John – Page 2 – Salisbury Baptist Church

The Righteousness that Invites Persecution

22nd October 2023

"It only really works for the musketeers to give themselves a role. It only really works if the king is a good king. If the king is not a good king, the whole expenditure of their loyalty isn't really worth it. Now, in the case of the Beatitudes, we have the one person who is a good king. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Beatitudes are about how we can come."

From The Old to The New Covenant Part 2

8th October 2023

"It is a feature of our Biblical revelation that there was an Old Covenant that God instituted through Moses, and then a part of what that Old Covenant involved with the prophets who came in that period of time was to predict there to be a coming Messiah. And the coming Messiah would be the leader of a New Covenant. And we were talking last time from the Old Testament and the prophecies about that New Covenant. And so we're continuing that today, and we'll start in the Scriptures from the book of Ephesians."

Nicodemus goes against his own crowd’s opinion

17th September 2023

We all know a lot of different people but it is normal to be able to identify "who is our crowd - with whom we fit and have common values". Nicodemus had "his crowd".John 3:1 says: "There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus." They were his crowd. John's Gospel has three places where the development of Nicodemus eventually believing in Christ is spelled out. But to do so, he had to go against the ideas and pressure of "his crowd". Whether you're "crowd" is a group you socialize with, or you are a sporting person wearing t-shirts about it, or you have a club with which you identify, or on the other hand, your style is to stay more hidden, nonetheless everyone has a crowd. But coming to Christ and being counted as His, often can cut across all the other commitments with which we ordinarily live. In John 3:1-15; 7:40-52; 19:38-42 we see Nicodemus coming out into the open with his devotion to Christ. With Joseph of Arimathea he goes to Pilate and requests the body of Jesus. That was a very dangerous thing to do, but Nicodemus displays how his story line eventually worked out. Has your commitment to Christ eventually similarly led you to confess Him no matter what the cost?

That we may believe & live

3rd September 2023

"The title of my sermon is taken from John 20.31, which is the stated purpose of the book. That is, that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And that by believing, you may have life in his name... The three key points in this verse. First, John's Gospel is selective and very purposeful. Thank you. It's much better. So first, John's Gospel is selective and purposeful. Secondly, the aim of writing is that the readers, like us, will believe in Jesus. And the third thing is, the end result of the belief is that we will have eternal life in him. Tonight, we are just focusing on the encounter of Nicodemus with Jesus."

God’s Varied grace

6th August 2023

"The content of this passage is Peter exhorting the church in the light of the fact that Jesus is going to come soon, and he doesn't know how soon, but he's speaking to the fact that Christ could come at any time, and they are in the end times, and therefore how should they behave, and what should they know about themselves."

Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

30th July 2023

"This morning we're in the Beatitudes in the book of Matthew in chapter 5 verses 1 to 12. And I'm planning on going through the Beatitudes, but not so much racing through the whole of them, but just one at a time and see how we go. In this particular chapter, we have Jesus going up onto a mountain... His disciples came to him and he opened his mouth, which is the best way to teach, and he taught them saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I want to talk about what Jesus meant."

The promise of the father

4th June 2023

"So while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said you heard from me. Then there is what amounts to a clue, is to understand this, he says, for John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days, the old version said hence, and the modern version says from now."