04 Oct 2026, Exodus 12:31-36 & Ephesians 1:3-7 "Month of Blessing'

I have an honest confession to make today. Deep down in a corner of my heart, I used to carry a small, secret insecurity. Can you guess what it was? My father wasn’t a minister. You might wonder, “What are you talking about?” What I mean is, I felt like I completely lacked a spiritual pedigree. There were no pastors in my family tree. They weren’t even Christians. I wasn’t a PK or an MK. Perhaps this insecurity came from the church culture I grew up in. Many megachurches passed senior roles on to sons or sons-in-law, almost like a family business. Feeling a sense of injustice, I always felt small around families with that kind of ministerial pedigree.

I still remember when I first started seminary. There were 50 students in my class, and more than half of them were PKs. Most of the rest were children of church elders or key leaders. All around me, my classmates would casually say things like, “Our family has been in ministry for three or four generations,” or, “Hey, that guy is the grandson of that famous minister.” Every time I heard that, I felt disadvantaged. That’s why I often say I was born into a “hybrid Christian family.” On my mum’s side, they were people of strong faith. On my dad’s side, they didn’t know the first thing about church. Growing up, I held my mum’s hand on Sundays, and then lived with my secular dad from Monday through Saturday. Literally, my life began in a “hybrid” environment where two engines, the world of faith and the secular world, were running at the exact same time. So, naturally, I envied my classmates because they seemed to have something I didn’t have…some kind of special spiritual DNA. I figured they must have pure joy and unshakable confidence.

Then one day, one of my closest friends shared something with me that I never expected. He said, “Honestly, I really didn’t want to be here to become a minister. I somehow ended up at this college, completely against my will.” I asked, “What do you mean? Your dad’s a minister!” He answered calmly, “Because of my dad! I never wanted to live like my dad.” My friend’s dad was a rural minister who had planted a church in the countryside and spent his whole life serving a small, unknown congregation. Having watched his parents endure, sacrifice, and the sheer hardship of ministry throughout his childhood, he made up his mind: “No matter what happens, I am never becoming like my father.” Then he shared his most painful childhood memory with me. “When I was a kid, the hardest time of the day was breakfast with my family.” His father always led grace before the morning meal. The problem was… his prayers were agonisingly long. By the way, prayers and sermons have something in common: the shorter, the better!  His dad would start by praying over the food, then move on to the sick members of the congregation, then the overnight prayer requests. Eventually, he was naming every single church member he could remember, blessing them one by one. He would complain, “Dad, please, go pray at the church!” But in the end, he just had to accept that this was his father’s life. That just sounds like whingeing to me! Sorry! I should be praying like that before the morning meal at home too. But my family scares me too much!

Almost thirty years have flown by since those days. Most of those friends who questioned, wrestled, studied, and laughed together are now faithfully serving in their own places. Even today, they are my rock, praying for one another in our group chat. Yet, over the past few years, something has started to rise up in my heart. I’ve started to believe, “I’m really glad I was born into a hybrid Christian family.” Of course, I never chose it. As time has gone on, I’ve realised more and more what a blessing it has been. Why? Naturally, it gave me a way of seeing things they never had. Unlike friends who grew up entirely within the church, I can genuinely understand people outside the church because I grew up breathing the air of both worlds. It gave me the freedom to walk between two different environments. I can speak the language of the church fluently, but I’m just as comfortable in everyday, secular conversations. Growing up between these two worlds has helped me understand the struggles, joys, and sorrows of ordinary people beyond the church doors, and embrace them just as they are.

Do you think I was called only for Christians, only for those inside the boundaries of the church? Was I called to be born in the church, grow up in the church, minister in the church, and die inside the church? Of course, an immense blessing. But I am convinced that the reason God placed me in a hybrid home was to break down the wall between the inside and the outside, and to stand with people in the storm. What used to be my lack, my insecurity, and my weakness has now become an indescribable blessing. I am so grateful to God for turning it into one of my greatest spiritual gifts. You see, what we are given in life, how we were born, how we grew up, what we’ve achieved, where we’ve failed, what we’ve gained, what we’ve lost, who we’ve met, and who we’ve had to say goodbye to, these things in themselves don’t define our journey. They don’t automatically label us as “blessed” or “far from blessed.” So I have to say this: true blessing comes down to how we use what we have.

Let’s look at Exodus chapter 12. The situation is urgent. At last, Pharaoh tells Moses to go! Finally, freedom! After seeing all those miracles, the people set out toward the Promised Land. Four hundred long years of hard slavery were finally coming to an end. But right here, something very, very strange happens. Through the Egyptians, God provides his people with vast amounts of silver, gold, and fine clothing as they leave Egypt. As you might know from this week’s newsletter, God told them three times to take these precious things with them as they began their journey. We can imagine how over the moon they must have been. “What a blessing!” Imagine going from being a slave to living like royalty almost overnight.

So why did God give them such an extraordinary blessing? Let’s have a guess.

1.    Does God simply love seeing His people dressed up in flashy accessories and designer clothes?

2.    Was He teaching them financial literacy and providing start-up funds before they headed into the harsh wilderness?

3.    Was it a lump-sum payout for more than 400 years of unpaid wages, superannuation, and compensation for labour exploitation? Did someone finally lodge a report with the Fair Work Ombudsman or tip off the ATO?

4.    Or was it God’s ultimate self-esteem recovery project, telling them to throw off the rags of slavery and walk tall, with their shoulders back, as truly free people?

5.    We don’t know!

Unfortunately, Exodus 12 doesn’t tell us exactly why they had to take these things. But if we look at Exodus 25 and 35, the reason becomes clear. “The Tabernacle. The Sanctuary!” God had entrusted these things to their hands for a little while, as materials to build His house, the Tabernacle. Why? Because He wanted to be as close to them as possible, right in the middle of their lives, with them always. He knew that forty years in the wilderness would be anything but easy. God was preparing them in advance. And the materials for that holy Tabernacle were the very silver, gold, and clothing they had carried out of Egypt.

But then, what happened? The golden calf. Yes, exactly. When Moses didn’t come down from Mount Sinai, the people panicked. And what did they do with those? The very things they had counted as blessings? They made a golden calf. An idol. They twisted their blessings into an idol and broke God’s heart. You see, it wasn’t about the gold. It was about what they chose to do with it. God gave them that gold to build His house, so that He could be near them. What an incredible blessing that was meant to be.

So, what is the message? A blessing is only a blessing when it is used as one. It isn’t just about what God puts into our hands. It’s about what we choose to build with it. We often think it’s automatically a blessing: the silver and gold freely given to former slaves, the fine clothes placed in their hands. Surely it was God’s grace, an unspeakable joy, a reward that washed away four hundred years of bitter tears and hardship in a single moment. And in fact, it truly was! For some, that blessing became a golden calf; for others, it became a sanctuary. And so, the question before us today is this: what will our blessing become in our hands? A golden calf, or a sanctuary? You see, we are navigating our own wilderness today. When we face its harsh, dry challenges with God’s blessings in our hands, we stand before that very same test. Because life keeps demanding a choice from us every single day. But one thing is certain: God has already entrusted each of our lives with more than enough to become a blessing even though none of us truly deserved it.

Not only the silver and gold in our hands, our gifts, and our achievements, but also our weaknesses, our grief, and our deepest wounds—none of these are the finished  product of blessing. They are simply entrusted to our care for a time. And with those gifts, we must ask ourselves this crucial question: Will I live making a golden calf for myself with the blessings I’ve received? Or will I live building a holy sanctuary, a dwelling place where God Himself can live? A blessing is only a blessing when it is used as a blessing. And that is the very message God has for you and me today, on this first Sunday as we begin our Month of Blessing.

Dear friends, our second Scripture reading today, Ephesians chapter 1, is a beautiful passage of blessing. It is a letter written by Paul from inside a cold prison cell, overflowing with emotion and joy that he could barely contain. Because Paul didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, these words read almost like his last will and testament, making them all the more genuine and deeply moving.

Did you know there’s a huge surprise hidden right here in his letter, Ephesians 1:3–14? What makes this passage so unique? In the original Greek, it’s actually the longest single sentence in the entire New Testament! Now you might ask, “Wait, but my Bible is full of full stops, commas, and short sentences!” That’s simply because translators added full stops, commas, and verse numbers to make it easier for us to read. How did Paul originally write it in Greek? He poured out 202 words straight without a single full stop, just one continuous sentence! I just love this. Because God’s blessings were gushing out like a massive, unstoppable waterfall, without leaving him a single moment to catch his breath! Just imagine! It is the kind of blessing where we have to take one giant breath into our lungs and let it all out in one go, the overflowing, unsparing blessing of God! Because Paul knew that the greatest blessing of his life was not something he was waiting to receive. He had already received it in Christ. And I believe the same is true for us. God has already poured His blessing into our lives. We have already received far more than we sometimes realise.

But this is not the end of the story. The real question is not simply, “What blessing will God give me next?” The real question is: “What will I do with the blessings God has already placed in my hands?” The people of Israel faced that very same question. The exact same gold could become a golden calf, or it could become a sanctuary where God’s presence dwells. And I am not talking about building a physical sanctuary today. I am talking about how we shape our everyday lives.

So, dear brothers and sisters, throughout this Month of Blessing, let us not simply ask God for more. We have already received a breathtaking, massive blessing from Him. Instead, let us ask Him to teach us how to live as people who are already blessed. Whatever we hold in our hands—our gifts, our stories, and yes, even our wounds and weaknesses—bring them all before God. Because a blessing is never truly finished when we receive it; it becomes a blessing only when it is lived, shared, and passed on. God’s blessing had no full stop. And our response should have no full stop either.

May the goodness we have received never end with us, but keep flowing—from our hearts into our homes, and from our homes into the world. May our everyday lives become a living sanctuary of His grace. Shall we take this journey together, where the blessings we have received become brand-new blessings in our journey? And for others? God bless you. Amen.