Remember Lot’s Wife

10th March 2024
The sermon explores the concept of salvation as depicted through biblical stories, particularly focusing on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This narrative emphasises faith, judgement, and God's grace. Abraham's intercessory prayer for Lot is used as an example of how faith and prayer play crucial roles in salvation of others. The sermon warns against complacency and the dangers of ignoring God's call, using Lot's wife as a poignant reminder of the consequences of looking back. It encourages the audience to embrace a full commitment to faith, akin to Abraham, and to be mindful of the generational impact of their spiritual lives. The key point is that salvation is not automatic but requires a responsive heart to God's grace and a willingness to separate from the world's values in the outworking of sanctification.
This sermon dives deep into the Beatitudes within the context of Matthew chapters 5 and 6, emphasising Jesus' call for a higher standard of righteousness that goes beyond mere legalism to a heart transformed by sanctification. It explores the nuanced biblical understanding of murder versus manslaughter, underlining the importance of intention and malice in defining wrongful acts. Moreover, it discusses the significance of truthfulness and honesty in our dealings, as exemplified by Jesus' interaction with Nathanael in the Gospel of John. Jesus references the fact of God's moulding the character of the original Jacob to be named "Israel". The changes have sanctified his guile such that he can well represent being an Israelite. The key point revolves around the parallel New Covenant Christian journey toward sanctification, not just avoiding outward sins but cultivating an inward purity of heart and intention, striving towards perfection as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

The Path to Perfection

3rd March 2024
Matthew 5:48 spells out Jesus' intention of his raising the standard of the Beatitudes in order to have us aim at the "teleios ", the final result of our sanctification. It is that we arrive at the perfection of the Father. This is God's aim in having you become a Christian in the first place. And what we were learning in the morning service as well as tonight in the 5'00 o'clock Service. Particularly Jesus is lifting our eyesight to aim at the standard for God to be happy with you to be in his Kingdom!" Paul's personal journey on this purpose is a good example for us in Romans, chapters 6 through to 8.

Anger and Murder

3rd March 2024
"In our passage today in Matthew's Gospel, it is about anger and murder. And so that's what we're talking about today."
"He claimed to be the good shepherd. He claimed to be the one that spoke from God. He did it with authority as we've been learning in the morning surfaces. And, looking at the Beatitudes there, and Jesus, this one, was somehow not accepted by the Jewish leaders, and they couldn't grasp the fact that when they challenged Him. Tell us plainly tell us plainly whether you are the Christ or not and his answer was basically don't my works display when you see the Father's works turning up through me, when you see I'm doing the works of my Father, doesn't it show you who I am. My identity with the father. By identity I mean that the Father's the Father, and He's the Son."
"In our studies of in the beatitudes, Jesus has been speaking against the backdrop of the ideas of traditions coming from the teaching of the Pharisees, coming from the background of the history of the Jewish religion, and he presents himself as an authority. One of the things we found as we went through the beatitudes is just how much the folk listening were amazed how much authority Jesus had and how different that was from the normal teaching they were used to hearing."

Established or Stuck in the Mud

18th February 2024
"Not only in terms of physically, economically, in terms of your development of job and whatever. Do we have that same desire to be established? But I think it's true of us all as Christians, the part of what the Scriptures tell us in the book of Romans, the whole of the idea of the book of Romans is about not only coming to Christ, but also getting established."

God alone brings Revival

11th February 2024
"In our church we have been talking about in the morning services the old covenant led by Moses the law and the new covenant Led by Jesus and the biblical statement. That's The law came by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ This morning particularly we are looking at the word grace and the fact that grace is when God pours out His love love and does something for you totally undeserved. That's his grace."

The Radical Authority of Jesus

11th February 2024
"Can I set you at rest that my aim this morning is not so much to go through the content of all six, but it is rather to see something about Jesus' method of delivery, and about the issue of authority, whether or not there's a place for tradition. And so to talk this morning about whether you're traditional, whether you're a conservative, whether you're someone who's a radical."

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