Since our launch of our KID’S Ministry in Greenhills, we have seen an explosive growth in our kid’s church. Why are kids telling their parents that they can’t miss kid’s church. Let me give you 5 reasons:

1. In Kid’s church, we point your kids to Jesus. The goal of our Kid’s ministry is for your kids to learn how to dependent on Jesus for everything. Starting them young would help them as they grow older to depend on God more.

2. We offer one of the best kid’s church services ever! I am not exaggerating but when I visited our kids ministry facility, I thought I was at gymboree. We have state of the art technology in our kid’s ministry hall.

3. Kids worship!!!

We have some of the best worshipers and musicians imparting what real worship is to our kids. Every 5th sunday of the month, our kid’s church team leads worship in our adult service.You can never underestimate pure and authentic worship when you see the kids lead in worship.

4. We have some of the best and dedicated volunteers in the world! With 200+ kid’s ministry volunteers serving every month, we see to it they are equipped in handling kids week in and week out.

5. The best KIDS CHURCH PASTOR Larry is leading the pack.

Romans 6:17-18 ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

A drastic change happens in A Christian life when he lives out the gospel. Most of us tend to be so-sin focused that we forget that Christ has died for our sin therefore SIN and its effect has no power over me. Paul says that we are no longer slaves to sin. Sin is no longer our master. We now have a new master. We have become slaves of righteousness.

What that means is that as a child of God I am convicted not of my sin but of my righteousness. I am convicted because if who I am in Christ. Through Christ’s death on the cross, I was made righteous thus my nature is to live holy and not to sin. Only the grace of God empowers me to live that way.

So when temptation comes, I am no longer convicted of sin. I am convicted of my righteousness. The reason I can overcome sin is not because I have a to do list but because I am a child of God. His grace has transformed my nature. My sinful nature is dead. I am dead to sin and alive to God. What a wonderful truth to live by.

Ptr Dennis,regarding generational curse, how if you became a Christian and the curse has been broken because of your relationship with Jesus, will the curse  be broken on the generation after you? Like on your children, grandchildren?

Basing on the book of Galatians, the Bible tells us the through the finish work of the cross the curse has been broken since Jesus became the curse for us BUT only those who choose to put their faith and hope in the finished work of Christ can experience the curses being broken in their lives.

Some teach that Christians still experience curses in their life. I think the Bible is very clear. The curse has been broken for every child of God. Sin has no longer power because Jesus triumph over them at the cross, nailing the legal demands of our sin at the cross.

But to claim that our children would be free from the curse is another issue. They also need to come to a saving knowledge and encounter with Christ and appropriate what Christ did on the cross for their sin. In short, when my dad became a Christian, the curse was broken for him but it did not really translate to me being free from the curse. I have to come to Christ and trust in His grace to break free from the curses in my life through his work at the cross.

Galatians 3:13

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”^{[h] 14}He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Pastor I am having a hard time hearing from God, I’m thinking it’s just me or the voice of my leaders. There’s a word God is telling me to believe that it is from Him, but it is just so hard to accept. How can I overcome this? Am I lacking in faith?

It is always wise for us to go back to Scriptures. It does not matter if you hear it from your leader or a voice you think is from God if it contradicts His word then it is not from God. When it is clear in Scripture that God is telling you that it is, even if it is hard to accept, you obey. You can overcome your unbelief by relying on the grace of God. Believe in His sovereignty and grace. His grace is more than sufficient for you.

What do we do when bad things happen to us? How do we respond? This is my preaching during our Habakkuk series ” When God Doesn’t make Sense”

“From Scripture we know that God has deliberately limited the number of Christians He has chosen to be successful.  In the latter part of the first chapter of I Corinthians and in the first part of the second chapter the Apostle Paul explains why.  He says that not many wise, not many influential and not many noble have been called by God.  Then he gives two reasons why.  The first is that there is a tendency, even among Christians, to glory in their accomplishments.  Yet God does not want any of us to do this in His presence.  The second reason is related to the apostle’s own experience with the Corinthian church.  He said that he came to them in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.  This was because he did not want their faith to stand in his wisdom but in God’s power.  Far too frequently successful Christians tend to attract others to themselves rather than to the Lord. . . . From Scripture we know also that God’s people down the centuries have stood adversity far better than they have prosperity.  That may be another reason why few of us are successful.”

Hudson T. Armerding, “The Challenge of Success,” Baccalaureate Address, Wheaton College, 21 May 1978.

Colossians 1:3-7

³ We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴ because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— ⁵ the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel ⁶ that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

The message of the gospel never fails to stir up a person. The reason Christianity has been growing by leaps and bounds is because of the faith and love that is stored up in the message of the gospel.

Colossians 1:12-14

¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The gospel message shows to me that Christ did it all. Christ loves, saves, qualifies, rescues,  forgives, redeems and transforms me. No added requirements on my side.

I was having dinner with a non-Christian and she said the reason she doesn’t want to go to church is because she feels condemned every time she visits the church. She feels like she has no right to enter the kingdom of God because of her sin.

I said the reason I go to church is because I am condemned but Christ took my condemnation. I have no right to enter the kingdom of God but He gave me the right to become a child of God by dying on the cross for my sins. When He cried, IT IS FINISHED – after the torture, slaughter and the humiliation he cries to God – He was saying I have done everything for you my son.

The difference between RELIGION and GOSPEL

RELIGION IS SPELLED DO. GOSPEL IS SPELLED DONE.

Because of what Christ did at the cross I no longer have to work my way to heaven and his favor.  He has qualified me, I am a partaker of the inheritance, he rescued me, brought me, redeemed me and forgave me. What great love!!!!

” The desires for God and desires for sin cannot co-exists in the human heart. They are two opposing affections – one will always push out the other. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection, is by the expulsive power of a new one.” – Thomas Chalmers

Galatians 5:16-17 (New International Version)

¹⁶ So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever^[a] you want.

You can’t just “stop it” because the “it” is always more than behavior. It is always rooted in your affections, in what you love – what you worship. We worshiped our way into this mess, and by God’s grace, we’ll worship our way out.

The apologetic fathers were known by their defense against the attacks on the church and their attempts to win legal recognition for Christianity:

1. Justin Martyr. Known as the first learned theologian and Christian thinker among the church fathers. During a trip to Rome, he was arrested, subjected to a mock trial and beheaded.

Even as a Christian Justin always remained a philosopher. By his conscious recognition of the Greek philosophy as a preparation for the truths of the Christian religion, he appears as the first and most distinguished in the long list of those who have endeavored to reconcile Christian with non-Christian culture. Christianity consists for him in the doctrines, guaranteed by the manifestation of the Logos in the person of Christ, of God, righteousness and immortality, truths which have been to a certain extent foreshadowed in the monotheistic religious philosophies. In this process the conviction of the reconciliation of the sinner with God, of the salvation of the world and the individual through Christ, fell into the background before the vindication of supernatural truths intellectually conceived. Thus Justin may give the impression of having rationalized Christianity, and of not having given it its full value as a religion of salvation. It must not, however, be forgotten that Justin is here speaking as the apologist of Christianity to an educated Pagan public, on whose philosophical view of life he had to base his arguments, and from whom he could not expect an intimate comprehension of the religious position of Christians.

2. Tertullian. He received a liberal Graeco-Roman education and then practiced law in Rome until his conversion around 195 AD. He was a prolific author writing apologetic articles, attacks on heresies and moral tracts.

Here are some famous Tertullian quotes:

Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

Here is John Wesley writing to John Trembath (August 17, 1760), a young minister who was a poor preacher:

What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear, to this day, is lack of reading.

I scarce ever knew a preacher who read so little.

And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it.

Hence your talent in preaching does not increase.  It is just the same as it was seven years ago.  It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety; there is no compass of thought.

Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer.

You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this.

You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian.

Oh begin!  Fix some part of every day for private exercise.  You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterward be pleasant.

Whether you like it or not, read and pray daily.

It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a pretty, superficial preacher.

Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow.

Do not starve yourself any longer.

Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether.

Then will all the children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you, and in particular yours.

Quoted in D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, Letters Along the Way (Wheaton, 1993), p. 169. The original letter can be read here.