Being Families In Christ - BMBC Sunday Worship Service October 23, 2011

We are pleased to have Pastor Clement Chong from the Penang Baptist Theological Seminary (BTS) to be with us again to bring us the faith building sermon on the theme of Being Families In Christ.  He  reminded that BMBC with the mission on Being Internally Strong and Externally Focus Church have a great passion to be a Church impacting the local community and our society through the Voice of God and His Words through this imperfect preaching.

He shared with us on the Holy Bible verses from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 and gave us the backdrop on Apostle Paul called by the Lord to serve as he journeyed and inspired by God to write the scriptures on his challenging life with a thorn in the flesh.  He hope that the BMBC will learn from the context in the family and apply it in our challenges and difficulties and move on in our lives. We do have our own "thorns in the flesh" in our own home, our marriage, our family and challenges and difficulties in our life. It is the same principles that apply to our church family, workplace family, own family, students family and so on.  We are to endear ourselves to the Word of God and to connect people and family with love. We have hurts, been betrayed and have our baggage and fears to love again.  We dare not love again and the church become hypocrite. When God allowed thorn in our flesh, He has great plan for us. He wants us to experience Him and the presence of God.

Pastor Clement gave us an awesome yet wonderful and powerful power-point presentation on "simple mathematical equations" which he explained in depth and an insight into the thorn in the flesh which we can learn and apply it in our daily living experience and to be involved in our community.

The equation 1 + 1 = 1 is may be like a situation of a thorn to a maths teacher for we all know the mathematical answer is incorrect.or is like a husband and wife relation where the husband is no longer that romantic.  God want us to change ourselves. We always point to others instead of ourselves. With the equation change to 1 x 1 = 1, we multiply and magnify the grace and power of God given to us.

11 - 1 = 1 as in the Roman letters, we have to learn to look beyond our cultures, language, experience and values at looking at things minus our prides.  He wants us to have faith in prayers to change ourselves as He will pray and walk with us.  We decreased in pride and He increased and magnified. People do not appreciate us and we gave up but God wants us to magnify his grace and power.

1- 1 =/= 1 is a correct equation but the end part is a wrong answer(mathematically 1 minus 1 is zero).  We should look at the whole and big picture.  God's plan is perfect and nothing wrong.  We may pray and hope for a "yes"and our prayer is answered with a "No".  God has His timing and plan. We learned to accept the thorn. Step back and learn to accept and thank God for when I am weak, I am strong.  He shared with us his personal thorn in the flesh and he has understood God's equation and has accepted God's blessings and His Grace is sufficient for him. We want the presence of God but we are not enjoying His presence.  Inside the church, we need You, but outside the church, my study room, my computer, my business... is not for you.
It is not nice for you to be here.

1=1=1.  We are not looking at Christ. We are looking at what we want Christ to do! We are expecting Him to work the way we want. We are not looking at God  Himself who He is. The problem or thorn is still there but God is here presence with us. Read 2 Corinthians 12:9.

= - - = -.  Do you understand the equation?  We have to look at it in the Chinese written equation of two minus one equal one.  Do you know why sometimes we do not understand God at work? We do not understand God's heart language to us. Marriages,husband and wife, family, parents and children have problems because we do not understand them from their perspectives. The principle never time but the form is time by change. We have to think anew with a new mindset, a new language, a new culture and all the sleeping strokes/sticks of the numbers lying down ,then we can understand. In the hand of God, even in the weaknesses, we can boast of God because in the presence of God, God's power is make perfect in our weaknesses.

1 + 1 = 1 in God's blueprint for marriage, one man and one woman united in marriage, God said the two shall become one.  So the formula is correct from God's perspective.  Wow...a perfect plan from God ya.

Like us, you can be encouraged by Pastor Clement Chong through his sermon here and posted on You Tube.

The thorn/s in us is/are not removed but learn from this simple mathematics formulas to help us re-focus. We learn to look at situation from God's perspective and accept the differences.

God Bless.

BMBC Sunday Worship Service October 2, 2011

BMBC theme for the September and October 2011 is Being Families in Christ.  We regret there were no video recordings throughout the month of September but audio recordings were recorded as usual.

BMBC had a special seminar on family in September and were honored to have Pastor Clement Chong from the BTS to share his wisdom and God's Words with families, especially parents who enrolled for the one day seminar.

The sermon for the Sunday 2nd October, 2011 was presented by Pastor Ooi Kheng Boon.  He clarified that Being Families In Christ is not just about focus on the family but rather focus for your family in Christ.  He shared with us on the holy bible verses from the book of 1 Corinthians 4: 14-21(Here). He mentioned of Apostle Paul's urging us to imitate him and to be Christ like.  Let us parents be role models for our children so that they grow up in our family to be more Christ -like. Children are given to us and are directly under our control.  Let us be their spiritual father too and exercise our authority as Christ has loved us and shown us as in the gospel.

None of us are perfect.  We have to be honest with our children and not be hypocrite. An example, as parent, we may ask the child to Do What I Say But Do Not Do What I Do.  We have to have the authenticity and earn the respect.  There should not be hypocrisy.  Sometimes, we may need help from someone outside the family as we look at the verse 1 Corinthians 4:17.  Quoting" One such scenario is like our kids who sometimes need us to tell them to stop doing this or that or our Aunt Rose will come". It is a blessing to have someone or our friend to help share our burden to guide our children so as to bring them up and lead a Christ-like lives.

We need to be involved directly in the lives of our children so that we can strengthen our families.  Life is full of uncertainties and is short.  We have to spend not only quality time with our children and family but also need quantity of time with them.

You can follow on the sermon recorded here and uploaded on You Tube.

Thank you and credit to BibleGateway.Com for the link to the bible verses for our study and references.