Mark 10:45 There’s something magical about Christmas and it’s all tied up with gifts and giving. But why is it ‘the season for giving’? To understand that we need to…
"Jesus" Tagged Sermons (Page 5)
Luke 19:10 Like a child on a merry-go-round, with every annual revolution we catch a glimpse of a familiar face in the crowd at Christmas time – that of Jesus.…
Isaiah 49:1-16 ”How do I do broomstick crochet?” is a question of interest to no-one but a few specialists. “How can I get more joy in my life?” is a question of interest to all of us. The answer is revealed in Isaiah 49. It tells us how every day can be a party day!
John 8v12 Why are we afraid of the dark? Why is darkness associated with evil? Black magic. The dark side which seduced Darth Vader. Horror films set in the dark. The dark is spooky. And in the darkness our imaginations go into overdrive. The Bible says that spiritual darkness is for real and affects us all. We need light – but we need to choose carefully which light we follow.
There’s a huge hunger in our society to have authentic spiritual experience, but there’s little consensus about how we go about it. Will it come about through emptying my mind? Or through connecting with the natural world? Or perhaps through art or through worship music? Hear Jesus’ teaching about how to experience God.
Isaiah 42:1-12There are times when we may feel God has forgotten us, or we feel failures because of sin, or we feel despair looking at the state of the world. What does God say to us at such times? “Behold my servant”.
I wonder how would you react if you saw a church leader having lunch with a group of people who were guilty of fraud? Or maybe a Bible study leader hanging out with known drug addicts? Would you be a bit shocked, perhaps even judgmental, that they would even consider associating with such people? This is how Jesus was treated by the religious people of his day. We can distance ourselves from God not only in obvious rejection of him, but also in our religious morality – and this can be the more dangerous if it goes undetected…
A lawyer asks Jesus “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” This is one of the most fundamental questions that everybody at some point asks, about what will happen when we die – we might phrase this question today something like “How can I be sure I’ll be saved in the end?” If we profess to be God’s people, then this will show in how we live our lives – not only in how we love God, but also in how we love others. Jesus challenges us not to think about who we are to love, but to be loving…
“Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. If you want something badly enough, and if you work at it hard enough, you can accomplish anything.” This “you can do it” mentality sounds exciting, but what about when the reality check hits us? What about when we can’t live the life we wanted to? And when we can’t keep the plates spinning? And when we can’t keep meeting people’s expectations anymore? What then?
Colossians 1:15-20 Life is full of questions but one of the biggest and most fundamental is whether there is actually a god who is there or not. Did everything just…