Dec/090
Mary’s Song
At Christmas I spoke on Mary’s Song in Luke’s Gospel. Mary’s Song is often to called the Magnificat because of how it’s translated in Latin and is a great passage. It teaches us a little about Mary and the kind of woman she was. I think the main thing we’re supposed to learn about Mary is that there’s nothing special about Mary. Mary is precisely the reason we should be excited when we read the Bible, because God uses ordinary people like us. Mary’s Song also teaches us a lot about God. In this wonderful song, three truths about God are bound together: his power, his holiness and his mercy. Miss out any one of the three or overemphasize one over the others and you distort the God of the Bible. The passage also teaches us even more about Jesus. Mary’s Song is embedded in biblical history. The God of Abraham is also the God of Mary and just as God made a covenant with Abraham that covenant was only possible through Jesus.
Here’s the talk:
[audio:http://media.feedyoursoul.s3.amazonaws.com/Advent4.mp3]
and here’s the Wordle:
Popularity: 39% [?]
Nov/090
Doctrine: The Holy Spirit
Recently I spoke at our church on the subject of The Holy Spirit from our statement of faith:
The Holy Spirit has been sent from heaven to glorify Christ and to apply his work of salvation. He convicts sinners, imparts spiritual life and gives a true understanding of the Scriptures. He indwells all believers, brings assurance of salvation and produces increasing likeness to Christ. He builds up the Church and empowers its members for worship, service and mission.
As we only had one week we zoomed in on the bold bit – looking at how the Spirit works in the life of the believer. We focused on Ephesians 5:18-21 which is one long sentence in Greek with a command and the outworkings of that command – what the command looks like. Paul shows what being filled with the Spirit looks like – godly character.
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery [extreme indulgence, wild living]. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Here’s the talk and a link to download it.
[audio:http://media.feedyoursoul.s3.amazonaws.com/Doctrine_TheHolySpirit.mp3]
And here’s the wordle:
Wordle
Popularity: 38% [?]
Oct/092
Doctrine: Salvation
I spoke this morning at Trinity on Salvation, looking at what it means to be justified by faith. We’re working through our statement of faith which says:
Salvation is entirely a work of God’s grace and cannot be earned or deserved. It has been accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ and is offered to all in the gospel. God in his love forgives sinners whom he calls, granting them repentance and faith. All who believe in Christ are justified by faith alone, adopted into the family of God and receive eternal life.
I picked Romans 1:17 as the text, with 1:16 as the context:
Romans 1:16 I am not ashamed [Paul says] of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
It went well (at least I thought it did) and here’s the talk. I’ve used Slideshare to create a ‘slidecast’ so here’s the talk and the presentation as well.
Here’s the Wordle:
Popularity: 51% [?]
Aug/090
Doctrine: Jesus
Sermon on ‘Who is Jesus?’ Looks at the deity of Jesus, the humanity of Jesus and the glory of Jesus from Philippians 2.
Working through the FIEC Statement of faith. This talk is based on our statement about Jesus: The Lord Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, and lived a sinless life in obedience to the Father. He taught with authority and all his words are true. On the cross he died in the place of sinners, bearing God’s punishment for their sin, redeeming them by his blood. He rose from the dead and in his resurrection body ascended into heaven where he is exalted as Lord of all. He intercedes for his people in the presence of the Father.
[audio:http://media.feedyoursoul.s3.amazonaws.com/Doctrine_Jesus.mp3]
Wordle
Popularity: 12% [?]
Apr/090
Doctrine – The Human Race
All men and women, being created in the image of God, have inherent and equal dignity and worth. Their greatest purpose is to obey, worship and love God. As a result of the fall of our first parents, every aspect of human nature has been corrupted and all men and women are without spiritual life, guilty sinners and hostile to God. Every person is therefore under the just condemnation of God and needs to be born again, forgiven and reconciled to God in order to know and please him.
[audio:http://media.feedyoursoul.s3.amazonaws.com/Doctrine_TheHumanRace.mp3]
Popularity: 19% [?]
Apr/091
Doctrine – God
This week we’re starting a new series looking at our statement of faith. We hold to the FIEC Statement of faith and the first in the series is all about the character of God?: There is one God, who exists eternally in three distinct but equal persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is unchangeable in his holiness, justice, wisdom and love. He is the almighty Creator; Saviour and Judge who sustains and governs all things according to his sovereign will for his own glory.
[audio:http://media.feedyoursoul.s3.amazonaws.com/Doctrine_God.mp3]
Popularity: 22% [?]
Feb/090
Persecution (Acts 5-7)
Acts 5-7. Early on in Acts everything seems to be going well for the early church – there’s blessing all over the place: people getting healed, thousands added to the church every day. It’s all good. In Acts 7, things start to go a little pear shaped and the church starts to come under some hard-core persecution. To understand what it means to be a Christian you have to understand that the gospel is both attractive and repulsive. Attractive because God’s kingdom is ‘now‘ and repulsive because it’s ‘not yet‘.
[audio:http://media.feedyoursoul.s3.amazonaws.com/Acts07.mp3]
Popularity: 18% [?]
Dec/080
The Gospel according to Bart Simpson – Christmas 2008
The gospel according to Bart Simpson. Luke 2:21-40. Jesus comes to divide people but ultimately divides in order to heal.
[audio:http://media.feedyoursoul.s3.amazonaws.com/Carol08.mp3]
Popularity: 18% [?]
Oct/080
Genesis 12,15 : The call of Abraham
While working through the book of Genesis, we looked at the life of Abraham.
[audio:http://media.feedyoursoul.s3.amazonaws.com/Genesis1215.mp3]
Popularity: 13% [?]
