Read the text – Isaiah 1:1-2:5
The people of Judah face a number of crises from within (their own sin) and without (the alliance of Israel and Syria, the power of Assyria). Who will they trust to rescue them? Themselves? Foreign Nations? or God Almighty?
In this Bible talk, Nick Lindeback describes how God will restore his people and bless the world, those who have turned their backs on him, through salvation and through judgement.
Forget crowns and castles! What does it REALLY mean to be a king? This Easter, it’s time to rethink everything you thought you knew about power, sacrifice, and the true King who changed the world forever. We are “RethinKING Easter.”
Read the text – Zechariah 9:9-17; Luke 19:28-44
We can define a king as one with the power to raise an army yet Jesus defies this kind of kingship because he comes as one who is “gentle and riding on a donkey”. The kingship that he brings is one of peace in the face of war. We need not be threatened by Jesus but welcome him with praise.
In this talk Ken Noakes helps us to see the long-term fulfillment of what was long proclaimed about God’s King – and story that spanned 500 years from prophecy to fulfillment.
Read the text – Exodus 12:14-28; Luke 22:1-37
We can define a King as one who people serve, yet Jesus defies this kind of kingship by being the one who came to serve, laying down his life for his friends.
In this talk, Gary Haddon helps us to see in Jesus a sovereign King who suffered and a king who suffered in order to save.
Read the text – Luke 23:50-24:35; Acts 2:22-39
A way to define kingship by succession – yet we still recognize that for every king, no matter his power, or influence, or riches – they will one day die. Yet Jesus defies kingship in almost every way – not least of all in his death and then resurrection. A king, who in death gave his riches as an internal inheritance for all who trust in him. That is Easter.
In this talk Neil Atwood will help us consider the significance of Jesus’ resurrection as a certain indicator of Jesus’ true kingship over all of life.
Read the text – Colossians 1:15-23
Any teaching that wants to suggest that Christians need Jesus PLUS … (anything else) to be a Christian or to live as a Christian is guilty of contradicting the supremacy of Christ. Being told we need more than him (either for salvation or to live as a Christian) means that we are being taught that what he has done is not enough. We need to stand firm in our faith in Jesus as all we need for this life and the next.
In this sermon, Gary Haddon invites us to see who Jesus really is, to see just how far above everything he is, and to find out what that means for our salvation.
Read the text – Psalm 27
The Lord is the Light of my Salvation – dwell, seek, learn and wait on the LORD. As Christian get ready for the Christmas season, Psalm 27 is a good reminder that it is because of Jesus that it is possible to dwell forever with God.
Dave Swan gives us a Jesus shaped hope and prepares us to make the most of the Christmas season.
God’s official royal announcement, which he entrusted to his chosen representative and slave, Paul, and which is the culmination and fulfillment of everything he has been doing and saying in history, is that Jesus is the promised Messiah and the powerful divine Lord. God’s gospel is not about us, it is about Jesus!
Ken Noakes looks at what Romans 1 teaches us about the Gospel of God, and given this is a graduation address, he challenges those graduating (and listening) to put into practice the knowledge they now have by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus.
Some people see Christianity as a gamble. If we are wrong about Jesus, we simply live a good life. If we are right about Jesus, everything changes. We aren’t condemned, we have life and peace, and we are co-heirs with Jesus Christ.
The message of this Bible talk is simple – turn to Jesus, and accept him as Lord and Saviour.
Read the text – Romans 8:1-17
Yes it was a long time ago but what was all the fuss about a baby born to a poor family in a little country town of a minor province in the Roman empire? Watch or listen to Chris as he “opens the box” of why Christmas is so significant to us today.
Preacher: Chris Jolliffe
Faith and Works and Grace
What does it mean to be saved through faith by God’s grace?
It means that God, through Jesus, and only through Jesus, has made the effort to save us. It is his gift and it is freely given. That’s grace.
Why is salvation by grace so hard to accept?
This doctrine is one of the many points where the Bible is totally out of step with our society!
Romans 5 helps us:
5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Salvation by Grace
According to Acts 16, the Philippian Jailer and his whole family listened to the Word of the Lord as spoken by the Apostle Paul, accepted it, and were baptised as a sign that they had been saved (Acts 16:16-40).
Christians are people who believe in the Lord Jesus. They are saved, not by what they have done, but by what he has done. Jesus’ greatest gift is his salvation – which is why Christians can clearer and confidently say that they are ‘saved by grace’.
This is a fundamental starting point.
Let me explain.
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