Neh 13 – Needed: constant renewal – sermon notes

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In the previous chapter, God’s people enjoyed a huge celebration.

They had every reason to celebrate. They had been returning from exile in drips and drabs over the previous 100 years or so. But they had been a demoralised people, lacking in leadership and with their holy city, Jerusalem, pretty much in ruins.

Nehemiah was himself a Jew and a senior official in the court of the Persian emperor. He gained permission from his boss to go back to Jerusalem to help sort things out.…

Neh 11-12 – Happily ever after? – sermon notes

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It has been a long, long wait. 1500 years before, the Lord God had promised to Abraham that he would make his descendants into a great nation, and that through him all the peoples of the earth would be blessed.

Over the years, the fulfilment of this promise had sometimes seemed very near. Think of the Exodus, and the conquest of the promised land and the golden age when David was king. At other times, it seemed very remote indeed.…

Dare to be a…..Nehemiah?

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In my study of the book of Nehemiah, I came across the following thought, which I thought was worth passing on:-

Nehemiah…is a man to admire and to imitate—but be careful! The theme of imitating Bible characters is often mishandled. Bryan Chapell has written of the “deadly Be’s” (“killer Be’s” would have been more vivid), of which the first is sermons that require us to “be like” some figure in the Scripture story. Such sermons summon us to a treadmill life of perpetual role-play that is bound in the end to prove self-defeating, for, as Chapell rightly comments: “Simply telling people to imitate godliness in another without reminding them that anything more than outward conformity must come from God forces them either to despair of spiritual transformation or to deny its need.”…

Puritans and ‘restless experientialists’

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In A Quest for Godliness (p35), J.I. Packer identifies a breed of evangelical Christians as ‘restless experientialists’.

Their outlook is one of casual haphazardness and fretful impatience, of grasping after novelties, entertainments, and ‘highs’, and of valuing strong feelings above deep thoughts. They have little taste for solid study, humble self-examination, disciplined meditation, and unspectacular hard work in their callings and their prayers. They conceive the Christian life as one of exciting extraordinary experiences rather than of resolute rational righteousness.…

Owen: what does it mean to preach the gospel?

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The teaching of the great Puritan writer John Owen on this subject is summarised by J.I. Packer:-

Preaching the gospel, [Owen] tells us, is not a matter of telling the congregation that God has set his love on each of them and Christ has died to save each of them, for these assertions, biblically understood, would imply that they will all infallibly be saved, and this cannot be known to be true. The knowledge of being the object of God’s eternal love and Christ’s redeeming death belongs to the individual’s assurance, which in the nature of the case cannot precede faith’s saving exercise; it is to be inferred from the fact that one has believed, not proposed as a reason why one should believe.…

Brian MacLaren: a new kind of liberalism?

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Brian MacLaren’s previous books (A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, and others) have probed away at prevailing evangelical beliefs and practices.  These writings have been long on questions, but short on answers.  Now, in A New Kind of Christianity,  he has told us more directly, more systematically, where his thinking has taken him.

Of the various reviews on the web, one of the most penetrating is that of Scott McKnight, in Christianity Today. …

Caution: expository preachers at work

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Iain H. Murray, associated for so many years with the Banner of Truth Trust, has a very wide knowledge of reformed theology and biography.  His cautions about some aspects or perceptions of expository preaching are well worth noting.

If, says Murray, expository preaching is defined as preaching which seeks to explain and apply the text of Scripture, then there is no argument.  But expository preaching has come to mean, for many, consecutive preaching through a passage, or book, of the Bible. …

1 Tim 6:3-10, 17-19 – Money – sermon notes

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Which of the following is the odd one out? Faith, doctrine, Scripture, gospel, salvation, money.  Answer: 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 indeed. When he encounters Jesus, his response is, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”…

Principles of giving

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What principles should govern a Christian approach to giving?  Richard Foster offers the following suggestions:-

1.  Let us give proportionately.  ‘Proportionate to what?  Proportionate to the accumulated wealth of one’s family?  Proportionate to one’s income and the demands upon it, which vary from family to family?  Proportionate to one’s sense of security and the degree of anxiety with which one lives?  Proportionate to the keenness of our awareness of those who suffer?  Proportionate to our sense of justice and of God’s ownership of all wealth? …

Mastering Mammon

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Given that, in biblical teaching, money has a dark side as well as a light side, Richard Foster offers some helpful counsel:-

1.  Listen to the biblical witness about money.…