5th September 2021 - Anniversary Sunday Service Live-Stream

[Music] the passion of our savior the mercy of our god across the list no questions of the measure of his love our chains are gone our death is [Music] [Music] what the guilty one [Music] liberty oh we think that our chains are is [Music] for me hallelujah [Music] [Music] the [Music] [Music] he is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] we sing this bridge together i give my whole life i gave my whole life to honor this [Music] foreign [Music] in a crushing in the pressing [Music] when i trust you i don't need to understand so make me your vessel make me an offering make me whatever you want me to be i came here with nothing but all you have given me jesus bring you wine out [Music] you are making [Music] you are breaking [Music] [Music] when i trust you i don't need to understand so make me [Music] i came here lord i came here with nothing but all you have given me jesus bring me out of me jesus [Music] [Music] i [Music] carry [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh yes your new fire also make me a vessel make me a vessel make me an offering make me whatever you want me to be lord i came here with nothing and all you have given me jesus bring me away out of me jesus spring jesus bring you wine out of me oh it's time to sing jesus [Music] [Music] there is [Music] to carry your new fire again lord i will carry to carry on you fire again [Music] oh we sing of your faithfulness unto us oh lord we come to you this morning sing of how great your faithfulness is from rising sun to kingdom come your faithful love is unfailing though shadows turn and temper still you oh god are unchanging through every arm i will recall all my hope is jesus you see grace your faithfulness great is your faithfulness amen [Music] i won't forget how great your faithfulness [Music] [Music] your promises are shaken my faith be sure of nothing more than christians through [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] every season there'll be a season of joy and weeping in everything our god is faithful his arms are open i will come running now and always how will god is [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i won't forget your faithfulness i won't i won't forget your faithfulness i won't forget your [Music] of joy and weeping in everything our god is faithful his arms are open i will come running now and always [Music] yes so lord oh you're so faithful oh god lord we just give you all the praise for your faithfulness in our lives for you're always just so faithful lord [Music] for we are the ones that has been unfaithful but your faithfulness never fails and lord we just want to give you all the praise all honor and all glory and we shall continue to praise your name this morning as we continue to worship you and remember our church as we celebrate the anniversary of our church although it is such a sad way to celebrate when everybody is separated but yet lord we can celebrate because we know that you have been faithful that even though our church has been separated because of the lockdown but yet lord you have been faithful and we can still and we celebrate your faithfulness over our lives over our church that in the midst of this pandemic you are still faithful and we continue to praise you and we ask our father god and you continue to watch over each and every one of us in this church that you watch over our church lord that you'll keep the fire and the passion for you burning even though we are separated even though we cannot come together as a community but yet lord you will help that fire to burn to burn through our small groups through our sunday worship through our individual lives lord that passion and the faithfulness for you lord let that fire continue to grow as we continue to worship you lord lord may our worship be pleasing unto your side as we continue to worship you in the rest of the service through our gifts our tithes and our offering lord may you be pleased with our giving that our giving will reflect the passion and the love in our hearts for you and so lord we just commit the rest of the service unto your hands we commit our gifts and our tights unto your hands in this precious name we pray amen friends you may not pass the envelope around and when it's over you can bring it back to the church good morning once again everyone to our 9 am worship service and this morning we are celebrating our 124th anniversary and i just want to remind all of us you know that although we are separated and we can't have that big celebration with what we normally do in church but yet we can still remember god's faithfulness in our lives and god's faithfulness in our church although we are facing a tough time in our nation but yet we can recognize and see god's goodness all right before i go into the uh special announcements about the anniversary i just want to have a quick reminder last week i introduced the series of bible study classes that we'll be having so this is the first uh that we announced earlier the video based classes and it will be held throughout the weekdays beginning on uh these dates here and we're also introducing another two new classes which will be a lecture style class but it's online but it's more a lecture style and it will be held on on sundays at 11 after our morning worship so for those of you who have yet to sign up or we still want to sign up please do so please go to our website at klwesley.com o r g g equip k l wesley dot o r g slash equip you know in conjunction for our 224th anniversary the church has gathered together to prepare us special presentation and you know which this comes from all over the church from uh it's a combined effort from the worship team the choir the boys brigade the girls brigade the youths of our church and just so uh wonderful to see all the various uh groups in our church coming together to do a presentation although they are physically separated but yet they put in the effort to make this to come to come together to celebrate and to help us to remember god's faithfulness in this 124th anniversary so without you let's watch the presentation [Music] [Music] the lord bless you and keep you make his face is [Music] the lord bless you and keep [Music] the lord turned his face toward you and gave you peace [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] how [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i am [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] new [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh me [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] god [Music] amen you know it's just so wonderful to see our family coming together although we are so separated by the pandemic but just to see all the various groups from the little children to the elderly you know and all just coming together it was just a wonderful sight and just to remind all of us you know friends we are still a church and although we are physically separated we are still a church and please do in whatever way you can connect with one another through the small groups through just a simple phone call to say hi through watch parties worshiping together through the prayer meetings we have through the various activities you know the youth sunday school all these are still running on do get involved do play a part so that we can still remain connected and remember that we are a family one other thing that we have been doing for our anniversary is i want to introduce to you is this website at anniversary.kl wesley.org you know what is on this website well what we have done is we compiled short testimonies from all over our family church family and so you can see here you know this is how it will look like and there'll be different different testimonies all over and we've got about 40 over testimonies at this time and we want to invite all of you you know to send in to submit in more testimonies so what you need to do is just go to this website kl wesley anniversary.klsp.org scroll to the bottom there'll be some instructions on what to do and what you can do is you know just just just write a short testimony on how god have touched your life through the church and just within a hundred was just a short testimony and send it to uh this email address testimonies kosli.org and you know we just want to compile we just want all of us here you know no matter in whatever ways even how big or how small you know however that god has touched your life we want you to just send it in so that we can just remind each other and encourage each other that god is real and that we are still part of a bigger family we are not all alone although it may seem so alone we are still part of a bigger family so friends may i encourage you you know before the month is over you know before just keep writing in and submitting your testimonies with all that can we all sing the doxology [Music] praise him all creatures [Music] praise [Music] oh [Music] let us pray blessed the lord as we see the day approaching help and guide us through your word to build up your church as you would have us too in jesus name we pray amen a reading from first corinthians chapter 13 verse 13 and first corinthians chapter 14 verses 1 to 5 12 and verse 26 so now faith hope and love abide these three but the greatest of these is love pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially that you may prophesy for one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to god for no one understands him but he utters mysteries in the spirit on the other hand the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation the one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself but the one who prophesies builds up the church now i want you all to speak in tongues but even more to prophesy the one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues unless someone interprets so that the church may be built up so with yourselves since you are eager for manifestations of the spirit strive to excel in building up the church what then brothers when you come together each one has a hymn a lesson a revelation a tongue or an interpretation let all things be done for building up this is the word of the lord thanks be to god dear friends a very good morning today and indeed we want to thank and praise the lord that we are celebrating the 124th anniversary of wesley methodist church kl let us come to the lord in prayer lord we want to thank you lord for this time be with us as we come and listen to your word we ask in jesus name amen dear friends indeed it is a time to celebrate our 124th church anniversary all praise and honor be unto our god there have been one or two people who did tell me why not pastor make it a time of encouragement a time of celebration and indeed we want to encourage god's people i always remember that the sermon must be there to comfort the afflicted as well as afflict the comfortable but today we are going to concentrate more on comfort the afflicted i've been told once by a friend that sometimes when church people come to church of course these are pre-pandemic times they come with a heavy burden on their shoulder and sometimes when they hear a very fiery message they will go back with a double bent back with greater burden of guilt and sin and so the task of the preacher is to ensure that people are encouraged even though the message may be challenging that they are encouraged when they go back home if my meds is correct the centennial celebration of wesley methodist church kl was in the year 1997 and i remember that year well because the annual conference trinity annual conference and if i'm not mistaken it would have been the 22nd session of track was also held in kl and i know all this because it was on the last day of the annual conference that i was ordained as an elder in the methodist church and i remember it was a very joyous occasion for me for my family and for others as well and i know my mother she actually talked to my dad and told my dad that they need to make me a full suit for that occasion and so they got me off to the tailor to make a tailor-made full suit and i'm just so thankful to my mom and dad for doing that on that special occasion we need to praise and thank the lord always particularly on a church anniversary celebration all glory and honor and praise be unto god the father the son and the holy spirit the local church is part of the universal church and the universal church is the bride of jesus christ the only reason for existence as a church is because jesus first loved us he died for our sin he rose again and he reigns forever and ever and so indeed today as in any other sunday is a day to celebrate the risen savior that he alone is worthy of all honor and glory and praise the church is also mandated by christ to go and be his witness to all the world to make disciples of all nations and also to be discipled ourselves and to attain full maturity and all this can only be done by the great power of god so in the sermon outline you would see the points there let us celebrate in our homes today yes indeed we cannot come to church because of the pandemic but you know we can celebrate in our homes as well now for the last one and a half years basically our worship service has been online except for a few months during this period and sometimes familiarity breeds contempt now i must confess that it's very easy to follow the online service all you need to do is to pull out your laptop or your mobile phone in my home i pull out the laptop i attach the hdmi cable to the big screen tv so we worship the lord together as a family but some of us remember the pre-pandemic times and in the pre-pandemic times we used to come to church and we always look forward to coming for special celebrations like easter anniversary sunday and christmas and i was informed by one or two of my friends in the church office that at the end of these celebrations there will be hot steaming tao ready for all the people to enjoy now i'm still waiting for the day that i can enjoy the hot sleeping power some of us travel 20 minutes or more to church and you know it's great in that sense that we all prepare our hearts in anticipation to worship the lord and of course that time of worship is a very special time and after service we fellowship with one another but today some of us just get out of bed within three minutes we set up our devices sometimes we haven't even had our breakfast so it is like breakfast and worship service together and then it becomes like watching a tv show it's said that only naaman doreen and dizzy are there worshipping the lord and some of us are actually eating our breakfast and watching the tv at the same time and so my dear friends it's good for us to be in that attitude of worship to put aside the other things to come love god and worship him and hear his word in the sermon outline the first main point the church at corinth was a highly gifted yet divided church now as we study the book of one corinthians and even acts of the apostles we know that paul spent one and a half years at corinth he was an apostle to the gentiles because that was the commission that jesus gave to him but he didn't just go and evangelize in the various cities in the roman empire he understood that for conversion discipleship and christian maturity that all these three involved processes they were not instantaneous kenneth bailey new testament lecturer who spent 40 years of his life in the middle eastern nations of the world as a lecturer and author and he served in egypt lebanon israel and cyprus now he writes some good books he was fluent of course in new testament greek in english and also arabic and he immersed himself in the middle eastern culture and when he interacted with people he realized that some of the mindsets are still the same as it were two thousand years ago when jesus lived on this earth and it's interesting that about eight years ago i had the privilege with my church members to visit the holy land and i remember one particular scene there was a donkey tied to a branch of a tree and it was all desolate there were no modern buildings amenities nearby and in my mind i thought my goodness this is exactly a sin during the time of jesus that things stood still for 2000 years now kenneth bailey wrote an excellent book entitled paul through mediterranean ice cultural studies in one corinthians now it's a very large book it has more than 500 pages but bailey uses his knowledge of the culture to actually analyze the book of one corinthians and he sees the kaisen and parallelism in one corinthians i know that these are large words and i'm not going to delve into them today but i just want to highlight this that although paul wrote the epistles in new testament greek like the other new testament authors yet the way paul structures one corinthians and other of his epistles shows that he is thinking like a hebrew and remember he says he is a hebrew of hebrews the style of writing is typical hebrew and so i just want to concentrate on these three chapters because it is part of our scripture reading for today 1 corinthians 12 1 corinthians 13 and 1 corinthians 14 and they should be seen as a unit uh the pinnacle being 1 corinthians chapter 13. it is like a sandwich with filling inside or if we are more accustomed to hamburger it is like the two buns and the burger meat in between them so one corinthians chapter 12 talks about spiritual gifts 1 corinthians chapter 13 talks about spiritual gifts without love and 1 corinthians 14 speaks about spiritual gifts with love and so that gives us a bit of a framework of today's passage or the few verses that i've taken from one corinthians 14. what is the key then and the answer is the key is love so the next item in the sermon knows it is love that unites the church it is love that unites the church without love even the most prized spiritual gift at least according to the corinthian christians was the gift of tongues but paul says without love even this gift is useless in 1 corinthians 13 1 if i speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love i am a noisy gong and a clanging symbol no wonder paul writes seamlessly from 1 corinthians 13 13 to 1 corinthians 14 1. and remember in the time of the new testament writers there were no chapter or verse divisions it was an entire letter or book and that is mentioned but the greatest of these is love compared to faith hope and love pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts now this word pursue is the same root greek word as the word run and that word run was used earlier in paul's epistle 1 corinthians paul used it in 1 corinthians chapter 6 verse 18 where he says flee from sexual immorality or run as fast away from sexual immorality and again in 1 corinthians chapter 9 verse 25 run in such a way as to win the prize and one is used in a negative sense and one in a positive sense but the main point is we need to run and pursue after love actively there were many issues that plagued the church during paul's time and even plagues our church of today j.i packer in his wonderful book entitled rediscovering holiness in one of the chapters he uses the term god shrinker god shrinker and we we may not be very clear about what packer is trying to say but i'm sure most of us have heard this modern song be magnified it is a beautiful song that was composed i have made you too small in my eyes oh lord forgive me and then he goes on to the chorus be magnified oh lord you are highly exalted and there is nothing you can't do oh lord my eyes are on you be magnified oh lord be magnified you know sometimes we are like these people we have made god too small even when we come to worship god online on sunday or in pre-pandemic times come to church we are so focused on other things apart from the worship of god and the church at corinth many of them were puffed up because they were blessed with the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues and this had inflated their ego so they look down on others who do not have this gift but paul reminds the christians at that church that the spiritual gifts are meant to build up the church and not to build up our ego or pride and that is why he writes so beautifully about the body in 1 corinthians chapter 12 having many parts but together functioning in unity the next item let us use love to build up the church let us use love to build up the church the main new testament greek word for love is agape and i'm sure that you all are familiar with this word there are other words used for love for example eros that talks about a physical and sexual love between husband and wife and also the word phileo that talks about brotherly love between christians the old testament was written in greek and that is called the septuagint and only in the book of songs of solomon do we find this word agape being used there during the time of the new testament days in secular greek culture this word agape was a very rare word so just imagine the new testament writers are writing in new testament greek they use this word with full divine meaning in it because they observe the love of jesus christ and particularly as jesus would have spoken in aramaic to the people around him those who wrote the four gospels they would have translated this into new testament greek and use this beautiful word agape for love such a rich and divine word i ask you a question here is it good to be sensitive how many of you agree put up your hands it is good to be sensitive second question is it good to be overly sensitive or extra sensitive and so the answer is like this it's good to be sensitive to the promptings of the holy spirit it's good to be sensitive to the needs of the poor and needy around us it is good to be sensitive to the needs of other people but if we are easily offended because we are overly sensitive that is not good now i say all this because i am in this boat many years ago i was easily hurt and i was overly sensitive and over the years i have learned how to be less sensitive in the negative sense i'm sure you've heard of this poem sticks and stones may break my bones but unkind words won't hurt me well that's not quite true because unkind words do hurt us i remember in my first parish i was a very new pastor in fact one leader in a meeting called me a green horn pastor and i was very upset that the person called me a green horn pastor but you know now many years down looking back in retrospect indeed i was a very green horn past pastor i had many things to learn in the pastoral ministry i remember in one smaller setting meeting a leader of the church probably about 20 years older than me at that time he looked at me and said pastor i want to give you some advice and so these were his words he said if you want to stay as a pastor for long-haul pastoral ministry make sure you put a lot of thick skin on you extra durable thick skin i never forget his words and after all these years i agree fully with him that there is that need to put on thick skin and don't take things so personally i remember once i asked some of my pastor friends is there any cure for sensitive people or overly sensitive people and a few of them replied and told me no there's no cure sorry too bad can't do anything with them and my answer is no with god all things are possible and so i say god cure okay firstly we must come before god and and bring this area and lay it before god and ask god us the spirit of god to help us in this particular area then the bible says we need to pursue love we need to practice love we need to give the benefit of the doubt to the other person now if you study 1 corinthians 13 particularly verses 4 to 7 that is a blueprint on how we can be less sensitive or less easily offended by people we need to appreciate the complementary strengths and weaknesses in others and where there is weakness we want to complement with our strengths i remember learning this song during my days in youth fellowship i'll try to sing it but my voice is not very good it goes something like this be ye kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another even as god in christ has forgiven you do ephesians 4 32 now i tell you if you learn this kind of choruses you will never forget the scriptures that is contained within them that god asks us to be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another and what is the basis god has forgiven all of us through christ jesus i remember my first round as a district superintendent i can easily say today i was a very green horn district superintendent i remember after one local conference the next day the president called me up and fired me over the phone although i was ignorant but what i did was wrong and i learned from my mistake after that time there's one pastor in my district that i didn't treat very fairly and basically was because i was listening more to what one or two church leaders had to tell me about this pastor and i know when the pastor left the church he was not very pleased with how the ds handled his case now god has a funny way in bringing us back together i became the ds of another district and that pastor was also in the new district and so i remember after one local conference you know things went on very smoothly the pastor was very gracious to me he gave served me a very beautiful home-cooked meal and then took me to the bus station and before i departed back to my home i looked at him and i apologized to him and i told him how sorry i am for the way i treated him in the previous parish and you know what he just came and hugged me [Music] and i knew instantaneously that he had forgiven me and dear friends sometimes we have to have that posture so that the lord will deal with our sensitivities even as our relationships are mended the next point spiritual gifts are not the focus instead it is building up the church which should be the focus and this is very clear in one corinthians chapter 14 paul does not say that spiritual gifts should be downplayed you know sometimes we think that you know paul is against spiritual gifts the answer is no because in 1 corinthians 14 1 uh it's mentioned they earnestly desire the spiritual gifts now paul also does not ridicule the gift of tongues or prophetic tongues and some may misinterpret 1 corinthians 14. all that paul is saying is that if we speak in tongues we are speaking to god but if we speak in prophetic tongues to our fellow members of the congregation then we either need to interpret the tongues ourselves or somebody else in the congregation needs to interpret it and then those heavenly tongues will become meaningful words to build up the congregation of god and my friends at the privilege in my growing up years that there were two ladies in one of the local churches that i attended and one had the gift of tongues and the other had the gift of interpretation of tongues it was a small church in those days and they worked in tandem and i know that god really blessed them and some people were wondering you know are they just making it up or is this from god but you know the beautiful thing is that one sunday uh one lady went up to the other lady and the lady who would interpret tang said didn't god have a message to the church today and the first lady said yes but i was not very comfortable to share it and the second lady said but god told me that he's going to give a word for the church today and these were two of my mother's good friends and my mother told me the story and i knew without a shadow of a doubt that these two ladies are exercising the spiritual gifts that god had given to them paul does not ridicule the gift of tongues in verse chapter 14 verse 5 chapter 14 verse 13 it is mentioned hence the prophetic word must be in a language that is common to the congregation and this includes prophetic preaching and there it is mentioned in verse 3 it needs to be for the upbuilding the encouragement and the consolation of the church tongues without interpretation is for god and is for your own benefit but not the benefit of the church and that reminds me of matthew chapter 6 where the bible tells us that when we pray when we fast and when we give to the poor make sure that only god knows and nobody else knows because god will reward us in his way let me just end with some practical application what are the gifts that god has given to you and you know there are few passages in the new testament that talk about spiritual gifts second question are you using these gifts to build up the body of christ and some of us may say no you know i don't have the gift of interpretation of tongues i don't have the gift of tongues but there are many other gifts and talents that god has given to us there are many younger christians in the congregation although now is pandemic times that need that kind of encouragement and building up in the spiritual life if god has blessed you in spiritual maturity are you and me going to selfishly keep it to ourselves or are we going to bless the life of younger christians both in age and in their walk with the lord think of the younger christians how can we bless them and finally my dear friends who needs encouragement in the church who needs that telephone call who needs that video call just to encourage them and lift them up during this time you know we cannot do many things during these pandemic times but sometimes we can just bring some food some items to bless somebody else and we can just go to their house and even leave it on the gate or pass it to them over the gate without entering into their homes and this is a tremendous blessing to god's people let us pray lord we want to thank you lord for this anniversary sunday we thank you lord that indeed your word tells us that we need to build up the body of god and so lord even as we see the church lord we know that you are blessed us with spiritual gifts and talents and so we pray this day lord that we will use all these to bless your body we give you thanks in jesus name amen amen friends as you've heard the message and as we come together to celebrate our 124th anniversary let us remember that we are one body to love one another and to use our gifts to build up this body or this family let us prepare our hearts for the communion let us receive the invitation to the lord's table christ our lord invites to his table all who love him who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another let us confess our sin before god and one another merciful god we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart we have failed to be an obedient church we have not done your will we have broken your law we have rebelled against your love we have not loved our neighbors and we have not heard the cry of the needy forgive us we pray free us for joyful obedience through jesus christ our lord amen hear the good news christ died for us while we were yet sinners that proves god's love towards us in the name of jesus christ you are forgiven glory to god amen the great thanksgiving the lord be with you we lift up your hearts we lift them up to the lords let us give thanks to the lord our god it is right and a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to give thanks to you father almighty creator of heaven and earth and so with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join the unending ship [Music] [Music] blessed is he who comes in the name [Music] holy are you and blessed is your son jesus christ by the baptism of his suffering death and resurrection you gave birth to your church delivered us from slavery to sin and death and made with us a new covenant by water and the spirit on the night we wish he gave himself up for us he took bread gave thanks to you broke the bread gave it to disciples and said take it this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me when the supper was over he took the cup gave thanks to you gave it to his disciples and said drink from this all of you this is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me and so in remembrance of these your mighty acts in jesus christ we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice in union with christ offering for us as we proclaim the mystery of faith christ has died christ is risen christ will come again pour out your holy spirit on earth scattered here and on these gifts of bread and wine make them be for us the body and blood of christ that we may be for the world the body of christ redeemed by his blood by your spirit make us one with christ one with each other and one in ministry to all the world until christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet through deep through your son jesus christ with the holy spirit in your holy church all honor and glory is yours almighty father now and forever amen and now with the confidence of children of god let us pray the lord's prayer [Music] thy kingdom come [Music] thy will be done on earth it [Music] [Music] and lead us not into temptation but [Music] and the power and the glory forever [Music] friends i like to now invite the head of the household to distribute the elements to those are present while the elements are being distributed let's just take a moment and reflect on the message that we have just heard and on the question on how hours how are we using our gifts and whether our gifts are being used to build up the body of christ hallelujah praise the lord hallelujah friends as a body of christ we are gathered together this morning although we are separated but i'm here live together with those of you who are watching live as a big family by taking communion together and so as we hold this bread in our hands we are reminded as a family of the body of christ that was broken on the cross for us that body which suffered and died so that we can now have a relationship with god and that we now have access to the spiritual gifts that god is granting us let us take this break together remembering that we are one body the cup that i hold in my hand signifies the blood of christ that was shed for all of us the blood that was shared shed so that we as today can be one united body the blood that was shed to break down every barriers that separate us as a body of christ that to bring us together from all walks of life as one big family as we take a take of this cup let us remember those that we have heard those that have hurt us and let and as christ has forgiven us may we forgive them let us take this cup together let us pray lord we just give you all the praise and not this morning we ask once again that wherever my brothers and sisters are this morning lord may you do this work in our hearts that we will always remember that we are only a small part of a larger body and that you have called us to be a larger family and we are to live our lives to show our love as a family to one another lord help us lord to break down every barrier that divides us every barrier that hinders us from loving one another from truly loving one another the way you have loved us so that we can be one body under you and so lord i just commit this body of yours called kl wesley lord may you bless us in this 124th anniversary in jesus christ's name we pray amen amen shall we all worship the lord with our closing songs [Music] [Music] is jesus christ the lord she is his new creation by water and the word [Music] [Music] with his own blood he bought [Music] called forth from every nation yet one or all the earth a charter of salvation one lord one faith one birth [Applause] to one hope always [Music] though with us [Music] distressed yet saints they'll watch are keeping their cry goes up how long and soon the night of weeping shall be [Music] [Music] of peace forever [Music] glorious her longing eyes are blessed and the great church shall be the church at rest [Music] yet she on [Music] with those whose rest is lord give us grace that we like them i may dwell with me [Music] yes lord may we be one church built upon your foundation and brothers and sisters in christ as we remember god's faithfulness in our church and in our lives this past many many years may we together as a body purpose in our hearts to always love the body of christ to love every member of the body and to use our gifts to build up this body of christ and may the love of god the father the peace of our lord jesus christ and the communion of the holy spirit help us to use our gifts to build his kingdom and his body now and always amen friends i'm so glad for all of you to be worshipping together with us hope to see all of you again next week god bless well sean yeah praise the lord yes and you know i was i was so happy that pastor ashok also kind of reminded us that this is a celebration and that we celebrate together god's faithfulness yeah indeed and really it's it's our part to play as a member of the church to be one of to be involved in building the church up building one another up yeah yes it's sometimes quite easier to think that oh you know 124 years and then we rest on our laurels and think that wow look at it you know it's so wonderful but you know the church still has a purpose the church still needs to grow the church still needs to build one another up and so it's about building our own spiritual gifts and then as you mentioned another word was service yeah and then you know providing that service to build one another up as well you know so i think it was very very powerful reminders that while we talk about god's faithfulness and we are so happy and we celebrate that you know it doesn't end here it's the beginning of a new chapter yeah that's right and how about our well i won't call it choir but certainly our church family that came together for that presentation that was really amazing i think i don't know if you noticed that there were some families that you know they were all involved one was dancing some were singing you know and just being able to see everyone come together and even our friends from the bahasa service were also came together and it was really meaningful for me i don't know about you selena but i was very touched by that yeah so was i so was i yeah yeah and also i mean you know i think i want to just remind ya that um the contribution of testimonies you know the the link is actually on the church website as well so you know you can go there to read the testimonies that have already been submitted and of course the fact that those who have not yet submitted testimonies we are still compiling testimonies from church members and again you know we want to have that breadth of testimonies not just people who have been in the church for a long time but even from some of our perhaps newer and younger members people from perhaps even our bahasa service you know who can contribute their testimonies that you know and that is one way that we can edify uh one another as well right i think the church has been here for so many years and some of us have been a part of the church for so many years and sometimes it's so easy to forget or take things for granted so just being practicing um reflecting on uh what god has done through the church how god has used the church and and helps us to be grateful and and develop this heart of gratitude which i think it always gives us a clearer and a better perspective um from which to operate and yeah and also helps us to see that while god has used the church in this way and this is how i can i can give back as well and this is how god is using me as well to bless the church and to bless others in the church yeah that's right and you know talking about this heart of gratitude it's the heart of gratitude should not just kind of come up at anniversary or at celebration this heart of gratitude is a daily intentional uh what would i say it's a disciplined lifestyle yeah and a discipline almost at least initially it has to be a discipline until it becomes a lifestyle that you know we we express this gratitude to god you know no matter what um yeah that's right and i mean just that should be our life of worship as well right because worship is lifestyle so that should be our life of worship and and cultivating that heart of uh gratitude and just living grateful each day and on that note i also want to share with you selena and the rest who are online with us that our church actually has a spotify playlist yeah lots of you who use spotify it's the place where you can get your music uh live streamed um there's actually a playlist now that's been built especially for the songs of this season the songs that have seen our church through this season and continues to see our church through this season that is unfamiliar that is challenging that we can't really be together uh see each other physically but we are virtually connected so if you are a spotify user even if you're not even if you're even if you're not yeah because i think just like talking about worship sometimes it's it's also a discipline like you say to immerse ourselves in the worship of god and and just immerse ourselves in the songs of the season and allow the songs and the words of the song to minister to our hearts so yeah do check that out the link is available on our link tree link um even where the anniversaries uh testimonies are uh if you scroll to the bottom of that that page it's uh one of the social media links right yeah so spotify is one of the it's one of the the links available there yeah yeah check it out use these songs you know as part of our daily uh worship and and devotion time uh so it is available for all members yeah that's right so i hope that um all of you have been reflecting on the three words uh that that the anniversary brings to mind and just cultivating that heart and and attitude of gratitude throughout this season and i think uh i guess last word for me would be to to look at what uh how god has gifted you and the talents that he's given you that you can you can use to build up uh others in in the church community how about you selena any last words before we well i think you know pastor ashok left us with a lot of questions that we need to reflect on and think about you know and yeah so what are your spiritual gifts and how can you use this you know it's not about keeping it to yourself but how can we use this to build one another up because at the end of the day the church is this community of people while we have a beautiful church building which i'm really really grateful for at the end of the day it the church really is this body or this community of people and how can we build one another up encourage one another especially during this time which is a very challenging and difficult time for many people yeah that's right like uh i'm glad you said that selena because i think i mean spiritual gifts doesn't have to be the big ones you know where you speak in tongues or you can interpret tongues but it can just be as simple as encouraging one another and like i should say it could just be that phone call to to that friend that you know or that small group member that hasn't been coming you know and just asking how they are um those who you know may be lonely and live alone just you know keeping in touch and and and being that friend i think that makes a big difference as well so yeah if someone got bring someone to mind please pick up the phone give them a call call them yeah that's right okay well i think it's time for us to wrap up and uh we'll see each other next week yes have a blessed week yeah and then you know don't forget there's bible studies that you can sign up for and you know so please go to the website everything is there yeah and submit your testimony if you have not yeah yeah that's right all right god bless everyone bye [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: WMCKL Wesley Methodist Church Kuala Lumpur

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Length: 86min 12sec (5172 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 04 2021