There are people who spend years longing for a relationship with God, but held back by something they will not let go of. The rich young ruler had privilege, position and prestige, and had faithfully kept the O.T. commandments since his youth, yet something was still missing. Jesus loved him enough to expose the true state of his heart. The Lord applied the commandments to reveal his sin and called him to repentance, yet the man went away sorrowful, unwilling to lay aside his pride. Entering into a genuine relationship with God requires two things: repentance of sin and faith, not in what we can do for Him, but in what Christ has done for us on the cross and what He can do empowering us with His resurrected life.
We are called to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, not our own. When we prioritise God's kingdom, we discover a true blessedness: a joy and contentment that comes from Him. As we pursue His will and trust in Jesus to produce His fruits in us, we can be confident that He will add to us all the practical things He sees we need for life.
The Lord God is a sun and a shield, bestowing favour and honour upon His people. He is the unchanging Father of lights, from whom every good and perfect gift comes, providing for our physical needs and giving spiritual understanding. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. Therefore, we are called to trust in His character, store His word in our hearts, and seek to please Him, knowing that the one who rests in the Lord is truly blessed.
Becoming a Christian is not about repairing the old, fallen self, but about being made part of God's new creation in Christ. "The Old has passed away; behold, the New has come!" The "old" is the humanity in Adam which fell. The "new" is Christ and the humanity based on Him. This is possible because the Godhead was bodily totally in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our trespasses against us. Through this divine exchange, He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us, so that we in Him might become the very righteousness of God. When you truly rest in this finished work, you can live without fear of the past with its guilt but find the Christian life as a wonderful growing adventure.
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."