grow humility. As uh Abba, or you know, uh that's how in the in the society they call the address teachers, as Abba, Macarius was returning to his self where he stays from the marsh, carrying palm leaves. The story is that the devil actually met him with a sharp sickle and would have struck him, but he could not. So Macarius cried out, Great is the violence I suffer from you. Sorry, uh, the devil cried out, Great is the violence I suffer from you. Macurius, for what when I want to hurt you, I cannot. But whatever you do, I do more also. You fast now and then, but I'm never refreshed by any food. You often kept vigil, but I never fall asleep. Only in one thing are you better than I. And acknowledge and I acknowledge that. Marcurius said to him, What is that? And he replied, It is because of your humility alone that I cannot overcome you. The old man used to say, When we do not experience warfare, we ought so much the more to humiliate ourselves. Warfare meaning trouble or hardship that comes to us, we ought so much the more to humiliate ourselves. For God seeing our weakness protects us. When we glorify ourselves, he withdraws his protection and we are lost. So all these are not, in some way, Bible truths, but they are wisdom to just give us perspective to life. And there is a biblical correlation to this because as we look at the Bible, especially the book of James, that teaches us wisdom, it tells us, you know, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Again, James tells us humble yourself under the Lord's mighty hand, and he will lift you up in due time. So, my first point, what are some implications of being poor in spirit? Firstly, humility will be the hallmark of our lives. The second point to grow uh implications of being poor in spirit is our lives would express a total dependence on God. Our lives today, as we live each day, not only on Sundays, but every day of our lives, we'll live with a sense of total dependence on God. So Psalm 127, verse 1 to 2 reminds us: unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Those who are poor in spirit will always be looking out for God and His intervention in their lives. They are very alert to divine happenings because they live each day with a conscious awareness that they need God's intervention in their lives. They have a single, undivided heart that yields fully to God and to his work in their lives. Therefore, they see God. They are the pure in heart. They find God because they seek him, they seek his intervention in their lives, they totally depend on him. So, how does this work out in our lives? Can we, in all honesty, say that our lives are lived in total dependence on God? Nowhere am I suggesting that all of us become uh uh prayer hermits, you know, just lock ourselves in the room and pray, uh, pray all the time, don't work, don't eat, fast for seven days. I'm not asking us to do that because that has its place. Fasting and prayer has its place. But a lot of times when we think about dependence, total dependence on God, we always think it's something that we uh devote time to prayer in the closet, we separate from the world. But I'd like to suggest to us that uh actually dependence on God is has to be worked out daily in our lives. It cannot be a closet time where you know we spend uh 10 hours in prayer and then go out to the world and then face the challenges again and then feel defeated and go back to the closet time. God desires us to be dependent on Him all of our lives. So by nature, I'm not someone who I would say uh that I'm not naturally, I'm not born with natural intelligence, right? Probably my brother took most of it. So I'm not born with natural intelligence. So this implies that last minute cramming work does not pan out well for me. So I'm usually not a last minute person. I don't like to do things last minute, I don't like to cram things. I know some of us are good at that, cramming things and then uh then we deliver it. So for me, I don't work that way. For me, uh my motto in life is always consistent effort, uh, will bear results. So I work hard, I discipline myself, I put constant and conscientious effort to what I do. A bit here, a bit there, little by little I move things. And that's the way God has uh led me uh to minister and the way God has led me thus far. Yet many times uh it felt as if God uses my natural disposition and carries me along by his grace. I put in the hard work and discipline, yet discover that in the midst of it, you know, God is not separated from it, but the yoke of Jesus is easy and light. So as I serve the Lord in ministry, there are challenges, there are tensions, but and it's intense, uh yet the yoke is light, it's easy because uh I know God is with me. I know I can depend on Him. So living out our lives in total dependence on God is not to be mistaken to be the work of a hermit or a desert father. Do nothing but pray in the closet. But it's an attitude and posture of the heart that yields daily in total and full surrender to God. It's going through our daily business of work and yet with an attitude of total surrender to God. It's possible. And when we do that, we have a sense of the easy yoke and the light burden because Jesus always beacons us in the midst of tensions at work, busyness, to come to Him to find rest and peace in Him. In closing, I'd like to uh just introduce us to a helpful prayer in which we can use. Uh, it's called the prayer of indifference, right? It goes like this Father, I'm indifferent to every outcome except your will. I want nothing more or less than your desire for what I do. There are many versions of this uh prayer of indifference. Uh yeah, so it is used in uh uh ignation spirituality to help one to pray. Indifference doesn't mean we we are indifferent to the needs of others. And sometimes it's a dirty word. To be indifferent means to be cold and aloof. But the the word indifferent is used in the context of being detached from things. It means to detach ourselves from things people experience, that we are able to live aside, to seek after only what God will God desires or God wills for us. So uh depending on it's a way of laying aside our lives. In other words, it's a way of saying that I deny myself to take up my cross, to surrender my will, so that each day I'll live in total dependence on what God brings to me. So when we do that, we experience the easy yoke and the light burden that Jesus gives to us. So the prayer of indifference helps us to place our lives in God's hands. It helps us to posture ourselves in the midst of life's uh tensions and issues and a tough work schedule. Sometimes all it requires us to do is to pray. You know, just a simple two words, two-sentence prayer. Uh to place our lives in God's hand and to leave the outcome to Him. So I pray that this uh morning, may God help us to be poor in spirit by being humble, firstly, and secondly, having a posture of total dependence on God, to be detached from things that we experience, to not allow ourselves to be so affected, because all of us can be affected by so many things that affect us each day, right? So we can only handle what comes to us, right? But the prayer of indifference helps us to focus on what is truly necessary, and that is the will of God. You know, that is in and through everything. Uh we do our best, but we also want to know that uh we want to submit and yield to His will. So the prayer of indifference uh is a good prayer to pray, to pray for our lives. Father, I'm indifferent to every outcome except your will. I want nothing more or less than your desire for what I do. I want to challenge us to take that prayer seriously and to start praying that you know if you need to just take a snapshot of that using your phone, uh please go ahead. You know, you it may lead you and help you to pray. You can Google and search online uh Ignation Spirituality, uh, prayer of indifference. A lot of prayers will come up. But I find this good succinct enough, easy to remember, and good way to orientate our lives in the morning as we begin a hectic work schedule or or even a day of quietness. Some of us will have more time, a quiet contemplation as we pray, we yield ourselves to God, and then we go about the things God brings to us. You know, taking care of our family, doing household chores, attending to our work ministry, all everything that comes. We want God's will to be done. We want what He desires for us. So it's a posture of total dependence on God, away from just the closet, but practice in our day to day concrete life experience.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.