[Music] Good afternoon, church. We just had a blessed Church camp where about 50% of our congregation attended. We had a great deal of fun, and I appreciate the games that were well taught that fit into the theme of the camp, and also seeing the young and old gathering to receive Grace was a beautiful picture of a church. Prayerfully, I hope we can achieve 75% for our church camp 3 years later. Now the highlight of our church camp is always the message, and many of you, I presume, have received the messages online. So for today's service, I'd like to do a Roundup of the camp message and also some perspectives pertaining to the theme of the camp. Now the theme for this Camp is he who loves God, let him love the church also. Now there is an imperative sense in this theme. It is not if you love God, you try to love the church also. No, rather the person who loves God by default will love the church and must love The Church Without which he is deceiving himself in.

his love for God. So let me just say a few words about how the Holy Spirit led me to this team. You know, I was jogging one day, and it ran through my mind about the people that God has brought into our church for the past 3 years. Some of them have heard our message online. In fact, many of them, and some of them were brought here by their families. And from the sense I gathered, I would say most of us love the word, and they have no qus about coming to this church to receive the word from the ppit. They love the word, they love the doctrines that were being taught, and some of them might identify with us as a reform or word-based church. But the question that keeps coming to my mind is, then, do they love the church? Do they sincerely, earnestly, and profoundly love the church? Now, they may love a few individuals in the church, they may love the fellowship, all the cell groups they belong to, but would they put their stti in the glory of the

church. Would they come together to build this church as if it's their home? Would they take ownership of this church, give it its due care, shepherd it, care for it, grow it, even when the leaders are not around? Or is this just a church where I soal just parked here, you know, or merely seeing it as a place for Family Sunday Gathering? Now I say this not only for the adults, but also for the young people, which forms a great segment of this es. Now the sense of community can be great when you have a lot of peers in this church, but as you grow up and enter into working life, the needs and worry of life will pull you apart as an individual, and unless you have a deep and profound love for the church and her glory, you will easily let yourself slip off. Church will easily take second or third place in your life then, or some may become e irregular with church, yet consoling themselves that they are still reading the word or listening to online messages. So you see, that is what prompts

me with the team of the camp. That he who loves God, let him love the church also. So with this team in mind, our team of preachers together with myself get on with the individual messages. And I think all the preachers have given very good perspectives about loving the church. You see, when we talk about loving the church, we must ask: what is it about loving the church? As individuals, we may each have our own perspectives about loving the church. We can be very sentimental about loving the church because of some people which we are concerned of, but is that really loving the Church of God as a whole? So we want to be clearly informed from the truth about what is loving the church. Now I will not repeat everything, but I will just reiterate a few important points. But before that, let us get the spirit passed down by the Apostle Paul with regard to living the church. Can we turn to Colossians chapter 1, verse 24, 25? And the apostle Paul said here, Colossians 1:24, Now I rejoice in what I

am suffering for you and I f up in my flesh. What is still lacking in regard to Christ? Affliction for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. Now you see, the Apostle Paul perfectly understands Christ's love for the church. And it's not just knowing it as a concept or a piece of information, but that prompts him to sacrificial action towards the church. Where in his apostleship, he took pains to teach and lead the church so that she could submit herself to Christ through understanding the fullness of God's word. So, we have a few insightful messages given during the camp with regards to loving the church. And number one now with regards to Living God and the church, we first spoke about what takeaway our love for God and the church. And it is none other than the world. The world and 1 John Chapter 2 tells us very clearly that if we love the world

love of the father is not in us, and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride and boasting of this life are sinful desires that take away our love for God and his church. You see, no one who live for for lust and pride could have any love for God who is Holy. Neither can he love his Brethren or the church as a whole. As it is, the world is our number one enemy in terms of pulling us away from the church and what is the word now. I've said it many times, it is not just a place where we call Earth, not Mars, not Venus, but Earth, no, not that. The world is a spirit fear of influence that is in constant enmity with God and his church. It fits you with everything that your lust and your pride desire. Now it constantly seeks to take over your mind and stir up your desires constantly for the things that are present till nothing in our mind understands what is spiritual and nothing in our heart is captivated by the kind of love which is

holy and which is found in God and his church. And the worst thing a church can do is to bring the world into it, not the church. If they Asher the world into its teachings, that is a tragedy. In fact, the tragedy of the church today is that in its teachings and workings, we found nothing that is different from that of the world. And by that, we can safely conclude that he who truly loves the church will naturally resist the world. You see, just as we go about all activities in the world. Now we study in the world, we earn our degrees in the world, we work in the world, we earn a living in the world, we go through different seasons of our life in the world. But remember, these things should not be your Idols. Dedicate all these to God and the furtherance of his kingdom. Never worship whatever the world offers you because the Bible says it clearly: all these will pass away. The things of the world will pass away. Only he who does the will of God lives forever. All right, that's the

first part very important on what stops us from Living God in the church. Be careful. Be watchful as you live in this world. And second, then we spoke about living the unity of the church. Now I think and I believe Purity and unity are the two most prized values of the church. Now as Servants of God, we are committed to both the Purity and the unity of the church. Now we cannot talk about one without the other one. Both are mutually connected. But most often than not, the mistake we make is that we pursue one at the price of the other one. And one of the common traits we see in the Evangelical churches today is that we hear preachers water down the gospel or seek to make preaching of the word simplistic shallow indul Doctrine so as to gain Unity among the members. You know, last year when I was in Melbourne, and a pastor actually came up to me and said, you know, he said, pastor Vincent, I've listened online to your reform training teachings, you know, especially on your five-point Calvinism.

uh those are very good doctrine that you brought across. I agreed with you, but in my church, I am hesit to preach about them because you know if you're not careful, it could divide and split the church. No, in my opinion, from the objective Point Doctrine sometimes may divide, but it could also closely unite because without common Unity, without common Doctrine, we are actually uniting based on human attributes such as mutual respect, likable personality, Ministry cooperation, and so on, and we recognize these are things that easily brings people together, but for a while, it doesn't last, but only having the right Doctrine, the same Doctrine unites the church strongly and unites it in faith, and that is the kind of unity we are looking for in life church, not only within ourselves, but outside us along with our 20 over sister churches, but then even then, the message about church unity and testimonies brought To Us by our sister churches reminds us that we shouldn't be complacent thinking that Unity is a given just because we have a common

reform Doctrine. No, it doesn't. Remember Ephesians chap 4:3 gives us a very concise principle about church Unity. It says, Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. Now the spirit of God has fundamentally give us the Bond of Peace in Christ. Yet, it is profoundly important for us to make every effort to keep that Unity, to keep it. Now we keep it through mutual respect, we keep it through being humble and patient with each other, we keep it through bearing with one another and forgiving one another in love. Now the scripture instructs us to make every effort to keep it because we are not unaware of the devil's schemes. We know the slightest misunderstanding or strife, if not carefully handled, will become the devil's channel of attack to cause among us. Now we know this, all right. So be reminded. And then we spent two full sessions on Church governance. Okay, if you attended the camp, you remember two full sessions on Church governance. Much has been said about the church.

governance and system and policy. It's a relatively new concept to many of our members. Now, I will spare you the technicalities over here, but in both of these sessions, I took pains to explain to everyone that as the church goes forward with the thing of a more rounded and robust system to choose our leaders. And by choosing, I mean electing them to office through some form of popular voting. Now, by doing that, the congregation is giving them the mandate to lead and govern the church, and at the same time having them accountable to the church as a whole. Now, I've emphasized that having a proper church system and policy does not determine whether a church is a genuine one. In essence, all right, a church is determined by the truth of the Gospel it preaches, but having a proper system and polity first shows the majority of the church. And then it also brings about the well-being of the church when it goes forward. Now, we don't want our church 10, 20 years down the road, you know, people

are still coming to this church. Oh, because I've heard Pastor Vincent's message. You know, I come here because of him. Now, I've, I've said a strong, a mature church should not center around one person or a personality. We want people to be coming here because this church is blessed with both trusted teachings and trusted leaders. I said again, trusted teachings and trusted leaders. So, there must be a proper system, a proper policy to choose leaders from whom good governance is practiced. Now, I've basically presented four ways of running a church, and God has ordained these forms of governance as shown from the history of the church. And it is always good governance sense to gain wisdom from what had already happened in history. All right, so if you are interested, you spend a couple of hours run through the teachings on Living Church governance, uh, and but let me say a last couple of words on this. If you love and appreciate the governance of the church, it means that now if you appreciate the governance of the church.

and you are concerned about perfecting it for the good of the church and future generations. It simply shows what it shows that you care about how justice is being administered in the church. It shows you care about how people are being taken care of. You care about how the church grows in wisdom and love, isn't it so? These are things that the church will slowly move towards in the next few years, not so fast, well in the next few years, I pream you, okay? So that's number three, and then we moved on to loving the testimony of the church presented by our Deacon CJ. Now I don't know whether you are uh recapping all these things, okay? Now testimony of church presented by Deacon CJ. Now I think the main points brought across by him is for the church to have a different testimony as that which is embraced by the word. Now the purity of a church gives it a testimony which is a portrayal of the life and vocation of Jesus Romans 8:17. Now if you we are children, then we

are sons of God and co-heirs of Christ if indeed what we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. Suffering and Glory. We share in both now by Common Sense. No one loves suffering, right? No one purposely asks for suffering, and the person who thinks that suffering will earn him praise from God is mistaken. But as a Christian, there is a sense of suffering that we must embrace in our lives. Now, by nature of the fact that we are a true blue Christian, we not only do not live to satisfy our flesh, we also do not live to embrace what the world went after. We do not give ourselves over to social norms and values, and because of that, sometimes there exists within us a sense of loneliness when we live in this world. Yet at the same time, we draw closer to God, we find peace and strength through embracing God's will even in trials, and that marks the pure characteristic of the Christian. And by that, he gives beautiful set apart testimonies in his

life now uh in es we've covered almost uh the seven churches in Revelation by Deacon CJ now can I ask which of the seven churches earn Praises from the Lord Jesus because of their prosperity and successes how many have you read any one of those you don't no in fact they were rebuke when they earn those Prosperity by compromising their purity in fact those who earn praise are those who kept to their faith this despite trials remain pure despite the adversary they are those who did not forsake the lord's name despite their little strength they are those who persevere and rejoice in suffering they are those who bless and do not curse as the world does they are those who persevere and remain faithful to the end why why would they not embrace the world and its price because Hebrews 11 describ them as foreigners and strangers in this world they admit they are foreigners they aliens on this Earth and this world is not their price rather they look Heaven word for their price now maybe we should

really think through what kind of testimony we would want to show to the world. What kind of testimony we as a church should be showing to the world. Are we to boast about our successes? Are we to boast about our strength? Now, the Apostle Paul said, If I were to boast, he said, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power May rest on me. You see, he boast about nothing else but his weaknesses. And through the covid, we have seen we are not telling people how resilient we are, how courageous we are, or how wise we are. Rather, we show the world that we were equally taken back like everybody would have if they were infected. But we trusted the Lord, and we found strength through the word. And that was how God uses the church testimony as a comfort and encouragement to many. And God uses those testimonies to open up many doors which you would never imagine before the covid. And as CJ said, such a testimony has been injected into our DNA since then. So let us not forget how God grows

this church through such an unconventional testimony, but which is the kind of testimony that the church should have. About a month ago, I met up with my China co-workers in Hong Kong. At least two churches told me that the police is already closing up on them and their Church. The police have received some tip-off with regards to their existence, and for one of them, the police have actually called up the parents of one of the church preachers, and they send warning through the parents hoping to close down the church. Now you see, uh, the fear is always there, the uncertainty is there, but what amazed me is what they could do is upon receiving those calls just a week ago, they simply just make their way to Hong Kong to meet up with me and all the co-workers, and all we could do is pray. Honestly, what we could do is pray. And at the end of the conference, I preached from the church of Smyrna. I said the churches in China now is as if they're Church of Smyrna. And the last words I have for

them is let's come to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. And I pray with them, and just by the encouragement, they left with joy and assurance. Now, I was so comforted when I witnessed that. Now, church, let us ponder through what kind of testimony are we looking for, what kind of testimony moves our heart, what kind of testimony do we love. This is the kind of testimony, my brother, this is the testimony of the church, the testimony of finding joy and assurance in Christ even in the midst of trial and suffering. And may the church be always filled with such glorious testimonies. And then next, ELD Wang shared about loving the brethren who sin. Now, I thought this is very, very relevant for us, loving the brethren who sin. Now, ELD spoke about restoration through confrontation and correction. Now, if you remember, those are the key words, restoration through confrontation and correction. Now, let me say a word or two about this. In our day of age, we dislike confrontation. We rather hide our

displeasure or tell someone else about how unhappy we are with so so Bren or coworker, but the truth is, it doesn't resolve matters, that don't restore relationships. In fact, it worsens them. Now, gossiping about others or hiding our displeasure has nothing to do with loving and restoring our Breen. Rather, it is self-seeking, it is self-absorbed. You absorbed in your displeasure, you try to suppress it, when you couldn't, you sort of Unleashed it with someone else. And sometimes, these don't just happen with ordinary breens, but it happened with the leaders also, and that does nothing to Unity, that does nothing about forgiveness. An Elders spoke at length about restoration. Now, I thank God for his exaltation in this aspect, and he quoted Galatians chapter 6:1-2, which says, Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the spirit, notice this, you who live by the spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourself, or you may.

also be tempted carry each other's burden. Now let's read this together: Carry each other's burden together, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. Now we have to understand that in the context of a church, not every sin has to be rigorously dealt with or disciplined by the church leadership. And that is why the Apostle Paul spoke a lot about being patient with everyone, about forgiving one another, about having the kind of love which covers over a multitude of sins. You know, he spoke so much about sin, um, forgiving sin, than executing church discipline formally. You notice that if you read the Apostle Paul, you know, and over here at this verse, Paul spoke about restoring someone, restoring your brother who was caught in sin. And the key word used here is restore, restore. And Paul emphatically mentioned that you who live by the spirit, you who live by the spirit, there is an obligation in you towards the brother who is caught in sin, that is to restore him. Now you see, this is an active obligation, active, you must do it.

now when you read the earlier few verses, you will see the passive obligation, which is said in chapter 5:16. It says, If you live by the spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. The spirit of God will keep you from gratifying these things. You will not enjoy living in sin, so to speak. You will not indulge. You cannot indulge in the things of the flesh, so to speak. Now, that is something passive. The spirit of God makes the things of the flesh an enemy to the Christian heart, such that even if you do it, you cannot enjoy it because you cannot gratify it, right? That's chapter 5. But right into chapter 6 now, it says here there is something active for you who live by the spirit. That is, you are obligated to restore your fallen brother. It is a command, so to speak. And now the original meaning of the word restore has the meaning of putting it in order, putting it in order, or bring back to its former condition. Now, it is the Greek medical term which is often used where

say, if you have a dislocated, uh, bone, restoring it means bringing back to its original condition. So, in the work of restoration, we should be exactly doing that for the Breen who has been seduced by the devil and overtaken by sin. Now, I'd like to say this: the work of restoration is often neglected in the church. We have a tendency to either pretend that the sin never happened, or we tend to react too harshly towards the one who had sinned. You see, in both cases, restoration wasn't the goal. Sometimes, we just want to unleash our displeasure upon those who have sinned, or we resp respond with gossiping or undiscerning approval. Far be it from us to do such a thing, right? Because that has nothing to do with living by the spirit. Now, to love the church is not just to be involved in Ministry, getting busy with serving, but to respond with mercy and compassion towards our fallen brother, doing what we can to restore him. In fact, the fallen brother among us is the test for our love for God and the

church because our Lord Jesus is a sacrificial Shepherd who would leave 99 sheep that has not gone astray to search for that one lost sheep. Now, I said it is always easy to work with people who have not gone astray. It is easy to counsel these people, to advise them, but it is never easy to restore a brother who has been wounded terribly by sin. Sometimes, because of an accused heart, for such a person, they can be defensive, they can be prideful, they can be unreasonable, but Paul advised us to be gentle in restoring him. You can be firm in pointing out his mistake or his sin, but you need to be gentle, and the Bible went on to instruct us to carry his burden, carry each other's burden. Now, for someone who is caught in sin, there is a spiritual heaviness within him. Why? Because he's living in fear, he's living in guilt, he's living in helplessness. Now, we must carry his burden. Think about this, my brethren, without bearing his burden, how do you

expect him to walk out of his sins. You see, my brethren, this is often our blind spot when we talk about loving our church, loving the people of God, and I thank God that Elder W has brought across what it means to restore our brethren who been caught in sin. Now, dealing with sin is, in fact, the main business of the church. The world simply cannot deal with sin in reality. The way the world deals with sin is through legal means, bringing the law against sinners, which they call criminals, or at best therapy or counseling. And what it seeks to do is conditioning, condition that person. Now, it does nothing to change the heart because it knows nothing about sin. But we are readily given the gospel of Christ, and from there, we must learn the way of restoring our fallen brethren. Amen to that. Okay, that's a very important message. Okay, I hope we can dwell more into that. And then lastly, we end the conference on the high note about loving the mission of the church. Now, when Jesus' followers encountered him

after resurrection and on Mount olives, they fell down and worship him, and he commissioned them to fulfill his mission in making disciples and taking the gospel to the ends of the Earth. Now listen, the Great Commission is given to the church not as an obligation, not as a choice either, but as a command. Now why the Great Commission? Listen, because loving the church would not be complete without a missioner mind and heart to bring the gospel to all the UNR people of God. Now ask ourself this question, who, who are the church? Isn't it the people of God at every corner of the earth? So what are we talking about in terms of loving the church when we have no desire or eagerness to bring the gospel out to save the loss, to plant churches, to make disciples, and teach them the whole counsel of God? You see, the modern churches these days have been so lost about what it means to fulfill the Great Commission. They engage in activities and programs to bring people to church to only get them hyped up.

are contented with making converts, not disciples. Either they fail believers' minds with doctrines after doctrines without making them true followers of Christ. And even after they've been in church for so long, sometimes the church taught them nothing about the full counsel of God, but only feeding them with personal testimonies after testimonies. Now, I have no questions about saying that the modern church is quite lost with regards to what the Great Commission is. And I believe the church needs a Reformation in that. After my message on the Great Commission, there was a pastor whom I personally know from Malaysia, KL. He was a pastor, he is still pastoring. He's a pastor passionate about the mission work of the church. He followed our conference on live stream and he wrote to thank me personally for bringing forth to him such clear insight and understanding of what the Great Commission is. We are also blessed to have leaders of three of our Malaysia life churches joined us and shared about the wonderful works of God in their

church now I like our church to be clear about our mission obligation. In fact, Mission has been the DNA of LCM. At no instances should our church cease its Mission work. The Great Commission is a command from our Lord for every of His church, and the church who does it right and passionately will be blessed with the Emmanuel promise of God. And Jesus Promised, I will be with you always to the end of age. And if we are serious about being led by the spirit, let us know that the very reason which the Holy Spirit was sent was to fulfill the Great Commission through the church. For Jesus said, When The Advocate comes, when the Holy Spirit comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who goes from the Father, He will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. And be clear about this, my brethren, the Holy Spirit will not allow God's Great Commission from being taught. The Great Commission and all its work revolve around it will go on and on.

till the end of age, and that will be the culmination of History. History where all the promises of God will be fulfilled, and every chosen people then will be a worshipper of God, right? So that sort of cover all the messages we have for the camp. Now let me end by saying this: if we think we love the church, let us really know what the church is. Now, someone said the church is where a new Humanity is created, and it is a Humanity which loves each other, even our enemies, just as Christ loves us. Now the worst thing it understands love, honestly, it doesn't. It only knows zero-sum game love. You know, zero-sum game love. The underlying message of the love of the world is always I want you to love others less so that you can love me more. You see, that's the zero game love. Okay, if you're with him, you're not with me, all right? That's the world love. Love of the world. But God's love is generative love. It creates more of itself. And before I end, I want to

quote this from our lord Jesus Priestly prayer where he prays for all the Believers before he went up on the cross John 17:22 to 23 okay and say father I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one i in them and you in me you see so that they may be brought to complete Unity then the world will know that you sent me and have love them even as you have loved me you got it right the love of the father and son is the basis of our love for each other and we must be brought to that kind of unity as a church and may LCM be brought to Greater Love and unity through the camp and may our love and unity continue to Bear fruits in the midst of us and let us always be reminded that he who loves God let him love the church also now let's go to the Lord in prayer father we thank you so much um for the past week that how you have edify each

and every one of us who was in the camp. And I pray that this Grace, from the message that's given, will be able to edify those who didn't attend the camp. Also, let the whole church learn to grow in love for you as well as your bride, and thank you so much for the messages and all the beautiful picture you have given us about young and old coming together. We know there's so much more that we have to learn about love and unity, and I pray for the next two to 3 years before our next Camp happen that we can take heat from the lessons that we have learned through the camp. And let us be always reminded that we are one in you, one in Christ, and that itself could be able to resolve all the minor differences that we have with each other. And thank you so much, and let the church be always reminded that we have an obligation to bring the gospel out, and let us be outward looking, not inwards, and let us

share the heartbeat of Christ, as we come together as a church, and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. [Music]

LCM English Service: Growing in Love for the Church

LCM English Service: Growing in Love for the Church