Our church modest growth was possible because God brought in people who love the Lord, at different stages of our church journey in these five years to advance gospel work. Soli Deo gloria(all glory to God alone)! May this history strengthen our faith because we have witnessed the grace and power of God in saving souls and overcoming all kinds of difficulty. May this history also move our hearts to achieve greater things for our Lord. The years 2009-2013 had been exciting because we have done great things for God: in the face of numerous difficulties, we founded a new church and souls are saved. The journey was very exciting. We have made a difference in eternity because souls are saved and lives have changed for eternity.
God willing, we will celebrate our tenth anniversary in 2019. I wonder, on the fourth Sunday of the year 2019, what will the Power Point Presentation be like? We will quite surely recall the important events in the years 2009-2014. But for the years 2015-2019, what will we be recalling? Will the next five years be just as, if not more exciting than 2009-2013? Or will our church history be dull? Will more souls be saved and new gospel work be started in the years 2015-2019, or will we only be able to celebrate about mediocre things? As an individual, you have done work that lasts forever in the years 2009-2013. In the fourth Sunday of the year 2019, when you watch the PPT slides, will you be able to say: “Praise the Lord! I have contributed to the eternal work of Tree of Life Christian Church in the last five years of 2014-2019.”
If we hope that the pages of Tree of Life Christian Church history in 2014-2019 are going to be exciting, we need to do this: save souls. Christians exist to save souls. Jesus says: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot” (Mat 5:13). Your life must save another person from hell to heaven.
Look around you: your family members, your relatives, your neighbours and your friends. No matter how happy they look, deep inside them, they have no true joy and peace. They are thirsty and hungry inside them. How can they have peace when they have not solved the problem of where they are going after they die? How can they be happy when they are living in a world that is filled with so much sufferings? We only have five years before we celebrate our tenth anniversary. Time flies. Stop wasting time. Stop worrying about the things of the world. Stop worrying about yourself. Rather, do God’s work. God will take care of you.