Psalm 67
I will not be with you at New Year so I would like to preach to you today, my New Year Sermon. We are looking at Psalm 67, what is otherwise known as the missionary psalm. This is a psalm written at harvest time, written during a time of blessing, a psalm that reflects on God’s goodness and the purpose of God’s goodness. We come to the end of 2022 and look forward to 2023. There have been many difficulties that have been experienced of late, some have experience sickness, or injury, or loss. But the steadfast love of...
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Habakkuk 3: A Song of Faith
Imagine yourself as the prophet, you know that one of the worst tragedies in human history is coming, a holocaust against your nation in which many will die and suffer terrible atrocities. What do you do? Most of us would pack our bags and run away. Instead Habakkuk writes a song to equip Israel for the coming trial. As a shepherd and teacher of the people, Habakkuk shows the righteous what their own response to God should be in the coming times. The relevance of a song is immense. Many truths that have impacted our lives have been those...
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Psalm 22: The Triumph of the Cross
Special thanks to Russell Cannons from Shore Baptist in Auckland, for sharing God’s Word with us this Easter.
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Psalm 22: The Trial of the Cross
Special thanks to Russell Cannons from Shore Baptist in Auckland, for sharing God’s Word with us this Easter.
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Psalm 90: The Brevity of Life
Introduction: As a pastor I am always torn about how a funeral should be done. Funerals have changed in tone from a time of mourning to a time of celebrating a life. They are no longer times of introspection and reflection but times of therapy. Here is the trouble, there is no instruction in the Bible which tells us exactly how we are to conduct a funeral, or a wedding for that matter. The regulative principle of worship tells us how we must worship when we come together as the people of God, we are to sit under apostolic...
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2 Samuel 22: The Deliverance and Exaltation of the King
INTRODUCTION: Imagine for a moment that you are in your old age, in the closing years of your life and you decide to write a song to summarise the Lord’s working in your life. What would that song look like? One could divide the verses into the different eras of your life, such as, childhood, teenage years, young adulthood, middle aged, elderly, etc. Or one could do a before and after song, before and after your conversion, from dark to light. Psalm 18 is special amongst the Psalms because it is not a situational psalm that reflects just one...
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Psalm 90:7-17: Wasted Time and the Wasted Life
Introduction: I want to begin this morning with a riddle. See if you can figure this out. These are the words of Gollum in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Ask yourself, “what is the thing that Gollum is describing?” as I read. Here is the riddle: This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down. What is it? What is the great thing that devours birds and beasts? That eventually destroys all towns? And is an enemy and slayer of great men...
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Psalm 105: The acts of God in the history of Israel
Thanks to Andrew Johnson for preaching this morning; he is from the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Fairlie. Read Psalm 105 Online
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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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Psalm 96 Part Two: Rejoice in the Judgement of Yahweh
Thanks to Tim Stanton for preaching this morning; he was back home during his Christmas break from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he is currently earning a Master of Divinity. Outline These four verses command us to rejoice at the reign of Yahweh in light of three realities. We should rejoice at the judgement of Yahweh because His kingdom is eternal in its duration, universal in its scope, and righteous in its administration. We will look at the eternality of its duration in verse 10. The universality of its scope in verses 11 and 12....
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Psalm 96 Part One: God among the Scare Crows
Sorry, no recording is available. Thanks to Tim Stanton for preaching this morning; he was back home during his Christmas break from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he is currently earning a Master of Divinity. Outline A New Song A Universal Choir Appropriate Praise Conclusion: The Psalm Fulfilled in the Work of Christ Introduction Our psalmist’s theme is fitting praise for Yahweh in light of His glory in salvation and judgement. I was helped immensely in understanding this theme by a book called “God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgement” by Jim Hamilton even though he...
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Psalm 90: A Prayer of Moses
Thanks to Ian Fuller for preaching this evening; he is an elder at Crosspoint Church in Palmerston North. Read Psalm 90 online
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Psalm 84: Heaven
Thanks to Phil Millar for preaching this morning; he is an elder at Rolleston Baptist Church.
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Psalm 33
Psalm 33:1-3 1 Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. 2 Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! 3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
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The Spirit Filled Marriage 2: The Worship Filled Foundation for Marriage
Outline Worshipping Thanksgiving Introduction How do you know your life is controlled by the Spirit? It is not by having visions and dreams, prophecies and tongues, or casting out demons, Judas could do all these and was not Spirit filled. Paul outlines for us in verses 18-21 what a Spirit filled life looks like. The imperative of being filled with the Spirit if obeyed results in us ‘addressing one another in psalms’, in us making melody to the Lord with our hearts, a pervasive atmosphere of thanksgiving arises, mutual submission and reverence. Test yourself to see if you are...
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Psalm 63: Thirsty For God
Introduction: ‘The Devil’s Highway’, is a name that has been given to the stretch of desert that Mexican immigrants have crossed in order to illegally enter the United States. Many have died trying to cross the desert from dehydration and heat stroke. There are six stages of heat illness and dehydration, heat stress, heat fatigue, heat fever, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and finally heat stroke. Heat stress, the first stage, has been suffered by many of us when we were severely sunburnt, and we have been dizzy and stumbled at the end of a long hike. In the desert...
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