Post Category: sermon summary notes

587BC was a time of national crisis for the Jewish people generally and the inhabitants of Jerusalem in particular. But as is often the case, a time of national crisis becomes a moment of individual personal crisis. So it was in Jerusalem for three men - a prophet, a king and a eunuch. All three faced the same fears. Two chose to do the right thing. The third failed. Why? ...

One approach to the Bible, or its teaching, is that you pick and choose the bits you like, and discard the bits you don't. If that's your approach - deliberately or subconsciously - you're not the first. In fact, it started with the first recorded writing of part of the Bible - the book of Jeremiah. The question is, what is it about the authority of the Bible in our lives...

In a fractured world, the words of the prophet Isaiah, from thousands of years ago, speaking of a Servant who will bring justice, freedom and healing are startlingly relevant. Who is that Servant, how does he accomplish his mission and how can we be part of it? Join us this Sunday for our Missions Sunday - Morning Service, 10:30am, Evening Service 6:30pm....

When our issues or problems preoccupy us, God can seem distant, if present at all. Why is that? What is it about the way we respond to difficulties that can leave us feeling alone, or embittered, or both? How can we go through hard times and experience God in deep ways? This Sunday we're going to see how the prophet Jeremiah was invited by God to encounter him in ways tha...

It's not hard to see that our culture has a problem with external appearance - we over-value it and put far too much weight on it. This doesn't liberate people, it crushes them. So why don't we just be less superficial? What is it about external appearance that exercises such a power of us? This Sunday we're going to see the dark side of external beauty, the mask of exter...

What does it mean to 'come home'? Where, or in what situation, do you think, this is what I was made for? And what happens if, after a while, that place, or that thing, loses its shine? Does that mean there isn't somewhere that's 'home', or you just haven't found it? This Sunday we will look at how the prophet Jeremiah foretold that the Jewish exiles would return home, bu...

Imagine living in a city that was opposed to everything you held dear, where the authorities wanted you to conform to their way of thinking and seeing the world, and where you were, in every sense, a foreigner. What would your attitude to the people of that city be? That was the situation that the Jewish exiles living in Babylon in Jeremiah's day faced. This Sunday we wil...

People say, if God would only reveal himself to me, I'd go to church, I'd follow him. But would they? Would it really change them? It's possible, maybe even common, for people to go through the religious motions. That is, they go to church but it makes zero real difference in their lives - it doesn't change the kind of person they are. Why? And what if that was just as tru...

Why do betrayers betray? Why do deserters desert? When you see the toxic fallout of unfaithfulness or desertion, you don't want to go there. But how can you stop yourself? What's behind betrayal? And what's the secret to loyalty - but not just loyalty from duty, but loyalty with joy? This Sunday we're going to look at a man in the Bible called Demas - and his story has m...

Personal failures are all too common. Failures of courage; moral failures; spiritual failures. The Bible is littered with them... and so, in all likelihood, is our personal experience. Yet the good news of Jesus doesn't leave us flat on our faces, it lifts us up. it restores and rebuilds broken lives. And the story of a young man named John Mark is a case in point. A young...