March 11 – 15, 2015
Agape Guys Ministry along with Pas Guna Raman, came for a back-to-back-to-back weeklong ministry time at Etab! It was a privelege indeed to be able to sit under their footstool … hurrah for the guys who were hemmed in for a day – in an ‘uber’ exclusive Guys Fellowship … spilling over into the Youth Church as well, and all about ‘Breaking Free’ from idols (chop! chop!) With Pas. Guna capping the entire week to expound on ‘What is Sex actually?’ and finding Christ in our quest for it’s true meaning.
PREACHING SEMINAR
Well, truth be told, we all came with the same exoectations … being preachers and all. Yet somehow, through the four day seminar Pas. Guna would some how peel away through layers of misconceptions concurrent to preaching … and re-shape our thoughts to gear towards a more ‘Christ-centric’ method of presenting the Gospel:
As such, we must preach to Christians and non-Christians all at once. Preaching therefore, should not be either for evangelism of edification, because all of us have the same underlying problem. If a sermon is Christ-centered in its exposition and application, and if it is oriented toward dismantling the unbelief systems of the human heart and using the Gospel on the unbelief, then we are illuminating to non-Christians even though it was aimed primarily at Christians.
We must preach Grace, not Moralism. Preaching should motivate a love for God, a fear of offending God, as well as gratitude for our Savior who saved us. A moralistic sermon would sound a little this way; Here is what the text says, Here is how we must live in light of that text … Now go and live that way, and God will help you. Well, there is nothing explicitly erroneous about this, however we are geared more towards employing preaching to trick the heart instead of reorienting the heart.
We must Preach Christ from every Text. There are only two ways to read the Bible. It is either about me or about Jesus. It is either advice to the listener or news from the Lord. It is either about what I must do or about what God has done. Jesus is the real temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the Lamb, the Light, the bread. The Bible is not about YOU, its about HIM!
Lastly, we must aim at the heart (not the emotions or even the mind). Jonathan Edwards insisted that ‘the reason why men no more regard warnings of future punishment is because it doesn’t seem real to them.” This was, for Edwards, the main spiritual problem and the main purpose of preaching. The goal of our preaching is not just to make the truth CLEAR but to make the truth REAL.
YOUTH CHURCH with Pas. Terence Ng: Break Free from Idols
Idols in our lives, come in many forms … the common youth of today are easily ensnared by the whiles of this world. But as Pas. Terence expounded, our actions or inactions belie a much deeper need, a deeper longing, a deeper thirst for God to fill that God – shaped void within. Their behavioral actions dictate to an inner motivation – a seeking of the temporal, in search of the eternal.
As such, in the crossroads of their youth, a vast majority enthroned the lord Jesus Christ into their lives … some rededicating themselves, some accepting Him for the first time. It’s all about Jesus after all, and yeah, He visibly manifested His love and grace upon everyone who was in that place that night!
SUNDAY SERVICE with Pas. Guna Raman on ‘What is Sex actually?’
Definitely with Pas. Guna at the pulpit, you never know what to expect … this one thing we have all concluded. So he started off by explaining what ‘sex’ is not. Sex is not just PHYSICAL, it is symbolic of our need to be loved, so if anything … sex is not the answer, its the question. The issues we have with sex is not a love problem, it is a relationship problem.
Sex is sacred. Sex is much more than BIOLOGY, it’s a deep soul level unity. The body was not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord’s, and the Lord for the body. Sex is Service, a servant like attitude toward sex read that sex is not a reward for your spouse to earn, or a tool to use to manipulate your spouse. ‘Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.’
Our need for sex, is simply an underlying symptom of a far greater need, and that is our need to be loved … just as Jesus loved us … His chosen bride!
