Category Archives: Christian Life

Mt 6:1-6, 16-21 – ‘You hypocrite!’ – sermon notes (v2)

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Notes of a sermon preached at Holy Trinity Norwich on Ash Wednesday, 2026.

Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Everybody has an outside and an inside; a public exterior and a private interior.  On the outside are all the things that other people can see and hear.  On the inside is that collection of thoughts, feelings, motives, and attitudes that we call ‘the heart’.

But how well do our outward appearance and our inner reality match up?  We have a name for the person who is one thing in public and another in private: we call him or her a hypocrite.…

Repentance

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The first recorded words of Jesus, as he began his public ministry, were:

Mark 1:15 — “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel!”

But what does the word ‘repentance’ mean?

Jerome, in the Vulgate, translated μετανοεῖτε as poenitentiam agite (‘do acts of penance’).  As Ian Paul notes, this does several things to Jesus’ command:

it shifts it from being focused on attitude and outlook to being concerned with ritual acts;

it moves it from being a response to God to being set in the context of the institution of the Church (whose priests alone could dispense forgiveness through the rite of penance and confession);

and it became a habitual ritual rather than an urgent response to the ‘end times’ coming of God.

…

1 Peter 5:1-11 – Keep going (sermon notes)

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[Notes of a sermon preached at Holy Trinity Norwich in August 2017.]

Christian faith under pressure.

Over 200 million Christians are experiencing serious persecution in more than 50 different countries.  ‘In Nigeria, Christian girls are being abducted and impregnated by Boko Haram. In Egypt, extremists are paying men to abduct women, force them into marriage and convert them to Islam. And in Pakistan, women are being kidnapped, raped and forced to change their religion.’ (Evangelicals Now).…

Psalm 5 – Praying under pressure – sermon notes

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[Notes of a sermon preached in August, 2016]

Psalm 5 – Praying under pressure

Do you feel under pressure as a Christian?

  • a home situation where any mention of Christ and his message is met with frosty silence, if not downright hostility?
  • a class or lecture theatre where any challenge to secular humanism is dismissed with contempt?
  • a workplace where any advocacy of God’s good plan for women and men is regarded as the height of intolerance?
…

Matthew 5:37 – ‘Let your “Yes” be “Yes.” – sermon notes

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Notes of a sermon preached at St Andrew’s Eaton, Norwich, on Sunday 2nd November 20025.

A link to the video can be found at the bottom of this page.

Scripture passage; Matthew 5:33-37

Especially v37 – ‘Let your “Yes” be “Yes.”

Context

At the beginning of this section of the Sermon on the Mount, we have:-

An affirmation: v17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”…

Forgiveness without repentance?

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Is forgiveness unilateral?  Must we – can we, even – forgive those who refuse to repent?

Our gut reaction – especially in a day when ‘unconditional love’ is such a popular notion – is probably that it is, we must, and we can (forgive the unrepentant, that is).

But God doesn’t do that.  If we we imagine that we can be reconclied with God, regardless of repentance, then we have landed ourselves right in the middle of the heresy of universalism.…

‘Your kingdom come’

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What does Christ mean, when he teaches us to pray, ‘Your kingdom come’?

According to Augustine (ACCS), we should not think of this petition as implying that God is not now reigning:

‘“Come”…is to be understood in the sense of “manifested to humanity.” Just as light that is present is absent to the blind or to those who shut their eyes, so the kingdom of God, though it never departs from the earth, yet is absent to those who know nothing about it.

…

No heaven without holiness

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Hebrews 12:14 ‘Pursue…holiness, for without it no one will see the Lord.’

‘There is no imagination wherewith man is besotted, more foolish, none so pernicious, as this – that persons not purified, not sanctified, not made holy in their life, should afterwards be taken into that state of blessedness which consists in the enjoyment of God. Neither can such persons enjoy God, nor would God be a reward to them. Holiness is indeed perfected in heaven: but the beginning of it is invariably confined to this world’ (John Owen).…

1 Timothy 6:3-10, 17-19 ‘Your money and your life’ (sermon notes)

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Text – 1 Timothy 6:3-10, 17-19

Which of the following is the odd one out?  Faith, doctrine, Scripture, gospel, salvation, money.  None of them!

Money is a spiritual issue

Martin Luther observed that “there are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the heart, of the mind and of the purse.”

Consider the story of Zacchaeus, Luke 19.  As a chief tax collector, Zacchaeus would have been very wealthy.  When he encounters Jesus, his response is, “Look, Lord!…

Ryle on repentance

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[Notes of ch. 16 of ‘Old Paths’, by J.C. Ryle]

Lk 13:3 “Unless you repent, you will all perish!”

This text seems severe, but it comes from the lips of out loving saviour. It is, after all, a sign of love, not hate, to warn of coming danger.

1. What is repentance?

It is one of the foundation-stones of Christianity, and is spoken of at least 60 times in the New Testament.

  • Jesus preached it, Mk 1:15
  • The Apostles preached it – Lk 6:12
  • Jesus commissioned his disciples to preach it – Lk 24:47
  • Peter preached it – Acts 2:38
  • Paul preached it – Acts 20:21

‘Repentance is a thorough change of a man’s natural heart upon the subject of sin’.…