Many Parts, But One Body (1 Corinthians 12:12-26)

Sunday 13/12/2020

What do you think the church is like?

Is it a family? A business? Or maybe a family business?

It is an organisation? An institution?

Is the church a place you go because you’re expected to? Or because you’ve got a job to do? Is it a duty?

Perhaps you think the church is a provider of spiritual activities and products. If you go along, you hope to hear something interesting or even inspiring. But what if you’re asked to do something, or you’re not asked to do something, or the service is uninspiring?

Or maybe, for you, the church is a place that reinforces your values, with the same concerns you have about where the world is headed. But what if there’s disagreement?

But what’s missing from those ideas of the church? Only two things: God and others.

When our ideas about the church ignore God and others, we have a self-centred view of the church.

So, we ask how the church can serve us instead of asking how we can serve the church. ‘How does the music make me feel? Are there activities for me? What is there for my kids? Are the people like me? Do I fit in?’

It shows when we choose not to be part of church at all. ‘I read my Bible, I pray, and there’s so much good teaching online. And I meet up with other Christians. Does it matter if I don’t go to a church?’

But it also shows when we come to church when we feel like it. ‘The really spiritual people might get to church every week, but I’ll fit it in when I can.’

These self-centred ideas about the church misunderstand what the church is. They ignore what God says about the church and how God has made the church.

So, we need to hear what God says about the church. Then we need to believe it and arrange our lives by it.

Video Playlist (with songs)

Video (Sermon only)

Audio

*Sermons can be downloaded by clicking on the three dots at top right.

Download the Kids’ Activity Sheets

Click to access 8.-merged-pdf_-discussion-questions-activity-sheets-craft-_-game-ideas-restored-friendships.pdf

Please let us know that you’re joining us for church online today

Other Resources

 

 

Which Road Are You On? (Matthew 7:13-29)

Sunday 05/12/2020

How interested are you in Jesus?

Maybe you’re not really interested at all, but you’re here because your family or friends expect you to be.

Perhaps you think of yourself as neutral: not really interested in Jesus, but not really against Him.

Maybe you are interested in Jesus but you’re not ready to commit yourself to Him yet.

Maybe you’ve been coming to church for ages. Everyone probably thinks you’re a Christian, but you haven’t repented from your sins, trusted in Jesus, and committed yourself to serving with His people.

You might be a new Christian, eager to listen and starting to grow.

Or you’re a mature Christian, faithfully and earnestly continuing to follow Jesus.

Wherever you stand with Jesus, He has something to say to you and me today. He says: There are only two ways you can live your life. You are either going one way or the other.

Either, you are following Jesus on the narrow way to life, or you are going down the road to destruction. Which one is it? How would you know?

Jesus says we can know which road we are on. There are only two. They describe two ways of life:

One is a 6-lane highway. It’s easy because it seems everyone is going that way. And it leads to destruction (v13).

The other is a narrow track, with no room to pass or pull over. It might be lonely, but it leads to life (v14).

Are you driving with the traffic or going against the flow?

Jesus warns us that not everyone who looks like a Christian is one. That warning is for our safety, because there are imposters who would take you with them to destruction.

But Jesus says we can know who they are too. It all comes down to whether we listen to Jesus’ words AND do them!

That’s the hard part. So, how do you do? Do you do what Jesus says? Or do you just like to listen?

Here in Matthew 7:13-29, Jesus demands a decision. He warns us that faith cannot be just a hobby. Following Him must be our lifestyle. He gives us three directions to walk on the path to life:

  1. Walk Narrowly! (v13-14)
  2. Beware the Wolves! (v15-23)
  3. Do or Die! (v24-29)

Video Playlist (with songs)

Video (Sermon only)

Audio

*Sermons can be downloaded by clicking on the three dots at top right.

Download the Kids’ Activity Sheets

Click to access 8.-merged-pdf_-discussion-questions-activity-sheets-craft-_-game-ideas-broken-friendships.pdf

Please let us know that you’re joining us for church online today

Other Resources

 

 

‘Do To Others…” (Matthew 7:1-12)

Sunday 29/11/2020

For a long time, the most quoted verse in the Bible was John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

But in recent years, it’s been overtaken by the opening verse of Matthew 7: “‘Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

Instead of talking about how God loved us when we were lost in rebellion and sin, people would rather talk about how we treat one another. Now, we should always be telling the good news of salvation and life in Jesus. But often we overlook the difference being God’s people should make to how we live.

‘Oh, but we’re saved by faith, not by works!’ Absolutely! But having been saved by faith, do we live by faith? Do our lives show that we believe God’s promises? Do we live like God’s Word for us is best?

Christian, do you live like the Gospel changes your eternity, but not your present? Or maybe we forget that not everyone is heading to heaven like we are (v6)? At the heart of it is a failure to see God’s goodness, especially in the ways He changes us. Do we really believe that God gives good gifts (v11), including the people around us?

It’s so easy to live like God’s Kingdom is for the life to come, but not for now. That becoming like Jesus will happen in eternity, but is pretty hopeless for now.

But is that how Jesus sees it? Does Jesus believe we’ll just muddle along in life like everyone else until He calls us home? No. Jesus challenges our thinking about our relationships. He calls us not to live like we naturally would. Jesus says the way we treat others must be different because belong to His Kingdom.

Video Playlist (with songs)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1oW4XTnlZJd1Chults4-ReNcAZ1SKXuW  

Video (Sermon only)

Audio

*Sermons can be downloaded by clicking on the three dots at top right.

Download the Kids’ Activity Sheets

Click to access 8.-merged-pdf-discussion-questions-8.-activity-sheets-craft-_-game-ideas-matthew-6_1-4-being-humble_.pdf

Please let us know that you’re joining us for church online today

Other Resources

 

 

How to Worry (Matthew 6:19-34)

Sunday 22/11/2020

Are you good at worrying? Do you get much practice?

At first, it seems easy. Instead of thinking about what you should be thinking about, you focus on one thing. You ask yourself questions you don’t know the answer too, like ‘What if this happens?’ Then you guess what will happen, and guarantee yourself that that’s the only way things will turn out. Then, repeat that process until you collapse.

But, have you noticed that no matter how much you worry, it’s never enough? There’s always more worrying you can do!

And worse than that, worrying doesn’t work. No matter how much we worry, it doesn’t change what happens at all. Maybe we’re not doing it right?

Worrying can appear as anxiety, a paralysing fear. But worry can also show up as ambition: the preoccupation with satisfaction and security.

When Jesus diagnoses our worry, He says the cause is a divided loyalty: We seek earthly things, instead of heavenly things; we welcome darkness instead of light; we try to serve money as well as God. Worry is focusing on our bodies, doubting God, and forgetting His Kingdom. It’s the opposite of what Jesus has just said in Matthew 6:1-18 about generosity, prayer and fasting; it’s greed, materialism, and anxiety. That’s the opposite of how we should live if we are seeking His kingdom (v10, 33).

So, let’s see how to worry. I’ve got 6 tips:

  1. Value What’s Temporary (v19-21)
  2. Let Darkness In (v22-23)
  3. Serve Greed Too (v24)
  4. Underestimate Your Value (v25-27)
  5. Disbelieve God (v28-30)
  6. Forget the Kingdom (v31-34)

(Of course, that’s what Jesus is teaching us to avoid, so we’ll see why each of them is not what we should do).

Video Playlist (with songs)

Video (Sermon only)

Audio

*Sermons can be downloaded by clicking on the three dots at top right.

Download the Kids’ Activity Sheets

Click to access 8.-merged-pdf_-discussion-questions-activity-sheets-craft-_-game-ideas-matthew-5_33-37-keeping-your-word.pdf

Please let us know that you’re joining us for church online today

Other Resources

 

 

‘Pray Like This…’ (Matthew 6:5-15)

Sunday 15/11/2020

The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most famous parts, not only of the Sermon on the Mount, but of all of Jesus’ teaching. It’s so well-known that linguists use it to study differences between languages. But the Lord’s Prayer should be of more than theoretical interest to us.

How we pray says a lot about us and about who we’re praying too.

Have you ever had the impression that someone was praying to make you think well of them? Do you ever do that?

Maybe it’s speaking differently to how they normally speak. Or using lots of fancy words. That says that we actually think the people listening to us pray are more important than the God we’re praying to.

Or can you think of prayers that are working really hard to convince God to answer? They’re full of descriptions of the

Video Playlist (with songs)

Video (Sermon only)

Audio

*Sermons can be downloaded by clicking on the three dots at top right.

Download the Kids’ Activity Sheets

Click to access 8.-merged-pdf_-discussion-questions-activity-sheets-craft-_-game-ideas-matthew-5_43-48-loving-your-enemies.pdf

Please let us know that you’re joining us for church online today

Other Resources