God's love and grace extend to all, even those who have strayed far from Him. The parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, and prodigal son illustrate God's relentless pursuit of the lost and His joy when they return. While we may identify with the prodigal son in our need for forgiveness, we must also guard against the self-righteous attitude of the older brother. God's grace is abundant, and He invites us to rejoice with Him when others turn to Him, remembering our own salvation and seeking to share this good news with those around us.
This sermon explores the profound meaning of the phrase "Thy Kingdom Come" in the Lord's Prayer, emphasising the concept of God's Kingdom as both a present reality and a future promise. It highlights Jesus' role in fulfilling all righteousness through His baptism and subsequent ministry, showcasing His pivotal function in God's redemptive plan. The sermon also delves into the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers, encouraging them to seek the Spirit's filling to live out God's will on earth, embodying the Kingdom of God here and now.
This sermon explores the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, emphasising that the achieving of righteousness was not without reference to the Old Testament era. Jesus was born under the OT law and gave full adherence to it. By Jesus, as our representative keeping the law, He completed it and also made Himself available to be a sinless sacrifice on the cross for our sins. He has thereby redeemed us from its curse. He cried from the cross “Paid in full!” or sometimes translated “It is finished”. He had paid off our humanity’s debt to God the Father and made possible our entrance into the New Covenant that God was setting up.
The message then highlights the transformative power of this New Covenant, whose application is not another outward code pressing in on us, but a spiritual empowering from within. Jesus’ Divine life in our hearts through the contribution of the Holy Spirit. Additionally, the sermon delves into our faith relationship with Christ which permits us to request the Father in Jesus’ Name. Through practical examples and biblical teachings, the message encourages us to live out the righteousness of Christ authentically and prayerfully.
The sermon focuses on the Christian journey of righteousness, beginning with the gift of forgiveness through Jesus Christ and leading into a life of sanctification. The preacher emphasises the need for living out our righteousness not for human approval but as a reflection of divine standards set by Jesus. Through the Beatitudes, believers are guided on how to align their lives with God’s expectations, progressing towards perfection in heaven. The concept of apologetics is also explored, highlighting the importance of defending one’s faith with reason and respect, while living in a way that genuinely reflects Christ's teachings. This sermon invites listeners to delve deeper into their faith, understanding it not just as a belief system but as a transformative journey shaped by divine grace and sustained through personal growth in holiness.
"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."
"The zeal of your house has burned me up. So this is not a case of the two opposites, one being right and one being wrong. It has been two approaches, which the Bible itself is the author of their existence and that sometimes we don't know how to utilize what we learn in the Old Covenant and what we learn in the New Covenant and what it's calling on us to do."
"What we've been doing in these mornings is bringing out the facts that the righteousness that those statements, those Beatitudes are about, are really of a standard that none of us can make it in our own. And it is God's intention. It is God's intention for us to understand that the righteousness needed to be in his kingdom is something that we have failed to achieve as a human race."
"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."