If you were online at around 10p.m. on Monday night (facebook/messenger), chances are you would've participated in this survey:D so thank you to those who took time to reply!
Here's some answers that YOU (yes, YOU - just like radio stations y'know, like how they say YOU pick the music kinda thing) gave:
"lol. grace." - Wei-Lynn Tan
"Pastor spoke about grace?" - Indy Toh
"grace" - Joey Koay
"grace :)" - Abigail Lim
"umm. pastor was speaking about grace. lol. sarah wong was doing the prayer." - Benjamin Yeoh
"welll... all i can remember was we had prayer, led by sarah wong, and then worship, and and then pastor spoke on grace, and how grace is something we do not deserve and because there is grace, we can still live. :)" - Sharon Leow
So we can conclude that, people actually remember the sermon as the most salient point of youth service. (Salient sounds like salty but it actually means prominent. woo, educational input!)
Except in the case of:
"I wasn't there. no transport." - Joel Chan
Oh and the epic-est:
"nothing much. LOL don't ask me to write the post! hahaha" - Yan-Y Chew
OKAY... To the point!
Sebagaimana yang telah disebutkan oleh Ben Yeoh tadi, prayer was led by Sarah Wong=)
First time I think? And she did a great job!
So prayer is the time when we go from...
...this...
...to this.
(Cool right? xP)
Anyway among the prayer points were:
1. fireBRANDS' Mission Thailand.
2. service that night.
3. Wei-Lynn's dog, Orli who went missing on Friday, and at the time of writing of this post, is still missing=/
4. that we won't lose our fire for God.
Hmm so after prayer was time to fellowship!
And to say hi to the newcomers! (old newcomers xP haha) These two ladies were from Hui Jen's generation. whoaa.
Moving on to a time of worship through song:
So everyone let's gather upfront.
And worship God because He deserves it.
Worship was truly awesome as we united to break through to a higher level of worship and a deeper intimacy with God.
So we had announcements and the first: Pastor Victor, Aunty Rama, Carmen Ngo, Eulene Ooi, Nicole Linn John and Sharon Lee are currently (at time of writing) in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand on a two-week mission trip.
So before they left, we prayed for 'em:
Sending them off as a youth group.
Next order of the day, also pertaining to Mission Thailand:
Sheets of paper with dates on them, for us to write our names on whichever date(s) we'd pray for the mission team.
But of course even if you didn't get the chance to do so, feel more than free to keep them in prayer!
But hmm while all this was going on:
What's she writing?
Next up, Mr Gary Lee the Sports Coordinator:
"I don't have iPeriod, that's why I don't need iPad." - Gary
Soo anyway he was up there showing off an iPad that wasn't his so that we'd know which teams we're running in for RunPen.
(details will be up on the blog soon)
Alright so now we have the long-awaited, much-anticipated message by Pastor Victor!
He was also handling announcements that day, haha.
So yeah as you would've read up there (unless you skipped all the way till down here then suddenly decided to start looking at the text, for who-knows-what reason)..
GRACE.
Okay, pens uncapped, notebooks out, eyes attentive and ears open..
Besides being a ladies' (ever wonder why guys can't be called 'Grace'?) name, Grace is..
..a formal approval of kindness esp. (in the Christian religion) that is freely given by God to all humans.
..God's favour and kindness towards undeserving men and women.
Okay here's a shortened version of a story to illustrate what grace is:
One day there was this king with a kleptomaniac kid. He stole everything and anything he wanted. Two day he stole a horse. But the general saw him and reported it to the king. So the law in the kingdom was, if you steal, both your hands are chopped off.
Three day, the king said, just chop off one hand from my son.
Council not happy. They want two hands.
King said, ok no problem, one from him and one from me.
THAT'S GRACE!
Why do we need grace?
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
So, we've no right to judge each other because we're all in need of the favour and grace of God.
Romans 4:16, Paul basically says, it's by faith in God's grace that we're saved.
Abraham lived in the period of grace. When he sinned, God didn't say anything about it. Abraham just believed in God.
Moses killed someone, but God didn't say anything. However, after the 10 Commandments were given and the law established, those who sinned would be punished (often severely) by God. 'Cause the Israelites promised God in Exodus 24:6-8, saying "We'll obey everything that you say." This is the period of law.
David was also living in the period of law, eg. after the incident with Bathsheba, God punished him.
BUT, Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. He came to fulfill what we could and can not. So we're living in a period of grace.
The period of Christ's judgement will be coming soon.
Jesus paid 100%, therefore we're 100% righteous in the eyes of God - not because of us but because of the blood of Jesus.
Example. If Indy and Eulene migrate to China together, they'll need to give up their Malaysian citizenship, Malaysian passport and IC. Then they'll become Chinese citizens. They can still come back and visit us in Malaysia, but legally they're Chinese citizens.
So likewise, we were once citizens of the Devil (of sin and of the world). But by God's grace, we give up this citizenship and become citizens of heaven. We can still go back and 'visit' the world, but that does not make us a citizen of the world.
Romans 6:15-18 has the gist that we've become slaves to righteous living.
Mary Magdalene was caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) by the Pharisees to trap Jesus. Ex 20:40 and Lev 20:10 clearly stated that adulterers will be stoned to death. This law was given by God Himself. So how could Jesus contradict a law that He Himself gave, being God?He took Mary's sins upon himself on the cross, and therefore could say to her, "I forgive you. Go and sin no more."
Wooh, awesome, wasn't that?!
But wait, there's more!
An appreciation for this lady who's leaving us for KL. For a different job and to eventually work with YWAM.
Teary farewell. Giving her 'last words' to us, haha.
This is how to take video with iPad.
Appreciation speech from her boss, and with a gift from us (handwritten notes from the committee - yup that's what was being written on that yellow sheet of paper, if you still remember somewhere way up there in this post).
Gotta admire the iPad's spirit of excellence in video-taking.
So we all prayed for her, and you can add a prayer in now too, since you're done reading this post=)
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