Zion Church Online Bulletin

Week No. 47 | 19 November 2023 Thanksgiving Lord's Day

LORD’S DAY SERVICE ORDER

PRESIDER: Elder Anthony Lim
*Silent Prayer
*Confession of Faith
Hymn 48
Responsive Reading:
65. Thanksgiving Day (2)
65. 感恩节 (2)
Prayer by Elder Anthony Lim
Scripture Reading:
Lev 23:24-44
利未记 23:44
Choir Anthem by Sharon Choir
All good gifts
所有好礼物
Sermon by Pastor Samuel Kim
Feast of Thanksgiving (Tishri Feasts)
感恩节 (七月节期)
Hymn 308
Offering Prayer by Elder Anthony Lim
Offering Song:
Hymn 307 – See the birds that fly the heavens
看鸟儿飞翔天堂

(Sharon Choir)
Announcements by Elder Anthony Lim
*Hymn 6
*Benediction by Pastor Samuel Kim

*Congregation Standing

ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • Let us continue to pray for the growth and revival of our church and for the work of evangelism and missions.
  • Please refer to the following for our service times:

    • Lord’s Day (Sunday) service @ 10:45 am*
    • Lord’s Day Bible study at 1:30 pm
    • Wednesday service @ 7:40 pm*
    • Saturday Dawn service @ 6:00 am

    *Also broadcasted live on YouTube for Lord’s Day & Wed Services: http://live.zionchurch.sg

    *也在 YouTube 上直播主日和周三礼拜: http://live.zionchurch.sg

  • The Precept for 2023: “A Church that strives toward the Consummation of Redemptive History by following the path of Abraham’s faith” (Gen 18:18-19; 26:5; Gal 3:7-9; Col 1:25; Tit 2:14)

    “一个跟随亚伯拉罕信心的道路,努力完成救赎历史的教会”
    (创 18:18-19;26:5;加 3:7-9;西 1:25;多 2:14)

  • Today isThanksgiving Lord’s Day. Let us sincerely give thanks to God and celebrate! The Women’s Ministry has prepared Thanksgiving Luncheon. Please join in to celebrate together.
  • There will be Baptism Service at 1:45pm in Zion Sanctuary today.
  • Zion Church Retreat 2023 will be this Tue-Thu (21-23 Nov) at Desaru.
    Please pray that God’s glory will be proclaimed and that all who attend will be blessed through the Word.

    There will be a quick but important briefing right after service for the participants, please stay behind in Zion Sanctuary.

  • All Departments and ministries, please be reminded to submit your 2024 Department Budget latest by 31 Dec 2023.

SERVICE DUTIES

Prayer (Wed 22 Nov) Dcn. John Tan
Presider (Sun 26 Nov) Eld. Steve Yoon
Basket Bearers (Sun 26 Nov) Eld. Tan Pau Soon, Eld. Anthony Lim

OFFERING & TITHE

Via Internet Banking

You can give an offering electronically by transferring to the following account:

Please make sure to indicate your name, type of offering and the date info under the memo/remarks sections when initiating the transfer. Please indicate your offerings’ purpose especially for TITHES (to be listed as TH).
Note: Any online offerings without indications of whether for tithing, thanksgiving, building, mission, etc will be recorded as regular offerings.
Thank you for your assistance.

1. For regular, tithes, thanksgiving, special, and missions offerings ONLY
OCBC Bank Account: ZION CHURCH
Account Number: 621835867001
PayNow UEN #: T00SS0141D
Swift: OCBCSGSGXXX
Bank Address: CHULIA STREET, 63, OCBC CENTRE, FLOOR 10, SINGAPORE

NOTE: Please specify Name, Purpose and Date (ddmmmyy) of the offering in the MEMO or Bill Reference Number section. See Example 1.

2. Offering toward Missions Offering or Book Drive to support broadcasts of the History of Redemption Series globally, can be made in the following ways to HORA Ministries:

1) Direct bank transfer to:

DBS (Development Bank of Singapore)
Account Holder: LI JIA TSUEY or CAI XIAO FEN ERICA
Account Number: 271-310151-9 (Account Type: Multi Currency Account)
Currency Type: All currencies accepted (US$, S$, etc)
Address of Beneficiary Bank: 12 Marina Boulevard, DBS Asia Central, Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, Singapore 018982
Country: Singapore
SWIFT Address/Code: DBSSSGSG

2) PayNow to HORA Ministries via NRIC S7638942Z

3) Indicating “Book Drive” or “Missions” on the offering envelopes.

Use the following acronyms to indicate Purpose (offering type):

    • RO = Regular Offering
    • TH = Tithes
    • TG = Thanksgiving
    • SP = Special Offering
    • MO = Missions Offering
    • BO = Building Offering

Example 1:
JohnDoe TH 05APR20
SamMiller TG 05Mar20
JaneSmith RO 03May20

Example 2:
JohnDoe BO 05APR20

By Mail

You may mail your offering cheques to Zion Church to below address:
“Finance Department”.
2 Gambas Crescent, Nordcom 2 Tower 2 #10-13. Singapore 757044.

By ATM

You may transfer via ATM:
BUT PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO SPECIFY TYPE OF OFFERING if you use this option.
Please inform any Finance Team member if want your offering to be recorded.

  • Eldress May Ling
  • Deaconess Leh Tieng
  • Elder Steve

Living Manna

Sermon Summary
Hebrews 09 – About Melchizedek (Observe how great this man was)

Scripture: 1 Peter 7:1-8

The author of Hebrews was talking about how amazing and precious Jesus’ ministry is and how real His Word is. The writer of Hebrews is introducing this Word as the Word of Melchizedek. Hebrews 6 speaks about what is the advanced deeper understanding of the Word of God. It is not just understanding through the head, but it is really living out the Word of God. It is receiving the Word and understanding it throughout our lives. Those who come to understand and graduate from the elementary principles and really apply this Word into our life in the form of love of God, will be able to understand Melchizedek.

1. The order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:11)

The ‘order’ in Hebrews 7:11 in Greek is taxis (τάξις), it means an arrangement of things in sequence, a fixed succession order. All these meanings have a concept of sequence. The priests in Israel were all in the order of Aaron, in the tribe of Levites. Because they were imperfect human beings, they also sinned and were corrupt. The priest in the order of Aaron only fulfilled the task to satisfy the law, but they could not fully satisfy the law, they did it only temporarily, that is why they had to repeat sacrifice offerings.

That is why we need someone in the order of Melchizedek to give us something greater than the law. This order of Melchizedek existed before Jesus took the high priest position. The word ‘order’ is sequential, and Jesus existed before Melchizedek.

  1. About Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:1-3, 8)
    1. Melchizedek is the king of righteousness
    2. Melchizedek means my righteous King. Righteousness in the Bible is the opposite of sinfulness (Romans 3:10). There is no righteous man on this earth, the only righteous One is God Himself. We are called righteous because Jesus died on the cross, justified us and called us righteous.

      The end and purpose of God’s work in the Bible is righteousness. That is why He came down to this earth to die on the cross. He has to forgive our sins so He can give us righteousness. The state of righteousness, the state without sin, is called Sabbath. That is when we can enjoy that true eternal peace.

    3. His name is called King of Salem
    4. Salem in Hebrew is Shalem, this comes from the word Shalom which means peace. Jerusalem is the City of Peace. The Word that Melchizedek brings to us is the Word of righteousness, the Word that deletes our sins, the Word that brings us into eternal peace.

      Jesus washed our sins away through the blood of the cross, so He is the King of righteousness just like Melchizedek. After His death on the cross and His resurrection, Jesus always said in Isaiah 9:6 “Peace! I give you peace that the world cannot give”. Jesus is the Prince of peace.

    5. Melchizedek is without mother, without father
    6. Mary was used to bring Jesus into this world, but Jesus had no biological correlation with Joseph, Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is also God who is originally spirit (1 Corinthians 15:50).

    7. Melchizedek is without genealogy
    8. The genealogy we study is the genealogy of the covenant, and the result of that covenant is Jesus Christ. This genealogy shows God’s promise, the seed of the woman. The carriage of the seed is through the genealogy of faith, and not the bloodline genealogy.

      In Hebrews 7, the word ‘without genealogy’ uses the Greek word, ‘genealogia’ (γενεαλογία), is referring to biological genealogy. The Greek word ‘geneseos’ (γενέσεως ) in Matthew 1, it is referring to the lineage of God’s covenant. So there is a great difference between geneseos vs geneologia. Melchizedek is One without genealogia, Jesus too is without genealogia. Jesus is a finale of God’s Word passing down generations. Therefore Jesus is the One who belongs to the living and not of the dead. He belongs to the genealogy of the covenant, genealogy of heaven but not of this earth.

    9. Having neither beginning of days nor end of life
    10. Revelation 21:6: And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts”. Jesus is outside of this limited finite time and space, same as Melchizedek (John 1:3, Revelation 1:8).

    11. He is a perpetual priest of God Most High
    12. Eternal priest, it has no starting point nor end point. Melchizedek was high priest from before time existed, so is Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God and Melchizedek being “like” the Son of God. Greek word for ‘like’ is aphomoioo (ἀφομοιόω) which means of the same nature, similar. Not exactly the same in all aspects and conditions, but essentially the same nature.

    13. Received tithes

Just as God commanded all the Israelites to give tithes to the Levites, Abraham gave his tithes to Melchizedek. The commandment of tithes came to Moses during the wilderness journey. But Abraham existed way before Moses. This means all the tithes in the world since the start, are given to Melchizedek. All the tithes Levites would ever receive later in time, were given to Melchizedek through Abraham, this is what Hebrews 7 is explaining (Hebrews 7:2, 4-10).

Tithes is something we offer only to God. God calls us thieves if we stole His tithes, and that God has not changed from Old Testament to New Testament. Tithing is not a ritual or ceremonial task, but it is an expression of our faith, a confession that everything we have came from God and belongs to God.

2. Jesus’ redemptive work and the Order of Melchizedek

Since Jesus is not in the order of Aaron, He is not bound by the law and did not come to give the law. Jesus became a high priest in the order of Melchizedek, through obedience by offering up Himself. Jesus fulfilled the law through obedience, therefore the law cannot bind Jesus anymore. He fulfilled the requirements of priests in the order of Aaron, and now Jesus came into the order of Melchizedek.

When Jesus came to this earth, He came with a new name Jesus Christ (Romans 5:12-13, Matthew 1:21). Christ in Greek, chrīstós (χριστός) means anointed One. In Hebrew, it means Messiah. Yahweh was the name of God given during the Exodus. Jehovah Jirah was God’s name after Abraham offered up Isaac. These names and titles of God were revealed to us to show us God’s ministry, what God is doing in that moment.

After Jesus died on the cross and made us righteous through His blood, Jesus became the high priest in the order of Melchizedek, not a priest under the law (Hebrews 5:8-10, Hebrews 7:11-20). When He knows we are no longer condemned under the law anymore, then Jesus is called the high priest in the order of Melchizedek. We are redeemed from the curse of Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, through the Word of righteousness. Now that we are redeemed from the curse of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we have to progress and go to the Tree of Life.

In conclusion,

the name Jesus means the one who saves us from our sins, which means God has to die. But now that Jesus’ work is done, we don’t need to crucify Him again. For the sake of understanding Him for the next step we need to graduate to, He reveals His name Melchizedek. Only Jesus Christ is the king of peace, only Melchizedek is the king of peace. These are not 2 different people, but Melchizedek is the glorified version of Jesus Christ. For us to see Jesus as Melchizedek, if we want to follow our Lord who is called Melchizedek, then we should be at a place spiritually where we don’t have to crucify Jesus again. That is the mature level of faith.

Melchizedek describes our Lord’s ministry and status before the fall and after redemption. We need Him now if we want to receive that eternal life. The order of Melchizedek is set by God Himself, Jesus Himself. It is just that Jesus has to lower Himself down from that level to our level, and when He is now designated back in the order of Melchizedek, that means He is bringing us up to that higher level now.

May every member of Zion Church be mature spiritually so that we can follow Him, all the way straight to the Tree of Life. May that eternal life be our peace, our righteousness.

AMEN.

Pastor Samuel Kim

2023-11-25T16:19:29+00:00
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