Sermons@kingsley

In our series we’ve discovered that genuine reconciliation happens when people are drawn together in the truth. But it’s one thing to know the truth, it’s another thing to be able to apply it skillfully to life – that’s called wisdom. Truth leads to right belief; Wisdom to right behaviour. In this message we take a look at the big idea of the book of Proverbs, which is all about building a community of wisdom. We start with 2 proverbs that seem to say the opposite thing, leaving us no wiser about what to do in that situation! But as we look deeper, we discover the life-changing power of wise words when we are fully dependent on the source of Wisdom.

Jesus set the tone for his Church when he talked about his followers not just as students or even friends, but family. This language is picked up by all the New Testament writers and embodied by the practices of the early church. Being reconciled to God and people creates a new kind of family. As we pick up on how that worked for Paul and Silas with a bunch of people in Thessalonica who became a family to them, we discover the crucial role of nurture. It’s where we treat every member as being precious to us and we take great care to help each other grow in Christ; and take great pains to make sure we’re not putting any barriers in one another’s way. Sounds easy right?  Taking a closer look at the story helps us to learns the lessons we need to move this from a nice theory to a life-giving experience.

In his letter to the Philippians Paul asks the church to help two ladies come to agreement in the Lord. In his letter to the Corinthians he asks the whole church to come to agreement in the Lord instead of splitting off into factions. Both these appeals reflect Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that God would bring us together as one. Moving toward agreement is something that all God’s people are called to do, but it’s also something that we all struggle to do! In this message we explore some of the obstacles to agreement and challenge ourselves to let God do His work in us to overcome them.

In Matthew 26 Jesus tells His followers that when He’s taken away from them to be crucified, they’re all going to scatter. None of them can believe it, especially Peter! Less than two months later Jesus is again preparing to be taken away from them. This time they’re not going to scatter, they are going to change the world together! What changed? We cover some of the foundational principles that help Christians to stay together on mission rather than being blown off course, noticing how the early church went about this in Acts 15.

Every community needs to decide how it deals with the tension between what the individual wants and what is good for the whole community. We’re seeing institutions at all levels – from families, schools, community & sporting groups, churches up to whole nations – grappling with how to have the conversations and put in place systems to manage that tension for the good of all. The Great Commission actually provides that framework for the Church. Jesus shows us what that looks like as we make Him the centre of our personal life and our community life. We step through the story of Matthew 26:1-16 as one example of how Jesus helps a community of people to figure out a situation where they disagreed about how one person’s actions impacted on other people. It’s a great guide for how we can love each other well and grow in Christ-like maturity together.

Jesus didn’t ask His disciples to gather a crowd, He asked them to make disciples! Crowds had flocked to Jesus and even proclaimed Him as King; but they’d also screamed “Crucify Him” when Jesus didn’t deliver what they wanted. As we think about Jesus’ command to make disciples we remind ourselves of what a disciple is and who a disciple follows; then we explore what it means to make disciples both locally and “to the ends of the Earth” (Acts 1:8). We look at the different ways the local church and the universal church play their part making disciples and ask ourselves whether we are allowing God to shape us through a healthy approach to both – to draw on the wide array of gifts, resources and service opportunites of the universal church while also going deep in life-on-life learning with those God places close to us. We live in a culture that entices us to go wider rather than deeper and that’s having a huge impact on discipleship in our churches. What might we have to say “no” to if we are to say “yes” to de

Have you ever noticed that some Christians talk a lot about the authority of God but don’t seem to experience or express His gracious presence? Or maybe they chase after encounters with God but don’t seem too keen on daily obedience to Him? What does a genuine disciple of Jesus look like? It’s pretty important to know, because that’s what we’re called to be and to make! At the end of Matthew’s gospel we see Jesus answer these questions as He reveals who we are; who He is and how we are to help more people to discover who they are in Him.

The Bible is always honest about the fact that God’s people go through hard times, often not knowing why or for how long. The faith to worship God in the midst of our struggles grows as we learn to lament – to honestly come to God with our doubts, frustrations, sadness and whatever else is going on inside. In this message we connect with generations of Jews who were waiting for God to fulfil ancient promises and with individuals who each had their own personal struggles to contend with. In Jesus, God meets them and us in the midst of our struggles in order to achieve His good purposes for us and through us. This message explores biblical patterns for how faith in God helps us to start with lament to find strength and hope as Jesus displaces our struggles at the centre of our lives.

In the conclusion to the series we take a closer look at the good news that changes everything about how we live. Since the gospel is the power for every good thing that God does in the His Church, knowing and sharing the gospel is the most powerfully good thing we can do in life. As we’ve seen from the first four episodes in the series, the Apostle Paul never claimed that his telling of the gospel was the only way the message could be shared or the only version that people needed. There’s only one gospel – it’s the gospel of God (ch.1). Every person who God appoints to share that message will do it in a unique way – a way that God has shaped them to do as part of His perfect plan. And God is able to work through each of our different ways of telling the gospel to build faith in others (ch.16).  There is only one gospel, but countless ways of explaining and illustrating it. Do you trust that God is able to use your understanding and experience of the good news to help someone else come to believe it as well?

In the last message of our “Rewinding Romans” series we look at the second common roadblock to being the church that God calls us to be. The first roadblock was the fact that Christians don’t agree on what loving God looks like in all situations. That can make serving God and each other well pretty challenging! The second roadblock is how we relate to a world which is still in bondage to sin. In chapters 12 & 13 the Apostle Paul fleshes out what it means for us to love sincerely, hating what is evil & clinging to what is good. How do you do that in a world which often hates what is good & clings to what is evil? The pastoral advice Paul gives the Christians in Rome centres not in fighting against sin in others, but in ourselves! This is how we best help others to see the beauty of holiness. We spend some time to look at some recent public issues of ‘sin-spotting’ in others and our culture is becoming increasingly tribalised into self-righteous groups that go to war against each other with little apparent rega