Christmas Celebration 2024

Dec 22, 2024

Merry Christmas !

The theme of this year’s Christmas Celebration is “Faith”, followed by “Hope” and “Love” for the coming two years. That was why the souvenir everyone received this year was a puzzle piece with the word “faith” on it. We will be able to complete the puzzle after collecting the remaining two pieces at Christmas Celebrations 2025 and 2026.

Before the service began, Pastor Gavin shared on 1Corinthians 13:13. Among the three elements in the Bible verse, “love” will last for eternity. When we see Jesus, we don’t need “faith” and “hope” anymore, but we still need “love”. But today, God wants us to have faith and hope as they are the foundation of our Christian life. The foundation of faith is from the Word of God. Faith is also the base for our Christian living while hope helps keep our focus. Love is the action of our Christian life. All we Christians do is out of love. We should love God and love others. We respond to God’s love by loving others.

Then brother Jack welcomed everyone and brothers and sisters greeted one another joyfully. After that, brother Jun and his team led us to worship our Lord together.

Sister Precy from Love Group shared about how God restored her faith in Him in a video testimony. In 2018, she got into serious financial problems which brought great troubles to her and her family and also affected her relationship with God. She felt very depressed. But God reminded her of her past victory when God miraculously healed her of breast cancer in 2009. Then she started to refocus on God and hold onto God’s promises, and became stronger and more confident. Praise the Lord that she is going to church with her daughter and serving in the Praise and Worship Team now.

After that, brothers and sisters performed a skit telling the story of Joseph and Mary. Brother Alan performed as Joseph, who went through the struggles of marrying Mary (sister Panda), who was chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus. Joseph demonstrated faith in action as he obeyed God’s command to marry Mary even though he did not know what would happen later. The humorous acting of brothers and sisters relived the Bible story and gave us a fresh and clear picture of how the couple went through the lesson of faith.

Then Pastor Gavin preached on Matthew 1:24-25. God wants us to live our Christian life seriously, not because we fear that God would punish us but because of how wonderful God is. That is the beginning of wisdom. Reading God’s Word helps us remain in God and sustain our faith in Him. Joseph was a good example of faith in action. Even in hardships, he went all the way to follow God’s command. How can we keep our faith in the midst of hardships and inconvenience? The answer is to have fear of the Lord and let our faith be rooted in the Word of God. Troubles are inevitable as we are living in an imperfect world. However, if our faith is built on the fear of God and the Word of God, it will sustain us in the Lord. Our lives will be blessed and God will honour us for what we have done for Him.

Thank God for giving us hope through Christ Jesus. Let us continue to build up our faith in Him !