By: Ann Marie Servito / May 6, 2018
May has come and it’s harvest time! We now harvest souls for Jesus and fulfil what God has called us to do. This year’s harvest month carries the theme “I AM” and the first Sunday service started with “I am the answer” or Jesus is the answer.
The presentation commenced with an MTV “The Answer” by Jeremy Camp which gave us the teaser of the main idea of the service, then followed by a contemporary dance “I Just Need You” by TobyMac, composed of the young people of ETab and choreographed by Enrique Dela Cruz. The performance joyfully depicts how life’s circumstances may shake us, topple us, and leave us looking for solutions but Jesus is still the ultimate answer.
Pastor Toh Nee led the congregation to the Sunday’s main course– the preaching of The Word which was both opened and entitled by a question: What’s the Problem?
The key text came from Isaiah 9: 1-4.
9 [a]Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—
2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. 3 You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. 4 For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.
The first point is about our “Perceived Problems” or how our senses tell us we have a problem. However, we have the “Real Problem” which are actually the pitch darkness we are in the people living in apostasy and sin, and the people in gloom and anguish. Whatever problems we carry, it leads us to the third point “The Real Solution” who is still Jesus Christ. The preaching was concluded with a reminder how Christ’s promises are real and that Christ’s death and resurrection is the assurance of our victory.
This Sunday is just the kick-start of the month’s true purpose and that is to do God’s work and be the labourers of the plentiful harvest!
