Sermon Archive


Jeremiah 2:1-3:25 Sin and Forgiveness

We live in the age of deconstruction, where long understood concepts and ideas are being redefined and overturned. Marriage, justice, a man, a woman, truth, beauty, goodness, these were all once understood. Two of the great truths that have fallen on hard times are the truths of sin and forgiveness. In a world of no absolutes and personalized truth there can be no one definition for sin. Sin which was once an act against God has been trivialized and misappropriated to speak of acts against nature, self, and other things that are not God. With sin redefined human beings...


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Luke 17:1-10: How the Gospel Shapes our Service of Others

The differences between true religion and false religion are striking. False religion is judgemental, true religion is accepting; false religion is strident and forceful, true religion is gentle and yielding; false religion is critical and harsh; true religion is gracious and encouraging; loveless vs loving; external holiness vs internal holiness; hypocritical vs genuine; we all know the difference between true and false religion. False religion is repulsive but true religion is attractive. Our hearts are by nature religious; that means we are vulnerable to the deceptions and promises of false religion and hungry for true religion. Jesus throughout the...


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Ephesians 5:1-2: Imitators of God

Motivation is something we have wrestled with all our lives. You will remember when your parents gave what appeared to you to be unreasonable rules and when you asked why you had to do them, and they responded, ‘Because I said so,’ you know how you felt. You might have been willing to obey but you needed to know why, you needed the proper motivation, especially when what was required went against your desires. Paul is the master teacher who tells us what to do and then motivates us to do it as well. The pattern of Paul’s method...


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Luke 11:3-4: The Lord’s Prayer: What we Really Need in Prayer

We are all bad at prayer and Jesus is the master teacher when it comes to prayer. No human being has ever prayed more perfectly than Christ. He is sinless; He is divine and He has been in eternal fellowship with the Father. He as God has both received prayer, but also as man prayed. He has both answered prayer and had His prayers answered. So when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, they could ask no better person. We have looked at the first half of the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer outlined for us to...


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Ephesians 4:31-32: Virtues Replacing Vices

How can you tell if someone is a Christian? We will not be able to know 100% because we cannot see the hearts of others but there are several tests you could apply that could make an informed opinion. God knows the heart completely; you can know of your own salvation, but knowing about others will run the risk of error. Firstly, there is the test of orthodoxy. If someone is taught by the Spirit they will believe certain truths and reject certain errors, they cannot deny the Trinity, or the way of salvation for example. Secondly, there is...


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Luke 7:36-50: A Forgiven Sinner’s Love for Christ

When do you know if someone is truly a Christian? This can be a difficult question to answer for on the one hand you and I cannot read the heart of another and so will always have an imperfect ability to make a judgement. However, there is also a call in scripture for us to evaluate a person’s credible confession of faith. The true test of someone’s faith is not the amount of religiosity they indulge in, a person can go to church a lot and not be saved; the amount of theologically correct doctrine we have, for some...


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Luke 6:37-42: Thou Shalt Not Judge!

The eleventh commandment is ‘Thou shalt not judge!’ At least in our modern pluralistic context where all religion is now equally irrelevant this is deemed to be a cardinal rule. At times it seems as if the only thing people know about Jesus teaching is that He taught that we should not judge. It is to this section that we turn now in the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:37-42. Key to understanding this section is the context. Jesus has divided the people of Israel into two groups, the godly and the ungodly, but here is how the...


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Ephesians 1:1-14: Our Eternal Salvation

Ephesus, the 5th largest town in the world when Paul wrote this letter. A town that would have been a difficult place to be a Christian, and so the church there was in need of encouragement. Ephesus, was the capital of the Roman province of Asia and a bastion of the Emperor Cult, where deifying the Roman Caesar was a badge of patriotism. A clash between those who thought the Caesar was Lord and Jesus is Lord is inevitable. It was also the centre for Diana/Artemis worship, the temple of this goddess of fertility was one of the seven...


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Luke 5:27-32: Jesus the Friend of Sinners

One of the things that Christianity used to turn the world upside down was the meal, yes the simple act of sitting down together to eat. Religious and social norms were perpetuated by the meal, and it played an important role in society. Ideas about nationality, gender, class and religious purity were all supported by the way a meal was practiced. In Greco-Roman society an aristocratic woman who went to a meal with her husband was not better than a slave or prostitute; slaves and masters did not sit down at the same table, for the slave was to...


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Luke 5:12-26: Jesus-The Forgiver of Sins

If you mention the name Jesus Christ today the first thought in many minds is that Jesus is a judge and Christians are judgemental, this however is not the first thought they should think. Yes it is true that one day we will have to stand before Christ and give an account for every deed done in the body, but there are two comings of Christ, and until that His second coming we are to think of Jesus as the one who saves not the one who judges, John 3:17, ‘ For God did not send his Son into the...


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Luke 3:1-14: The Ministry of John the Baptist

On the big screen at the moment is the latest instalment in the Downton Abbey world. The latest movie revolves around the King and Queen coming for a one day visit to the Crawley family estate. The movie opens up for us a little window into what an event a royal visit really was. Back in the day the whole town would have to prepare for the coming royalty, things would get freshly painted, roads would be repaired, and uniforms would be remade all in preparation of the visit. On the Island of St Helena they painted a giant...


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Romans 12:18: Blessed are the Peacemakers: Part Three

Outline The peace we are to pursue is a peace from the heart The peace we are to pursue is a peace with all The peace we are to pursue is a peace that has principles Introduction One of the jobs of an ambassador is to keep the peace or initiate peace proceedings. We are ambassadors for Christ. Despite the public image Christianity has often had as public enemy number one, it is the job of every Christian to seek peace with all. Paul puts it this way in Romans 12:18, ‘If possible, so far as it depends on...


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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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1 Samuel 12: Addressing Sin

Outline The remembrance of sin The exposure of sin The forgiveness of sin Introduction We all know what a party-pooper is, a kill joy, a wet-blanket. In the portion that we have before us Saul has just had his first victory and the nation is finally united under their new king. It is in the midst of this victory that Samuel stands up and ruins the mood. As unwelcome as an evangelistic sermon at a wedding or a funeral Samuel fulfilling his role as prophet speaks about the sins of the people and leads them in a covenant renewal....


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