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For this special confirmation service, guest speaker, the Right Reverend Kwan Kim Singh, shares from Jesus parables in his message entitled, Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen.

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Well, I want to begin by saying what a great joy it is to be here to worship the Lord with you. And uh obviously, I know quite a few people here. I've been in the church for a while, and uh maybe I should say this. I know she's a little bit embarrassed, but I should say this. You know, I tell people the most important Anglican mother in Singapore is found in this church because she has two sons who are clergymen. Twice enough, and I went along with her. She was asking, is it why here or not? I had to uh, you know, my wife, uh she doesn't well, my wife prefers to go to her home church, which is now St. John's Chapel, and uh I'll fetch her after the service, right? But uh she's a little bit reticent about meeting people, she's shy, so to speak. But Joyce and Us went back a long way. In fact, she was my Sunday school superintendent when I began my ministry as a Sunday school teacher. So you can imagine how far life has gone. And of course I met other people as well, like Peter and Andrew and some other people. It's a great joy to be here. It's always a great joy to gather with the people of God in worship. This is one of the reasons why we gather. Let us consider how we may stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as it is the habit of Sarah. Present-day 21st century Christianity, we've got we've got lots of problems because we've got technology. And our technology is breaking, is undoing some of the good things that we should be doing. For example, I think, I think uh online worship services for days like this, not a good idea. How do we gather together? Right? But nevertheless, Zoom is important. Okay, I tell why it's important. I have to look after the Anglican Church in Nepal. So I meet the clergy once in two weeks via Zoom. I see them on the ground once in three months, but in the meantime, we won't zoom. So the technologies are useful, but if we allow technology to sweep us, we are in trouble. We should use technology and not allow technology to dictate to our wills. Okay, I've got a difficult sermon to preach today. For many are called, but few are chosen. And I'm bringing the word of God, particularly to those who are being confirmed today. I always tell people when I preach on a confirmation service, the word is for those who are being confirmed. But the rest of the church, you can ease draw. No problem, you can ease wrong. How do I come to this text? Well, I always preach from the lectionary. Always. Unless the Lord spoke to me quite clearly, son, this is what you need to do. You need to preach this particular text. There was a season in my life where I only preached one sermon. In fact, there was only about a year in my life where F preachers invited me, Anglican or non-Anglican, same sermon. I say, You want? I preach this sermon, right? I preach this sermon, and I tell what the sermon is. The sermon is on false worship. This is what the Lord has spoken to me. I only preach this sermon, right? But it's not the same today. Today, we go to the lectionary, and you and the text that we have today comes from the lectionary. You know the title of the sermon? It comes straight from the gospel reading. For many are called, but few are chosen. Now it's important for us to know the uh background to this uh parable, right? To this parable, and now this parable is set in the context of Jesus' final week as a human being in Jerusalem. He had just cleansed the temple, right? He had just forcibly chased out people from the temple of God because they were using the temple wrongly, right? And then, of course, in the temple in Jerusalem, then, well, you had the temple leadership, right? You had the you had the you had the PCC, yeah? The temple leadership. And they were of course, they were displeased. So they came to Jesus and asked him, hey guy, what on earth are you doing? Who gave you the authority to do what you're doing? In other words, they tell him, shut up, get out of the way. Right? Jesus, no, by the way, it's not a good habit to argue with God, right? Because God always wins. By the way, it's okay to argue with God. Okay, it's okay to argue with God. But remember, God always wins. You look at the life of Job, argue with God, and Job has got good reasons to argue with God. God always means. So Jesus spoke to this temple leadership. Okay, guys, you want me to tell you where my authority comes from? Answer me one question, then I'll tell you the answer. Right? Now, the baptism of John, John the Baptist, where does it come from? Baptism of John, is it from God, from heaven, or is it from human beings? They all had a quick discussion and they realized better don't answer this question. Because we answer this question, we all marvel. So they say, like most people will say, when they don't want to face reality, we don't know. I don't know. No, I've heard this so many times when you tell me I don't know, I know they know, but they don't say anything, right? So they don't I don't know. Why Jesus says, right? If you don't know, you don't tell me, neither am I telling you anything. Right. And then Jesus went into three parables because he was not going to let them go. He went into three parables, and the third, the three of these three parables, the third one culminates with this words of warning, striking words, for many are called, but few are chosen. I wouldn't unpack for you the other two parables. You go and read it for yourself, right? But essentially, the two parables have to do with don't just talk about God, live out your Christian life, so to speak. Okay, don't just talk, live out a Christian life. Faith is not faith until it is expressed in action. Every expression of faith is risky. Okay, with that, let me now unpack the parable. This parable, like most of the virtually all of Jesus' teaching, is about the kingdom of God. Now I know in the text over here, he says in verse 2, verse 1, first, and again, Jesus and again Jesus spoke to them in parables saying, the kingdom of heaven, right? The kingdom of heaven. Now, the gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish audience. Jewish people up to today don't use the word, they don't pronounce the word God, right? We all use the word God all the time. If you have a friend who's who is Jewish, and if he is the really kosher type of Jew, right, proper Jew, when you send you a WhatsApp message or whatever, if he refers to God, first in the first place they try to avoid the word. Reason is we they don't want to take the name of God in vain. It's ingrained into the psychism. But if he has to use the word God, he will write G hyphen B. They never put a vowel. Reason is this, they don't want to articulate the word, because just in case you take God's name in vain. That's how they that's how they work things out. So for Jewish audience, and uh like I say, the Gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish audience, they use the term kingdom of heaven, right? If you look at the parallel text in other parts of scripture, in in other in the other parts of the gospel of town, kingdom of God. Kingdom of God equal kingdom of heaven, right? Now Jesus' message was about this parable, it's about the kingdom of God. Now let me pause over here and ask this question. For those who have been confirmed today, I ask you a question. Are you in the kingdom of God? Don't tell me you're members of YCCA, yeah. Are you in the kingdom of God? Right? When I ask people this question, sometimes they say, Well, we're not sure. Right, we're not sure. Reminds me of a very good friend of mine now. Uh now we're very good friends. Uh, I first knew him in St. Andrew's Cathedral. I was in the cathedral for quite a while. And uh one day, I mean, this person and I became good friends, and one day uh we were drinking coffee and he said this. He said, Bishop, do you know before you came to the cathedral, I was a good Anglican. I go to church, I do everything. And essentially, I was an Anglican on autopilot. I understood what I understood what he said, what he meant. Like for many people, they are Christians on autopilot. Just go to church, do the right things, they return the tithe to God, they do all the right things. Well, they do maybe 80% of the right things, and they are quite happy with it. But he says, you know, what you say about the kingdom of God, then I begin to think about it. Because I was on autopilot, right? The plane was on autopilot. But actually, if I'm in the kingdom of God, I should be flying the plane. I should be actively living out my Christian life, not just passively. Now, friends, if you're not sure, if your Christian life is a little bit passive, ask yourself whether you are in the kingdom of whether you are in the kingdom of God. Perhaps you are, right? Then if you cannot answer the question, are you in the kingdom of God? I'm not sure. Oh, you're now in trouble. I tell you why. You ask me the question, Bishop Kwan, are you married? If I tell you I'm not sure, woe to me. Right? If you're not sure whether you're in the kingdom of God, the most likely answer is you're not in the kingdom of God. You will be in the church. But you're not in the kingdom of God. How do you know? How do I know I'm in the kingdom of God? Answer very simple. How do I know I'm married? Answer very simple. I have a wife. She reminds me we are married. Right? How do I know I'm in the kingdom of God? Answer very simple. I am obeying the king all the time. If your Christian life is such that you're not obeying Jesus, either you are not in the kingdom of God or you are just so-called, you are, well, autopilot. Not a very good idea. If Jesus is not your king, we've got a problem. I tell people, you know, one of the biggest problems of contemporary Christianity, okay? Contemporary Christianity, and I'm talking about contemporary, Protestant, evangelical, charismatic Christianity, is that many people are in church, but they are not in Christ. And if you are only in church, you're not in Christ, you are going to hell. If you're not in the kingdom of God, we are going to hell. It's either the kingdom of God or the kingdom of darkness. Kingdom of God. Jesus came just to do this, to re-establish God's kingdom upon humanity. And the way he did it, we all know. He opened the kingdom of God by his death upon the cross. And then now he knows his people. Come into the kingdom of God. Okay. Let's come, let's continue with the uh sermon because if I just stop working of God, I will give you a 15-minute lecture. So Jesus told his parable, and uh I said this is the third parable, he wanted to kneel in the point, right? To kneel in the point where his authority came from. Right? And it is so important for them to listen to him to be in the kingdom. Two story, well, a king organized a great feast, right? So this is the parable, king organized a feast. What was it for? Well, to celebrate his son's wedding. Right? Now let me ask you a question. If you are invited for a wedding feast celebration in Singapore, how much time would you give? I guarantee you, four hours. Maybe five hours, right? No more than that. Right? It's not the same as a wedding feast in the day of Jesus. Takes days. You know what, you know what's one of the things that I learned about Singaporeans, Western shaped thinking, huh? Singaporeans and my friends in Africa. I tell you what, summarize this way. We got watches, they got time. That's why they are late by one hour. They are regularly late by an hour. I have to tell people, guys, you want to work with me? You cannot be late. Okay? You can be late, other fellas. I come to your country over here, Ethiopia, I only got this amount of time. If I tell you to come at 11 o'clock, you come at 10 45. And wait for me. Because I don't have enough time. I need to go back. I don't have time. You have time, I don't have time. In those days, you have time. Party, long time. So when you have a party, you tell people in a voice, hey guys, good news for you, we've got a party. This party is going to be this particular day, right? On the first week of November. Oh, first week of November. First week of November. Okay. I got I'll got first week of November, right? Okay, try to go first day or second day of November, maybe earlier. If you've got friends who are staying in the area, catch up, drink coffee for three days before the party, right? Because people got time, right? Unfortunately, today we've got no time. By the way, eternity, we have lots of time to drink coffee. Please remember, eternity, we've got lots of time. So he invited people to come to the party, and then the way they handle the party will be like this. After you announce, then when they are nearer to it, you announce one more time or two more times. Hey guys! Hey, this is no fake news, huh? No, of course, this is this is not the way they talk, but in contemporary language, this is not fake news, huh? The party is still on, first week of what did I say? October or November? November, okay. Please come. Now, this is a story that Jesus made up. It's not a real story, right? It's not a real story. And according to this story, the guests, the original invited guests disqualify themselves. How did this disqualify them? How did they disqualify themselves? Well, Jesus, you know, embellish the story by saying some of them say, look, please, you know, I'm you know, we are busy, I got this, I got that, and so on. In fact, some of them did even worse. They even kill the messengers. Now, by the way, this is uh story that Jesus generates to bring us to the punchline, right? Not real sorry, cannot be real, unlikely to be real. Let me ask you a question. If you are invited by the president of Singapore for dinner, you're not gonna say sorry, I cannot come, man. You cancel everything to go, right? Not only you cancel everything to go, you make sure you're early. I remember years, years, years, years, years ago, before I became pastor, I was in the army. And the army saw it fit to give me a medal. I went to receive a metal, next day, but medal. I tell you, for that small piece of metal which I used, she was the little pen pin on the for the small piece of metal. I went there six hours earlier. They told me, come this way for what? This evening, what? Muhammad come so early. Come six hours earlier. Yeah, those of you who have uh suffered, you know. Come six hours earlier, then they check you, this uh then okay, stay over here. Like you know, go on. Oh my goodness, right? Anybody who is invited by the president for dinner, never say no, will be early. And of course, don't kill the person who sent you the invitation letter, right? The king got angry, murdered, killed the other fellow, killed the fellow to kill his servants, and then he told his servants, hey guys, this party must go on. Go and invite everybody and anybody that you see. If it's issue, go to the market and catch everybody and come to come over here for a party, right? So he called so they went around, they brought everybody, you know, wherever they find, they say, hey, the king has a big party, come, eat good food, you know. So came for a party. The party went on. But during the dinner celebration, the king discovered someone who had no wedding garment. Right? What's the wedding garment? Let me ex uh let me explain. Some people, you know, some cop some Bible commenters, this some Bible comment commentators say, well, this refers to, you know, when you have a party, you want to make sure it's nice, right? Make sure it's nice. Even today, um, you want to make sure your photograph in your Instagram, in your Facebook must be sweet, sweet, nice, right? If a person don't wear nicely, voila, right? So usually the party, the king or the big host will have clothing for people to wear nicely. Like, nice, or whatever, lah, make you look nice, right? But this fella evidently did not wear that, and then he was kicked out. Right? He was kicked out. But not the language. The language, Jesus now begins to move from story to teaching, and the teaching is very serious, right? I I bring you uh to the text in verse 11, Matthew chapter 22, verse 11. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there was a man with no wedding garment. And he said to him, friend, now by the way, not not not all the time when people use the word friend. It's a good thing. This one, friend, not very friendly, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, mind him, hand and foot, cast him into the outer darkness. Then Jesus elaborated, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Look at other parts of the gospels. Weeping, gnashing of teeth always refers to hell. If we are not in the kingdom of God, we are in the alternate place. And then Jesus gave us the punchline. For many are called, but few are chosen. I didn't choose this text, it's in the lectionary, and uh I try to be faithful to the lectionary whenever I go to churches. Because I know this text like this, few people go preach. But because confirmation service, I gotta come. Okay, let me now move on from untacking the parable to bring you to what I call comprehending. Right? It is one thing to allow the word to work it through here into the brains. It is a different thing to allow the word to shape our spirituality, comprehending. Now, this parable is. Very easy to understand, right? A king had a big party. Everybody knows. Everybody does have a big party for the for weddings, right? And this party, despite some initial hiccups, went on fine. It was good, right? If you if you if if it is in contemporary setting, you got nice, you got lots of nice pictures. Oh, this is very nice, right? Except. The except it says one guest wore flip flops instead of shoes to the party. Now I know some of you say, hey, Bishop, please laugh. The Bible never says flip-flop. I'll tell you a story. Three weeks ago, three and a half weeks ago, I was asked, invited, asked, to attend or to be part of uh a food fest, a food expo. Okay, this was a sense expo and convention center. Hall B. So you know, this is as much as I can tell you, it's real, huh? So I'm not making this up. Hall B, two years ago, is uh it's a food, it's a food thing, and they have coffee. And the reason why I was invited was because they are coffee. I'm good friends. I've I travel by Ethiopian Airlines a lot because I fled to Ethiopia. Right? Ethiopia is the motherland of coffee, just in case you don't know.

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Right?

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Coffee started in Ethiopia. So they burned up, Ethiopian Airline was uh uh uh uh had a booth there, and they I think they they donated a ticket for the baristas to make the coffee. Whoever comes in first got a free ticket there, but of course Ethiopian Airline wants to serve their own coffee, right? Now talking about coffee, this is how I drank coffee. My 10 brothers will know. I grew up drinking kopi or kosum. I'm sure I got many fancy. Then I graduated to kopi or cow. Then I further graduated PhD to kofi or super cow. So much so, I used to, when I was a cathedral, I always every night when I get tired. I used to go down to the place at the uh Delphi. There was this counter over here. And every time when I go there, I will say I want copy of super cow. After a while, when I walk in into the place, when the lady sees me coming, she'll make the cop, she'll make the copy of super cow waiting for me. So I drink up super cow black coffee until I begin to drink proper coffee. Now, some of you are in this league, huh? Specialty coffee. Right? So I was helping my friends in it in the uh Itopanian line to serve Yeager Chafe specialty coffee. So because I was serving it, I asked some of my friends, hey guys, so I told them a few days earlier, hey guys, I got good news for you, huh? And I know some of my friends are copy khaki, yeah. I said, hey, on this particular day, you come to uh Expo, uh Science Expo and Convention Center, right? I'm going to help the independent lines serve some coffee. You come, I give you good coffee. Yaga Chafe, specialty green coffee, very good coffee. One of my friends came, a few of my friends came to drink coffee. One of my friends, right, came and he he called me from outside. Hey Bishop, I cannot go in now. I said, What do you shall go? This is the expo, anybody can come in, right? He says, This this expo here called dress coat. I wear flippers, slippers you can't come in. I say, what? Hey, slippers not allowed, no. So anyway, I drink the coffee, go outside, but you think we think of it in an easy-going way, but Jesus brought the point to teach us about a man who had no wearing garment. Now, what is meant by a man who had no wearing garment? I suggest to you that a couple of things. Well, my eye is not very good, you cannot see properly from here, right? Okay, let me bring out everything and then the okay. What is wearing garment? Now, obviously, here Jesus is using what is literal to teach what is metaphorical, right? And this is what all good teachers should be doing. We use something that people can understand and bring them people into deep spiritual truth, from the literal to the metaphorical. Scripture speaks a lot about garments. In the Isaiah passage, garments, all our righteous deeds are like filthy garments before God. Now, I'm sure none of us dare to disagree with that, even in the best of what our intention, something is not so clean. Garment. Paul speaks about putting on, put off unrighteousness, put off the things that are evil, and Paul of God was talking to believers. Put off these things now, put on, put on righteousness, put on the right things, put on good speech, put on, right? What was the garment? Garmon is the new life under the anointing, under the leadership of the King, King Jesus. One of the ways in which it is described, and I give you the text in scripture, people full of the spirit. What happens when people are filled or full of the Holy Spirit? Let me tell you what doesn't happen. They don't walk six inches above the ground. The people who are filled with the Holy Spirit will tie the shoelace of people whose shoelaces came off, who will do whatever it takes to help a person who is in need, full of the spirit. We move on to the warning of Jesus. Now Jesus ended his parable with this words of warning. For many are called, but few are chosen. Let me untap everything for you. There are many parallel biblical texts to what Jesus said. For many are called, but few are chosen. Now, I've given you a list of texts, but I'm going to just unpack two for you, no time. Uh to unpack everything, but from the gospel of Matthew, so that we don't flip the Bible too much. Now talking about flipping the Bible too much. Let me say this. We are living in the new era, okay? And I know this is a new era because I live through this new era. Actually, I grew up in the old era. As you can see, I'm an old man. I'm 72 years old, by the way. But I live through an era where nobody will leave his home without this. You know what I'm trying to bring out? This funny toy, which I'm quite sure all of you have. If you don't have, you are super old era. Right? If we get out of a house, forgot the wallet, never mind. Forgot the forbidden. Right. Smartphone. Now, friends, let me say this about smartphone. Smartphone, useful, but smartphone also makes us not so smart. And one of the great dangers of the smartphone making us not so smart is with regard to the word of God. I notice people nowadays go to church, they don't bring Bibles. They don't bring hard copy of the Bible. They say, no, I can find this place over here, right? Let me ask you a question. You think you can find the text? But is it in you? In the day of crisis, you got no time to you got no time for your smartphone. If the word of God is not in you, you are in trouble. Because of the smartphone, I'm not so smart. And I'm going to prove this now, okay? I used to know lots of telephone numbers. Lots of telephone numbers because one of my I mean, I got many friends, right? And you want to quickly call a fella, you'll know the telephone number, right? Or you tell a secretary, hey call his person. And by the time you secretly check, by the time your secretary check, take a while, right? I tell her, I tell her number. Call his number. Now I know only one telephone number. And even when I say this, I please. I tell people I only know my wife's telephone number. And the number is I used to tell you the number, okay, tell me my number. But I'm sure you know you will agree. You know, I'm telling you, I know my wife's telephone number. And no other numbers. I used to remember a lot of numbers. Because I mean, I'm I'm a person in a hurry. I cannot wait for people, right? So if my secretary doesn't know number, I must tell her call smartphone, make us not so smart. The problem is we are not allowing the word of God to come into our system. So I'm gonna encourage you to do this, friends. Okay, use a smartphone, very good, but have a Bible which you study from, which you study from, which you do your devotion from. Mark the Bible. Okay, and talking about marking the Bible, my favorite quotation about marking the Bible is this. Okay, I tell you, I give one reason why you must mark the Bible. Okay, dirty Bible, clean Christian. Clean Bible, I leave it to you, I leave free to decide. Mark your Bible. I got many texts for you, but I just want to take one text. I'll just take two texts from two parallel texts from the Gospel of Matthew, right? And you will not miss it. If you are around, you know it's on the gospel of Matthew. Just free. If you have a Bible, you fill a few pages up. Matthew chapter 7, verse 13 and 14. Jesus said, Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is right, and the way is easy, that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find are few. Paraletics again in Matthew 7, verse 21. Jesus said, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, this is about end day judgment. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father in heaven. In other words, the one who knows he is in the kingdom of God, who is not autopilot. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, do mighty works in your name, and then will I declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. This same person who said these words said to us, for many are called, but few are chosen. Who is this man who said this to us? A few days later, this man was hung on the cross. For your sake and for my sake. He didn't say these words to make life difficult for us. He said these words to tell us get put away everything that hinders you from entering the kingdom of God because it's so important. Let me conclude by saying this. We are living in a very dangerous era, spiritually speaking, because we have tons and tons of false teachers. For those who are going to be confirmed today, but traditionally in the church, we begin to receive Holy Communion. The Holy Communion, the Lord's Table, is a centerpiece of Christian worship. No other faith has this. Without the breaking of bread, without sharing at the Lord's table, our Christianity is just like Judaism, so to speak. What makes all the difference is the fact that there was a person which the word of God describes as the Lamb of the world, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world? Most sacred. Today there are false teachers that teach you if you are sick, take holy communion three times a day. Maybe five times a day. Now, if you do not know who I'm talking about, blessed are you. But this guy's name is so famous in Singapore and across the world. This heretic, by the way. Okay, he's a heretic, he's a liar because he teaches people if you take holy communion, it will bring blessing into your life. If you are sick, take holy communion three times a day. Instead, in fact, he also said, if you take holy communion, you feel younger. So all hey, by the way, he's just got thousands of people who can listen to him, you know. Take holy communion, you feel younger. He's a liar, and yet people believe in him. He's a false teacher, yet people believe in him. The reason why I bring this out is simply this friends for many are called, but few are chosen. Don't be misled by false teachers. I leave this with you because your eternity is important. I speak to you as a servant of God who takes what he says, the words of Jesus, sworn in, and unpeggy.

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May God grant us the wisdom to lead the way in which we will please the chief of the water.