Family Ties | 15.08.2021 | Central Christian Church

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'm i know [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] my dispute [Music] your spirit me [Music] and i know you'll never let me go [Music] foreign [Music] what was he talking about love what else was he talking about i think freedom freedom [Music] i know what love means what is love love [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] good morning brothers sisters and friends welcome to sunday service of central christian church we are grateful that we are still able to conduct services through live streaming and we certainly hope that we can gather in person soon often there are many challenges to focus in worshiping god in front of your screen so i would like to encourage all of us to keep those distractions aside so that we can focus our heart and mind and soul to god without further ado let's start with singing to our great god [Music] the lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you the lord turn his face toward you thank you peace lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you the lord turned his face toward thank you peace [Music] um [Music] lord bless you [Applause] [Music] face [Music] [Music] [Music] amen his favor be upon generations and your family and your children and their children and their children may his favor be upon you and a thousand generations and your family and their children and their children your children maybe [Music] and your family and your children [Music] go before you [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] all around you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] man [Music] i see the king of glory coming under clouds with fire the whole world [Music] mercy [Music] washing over all our sins the people see people sing [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] jose [Applause] [Music] i see a generation rising up to take their place [Music] as we pray and see [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] hi [Music] do heal my heart and make it leave open up my eyes to the things i've seen show me how to love like you and loved me [Music] break my heart for [Music] as i walk from earth into [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] jose [Music] i'm [Music] [Music] [Music] all things forever [Music] is [Music] see [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] from the rising to the setting sun is [Music] forever [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] forever [Music] forever [Music] [Music] dear brothers and sisters my name is iran from the parents ministry i would like to read this scripture before we pray psalm 119 verse 76 to 77 he reads may your unfailing love be my comfort according to your promise to your servant let your compassion come to me that i may leave for your law it's my delight let us pray dear god we are thankful that we can come together as a church to worship you thank you for your word that describes how your unfailing love is our comfort and your law is our delight and your compassion is what sustains us may we continue to be compelled and moved by your unfailing love and compassion as we work on our repentance individually and with our household may our continuous repentance and revival brings you delights and reasons of celebration dear god we humble ourselves before you as we present our prayer requests we pray that we find renewal in our personal relationship with you we pray for our households small or big to have a renewed spirit we pray you continue to grant us church unity as we move towards forward in communal repentance and now we would like to pray for the current covete-19 situation in singapore we pray that as singapore begin opening up for more social activities we can open up safely we would like to pray for kovite 19 situations for all our neighboring countries like malaysia indonesia myanmar and vietnam we pray for those who lost their jobs will be able to find jobs and those who are sick due to kobe 19 to get well soon and we also pray for your comfort to those who have lost their family members to covet 19 and the kovit 19 measures put in place by their governments to be effective we pray for the disciples to fix our eyes on jesus as we go through each challenging moment thank you for listening to our prayers in jesus name we pray amen good afternoon brothers and sisters i am trasky from the parents ministry it is an honor and privilege to be given opportunity to share my thoughts on today's communion the communion passage is taken from luke chapter 7 verse 36 to 47. let's read the scripture when one of the pharisees invited jesus to have dinner with him he went to the pharisees house and reclined at the table a woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that jesus was eating at the pharisee's house so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume as he stood behind him at his feet weeping she began to wet his feet with her tears then she wiped them with her hair kissed them and poured perfume on them when the pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself if this man were a prophet he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is that she is a sinner jesus answered him simon i have something to tell you tell me teacher he said two people owe money to a certain money lender one owed him 500 denarii and the other 50. neither of them had the money to pay him back so he forgave the debts of both now which of them will love him more simon replied i suppose the one who had bigger debt forgiven you have judged correctly jesus said then he turned toward the woman and said to simon do you see this woman i came into your house you did not give me any water for my feet but see you at my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair you did not give me a kiss but this woman from the time i entered has not stopped kissing my feet you did not put oil on my head but she has poured perfume on my feet therefore i tell you her many sins have been forgiven as a great love has shown but whoever has been forgiven little loves little i love the passage in this book of luke okay i believe one of the key reasons as an engineer i love co-relations in this message jesus told us a very important spiritual correlation in verse 47. i've taken the liberty to draw a simple graph to illustrate this as jesus said the one who has been forgiven more will love more and the one who has been forgiven little loves little i believe this statement does not only apply to the setting at that time but to all of us as well before we proceed it is also important uh to distinguish between sinning and seeing the need for forgiveness okay next slide please in the house of simon the pharisee with the exception of cross with our lord jesus we know that all have sinned including the pharisee but the woman had progressed a couple of steps further not only is he was aware of her sin she saw the need for forgiveness she also knew and believed in the one who could forgive her i would like to see a personal story where i gained a little more appreciation on how much i have been forgiven earlier this year we learned about spiritual formation and spiritual discipline one of the spiritual disciplines i decided to cultivate was meditation in particular silent contemplations so i did some internet research try to find a good book to read and looking particularly for a more practical ones so this particular book is highly recommended by many it's titled into the silent land to cut the story shorts i got the book from amazon read it and start practicing silent contemplations okay following the recommendation from the book i have to pick up a prayer words as a vehicle okay what happened is this prayer will help me to bring back many distracting thoughts back to being silent again so i choose those words jesus have mercy on me a sinner okay as we would expect this discipline is not easy i have some days where i spent 10 to 15 minutes feeling very bored some days where i have too many distracting thoughts and not being able to be silent but there are few good days as well in one of those good days i'm able to reach what i feel a deeper state of contemplation it is quite hard to describe the feeling but in this state i'm able to observe my thoughts ideas emotions not as the actor but as if i was the audience yet those thoughts emotions continue to run its course because i'm also living as if i were the audience it becomes much easier to identify certain emotions which i didn't know was there and also it becomes much easier to identify patterns as those thoughts flash change from one to another some keep reappearing i realize that many of those thoughts ideas and plans though often started with good and noble ambition given time eventually leads to me self-glorifying self-centeredness and some other sins and every time when that happens i recite my prayer word again jesus have mercy on me a sinner this experience was alarming to me for such a long time i have not seen my sinful nature so clearly before brothers and sisters i've clearly become arrogant thinking that in a single day i only commit a few sins it is actually much more i have gifted to be closer to simon the pharisee than the sinful woman i failed to see myself needing god and his forgiveness more and more each day i asked myself when was the last time i told myself not others that i need god that i need jesus however i did not feel convicted and remorseful for too long because another thought quickly came and refreshed me i was baptized 23 years ago when i was 19 years of age that day i would feel so excited because my sins were washed away 19 years of accumulated sins gone washed away now this truth may be obvious to you and should have been obvious to me but somehow it hit me after that deeper state of contemplation to jesus it was not only 19 years of accumulated sins it was planned to be washed away it was 19 years plus 23 years till today plus i have no idea how many more years to come our lord jesus he knew this when he went through the cross for me that is what he was fighting for yet i only realized it after such a long time and i'm quite sure i still have not completely handed the depth of his mercy to me brothers and sisters as we partake the communion today i would like us to remember how great his mercy to us personally i would like to urge us to imitate the attitude of the sinful woman who saw her need for jesus and went to him let us journey our christian life together not trying to be great christians because there's really no such thing but a grateful one let's continue to understand how much we have been forgiven so that we can love more let us pray for the bread and wine dear father in heaven and our lord jesus we thank you for your mercy on us by your mercy we were forgiven by your mercy you sustain our lives every day we thank you for your sacrifice on the cross we pray that our limited mind will continue to remember it and give us strength and motivation throughout our lives today as we take the bread and wine each in our own home and in the church help us to remember what you have gone through to forgive our sins we pray this in jesus name amen so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning brothers and sisters i have the honor to introduce shuhi who is going to preach the word of god this afternoon i know shuhi as someone who has a deep passion and knowledge for the word of god he has been disciple for 33 years serving in the kingdoms tirelessly in various roles including being sent in mission team as a campus student and many more but personally what inspired me the most about stewie is his family which i'm sure is will tell us more about about that when he's going to preach to us about family ties let us sing one more song before we welcome suhi [Music] come up [Music] let's check it out [Music] [Music] he is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah [Music] is [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Music] [Music] here we go [Music] [Music] is sing our god is marching on [Music] on [Music] good morning everyone uh it's great to be together online uh i'm suhi uh my wife joyce and i will be sharing some thoughts with everyone today it's been a great past one week we've heard from dan and alexa about household revival they shared with us about motivation mindset manner we heard from pwahi sharing with us about having a household identity being a household of god's word being a household of humility today i'm going to be sharing about having family ties um i've been tasked to share about from the text in the book of luke from chapter 4 verse 14 all the way to chapter 6 verse 49. as you can see here there are about 15 different passages and i'll be sharing one point from every passage what's that honey no choose a choose a few points set a limit what about all my notes turn aside okay all right well by the end of today's lesson you will know who is being led by the holy spirit today we're going to talk about metanoia in luke chapter 5 verse 32 it says here i have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance in the greek the word repentance has been translated from the word metanoia meta meaning after and news meaning mind so it talks about in the greek about having a change of mind in fact changing your very life now you do not know this but actually the hokkien people actually have an impact on this word me that's right how can people have contributed to the bible now of course the word repentance that we are familiar with in the in english comes from the latin word which actually means pain sorrow regret it comes from this middle english word that's on the screen which comes from an old french word which is also on the screen which comes from the vulgar latin word and which is actually an alteration of a latin word you know when you think about pain regret actually there's other passages in the bible that that's translated from this other greek word called metamalomi which is means regret meta across again after and then mellow which is to be concerned with to be concerned and filled with regret but you see if you think repentance is about regret about sorrow about pain you know what i don't believe that god wants us to have a life of regret a life of pain a life of sorrow instead i believe god wants us to have a life of change a mind change that comes from metanoia you know what the beauty of a mind change compared to a life of regret is that you see if you continually regret you can't you can't do it but when you continually have this process this continuous process of a mind change you can do it every single day especially women they do it every minute you know the thing about metanoia is like it's like peeling an onion you remove one layer you shed some tears you remove another layer you shed some more tears and you remove the layer until you get to the heart of the onion our spiritual journey is removing layers after layer after layer until you reach the heart of god so don't live a life of regret of pain or sorrow live a life of change we're reading from luke 5 36 to 38 to illustrate a little bit more on this in this point here's jesus speaking he told them this parable no one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one other otherwise they will have torn the new garment and the patch from the new will not match the old and no one pours new wine into new old wineskins otherwise the new wine will burst the skins the wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined no new wine must be poured into new wine skins and no one after drinking old wine wants a new for they say the old is better you know it's very interesting in verse 38 when it says the new wine must be poured into new wine skins the word new in for the wine is neon okay which is translated new but the new wine skin in greek is keanus which strangely enough is also transited new but often actually bears the view or the thought of fresh that means you need to make fresh wine skins did you know that you can turn old wine skins into new wine skins you can make it fresh again what is the method you soak it in water you apply oil you massage the oil in to make and soften the leather that has been hardened and you keep repeating it until this leather this all or this wine skin this old wine skin has become fresh you know i think personally the water is probably the living water of jesus the words of jesus the oil represents gethsemane which is olive press and massage that's god massaging our hearts until our hearts soften until we are made fresh that is the kind of metanoia the mind change that god wants us to have let me just share a simple example all right you can see justin and kevin sitting on the floor doing something very unusual and you're trying to figure out what is this what kind of torture did joyce and zuhi figure out for their kids well one day we wanted to buy a game console the nintendo wii for the kids and at that time they still had some you know little fights arguments you know bit shouting screaming at each other and we were trying to help them to learn how to work together for them to have a mind change about their relationship as brothers to help them cooperate so we told them all right if you cooperate we'll give you points and then once you hit the target we'll get the game for you so they took us seriously thank god and they decided to do stuff together they started doing chores together they started to share their things together they started to help each other out and then they realized that this is too slow at the rate we're going by the time we get enough points to be 10 years from now so they became more creative they said look look look i'm like what what what what we're breathing together and i'm like well they're doing something together okay yeah yeah i'll give you the points for that look look we're laughing together i'm like okay okay okay okay okay and then on this particular day they decided to sit down together and then you know assume the same lotus position and they were crying together you know after this happened i will realize that okay we've achieved our goal and that is they had a mind change about what their brotherly relationship should be and of course so we bought the we because they really had a mind change about what is we let's move on my first point is about great expectations great expectations we're reading the verse from luke chapter 4 verse 14 to 30. and here's jesus again speaking then he rolled up the scroll gave it back to the attendant and sat down the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him he began by saying to them today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing all spoke well of him and will at the gracious words that came from his lips isn't this joseph's son they asked and jesus said to them surely you will quote this proverb to me physician heal yourself and you will tell me do here in your hometown what we have heard you that you did in capernaum truly i tell you he continued no prophet is accepted in his hometown all the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this they got up drove him out of the town and took him to the brow the hill on which the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff but he walked right through the crowd and went on his way you know the israelites had great expectations of jesus their expectation that jesus would fit a certain mold you know what's the increasing thing about expectations when you go for a holiday this is what you expect but this is the reality that you face it's different from the reality is often different from our expectations but the issue is not whether that whether that it will be different but the question is how do you manage your expectations or more more how do you manage your disappointment when you do not get what you have expected you know the israelites their reaction when they were disappointed is so severe it was so aggressive that they wanted to throw jesus off the cliff can you imagine that just because someone spoke to you and you didn't like what they said that you want to throw them off the cliff and yet sometimes in our household that's what happens we start posting on facebook oh i can't believe my father my mother my brother or when we have talks at home it's so volatile and sometimes there's even physical attacks you know i've been married to joyce for uh 23 years all right just about as long as tuskegee has been a christian so you know in our marriage we have different interactions you know i remember at some that there were times when uh joyce who is so amazing remembers so many things does so many things she forgot one thing and of course being such a loving husband i have to help her to remind her that she forgot that one thing out of the hundreds of things that she does so obviously you know when she hears that some she gets a bit defensive a bit angry and it took me a while it took me a while to figure it out right about you know 15 to 16 years that i need to verbally appreciate her more and tell her honey you think thanks for doing this thanks for doing that and then when i talk about the one time that she's forgetful she's able to accept it more easily she's able to listen and it and just make the changes that she needs to you know recently a couple of weeks back i went out to have a dinner with a brother and at 7 30 i got a message from joyce honey what time will you be back for dinner huh if the dinner is ready already it's on the table i'm sitting here waiting for you and i'm like oops i forgot to tell her that i'm not coming home for dinner and how did she react she's like okay you see when we have when we're able to manage our disappointments we are able to live with the great expectations that we might have for each other and we are able to communicate clearly better have real conversations about issues that are troubling us you know one of the other things that uh that we we were facing as a young married couple was that i had this very bad habit when i get mad at joyce i tend to shut down i'm those type that doesn't talk when i get angry and then if you saw us together you know i'm angry because i'll be walking very fast right in front of joyce because i have long legs and she has shorter legs you know and because of that she started to feel like how do i deal with su he when he shuts down when he's angry and when she so at some point she decided okay let him cool down first and then after that i will strike her back and say why you never come and talk to me oh what you just ignore me so if she talks i get mad if she doesn't talk she also i also get mad so what can joyce do nothing i have a very narrow range of response that i was willing to accept from joyce and she feels like she's walking on broken glass and yes she actually did tell me that a few times and it took me a while to be able to share more in a manner that is not volatile in a manner that would not set her off in a manner that would just encourage her to speak and share and then for us to have this communication in our household the person who's a bit ocd about cleanliness is me so you know after you take a shower you hang your towel and i'm the type that the tower is you didn't spread it out properly and so that it can dry faster then you won't get moldy and the tower will last longer yes you can have marriage fights about practically anything even things like this so you know because of and now the thing is that when you have when you're ocd about cleanliness you can do a few things you can just get mad at everybody in the house because they're not as ocd as you are you can and that that's what we call being concerned with words you just nag an egg and neck and neck you can also do a duty roster and say you're in charge of this you in charge of this you i mean everybody does it that means you're concerned with words and actions but you know what that doesn't really help the family but you see if you share your concern with words you come up with the roster but when you are disappointed because people didn't meet your expectations and you talk calmly in a loving manner and you're even willing to help to clean the house more do more than what's on your duty roster then that's when you're building a powerful household you know the biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand we listen to reply i appreciate sue he's sharing regarding are we able to talk and listen to each other openly without getting frustrated and mad in our closest relationships we normally have great expectations even unrelenting expectations because of different backgrounds and personalities we are often have very different expectations like suhi said we've been married 25 three years we are very very different so he is a natural public speaker as you can see i like to support from the back i like to exercise cook and watch movies so he prefers to read clean and eat durian over the years i prided myself that i'm a very supportive and understanding wife i even thought i'm a good listener and take feedback well one of the areas that i prided myself and expected myself as a good wife and mother is that i will cook for my family after i let go of my helper in mid-2018 i was determined to cook meals dinner every night sometimes to the point of being overwhelmed frustrated and stressed in my heart i would think i wish that they would understand and doesn't anyone want to help me or appreciate it probably also showed in my actions so he would often feedback to me i don't need to cook every day but however i refused to listen and i existed on doing it daily and doing it my way one day finally i realized that it was my own unhealthy expectation of myself not my husbands nor my children when i finally had a mindset change i realized that suhi would prefer to have a happy wife who would cook most of the time rather than a frustrated wife trying to cook every day as a result now i'm able to enjoy cooking most of the time relax and actually connect with my family i learned i needed to change which started from listening to understand rather than listening to reply when i think about managing expectations between parents and adolescents a family comes to my mind joelle rachel and their poly year one daughter janae some of the things joelle and rachel did were using reasoning instead of issuing commands making time for her to talk instead of lecturing having enjoyable dates without an agenda by letting janae choose where to eat shop watch movies making her feel special by driving her to school fetching her home when she's out with her friends being available whenever she needed help praying for janae's spirituality rather than putting pressure on her to be spiritual taking time to get to know her friends in church and school by inviting them over to the house and allowing to have stay-overs as janae's parents tried to build a family culture of being connected involved and not overly controlling and strict janae actually felt very supported and we're grateful for our families and it helped her so much in her own spiritual journey and maturity i appreciate joelle and rachel's attitude of seeking advice from others with the desire to change grow and connect as parents especially during the adolescent age amen thanks honey for the sharing you know one of the interesting things about our kids that we need to have a mind change is that as they grow older they're actually becoming more an adult and we need to learn to treat them age-appropriately that means we treat them as an adult more and more and as a child less and less we need to use more influence and less authority you know there was one time i was giving a talk at a secondary school and uh one of the teachers came to share with me a story about one of the two students this student was actually doing very well in school one of the top students in the in in his class in his cohort but what happened was that at home he was getting more and more frustrated because he told his parents i do i done my homework i've done all my preparation can i just play the computer and play some games and you know unwind for just one hour and the parents refused and this battle to be able to unwind by playing some games for an hour a day went on for months and years and the student got so mad at his parents that he decided to fail his all his exams because he was so frustrated with his parents and by the time he reached his old level year he basically failed most of the paper but he was smart he was smart he could have done well but because his parents did not treat him more and more as an adult but continued to treat him as a child he rebelled the out of frustration but conversely it's also true teens campus students children we need to learn to appreciate our parents more because our parents have loved us and raised us not perfectly but they have done so many things well that we need to appreciate that as well you know uh one of the things that uh joyce shared about what about joelle and the and rachel and janae's interaction is that you know learning to welcome your children's friends you know in luke chapter 5 verse 23 to 32 when jesus calls levi's he eats with the sinners he eats with sinners you know parents sometimes we treat our children's friends as sinners and we don't want them to hang out with them we don't even want to welcome them to our home we need to understand when you do when we do that we're not rejecting their friends we are rejecting our children we are rejecting their choices we are rejecting how they think we're telling them you don't know how to choose friends you're not an adult you're not a good judge of character you are naive even worthy and your children will feel that you are quick to judge self-righteous and dismissive of people we need to learn instead to love our children's friends the way the bible describes in luke chapter 6 verse 27 to 36 to love if you can love your enemies why can't you love your children's friends and the bible talks in verse 13 chapter 6 32 to 42 don't judge others don't judge your friends your children's friends my second point stronger together stronger together you know we just celebrated singapore's national day uh the ndp will be this saturday i hope it goes well what is the team of ndp 2021 who can remember neither did i until i looked it up okay together our singapore spirit and last year's ndp was team was together a stronger singapore you know we even the world understands we are stronger together let's take a look at the text here in uh luke chapter 5 verse 26 jesus heals a paralyzed man and who helped him his friends why in luke chapter 6 verse 12 to 16 why did jesus appoint 12 apostles why not just one in fact why even have apostles jesus aren't you enough no he chose 12. he understood god is trying to teach us we are stronger together let's take a look and read this passage here in luke chapter 4 verse 17 to 19. one day jesus was teaching and pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there they had come from every village of galilee and from judea and jerusalem and the power of the lord was with jesus to heal the sick some men came carrying a paralyzed man or a man and tried to take him into the house to lay him before jesus when they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd right into right in front of jesus you know these friends these men they understood this paralyzed man he understood i need to go to jesus but i can't do it alone it wasn't one man bringing the poor paralyzed man to jesus it was a few of them because you see they understood we are stronger together you know one of the things that joyce and i we've decided when our kids were young is that we wanted to make sure that our family is surrounded by many other families as many as possible there's never too many families to be surrounded with and so we used to organize a lot of different different things for the boys to hang out you can see you know they went bowling they went cycling we had dinners book a chalet have a barbecue and uh one of the pictures you can see was one of our traditions that we used to have a few years back and that was to have a new year's eve a new year's day morning prayer with another family you know these are all opportunities chances for us to lock and make sure that we are stronger together you know we always make kids our kids go cycling swimming you know one of the interesting things that happens often in those days was i'll get a call from joko or roy or some other brother and say improper bro what are you doing uh this afternoon let's go swimming and ask the kids you want to go swimming actually no need to ask obviously they wanted to go swimming we've had so you know in the 20 years of staying in our own home i've had so many kids stay at a house our kids go over there other kids come over you know they have so much fun playing building bonds you know i still remember about me a few years back one day i got a call a papa can uh my friend come over or not uh and i asked what time uh now now uh uh okay last school night but never mind not tomorrow no exam right so you make sure you finish your homework hey today is uh thursday you back home ready man uh no i'm not then your friend is here already yeah then he wait for you uh yeah oh okay whatever makes you happy you know when we welcome these kids when we welcome our children's friends we are building bonds that make us stronger together i want to share about a uh interaction ahead with one family our kids have been playing together for a few times the kids played pretty well warmed up to each other one day uh the brother called me up british you i'm going for a holiday can you take care of our kids for a couple of days i was like a couple of days yeah we can it should be all right the kids are playing well shouldn't be a problem so they stayed with us for two days brought them swimming brought them to go out and eat they played together for the kids it was so much fun for me and joyce yeah a little bit more work to do but it was okay i know one of the days i actually because joyce was really tired by all the kids she's like take him out take him out so i brought the the four kids swimming by myself and i didn't lose any of them praise god you know when they came back i found out actually that they had not gone for a family holiday a couple holiday for more almost 10 years since they had kids and during that time they were able to bond they were able to reconnect able to strengthen their marriage to them it was that two days was life-changing for our kids the two days was fun for me enjoys the two days was a minor inconvenience but when we are together we are stronger you know a couple of months later the same brother called me again and said bro bro hey can i drop off my kids with you or not i'm like uh he's uh yala okay kenla never mind uh uh yeah sure just bring them over i was actually at the beach he drove over dropped the kids at the beach and then you know he came back came around later to pick them up and the reason was because he needed to have some time to reach out to another couple who was having some a marriage issue and they couldn't bring the kids so the only way to do it is to find someone who's willing to take their kids so that he could spend time and help their marriage now i couldn't help that other couple's marriage because i didn't know them as well but you see when we're together we are stronger amen i appreciate suhi sharing about couples and families caring each other's families i wanted to lift up the hebrew cafe families who faithfully served the church every sunday morning pre-covered together with their children so many of us benefited from their service such an inspiring community i'm touched by the hearts of the godmothers who serve different members of the church by planning times together making home-cooked meals having heartfelt sharing and even home visits i'm inspired by wandi and roger chio who has parents of a seven-month-old jodie in 2010 initiated with three couples chin lim and pasha david and shuhong yong chen and lihun to build a community by having regular weekly gatherings every saturday morning they had morning family devos visited each other's homes went to many different playgrounds went to outings to the zoo jurong woodpeck when it was still open and even biannual trips to malaysia until the kids were p2 to p3 such amazing memories and connections being built some families like suhin and i are non-singaporeans who have made this our home we are grateful for the families who have welcomed us and embraced us and our children i firmly believe that we as family we need each other we need other families we all do i'm grateful that as a church we can imitate jesus and create a community of families caring each other as we strive to reach heaven together thank you uh let's read from galatians chapter six verse two it says here carry each other's burdens and in this way you fulfill the law of christ you know when we let other families carry your family we are stronger when we decide to carry other families we are stronger you know when i first got baptized you know one of my my dreams my wishes was to see my mom my parents my siblings come to church you know and after finally i got married because of joyce my mom my parents kind of like came to church and you know but we can't do it alone so joyce spent a lot of time with my mom and many of us when you saw my mom come to church on sunday you reached out to her fellowship with her came forward to talk to her some of us took her out for lunch took out for a meal some invited her to their house many offered when my mom was wheelchair-bound to drive her around many of the golden girls sisters jennifer lilly beatrice came prayed with her studied shared the bible with her and of course at home joyce was a model daughter-in-law talking to her praying with her reading the bible with her and not so amazingly because when we are stronger together 28 years after i became a christian my mom was baptized i couldn't have done it by myself there's no way our family could have not done could not have done it ourselves but we are stronger together you know sometimes when families try to enter into our families we feel a little bit pissed sila fearful we're not sure what might happen we're scared we have misunderstanding or sometimes we're not so willing to uh go out and meet other families and we have our good reasons bro it's right already but they don't respond i don't know them well i don't have the right training what if i make a mistake and make things worse you see there are all these reasons then there'll always be some reason why we can or cannot but if we choose choose to learn and grow to have that metanoia that mind change we can be part of another family and then we as a church can grow together because we are stronger together life doesn't need to be perfect to be wonderful but when your life is wonderful then it's perfect don't look for perfection just make sure that your life your spiritual life your family life is wonderful today we've talked a couple of things we've talked about family ties we've talked about having the great expectations and managing our disappointments we've talked about being stronger together we talked about metanoia don't live a life of regret of pain or sorrow live instead a life of mind change amen are there a couple of discipline group questions that we're going to that we have and will be sent out to all of us today thank you now i have the pleasure to introduce uh raquel so she will be doing a testimonial sharing she is she became a disciple when she was a first year student at singapore polytech and she was invited by her aunties marissa and michelle who many of us would think are actually her cousins she is now currently a third year student at singapore university of social studies and she will be sharing on behalf of herself and her mom wendy what her household revival looks like hi everyone um thanks for uh auntie joyce and uncle suhi for the lesson i'm back with a fresh cut and a pinned fringe so this morning i'm so happy to be able to share on behalf of my mom and i who is a bit camera shy how the household revival lesson by the news last friday has impacted my family and i so as you may already know i didn't grow up in church but my mom joined me two years ago and i've been baptized for five so i'm really glad that glad to share that since then we have been trying to revive our family spiritually and with the various baptisms of the younger generation my mom and i have been feeling hopeful that and this encourages us to keep up with our efforts in bringing christ into our household so personally um the whole lesson was so humbling and challenging honestly while listening i was thinking to myself um i am the child in the family i'm the kid shouldn't my parents be the one initiating this revival shouldn't they be the one taking the lead in changing things but of course i knew the answers firstly my dad isn't a disciple secondly i can't deny that my mom has been putting in a lot of effort to bring our family closer to one another and to god so yes i feel challenged after hearing the lesson because i knew that the spirit was convicting me and i needed to repent so before i talk about what my family has been doing i just want to share how convicted i am by the hong kong disciples their display of humility service and love is so crazy to me because like when i'm at home which is the most comfortable space it's easy for me to let loose and be lazy disrespectful impatient and quick to anger but the sharings have reminded me that my very first ministry is my family so i need to be an ambassador of god now the eight practicals that uncle then have shared have been very great practices and my family have been working on several i think the past year since covet happened yeah so this part is i'm sharing on behalf of my mom who is a bit shy so she said we practiced five things you must put this in the script so she prayed she prayed and she told god her plan and she asked her community to pray for her then she invited her daughter me to cooperate with her prepare the family's favorite food and drinks bring candles to the table use the best table wear and glassware basically to make it special then she informed she informed the family about the dinner and to find reasons to be together like my brother's enlistment and then she set the stage right she started by sharing her appreciation for what each member has done the past week and invited all of us to share she said must make it fun and then lastly we find opportunities to share our christian values without sounding too preachy and honestly this is not easy because we have three men in the house who typically have less than two sentences to say each um very quiet people and then after that we will all have a family devotional so initially it was a really awkward situation because we never really talked about god or have like deep or real conversations um but over time it became like routine it became life so now my mom joelle and myself take turns to prepare and share like a short lesson whatever we know and we need to be creative so we have slides and games because we need to engage the youngest kid and then we end off with prayer so in other news i also witnessed my mom being a very serving wife and daughter-in-law so i never shared the script because i want to share this to her she makes coffee oh my gosh she makes coffee for my dad every morning cooks supper for him buys meals for my grandma all while walking on 9 to 9 pm job she's a workaholic yeah and i know my mom can do all this because she wakes up every morning she's on her ipad on her kata app her bible app and her notebook she goes for a morning stroll and listens to worship music and now when we work from home she blasts my spotify playlist um bible boosts yeah so i know that she is able to do all this and to be so serving and like inspire us because she is close to god herself yeah to conclude the lesson has definitely motivated my mom and i to persevere in this and to follow the verse as for me and my house we will serve the lord so i want to thank my mom for putting in so much effort and for being with me on this journey as we learn to be motivated by jesus and the good news instead of our fears and our worries um also want to specially mention that we are working to as we are working to build a more spiritual family we definitely cannot do this without the community as well um so on behalf of my mom we want to thank uncle benin for mentoring isaac and now for the ns brothers like lucas reina marcus and jadison for reaching out to joelle we are very very very grateful and thank you for listening thank you shuhi joyce and raquel for your lessons and your sharing good afternoon church my name is pat from the parents ministry now is the time that we will take out a collection for the poor thank you for your giving week after week we may not see the poor living near us in a fluent society like singapore but they are among us as you give today the amount you give will be used to provide benevolence to needy christians among us it will also part of it will also be sent to help the orphans in the jakarta orphanage and also to the needy families through bataam center of hope the chart shown is a projection of this year's spending and later on the qr code will be shown where you can give your donation please ensure that the uen that is reflected is accurate before you click submit thank you for your giving [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] now it's time for announcement this coming friday 20th august we will be having our church white midweek on the team small group revival do set aside your time to join us this friday friends if you are joining us today you are welcome to join us for this revival workshop as well you can contact the christians who invited you or contact the church for the zoom link or you can use the qr code above if you are joining us today and you would like to be part of our small group to get to know the church and also the bible more you can keep in touch with us via this qr code we look forward to hear from you we have come to the end of a service and worship today thank you for being present with us and joining us in our worship with true god we will see you next week and have a great week ahead bye let me do it uh

Channel: Central Christian Church SG

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Length: 87min 40sec (5260 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 14 2021