Sermons from 2018
It’s Time!
Today’s Passage: John 12:20-36 Over the last three weeks, our morning service has been looking at God’s message through the prophet Hosea. Hosea tells of the greatest love story this universe has ever heard. It tells of God’s love for His people. It’s a story of God’s incredible faithfulness, contrasted with the unbelievable unfaithfulness of us – His people. Our God is the God who does not easily give up on us. He is certainly the God of justice, but…
Redeemed
Today’s Passage: Hosea 3 Hosea’s life isn’t, perhaps, typical of what you’d expect from a holy man. When he got married, he married not one of the nice girls in town, but one of the prostitutes. And although she stayed around for a bit, it wasn’t too long before she had walked out on him. She ended up with another man – perhaps a slave, or perhaps with debts to him that she couldn’t ever pay off. She was trapped.…
Lovers vs the Lover
Today’s passage: Hosea 2 In our Sunday morning service this weekend, we’re continuing our journey through the book of Hosea. Hosea is an interesting prophet; called by God to be a living demonstration to his people – and to us today – of the heart of God. As we saw last week in Hosea 1, God told the prophet to marry an adulterous woman, and to start a family with her. And Hosea did. He married Gomer – a woman…
God’s Amazing Love
Today’s passage: Hosea 1 This weekend, our morning service starts a new 4 week series looking at the book of Hosea. Hosea’s the first of the so-called Minor Prophets – the shorter prophetic books. He is, as one of the minor prophets, much less well known than prophets like Ezekiel, Jeremiah or Isaiah. Which is a great pity… because the message of Hosea is incredibly beautiful. Hosea did more than speak God’s words. In a way, Hosea’s life came to…
Life with the Spirit
This weekend, we have the privilege of welcoming Mark Sena, pastor of Faith City Church in Mandurah, as our guest speaker. Over the last fortnight, we’ve been looking at our experience of God with us by His Spirit. We’ve spoken about how we can hear God, and discern it when He speaks to us. We’ve also looked at how the Spirit of God is not under our control. God lives in us by His Spirit; He is a person, not…
The Power of the Holy Spirit
Today’s Passage: Acts 8 This Sunday morning, we’re continuing our mini-series looking at the person of the Holy Spirit. As we saw last week, our relationship with God is not meant to be one sided. God is for us, and cares about us. And God speaks. If God lives with us by His Spirit, then why would we expect God to do otherwise? The Spirit of God who lives with us, however, is also the One who empowers us. Through…
Hearing God’s Voice
Today’s Passage: 1 Samuel 3 Have you ever heard God speaking to you? It’s a strange question to ask of a bunch of Christians, isn’t it? After all, we are those who claim to have a personal relationship with God. We often speak about how God is with us. We read through the Bible, and hear of God’s speaking with people time and time again. In the book of Acts, we read of Jesus speaking with Paul on the road…
Father’s Day
Today’s Passage: Luke 11:1-13 This Sunday, our society takes a moment to celebrate our fathers. Personally, I have been blessed with a wonderful, godly man as my father. He’s a gentle man who consistently encourages his children – to this day! – to be the best that we can be. I know without a shadow of doubt that my father loves me – and that will always be the case. He (along with my mother – mothers are great too!)…
God’s Will… It’s all about Jesus!
Today’s passage: Galatians 3:15-29 The situation among the Christians in Galatia wasn’t good. They had put their trust in Jesus to save them. They’d heard the good news that God’s Kingdom was open and available to them through Jesus, who had dealt the death-blow to death and sin. They were a vibrant church, where there was plenty of evidence of God’s power in their midst. God’s Spirit was doing all sorts of miracles among them. God’s Spirit was living in…
Church Camp: What’s the Point of Church History?
The last session from our combined church camp. After all of our journey through the history of the church, we ask what we can learn from it for our life as Christ’s Church today. Passage for this session: Philippians 1:12ff
Church Camp: The Modern Church
The third session from our combined church camp. A primer on church history, presented by Dr Peter Elliott. This session focuses on the history of the modern church. Slides for more details are available.
Church Camp: The Middle Church
The second session from our combined church camp. A primer on church history, presented by Dr Peter Elliott. This session focuses on the history of the church during the Middle Ages. Slides for more details are available.
Church Camp: Breakout Session
The breakout group session from our combined church camp. In this session, Matt Hall, asked the campers to discuss some following questions in light of the first session from the camp. The questions addressed were: How would you describe persecution? Where do you know that persecution against the church exists today, and what form(s) does it take? In countries where religious persecution takes place believers were aligned to a tribe or nationality, and when they become Christians it can be…
Church Camp: The Early Church
The first session from our combined church camp. A primer on church history, presented by Dr Peter Elliott. This session focuses on the history of the early church. Slides for more details are available.
Alive? Alive!
Today’s passage: 1 Corinthians 15 There’s an exercise that one can do to try and come to a better understanding of who you are as a person. On a piece of paper, drawn a straight line, representing time. On the left hand side, mark a line for your birth. Above your straight line represents good, and below the line represents bad. The exercise is to think back over your entire life, and to graph your life. When things go really…
Should we pay attention to… ?
Today’s passage: Galatians 1:10-2:10 This weekend, we’re continuing our journey through Paul’s letter to the Galatians. As we saw last week, Paul wrote to the Galatians in response to some very disturbing news that had reached him: the Christians in Galatia were in the process of abandoning God! They were giving up on the good news that Paul had preached to them in favour of a new so-called “good news” that was anything but. We heard last week that there…
JesusPlus?
This week’s passage: Galatians 1:1-10 This weekend, we’re starting a new series going through Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia. Like so much of the New Testament, the letter to the Galatians came about as a result of some serious issues in the Galatian churches. The Galatian Christians had accepted God’s rescue in the person of Jesus, quite probably as recorded in Acts 13ff. They had heard the good news that there is forgiveness of sins and the offer…
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone…
Today’s passage: John 8:2-11 This weekend, Daniel Patterson is bringing us a message from John 8:2-11. The incident that John describes for us is particularly pertinent to the age in which we live. In your Bible, you might notice that this passage is in a section demarcated with a line about it not being in the earliest manuscripts. This is true. The evidence from the oldest manuscripts, together with a few other clues, is that this bit of John wasn’t…
What We Say
This week’s passage: James 3:1-12 “Oh, my dear, I would be very careful around that man. I believe he’s been in jail for stealing houseboats before…” “I don’t really know, but I’ve been told that Mrs Jones… Of course I don’t believe it, but, as they say, ‘there’s no smoke without fire!’” “In love, and just so that you know how to pray, have you heard the latest about Clarissa?” Gossip. We hate it when we’re the target of gossip.…
Science vs Christianity?
This weekend, we’re doing a one-off sermon looking at whether we Christians are forced to choose between science and Christianity. There are those in society who would have us believe that any choice other than science would be absurd. Science, after all, explains things. And science works. We don’t, we’re told, need to make up stories to explain things any more. We’re told that faith is a crutch for those who don’t know any better – or who refuse to…
Getting Grace: Paul
Today’s passage: Acts 9 Grace is wonderful. God shows us such kindness and love and gentleness. Even though we don’t deserve it, God invites us into a relationship with himself. Having shown us mercy – taking the penalty of our sin onto Himself – God graciously invites us into his family, adopting us by the blood of Jesus through the Spirit of God. I like the idea of grace. I love the fact that there are countless second chances. Every…
Getting Grace: Joseph
Passages under consideration: Genesis 37-54 This weekend, as we continue our exploration of God’s grace, we’re doing something a little different. Rather than looking at a single passage, we’re looking at a story that covers at least 10 chapters! Our focus today will be on the story of God’s using Joseph, and what that story reveals about the grace of God. To understand Genesis 37ff, we need to understand something of the family history. Joseph is a son of Israel…
Getting Grace: Adam & Eve
Grace is something that we cannot live without. Grace starts where mercy leaves off. It’s more than our not getting what we deserve. It’s our getting what we don’t deserve. Grace is, ultimately, God giving Himself to us. It’s by grace that we are saved. That is, we are saved not because we deserve to be with God, but simply because God chooses to save us. Grace is a gift. Grace doesn’t dumb down the immensity of sin. Grace isn’t…
Getting Grace
This week’s passage: 1 Peter 2:9-10 This weekend, we’re starting a brand new series focusing on grace. Grace is one of those concepts that we speak about a lot as Christians. But it’s also something that we can find incredibly hard to get a handle on. In some ways, we just don’t get grace; it staggers our understanding! Grace is God’s treating us with undeserved kindness. It’s God giving us what we don’t deserve. Mercy, on the other hand, is…