A Christ-Centred Discipling Relationship | 18.10.2020 | Central Christian Church

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning brothers and sisters welcome to our sunday morning worship service my name is evan and i'm david and we will both be your hosts for today as i stand here i realize that it has actually been eight months since i come into the church building i remember when we first went into the circuit breaker measures we prayed that god will see us through in our difficulties and he has been faithful and delivered us in many ways evan in what ways and what areas have your life do you see god's faithfulness interesting i think in the midst of this uncertainty god has been a great partner to work with since he is the most reliable constant in my life he has really helped me to the second half of my internship which was deeply affected by the lockdown measures he has helped to bring my bible thought group closer to one another though we were not able to meet one another physically not only that he has become my exercise body who runs swims skates and trains by my side as i prepare for a not so distant ippt what about yourself dad well learning to go online and staying online for most of my meetings and appointments were some of the challenges that i faced it was also tough that we were surrounded by a lot of glue and negativity in the news and social media i remember being advised to dig deeper into the word of god and to keep doing what we have been doing all the time to be there for one another and to encourage one another and as the months have passed i myself am encouraged to see how relationships in my life has grown and also many people have come forward to seek god brothers and sisters you may have similar experiences like us and perhaps we all may still be anxious at times about what is to come but god is right there with us in our ups and downs as the anchor for our souls amen right now we would like to ask all of you to join us together in a word of prayer our father in heaven you have been our faithful god since the beginning of time in you we have a father who loves and cares for us deeply we come before you undeserving yet indebted to your unconditional love and grace in your holiness you have provided for us inspired us and empowered us to live a life of love that pleases you through this year we have been embattled with discouragement and uncertainty in our country our family and our lives but we know you have seen us in our struggles and have been with us thank you for guiding and protecting us the last half year has not been easy but though our lives have been disrupted you have blessed us immensely and redirected us to focus on the things that truly matter our relationship with you and with one another father we want to be continually rooted in your love and follow your ways we pray that you will strengthen our hearts for us to keep our trust in you as we are reminded of your goodness and the promises that you have made in your word we would like to lay down some requests and we trust fully in your power to answer them in bigger capacities than we could even imagine we want to pray for the faith of the disciples that we will make every effort to hold on to our relationship with you so we do not drift away we also ask that you be with us as we build deeper and closer relationships in our marriages families and communities that our discipling relationships will keep us joined and supported together as the body of christ thank you for hearing our prayers it is in jesus name we pray [Music] amen [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] streaming [Music] [Music] all your presence [Music] see [Music] [Music] will turn change [Music] is [Music] never dies [Music] tell me [Music] is [Music] never dies [Music] [Music] my [Music] [Music] is every time [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] of men never dies in psalms chapter 19 verse 1 to 6 the bible reads the heavens declare the glory of god the skies proclaim the work of his hands day after day they pour forth speech night after night they reveal knowledge they have no speech this they use no words no sound is heard from them yet their voice goes out into all the earth their words to the ends of the world in the heavens god has pitched a tent for the sun it is like a bright group coming out of his chamber like a champion rejoicing to run his course it rises at one end of the heaven and makes a circuit to the other nothing is deprived of its war i love the psalmist's poetic articulation of god's might and power the bible says that god's glory and amazing works are declared and proclaimed day and night without words and sound yet i believe if we listen and observe with our hearts not just with our eyes and ears we will stand in awe of everything that is created in feeling the warmth of the sun we can soak in the awesome power of god let us listen and sing with our hearts now as we worship together with the leaders in the next song how great thou art [Music] [Music] i [Music] is my soul [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh and foreign the trees [Music] god [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] then [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] me [Music] and take me [Music] is [Music] my soul [Music] [Music] oh [Music] take my soul [Music] now is the time for communion and we have our dear sister florence tan to share the communion with us today i have known florence for a long time or rather florence has known me my entire life florence was one of the sisters who showed me lots of love and care growing up so it brings me great joy to be introducing her i will now read the verse she would like to share with all of us today in 1st corinthians 11 verse 23 b to 25 it reads the lord jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me in the same way after supper he took the cup saying this cup is a new covenant in my blood do this whenever you drink it a remembrance of me brothers and sisters let us welcome florence dear brothers and sisters my name is florence and i'm from the edge ministry i've been a disciple for 23 years and it is an honor and privilege for me to be able to share today 2017 was an unforgettable year for me as it was a year when things went going smoothly especially at work as one of those times when everything i did you know it was always have hiccups or something would just go wrong it came to a point when i was hoping that 2017 would pass quickly and i was hoping to have a new start in 2018 but before 2017 was over i was dealt with a blow which was which was the passing of my boss it was very sudden because we were still in the office with her on that fateful day and she felt uncomfortable right before the day was over so we sent her to the hospital in an ambulance and i got news of her passing after midnight the next few weeks months and years were in a flurry as the business was sold to a new owner and i have had to work together with my new boss to help her understand the business while coping with the operations work and the loss of my boss which i had also realized had become very dear to me was during this time that i realized that my late boss had taught me a lot about the business as compared to my other colleagues it was almost like she wanted to teach me everything about the business for me to take over when she's not around so i inevitably became the person that my new boss was relying on when she was learning about the business when i think about my relationship with my late boss it always reminded me of jesus's relationship with peter as they were also very close and jesus was there to guide peter every step of the way even when peter's faith failed him sometimes which was very similar in my relationship with my late boss peter has had his share of failures when he was with jesus and i suspect he had to do the ministry when he had to do the ministry without jesus he will remind himself of the times when jesus when he was reinstated after he had denied jesus and there must have been a motivation for him to continue what he was doing for me the whatsapp messages between my boss and i are still in my phone i have bought a new phone this year but i had problems transferring all of my whatsapp messages to the old from the old phone to the new phone so i kept on using the old phone until i was able to bring it to the service center to have them transferred you know to the new phone because these messages remind me of my conversations that i had with my boss the ones where she guided me spoke to me and even childed me and one of those messages after a childing session was always remember that i'm doing this for your own good as i would all i would as i would not always be around to guide you into your next phase of your career if you listen and take on what i've been telling you and execute you will be standing on very firm grounds i have not met god or jesus in person and the only way i know what they've done for me was through the bible but if i compare what jesus had done for me the desire to remember him and what and all what he said would be much stronger and i think that is why jesus wanted us to remember him that's what the verse reads i wanted to keep the messages from my boss because i wanted to remember her but god loved me so much that he wanted me to he wanted to let me know what he had done for me and he's left me the bible for me to read and know him and now as i read the bible and read verses like you know do not fear for i've redeemed you i've called you by your name you are mine when you pass through the waters i'll be with you and when you pass through the reverse they will not overwhelm you when you walk through the fire you will not be scorched the flames will not set you ablaze when i go through difficult times when i feel that i'm not good enough or doing a bad job god had left messages for me in the bible to tell me to not be afraid and he's with me and i when i remember these are the words of a loving father who has sacrificed his son for me i was always able to pick myself up and continue which is something i do not want to take for granted thank you so much florence for sharing with us from your heart it is so true that there is much to reflect on and grow into our memories with our loved ones and friends who may not be in our lives anymore and communion is such a time where we remember jesus his immense love for us shown through his way of life and his teachings let us pray before we partake of the bread and the wine father god we come before you in gratitude and appreciation for your sacrifice of your son jesus to take away our sins jesus wasn't just a sacrifice but he loved us so much and showed us how to come to you and be close to you so that even though we may never see him we are still guided by his light in our present darkness thank you for the bread that symbolizes his body and the wine that symbolizes his blood which we are about to partake that we can remember his sacrifice not just for this moment but every day of our lives we pray this in the name of your son jesus amen [Music] do [Music] do [Music] we've been married for 19 years and we have a 17 year old son henry is his name and we have a 14 year old daughter her name is julian it's like paradise living in the church growing up in the church i was like you know i love god i was like it was serious but not that serious so i started praying that our kids would feel the need to be with god and to draw closer to him i didn't think about what could happen you know or how this could come about but what happened on the 27th of january last year early in the morning six o'clock we heard some noises and so we went up and we saw our flat was on fire so i went up the stairs actually from there everything is black and we went outside we simply had nothing we were standing outside minus 11 degrees just had our underwear on and everything else was gone most of it was gone yeah and it really did something to our kids to both of them even henry changed his whatsapp status into you can trust him no matter what i was like thank you god we are alive just like nothing happened to us i was just grateful that god saved us there it changed my relationship to him his friends all over the world encouraging him henry came kept coming back to us saying hey mom did you hear from that family how they could support us and those people offered to bring clothes they offered to bring games and he was like so blown away by the help and by the love that the disciples offered he really realized wow this is this is my family this is how god is taking care of through the family we don't want to have it again for sure but looking back we would all say for what we learned we don't want to you know we don't want to lose that much four weeks ago i said yeah i will make this decision and really live my life with god we didn't expect our prayer to be heard in this way there is no answer on the why the answer is the relationship with god and he's or would that's the answer to it he's good and you can trust him no matter what [Music] vernie had just returned from her honeymoon when she was first invited to church soon she was baptized but her husband was not happy with her decision he eventually accepted his wife's new life in christ but said that they would not have children because it would be too hard for them so my dream to become a mom was just shattered but then okay i just wanted to please god that he will provide that i could be happy with our children etc so thanks to a product failure i got pregnant and even during the pregnancy he said oh i would like to have a second one and what was really important for him was that my that our kids could really choose between the world or god i really fight us for this that the kids could see the church this situation really helped me to to build my own convictions i really fighted that the kids could see the church [Music] it was really important just to have connections and good friendships because my dad wasn't a disciple i couldn't go to all the activities my job was to love my father so he'd become a disciple and i think this is something i understand more now i'm so happy to know that my kids they choose jesus for mom's heart it's just good to know that whatever will happen to them they will go to heaven so i pray about that how there will be a disciple that we can a complete family god has always protected us so we just want to say thank you guys [Music] and right now it is time for us to hear from the word of god the sermons in the month of october are focused on discipling relationships how we have been reminded that our discipling relationships help us to imitate god and also prepare us one another for the spiritual battle today we are going to hear from two brothers who are in the discipling relationship too they are chen yang and chulim and they are going to preach to us about a christ-centered discipling relationship let us now welcome chen yang and chili good morning bryce sisters and friends thank you for joining us today as we worship god together in the comfort of our home once again i must say that i really miss those times when you can really gather as a communication together to know god and make god known today i will be partnering with trunnim to deliver the sermon our prayer is that god will use us as his mouthpiece to speak his truth to everyone there's a really pretty well-known african proverbs which says if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together especially during this kovit 19 pandemic we need one another it may not be physically but definitely emotionally and spiritually in a book of acts paul described his spiritual journey as a race when he spoke to the elders from ephesus before he embarks on his journey to the jerusalem and again in various paul's letter first corinthians galatians and first timothy he also described our spiritual journey as a being a race and lastly i really love how the author of hebrews described this journey for us in hebrews chapter 12 verse 1 to 3 it reads therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses let us throw off everything that hinders and the scene that so easily endangers and let us run with perseverance the race mark out for us fixing our eyes on jesus the pioneer and perfecter of faith for the joy set before him he endeared the cross scorning his shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of god consider him who endures such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow wary and lose hearts the author of hebrews said that we need to run with perseverance in our spiritual journey not run with speed this is not a short race but a long race not a 100 meter sprint not even a marathon on an ultra marathon but maybe a multi-ultra marathon a run that requires all of us to persevere this has different implications for each of us for those in teens on campus are you getting yourself ready for a spiritual race or hit do you have your shoelace tightened and your energy bars ready as for those who have been disciples for an extended length of time are you still jogging along are you enjoying the journey together with god and one another in this journey there's no value in speeding ahead because it is about helping one another to go far how far maybe to our final destinations with god in heaven this is not a journey by sight but a journey by faith this is not a journey to be once by one's own effort by the journey of one another and that's why discipling is so important a journey together with one another jesus knew this clearly as seen in his final charge before ascending to heaven in matthew 28 18-20 reads then jesus came to them and said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit and teaching them to obey everything i have given i have commanded you and surely i am with you always to the very end of the age being convinced of the need to confess and repent of sin to actually proclaim jesus as lord and being baptized in christ and be a disciple is just the beginning of this journey to complete the spiritual journey requires you and me to obey all that jesus had commanded and that comes by teaching one another as instructed by jesus there is no shortcut to finish a race as described by paul and the author of hebrews earlier we need to have christ-centered discipling relationships at different stages of our life the title of today's lesson is a christ-centered discipline relationship my point will be about obeying jesus teaching and later truly will speak about attitude we should have in this relationship which is to admonish through love and humanity to obey jesus teaching is discipling about discipline is about obeying jesus teaching the word discipling is actually not found in the bible at all it was coined probably by adding ing to the word disciple the word disciple itself is found about 300 times in the bible and is always used as a noun to describe a follower and biblically a follower of jesus even though the word discipline is not found the concept of being in a disciplined relationship is evident within the pages of bible it is actually quite challenging to define the process of discipling since the exact word discipline isn't used in the bible one way we can say that disciplining one another is that is an accumulation of all the one and other verses that we find in the bible the new testament is indeed filled with many one another verses disciplinary should encompass to encourage one another to really pray for each other in james 5 16 to speak the truth to one another in ephesians 4 15 to confess our sins to one another in james 5 to instruct one another in romans 16 and ultimately to carry one another's burden in galatians chapter 6 verse 2. bruh sisters do we see our discipling as accumulation of all these one and other verses and in order for us to practice this one and other verses we need to hold on to jesus teaching as read earlier in matthew 28 jesus want us to focus on helping one another to understand and obey his teaching only if we obey jesus teaching will the one and other verses make sense and be a blessing instead of a burden for sisters do you see the one another verses as a burden in your life or is it a blessing to you and the others around you understanding and holding on to jurisdiction will have a lot of implications on how we look at the one and other verses how we can be motivated to practice them and hence how we look at disciplining relationships some of us might okay so jesus wants us to obey his teaching can't we just do that by reading the bible and obeying it why do we need to allow another person into our lives to help me obey the teaching of jesus well for one thing we tend towards blindness about ourselves maybe not total blindness but an our focused view of ourselves a blurred image of ourself this blurred image of ourselves can make it hard for us to obey jesus teaching even right now while we are firming in front of the camera there's a very important person standing behind the camera he's there to make sure that i'm always in focus throughout the recording and he will check to see if i'm out of focus either due to a change in lighting all the camera issues or he will check to see if i'm out of frame capturing only part of me due to me walking around if i've ever done av live before standing behind a camera and always making sure a splitter is in focus and in frame is no joke often spiritually we also need someone to help us see if our spiritual lens is our focus on one hand we have the bible as a type of spiritual mirror as mentioned in james one but on the other hand we have close spiritual friends who can function as our eyes to help us see ourselves as we really appeal and then feedback to us truth the bible is perfect for it is god's words and so are the teachings of jesus but it's not enough to provide us with a complete image of ourselves because we unknowingly filter jesus teachings and unknowingly we have a distorted view of ourselves the distortion can be due to our personality our past experience whether good or bad or maybe even our own coping style take for example last week what he mentioned in romans chapter 12 17-19 that we should not take vengeance in our own hands and let the lord be the judge we need to do what is honorable inside of god what is the first thought that comes to mind when you hear that i believe on a normal day we can agree with paul and acknowledge that this is right and a spiritual attitude but what if you are caught in the midst of a situation with someone who has infringed your boundary or even your rights we can either have a surrendered avoidance or counter-attacking coping style and so often without feedback from others we may run the danger of allowing ourselves to rationalize why we can't or should not obey the teaching of jesus in our own supposedly unique situation the truth is most of the issues in our life is not unique to us and there is nothing new under the sun hence the teaching of jesus still apply to us today do we allow others in our life to have a christ-centered discipline relationship to help us to continue to obey the teaching of jesus when it may seems very challenging to obey for the youth and also some of the young professional who grew up in church this can be challenging are you willing to put helping one another to obey jesus teachings of higher importance compared to your relationship with one another because some of you have known each other for a pretty long period of time like since children ministry in the sunday kids kingdom my prayer is that you can help one another to hold on to jesus teaching despite the fact that you are trying to find your own identity now on the flip side do we pass judgment on one another because we know each other for a long time and may have a preconceived idea of one another for the parents are you still engaged in conversation with your children to have a christ-centered discipline relationship with them or is it being sub-contracted out to their respective ministry if so are you having a healthy and spiritual understanding of discipline relationship i'd like to encourage the parents to continue to have spiritual discussion with your children about obeying the teaching of jesus at the same time for the fathers and the moms to be open and hear the point of view of your children which may possibly give you insight and awareness of your current discipleship for the friends who are studying bible and those who happen to log in today to watch this recording do you have a spiritual community to help you practice the one another verses as mentioned earlier do you have and do you yearn to have someone walking along with you to learn and to obey the teaching of jesus is there any distortion or obstacles that stops you from forming this kind of spiritual relationships indeed having a healthy and christ-centered discipline relationship is so important for life journey as a follower of jesus and in order for it to have a long-lasting impact we need to learn or maybe relearn what it means to enter into this relationship with the right attitude let's have joined him to continue with the second point good morning brothers and sisters throughout the times god has always used men to communicate his word to the people jesus last charge was not only to the 11 disciples whom he has chosen in matthew 28 he told them to teach and instruct all nations of people to obey his commandments this includes this very charge that he is giving his disciples in other words we are also to instruct all people to obey his commandments what does it mean for us who are already disciples of jesus christ is a teaching to obey all of jesus commandments completed when we become disciples in colossians chapter 1 verse 28 it reads he is the one we proclaim admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in christ this letter was written to the quality church which was started by ephesus a convert from ephesus as we proclaim jesus we are to admonish and teach one another the goal is that we can present one another fully mature in christ what comes to your mind when you think about admonishing i can imagine is usually a conversation with intense emotions for me this is always about someone telling me that i've done something wrong or something i could have done better according to strong's definition a monish means to caution or reprove gently worn or as hot so yes there's some correction going on but it can also mean that we are we have not done wrong yet but we are on our way there we are to caution and want each other in our lives according to what jesus had commanded us this doesn't stop after we become disciples it will stop after we are fully mature in christ last week poahi asked a question about management which is harder for you admonishing others or being admonished both have its struggles i would like to explore the attitudes behind these two positions let's look at the verse in colossians chapter 1 28 again note that in this verse we are the ones to present everyone fully mature in christ my maturity is not my sole responsibility but the other's responsibility as well you are to present me fully mature in christ you are to admonish and teach me to help me mature in christ over here i think paul deliberately changed we a plural instead of i before this verse he was talking about his sufferings and how he was made a minister to preach and after this verse he was talking about how he labored to help the disciples to mature but for verse 28 he uses we not i it is not just a small group leader or the preacher but we one another we supposed to admonish and teach everyone to be fully mature in christ i think sometimes we can miss that and think that it's just a leader's responsibility or if there's older disciples around is their responsibility to do that we might also have other reasons for not admonishing one another look at romans chapter 5 14 it reads i myself am convinced my brothers and sisters that you yourselves are full of goodness filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another perhaps some of us feel insecure or pie shared to admonish each other or maybe we are peers or in the same stage of life and we don't see how we can admonish each other paul says here that all of us we are full of goodness filled with knowledge and competence to instruct one another i'm not saying that we should take over the group start giving directions i'm still talking about helping one another to be fully mature in christ i recall spent time with my brother recently who is much who is a much younger parent than me i was sharing him to about my parenting struggles and after listening to me patiently he emphatically relate to me and start giving me some practical suggestions on how to connect my child initially i was not very receptive and i was quite prideful aware but you can't tell because it's all inside i have my reasons i was i was a much older parent than him i wasn't looking for solutions but thanks be to god after hearing him i realized the things he told me was so helpful his advice and suggestions that helped me to see my negativity in my parenting and to connect with my child sometimes we may not be in the same stage of life or we can even feel unrelatable to each other but god can still work through us when we decide to admonish each other to be honest when i start to think about why don't we acknowledge one another as much as we should there were quite a number of reasons i'll just list a few here the first one some of us we are conflict avoiders we are afraid of overcompensating we assume that the brothers are mature enough to seek help we have bad experiences when you admonish someone before and we do not think that disciples can change i believe there are more reasons than what i've listed here if you stay at these reasons long enough you realize that we have fallen into a second strat i probably will not be able to challenge each of this reason because of the time but if there's one thing i think could help us here to overcome our fears is to go back to the time when jesus washed the feet of the disciples our light asked to be here for a while was it easy for jesus to wash the feet of disciples which among them were men who were still thinking about their status in a group one who will betray him and another who will deny him three times what kind of pain must have jesus gone through in order to do this yet he did this for all of them then after that he gave them the command in john 13. he reads in verse 34 and 35 a new commandment i give you i give to you that you love one another even as i love you that you also love one another by this all men will know that you are my disciples and you have love for one another there are many reasons not to admonish but there's one reason we should do it and that will be our love for each other this love is the akape love the unconditional love that jesus has shown us and now we should have for each other i'm not saying we discount our fears and past experiences i'm saying we should learn how to homologue in love and out of love in the past i used to be quite judgmental and for a period of time i bring things up because i think it's the right thing to do but not out of love or wanting to help the brother to be more mature the result is that people get hurt then i swing to another extreme of not judging at all not obliging the disciples around me although i do observe something is wrong in their lives at times then things happen to them and some left the church what i'm trying to say here branstad is that we got to learn to do this better admonishing and teaching each other our love to help each other to be more mature in christ how do i know that i'm not being a morning it is when i do not go away deciding to make changes in my life what possible obstacles in my mind that can prevent me from being homolog a few thoughts come to my mind as i think through this i'm originally a mature christian i know what it takes to be a christian i do not have faith that i can change or i have bad experiences like i all i can think that there are some disciples i think that they cannot help me because of some reasons interestingly these reasons coincide with what i mentioned earlier about not admonishing others i realized that these thoughts are so subtle in me but it causes so much issues in preventing me from being fully mature in christ over the last weekend some of us have a class on the letter to the hebrews by our kingdom teacher roland it was a sobering time for me because there was so much i could relate to the letter was written between 1870 to 8080 and the audience was around 30 to 40 years as a christian it was a letter of admonishment warning the christians not to drift away or harden their hearts in hebrews chapter 3 verse 12 to 14 is he reads see to it brothers and sisters that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from a living god but encourage one another daily as long as it's called today so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness we have come to share in christ if indeed we hold on to our original conviction firmly to the very end the obstacle i mentioned earlier can really harden our hearts and make us dull in hearing despite hearing the same thing over and over again about what we need to grow in we kind of give ourselves many reasons why we can't grow anymore as we have really grown so much and become so mature in christ i think that's a dangerous place to be in and in a way a kind of hardening is taking place in our hearts as we do not realize we are not yet fully mature in christ there is something that we can always grow in christ regardless of what age we are in we ought to follow jesus example mentioned in philippians chapter 2 verse 3 to 7. do nothing from selfishness or empty concept but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others have this attitude in yourselves which are also in christ jesus who although he existed in the form of god did not regard equality of god a thing to be grasped but emptied himself taking the form of the born servant being made in the likeness of man a christ-centered discipling starts off with a christ-like attitude in being humbled like jesus thinking about others more than ourselves no one is greater than jesus and if jesus is humble to give up his place before god to become like us what is holding us back today from listening to the admonishment and teaching of disciples around us who is trying to help us to be fully mature in christ when someone gives me admonishment he must have some reasons for saying that when i was a younger disciple there was an older brother who was discipling me he gave me some input about my arrogance and pride i took offense at the brother who was trying to help me and give justification and explain how this isn't true at all i feel so hurt by the brother and really did not take it well but as i went back and pondered about what the brothers said i i became acutely aware of my arrogant ways that the brother was trying to tell me i was then immersely grateful for a brother who took the courage to shatter me so that i can be more christ-like i know that if i focus on myself and my hurts i will not reach a point where i could see my sin interestingly after that there was a time the same brother was sharing about some things to other brothers that i felt shouldn't be shared in a large group when i picked up my courage to share to him about my concerns he thought about it he came back to me and apologized for his mistake and how he would take note and change next time i was really inspired by the brother's humility and just the willingness to take input from a younger person even though these experiences were more than 10 years ago it helped me understand how humility is so important for us to be admonished the brother despite being more experienced than me older in physical and spiritual age is still willing to be humble and be admonished by me i cannot imagine by how much the church will grow if all of us can imitate that humility dear brothers and sisters today we have talked about a christ-centered discipling relationship that is to obey jesus teachings to obey the jesus teachings we definitely need one another with one another we need to admonish others in love and be admonished in humility thank you and god bless thank you so much zhen yang and chun lim for the timely reminder of the need for us to be focused on christ in our discipling relationships i find that it can be easy for me to get caught up in the heat of the moment when trying to admonish someone that i momentarily forget the most important thing which is to speak the truth in love i really appreciate sharing about the importance of holding on to jesus teachings not just during easy times but especially when conflicts arise chun-lim sharing inspires me to be courageous when it comes to spurring other disciples yet humble when it comes to asking for advice and accepting feedback these practicals will really help us as we persevere through the ultra marathon to finally attain the ultimate price of salvation at the end now is the time that we take up a collection for the poor and i would like to read a verse before we begin in isaiah 58 10 it reads and if you offer yourself to assist the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted then your life will rise in the darkness and your gloom will become like midday the bible calls us to be a light to the world and one of the ways to do that is to lead a life of servitude now the few dollars you've sent through pay now may not seem like much but god assures us that if we are willing to offer ourselves our resources to help the efforts will touch the lives of those in darkness regardless of the quantity brothers and sisters i would like to urge us to believe in god's power to change lives through the willingness of our hearts as we give cheerfully later there will be a chart to show how the money will be allocated on behalf of the church and of the beneficiaries thank you for your generous donation [Music] [Applause] [Music] and there's that you are there that's why be with me [Music] be with me roy [Music] [Music] i know you're in control so hear me as i pray be with you be with me [Music] now help me lord to share what i've been given help me make a difference with the life i'm living as i show my way for what you'll treasure storm help me know you promise to be with me lord be with you be with me [Music] me [Music] me [Music] dear brothers and sisters two weeks ago we conducted an informal poll about the usage of the church building with regards to helping the poor collaboration of hope worldwide singapore central christian church and the people's association of pongo according to the poll it wasn't even split 307 were against using the building while 309 were for using the building to serve the poor i discussed with your ministry staff and the decision that we've reached is that we will go ahead with using the church building to serve the poor this decision is based upon what we believe is the best interests of our church not the short-term but long term what do i mean first of all because the call to collaborate first came from our government ministers they are the ones appealing to us i believe that part of our command to be the light of the world and the city on a hill is to be model citizens who are known for our willingness to help and contribute to society second of all it's because i believe that this is what the early first and second century christians would have done we bear the same name as those who put their lives on the line to care for the sick and poor for those who feel uncomfortable for whatever reason you do not need to be involved in this program it's okay we will go ahead with those who have expressed that they are comfortable with the proposal to use the church building to serve the poor the staff at hope worldwide are working closely with the people's association as well as the church ministry staff to come up with a six-week program it'll start uh second half of november and end in december but come up with programs that are safe and help to engage the poor residents on and the youth of our neighborhood on behalf of the church leadership and hope worldwide singapore we thank you for your partnership and cooperation brothers and sisters it is the time of the year where we as a church plan for the special contribution for 2021. we would like to announce that there will be a special contribution presentation next sunday through which we will know why we collect this contribution and also how it is being used and the pledge forms will be emailed to you after which the collection of these pledges at the end of october 2020. last week some of us have had the opportunity to attend the deep teaching workshop on the book of hebrews and i'm sure that those who went for the classes with me would agree that roland montgomery did an amazing job just deconstructing the book for us and making it come alive now if you had wanted to go for the workshop but were not able to sign up for it fred not in the in the month of november we are going to have our very own experienced teacher from our family of churches gordon ferguson come and teach us on the book of revelations this workshop will take place from the 20th to the 22nd of november so let's be looking forward to it amen last but not least if you are visiting our church and would like to join any of the fellowship and discussions you can scan the qr code that is on the screen to register or visit our website at central christianchurch.sg for more information we have come to the end of our session today it has been a great morning worshipping with god together see you next time god bless you

Channel: Central Christian Church SG

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Length: 82min 4sec (4924 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 17 2020