Ephesians 4:25: No More Lies
A British survey in 2008 reported that people lie on average 4 times a day, which is at least 1460 times a year and 88,000 times in 60 years. In 2002 a study done by a university concluded that 60% of people cannot have a 10 minute conversation without telling a lie, averaging 2-3 in a ten minute period. In a 2014 survey of 1,200 adults 76% said it was ok to lie sometimes. Lying is a destructive sin that dominates the human heart and has been the source of wars, divorce, murder, suicide and many more instances of...
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Jonah 3:1-10: God’s grace in Nineveh
Jonah 3 is usually known as the chapter where Jonah was obedient, but in truth this chapter is not about Jonah but about God. God and His grace, not man and his obedience are the centre of the chapter and the heart of the Gospel. Jonah is often employed as a sword to induce guilt over our disobedience and lack of faithfulness to missions, and this certainly is one of the applications. However, the primary use of this chapter is, in my opinion, to portray the God of grace to sinners. And having seen this grace afresh we will...
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The Problem of God and Suffering
Introduction: Today we begin the second half of our apologetics study where we handle objections to the faith. In the first part we laid out some of the most common ways to present the rationality of Christian belief. This was by no means an exhaustive survey. We presented the following list of arguments for God: the resurrection; the authority of Scripture; the unity of Scripture; the uniqueness of Scripture; the prophecies of Scripture; archaeology and the Bible; the manuscripts of the Bible; Jesus as an argument for God; the moral argument; the ontological argument; the cosmological argument; the teleological...
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1 Kings 8:31-53: Praying about sin
Introduction: Ps. 103:8-14, ‘The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to...
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1 Kings 8:22-30: Approaching God in prayer
Introduction: The prayer of Solomon is one of the longest prayers in the Bible, being 30 verses long. Nehemiah 9 is the longest with 33 verses, and the longest prayer of Christ is 26 in John 17. The Puritans were known to pray for 45 minutes in their pulpit prayers. Most long prayers are burdensome for very few are able to sustain the necessary focus and spirituality to keep the congregation interested for so long. But in this long prayer there is nothing wasted. Solomon’s prayer like many others in the bible is a model prayer. We will break it up...
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Romans 15:4: Hope and the Scriptures
Introduction: The Puritans had a saying, ‘hope is the mother and daughter of patience.’ When we have hope, the knowledge of the certainty of the inheritance God has laid up for us, this gives birth to the daughter of patience, we can push through the difficulties because we know our sufferings are temporary and they must inevitably give way to glory. But Patience is sometimes the mother as well. Rom. 5:3-4, ‘More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.’ It is this second type of hope,...
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1 Kings 8:10-21: The Blessing of Solomon
Introduction: The temple has taught us so much about God already. God is a God of grace who dwells with a sinful people, this is illustrated in the existence of a temple at all. He is a holy God, this is demonstrated through the cherubim, and the layers of separation. He is a just God, this is seen in the demand of propitiation for broken laws. Solomon has just brought all the items of the furniture into the new temple, and God appears in the form of a cloud. This is followed by Solomon blessing God. As we move...
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1 Kings 6:19-38: Holy and Glorious God
Introduction: No Israelite apart from the priests would be able to enter the temple, and no priest but the High priest could enter the holy of holies, and that only once a year. For this reason 1 Kings 6 would have been of special fascination to the Israelite. Never seeing it with their own eyes they would hang on the verbal descriptions. Recognising the importance of the house and how each part had significance, the Israelite could ponder each part to gain more information about God. They would have picked up on the fact that more attention os paid...
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Romans 12:19-21: Blessed are the Peacemakers: Part Four
No audio is available for this sermon. Introduction: Paul now draws his teaching on loving our enemies in this section to a close. Usually when we come to the end of a discussion on a thing we leave the important things, and summarising statements to the end. That is exactly what Paul does here in Romans 12:19-21, ‘Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him...
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Romans 12:14: ‘Bless those who curse you.’
Outline Why we bless How we bless Introduction The Christian message of love is what sets it apart from all other ethical or religious teachings. This message of love can be boiled down to four love commands, love God, love you neighbour, love each other and love your enemies. Not to say that other groups don’t emphasize love. No other ethical teaching has all four of these nor to the same extent or in the way we are called to pursue them. Our love for God, is not a self-interested love for what we can get out of God...
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Romans 12:9: Hate-Filled Christians
Outline God’s hatred Our hatred Introduction If I say the phrase, ‘hate-filled Christians’ we would probably think of some of the bigoted pastors who have featured on the news. For example, Steven Anderson, one reporter writes on his response to the 49 people gunned down in a Florida club last year, ‘The fundamentalist Christian pastor of an Arizona church is being condemned after he celebrated the deaths of 49 people at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando in a hate-filled rant posted on YouTube. Just hours after American’s worst mass shooting came to an end, Steven Anderson, pastor at Faithful...
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2 Samuel 7: The Davidic Covenant
Outline David’s promise David’s praise Introduction One of the key things the covenants of the bible do is manifest the grace of God. To a greater or lessor extent God’s glorious grace is put on display. And in this chapter we have the Davidic Covenant presented putting forward another glorious glimpse of our gracious God. This is one of the most important chapters of the bible because it is one of the major steeping stones in the lead up to the coming of Jesus as the Saviour of the world. As you move through the OT you see a...
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Romans 12:9: Genuine love
Outline The proof of love The essence of love The source of love Introduction ‘What the world needs now is love, sweet love….’ ‘All you need is love….’ The world knows that the human heart is full of hate and crying out for love, yet it cannot fix itself. Every independent attempt to build a human society has resulted in a loveless self-destructive catastrophe. The Communisitic egalitarian agenda; the Hindu caste system; our secular humanistic self-defining humanity, no matter what it is, every attempt will end in human unhappiness and us destroying not loving one another. Think of the...
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2 Samuel 6: The Ark comes to Jerusalem
Outline The ark of the covenant The God of the covenant The king of the covenant Introduction The domestication of God, familiarity with God, trivialising God, underestimating God, these are the sins of our ignorant and sinful hearts. The holiness of God is something we will always insult by our conceptions, our worship and our actions. Until we see Him and are worshipping in a perfected state we will always fall short of the glory He deserves. 2 Sam. 6 is a chapter which shows David and Israel doing the same thing. They made light of God, they did...
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1 Samuel 15:29: The Impassibility of God
Outline Definition of impassibility Apparatus of impassibility Application of impassibility Introduction As a Christian I have had to undergo some continental shifts in my thinking about God. From an absence of belief in God to faith upon conversion; from a anthropocentric God to a self-defining God in leaving the Charismatic Church; from a small and reactionary God to a Sovereign God in coming to understand the doctrines of the Reformation. The last major shift has come in recognising the incomprehensible God, the Creator–creature distinction, and the abyss that really exists between God and ourselves. Last week we began looking...
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Psalm 16: God our Good
Outline God as our good God makes other things good Some other goods we have in God God our good in Christ Introduction When all is being shaken you need something unshakeable to hold on to to keep you from falling apart; when all things temporary are slipping away you need an eternal anchor. Psalm 16 is a psalm of David where his world is crumbling, things are going as badly as they can go and yet he finds his good and comfort in the unshakeable God. David in this psalm is a refugee fleeing from Saul. Now when...
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