26th September 2021 - Sunday Service Live-Stream

well good morning church welcome back to sunday service together with me and our friends as we worship god together this morning wherever you are feel comfortable but be expectant for what god can do in this series so we're going to sing of how great our god is come together sing all four for a thousand times to see my great redeemers [Music] amen my gracious my gracious master and my god assist me to proclaim to spread through allah [Music] [Music] oh [Music] amen come jesus the name jesus [Music] [Music] he breaks he breaks the power of cancel sin he sets the prisoner free his blood can make [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] that [Music] [Applause] [Music] amazing [Music] how can it be that dawn my god for me [Music] diffused [Music] with [Music] [Music] my fell off my heart was free i rose one last time no condemnation no condemnation [Music] we worship you for how great you are the splendor of the king he wraps himself is h2h [Music] the spirit how great is yes [Music] you are worthy [Music] is is is [Music] you see [Music] [Music] [Music] you are worthy of praise [Music] in my heart we'll see how great is [Music] and though the seas are raging and you will speak and tame them and you are fine by rest you are in control all the time again i [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] your perfection [Music] you're the beginning [Music] is [Music] [Music] me [Music] is is [Music] hear my [Music] you will speak [Music] [Music] you are in control [Music] oh jesus yes lord you are in control you are the lord of lords hallelujah [Music] lord you are deserving you are the mighty god and no matter what happens lord you are always in control we give you all the praise all on in all glory and lord we know that in our nation you are also in control despite the political upheavals the economic upheavals the pandemic lord yet you are in control help us lord to live our lives with that confidence with that certainty knowing that you are in control over our lives and that whatever comes our way you are always there that you will not allow something to hit us beyond what we can bear and so lord we just give you all the praise help us lord to recognize this truth forgive us lord for the many times when we live our lives as though you are not in control and we are the ones in control forgive us lord forgive us lord for the many times when we choose to live our lives our ways and we and and not to bother and not to care about what you want in our lives forgive us lord lord we just pray you continue to mold us help us lord to be the people you want us to be and so lord i just commit all my brothers and sisters unto your hands wherever we are in our homes lord may you continue to do this work in our eyes continue to change us from the inside out as we continue to worship you this morning lord may god speak to us in the worship service during the worship songs during the sermon during the scripture reading during the givings lord may call you to speak and minister to us help us to open our hearts to listen to you lord and lord just commit the rest of the service unto your hands we commit our gifts our tithes our offerings that all that we have lord lord may you help us to give with a cheerfulness do you give not just generously but to be give cheerfully for your kingdom's work and so lord we just commit our giving unto your hands we commit the rest of the service unto your hands in your precious name we pray amen amen good morning church you may now pass the envelope around and after the service in the rest of the week whenever it's convenient for you you can bring it to the church office or you can bank it into the church bank account once again well a very warm welcome to all of us to our 9 a.m online service it's so good to see all of you to see so many of you online in the chat welcoming each other you know it's nice to see all of you and it's such a wonderful thing to know that although we are alone at home we are what we are worshiping together as a larger body of christ with different families all throughout the clan valley and not only the clan valley we have people from overseas as well joining us and we praise god for each and every one of you uh very quickly there's two announcements for those of you us are you know for our church members here two special classes that we're going to start the first is the marriage preparation course and this course is going to start in october 17 and our pastor reverend ashok will be leading this course now this course is compulsory for all those who wants to get married in our church all right and so for those of you are getting married either at the last end of this year or you plan to get married next year you also have to join this course because we don't run it so often and so for all couples who are planning to get married this end of this year or next year you better sign up for this course and it's on sundays it'll be held in the evenings on sundays and the other course that we're going to start as well another specialized course is the baptism and membership class which will begin on october 24th and it'll be held on sunday afternoons and this is also a compulsory class for all of you who wants to become to be to get baptized or to be a member of the church and so for all of you uh we're hoping to be able to uh if we have enough people and situation sop allows and all that we're hoping to have a baptism to conduct a baptism uh at the end of the year around christmas time and so in order to prepare for that you have to join the class beginning in october 24th so for all those who are intending to get baptized and you want your uh you want to be a member of the church please you must sign up for this baptism and membership class more information please go to our website klwesley.org equip there you will find the online form for registration with that shall we all continue our worship with the doxology [Music] praise god praise him all creatures [Music] ghosts [Music] [Applause] [Music] let us pray lord of heaven and earth may your glorious name be magnified as your word is read help us to understand your heart and walk according to your heartbeat through christ our lord amen a reading from matthew chapter 5 verses 43 to 48 [Music] you have heard that it was said love your neighbor and hate your enemy but i tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your father in heaven he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous if you love those who love you what reward will you get are not even the tax collectors doing that [Music] and if you greet only your brothers what are you doing more than others do not even pagans do that be perfect therefore as your heavenly father is perfect this is the word of the lord thanks be to god [Music] good morning church take out your sermon notes as we begin a new series this morning titled the beyond the righteousness of the pharisees now what on earth is that well before we go into that let's go to the lord in prayer hallelujah lord we just give you all the praise all in all glory and all this morning we ask you to come and speak to us lord speak to us your word and show us the standard by which you want us to live our lives so that our lives will be different because of what you tell us lord just commit this time unto your hands in jesus name we pray amen amen friends when the world looks at you when people in the world looks at you what do they see do they see a good person or do they see a scoundrel or do they see someone who is no different from them other than the fact that you go to church and they don't when the people of the world looks at you and they see the way you live your marriage or they see the way you handle stress or the way you deal with problems at work the way you raise your children the way that you face difficulties in life do the people of the world see a difference or do they just see someone who is exactly like them except you go to church and they don't you see we god's people are called to live at a standard to live a lifestyle that is so different from the world so that when the world looks at us they will be able to see a difference oh difference that they cannot deny a difference that is beyond what the world sees and expects and you know in this world there are many different standards and that's why uh jesus basically in in the whole in the book of matthew in matthew chapter 5 6 7 jesus was teaching the people about the standards by which they are to live their life the standards that god requires of them and let me read to you what he says in matthew 5 19 he says this whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men to do so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever does and teaches them he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven for i say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven you know i wonder i struggle with this because you say that unless your righteousness exceeds the scribes and the pharisees you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven that unless my righteousness exceeds the pharisees i cannot enter the kingdom of heaven now what does that mean you see when i look at it the pharisees are not really bad people they're not evil people you know i know i know sometimes we look at them at a very negative flight because we christian we always talk about it and we always paint them at a negative light but pharisees generally there are people who at that era people who wants to live their lives right before god there are people who strive their best to set their life apart so that they can live a life that is so holy and so righteous so that they will be right before god so they are doing all that they can within the limited understanding that they have to live their lives as right as they can before god and that's what the pharisees are and jesus is saying that we need to have a righteousness that is beyond what the world sees as righteous what do i mean by that well you know in the world there are basically different standards of righteousness well the first if you look at the world is what i call the evils of the world and that's basically what the world considered as evil when the world looked at those practices or those acts they would say no this is something that's evil it's wrong we shouldn't live like that but the next one what the world called what i call the righteousness of the world and that's basically what the world says is the norm that this is how we humans should behave and should act this is the norm but even that among the world they will look at certain acts and they'll say that this is even this is more righteous and that's what i call the righteousness of the pharisees that when the world look at certain acts as certain actions as certain lifestyle they will say this is more righteous than what we expect as the standard of the world this is something even more righteous but what god is saying is that you and i are to live at a standard that's even higher than that and that's what i call the righteousness of god's kingdom if it was also live at a standard that god requires of us which is even much higher than what the world would look and the world will say that this is righteous is even higher than that let me give you an example let's talk about the view of sex what does the world sees well the evil of the world will basically say i can have sex with anybody anywhere anyhow anyhow i can have sex with anyone the standard or the norm of the world today is basically will be sex among consenting partners and that's the righteousness of the world you know as long as we are consenting adults we can have sex but the world would then view at a more righteous standard the righteousness of the pharisees is that people whose to reserve sex for only within marriage that sex is only not before marriage no premarital no post-marital no adultery the sex is just within the confines of marriage but is that all but god what is god's standard the righteousness of god's kingdom is that even lustful thoughts is a sin it's not just about sex outside of marriage or inside sex is within marriage but even lustful thoughts outside of marriage is already a sin let me give an example another example how does the world define a good person well the evil of the world is basically is i can rob kill murder do whatever i want the standard or the norm of the world is i'm a good person as long as i don't hurt other people as i don't bring harm to other people i consider myself a good person and that's the standard or the norm of the world the righteousness of the world and the world would view people who are even more righteous as people who dust charitable acts you're a good person you're a more righteous person if you do charitable acts you do good to others but is that all for is that what's the the expected of us god's people no we are called not just to do charitable acts but we are also called to live righteously in our thoughts and in our actions not just the acts we do but also the taught life that we too are supposed to be righteous in our thoughts and so today the we are going to look at uh what i mean in this series we're going to look at what the standards that god requires us to live at and every often time this what the world view is righteous the bible requires us to live at an even higher standard what the world views as very holy or good bible requires us to live at an even higher standard and so the first standard we're going to look at today is in matthew 5 43 and it says this you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but i say to you love your enemies bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute that you may be sons of your father in heaven you know what the bible says we are called to love our enemies you see it is easy for us to say that we have no enemies then we don't have to deal with them but enemies are basically people anyone who we don't like people who we try to stay away from people who we try to avoid people that we find weird or peculiar or we find that these fellas are weirdo i just want to skip him you know any people that we don't like or we try to avoid they are basically our enemies and if that's the case there's a very long list of enemies that we have it's a very long list and so enemies are not just people who have wronged us but anyone that we don't like or we just want to avoid we're going to stay away and the bible is saying how do you deal with them how do we deal with them well the evil of the world is simple people you don't like take revenge kill them murder them get rid of them insult them do whatever you like the norm of the world the standard of the world keep your distance stay away from them the righteousness of the pharisees people whom the world will see as as righteous forgive them but still stay away forgive them but keep away what does god require of his people we are called not just to forgive them but to also love them to show love to the people that have wronged us the people that we hate the people that we don't like we are to show love to them another way to look at it is this the evil of the world is basically saying love yourself don't love anyone just love yourself the standard or the norm of the world is you love people who you love who loves you your loved ones the righteousness of the world what the world we see as righteous is that we love those who are in need people who are in need people who are suffering people who are down who are broken we love them but god's people god requires us to not just love all those in need not just love our families but to also love the people we hate the our enemies you see it's easy to love people you know actually it's very easy we are we are created to love and so we are designed in us to love people so it's actually easy to love people that's why we have no problem loving people who we choose to love people like our children our spouses our parents there's no problem to love them because we decide we choose to love them it's easy to love once we we want to love someone it's easy for us to love that person but when we come to a point we choose where we don't want to love that person then it becomes difficult and that's why you know couples you know that's right for couples it's so easy for us whether you're cutting or dating it's so easy to just fall when you're in love to just love each other it's so easy it just comes so naturally when you're in love but 30 years after the marriage or 10 years down the line when your relationship sours it then becomes so difficult to love each other and that's why jesus says this in matthew 5 46 is this for if you love those who love you what reward have you do not even the text collectors do the same if you greet your brethren only what do you do more than others do not even the collect tax collectors do so in fact the first point of your notice is this that the magnitude of your love is inversely proportional to your relationship with that person so basically what jesus is saying is that if people who are close to you people who you are already in love with no matter how much love you show him all the great sacrifices you do for that person the magnitude of that love is actually very small but for people you don't like for people you hate if you want to show that same love that magnitude of love suddenly becomes very huge you know it's like a tsunami how many of you remember tsunami hit malaysia a few times ago right you know it's like this tsunami here you can see here all right so when the when the tsunami is near the point of tsunami where it happened the magnitude of the wave is very small but when the tsunami travels all the way a great distance when it reaches the shore then the wave becomes so much bigger and what happens is basically this it is still the same wave that moves from here to there it's the same wave it is the same water that is moving but what makes the difference that is so much further the magnitude of the wave becomes so much bigger likewise for us in our lives when we love people who are close to us that same love that we show them that magnitude is actually very small but we take that same love and it is shown to people who are so much further from us people who we don't like we hate suddenly that magnitude becomes so great and so a lot of times people will tell me you know stories about how they sacrifice for their children how they change their how they would do this and do that and love their children everything you know yeah that's very great that's good but it doesn't mean that you are a very loving person because the magnitude of that love is just very small but if you love someone who is so far when you show half that love or even a quarter of that love that magnitude becomes so big you know in church you know we always have very we always have uh members who love their pastors so much and they are always coming to the pastor and to give gifts to the pastor you know they'll give you know they'll give fruits like they'll give food love they'll give ang you know and we as pastor you know we're just so blessed with so many members who loved us you know hey please go on continue to give your pastor good gifts okay no no don't stop please continue to do that all right but what i was you know what i was one time i was talking to one lady and she came and gave me a gift i was asking her you know you know i say yeah no need you don't have to give me why do you want to give this away and then you say no pastor i must give you know i want to give to you all this i am to bless you you know why so that when i bless you my blessing in heaven becomes bigger i didn't have the heart to tell her that there is no reward for you in heaven because you are loving your pastor who is someone whom you love and when you show love to someone you love and when you show love to someone who is close to you someone who you love there's no reward the reward is very small of course unless your pastor is your enemy and then your reward is great then that magnitude of love becomes very great but if you just show love to people who are close to you people whom you already love the reward the magnitude ain't that great and there is no reward so you know and so so we need that's why jesus said to us you know he says in matthew 4 5 45 but i say to you love your enemies that you may be sons of your father in heaven therefore you shall be perfect just as your father in heaven is perfect when we learn to love our enemies because when we do that it shows the magnitude of love that is so much greater then we begin to become perfect just as our father in heaven are perfect in fact you write the next point of your notes is this that enemies are a blessing because they give us the opportunity to learn perfection they give us the opportunity to perfect ourselves to be more perfect as our father is perfect i mean a lot of times we look at our enemies as a curse but do you know that they actually motivate i mean it actually helps us to be better people you know i remember one time you know when i was young you know i we used to play chess a lot i used to go for competition and all these things everyone there was one person that we hated you know when we go for this district competition or state competition it was this one person from another district and you know that we all hated from all the other districts you know we all hate this one person not because he was a good player and beat all of us he was good yes but we hated him because he he was a very proud person he has an attitude that is just so stoppage and so haughty and we all just hated him and so what we did was we work hard we will work hard just so that we can humiliate and beat him and defeat him and we will all work harder and harder we will train each other we'll work together we'll practice together all for the sole aim to defeat that one person you know and so and and that enemy basically will help us to perfect ourselves to improve ourselves and likewise god gives us enemies so that we can learn to love them because when we learn to love our enemies what we are doing is we are perfecting our spirit we are perfecting our souls we are making ourselves the people that god wants us to be when we learn to love our enemies and so enemies are there as opportunities for us to improve and to better ourselves to be the people that god wants us to to be because by loving them they become a perfecting source in our lives but it depends on us whether we will love them or we will just choose to stay away and hate them it's nothing to do with them the choice is up to us so the question is how do we live our enemies what can i do to love my enemies matthew 5 44 it says but i say to you love your enemies bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you would you write in your next notes start by praying blessing and doing good to them who are your enemies don't say you have none who are your enemies may encourage you this morning start firstly number one by praying for them just start by praying for them you know jesus in all his wisdom didn't say to us you know uh to just bless i mean to just to just pray you know jesus said pray but to bless them as well that's what you need to learn to just not just pray but to pray prayers of blessing because or else we people in the world you know what we will do is we will pray god would you please give him a heart attack and die lord would you please help him to migrate and get out of my life lord would you please get him out of the way you know if we are just to pray these are the kind of prayers we'll end up praying but jesus was smart he says you know just pray but you have to bless them you have to do good to them so the first thing we need to do is to pray for them the second thing you need to do is to bless them you need to bless them you know and and and it's not just to pray but to put blessings into action so it starts by praying for them lord lord would you please bless their family lord would you bless their children lord would you i pray that you would help them to uh do better to do to grow in their lives lord i pray lord that you protect him from all harm lord i pray lord that you will protect him from the from the kovit 19. lord i pray lord for his help that you will keep him healthy pray and bless them pray prayers of blessing into on them but it's not enough no it's not enough to just pray for them it starts there it's not enough to just bless them it starts there but what you need to do is to do good to them put it into action and to do good to death and when you begin to do good to them the flirt gates will open no when someone hurts me when someone i really don't like crosses my path and irritates me the first thing i do nowadays i run to god in prayer and i don't just come to god and complain yeah i stuck with god yeah a lot i hate his fellow lord why you put him in my life just get rid of him but after a while my prayer will be lord will you just bless him lord i pray lord that you will just help him to know you more lord i pray lord that you will protect him from all harm require the prayer and as you pray prayers of blessing upon him your heart begins to change and when when your heart change then you can go to the third step that is to do good to them do something good for them i remember once you know after i prayed i tried my best i keep praying i pray for that person i pray for that person you know there was this colleague that i had one time it was just so irritating and he just makes me angry every time i see him and the lord telling me just pray for him and so i just spent time praying for him i prayed and i prayed and after prayer i began to bless him i prayed for his blessing upon his children blessing upon his marriage blessing in his work and i just began to bless him but my heart still felt very uneasy every time i see him i just still feel uneasy and that's the time you know and at that time the lord just spoke to me to just do an act of blessing towards him and at that time he was i know he was going through some tough time in his life and so my wife was just telling me you know why not just bless him and just buy a we know we know of a book that was very helpful for what he's going through and so we just decided to just buy that book not cheap buy it wrap it up put it give it to him anonymously and when and later on he was sharing with us how when he read that book it actually ministered to him and helped him go through the difficulties that he was going through and this is it you know it was nothing very great it wasn't a very great act of goodness or kindness but it was just by doing that somehow the lord began to clean my heart i began to realize that all that hatred and that anger just begins to fade away and there was this sense of care of sympathy of love that begins to grow towards that person and so may i encourage you friends if your people your enemies pray for them not just pray but bless them and not just bless them in your prayers but put that blessing into action and when you do that it is you mean it may be difficult but when you do that you will find your soul being perfected your soul being cleansed and being perfected it's not easy but it is possible and one thing that really helps in which you write the last point of your notes is know who your real enemies are don't fall for the decoy you know one thing that has helped me a lot in loving my enemies is to know that who the real enemies are and you know oftentimes we think that the enemy is that person is in front of me this person is so irritating this person that i just don't like that i just want to stay away a lot as we think that is the enemy but no let me read to you in matthew 5 4 what he says but i say to you love your enemies bless those who curse you do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you that you may be sons of your father in heaven for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust you know that was what god what the bible is saying is this is that god loves or treats the same those you love and those you hate god makes the sun rises on them and he sends the same rain upon them and if god is able to treat them or view them the same why can't we also treat them the same but the problem is because when there is a conflict or when we are irritated by them we look at them and we see them as the enemy but we don't realize that they are not the real enemy the real enemy is in ephesians 6 12 let me read to you it says for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts or wickedness in the heavenly places in other words what about what ephesians is telling us is that the real enemy is the spiritual foster that is working against our lives and this this person in front of me he's just a decoy he's just a decoy that the devil brings into my life so that i will be so wrapped up in anger and in hatred and irritation that i don't realize that the real enemy is the devil because he is the one that is trying to destroy god's peace in my life he's the one that's trying to destroy relationships in my life he's the one that is trying to make to bring bitterness and hatred and anger in my life and he's just using that person in front of me to bring that have to make that happen and when i focus on that person and i put all my energy on that person i don't i fall for the decoy and i don't realize the trap that the enemy is actually setting up for me i don't realize the plan of the enemy to destroy my life but when i realized that the enemy is the one that wants me to live a life of bitterness a life of hatred a life of anger a life of unforgiveness then i realized that that person in front of me is nothing more than just the decoy the real enemy is the one that wants to destroy my life and that's why we need to learn to love our enemies to forgive them to not just not just forgive and stay away but to forgive and love them i just want to close with this story a true story is a story of jennifer thompson and ronald cotton see what happened was this jennifer thompson she was a college girl at that time and one night when she was in her in her apartment in her room sleeping a man a black man broke into her apartment and at knife point begin to rape her jennifer was just lying and she was so full of fear but one thing that kept her mind going was that she told herself i must stay alive i must make sure i stay alive so that i can report him to the police and in order to do that i need to recognize everything about him i need to remember how he looked like and so for that moment when he was raping jennifer jennifer was lying there he was trying to remember his facial ex face his features to distinguish how his hair looked like his eyes his mouth to see if there's any distinguishing feature to recognize his voice she's just trying to memorize that person so that when she make a police report she will know who raped her and that's what she did she went to the police the police helped make a sketch of who the person the perpetrator was and after a while the police managed to give her mug shots to look at and she managed to recognize one of the persons the police got the people up and put them in the lineup and they asked jennifer to identify the person who raped her and jennifer identified a man named ronald cotton as her rapist ronald was shocked he was not a good person he had a bad record with the police but he had never raped jennifer and so ronald was shocked that she would accuse him and he maintained his innocence but because jennifer's testimony in court was so certain the judge convicted him the juries convicted him and he was sent to life in prison while in prison in while in prison ronald cotton was getting angry and bitter because he was sent for a crime he did not commit in prison he met another man named a pool who had a very strong resemblance to him bobby poole who had a strong resemblance with him and in prison he overheard bobby poo bragging to other inmates that ronald cotton was serving time for a crime he committed ronald wanted to murder him but god held him back and he because of all that he ronald was was granted a re-trial and at that re-trial jennifer thompson came again and this time she looked at both she looked at ronald cotton and bobby poole and she looked straight to the jurors and said nope it is ronald cotton who raped me and because of that testimony ronald cotton was sent back to prison once again years later almost more than a decade after ronald cotton was in prison new technology came up and there was dna technology and with dna technology ronald cotton was able to appeal once again and with that testing it was proven that ronald cotton did not rape jennifer thompson but it was bobby poole who raped jennifer thompson when jennifer heard the news she was devastated she destroyed an innocent man's life she sent an innocent man to jail for more than a decade she didn't know what to do it took her almost two years before she could have the courage to see ronald cotton who is now set free to back for forgiveness they arranged a meeting in a church in the church where ronald cotton was and she came to see ronald and in that church they had a first meeting and they saw each other face to face and you know the surprising thing you see when ronald cotton was in prison he encountered god and he was in prison that he came to know the love of god and that he began to realize how much god loved him and although he may not be a good person he has done other crimes not raping jennifer but other crimes he has done he saw his time in prison as time stand for the other wrongs he has done in his life and when jennifer came to ask for forgiveness ronald cotton told her that she has forgiven her a long time ago and because and with that the two of them restored a relationship and they became friends and they began traveling around the world to share about their experience and about the power of forgiveness and because ronald cotton was willing to forgive jennifer jennifer was then able to forgive herself and not only herself but she was also able to forgive bobby poole the man who actually raped her she arranged to ask bobby poole for a meeting so that she can share his her forgiveness with him but he refused and he died never meeting jennifer thompson but friends that is the power when we choose not just to forgive but to love the people who have wronged us the people we hate the people we don't like we stop what the devil is trying to do to destroy our lives and our act of love will then bring love to the people around us and it brings healing to the ones we hate the people that have hurt us and the people we have heard it brings healing i encourage you this morning friends who is the who is your enemy can you just imagine that can you just think through the enemies that you have in your life and don't say you have none there are may i encourage you this morning friends start praying for them start praying prayers of blessings for them and when you do you begin to see your heart warming up you begin to see all that anger and bitterness melts away and you have come to a point when you are willing to not just pray for them but also to do good and to love them and when we do that we become we begin to perfect ourselves and when the people of the world sees us they will not just see a good person you don't just see a person that is slightly better than them but you see a person that lives at a standard that is just way higher than what they see in the world and then we will truly be a people of god's kingdom let us pray wonderful jesus wonderful savior mighty god lord we give you all the praise all on and oh glory and lord this morning we just ask for you to speak to us once again lord lord show us the enemies in our lives and help us lord to love them lord i always want to pray against those if any of us were fought against any denial of the enemies in our lives that we will not be people who choose to pretend that we have no enemies but allah will be people who are honest who recognize the enemies in our midst and i pray lord that you give us the strength the courage to love them to pray for them to bless them in our prayers and then to do good to them to intentionally do good to them lord i just commit all my brothers and sisters onto your head lord give us this courage this willingness to be a people not a people that is good in the eyes of the world but a people who is righteous in the eyes of the kingdom of god i commit all my brothers and sisters unto your hands in jesus name we pray amen amen my fire my heart's one desire is to be i choose to be set apart for you my master ready and deep my heart's one desire is is for ready to do your will let's come to the lord in prayer today thank you lord for being able to worship you and hear your word so lord we pray that you be with us lord even as the service comes our conclusion the lord bless you and keep you the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you the lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace amen god bless you praise the lord such a wonderful message and really cuts you to the heart doesn't it selena yeah so who are your enemies you know it's very easy to think that we don't have enemies yeah even i was convicted god brought people to mind that i would never recognize as an enemy but when pastor andrew gave us the definition then yeah there are definitely people in my life that i do regard that way and i'm i'm i'm ashamed of it but i thank god for bringing it to mind but yeah i just want to point out um dixie sue put a response in our live chat and she says that you know it's not easy to pray for our enemies but i ask for god's strength and wisdom and i think that's really the right approach to recognize we can't do it on our own we really need god's help we need the holy spirit to to show us and help us and give us that god's grace so yeah you know any lamb basically said the same thing you know it's very hard to do i cannot do it by myself holy spirit help me again and again and i think that's very powerful you know it's often something that we need to bring before god over and over again because you know it's not something that we can do on our own and even if we can do it once we will fail again the next time and you know it's a it's a continual renewing and and purification and sanctification process yeah that's right and we really give thanks to god for giving us his holy spirit and also the gift of jesus that we can get his help uh in all in in our human weakness and overcoming our human nature yeah and so with that we also want to let you all know that uh if you're interested in being baptized and becoming a member of our church we have a baptism and membership class starting on the 24th of october i'm not mistaken register the link is in the description below uh on top of the baptism and membership class we also have a marriage preparation class right selena you want to tell us a bit more about that um that is for anyone who is intending to get married uh it is compulsory you know at least get married in our church you know it is compulsory for them to attend this class which begins on the 17th of october yeah so click on the ring link in the description below to register and as we said at the start if you have a prayer request please feel free to submit that the link is also available in the description uh help allow us to as a community rally around you and support you uh in your time of need yeah any last words selena no but i think you know we have a lot to think about and pray about in the in the week ahead and for those who are going to discuss this sermon during small group i'm sure it will bring about quite a lot of discussion and you know and of course small group will also be the people who will rally around you and pray with you you know as you struggle with uh some of these things yeah good point selena i personally appreciate my small group i find that it's in the small group discussions of the sermons that god really changes me and convicts me so if you're not part of a small group we invite you to do come and search for one uh you may register or you research on our website for a small group that may be suitable and uh near you and be a part of a small group that you can be part of this community yeah and with that yes next week is already october so we will celebrate holy communion together uh yeah and we go into the last quarter of the year yep praise the lord so good to see you all today uh and we hope that you have a blessed week ahead and as you work through uh the points of the sermon engage with god and may you have open hearts to him all right again next week bye you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: WMCKL Wesley Methodist Church Kuala Lumpur

Views: 2,068

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: W0FNFBEFqUI

Length: 67min 37sec (4057 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021