Tag Archives: faith

Once Saved, Always Saved?

This morning we have the last of our “Tough questions” sermon series. In the past month or so we’ve considered such things as “What do we do with violence in the Bible?”, “Why do good things happen to bad people?”, and “Are demons real?” If you missed any of those, and for some reason find […]

More

Before we dive into looking in detail at this evening’s reading from Joshua, a bit of a reminder of some of the things that have happened in the lead up to the events described in this passage. How have the characters in the story got here? We’re not going to go right back to the […]

Handover

This evening we are picking up our journey through the Old Testament. At the end of the last series we left Moses and the people of God, having been rescued from Egypt, setting out into the desert. They had received the provision of manna, food from heaven, the beginnings of the law, and instructions for […]

Love

It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. It’s often struck me as a slightly depressing world view, one which I hope isn’t necessarily true. It seems to me much more hopeful to believe that familiarity might breed insight, affection, and comfort. Maybe, though, this does take a bit of work, and maybe a choice to […]

Ordinary

I’d like to begin this morning by telling you one of my favourite true stories. It’s a bit longer than my normal sermon illustrations, so please bear with me. Are you sitting comfortably? Mary’s mother carefully placed the apple pie in the oven. She wiped her floury hands. ‘That’s all the baking done, Mary. Now […]

Exiles and Foreigners

A couple of years ago I was in Lubambashi airport on the way home from a two week trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. We were already running a day late, because of a failure of a connecting flight the previous day, and there was some doubt as to whether or not we had […]

That you might believe

“These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” This is why John wrote what we now call John’s gospel. The word, “gospel” means, “good news”, and the good news that John saw in […]

Because he lives

As I was looking at the hymns for this morning, I was struck that many of the ones that echoed the themes of our reading from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth were in the “Easter” section of the hymn books. I had a bit of a question mark in my head. How do […]

All your ways

I wonder who you trust. I wonder how much you trust them, and with what. Let’s explore this a little bit. You’re all sat down now on chairs or pews. How much thought did you give to sitting on the thing you’re sat on? Many of you have been here before – you know that […]

Journeys to Faith – Nebuchadnezzar

I wonder how you came to faith in Jesus. Over the summer we’re going to be exploring the stories of some characters from the Bible, and their journeys to faith. But there is a sense in which they can feel a bit far off, so each week we’re also going to be hearing the stories […]