Philippians 1:12 – 18 Gospel – Centered Joy
Your priorities will determine what gives you joy and what makes you sad. Many of our joys lie in in those things God made to be important to us like family and work. But sin is an opportunist that is always looking to distort things, and this is often revealed in our joys and our sadness. Because we love things inordinately, in other words we love the wrong things or in the wrong way or to the wrong extent, we have our joy and sadness in the wrong things. Because we put our treasure in the wrong place we...
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Colossians 2 20-23
Legalism, one of our best dressed but most dangerous sins. It is one of the two paths to hell, one is antinomianism/law breaking; the other is legalism. Our relationship with law is a very uneasy one. As human beings we are born in Adam, we are born into a covenant of works. Adam was put under probation and under law, by obeying the law of God He could have won for Himself and the human race the right of access to the tree of life and God’s Sabbath Rest. Instead He condemned instead of saving us, and we were...
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Luke 23:50-56: The Burial of Christ
OUTLINE The fact of Jesus death and burial The significance of Jesus death and burial INTRODUCTION ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.’ These words are from the Apostle’s Creed, one...
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Luke 19:45-48: Jesus and the Temple
OUTLINE Jesus enters the temple Jesus cleanses the temple Jesus’ zeal for the temple INTRODUCTION There are certain texts in the Bible that are pregnant with meaning; they have layers of meaning to unravel. Jesus’ actions in cleansing the temple is one such passage. The birth of Christ, the baptism of Christ, the transfiguration of Christ, these events are multivalent as they bring together several lines of promises, types and prophecies in the OT to a climactic fulfillment in Christ. Although Luke records Jesus cleansing of the temple in very few verses, they are packed full with significance. Today...
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Ephesians 6:15-16: The Armour of God: Part Three
What do we need to be effective for the spiritual war we are in? So far Paul has told us that we need God’s truth, this makes us ready, and helps us against the father of lies. We need to guard our hearts with righteousness, firstly with the truth of our justification; and secondly with a love for holiness as we pursue sanctification. Today we want to look at the next two pieces of armour Paul places before us, the shoes and the shield, v15-16, ‘and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the...
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Vaccine Mandates and the Unity of the Church
(Apologies for the audio cutting off at the 43 minute mark. Please download the sermon manuscript if you want to read more.) On the 21st of October 2021 Jacinda Ardern announced that NZ will be moving away from the Alert Level system to the Traffic Light system. Some of the stated goals by the government are to update the countries response in light of a majority vaccinated population, and to limit lockdown situations to relevant areas and not make them country wide. Our message today is not going to focus on the political, medical or economic logic behind these...
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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 6:5: Slavery and Christianity: Part Two
Last week we began to try and paint the picture of slavery in the OT and the ancient world. The reason we have to do these history lessons is because of the false history that is presented in the present political climate. We live in an age of critical race theory which rereads history as a story of monolithic relationship of race oriented oppression. So the race and slavery question is a heated one that is often skewed. The Bible has become a casualty of the present cancel culture that has declared the Bible a book used as a...
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Luke 2:14: The First Christmas Carol
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” What does the birth of Christ mean to the world today? Those who do not believe the Christmas story as teaching that the saviour of the world is born; many still celebrate the story because they believe that it teaches and affirms that the birth of every child is precious. As true as it is that every human life is precious, the remembrance of Jesus in the stable is not a celebration of human life, no matter where it is born. No,...
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Ephesians 4:26-27: Putting Away Anger
Anger divides! Take one look at our culture today and notice how anger is drawing battle lines, polarizing and tribalizing groups against each other. We see the sides in the culture wars as the left are pitted against the right. Critical theory has divided society up into minority groupings who now interpret all activity towards them in terms of microagressions. They play into a narrative of victimhood and oppression which must now be met with violent revolution. Cancel culture, trolling, and the mudslinging arena of social media are maelstroms of anger. This anger is nothing new, sinners have always...
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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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1 Corinthians 15:1-5: Evangelism & The Gospel
Thanks to Graham Gregory for preaching this afternoon as part of our series in the Disciplines of Grace. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised...
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2 Peter 3:18: Regeneration
It is 2 days away from the end of 2019, and I’m sure you have all thought about this as the year draws to a close. New Years resolutions. As the clock clicks past midnight on Tuesday, the realisation dawns upon Christians and non-Christians alike, that they probably weren’t as good as they intended to be last year. Perhaps you wanted an improvement on your health, but that gym membership didn’t get the same amount of use as you hoped. Perhaps you wanted an improvement on your finances, but you just didn’t save as much as you hoped. Perhaps...
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Isaiah 9:1-7: Jesus, the prophesied Messiah
You noticed perhaps a similar theme between the two portions of Scripture this morning, and that is one of celebration and rejoicing. So let me ask you this question, what do you celebrate at Christmas time? Perhaps you are happy about the time off work? Perhaps you enjoy spending the break with family and friends? Perhaps you are like the neighbour down my street, and use it as an occasion to put lights on every available surface outside your home? Maybe you like the giving of gifts, or if you are a child, you like the receiving gifts? If...
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Luke 4:14-21: The Mission of Jesus
What was the mission of Jesus? What did He come to accomplish? There are various answers to those questions. The reason the answer is so important is because the Church is called to line up with Christ’s own mission. Today there are those who believe in a social gospel who believe that Jesus is primarily interested in social justice, transforming social structures, alleviating injustice and renovating cities. This has an extreme edge in Liberation theology that says that spiritual salvation is irrelevant, social liberation is all, and some have even advocated violence as a way of realising the kingdom...
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