Category Archives: Sermon Notes

Col 2:6-23 – More? – sermon notes

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Do you long for more in your Christian life?  Paul did, Phil 3:10-14 –‘Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.’  So, evidently, did the Colossians.

1. You don’t need Christ ‘plus’

False teaching in Colosse.  Its general description, v8 – ‘hollow and deceptive philosophy’, ‘human traditions’.  In particular:-

(a) Christ plus ritual, v16, ‘religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day’. …

Isaiah 56:1-8 – Welcome the stranger – sermon notes

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Ethiopian eunuch, Acts 8:27ff.  He asked, “Of whom is the prophet speaking?”  He might also have asked, “To whom is the prophet speaking?”  The answer is here.

Last section of Isaiah – addressed to those returning from exile.

1. Gospel welcome

Addressed to all (v1-2), but specifically to ‘eunuchs’, v4, and ‘foreigners’, v6.

Gen 12:2 – “All people on earth will be blessed through you.”

Rahab, Ruth.

Cf. Deut 23.  ‘Special measures’, cf. Ezra, Nehemiah.

Jn 10:16 “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.…

Joshua 101 – sermon notes

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Joshua 1

It’s taken us millions of years to discover it, but four days ago it finally became official.  This is the way Reuter’s agency broke the news:-

They were huge, lumbering and certainly not the most graceful of creatures, but when they had to dinosaurs sure could run, scientists said on Wednesday.

Using prints from a fossilised dinosaur track in a quarry from southern England, scientists have calculated that bipedal theropod dinosaurs could run at speeds of up to 30 kilometres (19 miles) per hour.…

Luke 1:5-25, 57-66 – A day to remember – sermon notes

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Is there any one day that stands out in your life?

For Zechariah, that day had arrived.  Except that it would turn out to be far more outstanding than he can have ever imagined.

1. Ordinary people

A humble couple, from the Judean hill country.  Of priestly stock, but did not belong to the corrupt aristocracy of Jerusalem.

Childless.  Elizabeth’s ‘disgrace’, v25.

Getting on in years, v7, must have given up all hope

Faithful, v6, not bitter. …

Acts 4:32-5:16 – Ananias and Sapphira (sermon notes)

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Text: Acts 4:32-5:16

It’s a shocking story.  What is our gut reaction?

Disbelief? (a God of love wouldn’t do such a thing)

Dismay? (I’m no better than this pair.  If only you knew what impure thoughts, what insincere prayers, what resentful attitudes I’m capable of…)

1. What was so wrong in what they did?

Collusion: they had hatched this plan together v2.

Deceit: their sin was not in keeping some of the money back.  (Selling off houses and land was neither universal nor compulsory). …

Hab 2:2-20 – The righteous will live by faith – sermon notes

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Summary so far

Ch. 1 (questioning, listening, disputing)

We left him (Hab 2:1) watching and waiting.

1. God speaks again

V2 – Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”

This word is to be preserved, published and proclaimed

God reveals his word progressively – within Habakkuk; the OT, from OT to NT.

Bud/flower, shadow/substance, foundation/building, promise/fulfilment.

The later revelation completes the earlier.…

Habakkuk 3 – I will rejoice – sermon notes

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Habakkuk 3

Psalm 65:9-13 – God has given us many material blessings. And we have as many reasons to be thankful.

But what if there is nothing? What then?

Ch 1 – Habakkuk’s complaint. The Lord’s reply. Habakkuk’s further complaint. 2:1 – He sets himself to watch and wait for what God will say.

Ch 3 – Nothing in Habakkuk’s circumstances has changed. He is still facing an appalling prospect: the ravages of war, the horrors of invasion, the devastation of resources, the removal of all basic necessities.…

1 Sam 1 – Hannah’s prayer – sermon notes

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Text – 1 Samuel 1

I wonder if you have heard of the ‘Great Prayer Experiment’?

Some while ago, doctors from Duke University Medical Center devised a test to see whether heart patients recovered more readily if they were prayed for.  The three year study involved 750 patients from throughout the USA and 26 prayer groups from different part of the world, including Christians in Manchester, Buddhists in Nepal and Moslems in America.  The findings suggested that prayer made no measurable difference to the long term health of the patients involved. …

Luke 1:5-25 – Zechariah – sermon notes

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Each of the four Gospels has a different starting-point. John: the pre-existent Christ. Mark: beginning of public ministry. Matthew: birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Luke: more details about the conception and birth of Jesus. But each also tells of a man named John, who was the herald, the forerunner of Jesus. It is Luke who informs us that the lives of John and Jesus, so intertwined in their adult ministries, were also linked by the circumstances of their births.…

Ruth 4 – At the gate – sermon notes

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The story of Ruth has been told as a drama in four Acts.  In Act 1 we meet some of the principle characters on the Highway, the road that leads from the country of Moab on the east of the Dead Sea to the town of Bethlehem in Judea.  Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons had fled Bethlehem during a famine, and had settled in Moab.  There the two sons married Moabite women.  But before long Elimelech and the two sons died, leaving Naomi and her two daughters-in-law Orpah and Ruth. …