The Light Beyond Sight

5th November 2023
"It's talking about things that are not physical, but they're more in the realm of existence, but not necessarily something with your eyes to see. But it's also what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that this world is made up of more things than just the ones that can be analysed by the professors at university. This world is made up by more than all the principles of education. And there's more than the learning to be done, that is good learning."
"Which covenants are mentioned and taught in the Bible? So they're biblical in the sense that it's the scriptures that have presented that idea to us. And basically there are not as many as you might think. There is the covenant that God made with Noah. And so you could say the Noahic covenant, that he wouldn't judge the world by water ever again. And there's other covenants of that nature. But basically to do with salvation, the only real covenants there are are the old covenant, that God made through Moses, and the new covenant that God made through Jesus. And those are indeed taught as the covenantal framework in which our salvation is set."
"Blessed are those, verse six, who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled, the older versions used to read, or satisfied. Now when we listen in to people who comment on the Beatitudes and tell us what they think it's about, and probably if you took a survey of popular opinion, the general consensus is that the truth that's there is that God is the one who satisfies the basic needs of human living. And that there is a sense in which hungering and thirsting is a very common experience for people, and by coming to God, we find an answer to it."
"Blessed is the one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, for they shall be filled. And the idea that there's a righteousness that Jesus said that we should hunger and thirst after, and that's one of the conditions of actually getting it in the end. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, or some translations have after righteousness, chasing righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. And tonight I thought maybe to add the other half of the message, and to talk about what is the righteousness of God. And it's actually a far more tricky question to answer."
"We've been going through the Beatitudes, those blessed, and there's a lot of characteristics. And we're on to verse 6... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after, or for, righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."
"Even though the Bible teaches us that God is not willing, that any should perish, it goes on to say, but that all should come to repentance, which is to change your verdict, change your mind, to be sorry for your sin. And so there is, introduced by the scriptures themselves, these two elements that need to be held in tension, for both are true. The answer is not to find a way of thinking that chooses one and sticks to it and ignores the other, because both are in the scriptures... An antinomy is right there in the question as to whether God has chosen a sovereign or whether we've been put on the spot that our choice will make a difference."
"When God uses the 'you', when God uses an 'I', it's very strategic. God wants a relationship with you, the individual, not just the crowd. He's seeing individual people as you are, as you're sitting here. He's saying, you are someone that I have redeemed by sending my son into the world to die on the cross for your sins. I've called you by my name."

The Tree of Life

28th May 2023
"It's a terrific thing to come together and know that we have connections broader than just our local church. It's very Baptist-like, you know, to see the centre of the church life being the local church, but it's also something in our heritage that we can have associations at a broader level."

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