AMiA: 2004 Winter Conference - Archbishop Yong Ping Chung

4th January 2004

The Most Revd. Datuk Yong Ping Chung

Archbishop & Primate - Anglican Church in South East Asia

The Fourth AMIA Winter Conference

Destin, Florida

Opening Address

Theme: Rediscovering the ancient/future Faith:

Setting My People Free

Readings: Genesis 3:1-19,  Romans 5:6-11,  St. Johns 1:1-14

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow

Praise Him, all creatures here below

Praise Him above ye heavenly host,

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

We gather in Destin, Florida tonight at this opening service of the 4th.

AMIA Winter Conference to worship God. We join the heavenly hosts and all the saints in every generation to sing the songs of ever lasting praises

and thanksgiving as recorded in Revelation chapter 5:

Holy Holy  Holy

Lord God Almighty

Who was and is and is to come

You are worthy, O Lord

To receive glory and honour and power

For you created all things and by your will

They exist and were created,

You are worth to take the scroll

And to open its seals

For you were slain,

And have redeemed us to God by your blood.

Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,

You have made us kings and priests to our God

And we shall reign on the earth.

We gather to proclaim to the whole world.

Blessing and honour and glory and power

Be to Him who sits on the throne

And to the lamb for ever and ever.

We gather here tonight to testify to the great and mighty works that God

has done in our lives as individuals and as a Mission. Indeed we testify

that there have been renewal and revival taking place over and over again

among our churches in AMIA. We want to praise and thank God for His loving kindness and wonderful grace.

We gather as a community of faith, redeemed through, and set free by, His precious blood, to wait upon the Lord for His words. With eager and sure expectation, in the context of vibrant worship, warm and intimate fellowship we want to explore the theme of this conference:

Rediscovering the Ancient /Future Faith:

Setting My People free

Our theme for this Conference was prayerfully chosen to draw our attention, to provoke our thoughts and to challenge our spirits.  It is a timely theme, especially in a time like ours. When the whole of Christianity is being challenged undermined and attacked, the people of God need to rediscover once again the essence of our faith, the truth about God Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the reality about ourselves and the world we live.

John in the Island of Patmos was bewildered by what was going on around him. He asked what would happen to the church, God took him back to where it all started - the Throne Room in Heaven - Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. (Revelation 4:1) But before that at the end of chapter 3 of the same book He says -

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Church;

The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, which Jesus promised His disciples and all

of us who are His followers. He said in John 14:26- the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you We, the people of God must be reminded that our beliefs and actions must be judged solely by the Word and the Spirit. We must never trust in ourselves alone neither should we allow our interpretations to rule our lives and our church.  Jesus Christ and His Word are the ultimate authority for us and for His Church. What has happened to our Churches is that the absolute authority of the Bible the centrality and the uniqueness of Jesus have been so camouflaged by many man-made elements through the history of the church.

We have allowed the contemporary cultures, the secular human desires, the

worldly philosophies, together with the Canons and constitutions and

whatever, to blind us of the Faith that was once for all entrusted to the

Saints. Today we are here to rediscover the truth and the essence of our

faith. We want to pray that this Winter Conference 2004 will help us to

rediscover our ancient /future faith. We pray the TRUTH will set all our

people free to declare that:

Our God is greater than any of these. Our God is Sovereign.  He is GOD.

Let me illustrate from the culture I know best, i.e. the Chinese culture.

In the Chinese culture the dragon is a very prominent feature.  The Chinese dragon holds a very important position in the hearts and minds of the Chinese. Consequently it has great influence in the arts, literature, music architecture, etc.  Basically, in the Chinese mind the dragon represents what is powerful, prosperous, glorious, strong and authoritative.  The Emperor was considered the direct descendant of the dragon and therefore he was responsible to heaven for the harmony on earth.  If you look at the paintings of the dragon in each Dynasty you will see the gradual evolution of the dragon.  Bit by bit as the years went on you see different elements added on to the dragon.  Today, you will find that most dragons would have the claws of an eagle, the paws of a tiger, the ears of an ox, the head of a camel, the neck of a snake, the horns of a deer, the scales of a large fish and it even has the eyes of the devil. You can almost see the Chinese imagination and the Chinese superstition joining forces to create a vivid symbol that was to be worshipped and adored. What men desired and longed for they added onto their object of worship. What they themselves have invented and created was used to fulfill their own desire and longing.

Eventually they cannot separate the real from the imaginary. They are

enslaved by their own understanding and followed their own desires of the flesh and they lived according to it and gave their lives for it.  If you

start stripping off all the added features of the dragon, interestingly

there remains a tiny little seemingly harmless snake. Unfortunately for

them, the symbol of their hope and aspiration was so camouflaged that many could not see the evil they were building on and the hopelessness of what they worshipped.  As they get deeper and deeper into it they get more and  more trapped in it.  There seems no way out.

Isn’t this exactly what the world has done to Christianity   They have camouflaged our faith so much that they are not able to see the truth that belies them all. Through out the centuries, people have added their own opinions of what they thought Christianity should be. Again and again the invasion of contemporary cultures and the eagerness of the church to accommodate the cultures slowly alters the essence of our faith. Hence elements are added according to what they thought Christianity needed. they have set out formats and rituals that were once used to enhance the worship of God and made them the main focus of worship. They have distorted the Scriptures.  Some, like those picked up in the Book of Jude, have: changed the grace of our God into a license for immorality and denied Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

While others have added rules and regulations that bind the churches to certain earthly establishments and they have allowed that to be the authority of the church.  We need to go back to our roots - the ancient faith.  We need to strip off all the added parts of man-made Christianity and rediscover once again the essence of our faith.  We need to once again see God as He is, in all His splendor and His glory.  We need to go up to the heavenly throne room, as John did, to fill our eyes with the

awesomeness of His holiness and to surrender totally to His perfect sovereignty and to experience personally His wonderful, compassionate and unconditional love for us.

We need to go back to the beginning.  Even before the world was created, God was already there. Our faith begins with God.  Right from the first chapter, the first verse of our Scriptures it says, In the beginning GOD¦. Everything that God created was good.  He was pleased with what he made. He made man and woman in His own image and breathed into their nostrils the breath of life.  He loved them and wanted them to respond to His love.  He gave them the gift of Free Will so that they can make choices and to respond to His love freely and to enjoy the creation in which He has put under their care. All these  God did because He loved us.  Man responded to Gods love. But man also took advantage of God’s love and misused the gift of Free Will.  He deliberately turned away from God and desired his own glory and followed the desires of his own flesh. In another word man rebelled and sinned against God.  We saw how it all started in our first reading of Genesis 3 tonight.  It is still here today.  We need to strip off the fluffs of the worldly euphemism and acknowledge the Doctrine of Sin. The Bible is very specific and clear. It calls SIN by its true name. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Roman 3:23)

In Romans 6:23 it also says the wages of sin is death. Indeed Sin separates us far from God and traps us into eternal damnation and death. Let’s face it; we need help! We cannot set ourselves free. We need a Saviour to deliver us out of our bondage and set as free.  God, in His marvelous plans, has already provided us that help.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

God sent His only Son Jesus into the world so that the world can have hope again.  Jesus quoted the Scriptures and declared His mission on earth.  He said in Luke 4:18-19:-

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

Because he has anointed me

To preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim

Freedom for the prisoners

And recovery of sight for the blind,

To release the oppressed

To proclaim the year of  the Lords favour.

Jesus did this by dying on the cross for our sins. In him we have redemption through his blood,  the forgiveness of sins.  ( Ephesians 1:7)

But God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Once again through the blood of Jesus our relationship with God is restored and once again we can call God Abba, Father.

Jesus said I am  the way, the truth and the life.   No one comes to the Father except through me.  (John 14:6)

He is the only way because salvation can be found in no one else.  He is the truth, and the truth shall set us free.  He is the life, for He has the key to eternal life. This is Good News.  And His command to us is: go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of  the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey every thing I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:18-19)

Yes, the World needs Jesus. The Anglican Communion needs Jesus AMIA needs Jesus, your church needs Jesus, you and I needs Jesus. We all needs to be

set free from the bondage of sin. And Jesus is the only answer.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are here precisely for this.  The

Mission of AMIA is to go and tell the world about our wonderful Saviour.

Go and tell everybody that there is hope.  Plant new churches for the love

of Christ Let us strip off all the fluffs of the man-made Christianity and

let us rediscover our ancient Faith together for the future for our

children and children’s children. I pray that each one of us while we are

here will experience te awesomeness of the presence of God among us.  We truly be so inspired by the Spirit of God that we want to fall on our knees and join the heavenly host and sing

Holy Holy is the Lord God Almigthy

Who was, and is, and is to come,..

I pray that we will experience the love of God so intimately that His love

will compel us to live our lives in responds to His love.  And His love

will give us boldness to witness for him and truly be the light and the

salt of the world.  I pray that we will be filled with His compassion for

the lost that our desire in life is to share with others the Good News of

Jesus and to see others come into the Kingdom of God. I pray that we will faithfully proclaim Jesus Christ and faithfully pass on the faith to the

next generation.

Through the rediscovery of our ancient faith God wants us to be set free to move forward for the future. This is His promise for us when we take the step of faith:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new

thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it. I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland to give drink to My people, My chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim My praise.

(Isaiah 43:18-21)

Let us pray:

Thank you our Father in heaven for this wonderful promise Thank you Lord Jesus for setting us free from all the bondages of sin and the hindrances of our time.

Thank you Holy Spirit for reviving us, renewing us and em-powering us. Almighty God Father, Son and Holy Spirit send us out from this AMiA Winter Conference2004 to win this nation and all the nations of the world for you. In Jesus precious and mighty name we pray. Amen.