Sermon Text: Psalms 1–6
Speaker: Pr Cornelius Koshy
Date: 10th April 2022
Sermon Text: Psalms 1–6
Speaker: Pr Cornelius Koshy
Date: 10th April 2022
As a pastor, I am very thankful to God whenever I notice the presence of children in the church. To see them sitting on the front rows of chairs on the Lord’s Day at our worship services, or on Tuesday nights for our Bible study-cum-prayer meeting, always brings a surge of joy to my heart. How pleasing is their singing of hymns! They are ever eager to sing their choices of songs with the congregation. Their close proximity to the pulpit further gives me the pleasure of hearing their enthusiastic singing. I rejoice when they hurriedly come to join me to pray. I also thank the Lord that they listen to the preaching of the Word attentively. Whether it be on the Lord’s Day or other days, it is wonderful to see many parents making every effort to bring their children along to the Lord’s house.
Nonetheless, I am also concerned that some other children are afforded very few opportunities to come to church by their parents. Fathers and mothers, it is your God-given duty to provide as many opportunities as possible for your children to be involved in the church activities. Do not let your undue concern for their secular education and other activities deprive these young precious souls of their great need for spiritual nurture.
Parents, have mercy on the souls of your children! They may be little ones, but they are precious immortal souls. The care for their souls must far exceed the care for their mortal bodies! Have compassion on the poor souls of your “heritage of the LORD” (Psalm 127:3a)! Your vulnerable kids are day by day being sucked into the “miry pit” of anxiety for worldly success. Beware, for the world is relentlessly seeking to ensnare their souls! No God-honouring Christian parent can afford to be slack in ensuring that his or her children are nurtured in the most excellent Christian environment. Christian children’s participation in the church activities is far more important than their involvement in their school or other extra-curricular activities. If you only care for their earthly success, you are being downright irresponsible in your God-given task to nurture their souls!
By way of testimony, from my experience of bringing up three children together with my beloved wife, and having given over twenty years of my efforts to the pastoral supervision of the children in our church, I can sincerely and candidly vouch that nothing is more helpful and profitable for the nurture of Christian children than providing them with maximum (not minimum or occasional) opportunity to participate in the soul-nurturing activities of the church. Whether they be worship services, prayer meetings, children’s programmes, evangelism sessions, camps or retreats, let us not undervalue their great profitability in the nurture and protection of our children’s souls.
Regular participation in church events with children would mean concerted discipline and commitment on the parents’ part. Notwithstanding all the troubles of taking them to church activities, you would have done the most vital duty of guarding and guiding your children’s souls. Please do not fear or give in to weariness. The troubles that you bear to ensure the spiritual nurture and fortification of your children’s souls will not be in vain. With much prayer and thanksgiving, make every effort to bring your children to the church activities. Just as Jesus admonishes us, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).
As a parting shot, Christian parents and all those who labour in the children’s ministry ought also to pray earnestly for the children’s repentance, salvation, spiritual growth, fruitfulness, etc., for they are dealing with precious immortal souls. Children are priceless in the sight of our Saviour. Their salvation and sanctification are His concern; so should they be the concern of everyone who ministers to them on Christ’s behalf. After all, Jesus specifically says, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15b)!
“Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord” (Colossians 3:20).
God commands us on our proper conduct towards our dear ones in the family. God is insistent on how His children would regard and relate to one another in the home. All our family relationships are to be managed and nurtured according to the divine guidelines given in His Word. If we truly fear God and maintain a life of piety, then it ought to be seen in our conduct at home, in our relationships to our parents, our children, our spouses, our siblings and our other relatives.
Christian children are commanded to obey their parents. This command to obey requires that children show respect to their fathers and mothers. Holy Scripture repeatedly enjoins children to “Honour thy father and mother” (Exodus 20:12; Matthew 15:4; Ephesians 6:2). Children owe their parents an inward affection and regard. They must cultivate a courteous, respectful attitude towards their parents, and honour their parents with tokens of respect.
Even when children are grown up and their parents become aged, love and respect towards parents should continue. Proverbs 23:22 admonishes us, “Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.” Likewise, Proverbs 19:26 cautions, “He that wasteth his father, and chaseth away his mother, is a son that causeth shame, and bringeth reproach.” Let no Christian ever be disrespectful to their aged and needy parents. When parents grow weak and frail, when they become helpless, or somewhat burdensome, we must shower them with tenderness, love and respect. Let us recall all their efforts and good advice they have rendered to bring us up, and show our thankfulness through our deeds of kindness and respect. Some parents might have failed in their parental duties; yet, Christians are duty-bound to show respect and care towards them at all times.
Younger children and youths are to obey their parents “in all things”. Their attitude of obedience must be shown in all aspects of life. Only when the parents’ instructions are contrary to God’s Word are children allowed to disagree with their parents. Ephesians 6:1 says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” Obeying parents in the Lord is the right thing to do and is well pleasing unto the Lord.
Sermon Text: Psalm 6
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 3rd April 2022
The words of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ – “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15b) – should always bear rule on our hearts. It is our Lord’s mandate to His people that His Gospel is to be offered to the whole world. The Lord, in His divine sovereignty, has ordained the means of salvation of all His elect in all nations of the world through worldwide preaching of the Gospel of Christ.
Those words of Christ give the Gospel work a global scope. The Gospel of Jesus Christ must be extended beyond all boundaries, divisions and classes. The whole world is to be reached with the Gospel. When it comes to our commitment to spread the Gospel, it should not be subject to limitations of country, distinctions of culture, barriers of ethnicity, or restraints of language. Wherever there is man, Christians should attempt to bring the Gospel. Our Lord has commanded us to constantly expand our vision for the Gospel outreach.
It is gross disobedience to limit our attempt to spread the Gospel beyond our region. We must be ever ready to forward the Gospel to new frontiers. No one who takes the words of the Lord seriously can remain passive about the global advancement of the Gospel. World missions being entrusted to the church would mean that we send men with the Gospel to people far and wide (Rom. 10:14–17).
Christians must know that they are commissioned by their Lord and Saviour to be wholly involved in the global movement for the Gospel. They must join forces, as God has enabled them, with the rest of the church to send forth the Gospel everywhere. Every Christian should be involved in this divine global endeavour. Though not every Christian is called to be an evangelist or missionary or preacher, every Christian and every church must joyfully yield to advance the Gospel across the world.
Christian mothers and fathers must teach their children the importance of global missions. They must in their homes pray for the missionaries and mission works. The parents must discuss with the children how they can be involved or play a part in the mission works of their churches. Pastors and elders must make sure that their congregations are part of church-planting ministries around the world by sending and supporting missionaries.
The preaching of the Gospel is the greatest work that Christ has entrusted to Christians. Therefore, all true Christians must enthusiastically give themselves to making Gospel preaching a worldwide movement. It must be their joy to be part of the Lord’s grand plan for redeeming sinners, and for gathering them as His saints for the eternal celestial home which He is preparing. The apostle Paul asks us, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:14-15).
Our Lord says to us, “Go!” Will we then answer Him, “No, we will stay back or hold back…”? Our Lord’s charge is that we must always be committed to spreading the Gospel. Let us arise then and go to preach the Gospel to the uttermost part of the world. Let us do our part for global evangelism.
Prayer is very vital in the fulfilment of Gospel missions. This is because firstly, world evangelism is God’s plan. Moreover, it is God who acts through His servants, who proclaim the Gospel to save and make disciples from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation, that churches may be established everywhere. Without God, we can do nothing in the work of the Gospel everywhere. “So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:7).
When we pray to God for global missions, we acknowledge Him as the true Architect and Builder of missions. We pray to Him for missions, humbly acknowledging that we are depending on and yielding to His plans for the salvation of souls in all the world. Prayer has a great deal to do with missions. The success of all real missionary efforts is dependent on prayer.
An important part of our church prayer meeting on Tuesday night is given to seek the Lord’s help and blessings for our church’s various missions around the world. I urge you to be there for the prayer meeting, and to give yourselves in prayer for this great work of global missions.
I praise the Lord for sending people from the neighbourhood of the new mission station. The Lord brought 5 teens and 3 adults from Macayug last Lord’s Day. Most of the children attending the Junior Worship over the years have also come from that neighbourhood. In fact, some of those children, who have grown up, are now attending our adult worship services. At present, 12 out of 15 children who are regularly attending the Junior Worship are newcomers.
Last week, God has enabled us to visit the homes of brethren who come from Binalonan and Asingan. Thank God for the strength and provision to share God’s Word with them.
Incidentally, I noticed that many from the cultic church of Mormons are making frequent home visitations in Macayug. They usually conduct their studies on the weekdays and Sundays. They visit the homes of poor people, especially those with disabilities. May the Lord help me to warn the people about their lies and introduce the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I praise the Lord for the labour of Bro Jumar and Bro Kyt in fetching the brethren using their own vehicles. Bro Kyt is bringing our brethren from Binday while Bro Jumar is ferrying the brethren from Villasis. They did not require the church to pay them for the service. Thank God they are very happy serving the Lord in this ministry. However, with the recent higher costs of diesel and gasoline, I gave them a fuel subsidy of PHP2,000 to help them with the surging costs. God willing, the subsidy will be given to them monthly as a token of thanksgiving for their labour.
Jesher (my son) is now in the last stages of his Primary 1 studies. They have only three weeks left for this school year. We are planning to transfer him to another school because his school is only Christian in name. I feel very uncomfortable when the teachers introduce worldly songs and activities to the class. Most teachers are also not Christians, but from Roman Catholic, Jehovah’s Witness and Iglesia ni Cristo (another cultic church) backgrounds. May the Lord guide us to find a good Christian School for him.
(Pastor’s Note: Pr Donald dela Cruz updates us frequently with reports of the Gospel work in the Pangasinan area of the Philippines. The above report was sent to us last week. We thank God for brethren like Jumar and Kyt, whom the Lord has blessed with spiritual fervour and faithfulness while they were working here in Singapore. Having returned to their homes in Pangasinan, they now fervently serve the Lord, along with Pr Donald. Let us also remember and pray for Pr Donald’s wife, Sis Se Jin, and their son, Jesher).
Sermon Text: Psalm 5
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 27th March 2022
In Thanksgiving Commemoration of 34th Anniversary of GBPC
Dear brethren, today we worship the LORD with hearts full of gratitude and praise for our salvation and our fellowship in the church, which He has graciously bestowed upon us. God’s gracious guidance and blessings have enabled Gethsemane to grow strong and stay united hitherto, for the work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Singapore and in several other countries. Let us “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name” (Psalm 100:4).
An appropriate response that would reflect our sincere appreciation for His salvation and strengthening to serve Him would be to dedicate ourselves to do His will concerning us in the days ahead. We particularly want to recall and meditate on His plan for His people revealed in His desire concerning His children in Philippians 2:15 – “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”
Herein is God’s expectation of how His children ought to be in this world of sin and violence. There must be a marked difference in their conduct from that of the unregenerate people of this world. Christians ought to shine as lights in this dark world. That would be possible if and only if they are what the Spirit of God urges them to be in today’s text.
First and foremost, as sons of God, Christians ought to be “blameless”. The original Greek word for “blameless” (amemptoi) carries the idea of “above reproach”. All God’s children must know that it is our Father’s will that we live a life that is not marred by accusations of misconduct. We must not allow any occasion to be charged with wrongdoing. This is not to say that we will not be falsely accused of wrongdoing. But rather we must not be insincere professors of our Christian faith. We Christians must be like Paul, who said, “Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day” (Acts 23:1).
Secondly, as sons of God, Christians are encouraged to be “harmless”. The original Greek word for “harmless” (akéraios) appears only one more time in the New Testament, in Matthew 10:16 – “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” The idea denoted by the word seems to be “without guile”. Christians are exhorted here to bear an untainted testimony.
A person who is truly justified by faith will surely pursue a sanctified life. The evidence of a sanctified life is expected in all God’s children. How could those who live unsanctified lives be truly said to be “sons of God”? Those who have become the sons of God by faith will have a desire to live a holy life, and will constantly seek to lay aside every sin that does easily beset them. God’s children will not become sinless immediately, but they, being guided by His Spirit and truth, will endeavour to please their Father by walking in holiness and bearing a good testimony.
A commitment to live a holy life is necessary, for all children of God are exhorted to be “without rebuke”. To be “without rebuke” is to live without giving any cause for complaints against oneself. Oh, how careful every child of God ought to be in this world, which is full of temptations and provocations! So, be watchful and be prayerful to bear a good testimony at all times.
Therefore, Christians are not to merge with the world in such a way that nothing about their faith and commitment is discernible to others. Such an idea of the Christian life is totally unbiblical. In fact, genuine Christians, being committed to a “blameless and harmless” life, will find themselves at odds with the rest of the society that is lost in their sins and unbelief.
According to the Scriptures, the world is “crooked and perverse”. Moses had used similar words to describe Israel who had gone astray - “They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation” (Deuteronomy 32:5). The Scriptural description of the world we live in is grim and sobering. It cautions Christians that the world’s sentiments and aspirations are perverted in the sight of God.
Hence, Christians cannot be an unobtrusive or harmonious part of the world by being similar in appearance or behaviour. To blend in with the world, in God’s sight, is to be dark as the world. He expects us to be quite the opposite. He exhorts us to shine as lights in this dark world.
In the Bible, “light” symbolises the Gospel of salvation, truth, holiness, wisdom, joy, and everything pleasant and bright in the sight of God. So, Christians are appointed by God as lights to declare and demonstrate to the world His character and purposes by all that they say and do. This has been underscored by the Lord Jesus. He said to all who followed Him, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).
When we shine as lights in this dark world, we don’t become isolationists. The Bible does not teach us to live a hermit’s life by moving out of society. Rather, we are instructed to engage with others, not by following after their ways, but by showing them the light of Christ and His truths via our words and deeds. The designated place for light is the darkness where it is needed. Let us live in our societies as God’s luminaries to guide those who grope in sin’s darkness unto His salvation, joy, wisdom and peace.
Today, I would like to publish, for the edification of all readers, some excellent thoughts on the use of the book of Psalms by Matthew Henry (1662–1714) in his renowned Bible commentary’s introduction to the book of Psalms.—Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
All scripture, being given by inspiration of God, is profitable to convey divine light into our understandings; but this book is of singular use with that to convey divine life and power, and a holy warmth, into our affections. There is no one book of scripture that is more helpful to the devotions of the saints than this, and it has been so in all ages of the church, ever since it was written and the several parts of it were delivered to the chief musician for the service of the church.
1. It is of use to be sung.
Further than David’s psalms, we may go, but we need not, for hymns and spiritual songs. What the rules of the Hebrew metre were even the learned are not certain. But these psalms ought to be rendered according to the metre of every language, at least so as that they may be sung for the edification of the church. And methinks it is a great comfort to us, when we are singing David’s psalms, that we are offering the very same praises to God that were offered to him in the days of David and the other godly kings of Judah. So rich, so well made, are these divine poems, that they can never be exhausted, can never be worn thread-bare.
2. It is of use to be read and opened by the ministers of Christ, as containing great and excellent truths, and rules concerning good and evil. Our Lord Jesus expounded the psalms to his disciples, the gospel psalms, and opened their understandings (for he had the key of David) to understand them, Lu. 24:44.
3. It is of use to be read and meditated upon by all good people.
It is a full fountain, out of which we may all be drawing water with joy.
If we make David’s psalms familiar to us, as we ought to do, whatever errand we have at the throne of grace, by way of confession, petition, or thanksgiving, we may thence be assisted in the delivery of it; whatever devout affection is working in us, holy desire or hope, sorrow or joy, we may there find apt words wherewith to clothe it, sound speech which cannot be condemned.
It will be good to collect the most proper and lively expressions of devotion which we find here, and to methodize them, and reduce them to the several heads of prayer, that they may be the more ready to us. Or we may take sometimes one choice psalm and sometimes another, and pray it over, that is, enlarge upon each verse in our own thoughts, and offer up our meditations to God as they arise from the expressions we find there. The learned Dr. Hammond, in his preface to his paraphrase on the
(sect. 29), says, “That going over a few psalms with these interpunctions of mental devotion, suggested, animated, and maintained, by the native life and vigour which is in the psalms, is much to be preferred before the saying over the whole Psalter, since nothing is more fit to be averted in religious offices than their degenerating into heartless dispirited recitations.”
If, as St. Austin advises, we form our spirit by the affection of the psalm, we may then be sure of acceptance with God in using the language of it. Nor is it only our devotion, and the affections of our mind, that the book of Psalms assists, teaching us how to offer praise so as to glorify God, but, it is also a directory to the actions of our lives, and teaches us how to order our conversation aright, so as that, in the end, we may see the salvation of God, Ps. 50:23.
The Psalms were thus serviceable to the Old-Testament church, but to us Christians they may be of more use than they could be to those who lived before the coming of Christ; for, as Moses’s sacrifices, so David’s songs, are expounded and made more intelligible by the gospel of Christ, which lets us within the veil; so that if to David’s prayers and praises we all St. Paul’s prayers in his epistles, and the new songs in the Revelation, we shall be thoroughly furnished for this good work; for the scripture, perfected, makes the man of God perfect.
Sermon Text: Psalm 4
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 20th March 2022
Sermon Text: Psalm 3
Speaker: Pastor Prabhudas Koshy
Date: 13th March 2022
Two weeks ago, we started a new sermon series during the Lord’s Day morning worship services from the Book of Psalms. We shall endeavour to study the Book of Psalms, as the LORD enables us by His Spirit, and at the same time praying for great blessings of these truths upon our lives.
(God willing, more on the Psalms next week…)