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00:00:01 good morning church today's passage is taken from 1 Corinthians 13 reading from NIV 2011 if I speak in tongues of men or of angels but do not have love I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol if I have the gift of Prophecy and can Phantom all Mysteries and all knowledge and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love I am nothing if I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast but do not have love I gain nothing love is patient love is kind it
00:00:40 does not envy it does not boast it is not proud it does not dishonor others it is not self-seeking it is not easily angered it keeps no records of wrong love does not Delight in evil but Rejoice with the truth it always protects always preserves Love Never Fails but when there are prophecies they will cease where there are tongues they will be stealed where there is knowledge it will pass away for we know in the part and we prophesy in part but when completeness come what is in part disappears when I
00:01:16 was a child I talked like a child I taught like a child I reasoned like a child when I become a man I put the ways of childhood behind me for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror then we shall see face to face now I know in part then I shall know fully even as I am fully known and now these three remain faith hope and love but the greatest of the this is love this is the word of the [Music] Lord e my test okay great morning ABC good morning yeah so nice to be able to speak and make sure you all can hear me uh
00:02:39 let's uh commit the time to the Lord in prayer father we thank you for today Lord for start of a new month and Lord the year is almost over as well but Lord we just want to thank you that you allow us to gather week in and week out to hear your word and together with beloved people of yours children adults families people who belong to you and to learn to be more and more like you Lord as a song now we sang say heal our hearts Lord and make it clean I pray that as we listen to this word Lord I pray that you heal
00:03:12 our hearts help us to really understand open our eyes to see the things that unseen show us how to love like you have loved us father I pray that you speak to us today as we listen to your word and we commit the time to you in Jesus name we pray amen okay so today we're talking about the gospel and love following from 1 Corinthians where Dr Peter left off on chapter 12 and this chapter is very famous in the whole world you go to weddings many times you will hear this verse uh this chapter is being actually
00:03:52 shared so why because it describes love and when you listen to it it's so wonderful love is patient love is kind it doesn't Envy doesn't boast and it continues and gives you this whole nice feeling this lovy Dey feeling where everything in the world is good and love is amazing uh to for us to understand this chapter what we need to know is really to understand the context behind this chapter why was this chapter being really explained and that's why we're going to be look at today now in what FR
00:04:23 Shar just now in verse one it says if I speak in the tongues of men or Angels but do not have love I'm only a sounding gong or a clanging symbol you have the gift of Prophecy and can fatom all Mysteries and all knowledge and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love I am nothing so the first thing for you to know is Paul is writing to a church that is gifted it's a church that most pastors and people would say oh I really wish my church is like that I wish that people can speak
00:04:51 in tongues I wish that people uh can actually have to give a prophecy they can there be miracles in the church and the church will explode you know wow how I wish FBC is like that and so this is the context people were gifted many of them were not Christians but when they became Christians God gave them gifts these are spiritual gifts given to them and so however at the same time the Church of Corin was flaw was totally flaw we've been going through this series from I think earlier of this year until now and you can see that the
00:05:19 Church of Corinth has a lot of problems although they gifted there were divisions people of fighting some says I follow Apollo some say I follow Paul and so a lot of things happen there sexual immorality where by the guy sllep with the mother the lawsuits in con use of person Freedom uh that we learn about and also misuse of spiritual gifts so the church was totally flaw so when this passage was being written to the Church of Corinth it wasn't written in a for weddings it was written as a chapter or
00:05:50 a letter to rebuke the Corinthians for how they've been living and what is saying is this Corinthians you are nothing Corinthians you you think you have spiritual gifts you think that you have all these Miracles healings and things happening in your church and therefore you are somebody you are nothing you are totally nothing you like a resounding gong so a resounding gong is what they use in religious practices in other uh religions at the time and it's a Gong that is actually annoying and noisy so if you can speak in tongues
00:06:25 but you do not have love you are just a isy gone you are irritating you are actually something irritating to to be around if I have the gift of Prophecy you can prophesy and you can understand the mystery of the Bible and can talk and all that but if you and if you have faith that can move mountains but you do not have love you are nothing which means that God cannot even use you in the realm or in the economy of God answer is you're nothing you are actually irrelevant you do not exist and it goes on in verse three if I
00:06:57 give all I possess to the poor for some of us may not have spiritual giftss and say but I have a heart you know so what I do is I give everything to the poor after I take selfie and I give my body over to hardship I show people you know I work very hard tirelessly I work very hard but if you do not have love I gain nothing no matter what you do in life if you do not have love if not doing it because of love you're not doing it out of love it is all nothing Corinthians you are nothing and so is a very important reminder for us
00:07:33 whatever we do if you're serving in church and many of us here serve in church and when we see people serving church we say oh these are the people who are spiritual answer is no it is not like that God doesn't look at us like that the most important thing for us to understand remember is love must be the foundation of the church for our lives as well so if you see this uh chapter earlier in Bible as well it says not everyone who says to me Lord Lord we enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of my father who
00:08:07 is in heaven when I read it I thought okay so you do the will of Father then you know then you actually considered you know you can enter the kingdom of heaven but read on it says many will say to me on that day Lord Lord did we not prophesy in your name and your name drive out demons and your name perform many miracles all the things that people would say that you know church God is in the church then I will tell them plainly I never knew you away from me you evil doers what it means is you may have
00:08:37 spiritual gifts you may be doing a lot of things in church you may be even driving out demons but it is possible that even though you're serving God like this you are actually not a Christian so when I actually read this passage and meditate on it it is a very important reminder for all of us especially all of us who serve we think that we have got something good going we think that we are putting in effort first and you know we're sacrificing ourselves for for God and God is saying that if you're not
00:09:04 doing out of love you're nothing it's a very good reminder and a warning for us if you look at balum in Numbers 22 he could prophesy you you see Judas was given the ability to heal people as well Judas the one that actually betrayed Jesus you see Saul he propy so answer is spiritual gifts have no correlation with whether you are a Christian or not and so it is warning for us why do we serve as we start today the first thing we need to ask is why do you want to serve God why do you serve God and I hope that on the day we will
00:09:43 not be saying to God do we not preach great sermons for you Lord and now you say that we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven and we do not belong to you did we not preach great sermons for you do we not have a lot of Bible studies compared to other churches we got so many things going on do we not build a big church do we not just get building fund and extend your kingdom do you not have large crowds coming to FBC and it's important for us to really ask ourselves why do we serve when we serve are we serving so
00:10:14 that people can see us and say that we are doing amazing job or are we serving because of love and so the way to know whether you are healthy whether you are actually alive in Christ is according to 1 John 478 to8 it say says here dear friends let us love one another for love comes from God Aaron who loves has been born of God and knows God whoever does not love does not know God because God is love so it is time for us to look at ourselves to have for example a check on our temperature to see whether are we
00:10:50 dead or alive if you're alive in Christ if you really believe in God you will actually love people he says here whoever does not love does not know God because God is love so as we approach a year end maybe it's time for us to really check from start of this year until now do we find that we have been more loving are we Kinder person are we person who loves more loves people more and so if you see John 13 here it says the same thing by this everyone will know that you're my disciples if you love one another so the question for us
00:11:20 to ask ourselves is no matter what whether we serving or not question is do we love people or not because if you love people then you are his disciples you belong to God the last thing the worst thing that happen in life is at the end when we finish our race when we finish life we realize that we are on the wrong side of the ladder that all our church Ministries everything we do our parenting our careers our relationships our life everything we look for in this life was it done with the right motive because if you're not doing it in
00:11:58 love it means nothing thing if you parent your child with love without love you get them to have good grades you make them go for a lot of tuition send them the best schools internationational schools you pay a lot of money but if you do not do it out of love it is nothing your careers your relationships everything we do it needs to be done out of love so it's good for us to ask ourselves and check our own spiritual thermometer and see are we alive or dead or not so the first point we have today is love must
00:12:29 be the foundation of Our Lives now however what is love so when you say love we think of this pep and young not sure watches cartoon before love is like having a lot of uh love emotions uh coming out from you and your eyes changing into red color and you try to hug people and kiss people is that love what is Love Is Love just a feeling or not answer is when you look at love love is More Than A Feeling if that's you see that a lot of people when they get married they say that oh I get married because I fall in love I fell in love so
00:13:06 when they're no longer in love they fall out of love and so when they fall out of love they get a divorce and you see the statistics it gets more and more alarming whereby in the states over here uh if you are married for less than 10 years 20 25% of the people will be actually divorce ready so couples were married in uh 1970s in after 25 years 50% divorced and the something that's more alarming is even though you're not divorced are you actually still loving each other are you still really married
00:13:39 are you still loving each other are you still really in relationship is something for us to ask ourselves so what is love if we say today we're talking about love is love a feeling and so in verse four it says here love is patient love is kind it does not envy it does not boast it's not proud it does not dishonor others it is not self-seeking it's not easily angered it keeps no record wrongs love does not Delight in evil but rejoices with the truth it always protects always trusts always hopes Always perseveres Love
00:14:12 Never Fails so when you see it love is being explained in a way that there are a lot of actions a lot of things that love do love is not just a feeling and later I'm going to explain to you one by one but it also says over here when you compare prophecies uh speaking in tongues and all these things that the church sees as power as something spiritual gifts given all these things one day will be gone it says over here all this will cease but love never fails and love will last until the end so it's something for
00:14:44 us to know love is something that sustains that perseveres and love is More Than A Feeling so uh this is a very good summary that I think can explain to us what is love love is a deep affection for a delight in and a commitment to act for the welfare of another without regard for the loveliness that often comes at Great sacrifice to oneself which means that love is more than just a feeling it's a commitment it's a decision in your life to say that I will love people I will actually act for the welfare of the other person I will care
00:15:14 for the other person be good to him be nice to him or her regardless whether they're lovely or not when you first get married they look very lovely but as you grow old maybe people change maybe the character change but you still decide to say that you love when it comes to your children when it comes to your friends when it comes to your colleagues whether they're lovely or not you will still love and it says over here it often comes at a great sacrifice to yourself love requires sacrifice so if you want
00:15:43 to know more you can just scan this C code and I'll go through the gamma chapter to find out more okay uh why I'm sharing this with you is because chapter Norm this actually a six to seven sermons compressed into one so you know more you can go through gamma to find out more as well but love is more than feelings it is action as well so let's look at it one by one I just share a few examples to highlight to you what is love first one is love is patient love is patient which means that it's actually longsuffering you're able to
00:16:12 tahan the person for a long time you don't easily get angry so it's a very long Fs in uh Hebrew actually is a very long nose so you don't easily get angry so it's actually a way whereby you are passive when people are not nice to you when people are not loving to you people who do things actually you don't like you are very patient you give them time to slowly okay change you slow in your reaction to them you do not just explode whenever people do something wrong so love is patient love is kind it means basically
00:16:46 that instead of being passive waiting and just seeing that people you don't you just D people kind means that you actively do something nice for people without them asking you to you look at them and you decide to help them you see person needing help you go and help them without them you asking you actually do that so it's active response in goodness towards others love does not envy love means that we do not jealously desire things that others have you see others maybe having a better job better
00:17:17 promotion or maybe people having a bigger diamond ring than yours you don't en me and say that you know I wish my husband also buy for me you do not jealous and say why he can why she can get it look at her she's not beautiful as all we do not envy we do not jealous jealously desire things that belongs to others and love does not boast and so in our society if you look at this list of things you see right we really don't love So This is Love um love do both let read this and see and tell me what job
00:17:49 this person does I singlehandedly manage the successful upgrade and deployment of new environmentally illumination system with zero cost overun and zero safety incidents what do you think this person is doing in linkoln this is what we do we boast we talk about ourselves and let ourselves look so good so big more than what we do and so if you look at it actually what this person is I change the life out I change the life out but being explained at this and you look at look at Linkin how people explain theel and
00:18:19 we are always boasting ourself but love here says love does not boast love does not boast and love is not proud as well we are if you are if you're proud you are dis dissatisfied with whatever life has God has given to you we do not say that I'm meant for better things I'm meant for greatness why am I in this circumstance love does love is not proud love do not does not dishonor others we do not behave shamefully to others in the Corinthians context the women in the culture at the time normally would wear their this uh head
00:18:56 coverings but in because of their freedom their new FR Freedom saying that men and women are equal they actually go on stage they they do things which are not normal in the culture and this actually causes shame for their husband in their time not now in their time so love does not dishonor others love make sure that we do not behave shamefully toward others love is not self-seeking we learned this recently that the Corinthians who thought that they know the Bible goes to the temple and they said they eat their
00:19:28 SE Y and all that a food sacrifice to idols and but this actually affects other people affects those with W Faith or who do not really know the Bible and they said that it's my right I can do it and therefore they will just say that I just do it now but if you love you will seek the good of others instead of your own good you seek the good of others love is not resentful which means that if you love a person you will not keep a record book of how people have wrong you you not keep a record saying that this
00:19:58 person person have actually done this thing that day he didn't look at me he didn't smile at me I asked for help he didn't help me you will not keep record and when you keep a record why you keep a record is you hope that one day this person will actually get in trouble you want to get even with the person love means that we are not resentful to others we don't not hope for bad things to happen to other people love does not Delight in evil but rejoices with the truth so if you watch a lot of comedies
00:20:27 as well you see that Community gener is built on this we laugh because people go through Misfortune but love says that we do not Delight in evil when your friends when people get in trouble when your enemy when your competitor in business when your uh and your colleague who's actually going for the same promotion does something wrong you don't say yes now I can can win now you do not Delight in evil but rejoices with the truth which means that if your friend got the promotion inside of you you need to
00:20:56 Rejoice with them not easy right so you need to Rejoice with them you be happy with something that they achieve as well and you celebrate with them because they achieve something because we are together that's that's how what love is but most importantly Love Never Fails Love Never Fails which means that despite whatever condition you go through no matter how difficult your life is Love Never Fails you don't give up you keep on going and going now in order for us to do this our expectation in life need to die if you really want
00:21:31 to love people what you need to do is number one you cannot have any more expectations in your life a lot of times if you ask me what do people look forward to you look forward to Holiday and you just imagine holiday generally is by the beach sipping your drink and enjoying yourself and why we want a trouble free life life whereby there's no more trouble why people retire because they don't want trouble anymore but if you really love people it says over here my need for a trouble-free life with no inconveniences Must Die My
00:22:03 demand for everything to operate on my schedule and according to my timing must die my demand that people satisfy my needs and not rate me Must Die which means that basically you must die if you're in the love you need to die all your all these demands your expectation of how to make a beautiful place you have a beautiful home and then have comfortable life all this must go and so it is very hard if you really read properly love requires a lot of sacrifice love does not boast but it says love bears all things love believes
00:22:38 all things hopes all things and endures all things when your wife does something that irritates you nonstop you still need to tahan her when you go to work your colleagues keep on boasting by themselves you need to continue to forbear continue to be patient with them you cannot talk bad about them love is very hard and love never fails but how do you do it the answer I sh is how can you do it one way is you toughen up a lot of times when become Christians what we do we believe that we come here obey a set of
00:23:10 rules when we become Christian because God died for you now we can do it we are so strong we can toughen up ourselves and say that you know we no longer have much emotions maybe we say that we just through the will power we can do something or maybe be like Batman okay I can do it we're tough people we're strong people a lot of times this actually becomes like legalism you believe that how you can become a Christian how you can love is by being tough being a difficult person being a very strong person who know
00:23:42 emotions that's how we do it but what I want to share with you today is Love is Beautiful you read it just now love is so beautiful but it's extremely difficult to practice and if you try to do it on your own you will actually be crushed by love you be crushed by love because it's so difficult how is it possible to keep on loving a person nonstop it is very impossible it's extremely difficult to practice but the point is however even though love is so difficult and you read it just now we try to earn love and we
00:24:16 always get hurt we want this if you read all these things I Shar with you just now you want people to treat you this way even though we cannot do it and people are nasty people don't actually people are not good to you we still want people to say that hey you must treat me nicely yes I know I fail I know I'm supposed to work harder I know I'm supposed to turn off the lights after I get out but I still do it but I want you to forbear I want you to endure me I want you to tan me I want to be patient
00:24:41 with me we want people to treat treat us like this we are all searching for love we searching for this perfect love out there we want people to treat us this way that's what we do whether we know it or not we are all searching for this love so what we do so what we do is we try to earn love we try to earn love how do we earn love from Young being taught that if you do not work harder you become a rubbish collector you don't you don't work hard you don't have a house to stay you become you stay on the roadside so we
00:25:15 work hard and after that when you watch movies you being taught that if you're ugly or you don't put makeup H nobody will love you so what you do you try to put on makeup you try to make yourself better wear better clothes to make yourself better and after that you want people to respect you you want people to actually love you so what you do you buy things you buy a car you buy a nice car so people see that oh they respect you man A lot of people do that maybe they feel that they have not accomplished
00:25:44 much and people cannot see the accomplishment so what they do they buy something so that after you buy it people see that wow this guy is somebody you want people to say to adore you to say wow you're so amazing you can buy such an expensive car or we actually look for accomplish ments we become vice presidents here and there we try to become general manager in companies we try to become dat why so that people love us so people will say that hey this one not bad one you know and so that people will always love us why because
00:26:14 we are worried deep down inside we're worried if I don't work hard will my wife still love me if I'm no longer build I do not put makeup when my colleagues still want to go out with me if I don't buy nice gifts for my children will they say love me will they say love me or not if I nobody if I'm nobody in church if I don't serve will people still respect me will still people will people still come and talk to me and so I think out of this entire passage the main point for us to see is love is something we need we are chasing
00:26:50 for it we're trying to get it we work very hard trying to do it every single day and Monday comes we try to do it again we try and try to earn love but we always we always get hurt so want to show you this cartoon that may give you a better explanation of how love works when we're young we start up hopeful you see the Balloono there proper one okay perfect no problem and we believe that we'll meet the right person and then we will live happily ever after and this is not just on about between boy girl
00:27:26 relationships it's just with friendship as well you open your heart up your hearts you hope that people will be friends with you and you make friends you are kind you think that the world is beautiful and you go out however sometimes you meet people like this who poke your balloon who burst your balloon and so your heart is being wrong CS says I love anything and your heart will certainly be wrong and possibly broken and when we go out people break us people hurt us and you go to work they tell you to toughen up
00:28:02 and if you cry at work you know what they say why are you so emotional you are supposed to totally have no feelings already what the word tells you is do not expose yourself to people and after you go through this for 100 times when you keep on getting hurt again and again at church at work in your family you try again and again you keep on trying and so what you do you put me own makeup you work harder you keep on doing that but people keep on bursting a balloon and what do you do after that you decide to say that if you want
00:28:39 to make sure you want to keep your heart intact you will no longer give your heart to anyone so what do we do we carefully wrap it around with Hobbies luxuries so instead of loving people we love cars we love Instagram we love looking at things watching movies because this or love a dog L you know dog cannot you know won't won't hurt me people can hurt me but dog canot hurt me so I get a dog law we do that pets are easier because you can control them you see we avoid all anagement we put a heart inside a box
00:29:13 and over it says so if you want to make sure that your heart doesn't get broken doesn't get hurt you lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness but in the casket which is safe is very safe it's dark it's Motionless and Alis your heart heart will change it will not be broken but it become unbreakable it become impenetrable there's no way for people to reach you anymore and your heart becomes irredeemable which means that your heart no longer has feelings anymore and then you can work in corporate
00:29:54 early is that true when you work when a person doesn't do well in work what do you do you give them one chance two chance three chance fire you tell them it's nothing personal it's nothing about being nice to people is work we're here for money we're here to work and the same goes for Neighbors why don't you talk to neighbors because sometimes maybe they irritate you and then the last time you say hi to them they don't we back to you so you actually remember already okay then after that they park
00:30:21 at the place that you want to park and you don't have place a park then you start going in an argument and so when people keep hurting us because we always I can tell you all of us start out with a beautiful heart and we said that we believe that love is good and there's love out there and the songs that we listen to when we're young tell us that no there's not so much but we listen to that and we believe in it but when you continue going on it you realize that it's not true anymore we shouldn't don't want to get hurt really
00:30:50 is too painful it's too painful but God but Christ calls us to love people so say that instead of putting our hearts in the Box we need to take it out and after that go and love other people and so the people you meet outside you sometime you wonder why are they so nasty even why are they so angry why because they've been hurt before cuz love is so hard if you look at this whole world people cannot love you the way you want even your wife even your children cannot love you the way you want it is
00:31:23 impossible but God ask us to say that like this guy over there to go and say hello people can see the lady being very nasty say what are you trying to do but this person over here continue to smile continue to talk you persevere love perseveres love endures and try to talk to the person and encourage the person and many times for us we say that no we don't want to do it we to keep our hearts locked we don't to be hurt anymore but if we keep on doing it after a while and people can see that your heart is hurt and people still and
00:31:59 you actually still love them after a while sometimes people change they throw the key to you and say that okay now okay I will open up my heart to you again so this guy opens up the heart and he said this person is in a mess it's so difficult and so much trouble the character is so terrible but this person doesn't give up he repairs the heart inflates it back and so both of them can actually love again to love at all is to be vulnerable if you want to love people you need to be ready to sacrifice
00:32:38 yourself to give up yourself to love but it is so difficult now I confess to you that I'm very bad at Love Actually um you ask me to go on stage here to talk I can because it's work you know you want me to smile I can smile already can right but you ask me to love people day in day out and people uh not following what I want I still have a very far road ahead you asked me to be patient very tough because work doesn't allow me patient patient go bankrupt really how and so for me I'm on a journey to to learn to grow but
00:33:16 therefore today what I wanted to do is to ask um one of our CIA live group uh members uh Johnson to go on stage and share with you a bit about what love is to him because in my journey of life I've known him for about seven years now I think he's a head of me when it comes to love so I want to ask him to perhaps come and share a bit with us about love and uh himself as well J can we get you come SE round Applause to [Applause] you thank you thank you is it on try and see I think okay there hello hi everyone John
00:33:56 maybe joh here John can you just uh maybe um tell people a bit about yourself sure um my name is Johnson I've been with FBC since 2018 so come to know John um through being in church and our our kids around the same age so our kids practically grew up you know together and so we we got to know each other through that and we joined a live group together So eventually um being in that life group we realized that you know our life group having little kids running around is difficult to manage right I
00:34:32 think you know what it's like a lot of you have had children so we decided let's form a life gr ourselves and that's what we did which is called CIA so we've been around since 2019 and we have I don't know what what's the last count 13 14 families with us right now yeah I think about that yeah so I I wanted to ask you um something personal I because I've seen you for seven years eight years at this and one thing I know about you is you never stopped one why why why do you not stop and you know in Ministry and tell you people
00:35:01 disappoint you people will do things that hurt you and I can tell you many people heard you before and you've been in the church and the more you serve the more you get Hur yes or no well let's ask the audience who's not been hurt before in church in Ministry okay everyone's hands down are very I I think it's a bit worse than I thought yeah so I ask you you know um you've been hurt before but you know what I see is you you continue to to serve and not only serve you know you are extravagant you know you are lavish
00:35:34 so for example when your life group members get sick what do you do you say pray for you and put the Emoji pray yes or no so I remember 7 years ago I got sick I don't think I was something serious Alo and we just got to know each other shortly only doesn't know I'm going to talk about this and I stay in kak K at a time he stays in subang the drive is about at the time of half an hour 45 minutes minutes that he drove all the way to my house you know to do what you give me coconut drink and you see these are things keep
00:36:08 on happening you know you start off things like meal trains for for catch you serve people and as was there was time where by one of our life group members had uh depression I was not going in good through a very good time and it was actually dangerous I don't go through details it was actually dangerous and yet Johnson actually went to meet this person and tried to help this person as well we even helped this person do his homework so that he can actually pass his uh his studies and so he can graduate otherwise
00:36:33 he fail and he actually comes from different country so if he fails everything he came for will actually all be gone so Johnson and Alex actually help this person uh to make sure they can actually pass their studies but why why do you do things like that yeah I think the point is not to put anyone on a pedestal here it just happens that I'm on the stage and we're talking about the Dynamics of a life group right which is a family essentially it's a family and many of you have gone through difficult
00:36:58 family situations right I've been caring for loved ones that's very ill for many years bedridden some of you you've have been through very difficult relationships and and when you serve that person it's not premised on that person's response on how they're going to receive your love how they're going to you know um make you feel good about yourself it's very little about that the fact that you love that person and you do what you do for that person is regardless of it's just based on the person's intrinsic worth to you right
00:37:30 and I I just want to share from my personal experience as well um so I mean one of the reflections I had on this sermon as well is how my own father and my mother um and and and how I grew up in that family and observed them right um experiencing God's love right it it really helps you to internalize and understand what love is about so my my mother she had a stroke in 20 2005 and I I don't know if many of you know this story but she was paralyzed from the right side um of her body so she couldn't move her hands and her legs
00:38:03 and Her speech was impaired so it's obviously a very life-changing thing and it was really um unexpected as well so it just came out of the blue at that time my father was planning to set up a Ministry called um Capen Ray Malaysia and we have a Christian Conference Center in cing called Harvest Haven some of you have been there I think the young adults recently went there for a retreat so they were planning all these things and suddenly my mom um had had a broke my is again hello yeah so that didn't stop
00:38:36 them from doing Ministry although she couldn't recover fully but out of the desire of my mother's heart to serve she they decided to make the move away from pinang to go to gopang to start out the ministry and God blessed my mother for that I mean she had 10 more years she witnessed my wedding with Rachel she witnessed my sister's wedding to Brian and two months after that wedding she had another stroke and this time she was completely um in a vegetative state she couldn't speak she couldn't she couldn't
00:39:05 move she couldn't move anything yeah she could even like you could only see a blink basically right so at that time my my father you know having run a Ministry for a number of years was suddenly pulled away again from this ministry and you can see that it was it was so distressful for him right I mean he had to basically be a full-time caretaker for My Mother by the bedside even to the extent that you have to like turn her every few hours and it and you know it was just so painful to watch that and we
00:39:29 didn't know how long she would be in this state for so I remember crying out to God I was thinking you know God just just you know um either you heal her or you take her away don't don't let this prolong and it was so difficult to go through but I realized that that experience right helped me to understand God's love a lot more so much more it was it was just seeing how my father cared for my mother making her the top priority even though he had Ministry he had other things going on but suddenly she was his top priority
00:40:02 and she was a number one priority and all his time went to that even though you you couldn't see that they were in you know in the room most of the time out of sight out of mind and you wouldn't have known what was happening but you could see my dad never gave up on ministering to her and not just um doing the bare minimum but really doing you know sparing no expense to make sure that she is comfortable and that she can have a meaningful existence even in that state so I think going through that experience
00:40:30 help me understand that you know love is really not about what you can get out of it right although you do receive right but it's really not about what you can get out of it it's is about God's love about how he gave you unconditionally and he he created us he said it was good but we we we were so degenerated and disfigured he still chose to love us and he gave his son and when when Jesus was on the G of gam that's the moment I I remember praying to God and I was thinking of of that same moment you know
00:40:59 Jesus in the G of gam saying you know may this cut be taken from me but not not my will but your will Lord and that's really that's true love right it's despite what you feel about it right you still choose to love that person and and God gave up his son right for us and in that same way I saw my dad give up everything right for my mother and that way I experienced God love and I understood you know that is the extent of where what love is so that's a pretty long answer sorry about that thank you so much Johnson
00:41:30 yeah right yeah yeah thank you so thank Johnson yeah so yeah I think I think this is a part where when we look at it really um therefore because of that because of this love that we have so we are doing something extra for you again right so maybe you can tell us about this uh so I think that for me just want to share one thing is that I think the highest form of ministry is is to love the people that God has put in your life right we all have family we have friends we have people in our lives and I think
00:42:04 that you know Ministry isn't about being on the stage and being able to share elaborate sermon and convince you of all the biblical truth I think the real Ministry is what most of you are already doing which is to love your families right to show God's love by helping your children your parents your siblings to experience God's love through your actions right regardless of what they do I mean my kid now days he starts saying out if you don't give him a candy he'll say I hate you it's like geez I it's a piece of
00:42:34 candy but you know that's the kind of love that God has for us doesn't depend on how we respond and I think that even in church there many of us having broken relationships we've come from broken families you've come through you have difficult situations in life but you know there's so much that God wants to P into your life through the people around you right and I think we just need to open our eyes right to to recognize those around around us that could benefit from God's love right and that's
00:43:02 basically everyone so we do have an event planned in U tentatively it's going to be at John's house but depends on the response we may pull it to church right I think that we're just wanting to get all the young families together not just to have a meal and then go home you know yeah I think it's really just to get to know one another and be able to minister to one another right to love one another to to to allow God to pour into other people's lives I think that's that's what we want to do right and I
00:43:30 just want to encourage everyone I mean whatever situation they in you may be like me a few years back when my mother was not well right and you're just caring for your loved one but that doesn't mean you're doing anything less than anyone that that's here right because God has put that relationship in your life and he wants you to be faithful by by loving that person and that's what God does for us wherever we are yeah okay thank you so much thanks thanks yeah so I think what I got out is is very
00:44:02 true that to say that if you are not on stage if you're not serving in Ministry but you're just caring for a family you are doing your best wherever you are out of love you love people answer is you're doing everything but the most point that I got up from what Johnson say is love is freely given and love never fails when you read 1 Corinthians 13 sorry a bit typo here what you see actually is that this explanation of Love Actually is not just a set of rules it is just a set of actions for to do but this love
00:44:37 is Jesus and Jesus if you read it and see it fits very well to what it is it says here Jesus is patient Jesus is kind Jesus does not envy he does not boast and he's not proud Jesus does not dishonor others he's not self-seeking is not easily angered and you see over here that there are so many different things I can show you that Jesus is truly the explanation of what love is he is love so he say Jesus is kind in Luke it says when one of the Servants of the high priest struck when one of when one struck the
00:45:19 servant of the high priest cutting off his right ear meaning the one of the Apostles actually did that Jesus answered no more of this and he touched a man's ear and healed him Jesus is kind in the sense that when his life is in danger he still goes out of his way to help people he went all the way to Samar uh to actually talk to the Samaritan woman and when people toally ignore her neglected her in fact bullied her she went all the way for her and Jesus is patient on the cross when he was suffering Jesus was patient and instead
00:45:56 of coming down instead of asking ing for help he said my God my God why have you forsaken me but most importantly is Jesus keeps no record of wrongs on the cross he said father forgive them for they do for they do not know what they do so I think it's something for us to know and to understand this you cannot love until you have received this love that's given by God coming to to church is not to obey a set of rules it's not to come and say that we just need to do a b CDE e we do not do a b CDE e and therefore we
00:46:36 accepted we are freely accepted no matter what circumstances what situation you're in God loves you even though you are in a difficult situation even though you are terrible even though you are nobody God loves you and when you've experienced this love when you've truly truly experienced this love which is Jesus only then you can Rel love so because of this we can love others even though if the person we love looks like this Mr Burns from sson even though the person we love is not not cute it's not funny
00:47:17 it's not Charming it's not our type of people we still can love because it's not about what this person brings to the table because of God because God loves him and because what we have received from God and if we really look at ourselves we are not any better anyway we're not any better but because of no matter who we are God still loves us and because of God's love we can say that we will love others as well I'll pass the time over to the amen Church shall we all rise at this time let's take thank the Lord for his
00:47:59 love let's thank the Lord that we have hope in him we will always have the cross to remember to know that his love will never fail us it will never [Music] end when I Sur the wonderous cross which the prince of Glory my [Music] riches I come but Lord and cont on All My [Music] Pride see from his hand his hands his feet sorrow and love flow Ming the down such love and sorrow me [Music] comp so r a [Music] [Laughter] crown of nature [Music] M that and bring far to small love so amaz so the demons my
00:51:04 soul my life my all I thank you for the cross I thank you for the cross I thank you for the cross my Lord I Thank you for the cross I thank you for the cross I thank you for the cross my Lord I Thank you for the cross I thank you for the cross I thank you for the cross my Lord I thank you for the cross I thank you for the cross I thank you for the cross my Lord let's thank the Lord let's thank the Lord we thank you God we lift your name we thank you God we thank you God we thank you God we thank you
00:52:39 God we thank you God let's thank the Lord thank the Lord we thank you thank you Lord we thank you Lord we thank [Music] you Lord we thank you we thank you Lord thank you Lord for the cross amen [Music] what a privilege it is to be a part of this communion to take the bread and to take the wine together each time we participate as a church we are gathering to remember and to celebrate this love we receive from God in Christ Jesus uh sometimes we might might understand true love to be a love for a
00:54:00 soulmate U maybe a love for significant other or love that fully accepts someone even if it means accepting or ignoring their wrongdoings but no actually our true love is not that God changes what we believe and understand to be true love the just God who loves the world dealt with the problem of sin in his son Justice was meant and this isn't the love that ignor sin that's the dying part of us and it isn't love that forsake righteousness and Justice it's the love that says I love you and I'm providing a
00:54:45 way and it's the love that covered his church with Christ righteousness indeed this is the love you receive and it's the true love that changes life and our love for each other Christ gave the disciples and today the church a new commandment John 13 a new commandment I give you love one another as I have loved you so you must love one another by this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another we receive true love and this love leaves a permanent mark on all of his disciples and is shown to the world
00:55:34 is our is how we are identified as Christ disciples this is the mark of a disciple of Christ love one another just as Christ loved us love from the point of being loved by Christ as we love one another we look forward to the future together when Christ comes again we will partake of this communion with him and the whole church with this in mind let's come into a time of communion uh please raise your hands if you do not have an element oh yes so sorry guys okay thank you Sam thank you sorry about that with this in mind
00:56:25 uh please raise your hand if you do not have a communion element if you have one let's open it together both the bread and the [Music] wine communion is for the followers of Jesus Christ who have placed their faith in him alone for salvation if you haven't trusted Jesus Jesus uh please refrain from participating in the communion and so let's pray let's come to God In Prayer God what it is an honor what an honor it is to know you through your precious gospel what an honor it is to receive and accept your gospel and what
00:57:13 an honor it is to know true love father thank you for your son you have made a way true your son Jesus thank you for your persevering work on the cross it's amazing how true love has the power to change from the inside out and this is only possible because your spirit who dwells within us and so God as we enter into a time of communion we participate with faith and full acknowledgement that you did the work through Christ and the spirit in history and today in Jesus name amen the bread the Lord Jesus on the
00:57:49 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 Church in the true love that unites Us in unity let's take the bread [Music] together the 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 church till Christ come let's Proclaim God's true love to the
00:58:34 world in Christ death let's take the cup together let's pray God thank you for your son Jesus Christ and together we remembered and celebrating communion with joy and Thanksgiving as we remember your gracious work we look forward to the day Christ comes again and how awesome will that day be when we all eat the bread and drink the wine together Jesus name amen you can get the Y the benic now receive the benediction bition is from John 13: 34-35 a new command I give you love one another as I love you so you must love
00:59:38 one another by this arone we know that you are my disciples if you love one another May the love of Christ dwell richly within you guarding your hearts and actions as you carry the new commandment of Our Lord to love one another as he has loved you through this love may the world know that you are his disciples and may his love joy and peace abide with you now and always amen service is over welcome you to have a fellowship with everyone else outside after moment silence prayer have a good Sunday
