Experiencing God's Presence: Joy in Generosity and Relationship

"I love following God, I love experiencing him in new ways, and in fact, my wife who's with me, we've been married for 27 years now, we have seven children, two grandchildren, and when we decided to move here from the U.S., you know, we thought, okay, we'll take our four youngest children and move to Hong Kong." [00:11:39]

"I remember at our 25-year anniversary at dinner, I asked my wife, I said, no, she asked me, she said, do you know of anyone on the earth that is happier than us? And I said, I don't, I don't know anyone. And she goes, I know, she goes, I keep thinking there has to be someone on the earth that is more blessed than we are, but she goes, I haven't met them yet." [00:02:36]

"I grew up in a Chinese Baptist church, you know, and so very, very similar, you know, both of my parents were pastors in Hong Kong, both in the Baptist church, you know, and so when they went to the U.S., the idea was to start a church very similar to the Hong Kong church, and so that's what I grew up in." [00:05:42]

"When I would read the Psalms, the Psalms were very confusing to me because I would read the way that David would talk to God and I go, wow, that's weird, because for most of us growing up in a Chinese home, the relationship, especially with your father, you don't talk, you don't, you just don't talk." [00:07:45]

"Paul says in verse 21, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. He's like, my whole life is about Jesus, and if I die, that'd be even better because I'd be even closer to him. I could see him. I want to be with him because a couple verses later, he says, he goes, I am hard-pressed between the two." [00:10:35]

"I can teach you the menu, I say, oh, you gotta try this cake, wow, there's like, I don't know, I don't know what's on there, okay, but I, because I can't read Chinese, but okay, but if I could, I could just read it for you and say, ah, this cake is made of this and this and this." [00:13:06]

"I want to experience you, I want to taste you, the Bible says, taste and see that the Lord is good. I always pray, God, make me one of those pastors that's talking about you as I'm tasting you, you know, that I'm not just reading out a book, that's fine, it's accurate, but I want it in my mouth." [00:15:26]

"We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part, for they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own accord." [00:19:29]

"Paul is not telling the Corinthians about the Macedonian church, he is not bragging about the Macedonian church, he is not saying that church, those churches are so amazing in Macedonia, no, what does he say? He says, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches." [00:21:21]

"Jesus says it's more blessed to be a giver than a receiver, right, it's more blessed, I mean, try to think, do you know if any generous person, think of the most generous people you know, do you know of any generous people who are unhappy? My wife and I were talking about that, try to think about someone who's just a total giver and just mad all the time." [00:25:12]

"The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and he says, what do I have to do to go to heaven? And Jesus answered him in a way that we wouldn't, he says, well, have you obeyed the commands? And the guy's like, yeah, yeah, I obeyed them. And then Jesus says something crazy, I mean, this man is just asking, how do I go to heaven?" [00:36:24]

"There's a man named Zacchaeus, and the Bible specifically says in Luke 19, there in verse 2, there was a man named Zacchaeus, he was a chief tax collector and was rich, and he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd, he couldn't because he was small, so he ran on ahead, climbed up a sycamore tree." [00:37:28]