It was in 1954 when several believers living in the Serangoon and Yio Chu Kang vicinity gathered at 140 Yio Chu Kang Road to break bread together. This was Yio Chu Kang Chapel’s humble beginning.
Today, we celebrate our 57th anniversary, grateful to the Lord for calling us, establishing us as a local church and commissioning us to fulfil His purpose.
On this special occasion, it is good for us to ponder over this question: what is God’s agenda for the world and how is it relevant to us in this local church?
God has an agenda for the world
Indeed, God has an agenda for the world, a plan that He has put in place. This is expressed so clearly in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” In a nutshell, God’s agenda is given in the glorious gospel. This is the message that everyone must hear.
This was the message that Paul preached passionately to Jews and Gentiles (for a concise record of his sermon, refer to Acts 13:16-49) declaring that God’s plans are fulfilled in the risen Christ. Through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is promised. Through Him, everyone who believes is justified. What glorious good news for all!
God pursues His agenda
Recently, Dane Ortlund, Senior Editor of the Bible Division at Crossway Books invited a group of theologians and Bible scholars to summarise the message of the Bible in one sentence. The following is an interesting sample:
• God has made promises to bring His people to Himself and He is fulfilling them all through Christ. (Mark Dever)
• Jesus is the promised Savior-King.(David Helm)
• God is redeeming His creation by bringing it under the lordship of Jesus Christ. (Kent Hughes)
• God, who made us and everything else, loves us and gave Himself for us that we might live forever with Him as new creatures in a new creation—the news is good! (Phil Long)
• The message of the Bible is the transforming grace of God displayed preeminently in Jesus Christ. (Sean Lucas)
• The Lover of our souls won’t let the romance die, but is rekindling it forever.(Ray Ortlund)
These one sentence summaries of the Bible message indeed bring to our attention that the loving God relentlessly pursues His agenda. And we are beneficiaries. We can testify of God’s redeeming grace and the blessedness of being His people.
This gospel is bearing fruit and growing
As I reflect on God’s agenda, our theme verse for this year comes to mind:
“All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth” (Col 1:6).
Each of us is a fruit of this gospel message. We have received the good news, and have come to Jesus, acknowledging Him as Saviour and Lord.
And amazingly, as He has called us to Himself, He has also given us the privilege of joining Him in His work.
We can never fully fathom all that God is doing throughout the world and through the ages. But we do know that our purposeful God who caused this church to be established 57 years ago desires us to be involved in His glorious gospel work.
Prior to the church being established, in 1953, Mr and Mrs Cook from Canada were busily moving about the Chia Keng Village, gathering children and all who would hear, to tell them the gospel of Jesus Christ. The faithful witnessing of this couple gradually led to a group of believers coming together for worship as a congregation and to use that location as a base for witness in this vicinity. The work has grown through the past decades.
Today, as we mark our 57th anniversary, we look back with thanksgiving to the Lord and look forward with expectations mindful of our calling as a church. This is captured in our mission statement. We exist to glorify God by living the gospel and making disciples to reach the world for Christ.
May we be true to the mission that the Lord of the church has entrusted to us.
- David LT Yap, Lead Pastor
Thursday, September 29, 2011
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