Category Archives: Sermon Notes

Lk 5:12-16 – From sickness to health – sermon notes

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This chapter tells us about the difference that Jesus makes in the lives of four individuals in particular – Lk 5:1-11 – Simon.  Lk 5:17-26 – a paralysed man.  Lk 5:27-32 – Levi the tax collector.  Here we have:-

1.  A desperate need

The term ‘leprosy’ covered a variety of chronic skin conditions, including psoriasis, dermatitis, and the bacterial infection of leprosy itself.  Consider how desperate this man’s need was.  He was physically disfigured: in its severest form, leprosy was terribly disfiguring, and this man is described as being ‘covered with leprosy’. …

Ex 1 – Godisnowhere – sermon notes

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Have you ever felt as though you were hanging on to your Christian faith by your fingernails?

  • Perhaps you feel confused and overwhelmed by world events.
  • Perhaps you have experienced personal sadness and have become discouraged.
  • Perhaps you have simply neglected to tend the flame of faith.

Whatever the reason, your question is the same: Where is God?

This is not a new problem: cry of dereliction – Psalms (10:1 Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?…

Psalm 16 – Contentment – sermon notes

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Are you contented?

Alexander the Great conquered the known world.  But he was not contented.  After all his victories, he wept, because, he said, “There are no more worlds to conquer.”

Voltaire was a brilliant philosopher and a critic of organised religion.  He was not contented.  He wrote:  “I wish I had never been born.”

Lord Byron lived a life of hedonistic pleasure.  He was not contented.  At the age of 35, he wrote:

My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.…

1 Samuel 1 – The prayer of Hannah – sermon notes

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At last, scientific research seems to have proven what many people have suspected all along.  Prayer does not work.  Prayer does not change things.

A recent study led by cardiologists from Duke University Medical Center tested 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 Sufi Moslems in America. …

John 14:16 – “Another Counselor” – sermon notes

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“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.”

It is difficult for us to imagine the emotional turmoil of Jesus’ disciples at the time that these words were uttered.  Impressed by his wonderful teaching and amazing miracles, they had concluded that their beloved Master was indeed the longed-for Messiah, and he would sit on David’s throne, restore the kingdom to Israel, deliver God’s people from all their troubles, and subdue all nations. …

1 Kings 18 – Elijah and the prophets of Baal – sermon notes

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“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength…Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God.”  (Deut 6)

With these words the Lord God formed a nation for himself, a people for his praise, through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. …

2 Kings 22-23 – Josiah’s reforms – sermon notes

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What does the word ‘reformation’ conjure up in your mind?  If you know anything about our Christian heritage, you will probably associate that word with the great period of spiritual renewal that took place in the 16th and early 17th centuries under the leadership of men like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli.  It was a powerful movement of the Spirit of God, and we are still benefiting from its effects four centuries later.

But that Reformation was not the first or only one. …

Jn 10:1-21 – The Good Shepherd – sermon notes

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John 10:1-21 w Ezekiel 34

John’s Gospel has famously been likened to ‘a pool in which children can paddle and elephants can swim.’  These famous words of Jesus are transparently clear and unfathomably deep.

1.  What does Jesus mean when he says, ‘I am the good shepherd?’?

(a) He is a “shepherd”

A common figure in ancient Palestine.  ‘His life was very hard. No flock ever grazed without a shepherd, and he was never off duty.…

Ex 12:1-13 – The Passover – sermon notes

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When you were a child, you probably played with models of various kinds (and if you are a man, you probably still do!): model cars, model trains, model aeroplanes, model houses, model farmyards.  The point of a model is that it provides a simplified and scaled-down version of the real thing.  The story of the Passover in Exodus 12 is not only a remarkable record of the deliverance of the Israelites over 3,000 years ago, but it also provides a 3-dimensional model of God’s way of salvation as achieved by Jesus on the cross of Calvary. …

Lk 9:18-27 – The cost of discipleship – sermon notes

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Luke 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Jesus has attracted to himself not only a group of 12 disciples, but also a large number of admirers. Events such as the Transfiguration, and Peter’s confession, have marked a change of direction in his ministry. Hitherto, he has been occupied for much of the time in the north, around Galilee.…