#GenCamp24: Living a Gospel Centric Life | Terry Yeow

Hey, there, you're listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray that

the word of God today will challenge, change and channel you into your God

given destiny. Now let's get started. Now, I'm going to start off

today by this question, what is the gospel? What is the gospel?

I think it's important to ask this question at the very beginning because the title

of my sermon today is living a Gospel centric life. If my title my

sermon is living a Gospel centric life, I think it's important for us to

firstly understand and establish what the gospel is. Correct. Now, in my

opinion, it's not just my opinion. The gospel is simple, and the

gospel consists of this three statement we lost it all, he paid it all,

and we gain it all. That is, in its essence, the

gospel. I remember having this conversation with one of my young adults. Okay,

he's twenty one, and he was in a season in dumc where there

was this movement called the hyper reform theology that was going very rampantly among the

universities and among the colleges. If you're a university or college student, you

will understand what I mean. And in the sitting down conversation with him.

I asked him this question, what is the gospel? Because he was like,

you know, Terry, we're not gospel center enough. You know,

Terry, what we preach it is not gospel center enough. The songs that

we sing, it's not gospel center enough. Out dressing is not gospel centered

enough. Your hair is not gospel center enough. Yeah, no, everything's

not gospel saying. I was just asking this simple question, what is the

gospel? My friend? He looked at me, and when it's too complex

to explain? Is it really? Is it truly that complex that you can't

explain it to me? So I say, let me ask you this question.

If I was a non Christian, if I was your friend and I

wanted to come to Christ, and I asked you this question, can you

explain to me what the gospel is? And I five minutes? What would

you say? I will tell my friend that it's too complex, Come to

service, come to discipleshap group, commit to one whole year of Bible study.

I was like, okay, let me just share with you one thing

that the Gospel is not complex. It is simple. It is straightforward,

but doesn't mean that it has no value listen, we lost it all.

We had lost it all. There is nothing that we do today that can

earn us the grace that He's afforded us. Our destiny, our eternal destiny,

was damnation because of the sin that's in our lives. There were many

many accounts in the Old Testament where the Lord had instructed great and mighty men

of God and his people right to say, look, if you want my

presence to continue to be with you, you need to do these things to

atone for the scenes. And that's why the sacrifices you know, were in

place, the tabernacle and all those things. I'm not gonna get into that,

right, but each and every single time men had failed, we had

failed. So what was the ultimate price that had to be paid him sacrificing

his only son. He paid it all. He did it, all,

the work on that cross, the salvation that he brought, the veil that

he tore, so that now the presence of God can dwell among us freely.

But he didn't end there. As he resurrected. It was proof that

he had defeated death, he had defeated the very destiny that we were all

on past four He paid it all, and they at the end of the

day we gained it all. That is the message of the Gospel. Now,

friends, my full lock to all of us, is this with understanding

this truth, with understanding this reality of what the Gospel is, this definition

of what the Gospel is, my question to you is what is our response

to this? It cannot just be us going oh wow, that felt good,

Thank you Jesus, and we sit on our laurels. But what is

our response to that truth? The Gospel redeems, the Gospel restores, and

the Gospel commissions us. But how can we continue living and advancing that gospel?

Is what I would like to challenge and talk to us about today.

So if you have your bibles, please turn with me the John chapter four.

Be reading from verse four. You can just read along with me silently

in your heart, or you want to read out as you can. Problem

John topped the four verse for now he had to go through Samaria. So

he came to a town in Samaria called Sichar, near the plot of ground

Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus,

tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.

It was about noon when a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said

to her, will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into

the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, you are

a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for

a drink? For Jews to not associate with Samaritans, Jesus answered her Verse

ten. Jesus answer her, if you knew the gift of God and who

it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and

he would have given you living water. Sir. The woman said, you

have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you

get this living water? Are you greeted? And our father Jacob, who

gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons,

and his life stalk. Jesus answered, everyone who drinks this water will

be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of

water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir,

give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming

here to draw water. He told her, go call your husband and come

back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her,

you are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you

have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.

What you have just said is quite true, sir. The woman said,

I can see that you're a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,

but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.

Woman Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will

worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship

what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation

is from the Jews. Yet the time is coming and has now come.

In the true world, shippers will worship the Father in the spirit and in

truth, for they had a kind of worshippers. The Father seeks God is

spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman

said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. When he comes,

he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I the one speaking

to you, I am he verse twenty seven. Just then his disciples returned

and was surprised to find him talking with a woman, but no one asked

what do you want or why are you talking with her? Then leaving her

water Jah, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,

come see a man who told me everything I ever did? Could this

be the Messiah? They came out of town and made their way toward him.

Let's skip to verse thirty nine. Many of the Samaritans from that town

believed in him because of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever

did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay

with them, and he stayed two days, and because of his words,

many more became believe us. They say to the woman, we no longer

believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves,

and we know that this man really is the savior of the world. Understanding

the Gospel and how it transforms my life and receiving the truth into my life

are one thing, but having the deep desire to live a life advancing it

is another. You see, there is a hole in our lives. It

is so deep It is a longing that's so great that can only be quenched

by one thing, and that is God himself. You see, we constantly

long for more as human beings. I believe all of us are in this

place right now. We're all humans. We all have this deep longing and

we constantly long for more. It is deep within us. But maybe that

deep longing isn't such a bad thing, but it is a necessary thing.

Let me explain more. You see, we are designed within us is so

that we may run back to the one who fills us. You see,

what if that longing we try desperately to fill in our daily is actually our

daily reminder to keep seeking God. So don't run away from the longing,

but long after the one that can fill that void and fill that gap constantly

and eternally. There are so many lessons that we can learn from John chapter

four, and I would like to introduce us to forming points and forming lessons

that we can draw from John chapter four. So are you guys ready?

All right? So let's start with point number one. Is this Jesus met

her and this is found in verses four to nine. As I just read

just now, you see some things too kind of interesting that we can pick

from these portions of scripture. She scheduled her day to avoid her deepest pains

and shame, yet Jesus still met her. Let me explain this a little

bit more. You see, she obviously frequented that well. Right, let

me just point out and say that Samara was a desert town and at the

heat of the day at noon, nobody would go to the well to draw

water. It was hot, a little bit like what Ka and PJ is

right now. I showered this morning, cold water, colder like I never

showered, cold water, heater wasn't on sh you know, in the initial

was a little bit like shocking. But I was like, oh, this

is nice, this nice cold water the moment I see you off the water

and started drying myself sweat. This is the reality of our nation. Samara

was a desert and at the heat of noon, nobody goes to the well

to fill up their water or to get water. So there can only be

one explanation. She had scheduled. It was something that she did to avoid.

See, perhaps she planned to escape meeting the villagers. She could have

been an outcast because of her background, and you know, she's had four

or five husbands, and she was. The man that she's seeing now is

not her husband, so she's probably got a reputation right Yet, Jesus would

meet her there. You see, Sometimes perhaps some of us feel the weight

of our circumstance is overwhelming to the point where we think we have straight away

too far. We think that we are too far from the Lord, that

there's no way that he would meet us. But Jesus sat there, asking

for a drink, asking and our cast for help. This indicates that in

God's eyes, no one is too far gone. You've not done anything,

anything at all that's too insane for the Lord to sit there. Meet you

where you're at. He will be right there. The question is are you

willing to engage him? So Jesus met her. The second point is this

is found in verses nine to twelve. She stayed with Jesus. Now what

do I mean by this? You may think to yourself, My goodness,

so simple. You see, it would have been so easy for her to

turn away in shame the moment Jesus revealed all that was going on in her

life. Friends can side is real quick. Nobody likes to be confronted let's

face it, that is the very thing that sometimes draws us away and stops

us from coming to the Lord, because we do not want the stuff that's

going on, the mess that's going on, the ruppish that's going on in

our lives, to be confronted. She would have been so easily like her

response to how Jesus had spoken to her. She could have responded in a

way where she was like, you know what, I'm offended. How dare

you? Who are you? Who are you to say these things about me?

You don't understand what I've been through, You don't understand my upbringing,

You don't understand the motives behind what I do? How dare you a stranger?

Someone? You ask me for help? I give you water? How

dare you? Nobody would have blamed her, and she would just turn around

and left, gone back to what she was, I mean, gone back

to her life, gone back to her circumstances. But you know what,

the gospel is simple. But friends, I have good news for you.

The gospel is also offensive. How can that be good news? Terry?

Because you know what, we lost it all. We have to acknowledge that

we are sinners and our trajectory is towards eternal damnation. Nobody likes to hear

that, nobody likes to be confronted with our mess. But she stayed with

him. Even after Jesus had confronted her and revealed all her wrongdoings and the

circumstance that she was in that could be shameful, she stayed with him.

See, there isn't anyone who is too broken to receive this living water.

Friends, I wonder what would happen. I wonder what would happen if you

just said for a while, if you just came a little closer to him,

if you just pursued his presence just a little bit more. See what

if you crack the surface open and you allowed the space for him to fill

you. My main encouragement to you in this point number two is that when

you stay, you can be filled. When you stay, you can be

filled. So the next time you're confronted with what you're struggling with, the

next time you're confronted with a circumstance that you've been running away from, instead

of turning around and going back, why not just sit for a while and

allow him to feel you. Third point, just from verse thirteen to fifteen,

she received his filling. Now she stayed long enough to dig deeper,

and she was open to change. Perhaps not most importantly, well, perhaps

most importantly, Jesus stayed and showed her what she had been looking for all

along, that void in her life that she was probably filling with all these

relationships that she was having, perhaps Jesus in debt. As she dunk deeper

and as she pursued him, she had found what she's actually been looking for

all the while. See, Jesus offered. Jesus offered that living water to

her. He always offers us where it be, salvation be it. Uh,

you know the truth, He's always he's offered like offering us feeling.

He always offers, and most importantly, he offers us a place to never

thirst again. But when we receive it. You see, I've always heard

like feedback of like so friends who struggle, right, and they're like,

man, I've not encounter God. I've not encountered God. I don't know

why the past Andy, I'm sure he has heard this before as well.

You know, I've not encountered God. I don't think he's real. And

you know what, he's never like offered anything to me. Friends can't say

Jesus always offers. He always offers us a way out. It's whether we

receive it or not. See, receiving is hard. It's not easy because

I mentioned you know, we start off with the offense and then he's getting

past that offense and sitting down and pursuing deeper. But receiving is hard,

especially when we believe we are too far gone. See, perhaps you have

had the faith to firstly receive that salvation, but perhaps you're struggling right now

to have faith enough to advance it. But receiving is not a destination.

It's not something that we pursue. Oh, I'm working towards receiving from the

Lord. No, receiving is not a destination, but it is an action.

It is something that we actively pursue. It is a daily choice that

we never cease to do. It's only in the receiving when our thirst is

quenched. And no, so graciously just now brought water for me because I

was thirsty. I could not have quenched the thirsty if I did not take

that action and received it. It's as simple as that friend, so she

received his feeling. What is the posture of our hearts today as we enter

into this service. I don't know most of you. I don't know how

your year has been, certainly, but as you entered this this what is

the posture of your heart? Are you ready to receive from him? My

fourth and final point from verses twenty eight to forty two. And she desired

to go and do See she immediately ran off to tell others. And I

can't emphasize how important the words she immediately ran off and told others. See,

he did not just fill her longing, but it gave her a new

desire to use that energy to live out her new purpose. What is to

tell the people of this story that she had just gone through? The story

of the Woman at a World is a story about love, truth, redemption,

and acceptance. You see, friends, she lost it all. She

certainly had lost it all. Her pathway was towards damnation. He paid it

all. He offered her redemption. He offered her this living water. And

on the day she gained it all, she was redeemed, restored, and

she was commissioned to go and tell this story, tell of this man.

And if we read and you know, at the end of this passage of

scripture, the entire town heard from Jesus themselves, and they were saved.

But I believe in this. I believe, and I would like to invite

all of us to respond. After we've heard this revelation, I would like

to encourage us to respond as we worship him. How do we live a

gospel centric life? Sit with Jesus and allow him to reveal to us our

brokenness. Allow him to reveal to us our struggles. Allow him to reveal

to us our hurt, our pain. Receive the living water. Allow him

to restore your purpose, Allow him to restore your identity and your dignity,

and finally, be bold in sharing all of this. When I was so

when I accept the Christ, when I was seventeen, as I mentioned just

now, I immediately started serving right. And my youth pastor at that time

is this loud Indian guy called Michael Raj. Some of you may know him.

He's got a mullet, Okay, like who has a mullet? Right,

but he has until today and he's like close to seventy. He saw

something in me and he gave me the opportunity to serve and to serve as

a leader. So at the age of eighteen, I started serving in the

youth ministry as a leader already, so I was involved with worship. He

would send me for preaching classes and I'll be like, do I know,

I know, I'll just preach to the small group the you know, eight

of us stairs here. And he sent me on that trajectory. And from

the age of eighteen I was serving. I was full on. I was

passionate, man like. I loved it. I loved, you know,

just serving God in church and just building that community, you know, among

our youth group. Now God had blessed us incredibly. He started bringing more

young people in. And because our young people were very passionate about God and

about the youth group that we were at, but they started inviting their friends.

It came to appointment. Our youth group grew and grew and grew and

grew, and I was, you know, right at the midst of this

growth. And so I was so excited, man, I was like,

wow, pioneer of this youth group. And then while the exploding, well

God, you are great. Around just before I received my food time calling

an age l twenty five, right, I mentioned just now, So I

was maybe twenty two twenty three, just graduated, I started working. I

was one of the main leaders, one of the senior leaders, as we'll

call it in the youth group, all right. And I will be preaching

almost every single week, maybe two or three times a month. And you

know, I was leading worship almost every week like some of you probably are

doing as well, you know. And I was like doing things like communion.

I was baptizing young people. Man, I was on fire. My

mom hated Dylla. She still hated, but the Lord will speak to her

one day. I'm very sure of that. I was doing all of that

on fire man. On the outside, everyone was like, my goodness,

this guy must like he wake up right there. He rolled to the spiritual

realm and be with the Lord, so holy our you force. On Sunday

morning at seven thirty am, somebody say, Amen, who in the world

has you for a seventh y am? But read it. If we had

two services seven thirty and eleven, and week in week out, I'll be

there. I'll be on stage and I'll be like, encourage you, come

on, pursue the Lord. The Lord's gonna break your bondages. Sin.

There's no power over you. Come on. But the reality was I was

addicted to pornography at the age of twenty two, in the height of my

ministry, the influence that ahead of old people. I was addicted to that,

and I kept it hidden because you know what, let's be I want

to be really real with you in moments of ministry. As I'm leading the

ministry, time a little bit like this right now, Okay, the Holy

Spirit will be like, come on, come on, you know this is

in your life. Come on, and I will shrug it away. I'll

be like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't

hear it because I've got a mission to do now. I need to get

these people's bondages broken. God, you see God. So actually, Lord,

I'm I'm you know, being very humble right now because I don't want

to deal with my own thing for my I self others was my God,

you always say stuff others first, right. I was making all these excuses,

you know, to not to not be confronted with this week in week

out. Are we doing this? Friends? And the shame was building,

It was building, the guilt was building. Can I tell you there was

one Sunday I stood on stage and it was the second service. The same

thing happened, and I started crying because it became too much for me to

deal with. Do you know what happened? There was a basis in our

team. He's this fourteen year old boy that we've been training up and raising

up during ministryt time. Okay, I was standing in front as a worship

leader, and this boy, for some reason, felt the need to switch

off his base, take out his space, put it down, come up

to me from and whisper in my ear, Pass, Terry, I need

the Lord wants me to say something to you. I was like what I

thought, like what song he wants to do? Or like you need to

go and pee or whatever? You know. I was like no, no,

no, no no, and he's like, no, can I just

talk to you for a second? And I was like sure, and I

got you know the time Rose My wife was, you know, serving it

full time as well, so she took over and I went backstage with him.

I was like, yeah, what's going on? And he went PASSI,

Terry, the Lord wants me to tell you, And I'm sorry,

Terry. I wasn't passingly at the time. I'm sorry, Terry, I'm

sorry, but I cannot shake this off. The Lord wants me to tell

you to let go, to let to not run away. The Lord is

saying, stop running away. There is no shame in his presence. Terry

stopped running away. Okay. Then he ran off on stage. I broke

down there, and then in the back of the stage, I was confronted

with the sin that I was so entangled in, and I was too proud

to sit a while, and I wanted to run away again at that point,

friends, because it's not like, okay, the moment that ah,

you know, Jesus, you know that I felt the same shame, guilt,

you know, and try. It was all going on in here and

here, and I was like, I have no time for this, and

you go and do ministry time. But every single time I did it,

it was like, would you just sit for a while, would you just

stay for a while, Stop running away. And at the back of that

stage, I sat down and I was just weeping away and I was like,

God, I tried everything. I do not know how to get past

this. I think I said there for a good thirty to forty minutes,

just being ministered too. At the end of that, the Lord gave me

spoke to me to say you need to tell Rose about this. Now.

I wasn't dating Roles at that time. We were just friends. But because

she was the full time bokirl, I was like, what tell her?

But Lord, she's a girl. What would she think of me? It's

like, no, and share this with her. So I shared it with

her, and I shared it with my mentor. So I asked my mentor

to be there as well, someone else accountable to about what the Lord was

revealing in my heart. And you know, it took me a long time

to share with them because you know why shame uma. So you know when

if you read this specially a scripture, and like, the Lord's revealing this

thing, so this woman, I can fully understand how hard it is to

stay and sit for a while and dig deeper. But that's what I did.

And they prayed for me, and they're like, okay, you know

what, Terry, we are with you in this journey. Okay, because

this sort of bondages, you don't just disappear overnight. And I was like,

okay. Now I went back and the week went well. Every day

I would be accountable to my mentor, I would call him. I'll say,

you know, today I did feel like watching or I did feel like

going deep into it. But I'm telling you now, and we will pray

together and you know and all that. Now, Saturday came so one week

almost one week right, and on Saturday night I felt the Lord say this,

Terry, share this testimony, share your condition, share your situation right

now to the youth. I was like, okay, when God six months

time tomorrow? What no way? Lo God, No, don't you know

I'm a worship leader. I've been preaching to that non stop. Come on,

the Lord, bring up bondy. Just say thank you. I am

God. No, God cannot. But you know what, friends, Sin

wants to be hidden. That's how sin thrives. That's how bondages get deeper.

That's how the void gets bigger. When we hide it. Well,

when we bring it to light, it is one step towards overcoming it.

So it took everything within me to go out on the stage and share with

them what I'm struggling with right now. At that time, it took about

six to seven months. But I'm free from that bondage. I don't feel

like I need to get into that anymore. Now, why am I sharing

this story with you? Friends? If you would just sit with Jesus for

a little while, if you would just pursue his presence a little bit more,

And would you if you would just receive this living water and not be

offended with this confrontation, your life will change the way that you would get

through this life till the Lord calls you home or till he comes again.

It will change your perspective because there is no shame in his presence. There's

only redemption, there's only salvation. There's this living water that he's offering you

friends today. But perhaps the Lord is revealing something in your heart, and

perhaps he's confronting you with something today that's within your heart, that's within your

life that needs to be brought to light. Would you just sit with him

for a while. Would you just stay with him for a while and dig

a little deeper? Would you receive the living water and receive that healing?

But to not just stop there, but to be bold in sharing about this.

Thank you for listening to The Generation's Church podcast. We hope you have

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