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This week we focus on how liturgy has shaped the Anglican tradition with a focus on saturating our lives with Scripture, both during Sunday worship services as well as in our own personal devotions. Reverend Daniel shares with us this morning.

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Today we will be looking at God's word together. We are currently on a thematic series on the church. Last week, uh Pastor Wei shared through the topic of liturgy and worship. Today we will focus on how liturgy actually was shaped in our Anglican tradition with a focus on these few words. And I want us to just repeat these words after me. It says, putting scripture in our hands. Can you turn to someone next to you and say, putting scripture in our hands? So that is the focus. We will see uh later that this is what uh our tradition or the Anglican tradition has uh in its formative stage. Uh it felt that there's a need to have scripture accessible and readily uh adaptable to the context of our times, so that we are soaked in them, not only in our corporate gatherings like this, but also in our personal devotions to God. This is soaked in the liturgy of the book of common prayer. So uh it's a new term uh for all of us here, I believe. Uh, the Book of Common Prayer or BCP for short. So this is uh conceived in the 16th century, uh in the time of the Reformation, where uh Thomas Kramer was the one that uh uh went through the first two editions of the book. So it almost is like the prayer book for us. But what I want to do is to bring us through uh the liturgy, at least just the beginning, so that for us to have a sense of the grubs, when Thomas Kramer first designed the liturgy for private press or communal gatherings, his focus was to soak in scripture daily. So we have can we have the next slide? So uh I'm not sure whether you uh could see, uh perhaps it's a bit small, you can take a picture and and go within it. But if you look at it, there are it begins, the preface begins just by quoting scripture after scripture, and that is to remind us of God's word, right? Uh Ezekiel 18 verse 27 says, When the wicked man turns away from his wickedness that he had committed, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Psalm 51 verse 3 I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Psalm 51, verse 9. Hide thy face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Psalm 51, verse 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, thou wilt not despise. Joel 2, verse 13, Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repent him of the evil. Deuteronomy 9, verses 9 to 10. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness. Though we have rebelled against him, neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws which he set before us. O Lord, correct me, but with judgment, not in divine, not in thy anger, least thou bring me to nothing. Jeremiah 10, verse 24, Psalm 6, verse 1. Matthew 3, verse 2, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Luke 15, verse 18 and 19. I will rise and go to my father and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am not worthy to be called thy son. Enter not into thy judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. And then, of course, we are familiar with this because this is adapted for our services. 1 John 1, 8 to 9. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But we if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So this is just a sample for us to see when Kramer, the ingenuity of crafting this, is if daily we are exposed to these verses every morning, every day, as we come before the Lord, somehow scripture will be formed within us. And this is uh taken from the book of common prayer, 1662. So, of course, there are various forms that have been updated. So this is in old English, but the the understanding is this scripture forms part of our daily living and waking. So our focus today will not be on the liturgy of the BCP or the Book of Common Prayer, but my focus today will rather be on how scripture should shape our devotional life in God. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we pray today, even as we gather as your people, would you open up the truth of your word to us? Cause us to be enlivened by your spirit, take us beyond ourselves, so that as we behold your word, we may see wonderful things in your law. We praise you and give you thanks in the name of Jesus. Amen. So there are a few parts to my sharing today. The first part, what I like to do, is just to bring us uh through some of the uh the historical journey where how Thomas Cranmer himself focused on the priority of scripture in living under the word of God. I mean, we've been mentioning his name very often, Thomas Cramer, since I started. We may wonder who he is, right? He was the Archbishop of Canterbury and was the principal leader of the English Reformation in the 16th century. Why he's being quoted and mentioned is because in his inception, uh, he was the one that gave us the Book of Common Prayer and even the adapted forms of our liturgy today. So you can see on the slide, these are some of the things that in the 16th century was being worked out, right? Uh 1547, the official homilies or uh so-called uh short sermons that are being preached, uh being done up and prepared by him. They are still accessible online, right? So, because he realized the first thing the people of God when they gather is they need to hear, uh, they need to be encouraged uh through the word of God. So the first thing that came out actually wasn't the book of common prayer or the prayer book, it was a series of short sermons or what we call official homilies to guide the people uh uh in the ways and the works of God. And then in 1548, there's something called a new catechism, and it's in 1549 and 1552 that we have the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer or the BCP. Right? So this will be the first thing. I hope that you all will not fall asleep on me. I promise we will be brief, yeah, on a Sunday morning. Uh we will then, after that, uh look at Psalm 119, the scripture that was read for us by Regina, and then we will draw implications from Cranmer and from Psalm 119 for our lives today. So the first point, how Thomas Cramer focused on the priority of scripture in living under the word of God. That means we are coming under the authority of the word. So Kramer began his homily on scripture uh with these words unto a Christian man or Christian woman, there can be nothing either more necessary or profitable than the knowledge of holy scripture. For as much as in it is contained God's true word, setting forth his glory and man's duty. So just a brief history. Uh, during the time of Cranmer, he lived directly in the context in which England broke away from the authority of the Pope in Rome uh through the landmark Act of Supremacy in 1534. That's the important date, uh, the Act of Supremacy in 1534, which abolished the authority of the Pope over England and made Henry VIII the supreme head of the Church of England. It was also during that time in the 1500s, in the 16th century, that uh there were reformers uh among the Lutherans and um among uh in Switzerland and in Germany that uh Cranmer got in touch with and there was a fellowship between them. And eventually, uh, as I shared with us earlier, together with uh inputs from the reformers in Switzerland and Germany, uh he crafted uh the homilies, the catechism, and the book of common prayer for us. So, what I want to uh focus today is the whole primacy of scripture uh that the reformers place as the main importance because they were breaking away from the authority of Rome or from the Pope, which says that uh the ability or the authority to interpret scripture lies in the Pope or those with vested authority, right? So only they can interpret scripture, but the reformers, including the Church of England, was saying that no, the authority to interpret and read the word lies in the people, not just in those with vested authority like the Pope or his clergy or his or the priest during that time. So, because of that, uh the reformers emphasize that it is in scriptures or in God's word that God is to be found. You want to know where God is found, is found in his word and known, and it's it's in scriptures that God is to be found and known, and it's in the scriptures that God's people are to find and to know themselves. For this reason, chief among the priorities of the reformers was the desire to see the church in England brought under the guiding influence of the life-giving word of God. And Kramer himself held passionately that the one sure cure for the corruption of evils besetting the church in the 16th century was to return to the sources, and one of the sources for the Christian is scripture itself and scripture alone. One of the first great battles to be fought and won by Kramer was for the royal consent that the Bible be published in English. Before that, no one could understand Greek and Latin, no one could have access to God's word. But this was celebrated, and today I think the Great Bible still stands somewhere. Yeah, and the reason it's called the Great Bible is because it's big, right? So they call it the Great Bible. Uh you want to know more about that, you can just Google the Great Bible, it's there. So in 1537, 1539, the Great Bible was being published. Um so again, he wrote there in the preface. Uh Kranmer wrote this in the first edition of the Great Bible. If anything be necessary to be learned of the Holy Scripture, we may learn it. Right? So the reformers along with Cranmer believe that all people, even the illiterate and uneducated, can be transformed by the reading or hearing of Scripture. If you can't read, then hear the word. This is because the Bible speaks the very words of God, the very words of God. It feeds the soul, convicts of sin, imparts saving knowledge, and leads to justification of sinners. However, simply making scripture available to the people was not enough. The reformers knew that somehow God's word must be read in a thorough and disciplined and systematic way. And it must be built into the worshiping life of the church through a cycle of daily readings. So this led to Cranmer's insistence that we would include uh the lectionary or the readings from the Old Testament, from the New Testament, and from the Psalter. Daily, daily readings. I'll come to that later. So in his preface to the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, Cranmer explains the purpose and use of a daily lectionary or daily reading of scripture by saying this. He says, For they so ordered the matter that all the whole Bible should be read over once in the year, intending thereby that the clergy and especially such as were ministers of the congregation should, by often reading and meditation of God's word, be stirred up to godliness. So that's the understanding. As we read God's word, our hearts are stirred up to godliness, so that we are we know what is the standard, so that we know what are the requirements of God. And so being stirred up to godliness, we may be more ready to exhalt others by wholesome doctrine and to confuse them, confuse those who were adversaries to the faith. So the premise is this uh Kramer taught that clergy who have been uh exposed to scripture daily will somehow live according to God's will, will encourage others to do the same, and will defend the truth of the gospel against error. So important for us today is that this practice of daily Bible reading in the local church or local parish was not meant to stay in the church, but it was meant to spill over to private homes, to our homes. So as Kramer wrote in his preface to the Great Bible, uh citing John Chrysostom, he says this I exhort you and ever have and will exhort you that ye not only here in the church, give ear to that which is said by the preacher, but that also when ye be at home in your house, you apply yourselves from time to time to the reading of Holy Scripture. The daily reading of scripture was central to the program of reformation because the reformers uh firmly believe that God's word had the power not only to bring salvation but to improve the lives of the people amidst the challenges of everyday life. And I quote uh part of his preface, he says this with uh with passion, with pathos. This is what he says. Uh why scripture is able to speak to our everyday life. He's he speaks of various contexts. He says, When your wife or thy wife provoke thee to anger, thy child give thee occasion to take sorrow and pensiveness. Thy enemies lie in wait for thee. Thy friend sometimes envy thee. Thy neighbor misreport thee or pick quarrels against thee. Thy mate or partner undermine thee. Thy Lord, judge or justice threaten thee. Poverty is painful unto thee. The loss of thy dear and well beloved cause thee to mourn. Prosperity exhalt thee, adversity bring thee low. So basically, in all things when we are being beseeched and challenged, scripture is the answer to our life. So at the heart of Anglicanism in its formative stage is really to put the Bible in our hands, such that all of us, not just by hearing of the word on Sunday, but by the daily reading of scripture, we will be stirred up to godliness, and our lives will be more and more transformed by scripture and in true godliness. Let's now look at Psalm 119. Uh, we have talked a lot about Kranmer, but that is just to give us a taste or introduction uh about how our tradition comes along. But as we look at Psalm 119, uh verse 9 to 16, 17 to 20, and one and verse 105, uh we know if you have your Bibles uh open before you, whether it's a physical Bible or an electronic one, if you just turn with me to Psalm 119, you realize that how many verses are there? There are 176 verses. Do you think we can finish it all by today? Probably not. 176 verses. And if you just do uh just do a cursory look at it, uh you realize in most of the Bibles they are arranged, Psalm 119 is a special psalm that uh is arranged according to the Hebrew alphabets, right? The Hebrew alphabets, right? Uh Aleph, Beth, Gimeel, Dale, and so on. So all the Hebrew alphabets, they are named in such a way. And uh each alphabet, like the first one, Aleph, is there are eight verses. Beth, if you read on, there are also eight verses. So it's all broken up into eight verses each of 176 verses, arranged according to the Hebrew alphabets. Right? So my focus today is really to uh bring us uh through uh just a sweep uh over certain key ideas in Psalm 119, verse 9 to 16, verse 17 to 20, and verse 105. What I want to bring to our attention for today is there are various synonyms for scripture dominating this psalm, right? If you have your again your Bibles open before you see a lot of the words actually is repetitive, but it takes different forms. For example, you look at verse 9 to 16, there is something called guarding me by guiding me according to your word, right? Your word, and then you read on in verse 10, uh, the last few verses, it says commandments. Then again, verse 11, word, I've stored your word in my heart. Verse 12, teach me your statutes. Uh verse 14, in the way of your testimonies. Verse 15, I'll meditate on your precepts. Verse 16, I will delight in your statutes, I'll not forget your word. So, all this is a play, a synonym for scripture, basically. Uh, all these are different forms of variation of the one thing which is scripture, and you see that pepper out, pepper throughout Psalm 119. It can continue in verse 17 to 20 under the Hebrew uh alphabet Gimel. So, word law commandments, right? Again, it's a synonym for scriptures. So, all these words are being used to bring about a certain richness and nuances of meaning so that we we really encounter scripture in its various forms. So, together as a whole, all these nuances of uh of of the synonyms being used word, commandments, statutes, testimonies, precepts, law belong together, and together as a whole, it gives us a more complete understanding of what scripture is. Okay, let me move to my My first point on Psalm 119. So, first Psalm 119, verse 9 to 16 focuses on one idea or concept, and that is scripture as a stored treasure. Something that is being stored up within us and it's a treasure. And this uh central idea is found in verse 11. The psalmist says, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. So that's the heart of this uh chunk of uh verses, these eight verses, is storing scripture is a stored treasure within us. How do we build up this capacity for it? By daily reading, the treasure in us goes. But if we ignore the Bible, we only flip open it on Sundays. If we don't even know where to find the books of the Bible, then we have no access to this treasure. There's nothing stored up in this, in so-called uh in the treasure. Right? So the psalmist is wise to tell us, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. So, in other words, this is how the psalmist says a young man keeps his way pure by guarding his way according to God's word. So the word word here, if you look at uh verse 9, by guarding it according to your word, uh in its original meaning, it refers to uh it's a general word for truth, right? It could be replaced with truth. Or we could say, how can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your truth, right? So it's a general term, right? It's not really referring to uh the word of God as in scripture, but any form of God's truth, God's word as in God's truth. So this is how a young man keeps his way pure by guarding his way according to God's truth. The psalmist says he seeks God with all his heart and beseech God to not allow him to wander from the commandments of God. Again, commandments is a nuance of our scripture, and here it emphasizes the right and authority of God. When God commands, he is the ruler, he has a right and authority to command. He then praises God with a humble posture, asking to be taught the permanent statutes of God. And statutes refer to God's law, written and engraved and inscribed, right? Uh it's something uh that is delineated, God's inscribed law. So he's praising God and asking that law to be taught God's law, God's written law, and continue to delight in God's testimonies. Again, related to the idea of statutes, God's law as a testimony means it's a witness, right? God's law as a witness uh to his life. So he will meditate on the precepts or instructions of God and not forget his word and his truth. I had uh I have a personal uh uh closeness, uh scripture has a personal closeness to me in my own formative journey. During my teenage years, after a time when God uh changed me, all of us have this change experience, uh, he gave me a hunger for scripture and for God's truth. So soon after the change encounter, I started uh reading Christian books and I started to develop a hunger to know more about God and to grow and learn. So I'm reminded in my own formative journey in God. A very central verse for me is 1 Peter 1.23. 1 Peter 1.23 says, For you have been for you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God. It reminded me that it is God's word that gives me the new birth in him. So it was in those uh teenage years, uh as a young man, when I learned to hide God's word in my heart, that God began to form his word within my heart. You know, I've not not really taken the Bible and literally try to memorize, but somehow, as I read the word of God, it just stays within me. Can't explain it. Right? I don't try very hard to memorize books or chunks of scripture, but somehow scripture stayed in me. Right? Uh I would say that that is where uh 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1 23 comes to play, where God gave me birth, gave me a new birth in his word. So the seeds of scripture in my life eventually somehow uh led me to full-time Christian ministry because I think this is what uh I enjoy doing. I enjoy uh studying his word, enjoy uh teaching his word, enjoy preaching. Right? So now among the many uh facets of ministry, uh, one of the things that I enjoy most uh is actually preaching and teaching. Because as a pastor, we hold to various roles leading, managing, pastoring, counseling, uh but I enjoy preaching and teaching the most. I enjoy imparting and sharing God's word to all of us. And I realized this formative process began early in my life uh when I was a young man or young boy, right? Somehow God formed his word within me. Uh but I'm not perfected yet, as you all know. All of us are not ever perfected in his word. We are all on a journey, but I'm glad for those seeds that's being sown in my life. So, for those of us who are young people here, yeah, take the time when you're young to allow scripture to soak in your life because that is the way that you can keep your ways straight and pure. You know, only when you're exposed to scripture, then you will know God's ways and God's laws. If not, there's no way you can discern right from wrong in a world where it's so pluralistic. You know, there's so many choices available now. And because of the many choices, life becomes more complex, right? You don't know what to choose. Before, I believe, uh our parents' time, you don't have much choices, right? Either A or B. Or sometimes there's only one choice, right? Eat sweet potatoes. That's all you have. So you just eat sweet potatoes. But now there's so much choice. You go to a restaurant or go pit, so many cuisines, and we are spoilt for choices. Right? So until we anchor our lives onto God's word, I think we are on shaky ground. Right? So encourage you uh to take seriously the time uh where you have youth meetings or yeah gatherings, you know, as we think we are studying the book of Revelation together. Do take the word of God seriously. You know, it's not a child's play, but it is able to form you, it's able to shape your life for his purpose. Right, so uh let me move on. Uh, the psalmist says in verse 17b, that I may live and keep your word. So the the second theme is the whole idea of God's word as life and living. Right? Condition to life and living presupposes God's bountiful dealing with the psalmist. He then requests of God, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. So the law here refers slightly to God's commandments or the whole body of law revealed in scripture. So the psalmist delighted because he knows in order for him to live and have life, you know, God must reveal his commandments and laws to him. Very different from how we see God's laws today. The psalmists see them as a delight, but today we say, ah yeah, more law. You know, Christianity is so legalistic about laws or rules and that, you know. But actually, it's not. Because when we open God's word, there's a different perspective. It's not meant to be legalistic, it's meant to give us life. A fountain of life comes through God's law. And yet sometimes we listen to the devil, we say, why do you want to be a Christian? So much law, follow law, so legalistic, this cannot do, that cannot do, you have to do this, cannot do that. But actually, not really true because the Bible says God's law is life. God's law is light, right? So here the psalmist uh incredibly says that uh his consuming desire is for God's rules at all times. How many of us can say that? Can have a show of hands. How many of us have a consuming longing for God's rules? Right? Thank you. I see a few hands. Thank you. Right? So the psalmist delighted, you know, it's not something that is obnoxious to him, but it's life-giving. God's law is life-giving to the psalmist. So in Psalm 119, verse 105, it focuses on the theme of God's word as a light and a path. It says, Your word is a lamb to my feet and a light to my path. So, in summary, scripture as a stored treasure, hiding God's word in our hearts, is also related to the ideas of life and living. God's commandments are life to us, they they have a living power in us. And because of that, you know, as we are shaped by God's commandments, then it becomes a light and path to us, a light to our path and a lamb to our feet. And um, this is a good verse to remember, Psalm 119, verse 105. It says, Your word or your truth is a lamb to my feet and a light to my path. So, one of the primary ways that God shapes our lives is through scripture. And lately I've been very challenged by uh Galatians 5, verse 16 to 24, 25. Galatians 5, verse 16 to 25. And I use it as a mirror to life and living and as a light and a path. It is also a stored treasure to me as I learning to say, I've stored up your word, your truth in my heart, that I might not sin against you. So, very quickly, you know, if you follow me to Galatians 5, verse 16 to 25, it says, But I say walk by the spirit, right? The the verb walk is actually uh an active command, right? Written in the second person. It says walk by the spirit, right? So it's a command, it's a present command, it's not it's not a past tense or a past participle or future tense, but it is a present command. It says, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So through Galatians 5, 16 to 25, I learned in verse 17, it tells me the desires of the flesh, what I want, actually comes against the spirit's desires. And because of that, the desires of the spirit are fighting against the desires of the flesh, so that they are opposed to each other, so that it keeps me from doing what I want to do. Right? So as you as you talk to Christians and you know why you say why the person like that so carnal, so of the flesh, is because a lot of times, including myself, we choose to walk by the flesh. We do not choose to walk by the spirit. So God's word again challenges me, and I hope it challenges us to walk by the spirit, right? And verse 19 tells us and it's challenging because it tells us what the works of the flesh is. It's a wonderful passage to take for your own meditation for this season of land, because you know, it's a way of reminding us of some of the sins that we struggle with. It says the work of the flesh, the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality, anything that draws us, you know, uh sensual pleasure, uh, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry, the self-love, self-focus, sorcery, enmity, uh, against one another, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions. So all these speak of what our flesh is by itself, right? So left on our own, this is what we will be, right? Uh we will be drawn, maybe not to every of the characteristics there, but at least some of that. I hope. I know that we all struggle in some ways with some of those things mentioned. Otherwise, I think uh next week maybe I'll change place if you you could come. I mean, all of us struggle in some way, relational sins, uh, personal sins. So all these are mentioned there, right? Uh so the Bible tells us these are works of the flesh: envy, drunkenness, orgies, uh wild parties, parting for the sake of pleasure, and more pleasure, more sensual uh focus and pursuits as a way of life. And I think the it's a solemn warning because Paul says, I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So if we constantly have the works of the flesh as a way of being, if we are constantly adopting that paradigm to live, then Paul is clear. We will not truly inherit what God desires us to. Okay, it doesn't say that we are not safe, right? Uh it says we will not inherit the true meaning of what the kingdom is. Uh some will say, does it mean that those who have all these qualities means they are unsafe? Right? I will not go to that level to say that, but I'm just saying that they will not inherit, they will not experience the blessing of the kingdom or what it fully means. And then what the kingdom is, the kingdom is living out the fruit of the spirit, which is the challenging part. You know, uh, Sunday school children always memorize this, and I can also memorize this. I can code it offhand without looking. Galatians 5, 22 to 23, what is the fruit of the spirit? But all of us know it's easy to code, but hard to live out, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Right? So Paul says against such things there is no law. Yet the fruit of the spirit is what God desires us to live and walk, you know, and without looking and opening up our Bibles to Galatians 5, 16 to 25 and holding it as a mirror for our lives, then there's no basis for us. Everything goes. Uh, I can be a Christian for 10 years, 20 years, and just live in a fleshly way without any sense of God's kingdom invading my life. I can do that. Why? Because this is what I am in the flesh. This is what I will do, right? But God says, put on the fruit of the spirit, walk by the spirit. Only when we walk by the spirit, then we'll be filled with the fruit of the spirit, and then we will not gratify, we will not always focus on our flesh what we want. Right? And Paul makes an important point in verse 24. It says, Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. No, we have laid it aside and we need to continue to lay it aside. That's why Paul says, if we live by the spirit in verse 25, let us also keep in step with the spirit. So, reading from Galatians 5, 16 to 25, during this time of land, I encourage you to go back and read through that few verses again, has heightened for me the need to pray the collect for the first Sunday of land with greater actual in my life. The collect for the first Sunday of land says, Almighty God, whose son Jesus Christ fasted 40 days in the wilderness and was tempted as we are, yet without sin. Give us grace to discipline ourselves in obedience to your spirit. And as you know our weakness, so may we know your power to save through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. So, what are the implications for us this morning? The implication is simply uh, and the application for us is how in our daily living and walking can we imbibe scripture into our hearts and life. And this is not something new that I'm sharing with us. It is found in the book of Deuteronomy, which we did go through uh last year. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 6 to 9 says, These words I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign of your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. In other words, God's word, scripture has to take place in our homes, in our lives. You know, when we when we uh teach it to our children, we talk about them, when we walk by the way, we bind it in our foreheads, we were reminded of it in our doorposts. So it's really how today as Christians uh we can live and allow scripture to soak our lives. So, with that, uh, as I close, I just want to uh introduce uh an app to us. It is a wonderful app that uh St. Peter's Hall uh has developed, which is our branch, uh our DASIS branch of training. He has they have stepped up to partner with MPCC, which is a Marine Parade Christian Center, on a project of sponsorship for app conversion. So it used to uh uh the Pray DOS used to be uh available in uh on a hosting site, but after that, uh it has been uh someone provided the sponsorship for the app conversion. So within the app uh you will find many uh possibilities. So as you uh those of us who have uh on our WhatsApp broadcast, this morning you will receive a link uh and some explanation on it, right? So just want to bring us through uh some possibilities. So if you click on that link, uh if you are using a Google, uh you can go to the Play Store or click on that link uh on the on the WhatsApp broadcasts or even on the screen there. Uh if you are using an Apple phone, uh the link is there. So so basically it is an app developed and it will look something like that if you look on screen, right? So the links are there. It's called the Pray Doors app, right? So what you have it, what you will have on your hands is that you are able to access to daily prayer, right? So uh can I have right, it's there. Uh so if you look at the main page, uh if you access the app, you will find the main page says pray, right? And there's always a date you have to log in, right? So there are four sections. One is language on the main page. I don't have it on screen, but you will find four parts. One is the language, second is the date, third is the liturgy, and fourth is the Bible version. So the language, uh of course, we can select English, but it's also now made available in Chinese, in Thai and Nepali, right? So if you have friends who are Chinese speaking or Thai friends and Nepali friends, they can also assess it in their own language, right? And then there's a date, which a lot of times you have to input the date. Uh like today's 25th February, input the date. And the liturgy, uh what we have there is the morning prayer, evening prayer, and holy communion, right? So there are two versions. One is uh the short form is a DOS, meaning Diocese of Singapore. So it follows the liturgy there, follows our white book, is what we use. Uh, it's based on the alternative service book 1980. But what is helpful is uh the BCP, the liturgy for the Book of Common Prayer, has been included there, right? So if you click uh Under liturgy, morning prayer, uh BCP, the liturgy will be out. And you can you can expose yourself to pray uh using the morning, the book of common prayer, which in the past is hardly accessible, but now it's being made available for us. Right? Of course, then the Bible version uh is the ESV default, but uh as you scroll down, there are many other versions, even Chinese, uh Nepali and Thai available, right, for the Bible version. So there are many other options available depending on how you want to use it. So if you look at the screen before you, uh the PowerPoint slide, so these are all the sidebar, the side menu, these are all what is available. So pray is the main page where you can uh, as I said earlier, the language, date, liturgy, and bible version. So it's a full service, meaning that you can actually use it to pray daily, right? As a service, or you can find, you can use it for your connect group meeting. Let's say you know you want to just have a so-called pray together, you know, at communally, you can do that. Right? Uh the Psalter, the whole book of Psalms is uploaded there, right? So Psalm one to all the way to the end. So you can access to all the psalm readings. Uh what I use personally is the daily readings, right? Because I find it quite weird to pray the liturgy on my own without doing communalists. But what is very high, you click on daily readings, it will lead you to uh the lectionary readings. So everything has been uploaded, right? No longer you need to refer to a book and find the reading. So you click on daily readings, what they will have is the Old Testament reading for the day, uh, the New Testament reading, the psalm reading, and also the collect, right? So the collect is a way of uh praying. So for land there, the collects will be there. So I find it very useful. So that's what I use every day: the daily readings, right? Readings from the lectionary and Old Testament reading, New Testament reading, psalm reading, and then pray the collect. Uh that's what I use for my daily devotion. And I want to encourage you to use the daily readings if you can, because it helps you to be formed by God's word. A little here, a little there, daily doses of God's word will form and shape us more than we can ask or imagine. Right? Then there's the notes part, and if you look at the additional services, we even have uh some of the liturgies there. We have uh baptism, confirmation, ministry to the sick, right? Let's say you are visiting someone, you want to pray with them, uh a cell group member, there's a liturgy or prayers there. Of course, marriage, I think is there, but it's not functional at the moment. There's home blessing, right? You want to uh invite a pastor or you want to uh pray for your home, there's a home blessing and commissioning, right? And there's also prayers below the daily reading, there's prayers. So there's a whole list of prayers that are available there. If you click on the prayers tab, you'll see all forms of prayer. So you can use those prayers for your own devotion or for as a guided prayer. So I think it's a very useful app, you know. Do uh feedback uh because I'm in touch with the committee that created this app, do uh feedback to me. It's still uh they just launched this this year, so there may still be glitches. Like there are some times where the readings don't load up, but by and large, it's it's not that frequent. So we are still in the midst of developing it. It can be better, but I think for now it's good enough. So if you have any comments how we can better this app or certain things that don't work well for you, do let us know. Right. So the whole idea is now we have a tool in our hands to assess scripture, right? Right at the palm of our hands. Right. I begin by saying that uh um today's sharing is how uh liturgy and scripture. Uh the reformers wanted to put scriptures in our hands. But now with the Pray DOS app, we literally have it on our palm. And I encourage you to use it, explore it. You know, it's so easy because it's the app. If it's taking too much space and you don't really find it useful, you just right-click and delete it and it's gone. Right? That's the usefulness of the app. So I think a lot of uh uh money has been gone to develop this, and I think it's useful. It's useful for us in a day and age where we are so used to having everything on our phone, right? So encourage you to use the daily readings uh as a way to get on with God and allow scripture to shape your life, allow God to move in your life as scripture shapes shape us more and more each day. Shall we look to the Lord in prayer? Father, we want to thank you uh this morning for your reminder about how Lord, we thank you for the Anglican tradition and the uniqueness of being an Anglican is Lord, we have the Book of Common Prayer, we have said prayers, we have your word as the primary focus of our worship, communally, corporately as we gather, but also in our personal devotions. Thank you for the early reformers that uh took great pains to craft out the liturgy and to craft out the prayers and put putting scriptures in our hands so that we can have access to it, so that we can imbibe your word daily for nourishment. So, Lord, we pray. Lord, help us to continually be challenged by your word so that we will never be the same again. As your word takes root in our lives, as your word convicts us to live a life of holiness, we pray that your spirit will enable us. Lord, we know that we can do nothing without your Holy Spirit. We know that unless your spirit has a whole on our lives, Lord, we are nothing. So help us, in the words of Galatians 5.16, to walk by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the flesh. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

We pray that you've been minister to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about the Eastern Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.