Good morning church. Welcome to
Bartley's live stream service.
If you can see here, we are
back at the main auditorium.
It’s the first time we are back since the
audio visual system upgrading,
and we are really thankful
for God's provision
for all those who have put in so
many hours to make this possible.
This week is also the
first week of the month,
first Sunday of the month,
so we will have Holy Communion
in a while.
So before service begins,
do take some time
to prepare and make sure
you have your Holy Communion
elements ready to go later on.
We are also at our final
sermon (in the) series for James,
and today Elder Lawrence will be sharing with us about wealth, health and the power of prayer
from James chapter 5.
So whether you're at home alone now,
or with your family or with some friends,
let's take this time to commit to the
Lord in prayer to prepare our hearts.
Let's pray.
Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we thank You that we can freely
approach Your throne
to stand in awe and wonder
of who You are.
And to remember the costly price that
Christ has paid for our salvation,
even while we are in a season,
and we find it hard to make sense
of the things that are happening,
Lord, we look to You in faith,
for You are sovereign over all.
Lord, would Your Holy Spirit enable us to bring all our burdens and set them down in Your presence?
May Your Holy Spirit replace our disappointments,
our worries, our confusion of the future,
replace them with Your hope, Your love,
and the peace that only You can give.
Anoint Your servants this morning -
Elder Ron as he leads us to praise You,
Elder Star as he leads us in communion
and Elder Lawrence as he
brings us clarity in Your Word.
Grant us hearts that are quick
to receive Your correction,
to accept Your instruction Lord,
and to bring You worship,
both in Spirit and in truth.
We pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Good morning church.
You know, it's been five months since we last had a gathering in this place with worshipers,
and a lot of things have changed in that
five months; the world has changed.
And sometimes, you know, it can be very
bewildering.
Even for the worship team -
every time we serve,
it’s a different configuration.
We have gone through home recording,
pre-recording at different places,
and now we are back in
the main auditorium.
And maybe for you, things have changed
as well for the last few months.
You know, your work
situation has changed,
things are in place that have
never been in place before,
and maybe even some people
around you have changed.
But this morning, as a royal priesthood,
as a worship team,
let us come before God who is a never-changing
God in an ever-changing world.
Everything that He said is, He still is.
When He says He is the light of the world, He is still providing guidance to all who would call on Him.
When He says He is the bread of heaven,
He is still feeding us, our souls and our spirit, whenever we read His Word.
When He says He is Emmanuel, He is still Emmanuel, with us through whatever situations we are in.
The Scripture is full of declaration about this,
because in Psalm 90 it says,
“Before the mountains were born
or You brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
- You are the El Olam.
And in Hebrews it says that “Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
In Psalms it says,
“In the beginning You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing You will change them
and they will be discarded.
But You remain the same, and Your
years will never end.”
In James, it says,
“Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father
of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows.”
And over and over and over again,
the Scripture declares in
Psalm 136 and exhort us (to)
“give thanks to the LORD, for He is good.
His love endures forever.”
(Amen)
Amen, Lord.
You know, what can we do but
just sing praises to our God all day, every day.
He is indeed the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
And it is our privilege to be able to call someone
as great as Him our Father, and our personal friend.
Lord we come before You today, broken, but knowing that all our strength, and all our hope comes from You.
All praise and all glory to God, our Father
and our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
And let us continue to behold our God and contemplate Him, as Elder Star leads us in the Communion.
Good morning church.
Thank you Elder Ron and the worship team, for leading us this morning in this wonderful worship.
The last song that we sang, “Behold Our (God)”
is about how we view God.
For me,
I see a sovereign and Almighty King,
who created the universe
and everything on earth in their splendour
by simply speaking them into existence.
Yet,
out of His love, compassion and grace,
this King humbled Himself
as Jesus Christ, to be with us.
To die on the cross.
To redeem us from our sins, so that
we may have eternal life.
Yet,
death has no power over this King,
for He was resurrected,
and He completed his work before
He returned to His Father to be with Him.
The Holy Communion was instituted by Jesus Christ,
as He was having His last supper with His disciples.
Let me read from 1 Corinthians,
chapter 11, verses 23 to 25.
“Lord Jesus, on the night
He was betrayed, took bread.
And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said,
‘This is My body, which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of Me.’
In the same way, after supper,
He took the cup, saying,
‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’
For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
Therefore we are to regularly come
together in the body of Christ,
to take the Holy Communion to remember
and give thanks to God for who He is,
for what He has done for us,
and to look forward to the day that Jesus
will return to restore this fallen world.
Hence, only those who believe in the Lord Jesus as our
Lord and Saviour, should take the Holy Communion.
But before we do so,
Apostle Paul reminded us that
we ought to examine our hearts,
before you eat of the bread
and drink from the cup.
My brothers and sisters,
these are challenging times indeed,
as you have heard from Elder Ron.
You know,
due to COVID-19, our lives
have been affected.
And some of our livelihoods
have been disrupted as well.
How have we responded to these
challenges and disruptions?
Did you put your trust in God?
Did you ignore God,
or doubt God’s goodness?
Did these challenges and disruptions
take away your time and
walk with the Lord?
Did it cause you to speak harshly to somebody,
to judge somebody unfairly?
So, I just want to invite us, now,
before we take the elements together,
to take a minute or two to just
close your eyes before the Lord,
and with a contrite heart,
to come before Him,
lay down your sins and your confessions,
and to ask the Lord for forgiveness
and for His help.
So, shall we do that?
Our Lord says,
“If we confess our sins,
He is faithful
and just
and will forgive our sins,
and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
So let us now take of the
bread and cup together.
Let us pray.
Our Heavenly Father,
we give You thanks
that our salvation is by Your grace
and not by our own works, Father.
We give You thanks for Your steadfast love,
in giving us the Holy Spirit
to help us, Lord,
to deal with the daily challenges
and temptations of this world.
Lord, please help us to be humble,
to submit to You,
and to depend on You always.
So that, Lord, our lives may be
fulfilling and to glorify You, Father.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Thank you.
Good morning, church.
So glad we are able to live-stream
this service from our Main
Auditorium this morning.
And we really look forward to the
resumption of services,
so that all these seats in this
Auditorium can be filled by all of you.
I think, two Sundays from today,
under the new COVID rules,
some of us can actually come back here
to gather together and worship God,
in this place.
Would you join me in prayer as we commit this
morning’s message to God? Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You that we are
able to gather here today
and to livestream from this Main Auditorium.
And Lord, we continue to pray and
ask You for Your mercy and grace,
for the COVID situation to be better controlled,
Lord, not just in Singapore,
but also worldwide,
so that Your people around the world
can again gather physically together,
to worship You, to break bread,
and to fellowship with one another.
Lord, we commit this morning's
message to You
and Father, we pray that You
will anoint my lips
so that through the lips
of a mere mortal,
we might hear the voice of God,
as we pray all this in Jesus' name,
amen.
We have been looking at the
book of James these past few weeks.
And I am sure you would have seen
how practical, how pithy,
even how punchy some of the
teachings in this book are.
And it might interest you to know that
James was probably one of the
earliest books in the New Testament
to be written - I think it was in
A.D. 45 when it was written.
Perhaps because in the mind of God,
to ground the Church in practical daily living
right from the start, was in His mind.
And this is what James has
been showing to us in his book:
what true faith looks like in
everyday practical living.
But we really haven’t had time
to dig out all the details.
We have done what the Chinese would say:
走马看花 (zou ma kan hua) -
watching the flowers by horseback.
But I trust that even with
a quick scan like that,
you would have picked up some
helpful applications along the way
and it will motivate you to want
to dig even deeper into the book.
Today, as we conclude,
we will see James focus on 2 areas
that will impact our lives
significantly:
wealth and health -
similarly practical and down-to-earth.
We’ll see firstly, how we should view
wealth and possession as people of faith;
Secondly, we’ll see how true faith patiently
endures in the face of ill health and afflictions;
and then finally, James
concludes this book
by reminding us that the power of prayer is available
and is a privilege of the community of faith.
We left off last Sunday in Chapter 4, verses 13 to 17,
where James reminded us
that we are to live a life of submission to God;
and cautioned against living life so
presumptuously, as if there was no God.
Verse 13 says this:
"Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow
we will go to such and such a town,
and spend a year there
and trade and make a profit."
See, what we see here is a person
totally wrapped up in himself.
It’s all about me:
my time - “today or tomorrow”;
my place - “such and such a town”;
my schedule - I only want to spend one year there;
my activity - "to trade", or as another
version says, "to engage in business";
and my arrogant, presumptive result -
to make a whole lot of money,
to "make a profit".
Everything in this person’s plans are all
laid out, but God is conspicuously absent.
You see, brothers and sisters,
all of us - all of us make plans,
or else life would be very very messy.
But making plans is never the problem.
The problem, often, is our attitude
towards those plans.
Here, James warned against this
arrogance in our attitude
where we think that we can manage
our lives, pursue our dreams,
and in this case, to make our money
without any consideration for God at all.
Instead, he reminds us in verse 15:
“If the Lord wills,
we will live and do this or that.”
You see, only as God grants us life,
will we be able to make plans, and even
live long enough to see them through,
and to enjoy the fruits of our labour.
James even described our short
temporal lives on Earth as vapour
you know, it just appears for
a little while and then it vanishes away.
Therefore the pursuit of
temporal goals, dreams or wealth
without any regard for God
is not only foolish,
but is also likely to have
very little eternal value.
And then continuing in chapter 5
on a similar theme of wealth,
James turns and addressed
the rich landowners in first century Israel:
where he says this:
"Come now, you rich, you weep and howl
for the miseries that are coming upon you.
Your riches have rotted,
your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver have corroded,
the corrosion will be evidence against you
and will eat your flesh like fire.
You have laid up treasure
in the last days.
So on the surface, it would have seemed
that here James was condemning
rich landowners with all
their possessions and all their wealth.
But the Bible does not condemn wealth,
nor the possession of wealth,
because wealth or poverty in themselves
are never indicators of spirituality;
You see, there are many
godless poor people,
just as there are many godly rich people.
But the Bible consistently warns against
the dangers of wealth,
you know, perhaps it is that much more tempting
for the rich to trust in their riches, than in God.
Which is why the Bible warns
often and again of wealth.
The Bible also condemns wealth
that is selfishly hoarded,
wealth that is misused or
acquired through wrongful means.
And God is particularly concerned about the rich
exploiting the poor for wrongful gain,
precisely what the landowners
were doing here in first century Israel,
and James rebuked them in verses 4 to 6:
where he says,
"Behold, the wages of the laborers
who mowed your fields,
which you kept back by fraud,
(they) are crying out against you,
and the cries of the harvesters
have reached the ears of the Lord.
You have lived on the earth
in luxury, in self-indulgence.
You have fattened your hearts
in a day of slaughter.
You have condemned and
murdered the righteous person,
who does not resist you."
You see, James did not mince his words at all,
and he really lashed out
at all these wicked landowners:
You who abused others,
remember - there is a God!
As we say in Chinese:
"冤有头，债有主"
(yuan you tou, zhai you zhu)
You may have silenced
those that you abused,
but the Lord cannot be silenced;
and judgement will be coming!
How the Bible often warns
that money corrupts,
that unfettered love of money
is a root of all sorts of evil,
and is a very dangerous thing.
So here in this passage of Scripture,
James summarized for us
three - three of those dangers that
believers must keep a lookout for.
Firstly, he said,
wealth can be very deceptive.
We saw this in chapter 4, verses 13 to 17.
Wealth has the ability deceive
and to lull us into believing it
as our security in life
instead of God.
And convinced that wealth would protect,
that wealth would buffer us in times of trouble,
the very pursuit of more wealth
to build this buffer,
could easily get out of control,
and instead lead to our downfall.
As someone once said,
“Money is like a loaded gun,
very useful when you use it properly,
but it also has the potential to hurt others
and especially to hurt yourself.”
Secondly, wealth is transient
and can really distract us,
as we saw in chapter 5, verses 1 to 3.
You see, money and possessions,
all these are temporal things,
and they will eventually pass away.
By focusing our energies on the
pursuit of temporal wealth,
we can become so distracted that we neglect the more
important matters of eternal value and significance.
And when our hearts are distracted,
when our hearts are occupied with
the pursuit of money,
we will have very little
time or space left for God.
And lastly, with wealth also comes the potential for evil
and the abuse of wealth, as we saw in verses 4 to 6.
You know, when the numbers are large,
the temptation for fraud,
for abuse, grows exponentially.
I saw this among Chinese businessmen
that I interact with in China,
where because of the sheer size
of the China market,
just cheating one time -
provided you can get away with it -
just once,
is enough for a person to - we say in Chinese -
"退出江湖" (tui chu jiang hu),
for a person to retire as  a
multi-millionaire many, many times over.
So the temptation to cheat is very great.
But the fraud and the abuse of wealth would
eventually bring about God’s judgement,
perhaps in this life, when the person gets caught,
or the final judgement of God
at the end of time.
So what should we do?
We all know that money is important,
but I trust that it has not become
more important to us than God.
How about the way we make decisions
regarding the use of money?
You know, our household
and personal budgets
are actually good indicators of some of
the spiritual priorities in our lives.
So regular realignment of our budgets,
taking stock every now and then,
and then making the necessary adjustments,
- these are good practices.
I also think that Paul’s teachings
in 1 Timothy chapter 6,
particularly in verses 17 to 19
1 Timothy 6:17 - 19 - I think
those are very helpful advice.
Here - here, Paul addressed the “rich”,
but I think it is also applicable to all of us.
You see, Singaporeans, by and large,
we are rich... especially Christians,
if you compare ourselves with those who are living in
poverty in many of our neighbouring countries,
we are a rich nation.
Listen carefully
to God's Word, as I read this to you,
1 Timothy 6, verses 17 to 19:
Verse 17:
"Instruct those who are rich in this
present world not to be conceited
or to fix their hope on the
uncertainty of riches,
but on God, who richly supplies
us with all things to enjoy.
Instruct them to do good,
to be rich in good works,
to be generous and ready to share,
storing up for themselves the treasure
of a good foundation for the future,
so that they may take hold of that
which is life indeed."
This is how true faith
views wealth and possessions.
You do not need another reminder from me
that things are still not too well in the world.
We may have controlled
the virus outbreak better here,
but situation worldwide is still quite grim.
Whatever happens overseas will
eventually come back to bite us.
Maybe your job has been restructured away,
and you are already out of work;
or you have lost income because of
all these new social distancing rules;
and you are really quite unsure
what the future holds.
For some of us, our jobs are
the last things on our minds.
We are battling bigger storms
of life and death,
an illness maybe,
or a family problem that has really
caught us by surprise,
and we find it so hard to
have peace or to trust God.
I have a friend with stage-4
nose cancer in Hong Kong,
and in his latest WhatsApp message to me,
he said, with all the side effects
from chemotherapy,
just being able to sleep
at night is such a luxury.
Here in verses 7 and 8,
James encouraged those who are going
through afflictions, and he said this:
"Be patient, therefore, brothers,
until the coming of the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for
the precious fruit of the earth,
being patient about it,
until it receives the early
and the late rains.
You also, be patient.
Establish (or strengthen) your hearts,
for the coming of the Lord is at hand."
Many of James’ readers were
persecuted, they were abused,
while the wealthy land owners and employers
were prospering at their expense.
So twice in these verses,
James encouraged them:
The Lord is coming! The Lord is coming!
And his meaning is two-fold.
Firstly, "the Lord is coming" -
meaning help from God in your present
affliction is near, and much nearer than you think!
So be patient!
And then he lists 3 examples to illustrate.
First he described the patient farmer
who waits for the rain,
so that the land will produce its crop.
You see, there’s nothing the
farmer could do to hasten the rain,
except just to wait patiently
for God to act.
Next he lists the example of
the prophets of old,
who, despite all the accusations and
persecutions that were inflicted on them,
they remained faithful
as God’s voice to the people.
And finally, James cites
the steadfastness of Job,
Job is a figure that is very familiar to the Jews
as a model of faithful endurance;
who not only had to suffer,
but really had absolutely no clue as to
why he had to go through all the suffering.
James’ point in quoting
these 3 examples is this:
your patience in waiting for God
to act will be rewarded!
The farmer will receive his share
of the crops from the land,
the prophets will receive their
Crowns of Glory in heaven,
and standing on this side of history,
we saw how God restored
Job’s family to him
and then blessed him double
for all that he had lost, and more.
But James also had a
second meaning here,
that ultimately as believers,
we look forward to the
Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The Lord is coming!
And when He comes, all the sufferings, all the
grievances of this broken and sinful world,
they will be set right.
You see, God will always bring about
restoration for His people,
whether in this life, or the next.
The Apostle Paul said this
in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18:
"For momentary, light affliction..."
See, I do not say this blithely,
especially for those of us who are
going through really tough times.
No affliction is ever light,
when it is our own affliction.
"For momentary, light affliction
is producing for us
an eternal weight of glory
far beyond all comparison..."
You see, the affliction is light,
only when compared to the glory that is to
be revealed when Jesus Christ comes again.
"...while we look not at the
things which are seen..."
so the things that we see (are)
all our present afflictions...
"...but at the things which are not seen..."
"...for the things which are
seen are only temporal..."
- they are only earthly -
"...but the things which are
not seen are eternal. "
So whatever you are going through,
may the Word of God be your encouragement today.
“Be patient and endure”
for the Lord is coming
and He is coming soon!
Brothers and sisters,
so often we celebrate victories:
we pray, people are healed, difficulties are overcome..
And we should celebrate all these victories.
But I think sometimes we do not
celebrate endurance enough.
You see, for those who were healed,
the reality is that many will
remain sick for a very long time.
For those who overcame difficulties,
many remained stuck in
their pain for a long time.
And yet these people have continued
to endure and remained faithful;
and you probably know some of them
personally in our church.
I think of Aaron Wong,
one of my cell members,
who suffers from Charcot-Marie-Tooth,
This is a genetic neuro-disorder
resulting in a muscular atrophy
that has left Aaron wheelchair-bound.
Because of his condition,
Aaron now stays in a Nursing Home.
And those who have met him are
often surprised by his keen mind,
his cheeky grin and his cheerfulness.
Does he struggle with his afflictions?
Of course he does, and he has shared with us
honestly many, many of his struggles.
But Aaron continues to demonstrate a faith
strongly anchored on the promises of God.
Because of all the strict COVID
restrictions in nursing homes,
Aaron had already been
locked down since March,
even before the Circuit Breaker
was implemented in April.
And he is still locked down today,
even as we speak.
He has not stepped out of the nursing home
for almost 6 months now,
He can't even go to work at the Apple Store!
How’s that for a total lock-down!
So our cell members, we visited him,
but they could only go as far as the gates
because of COVID restrictions.
So they met him at the gate,
they (brought) him Char Kway Teow,
they (brought) him Hokkien mee;
some books to read,
even a birthday cake on his birthday!
All to cheer a brother going through
very very difficult times.
My heart really goes out to Aaron.
I think it takes great courage
for someone like him to stare affliction
in the face daily and yet remain faithful.
For those of us struggling to make sense
of what we are going through,
Aaron actually has this
verse to share with you,
a verse that has really helped him a great deal
during this period of lock-down,
from Isaiah chapter 50 , verse 10,
He wants to share this with you
to encourage you on your journey.
"Who among you fears the Lord and
obeys the word of his servant?.."
Listen to this:
"...Let the one who walks in the dark,
who has no light..."
- yes, let such a person -
let such a person "trust in the name
of the Lord and rely on their God."
And so we celebrate his endurance
and we pray for light at the end
of this long COVID tunnel.
"Hang in there!" So we often encouraged Aaron.
You are not alone;
this community of faith - we will stand with you,
we will journey with you and we will pray with you.
And this brings us to James’
final point in this chapter,
that the power of prayer is available
and is a privilege of the community of faith.
Chapter 5, verses 13 to 16 are
familiar verses to us,
and we often relate them to praying for healing.
Verse 13: Is anyone suffering or afflicted?
James tells you, you pray!
Pray for endurance, pray for strength,
pray for patience.
Are you cheerful? Is life good? Then sing praises!
Thank God for all these good times!
Verse 14: “Is anyone among you sick?
Now, this word “sick” here refers to a major illness
that really, really incapacitates you,
maybe a stroke, cancer,
heart problems and so on.
And if you are sick, you are to call for the
church elders or the leaders to come.
So the elders will come,
as the passage tells us,
and first of all “anoint” the sick person with oil.
This is usually a mixture of
olive oil and some herbs,
a very common medicinal
concoction in the first century.
This word translated (as) “anoint” in verse 14,
is not the usual Greek word for a spiritual anointing,
it is not “Chrio”, from which we get the word Christos,
or Christ, the anointed One.
The word here is the more
commonplace word, “Aleipho” -
meaning to rub or
to smear ointment onto the skin.
So the “anointing of oil” in verse 14 here,
likely refers to a prevailing medical treatment
for sicknesses in the first century,
rather than a spiritual anointing.
So the elders apply the oil,
and then they pray for God’s healing.
And whether it is through medicine or
through supernatural intervention by God,
ultimately it is still God who heals.
So far so good ah,
I hope you are still with me..
We read  verses 15 and 16, 
it gets a little more tricky.
You notice all those
highlighted words here,
we find James drawing a connection
between physical sickness and sin.
You know, this idea is a little
more challenging to figure out,
so please bear with me.
Did James mean that when we fall sick,
it is always because we have sinned in some way?
Certainly not!
We must be very very careful
not to make this kind of simplistic assumptions
that will further guilt-trip those who
are already suffering from illnesses.
So what is James’ point?
I believe he is saying this:
That God, out of His love for us, sometimes
allows sicknesses into our lives,
to unveil specific sins
that we must deal with.
And when that happens,
repentance and the forgiveness of sin becomes
an integral part of the healing process.
The application is this:
It would be wise, whenever we are sick,
especially during major illnesses,
to take stock (and) to examine our lives.
You know, the sickness could
very well be a wake-up call,
not a punishment for sin,
don’t get me wrong -
a wake-up call -
and an opportunity to seek God, so that
restoration and healing can begin to take place.
See, one of things we learnt as an
Elders Board during COVID-19
- and very early on in COVID-19 -
was how effective it was to pray for members
who were not well through Zoom.
We also Zoom, ah.
This Zoom happened 5 days before
Baby Nathan went for his open heart surgery.
We gathered with Jonathan and Amy
to pray for Nathan -
we prayed over the operation,
against infection and for a very quick recovery.
As it happened, that day we "Zoom-ed" was also
the birthday of Mya, Nathan’s older sister.
And Mya had a birthday prayer!
Her birthday prayer was for God to help her brother
to be less active, so that he can heal quickly!
And Nathan has healed well,
he has healed very quickly -
and he was discharged just 4 days after
a major 4-and-a-half hour surgery, for a little child.
That, brothers and sisters, is what we can do and
what we should do for each other as a community.
So may I suggest, for those of us
going through sickness and afflictions,
let our community stand with you.
But you have to make the call.
I know some of us are very private and
would rather be left alone in times like this.
Well maybe instead of a large group "Zoom-ing"
into your home and stressing you more,
maybe a smaller group, 2 to 3 elders,
1 or 2 pastors, we come and we pray with you.
Whatever it is,
please don’t walk alone in your pain.
We have come to the end of the book of James.
And if you have been following this series,
you may be surprised to know that James was actually
known as a man of prayer in the early church.
I say "surprised", because it seems from the book,
\that James was always a man on the go,
very focused on the importance of work
and always had plenty of applications for us.
But James was a man of prayer.
If you noticed the last 8 verses of chapter 5,
he mentioned prayer 7 times.
And James also had a
very unusual nickname -
No prizes for guessing -
his nickname was “Camel Knees".
This is what camel knees look like.
You see, camels have to kneel down when they sit,
and kneel again when they want to get up,
so over time, the knees get very very swollen,
and very very well-used.
James’ knees must have looked something
like that to get such a nickname:
enlarged, callused and swollen.
Why camel knees?
Because he spent so many
hours on his knees, praying.
James was a man of prayer.
And when Camel Knees talk
about prayer, we listen.
I want to close with a short, but true story
about this gentleman, Joseph Scriven.
Scriven was an Irishman.
After his graduation in college in Dublin,
he began to make plans to
marry his childhood sweetheart.
But the very night before his wedding,
his wife-to-be accidentally drowned in a river,
and Scriven actually watched
the whole thing happen
right before his eyes, because he was
just across the river, on the other bank,
but he could do nothing about it.
As if that was not heartbreaking enough,
a few years later, this time he
was living in Canada,
Scriven fell in love again and
was engaged to be married.
And for the second time, this time
just weeks before the wedding,
his fiancée contracted pneumonia
and she died.
Twice devastated, Scriven devoted his whole life
to becoming a Christian minister,
to help others cope with
the difficulties of life.
One day, he received news that
his mother was very very ill.
So he wrote her a poem to encourage her.
Scriven was no great poet,
so the words were very very simple,
but they were borne out of his
personal and tragic life experiences.
This poem was eventually set to music,
and it became this beautiful hymn
that we have come to love so much:
What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry,
everything to God in prayer.
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry,
everything to God in prayer.
Coming from the pen of a man
who had suffered so much,
these simple words
take on a whole new meaning.
God is listening, but are we carrying
everything to Him in prayer?
As the musicians come, and before
we sing the closing hymn,
I just want to give you some time to reflect
on what you have heard this morning.
I believe God has spoken to you.
God knows exactly what you are going through,
He knows exactly where you are, trust Him!
I also have a mobile number on the screen,
and if you have a prayer request,
if you have a need,
and would like the elders or
the pastors to come and pray with you,
you can WhatsApp your requests to this number
and we will get in touch with you.
You can do it right now, in real time,
as the livestream is going on,
as the service goes on,
when we pray, during the closing hymn,
or even after the service
as you are comfortable.
If you have a need,
you have a (prayer request),
just let us know and let this community
come and stand alongside you.
Shall we just take a moment, and allow me to pray
before we sing this beautiful closing hymn.
Let's pray.
The Lord has spoken.
And we will listen.
Father, what a privilege it is to
carry everything to You in prayer.
Lord, what peace we forfeit, what pain we bear,
when we do not bring them to You in prayer.
Thank You for Your word this morning.
And we just pray especially
for those of us
who are really going
through difficult situations
that may have incapacitated them,
And Lord we ask that You grant them
a special portion of Your strength today.
Thank You, Father, for the reminder
that the Lord is coming.
And that is the ultimate comfort
and strength that we draw from.
In the midst of all that life throws at us,
we know that the Lord is coming.
And we pray all this in
His mighty name, amen.
As the song is sung, I want to encourage you
to keep those prayers coming through the
number that Lawrence just flashed.
Let's bring to God everything,
anything, because He is listening.
Before we close in prayer,
before we receive the Lord’s Benediction,
I want to draw your attention
to our upcoming e-AGM.
(You have the slide?
Can you show us the slide?)
This is in two weeks’ time, on the
19th of September, 10.30 am.
Two points to note.
For those of us who hav  already
submitted our e-proxy forms,
you should have received an email,
giving you a registration link.
You need to act on that, and RSVP by (the)
coming Saturday - if I’m not wrong - 12 Sept.
So you should have received an email by now.
Other members, other associate members,
anyone else who wants to attend this e-AGM,
there are still limited places available on Zoom.
But it’s on a first come, first served basis.
But you need to write in -
I think there's an email account there.
Write in by 12th September and
further instructions will be given to you.
All other inquiries, just please
write to that email account.
All these details are also in your E-bulletin
sent out through the BCC broadcast.
Shall we all stand, and let’s close in prayer
and receive the Lord's benediction.
Let’s pray.
What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege, Lord, to carry
everything to You in prayer.
So Lord, as we go about this day, this week, help us
just to remember the simple words of this hymn.
And may it remind us of Your goodness,
and Your love for us.
And now to the Saviour and Lord,
who daily bears our griefs and burdens,
and the Holy Spirit (who) comforts and strengthens
us in the midst of trials and temptations,
to the only wise God, our Father,
who in His wisdom grants us the strength
to live victorious lives to His glory,
to Him be dominion, glory and majesty. Amen.
The Lord bless you.
Service is over.
Go and serve the Lord.
