Read the text – Psalm 46, Luke 7:11-22
This is the first sermon in the sermon series ‘Jesus Transforms’. In this sermon, Joshua Schroder speaks on the hope we can find in Jesus, and how he can transform hopelessness to hope, fear into courage, and death to life.
Read the text – Psalm 139; Deuteronomy 30:11-20; Isaiah 65:17-25; Romans 14:1-9
God ends life. God is the author and sustainer of life – from conception to eternity. How does the Christian person live by his timing and determination until he brings you home. In this Bible Talk, Ken Noakes aims to help us think Christianly (Biblically) about the value of life under God’s hand when it comes to dying and death – especially as we live in a world where life can be quietly ended or painlessly prolonged. Our topic: Thinking Christianly about Euthanasia.
Read the text – Matthew 14:1-36
In this Bible Talk, Ken Noakes considers some very well-known passages: the beheading of John the Baptist, the feeding of 5000, and Jesus walking on water. In each of these accounts the question we as readers are effectively asked is ‘who do you think Jesus is?’ Herod gave his conclusion, the crowds made their approach, the disciples got a firsthand view of Jesus in action. The question: who sees Jesus as ‘truly… the Son of God’?
Read the text – 1 John 3:11-24 & 1 John 4:7-21
Love that is Christian, is a love for others that is both pleasing and acceptable to God before it is to the world. This is a huge topic and so contested today. For today, love is often determined by popular opinion or consensus – and as directed by the loudest voices. In this talk, Ken Noakes looks at the importance of understanding Love in the context of truth and obedience. God indeed wants Christians to be loving – love that is truthful, sacrificial, obedient even if different to the way the world looks for love.
Read the text – Matthew 8:18-34
Jesus is confounding. Reading through the Gospel of Matthew, we see Jesus do some extraordinary things and the result is that some follow and some turn their backs on him. That is not so different from today. We often expect the extraordinary before we allow ourselves to believe something. As such we settle for the normal and mundane, all the while wishing for the extraordinary. Jesus came into the normal and mundane, but he did that which was extraordinary. He does what we hope by doing what we find hard to believe! How confounding.
In this Bible Talk, Nick Lindeback looks at the chaos of life and shows us how Jesus holds the power over chaos. If you know Jesus is in control, then you can live in faith rather than fear. Are you willing to rest in this storm, and are you willing to trust him when the chaos of this life overwhelms you?
What is the value of a promise? For one, a promise can give direction as you look forward to the fulfillment of the promise. And as such it gives purpose to how we conduct ourselves as we move closer to the day that the promise is fulfilled. God’s people Israel acted on the strength of the promise that they would be delivered into a new and good land – a home. Joshua leads them by the hand of God – home. In our Bible talks, we are looking at the extraordinary book of Joshua – a book of promise and purpose. A book that points us forward to the fulfillment of the gospel promise, that in Jesus we will delivered – home. In the meantime, it gives us a clear purpose.
This talk looks at Joshua’s final words to the leaders of Israel – fear the LORD, serve the LORD, be faithful to the LORD. We too can throw away idols, fearing and serving God faithfully today.
Read the text – Joshua 24:1-15
Love, Truth and Obedience are three Christian values that together define Christian Love. Christian love, is love where truth is valued. Christian truth tells us how to obey. Christian obedience demonstrates true love.
In the previous posts from this series we have looked at each.
What happens if you corrupt any one of those values?
Without love, truth will not be valued. Without truth, it is difficult to know how to obey. Without obedience, it is impossible to demonstrate true love.
To understand Love, it will help to understand how it is integrally connected to Truth and to Obedience, such that you cannot separate the three. These three ideas intersect with one another at almost every point.
Taking our lead from the letter of 1 John, we have looked at Perfect Love (Part 2 of this series). We turn our attention now to the relationships between Love, Truth and Obedience.
Let’s consider ‘Love’.
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