Tag Archives: sermons

The Passover in Colour

Posted by on March 27, 2012 No comments

Last week in our Community Groups, we studied the Passover (Exodus 12). The first question in the study was to draw the Passover scene (verses 1-28) in colour. Below is one group’s depiction. I think it’s a cracker.

In the sermon on Exodus 12 on Sunday, I finished with the following: Death will come to everyone. But God graciously provides a substitute who bears our guilt; a substitute that is forsaken so we will never be. We see this in:

  • Isaac who was to die, but a lamb sacrificed in his place (Genesis 22)
  • The nation of Israel who were to be judged, but a lamb was given for the sins of the nation on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16)
  • The world is under the curse of sin, but God gave a lamb for the world – Jesus (the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world). In John 19, we are told that Jesus died at the very hour Passover lambs were being sacrificed. He was perfect, innocent, without blemish. Not one of His bones was broken. This was done so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

At Israel’s worst, God gave a lamb. At the world’s worst, God gave His Son. Jesus is our:

  1. Christus Victor (Christ the Victor): defeating our greatest enemies: sin, death (the death defeating resurrection), hell, Satan (Colossians 2:15)
  2. Propitiation: absorbing God’s righteous anger at our sin (Romans 3:25)
  3. Expiation: cleansing us from sin (1 Corinthians 6:11)
  4. Redemption: buying us back from sin and slavery (Ephesians 1:7)
  5. Reconciliation: making enemies friends (Romans 5:11)

Because of the Passover in Exodus 12, God’s people could enjoy their freedom. From oppressed, poverty stricken bunch of slaves – to freedom and fullness of life. This is our story too.

Galatians 5:1 gives a helpful application to Christians – For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Redemption – Bible talks from the Book of Exodus

Posted by on February 17, 2012 Comments Off

This coming Sunday is the final sermon in our series on 1 Peter. I think it’s been a really helpful series – a big thanks to (our student minister) Yarran for faithfully preparing and preaching many of the sermons.

Coming up on Feb 26 is the first in our series on the Book of Exodus. We’re calling the series Redemption, because in Exodus, we meet the God who rules His people, remembers His people, rescues His people, speaks to His people, and dwells with His people.

Below are the Bible passages, title and dates. As always, it’d help you immensely if you read the Bible passages in advance.

26/2  Unfailing love (an overview of the Book of Genesis – with special focus on Genesis 12:1-9)

4/3  Slavery (Exodus 1-2)

11/3  Intervention (Exodus 2:23 – 3:22)

18/3  The call to freedom (Exodus 5:22 – 6:12)

25/3  The Passover (Exodus 12:1-41)

1/4  The Freedom Song (Exodus 15:1-21)

6/4  Good Friday

8/4  Easter Sunday

15/4  Quenching our thirst (Exodus 17:1-16)

22/4  The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-21)

29/4  The Binding (Exodus 24:1-18)

6/5  The Dwelling Place (Exodus 25:1-9, 39:32-43, 40:24-28)

13/5  Volunteering for slavery (Exodus 32:1-35)

20/5  When God comes down - Pentecost Sunday (Ex 40:34-38, Isaiah 64:1-4, Acts 10)

 

A year of sermons in picture: remember these?

Posted by on November 18, 2011 Comments Off

 

 

 

Myth busting

Posted by on October 11, 2011 Comments Off

This series of talks are currently happening at church in the hope that we will bust some of the myths surrounding Christianity and set the record straight. We’d love you to come listen to any or all of them, examine the Bible with us, ask questions, and hopefully get meaningful, satisfying, and even life-changing answers from God and His word.

On our part, we promise to respect where you’re coming from, and not demand anything from you. And we promise free dinners after church! We sincerely hope you’ll check us, the Bible, Jesus, and Christianity out.

09/10 – Christianity is for mindless morons
16/10 – Christianity does more harm than good
23/10 – Christianity is for wimps
30/10 – Christians hate homosexuals
06/11 – Christians are all hypocrites
13/11 – All religions are the same
20/11 – You can’t take the Bible literally
27/11 – …so what does all this mean for me?

The Glorious Unveiling – the Book of Revelation

Posted by on July 10, 2011 Comments Off

This Sunday (July 17) we’ll be beginning our sermon series on the Book of Revelation. We’ll be calling it “The Glorious Unveiling” – because Revelation means to reveal, and what we’ll see in the Book of Revelation will be majestic and glorious.

Here is the info on the series:

Jul 17  The Glorious Unveiling (Rev 1:1-20)

Jul 24  What Jesus thinks of His Church (Rev 2:1-3:22)

Jul 31  Enter the Throne Room (Rev 4:1-5:14)

Aug 7  Groundhog Day (Rev 6:1-11:19)

Aug 14  A Glorious Gathering (Rev 7:1-17)

Aug 21  Beware of Imitations (Rev 12:1-13:18)

Aug 28  Total justice (Rev 14:1-16:21)

Sept 4  The city of man is gone! (Rev 17:1-19:10)

Sept 11 The city of God is here! (Rev 19:11-21:8)

Sept 18  Glory! (Rev 21:9-22:21)

The Introduction to Revelation which we are passing around in hard copy can be found at the bottom of our Resources page here. It was written by a good friend of Keiyeng and mine. Please have a read of the paper, but more than that, please read the Book of Revelation – it’ll greatly help your understanding of the sermons and Bible Studies.

How words change lives

Posted by on June 23, 2011 3 comments

I’ve been reading through Proverbs 10:11-21 in preparation for this Sunday’s sermon. It’s an amazing passage – so relevant to our lives today, but so tough to live out. You see, it’s all about the power of the spoken word – for good or for harm. Two things that really strike me are: what we say matters to the person who is listening; but equally importantly, how we speak also matters. Here’s the passage. Notice the positive and negative effects of our speech:

Proverbs 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

12Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

13On the lips of him who has understanding, wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks sense.

14The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.

17Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray.

18The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever utters slander is a fool.

19 When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.

20The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the heart of the wicked is of little worth.

21The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense.

Here are a few thoughts the passage has brought to my mind:

  • What sorts of things do I speak about – at church, work, home, with friends?
  • Am I conscious of the power of my words – either for people’s good or harm?
  • Do I have adequate self-control in the way I use words? For illustration: in a golf car, there’s what’s called a ‘governor’ – a little device that stops the car from going past (say) 30km/hr. It physically prevents the car from going too fast and thus getting in danger. Do I have an internal ‘governor’ that stops me from saying harmful things in harmful ways? How do I get this? (more on this this Sunday)
  • Am I conscious, not just of what I say, but how I say things? Are my words nullified by immature or unloving actions?
  • What sort of listener am I? Do I listen to and take on correction and guidance, or do I ignore it and keep going in my folly? A few months ago, a friend subtly rebuked me for what was obviously a poor attitude of mine. I heard what he said, and thought he was talking about someone else. Later, Keiyeng said that my friend was obviously talking about me, and that I wasn’t listening properly. SNAP! It took Keiyeng to re-emphasise by poor attitude, but it finally got through my thick skull. And hearing and heeding the (much needed) correction has helped my attitude enormously. If only I am quicker to hear what people are saying to me!

Proverbs is a great book – and as all Scripture does, it leads us to Jesus (Luke 24:27) – who spoke the truth perfectly, and backed it up with His consistently right actions. He took all our sins (word, thought and deed) and nailed them to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14). He gave His people the Holy Spirit, who is making us like Jesus, in our words and deeds (Galatians 5:22-25). As we look at Proverbs, and as we seek to grow in wisdom, we are to be reminded that Jesus is the one who gives us wisdom and righteousness (1 Cor 1:30).

And through the Holy Spirit who inspired the Word of God (the Bible), we are taught to be like Jesus, in “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). To be Christians means to be loving in the way we speak. Speaking the truth (God’s Word) as well as avoiding gossip, lies and rumours etc, in love, is a powerful tool in the hands of God’s children. As Christians, we’re to be people who know God’s truth, who speak God’s truth, who say it in love, and get in on God’s work of transforming the lives of people around us.

So come to 5:17 church on Sunday, as we seek to know these truths more, and grow in our words and actions, to the glory of King Jesus.


 

Genesis: the beginnings

Posted by on May 4, 2011 Comments Off

Our current sermon series at 5:17 is Genesis: the beginnings. Below are the details for the series. Reading up on the passages beforehand would be of great benefit to you. We’re also studying the same passages in our Community Groups – to get the most out of the passages, and to make sure that we are applying what we learn well.

May.1  When the world began (Gen 1:1-2:3)
May.8  Humanity at its best (Gen 2:4-25)
May.15   Humanity at its worst (Gen 3:1-24)
May.22   The spread of evil (Gen 4:1-5:32)
May.29  A clean slate (Gen 6:1-9:28)
Jun.5    Humanity: our way (Gen 10:1-11:9)
Jun.12  Humanity: God’s way (Gen 11:10-12:9)

Seeking great things for yourself?

Posted by on August 29, 2010 Comments Off

Last Sunday we finished off the Jeremiah sermon series in chapter 45. (Meanwhile I’m still plodding through all 52 chapters in my personal Bible reading – long but worthwhile!) As per all good Bible reading / preaching / study, Steve seeks to preach sermons that follow the 3-step process of reading the Bible effectively – exegesis (what does the text say?), hermeneutics (what does the text mean? especially recognising that a time and culture gap needs to be bridged between the original text and here and now), and application (so what?).

Here’s a summary of last week’s ‘So What’ from Jeremiah 45.

God’s word to Baruch was: In a time of national and spiritual disaster, Baruch’s priorities were wrong; it was wrong of him to seek great things for himself.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:26 that life isn’t about the accumulation of abundance – about grasping for gain.

1 John 5:13 tells us that God’s people have been given the priceless gift of eternal life.

This means we don’t have to strive for gain or personal ambition in life; we’ve been given something so much greater.  If God has my back (like He had Baruch’s – Jer 45:5) it means I can freely give myself to Him and others.

So who or what am I ambitious for?

In Matthew 6 Jesus says to be ambitious for God and His kingdom – to seek first to see His kingdom growing.

This is especially needed in the face of coming disaster; 2 Peter 3:9 tells us a day of judgement is coming – which spells disaster for anyone not on the side of the Judge (through the Saviourship of Jesus).

In the face of this coming disaster, will you seek to build up your or some other human’s ‘kingdom’, or will you be ambitious to build God’s – to see more people finding refuge in Him?

Upcoming sermon series

Posted by on August 25, 2010 Comments Off

After a personally challenging journey through the Book of Jeremiah, we’re now ready for a new series of sermons at 5:17. With Keiyeng ready to give birth to our bub at any time now, and to give me a short break when bub arrives, we’re going to have a month of DVD sermons from Mike Raiter. These messages are on the book of Acts, and give an exciting picture of how God’s gracious gospel changes lives – then and now.

  • Aug 29 – Mission in the Marketplace (Acts 17:16-34)
  • Sep 05 – Confronting the Idols (Acts 19:8-41)
  • Sep 12 – Paul’s Perfect Storm (Acts 27)
  • Sep 19 – Adventures in Malta (Acts 28:1-10)

Following Mike’s sermons, we’ll then be moving on to 1 Timothy, which I will be preaching through (God willing).

The title of this series is ‘Putting your household in order’, and this comes from 1 Timothy 3:14-15, which says:

“I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth”.

The following is the sermon plan for this series:

  • Sep 26 – Intro to 1 Timothy – Warning a Young Church (Acts 20)
  • Oct 3 – Grounded in Grace (1 Timothy 1)
  • Oct 10 – The Godly Life (1 Timothy 2)
  • Oct 17 – It’s all about character (1 Timothy 3)
  • Oct 24 – Training in Godliness (1 Tim 4)
  • Oct 31 – No little people (1 Tim 5:1-6:2a)
  • Nov 7 – In case you’ve forgotten (1 Timothy 6:2b-21)

Hopefully there will be a 1 Timothy reading plan produced in the next few weeks, so that you can read through the letter at home and thus grasp the message of 1 Timothy even more.

the New Covenant is better

Posted by on August 22, 2010 3 comments

Last Sunday and at (some) CGs this week, we took a good look at Jeremiah 31:31-34 where the LORD promises to make a New Covenant with His people. I got pretty excited at CG studying the passage in conjunction with Hebrews 10:11-25, and it’s one of the units from Bible College that impacted me the most too. (It’s an unusual privilege when you actually enjoy writing an exam essay because the content is so fantastic!) Why so excited? All to do with how superlatively better the New Covenant is compared to the Old.

…but as we pointed out at CG, it wasn’t that the Old Covenant was a bad system in itself. God doesn’t institute bad systems; He’s not a bully for introducing something that He knew would ultimately ‘fail’. But it was a system that He knew wouldn’t be able to work perfectly because it was a Covenant made between Him (a perfect God with perfect standards of holiness) and a broken, sinful, and thus unreliable people. Namely, from Exodus 19:5, Israel was supposed to obey God fully and keep (or obey) His covenant – the process of which was fully described in the Old Testament moral, political, and ceremonial laws. If (or rather when) the people didn’t obey, they were to apply the procedures of the sacrificial system – as an animal died and its blood was shed on their behalf, the people acknowledged that the due penalty of their sin against God was the separation of death, but that an animal was taking this punishment upon itself in their place. A lot of sin was committed, and so a lot of animals died*.

But there was a bunch of other stuff – as we learned from the (translated!) Latin summary phrases in Sunday’s sermon, a fallen humanity is not able to not sin. So there remained this separation, this relational distance between a sinful people and an awe-fully holy God as they struggled to obey, yet kept failing. A new system was needed – one that didn’t depend on sinful people to ensure its success, yet one that didn’t compromise this awe-full holiness of God’s. What? How??

Enter the New Covenant.

Imagine if there were someone who could perfectly keep the human side of the Covenant, and then ‘lend’ this perfect obedience to the rest of humanity? And imagine if there were a blood sacrifice with blood so ‘potent’ it was sufficient to cover all sin for all time – so the animal sacrifices could stop? And imagine if there were a life of infinite worth that if sacrificed, would be sufficient to take the separation of death-punishment for all other lives?

Enter Jesus.

- the perfect Adam, and the perfect Lamb – the human who because of the infinite worth of his divine life, could represent all humans: as he both perfectly obeyed the perfect standards of God, AND as he offered himself as the perfect and final ‘animal’ sacrifice to completely take the punishment due all humans for all their sin.

So if he kept Covenant perfectly, and if God allowed this Covenant-keeping perfection to belong to sinful me, then … wow! Imagine all the benefits that would be mine! (Actually you don’t have to imagine – Hebrews 10:11-25 is a good start, and then you could read the rest of the New Testament to round it off!)

So this is why I get excited thinking about the New Covenant, and how it’s better – not at all because I’m better or more sophisticated than an Old Testament Israelite, but because a Better Person has kept it perfectly for me. And God by His stupendous grace, somehow sees fit to allow Jesus’ perfect Covenant-keeping righteousness to be MINE – so that God sees me as if I’d never sinned, and is changing and empowering me so that I sin less with time, and will one day perfect me so I can’t sin at all. Plus I get to have GOD as my friend, not a distant Creator or angry Lord, but as loving heavenly Father, and Jesus as my brother.

I’ve gone on for several paragraphs now, but I hope you’ve seen why this stuff makes me excited. It’s the Gospel – the heart of the Good News we believe as Christians – that God should be so good to me by including me in this New Covenant is too wonderful for words. I hope it makes you rejoice too, and if you haven’t yet experienced it for yourself, I hope it makes you want to. Find out how here.

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*Gory? yup. But a primitive system of blood and death by an anthropologically immature people that later became outmoded as they developed a more sophisticated religion? (this is how some schools of thought would describe it) no. Yes, this might seem to be a plausible explanation, but a careful reading of the whole Bible helps clarify why the system changed – and it isn’t due to a group of people becoming more sophisticated. Actually, keep reading above for the Bible’s explanation.