St Andrew's Church, Brunei

May I ask you a very personal question? Have your prayed something you thought God would give to you, example, a gift or promise of God found in Bible, or a weakness (not a sin) to be removed? You are probably disappointed that this prayer seems unanswered. You probably stop asking for it already. Here God points out our wrong thinking and a tutor us to understand correctly. Firstly, the lie is that you think God has not answered your sincere prayer for something that seems spiritual. The truth is that God has answered your prayer, but not the way you expect, just better. That leads to the second thing, a truth that we must learn to see, that God's answer to your prayer is to let this weakness remain in your life, or not giving you the gift or promise! And this is a great blessing. How is it so? It is a greater blessing because God's greater gift to us is not just anything, it is His character. Through weakness we grow in godly character. Paul testified to this with this wor

Palm Sunday Sermon Blessed Sunday Church! Happy Palm Sunday! This is the sermon for this week, have a blessed week ahead! Title: The King, Kingdom and Citizen Date: 28th March 2021

2 Corinthians 11:7–15 includes Paul's unmasking of the false apostles in Corinth. They disguise themselves as servants of righteousness as Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Paul is a spiritual father who wants to protect the Corinthians from deceptions. Paul doubles down on his commitment not to take funds from the Corinthians for his own needs, simply to prove how he is different from the false apostles. Paul may have been mocked by the false apostles in Corinth for this principle. Or, for doing the manual labor of making tents to support himself when he first came to Corinth. Some of the Corinthians themselves may have resented Paul's stubborn refusal to take money from them when he was willing to take it from less wealthy churches. His motivation was important, though: to never cloud the message that God's grace and forgiveness were free gifts to those who trusted in Christ. The point of Paul's speaking and teaching, though, was not to make a living for h

This morning our devotion is going to be more focused on boast in the lord. But first let us see what boasting mean I am sure we all know the meaning of boasting but to help this devotion starts let me state it here. Boasting means excessively proud and self-satisfied talk about one's achievements, possessions, or abilities. We all are living in a comparison world and people loves to boast about their achievements in their life to draw attention of others to see. But this morning let us see is boasting good? Can we boast about ourselves let us learn from the Scriptures.   Is Boasting a Sin? Boasting in oneself is an expression of pride and pride is condemned in Scripture (Proverbs 11:2). Prideful boasting is deeply embedded in our sin nature. which is why boasting is one of the sins so strongly demonstrated in the scriptures. Satan tempted Eve with the boast, “You will be like God” (Gen. 3:5). That is what pride and boasting are all about: our self-enthronement in the place of Go

In the books of Corinthians, Paul is writing to a church that has many problems including idolatry, rebellion and false teachers. In this letter, Paul is urgently trying warn the Corinthians against the threats facing them from their own behaviour and attitude. In verse 1, Paul starts by telling them his intention, which is to appeal to them with humility and gentleness, in Christ’s example. He is aware that some people in the church were mocking him as being a “timid” speaker who was probably not very charismatic, but “bold” in writing to them. They were mocking him as a coward, or in the current internet age, they would have accused him of being a “keyboard warrior’. This kind of talk was happening amongst people in the Corinthian church, because they did not respect Paul or his teaching. They did not want other people to pay any attention to his warnings either. By writing verse 1, Paul is telling them that he knows all about what they call him behind his back. He asks them to recon

  Shalom Church! We are continuing with the series, Equipping the Saints This is the sermon for this week. Title: Spiritual Maturity In Worship and Word Date: 21.03.21

In 2nd Corinthians 9:1-11 Paul talks about giving, and doing so generously. He has been boasting about the Corinthian church for the generosity they have, and the contributions they have made. And it is their generosity, their willingness to give that is also making others moved to follow, and take action too. However, Paul also reminds us that when we do so, we do it while being aware of what our intentions are, what the motivation in our hearts are as we give. I find that my intentions are be something that I often think about as I am going about my day. Although it is not always necessarily about giving, I like to think about why I am doing what I do, is it for a selfish reason? Is it to look good in the eyes of others? Or is it for the glory of God? This passage is a call to action, for us as followers of Christ to be willing to give what we have. I believe that this giving can go past the norm of money and gifts but I believe that our time could be something we can gift to others.

The phrase “God is holy” is mentioned three times in this particular psalm – verses 3, 5 and 9. As we are aware, any time that any word(s) is/are repeatedly being mentioned within a chapter, that is a way of emphasizing the importance of that phrase to the reader. This repeated phrase emphasizes that the main theme of this psalm is that “God is holy and He is to be exalted.” The word “holy” means “set apart.” When we speak of God being holy, we mean that He is distinctly different from His creation. He is separate from everything that is sinful. He cannot tolerate anything that is sinful and evil. Holiness is the very nature of God. There is no trace of evil in his character and this is what distinguishes Him from all else. Only God is holy! Thus, when we say something is “holy,” we are saying that it is set apart from other things for sacred service. Likewise, when we say a person is “holy,” it means he/she is set apart for God’s will and purpose, they are set apart for His service. •

“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”  The context in which Paul was writing is that he has been correcting and rebuking wrong behaviours and actions in the Corinthian church. Although he was sorry to have hurt them, he rejoiced that his letter brought them godly sorrow. Godly sorrow is that which brings the repentance that leads to salvation (2 Corinthians 7:8–9). There are a couple of biblical examples we can read about in order to understand how Godly sorrow is different from worldly sorrow.  After David’s sin with Bathsheba, David confessed and repented before God. He wrote Psalm 32 and Psalm 51. David cries out “Against You, You only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight.” (51:4) And again, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” (51:17) We can see his heart and we can see that he was a broken man. In contrast, we read about the d

Shalom Church! Here is the sermon for this week! Have a blessed week ahead!

The context of this chapter from the preceding verses in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 is “the ministry of reconciliation”. God is reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus. As a result, the Corinthian church was born as people became Christians. However now they have received God’s grace and are Christians, God has given “the ministry of reconciliation” to His church as His fellow workers in partnership with God to reach those around them, (verse 1). Paul instructs us on the need to persevere, overcoming obstacles, choose God’s way over our own and go through hardships. In other words, our active effort is required in being obedient. We are saved the day we receive Christ, but the inclination of our hearts means we can as verse 1 says “receive God’s grace in vain.”  In order to fulfil God’s will of reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, Paul describes in verses 4 to 5 the hardships he needed to endure to be obedient as God’s fellow worker. In verse 6 he outlines the ways he needed t

For walk by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7. What does this looks like? 'Present or absent to the Lord' in this passage refers to being physically present to Christ in heaven or remaining on earth still. Being absent (remaining on earth) comes with earthly pain. It has the idea of exile. Being present to Christ carries the idea of a rejoicing homecoming. Two other things must be mentioned before we go further. (2) Paul also says the pain on earth reminds him his home is heaven. (3) While heaven is so exciting and earth can be filled with so much suffering, the most important thing is pleasing Christ (v.9). That has to be THE GOAL. With that established, let me go back to the first point and just focus on that. Walking by faith means a certainty of this homecoming, that heaven is real, I belong to heaven and I desire to be there. This is why Paul says "For to me to live is Christ to die is gain". His faith in Christ means earth is simply a temporary exile.

Take a second and try to imagine a couple of things. First, imagine the sufferings in Paul’s life. He was beaten with rods, stoned, bitten by a snake, shipwrecked, not once, not twice but three times.  Second, to imagine the sufferings in Joseph’s life. He was despised by his brothers, thrown into a well, sold into slavery, falsely accused of raped, and thrown into prison. In 2 Corinthians Chapter 4, we read as Paul talks about the “Treasure” that is the Gospel, and us people, believers, followers of Christ as the Jars of Clay. He tells us of our brokenness, our imperfection, our weakness and our fragility, that despite all these things, we still have power, and that power comes from what is within us, in our hearts, and that is the message of the gospel. The treasure inside the jars of clay. And the message of the Gospel is what sustains us. Paul mentions in verse 11, “ we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our

Good afternoon, church! Join us today on the 3rd Sunday of Lent on the Equip The Saint sermon series. Topic: Simplicity, Worship & Word Date: 07 March 2021 Have a blessed Sunday and stay safe! God bless!

In 6th century BC, around the time that the story of Esther unfolded, the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem and destroyed King Solomon’s temple, a significant marker of Jewish culture. It was a devastating loss and thousands of Jews across the empire were forced into exile and captivity, known as the ‘Babylonian Exile.’ Wrapped up in this greater cultural conflict was another tension, the Persian king, King Ahasuerus of Shushan had harshly dethroned, divorced and ousted Vashti, all on the basis of her refusing to submit to the king and appear before him when summoned. So, this was the cultural climate that Esther faced when she stepped into the palace, and it was not easy as a woman, let alone as a Jewish woman. Without God’s favor, she very well may not have succeeded. Mordecai, the spiritual Cheer leader Reading this passage in the book of Esther, I began thinking about how, in Esther’s story, Mordecai played an important role in the setting up of the circumstances for her journey

In this second letter to the Corinthians, Paul has made it clear that he will no longer visit them as he had earlier intended to. The reason was that he did not want to further cause a rift in the relationship he had with them by his rebuke in his first letter (2:1-4). However, he still had important pastoral issues to address with the church. In 2 Corinthians 2:5-11, Paul urged the church leaders to extend grace and forgiveness to a fellow Christian brother. This brother was severely punished and perhaps excommunicated from his community for causing grieve to the church. We aren’t certain of the details but it must have been extremely bad for the church leadership to punish him this way. Now, Paul chose to be an advocate on the brother’s behalf and appealed to the leadership that they would seek reconciliation by forgiving the man. By doing so, they would have obeyed Jesus Christ and restored the man to Christ and the Church. Forgiveness is an overarching theme that is found in th

In Nehemiah 12, the wall of Jerusalem had been built and the Israelites had started to move back to the city. Verses 1 – 26 list the out the priests and Levites who had returned. This reads like a roll call of the faithful and godly leaders of the people. It demonstrates the importance of godly leadership within families. It also highlights the importance of worship, praise and thanksgiving, which were listed before the protection of provisions. The people were trying to repent from the state of brokenness they had been in whilst living in exile. This chapter shows that they intended to establish a functional godly society in the new Jerusalem. The list of people reminds us of these faithful people and in a way, reassures us that all the faithful are counted and remembered by God. Verses 27 – 47 describe how they completed the dedication of the Wall of Jerusalem to the Lord. The wall was the first thing that they rebuilt, as it was essential for the protection of the city. There was no