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The Worship of a True King - Christmas 2017

Last Sunday, GBC celebrated her first Christmas after returning to 17 Mattar Road! The lovely weather facilitated the festive mood as members and visitors walked into the church for Sunday’s Christmas service. Ps Ian opened the call to worship with Isaiah 9:2-7.

Verse 2

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shone.

Verses 6-7

For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
    and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
    there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
    to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

The Old Testament wrote of a coming King who would set everything right once and for all, where righteousness would be authentic and lasting, and all of us walking in the darkness of our sins would be able to encounter this Light of the World!

The Christmas choir serenaded the congregation with “Emmanuel, Expected Jesus”. It was a song that sang of the expectation of Jesus’ coming to dwell among us. For some, it was their first time singing in the choir!

Christmas 2017 1The choir earnestly leading the congregation in worship of King Jesus.

This Christmas, 7 were baptised, with 2 transfers of membership.

Christmas 2017 2From L-R, (Top row) Ditric, Zexuan, William, Xue Yang, Ps Eugene; (Bottom row) Michelle, Nicholas, Cherry, Pearl, Caleb

Here are some snippets from their shared testimonies. Do speak to them to find out more!

Christmas 2017 3Chia Siew Kwong, William

After my retirement… I felt a sense of emptiness, like a sheep wandering without a shepherd. About 3 years ago, I attended GBC with my cousin, Yoke Lan… and also started to attend KY Leong’s Care Group (CG). This was where I began to know and grow in the grace and knowledge of my Lord Jesus. …my CG members came alongside me whenever I needed help, even when I fell sick. They made me feel welcomed and accepted in the CG. I thank God that He has sent wonderful people to disciple me. 

While I have accepted Christ into my life as my Lord and Saviour, it has taken me a long time to make the decision to be baptised. I always thought that I should wait till I am more mature in Christ before I get baptised. With the constant prayer & encouragement of my CG members, the Lord convicted my heart to take this step of obedience unto Him in baptism.   

Christmas 2017 8Michelle Low

I grew up with survival as a primary concern and my parents practised customary rites influenced by Confucianism. From my experience, humans are good at self-rationalising & self-justifying our actions. I started searching for values to anchor my teenage daughter and was led to GBC by Sandy Tung. One of the first sermons I heard was “Self Sufficiency is Contrary to Thanksgiving” by Ps Oliver that got me thinking for a long while. I started 'talking' to God asking Him to be my psychologist. Then I attended the DS classes and with a nudge from Yoke Meng, joined the Ladies’ Precept Bible Class to do a study on Knowing God’s Covenant. It provided a good foundation for a new believer. A year on, a colleague whom I have not met for a while, commented that I have this glow of peace and asked what did I do. It has to be – I found God or rather, He found me (peace being a characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit)! And today, I’m following Christ in baptism. To God be the glory. 

Christmas 2017 7Cherry Love

I am from the beautiful country of the Philippines. When I was young, my mother would always bring me and my siblings to a Catholic church. I was not a really religious person at the time. I went through a failed relationship while working in Dubai and felt alone, broken and did not have a sense of purpose in my life. I resigned and went back to the Philippines. All my life I planned my route carefully, yet at that moment I could not think of a backup plan. When I (eventually) arrived in Singapore I attended church more regularly. I felt closer to God and felt His hands comforting and guiding me.

I met Nicholas at my workplace and he started to teach me about Christianity. I started to attend GBC and felt again God speaking to me through the words of the songs. Several people made me feel welcome and at home. I now know that no amount of good works can earn my salvation. Salvation is given to me through Jesus Christ because of God's grace toward me and I am now taking this step of obedience to get baptised.

Christmas 2017 4Nicholas Goh

I grew up a mischievous little boy… and mixed with bad company. I felt like a big hypocrite in church and felt out of place when I talked to people in church. I never felt like I deserved God's grace, and whenever the thought of baptism was proposed to me, I delayed the thought and told myself perhaps one day God will change me.

When I got older I had more time alone which cleared my mind to be open to His word and to depart from my old ways. God answered some prayers only for me to figure out my wishes were myopic, that I should submit to his ways, his plans and trust in it instead of trusting in my own plans.

In my baptism today, I am declaring my intention to turn from my sinful self and fully embrace the grace of our God through my belief in Jesus, who died on the cross to wash away our sins.

Christmas 2017 9Tan Xue Yang

From as early as I can remember there were believers in my life, and while I cannot recall all their faces or roles in my life, I have a clear and bright memory of how I recognised them as Christians — the small kindnesses they showed, their warmth and gentle words, and crucially their genuine desire to tell me the story of Jesus and what He meant to them. In my adolescence I grew ambivalent to Christian living and began to actively resist these Christians and their traditions, preferring to pursue the things I could see and own.

It is the grace of God and the persistence of His love that He did not cease sending these daily pilgrims my way. I met friends at university who showed their faith not through insistence but example, seeking His pleasure through their love and obedience. I met my fiancée, Yuxi, who models faithful living to me everyday. I became a part of Kembangan CG, whose generosity, sincerity and steadfast fellowship continue to provide a Christian community I feel welcomed in.

Baptism to me represents the definitive moment I have been looking for, when I can announce that the old ways of my life should pass away and I be reborn in Christ. I encourage all my family in GBC to never cease bringing your love to the lives of those who pass you by, because you never know if the seeds you sow might tumble onto a wretched sliver of soil — like myself — from which a bit of His kingdom might grow.

Christmas 2017 5Pearl Lee

I grew up in GBC and heard the gospel since young. I have witnessed many instances of His grace to me and my family which affirmed my faith. Those undeserving help that I did not earn made me realise that God is with me and He is in control. In the past, I was not confident of life and I did not know what it meant to trust God. I was also unmotivated towards sharing the gospel with others. I felt like I was just going through the motions in life.

Since young I followed my family on mission trips but a mission trip in 2015 truly impacted my life. The trip opened my eyes to the needs of the world and my heart wanted to follow and obey God’s commands. Now, I work towards glorifying God instead of myself, to embrace His plans for me and have confidence in God whenever I am afraid or whenever I need to wait for an answer.

Christmas 2017 6Caleb Lee

I was born into a Christian family and have attended Junior Church and Sunday School ever since young. As a child, I thought that the lessons were interesting, but my understanding of the gospel was only skin-deep then.

I was constantly torn between my moralistic and Christian self. My moralistic self led me to believe that my good deeds would be able to earn me my righteousness; while it also told me that my sins would deter me from my salvation. This grip that pride and shame had on me, felt impossible to overcome, thus the hope and liberation presented by my Christian self felt incomplete. This posed as a huge barrier in my walk with God, preventing me from experiencing complete joy in Him.

In the middle of this year, a fellow brother in GBC met up with me to read (half of) the book of Romans every week. It made me realise that Jesus died for me knowing the sins I would commit even before I have committed them; my sins of the past, the present and the future.

Here I am today responding to the call to baptism. I wouldn’t be here if not for dedicated older brothers in the church to guide me in my walk with God, who met with me to read the Bible together. I choose to be baptised not because I think that I am a worthy Christian now, but because I have finally given in to the fact that: nothing I do can earn God’s love; nothing I do can lose God’s love either; but that He saves me by grace alone, through Christ alone. 

GBC-xmas2017-10Ditric Pang (transfer of membership)

I was brought up in a family that had no interest in Christian values.  My father was a “free thinker” while my mom believed in ancestral worship.

How do I know our God?  It’s actually my father’s encouragement (indirectly). My father was a businessman and as such he travelled frequently.  The only thing my father always encouraged me to do was “read”.  He believed that a person should always read, as a way of broadening one’s worldview. He often told me, “Just read, read anything, be it comics, or even a cereal box.  Just read!”  One day, he came back from his overseas travel and passed me a Gideon Bible (Gideon Bibles were often placed in hotel rooms).  This Bible had Proverbs, Psalms, and the four gospels only. In other words, my father stole this Bible from the hotel, brought it home and said, “My son, just read this book.”

After opening the Book of Proverbs in the Bible, I was intrigued by the amount of wisdom in this book.  As such, I read the Book of Proverbs many times.  I remembered thinking, who could possibly write such wonderful wisdom.  After that, I started reading the four gospels.  That was when I got to know Jesus.

Christmas 2017 31Zexuan (transfer of membership)

I grew up in church as my mom was a believer, and she brought my siblings and me to church. However, I didn’t understand the lessons taught in Sunday school (probably because I wasn’t paying attention). Neither did I have close friends in church. Over time, I lost interest in going to church, as I could not make sense of why I was going at all.

It was not until my Junior College days when I returned to the church, though it was because I was seeking God’s blessings for my grades. Well, I didn’t get the gifts of blessings I had wanted for my grades, but I got God the Giver Himself! Those formative years marked the beginning of the most beautiful journey in my life – knowing Him. It was then that I truly understood John the Baptist’s prophecy of Jesus being the Lamb who took away the sins of the world, including mine. It was then that my heart was softened to receive the Lord’s work.

Wen Xiu and I thank KCG and the many brothers and sisters who have welcomed me into the GBC community in the past nine months. It has helped me a lot in adjusting to a new church culture. I hope that I will continue to know this community, and have opportunities to love and serve you, as we grow together in Christ alone.

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The church declared a resounding "Amen!" to the responsibility of looking out for these newly baptised believers as they grow in their faith in Jesus. It was a day of double celebration and rejoicing with them as they enter a new life in Christ!

Christmas 2017 10

The sermon for the Christmas service was based on Matthew 2:1-12, preached by Ps Eugene. He contrasted King Herod, a power-hungry king who ruthlessly desired control of his own life and his subjects above all, with King Jesus who humbled himself and was born as a baby into this world among humble conditions – in order to die eventually for the sake of all mankind to redeem us from their sins. Imagine, God in a babe!

Who is Jesus? Why should we give up control of our lives to him? The coming of Jesus was the coming of a promised King after a wait of over 1000 years. His birth fulfilled God’s promises. He is a faithful shepherd King who walks with us and comes to seek and save the lost. Christians give their lives to Jesus because he is the true king full of grace and mercy, worthy of our most extravagant worship. Like the magi in the Bible story who travelled over a thousand kilometres from Babylon to Jerusalem led by a divine star and delivered very costly gifts of the time, we too who were originally far away come to worship and recognise Jesus and offer our lives to Him.

In contrast, the ones who seem to be near to Jesus – the priests, the religious teachers, the inscribers in Jerusalem – were the very ones who rejected him. They knew the Old Testament well and taught of his coming, yet did not recognise and accept his authority even when he taught plainly about himself.

Ps Eugene prompted the congregation to reflect on whether we see some of Herod in our lives – desiring control and to be in charge, which is essentially sin and rebellion. Or do we appear near to Jesus but are actually rejecting him, paying lip service to his teachings without truly worshipping him as King?

At the end of the sermon, we sang in response the song Offering:

I bring an offering
Of worship to my King
No one on earth deserves
The praises that I sing

Jesus, may You receive
The honor that You're due
O Lord, I bring an offering to You
I bring an offering to You

Christmas 2017 11The choir leading us in another hymn.

Christmas 2017 12Welcoming the newly baptised believers into GBC.

After the service, the church family gathered again to sing carols in the fellowship hall! Led by enthusiastic Jimmy Chan, veteran worship leader from the 80s, everyone sang jubilantly of Christ’s coming with popular hymns like Silent Night, The First Noel and Go Tell It On The Mountain, and wished each other well for the Christmas holiday season. It has traditionally been a time of family gatherings and it was lovely to see the GBC family of Christ gathered in one place to celebrate Christmas together.

Christmas 2017 13

A very packed fellowship hall (level 3).

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The children sang Christmas hymns arranged by Jo Keow.

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Christmas hymns led by Jimmy.

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Jimmy and Gerald leading the singing of carols.

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Our oldtime GBC family friend Tom Chandler dropped by too with his new book!

Christmas 2017 29

Kagen sharing his testimony on how he became to follow Jesus & Grandma P saying grace for the food.

This was followed by a buffet lunch:

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As we celebrate Christmas and the coming of a new year, let’s not forget those among us who may have recently been bereaved of loved ones and are grieving. May it be a heartwarming season for all as the peace of Christ permeates our hearts and our relationships with one another. Blessed Christmas and a happy new year!