Category Archives: Sermon Notes

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. …

Jn 16:5-15 – ‘It is for your good that I am going’ – sermon notes

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It is a horrible thought to try to imagine life without someone you dearly love.

The disciples were having to get used to the prospect of life without Jesus.

There they are, sitting around the table sharing one last meal with Jesus. They listen with increasing alarm as he tells them that he must leave them. On top of that, he warns them that they can expect to be treated with terrible hostility after his departure.…

Hab 1:1-2:1 – How long, O Lord? – sermon notes

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‘Daily life…is the painful reality of starvation, AIDS, and violence. There is no food on the shelves, there are no medicines in hospitals, and no one can afford to buy from the drugstores.

We have become a nation of beggars who spend more time looking for food than working. Most employees’ monthly wages would not be enough to meet their transportation budget to get to and from work.

State schools have lost almost all qualified teachers.…

Isaiah 52:1-12 – Beautiful feet! – sermon notes

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Bringing good news of the redeeming Saviour, v9, the returning Lord, v8, the reigning King, v7.

The battle has been won, the long years of captivity are ended, the holy city and its temple will rise from the ruins, peace and joy and plenty will enjoyed across the land.

This was fulfilled following the decree of Cyrus in 539 BC.  But how complete was that fulfilment?

Neh 9:36 tells us that the return of the exiles was not all they hoped it would be: “We are slaves today, slaves in the land you gave our forefathers.”…

Eph 6:10-18 – ‘Be strong in the Lord’ – sermon notes

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On 6th June 1944 – ‘D Day’ – the Allied forces landed hundreds of thousands of troops in Normandy in France. More Allied troops had crossed from North Africa to southern Italy and were making their way northwards. At the same time the Russians were closing in on the eastern borders of Germany. The war in Europe was effectively decided. Hitler had lost too many men. He had run out of resources. There was no way he could win.…