Delight In God's Word | 03.10.2021 | Central Christian Church

[Music] you're pulling me closer and closer [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning brothers and sisters a warm welcome to our sunday worship service i'm grateful that we can still worship god together as one body in spirit and in truth whether we are in our homes or church or wherever we are before we start our worship this morning i would like to remind all of us to put aside all distractions worries and concerns and really just take this time to worship god and to focus our minds and our hearts on him let's take a few moments to do that now let's have our worship team good morning guys okay good morning welcome to our sunday service uh good morning everyone at home good morning everyone here uh before we start to sing let's all stand up and go to god in the word of prayer okay let's pray dear god thank you that today uh like many other days we can just go to you god and it's your day it's a day for us to remember you it's a day for us to put aside everything else and just to really just worship you it's a day to really just remember who you are and to learn from you be with the speakers today through the communion and the sermon be with the worship and yeah i just wholeheartedly thank you for protecting us so far and just being with us through this difficult period i pray all this in your son's name amen uh the first song that we'll be singing is a walking on heaven's room [Music] all right let's have some fun is [Music] [Applause] praise god glory hallelujah [Music] ain't so excited no more cause you're walking on heaven's road and when you're walking on heaven's story lay down that heavy load jesus said he'll walk along me praise god glory hallelujah i'm singing all the way in every day won't you come along and join me on that habit [Music] when [Music] praise god glory hallelujah [Music] one more time and when you're walking on heaven's stronger [Music] praise god glory hallelujah i'm singing all the way [Music] one more time let's go won't you come along and join me on the heavens road amen give yourself a round of applause [Applause] next one we'll be singing is god of wonders [Music] oh [Music] glory to the lord [Music] oh [Music] heaven and love [Music] early in the morning [Music] i will call your name [Music] me [Music] you are holding holy [Music] hallelujah [Music] galaxy [Music] the universe declares your majesty [Music] you are [Music] you are only [Music] you are [Music] precious lord reveal your heart [Music] lord of heaven [Music] hey man guys give yourself a round of applause next song we'll be saying is power faint stranger and let's hit it no problem it's a little bit jazzier this time i hope you guys will enjoy it we really like it let's sing along i am [Music] is [Music] there to see my father i'm going there no more [Music] i'm only gone [Music] i know my way is [Music] shall ever sleep i'm going there to see god's children i [Music] jordan [Music] i'll drop the cross [Music] i'm going there to see my savior to sing his praise forever [Music] home [Music] ring [Music] amen guys please be seated morning church from the youth ministry today i'll be leading the praying for praying for the church let's bow our heads and pray dear father in heaven we are grateful that we are able to join together as a church praying to you and praising your name father your god who is powerful beyond our understanding day by day as we grow older we understand more and more about our own limitation yet at the same time we also learn and understand more about your power despite what we learn there are still a lot of power that we still are known to ask we need to understand you even more so that we will not be deceived by the world that you're powerless to resolve any issue in our life father father you're created men our dust and your breath today despite the technology advancement we are still unable to create something that it can be comparable to or even close with you the sun it created give us light and and is still there for thousands of years without even needing meaning any maintenance or require us to do anything to sustain it father would like to spend the rest of our lives to understand you and to know you more father we are grateful that you have kept us and the family safe from kovit and of course father we want to be really grateful that lord even though we have more cases now we still want to pray that lord you help help all us to even those who have got it to have no complication and to have smooth recovery we are grateful that in singapore we have high vaccination rate and most of us are not affected by the kovind we are grateful that most of us also have our jobs and we can still work towards if those even don't have a job we can still look towards having a comfortable job in the future the recent kovich situation that caused many of us there resulting in concern and fear in us yet father you have shown us by reply i rely on you and trusting you you are able to bring us to a better place just like noah and his family while we attended various lessons on revival we pray that for the church to be led by the holy spirit and for us to be convicted by him to the in areas that we need to grow in we like pray also that we have communal revival so that we can serve each other better we also like to pray that despite the situation in singapore we would like to continue to like to meet face-to-face in the future we'd like to pray that lord we can make this happen soon so that we can encourage and strengthen each other we also like to pray for the death rate in singapore to stay low and uh people to take the time to able to know you and got time to contact you and find salvation in you lastly father we also like to pray that today's service will go on smoothly and safely and the holy spirit will move through to intern young to give us a wonderful lesson thank you god for loving us we love you to pray amen right now we will play a video uh that our sisters hannah will share the convenience through a video due to some unforeseen circumstances she'll be sharing through a recording morning church my name is henna and it's my privilege to be able to do the communion sharing for today i'll be taking a passage from psalm 103 in verses 8 to 14. so the sound reads the lord is compassionate and gracious slow to anger and abounding in love he will not always accuse nor will he harbor his anger forever he does not treat us as our sins deserve or pay us according to our iniquities for as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is his love for those who fear him and as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us as a father has compassion on his children so the lord has compassion on those who fear him for he knows how we are formed he remembers that we are dust this is a scripture that i really love because it reminds me of who god is i'm sure we've all had our fair share of experiences being in sin right and personally when i do fall into sin i get swallowed up by all these feelings of shame of guilt i feel like no one could ever love me forgive me or accept me if they knew about my sin i feel unworthy and i feel hopeless this is especially so when i get stuck in habitual sins i wonder when will god's patience for me run out i keep promising god that i will change that i repent but then i end up sitting again and again when will god finally say to me henna this is the last straw so oftentimes i hesitate to ask god for forgiveness because i imagine god looking at me with a face of disappointment perhaps anger and also sorrow for the longest time as a disciple my what view of god has kept me from understanding and accepting his grace i saw god as any other human being who would hold grudges count my wrongs and eventually run off patience with me this hindered me from experiencing a repentance as motivated by grace so instead of accepting god's grace and then repenting i tried to earn god's grace by proving my repentance with my deeds before i felt worthy enough to accept his grace but that defeats the purpose of grace doesn't it and that's not how god intends for us to experience him um this year as i reflected more on how god used me i realized that i've been so wrong about god reading this verse in psalm 103 shows me the truth about how god sees me and the truth is that he sees me with an abundance of compassion of grace infinite patience and love he does not get angry easily and he does not stay angry forever god is especially compassionate gracious patient and loving towards me when i sin so now when i sin and i do choose to turn to god i no longer see a god who looks at me with a face of disappointment anger or sorrow but i see a god who looks at me with compassion grace patience and love knowing that god views me in this way has helped me to turn to him and confess in genuine brokenness and hope but it was definitely not easy at first i had to train myself by stopping myself from rushing to do things to prove my repentance instead i would force myself to be still and to wrestle internally to experience god's grace as a gift one that i could not earn what i love most about god is that he's not a petty god and he will not harbor his anger forever he does not stay mad at my one sin in fact he doesn't count my sins against me at all he's so eager to remove our sins from us that he allowed his son jesus to die on the cross this is so that our sins can be removed from us as far as the east is from the west in verse 14 it says that god knows how we are formed and he remembers that we are dust most times when we sin we would beat ourselves up about it we would feel lousy and we would wonder how could i have done this but god has a sober view of us he knows that we are human he knows that we are followable and he knows that we are bound to sin which is why he is always ready to embrace us in love so today as we reflect on the cross let us come to god with an accurate view of how he sees us let us put our sins before him in brokenness and in confidence of his grace god is ready to shower us with compassion grace patience and love he is ready to put aside our sin and to embrace us fully thank you amen thank you hannah for the sharing let's now pray for the bread and wine dear father in heaven father you know that we are only made of dust and we are weak and fallible yet you love us father and you have compassion on us like a father who have compassion on his child you have always embrace us and love us for who we are and it's not about what we have done in our lives to earn this love that you have for us father in our brokenness help us to understand how much we need you father and help us to dwell in christ's love help us to remember how much you have done for us through his broken body and his blood that was built for us as we meditate father on jesus today fill us up father with your love and we will just pray all this your most present jesus christ amen as we take our communion an instrumental piece will be played [Music] wow [Music] [Music] [Music] uh amen guys uh just before we have the sermon uh let's stand for our song uh ten thousand reasons so all right please thank you [Music] bless the lord [Music] worship his holy name [Music] [Music] is let [Music] all my soul [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] is [Music] reasons for my [Music] the heart oh [Music] is [Music] sing your praise [Music] ten thousand years in and forever [Music] seemed like [Music] oh [Music] name hey man please be seated thank you amen good morning church all over singapore okay i'm just so grateful that uh we can still meet up over zoom over online youtubes or even some of you here physically coming down doing yourself tests just to be here in the building worshiping together with us i think i'm so grateful to be able to see our young worship team i think for those who don't know every single week for those who are singing they need to do their tests at the clinic before they can come and serve to praise god and lead us in worship i really appreciate our worship team amen i also appreciate the av team and those who set up the place i think every single week we are always in response to the guideline by mccy to set up the place so that we can worship within the guidelines so i really appreciate all the av teams and all the people setting up just to make sure that we have a safe environment to worship god please join me as we go to god in order of prayer let's pray dear lord in heaven father thanks for being with us father without you i think throughout this entire pandemic we can find so drag and hopeless father but because father we know that you are in our presence because we can hold on to this relationship with you there is hope father father help us father to always center you in our life father help you help us father to always have our minds set on you father to allow the holy spirit to be in our means to walk in step with him father today as we look into your words father please open our hearts settle our hearts father so that we can receive your words father father please speak through me in what you want me to speak father for you are god and i'm not thanks for everything that bless us with praying some souls precious name amen amen so i don't know about you uh we are now already in the fourth quarter of 2021 so fast somehow the pandemic uh distort the sense of time in me at certain period it seems that times are moving very fast but sometimes when there's hbo time seems very slow at home yeah so those were those those children primary school students young younger lower memories two children will can relate with me uh okay so well in march this year we uh we are our dear brothers matthieu and len who taught us about spiritual formation which is to have christ form in each one of us and in the following month in april we actually invited our kingdom teacher steve kennard to who gave us an overview of the various spiritual discipline that when put in practice will help us to attain spiritual formation which is ultimately to be more christ-like for this month of october we're going to review some of these disciplines hopefully that will help us to rekindle our joy of practicing this discipline let's start off with reading first timothy chapter 4 verse 7. it reads have nothing to do with irrelevant silly myths rather train yourself for godliness for a while bodily training is of some value godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come paul was writing to timothy and anyone who wants to continue his work here we see paul giving timothy specific instructions to be watchful and not to take godliness lightly rather timothy needed to put in effort to train himself for godliness as it would not happen naturally was sitting on our couch at home even for timothy for timothy who we respect in the bible it will be dangerous if he did not keep in mind to train to be calling us the same can be said for us today i don't think i am better than timothy i don't think i have a better plan to train godliness i need to take it seriously well discipline here comes from the word great word gilmanzo the word means to exercise bodily describe it's actually describing an athlete working out in the gym okay it as described the rigorous the strenuous self-sacrificing training that ethics undergoes we actually get our english word gymnasium or the word gymnast from this great word so there is similarity between spiritual development and physical development there is some similarity because growth only comes with exertion and proper nutrition just like how our physical body needs the proper basic nutrients to grow spiritual formation also need the inspiration nutrition to nourish and to enrich our lives there are so many materials in the world about self-improvement okay this whole the segment the sections of some improvement in the book stores are getting bigger and bigger running out shells for all the books but which will truly be healthy for you spiritually as a christian are you eating well spiritually today just as you need proper movement and exercise to stimulate growth for some of the brothers who are going ns okay you need already ns all the exercise all the gym will go all the matching will strengthen your muscles similarly we need to exercise our spiritual muscles by putting what we learn in our daily lives you can say this is the regular exercising of spiritual muscle it's a spiritual discipline are you exercising well spiritually today about spiritual discipline dallas writes well they are first of all disciplines a discipline is any activity within our power that we we engage in to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort we learn ads but spiritual disciplines are also spiritual disciplines that is there are disciplines designed to help us be active and effective in the spiritual realm of our own hearts now spiritually alive by grace in relation to god and his kingdom unlike physical training or physical discipline physical spiritual discipline have no intention of showcasing our achievement to the world like a world-class musician's ultimate dream when they're with their practices is to perform in a world-class theater for an athlete who have reached the pinnacles of their arena they wish to compete in olympics to get the gold medal but spiritual discipline is to achieve godliness to present us ourselves as close as possible to the image of god to the only audience that matters which is god and in so doing it will also in a way benefits the people around us your family members your children your parents your colleagues but that was not the goal of spiritual formation my question for us today is what has changed in the past few months that has helped you sustain or even to help you to grow in a spiritual walk we've got for the next couple of weeks we'll look we have different brothers coming up to preach about a different some of the different spiritual discipline that has helped them to thrive in their own work with god so spiritual discipline have its purpose and can help us to draw close to god but i'm just wondering or maybe i reflect or reflect on myself if our attitude toward spiritual plane is 40 it might result in us feeling otherwise i know that at times i catch myself following falling into this faulty thinking i'll share that with you firstly sometimes i think that practicing spiritual discipline is to get on god's good side we know that no amount of praying bible reading witnessing or fasting or any other discipline has the power to change our standing before god i really appreciate what hannah shared earlier that is truly by grace that we can have this relationship with god we may know this intellectually but many of us can't help but still feel it that way so if this is our attitudes of trying to get on good side god's good side through spiritual discipline we might end up being burned out we might be discouraged or even have some form of self-righteousness when we look at other people around us striving to grow in spiritual discipline is important to be sure but it shouldn't be the kind of striving that comes from fear or anxiety secondly maybe some of us like me may at times avoid spiritual discipline our fear of legalism i do not want to be legalistic and because of that i avoid spiritual discipline as creatures or habits sometimes we can turn spiritual discipline into a moral action that we keep at league in a legalistic manner so we avoid spiritual display end up we don't want to add another item to our doodoolies we just want to go with the flow and see what happens well we certainly don't want us to have the wrong motivations but putting effort to grow godliness is political as mentioned earlier in first timothy training and disciplines are biblical terms used by paul spiritual formation does not happen by sitting down and waiting for things to happen lastly maybe some of us i don't know maybe for the brothers we treat spiritual discipline as an all or nothing as we stock spiritual discipline because we set our goal somewhere start of this year we miss a few days of bible reading and we gave up totally well remember that the ultimate goal of spiritual discipline is not to complete a bible reading plan it's not to pray for a specific number of minutes per day but the ultimate goal is to grow in our love for god to be more and more christ-like we need to expect occasional resets or even occasional revivals in our own work we've got so often we need reminders from one another that's why we need a church to help us to pursue spiritual discipline with one another in a biblical and in a wise manner to be vulnerable to reveal where we are at the same time let us also be patient with one another as we embark on this journey together it is not a one-man race it is a group marathon today i'd like to talk about one of the most fundamental spiritual discipline which is reading our bible okay so if you have a bible with you at home or around here maybe you can take it out maybe you'll not touch it for some times because you'll be using your apps or your phone okay still look like a book with a cover and a condensed page the title of my lesson is it delights in god's words first and foremost as a disciple of jesus we must be a student of the bible you can read up different other books to improve yourself any other ways you can read books to be smarter okay to solve psle questions you can get a degree you can get workplace certifications or to even help you to know how to earn more money but if you want to be more christ-like you need to read the bible i'm not saying that we need to become a bible scholar or be a learner teachers of the bible but to be a diligent student who is eager to spend time with god in his words and the fact is at every stage of our life as a christian as a disciple we interact with god's words some of you who have yet to have a relationship with god are just beginning to get serious about learning about god we dig into the bible to see who god is and what we can learn about god when you belong to the church and want to grow as a young christian as a young disciple part of the process of maturing is to learning from the scriptures to learn understand how deep and how white god's love is for you you've been a disciple for many many years been a mature disciple we need to keep the age in you it's only true the god's words where god's words can help you to stay sharp in this changing time of us i'll read from psalms chapter 1 verse 1 psalms 1 1 it reads blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seats of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the lord and on his law he meditates day and night the psalmists here describe what the blessed man is like okay you can find it's very similar in the format to what jesus spoke in on the summer on the mouth when talked about the beatitudes the summers the summits here describe three things that a person shouldn't do a person should not to seek advice from those without a godly moral compass not to have his lifestyle determined by those who stand opposing god not to have self-righteousness and pride and be critical of people around him so if you think about it we might think that the psalmist is asking us then to do the opposite of these three things to be a good and blessed man however the psalmist's invitation is to delight in the law of the lord to take delights in god's words his call for us is to take we will meditate on it because we delight in god's words and because of delighting and meditating our worldview our lifestyle will change accordingly delight is to take pleasure in something we can to enjoy something or we enjoy being with someone if you delight in a person we want to be with him or her even i have been married for 13 years and i cannot imagine a day without her by my side i know that i know that i'm not perfect okay i'm not claiming that i'm a perfect husband will ever go so giving and often i can take her for granted but i always want to repent and change to be a better husband for her sometimes if we delight in a song the song gets stuck in our mind have you ever got this experience where 24 70 songs just keep ringing in your mind over and over and over and over again okay so we sing and we harm it at times and sometimes subconsciously we are harming do it there's probably some christian songs there's more of your liking and when it's being sung in church you feel more delighted you feel more connected with god at that time if we delight in books we would love to read it we'll not put it down until we reach the last page when i was young i was so intrigued by martial art novels chinese martial art over like jinyoung the character developing their martial arts skills leveling up when they learn new secret skills beating the enemies and as i read the novel i'm so intrigued by the author's amazing creativity of creating all these characters in the in the world something delights in comics in marvel in dc and they can even recount really recount all the connections between all the different characters and stories and even come up with more stories like what if certain things happen in a particular ways so if we delight in something we will act on it we will do something about it if we delight in god's words we will want to meditate on it when was the last time you and i delight with being with god that we can't stop thinking about the verse that we've just read i can't stop thinking and feeling his presence and life and can't stop telling others about him the same convictions in psalms 1 can also be found in psalms 119 in samsung 1 9 verse 14 it reads i rejoice in a way of your testimonies as much as it all reaches i will meditate on your precepts and regard your ways i shall delight in your statutes i shall not forget your word the word of god is the way to be blessed we are to delight in that word delighting in god's words and biblical meditations often goes hand in hand biblical meditation meditation is not contentless it is not to have a empty mind it is actually to have contents full mind but the source of the contents is from god's words so before you can even meditate you need to engage with god's words to meditate then is to recall all that god has done for you and i meditation includes multiple recitations to continually doing it day and night these lifestyles to remain continuously in god's words is also echoed by jesus when he spoke to the jews who believe him in john 8 31 so jesus said to the jews who believe him if you abide in my word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free to abide is to live in to make my home in to take shelter and be protected by god's words by jesus words to be fed and nourished by his words to identify myself with jesus words only then we can be truly feel safe and secure in these challenging times of ours the promise will then be for that you and i will know the truth and that truth will set us free you do not need to live in temporary shelters or tents that the world may provide temporary shelters of pleasures like fame and fortune reputations self-glorifying projects pornography websites this may provide some short-term sense of security or pleasure or identity but i can tell you that you will not last only by taking delights in god's words and abiding in it will you be truly free right now i'd like to look at an account of god's passage that changed the life of a person in the book of acts some of you may be familiar with the story but please bear with me as we read through this entire account let's read in acts 8 verse 26 now angel the lord said to philip rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from jerusalem to gaza this is a desert place and he rose and went and there was a utopian a yunak a court official of candace queen of the ethiopians who was in charge of all her treasure he had come to jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot and was reading the prophet isaiah and the spirit said to philip go over and join this chariot so philip ran to him and heard him reading isaiah the prophet and asked do you understand what you are reading and he said how can i unless someone guides me and he invited philip to come up and sit with him now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this like the ship he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before his share in silence so he opens not his mouth in his humiliation justice was denied him who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth and you not say to philip about whom i ask you does the prophet say this about himself about someone else then philip opened his mouth and beginning with his scriptures he told him the good news about jesus and as he was going along the road they came to some water and eunuch said see here is water what prevents me from being baptized and he commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down in the water philippe and the eunuch and he baptized him and when they came out of the water the spirit of the lord carried philip away and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing this account ended with utopian unit being very eager and very urgent about getting baptized and went on his way rejoicing and often the convictions that we get from this passage is regarding the urgency of this official in getting himself safe and be right with god not wanting to travel all the way back to ethiopia to be baptized he wanted to be baptized there and then whatever water he can find so why was he so excited and why was he so eager what was the driving motivation behind him maybe we need to look at a verse in deuteronomy to see the context in deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 1 no one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the lord at that moment at that time the temple's law state that someone like the yunnan could not enter the temple to worship furthermore can assume that this official is a gentile from utopia and so in the in the in the layout of the court there is a court for the gentiles but and so this united ethiopian united travel all the way from gaza to jerusalem in an upward uh a sense one thing to be excited with a lot of assignments and hope to worship god in the temple can you imagine how this interpreted united would feel on his way back from jerusalem he was rejected at the doorstep he's so much one to worship god to be connected with god to have personal relationship with god but he was turned away at the doorstep i really appreciate him he still pick up isaiah prophet isaiah isaiah to read maybe he got it by the scroll outside the temple and he bought the scroll to read on his way back so yeah the desire to worship was not allowed however he came in he was able to relate to what jesus was saying here uh what prophet isaiah will say here about someone in the in the book it was until philippe's arrival when i was able to describe the eternal night the fulfillment of the scripture in the death the barrier and the resurrection of jesus philippe probably also continued with the fact that jesus was the son of god the other teachings of jesus and what it takes to be a disciple of jesus and so this explained the excitement in the voice of depending you mean i can have a personal relationship with god i was i was rejected at the temple but you say that i can have a personal relationship with god you mean i can also be saved as long as faith in christ you mean my life can change if i abide in the cross in the words of jesus you mean i need to be baptized here and down because of water what else can prevent me from having relationship with god he's trying to tell us phillip what else can prevent me from having a personal relationship with god i will do everything it takes to have relationship with god after having rejected at the temple do we have the same excitement as the ethiopian united as we read the bible as we are shown the truth from the scriptures just like you told me enough i know lord jesus not through a personal interaction with jesus jesus never appeared to me and touch me or ask me to be a disciple it was a spiritual interaction through the scriptures do you still have the same excitement when you read the bible your life is is your life still being constantly changed by god today i'd like to add in something here the bible is part deleting god's word is also delighting in god's sometimes when we read the bible we find verses that comfort us when we are troubled we find certain verses that comfort us and we feel a sense of solace we feel a sense of peace and comfort and that is because god is a god of comfort and refuge it's not because the author has a very nice way of writing poetries the bible sometimes contains verses that challenge us to be right to lead a holy life that is because our god is a holy god the bible contains verses that show us how we should treat one another within the church and that is because our god is a relational god having a perfect relationship between the father son and holy spirit the spiritual discipline of reading the bible is for us to know who this god is not the god that we might create in our mind through our experience through our growing up years but the true god that is the same yesterday today tomorrow with or without pandemic finally i'd like to share some things that has helped me in the past few months to have a more fulfilling interaction with the bible i pray that this might be helpful to you firstly i choose to slow down my reading it's not about being efficient finding a best way calculating the best amount of time how many hours to finish my bible when i read my when i slow down my reading i ponder upon the passage because i speak english i understand english sometimes english language can be very easy for me to miss meanings and words so sometimes in order to slow down i will read a chinese bible okay if you can okay try to do that and you will really slow down your reading if you know what i mean and that sometimes that actually bring a lot of flavor to our reading how about copy the verse manually i find this helpful for me as can i have a more right brain uh copying down the verses by hands help me to connect with the verse more emotionally so it's not just using my sense of eyes and reading in my mind but really writing it copy it out and helping me move mindful about the verses maybe to read and do some underlying and highlighting reading is a very one-way activity okay i read the words that's there when i highlight when i circle when i put a question marks on it it's actually for me conversing with the words what do i agree what do i find confusing what is this talking about who is this person here and by me highlighting and circling it i am interacting with the bible itself let me share with someone not from a pride or obligation point of view but really from a position of amazement about convictions about who god this wonderful god is that you found in the bible and lastly to have an attitude of delight finally to end off let's let's always have an attitude of delight where we come to read god's words to enjoy being in the presence of someone who loves us unconditionally who is the only being that can love us unconditionally do in the presence of someone who sacrificed his son just so that we can spend time with him so maintaining a discipline discipline devotional life can be challenging at times as i mentioned earlier sometimes we have some faulty thinking like doing thinking that it's a legalistic manner or maybe we stop and lose motivations i feel comfortable engaging the words with my intellectual but i need to engage it with my hearts i want to encourage everyone of us here whether at home to give time to examine first how our how is our attitude towards the bible first before even actually before even reading the word itself and so that you can make it fulfilling so that we can ultimately as a church delight in his words i have some discussion question a bit more fun discussion question later as a group where you can discuss with one another how can help one another to delights in god's words thank you for attention god bless amen so right now we have sean tan who will be sharing uh what he has learned over the past few months about the revival and certain decisions that he make of moving forward manchester united okay hey thanks thanks so much yeah i thought actually quite relevant from what he was sharing to what i'll be sharing today yeah so hi church my name is sean i'm grateful to the opportunity to share my thoughts about the revival series my personal insights so if something struck you today feel free to think more about it but if not thanks so much for taking the time to listen to me yeah so if you don't mind i would like to begin by just some self-disclosure so actually in the month leading up to the revival series i was spiritually dead so looking back i think it's quite ironic uh because this was a few months after i preached to the church about the ministry of the spirit versus ministry of spiritual death and then here i was like well spiritually did so i mean maybe some of you may be wondering um hey sean how come you were spiritually dead uh okay let me let me show you share with you why um so it boiled down to three main components um my personal work and ministry life so i think personally i was burdened by struggles of insecurity um pride lust and i was aware of how it was affecting my walk with god my relationship of uh i mean my view of relationships and even my view of self so i was quite discouraged honestly on the work front my team was having to deal with all the covet changes you know back and forth so in order to continue the work that we do with the youths on the streets we had to constantly change make adjustments every single uh time that things change i felt very fearful you know at the work front i felt very fearful and on ministry front i was actually burdened by the state of our church so our church leadership had identified some key issues that our church had to deal with i felt like i was also aware of many people including myself who was lacking in faith that god can move in our church yeah so actually with all these burdens i know that my faith in god was low and i was spiritually dead so it's so easy for me to be so consumed by all these fears worries and anxieties so when the personal revival lesson was taught and the quiet time series was released i actually was very glad because i could okay take a pause from like just thinking on and on about my own worries and insecurities to making room for god to move in my life by embarking on studying scriptures that brings me to the heart of personal revival so i decided to choose a powerful scripture in ezekiel that spoke to me about revival and i hope to share it with you today so i'll be reading from selected verses from ezekiel 37 verse 1 to 14. so i'll read the hand of the lord was upon me he brought me out by the spirit of the lord and set me down in the middle of the valley and it was four bones he said to me son of man can these bones live and i answered o lord god you know then he said to me son of man these bones are the whole house of israel behold they say our bones are dried up and our hope has perished we are completely cut off i'll put my spirit within you you will come to life and i'll place you on your own land then you will know that i the lord have spoken and done it declares the lord wow i was actually really odd at how this scripture applied to me in my personal work and ministry domains of my life i just felt like things were a value of dry bones i felt like god was speaking to me through these scriptures he was asking me sean do you have faith in me that i can allow your church your work situation and your own individual life to be raised to life i didn't really know how to respond to god and i felt so faithless in god so i i felt god was continuing to speak he was like sean i can actually raise all these dry bones to life i can put my spirit within you your workplace and in central christian church do you believe me so church i must say that i felt deeply challenged by god i lacked faith that he could restore my heart things in my workplace and things in church when i dug deeper i realized i did not really have faith because if i were honest with myself i had not been spending enough time to hear his voice i was not spending enough time to have deep consistent quiet times with god and this resulted in me not having a lot of faith and trust in god so romans 10 17 says faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of christ so i made a decision okay i'm going to make more space for jesus in my life netflix was was one thing that consumed me during this period also so netflix uh youtube so i decided okay maybe i shall take a break uh pause from there allocate more time for god in my life so i remember having to fast from then so that i can intentionally draw close to god make space for him so i began to read i mean i started easy cure right then i went on to read what was the book uh yeah i wrote it down because i might forget uh jose ezra nehemiah daniel so now i'm in daniel and i think it's been very encouraging because i see real examples of people who will revive or like stories of revival and i'm like whoa god like you're so good you know and i think all it took for me is to really like make space you know cut out all the things that were not as necessary from my life so church right now i have more faith that god is in control and he will cause a revival in the church in my workplace and in my personal life so i believe that this is a result of god's word moving in my heart so really thank god yeah so god is such a faithful god and he wants to revive you every single one of you including the life audience at home and i and the dry bones in our lives every single day so my question for us today is are we going to make room for god to revive us daily and what needs to be set aside for god to move okay so let's pray together and beg him for help um god we just want to thank you god um god we we really need your help and we are desperate for you god because we know that even as kovit hit discouragement is everywhere a lot there's so many news of discouragement every single day and we might be so consumed by that lord netflix youtube is so uh easy law disney plus and a bunch of other things online social media that can easily distract us from the real focus lord and god you are the real focus lord i walk with you is the real focus lord i pray you just teach us to slow down um teach us to um yeah just settle down lord um and and and really allow us to turn our hearts back to you lord and truly lord when we turn our hearts back to you lord we know that you will cause a revival in our hearts in our family lord in our small group lord in our in our zone in our bible talk and even in our church and the community around us lord but unless and until we steal our hearts and we turn to you and we fix our eyes on you lord there will only be a lofty dream lord but when we can fix our eyes on you and we can fix our eyes on scriptures like we will see god that you are god a revival lord you you are the one that will bring revival to happen and it's not because of ourselves lord because we are sinful human beings god so i beg you lord for help teach us lord um help us lord and um allow us to be faithful um and really set aside whatever distractions in our lives so that we can make space for you lord we love you jesus now pray amen okay thank you hey man thank you chen yang for the sermon i really love the points about the faulty thinking that uh that we have sometimes i i could fall into the trap of not doing it because i don't want to be too legalistic about it but sometimes i can keep doing it because i thought that that would get me on the good side of god but the truth is what i need to do is to do this to grow closer to god and indeed god is the author of the bible and he wants to talk to us he wants to have a personal relationship with us and through through reading the bible delighting in the words it's like hearing god speaking to us personally thank you sean so much for sharing your transformation about how you were date spiritually but now because of your faith has grown because of how you just pursue god reading his word hearing him going deeper daily and just being challenged by the bible i really just thank you so much for both of you for sharing your hearts today right now i would like to just take the following time to pray for the sick for our loved ones and for ourselves let's pray father we we come before you as uh as people who who just want to love you who just want to do what's right before you got father we know that our lives are not are shielded from the the challenges the health challenges father and eventually father we we will uh have to uh we will end our lives here on the father and go to yoga and father you are not a god who is just up there who doesn't know our struggles you are close to your broken hearted father that's why we come before you father to pray for our loved ones who are struggling with different health challenges god father we pray for our veda for agnes for echo for richard theo who are battling cancer we pray for veda to have a complete recovery father we pray for agnes that the chemotherapy will be fully effective and the side effects will be minimal and tolerable we pray for echo current treatment will work effectively for a long time and the tumors will shrink and disappear and for the cancer to be localized we pray for richard theo for his cancer to be localized and the total cure father we also want to pray for our parents and for our loved ones we pray for sabrina chan's mom anti-mu for a fractured spine and nerve compression on the lower back to heal so that she could she can walk and pray father that she will have less pain pray for david lang's dead uncle peter for him to receive nutrition well and to regain mobility at home as he recovers from stroke we pray for lily's father to continue to respond well to chemotherapy and to recover fully we pray for jon and sally's mom for her to be able to swallow solid food so that she could remove her tilt feet and eat normally pray for her to also improve on her mobility through the physio pray for nancy and jenny thiel's mom anti shanghui king who is a disciple in cng pray that her lung cancer was sought spreading to other parts of her body and for her body to respond to treatment pray for jingkai and chongkai's father for his shingles in his ears not to infect his brain and cause further complications pray for her's mom for the operation on 11th october to go well and her condition and health to be stabilized and have a speedy recovery after the heart surgery pray for unita's aunt auntie ent for her to recover from autoimmune disease and for her to be cleared from any cancer pray for tuskey's mom for the doctor to prescribe suitable medication for her body to adapt well and eventually can fully recover from late stage breast cancer further with the covic cases increasing in singapore some of us and our loved ones and our family has gotten covey we pray for lin and erica's aung parents and brother who have gotten kovik and are in the hospital we pray that they'll recover quickly and there will be no further complications we pray for the disciples who have gotten kovik that they will recover without health complications we also want to pray for our sister jesse who is in myanmar working for to be safe and be protected from the virus and violence father nothing is scarier than losing our faith in you for we have a hope that can outlast our current earthly life we pray for peace and joy in our lives especially for those going through these difficult times and for our family and friends to turn to you father in the times of health crises thank you for hearing our prayers all these we commit in our son's most precious name jesus a man brothers and sisters now we're going to have a time of collection for the poor the chart shows the breakdown of the beneficiaries which include those who need help among us the crisis relief the bottom bottom center of hope palanggi khasid orphanage thank you so much for your generosity and your giving [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay good afternoon brian sisters my name is caihong and i currently serve as the chair of the church management committee i'm here to make an announcement about the building fund and monthly contribution and also about the eogm along with pawahi so let me start first okay let's start with the financials um i really appreciate uh the finance committee you know for putting in so much effort you know to uh deliberate and look into this matter you know led by joyce um um with colleen deepa and samet yeah i really appreciate their good work here so if you look at the financials here okay um this year 2021 okay we are projected to have a surplus right that's good news and that's largely due to the subsidies from the government yeah and if we look into next year okay 2022 okay you can see from this slide you know that we are likely you know to end up with a deficit of about 350 000. okay this is a conservative estimate if you look at the the income right top right hand corner okay i've announced before earlier in the year that the special contribution will be taken away right instead it will be a mission funding process a new process that will come up soon we have also projected zero here for building fun but uh i'll explain further all right uh this is a conservative estimate it may not be zero okay let's focus now okay on the building related expenses okay let's do in a little bit more okay if we look at the building operational expenses okay for the current year okay you can see that a majority of it goes to salary repairs and maintenance and the upgrading of the building of 80 000. even that you know we have actually cut down a lot you know the initial budget was 200 over 1000 but we've actually uh just do on the essential works okay if you look at next year 2022 you can see that we are actually making a lot of effort you know the church the admin and everyone is making a lot of effort you know to trim down our expenses okay next slide okay this is a very visual representation of our income and expenses so you can see on the left hand side 2021 uh we're in good shape but 2022 right that's the one the blue bar you can see is lower than the uh the other one right the green and orange one so which means that we will we are likely you know to end up in a deficit situation next okay so let us recap on a few key points about the building fund okay we all know that the building fund is used for mortgage repayment loan repayment for building related operational expenses and also for depreciation and the mortgage loan repayment has already been completed you know as of quarter one this year okay that's the good news and we also know from the previous slides right the building expenses you know is there about 350 to 400k per year right and that's excluding depreciation and also you know um i think recently we announced about the church 2.0 committee amen that's led by chi-ching and ihoa quite a lot of people are involved from the various ministries and we know that they are working very hard now you know to to to explore and to find out and their findings will only be ready by july next year okay so after much deliberation and um by the emcee the management committee and also the finance committee so here is the recommendation okay while we are waiting for the findings of the church 2.0 committee you know members okay all of us brian sisters we should make our own personal informed decisions okay what does that mean okay if any one of us choose to withdraw the building fund contribution okay that will be respected okay the decision of yours we will fully respect that uh should you choose to continue your viewing fund you can be assured that the contribution will go towards alleviating the building related expenses okay now i'll head over to pahi good morning brother sisters i want to thank joyce ung and her financial subcommittee for coming up with the financials and for caihong for presenting them as you can see we've done cost cutting measures in order to reduce our expenses and we will continue to see how we can further reduce our expenses as well this is in the hope that our monthly contribution will be able to eventually cover our building expenses and all other expenses however as you can see over here our monthly contribution collection has dropped since the beginning of the year it's fallen from january of two hundred and thirty thousand dollars collected to in july two hundred thousand dollars collected so this means that if let's say we all remove our building fund and as what kai hong says it's an optional the drop in the monthly contribution will lead eventually to a deficit next year of 350 000 dollars and we will thus need to eat into our church reserves simply put it is not sustainable for our monthly contribution to continue as is so all we need to do is give our monthly contribution as pledge we actually don't need anybody to increase their pledges at all if everyone just gives according to their monthly contribution pledge our church will have enough to actually cover all our operations be it administrative ministry and building expenses so that's good news so therefore i want to appeal to all of you just be faithful in your monthly contribution giving if every member gives the church operations will be fine this year we will not be doing a church-wide re-pledge of your financial giving the way that we've done it in previous years instead we just want every member to consider and pray and on your own initiative update the church administration with regards to your decision whether you want to cancel your building fund or whether you want to update your monthly contribution pledge to those of you who've been here with the church since 2003 when we first started taking up our building fund i want to say to all of you a big big thank you at a time all of us agreed to give 3.5 of our income to the building fund so that we can pay off our building loans as what kyong has shared all our loans have now been paid off and so the original objective of our building fund has been met you don't need to keep giving building fund any longer so thank you so much for the sacrifice that you have made over all the years and i'm so happy to let you know that giving in church will now just be very simple there is us monthly contribution and mission fund we won't have special contribution and as well as said earlier there is no need for a building fund during these tough times of covid we want to do what we can to lighten everyone's load and we believe by faith that we will pull through so again thank you from the bottom of my heart thanks for he okay i know that earlier this year we did mention that there is likely to be an extraordinary general meeting for a few important items that we need to cover the management committee in consultation with the church leadership we have decided not to have the eogm this year the reason is because we really need more time to work on the new church constitution uh there are some major changes and to ensure that it is fully aligned you know with the new church governance model that was recently announced so um please be praying for that yeah we are working on it there is an important document an important thing for the church um so nick and dixie's agm which will be held most likely in june or earlier we will adopt the new church constitution right um for sure we'll provide you an update and we'll also appoint the new mc or board members at next year's agm yep that's all for my announcement thank you very much amen thank you so much uh cai hong and pahi for making the announcement and all the brothers and sisters who have been working so hard coming up with with these numbers so i'd like to end off with a few announcements so uh the first announcement is please take note that the rededication weekend will be postponed due to the new measurements uh in place so we will announce the dates later next slide please with the new government measures for for this uh during this period the stabilization phase from 27 september to 24 october we will still be having in-person services but in pairs and also having a smaller capacity so all attendees will be required to do a self-test and show the result during registration people who are above 60 60 years old are strongly discouraged from attending the the in-person services due to the higher risk of health complications anyone who has been tested positive after attending the service please contact ccc security as soon as possible we seek our understanding as we continue to worship god in a way that is pleasing to him if you are new please join us for our small group activities by filling your details via the qr code we will contact you shortly we have come to the end of the service have a great week ahead stay safe and god bless you

Channel: Central Christian Church SG

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Length: 92min 16sec (5536 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021