Our Gospel: Creation, Liberation, and Building Up
BMCC Sunday Sermon · 26 Jul 2026 · Speaker: Pastor Hong
At the end of July, Hong Kong was gripped by Typhoon Signal No. 8. The city fell quiet — but inside a Zoom meeting room, members of Blessed Ministry Community Church (BMCC) gathered online one by one. The storm could not stop this community from worshipping together. Worship leader Fai Fai opened hearts through song and prayer. “There are so many things in my life I cannot predict,” she said, “but my heart is to praise the Lord.” Then Pastor Hong (鄭子康傳道) brought a question that seemed simple but ran very deep: “What is our gospel?”
Fai Fai led the congregation in reading three foundational passages. Ephesians 2:10 declares, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Luke 4:18–19 records Jesus reading from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” And Acts 1:8 promises, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” These three passages formed the structure of the entire sharing: God’s creation, Jesus’ liberation, and the Spirit empowering us to build others up.
Pastor Hong explained that BMCC’s understanding of the gospel can be distilled into three words: creation, liberation, and building up. He began with creation. “We believe that God’s creation is diverse, beautiful, and full of possibility.” But too often, people define themselves through a single, fixed identity label — and when a person can see themselves only through that one lens, they miss the many invitations God has placed along their path.
Pastor Hong shared honestly from his own experience: it was only when he began to accept his own identity and ventured into spaces he had never dared to enter that he discovered BMCC and found a community of brothers and sisters. “If I had not had that brief moment of acceptance — that moment of daring to try — none of this would have happened.” God’s image, he said, dwells in every person; the beauty of creation lies in awakening that image. Each person’s distinctiveness and complexity is part of God’s creative design, and when we accept who we are, we begin to perceive the invitations God continually extends to us.
On liberation, Pastor Hong was clear that BMCC’s understanding of redemption is not a cycle of “pray once, be forgiven, sin again, pray again.” True liberation is a long journey walked alongside Christ — a gradual emergence from shame, fear, and bondage. “I was afraid of how others would see me. I was afraid of being different. I was afraid of not being affirmed…” These deep, unspoken fears, he said, are the real chains. And love is greater than fear — this is what the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ declares: we have hope of being set free.
Liberation requires effort. It requires moving forward even while afraid. “Some people step forward boldly in faith. Some people step forward trembling with fear — but moving forward with fear is still responding to God.” Whether you leap with confidence or inch forward trembling, that is genuine faith. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we can gradually learn to walk out from the frameworks that have bound us.
The third element, building up, points to how we continue onward in daily life, and how we build others through our own stories. “Our gospel is about people having God’s image restored in them, experiencing Christ’s liberation,” Pastor Hong said. “It is not simply about getting people to heaven. It is about bringing love and justice, drop by drop, into every life we touch.” We don’t need to wait until everything is perfect before we can share our story — in fact, it is precisely the stories that are still in process that touch people most deeply.
To illustrate, Pastor Hong led the congregation through a framework for writing personal testimonies, and then read a testimony written from the perspective of the man born blind in John chapter 9:
“When people saw me, the first thing they thought was not who I am, but whether I or my parents had sinned, because I was born unable to see. My life was constantly judged through others’ questions. But one day, Jesus saw me. He did not use my suffering to condemn me. Instead, he did something entirely new in me, allowing me to know the grace of creation. He called me to be baptized, and I went. When I could… it was not only my eyes that were opened, but my life. I know I am not defined by sin and shame. I am seen by God, loved by God. When others questioned me and denied me, I could not answer all their questions or explain all their theological arguments. But one thing I know: the one who once could not see can now see. And Jesus still comes to find me, that I might know him more and more deeply. My testimony is not that I deserved grace more than others. It is that when I was ignored and excluded, Jesus still saw me, still restored me, still built up my life.”
When the reading ended, Pastor Hong spoke what may have been the most profound sentence of that morning: “Our testimony is allowed to be unfinished. The unfinished state is actually the most powerful part — because you are still in the middle of the struggle, still learning, and that is what touches people and reveals God’s presence in your life.” A testimony that simply concludes “and then I was saved and everything was fine” loses its texture and weight. It is the stories still in process, still wrestling, still learning — those are the lights that truly illuminate others. He closed with Acts 20:35: “By such work we must support the weak” — we use the paths we have walked to build up and hold those who are still on the way.
Blessed Ministry Community Church is a community that believes in the grace of creation, hopes for every person’s liberation from bondage, and builds life through one another’s stories. Whether you are still in the midst of struggle, or have just taken your very first step, or have been walking a long road for some time — your story is worth telling, and your life is worth being seen. This is a home that welcomes everyone: with doubts, with fears, with chapters still unfinished. Come as you are, and walk with us in the love of God.
