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Gong Xi Fa Cai (Wishing You New Year Prosperity)
or God's Blessings of Peace
By Rev (Dr) Timothy Tow
(Preached at Life BPC, Chinese Service, Jan 12 2003)
Text: Prov 23:4-5; I Tim 6:6-10, 17-18
When we arrived in Perth five weeks before
Christmas the commercial world had began their Merry Christmas
campaigns to advertise their goods – cheap sale, cheap sheep sale,
in order to unloose your purse strings and fill up their coffers.
One month before Chinese New Year, the commercial world in Singapore
is splashing in the newspapers Gong Xi Fa Cai (Wishing You
New Year Prosperity) but we Christians should rather pray for God’s
blessings of Peace.
Those who say Gong Xi Fa Cai have money
as their God. Money, money, money, throughout life until you drop
dead and that is life, no more. I had employed a Jewess to teach the
Hebrew language at FEBC. Because I had a big intake of students I
gave her a handsome salary. When the time came for her to return
home with her husband to Israel she and her husband came to say
goodbye. I therefore took the opportunity to witness Christ to them.
They preferred to be called free thinkers. Their view of life was to
make as much money as they could and enjoy life. When the time comes
to die, that’s it. Death ends everything. I said Jesus, a Jew, was
the Virgin-born Son of God. He came to save us from hell by dying on
the cross for our sins. He rose on the third day that we believing
in Him might have everlasting life. I gave them a Jesus Saves clock.
Yes, I have come to realise why Christianity
grows so slowly. So the Lord gave me the idea of a Jesus Saves clock
in English, and now one in Chinese. The words are a short couplet
composed by my father who had them printed on a label he pasted on
bottles of prescription mixtures he dispensed to his patients (my
father was a doctor). The couplet reads, "Believe in Jesus, Enjoy
life everlasting." This Jesus clock when hung up in your house
immediately sanctifies your home. All unholy objects must
automatically disappear such as calendars with semi-nude women.
Secondly, it blesses the occupiers of the home. Thirdly, it is
speaking 24 hours a day to anyone who visits your house. You can
evangelise Church and school goers by giving one costing only $14 to
your friends.
Following the first part of our theme, Gong
Xi Fa Cai, let us examine our text Prov 23:4-5, "Labour not to
be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon
that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they
fly away as an eagle toward heaven." A greenhorn trying to make
money in shares wanted to sell them because they had gone up in
price. When he went to the share market in his own good time it had
dropped in the meantime. The shares had flown away.
Paul tells Timothy, "For the love of money is
the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have
erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows" (I Tim 6:10). My sister told me she had a friend who made
some quick dollars in shares. She sold her house for $400,000. She
made some more money and became more daring. Speculation in shares
is like gambling. In no time she lost everything. Being single she
lived now in a rented cubicle and subsisted by working in a factory.
Not Gong Xi Fa Cai, but rather "God’s
Blessings of Peace." "But godliness with contentment is great gain.
For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can
carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith
content" (I Tim 6:6-8). Paul the author of these words set us the
example "I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea,
ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my
necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all
things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to
remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more
blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:33-35). A Christian’s life
is both frugal and generous.
To the rich, however, he warns against
highmindedness not to trust in uncertain riches but in the living
God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. Although modern
economy conditions us to hire purchase with our salaries, we can’t
rashly take big houses and cars but small or medium ones. When
retrenchment came to one of the earning partners recently, the
couple lost both big house and big car. As the Singapore idiom goes
they have to count the milestones as they trudge around.
"That they do good, that they be rich in good
works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; Laying up in
store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come,
that they may lay hold on eternal life" (I Tim 6:18-19). Chinese
conservatism gives not out of the family as the saying goes, "Rich
waters flow not to another man’s field," so much so a father will
direct his substance only to his son or sons, but leave nothing to
married daughters who are considered outsiders because they are
married.
A Christian wisely wills his property to his
Church or a missionary society and not to spendthrift and ungodly
children. He is ready to help the poor and needy. So David says,
"Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him
in time of trouble" (Ps 41:1).
There are a lot of people in the pain of
suffering, even financially. When you are well to do and you help
them out, God will shower His peace doubly upon you.
Not Gong Xi Fa Cai which is the worldly
wish for money without God but God’s blessing for peace. Though we
live frugally we are rich towards the poor and this also works to
our own good. Amen.
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