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Sermon
File All sermons written and preached by the Revd Dr Derek
Browning, Morningside Parish Church, Edinburgh. Feedback
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problems, or any comments, on site material. e-mail
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Title
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Date
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Description
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| Song of Solomon – I sought him but found him not | 5/10/08 Evening Sermon |
We are challenged to look at
the nature of love in our lives, the quality of relationships we have
with those around us, and the relationship of love we are supposed to
have with God. That love is stronger than death, overcame the jealousy
of the grave, could not be quenched or flooded by all the evil in the
world, and triumphed at Calvary. |
| Responding to God – Love your neighbour as yourself | 28/9/08 |
The question of who is our neighbour is an
important one. Its importance is found in both the Old and New
Testament, and the answer to the question goes far beyond our dealing
with the people next door, or who we choose to sit or not sit beside on
a bus. How we respond to that question will show to us, to the world,
and to God, what we are like as an individual, and how seriously we take
our response to our Christian faith. |
| Song of Solomon – You have ravished my heart | 28/9/08 Evening Service |
In true
expressions of love, words inevitably say a great deal. How do we
verbalise what we feel and what we think about those we love, and how,
when we say we ‘love God’ as well as others, do we show it not only in
words but in actions? |
| Responding to God: Loving God with all your strength | 21/9/08 |
Whether we are living through good times or bad times, the presence of a living, loving, strong God is essential to our existence. When our strength is not enough, God’s strength remains to rely on. |
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Song of Solomon
– I sought him whom my soul loves |
21/9/08 Evening Sermon |
Does love need
to be a many splendoured thing to be truly magnificent? When it comes to
what really matters in our loving relationships, what are the things
that are really important, what are the things that truly matter? |
Title
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Date
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Description
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| Love God with all your soul | 14/9/08 |
What is the soul?
What is the human spirit? The soul is the vital breath of our lives and
personalities, the aspect of our lives that makes us,
us. We
are called to love God with all our soul, for He loves us with all of His. |
| Song of Solomon – His banner over me is love |
14/9/08 Evening Service |
In a world that is
so often jaded and brutalised, to read about true, warm, passionate love is
a reminder of how things could be. We are also reminded of how intense God’s
love is for us, and how intense our love should be for God. |
| Responding to God: Love God with all your heart | 7/9/08 |
Half-heartedness
is one of the curses of our age – people too often give only so much to
relationships, work, community and church. Christians are called to be
whole-hearted in life, faith and love. Then they will form a church of
blessing because they will be the people of blessing. |
| Song of Solomon: Your love is better than wine |
7/9/08 Evening Service |
The Song of
Solomon, a collection of Jewish love poems written nearly 3,000 years ago,
is a song about love, showing us the rightness and the value of human in all
its aspects, and how God is interested in the way we love, and how we love. |
| To Corinth with love – Being a confident Church | 31/8/08 |
What makes a truly confident church? Focusing on the person of Jesus would be a good start, and then rely upon the resilience of God, and the people of God to respond the challenge of an apparently faithless age with a confidence founded on a society that still refused to leave religion alone. |
| To Corinth with love – the meaning of freedom |
27/7/08 |
Freedom is one of the most electric words in our vocabulary. Freedom isn’t simply a license to do what we want, freedom brings responsibilities. Paul gives us guidelines about how freedom ought to be used in the service of others, following in the example of Jesus. |
| For everything there is a season: a time to seek, a time to lose, a time to keep, a time to cast away |
27/7/08 Morning Talk |
In all of our lives seeking and losing, keeping and casting away have a place. There are things we need to find to and things we must let go; there are things that are worth holding on to and there are things that we must make an effort to throw out of our lives. Each of us needs to look carefully at who and what we are and decide, in faith, what we need to do. |
| To Corinth with love: True Wisdom |
20/7/08 |
Wisdom lies somewhere between knowledge and faith. No Church, and no individual Christian, can exist without it. |
| For everything there is a season: A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing |
20/7/08 Morning Talk |
God has created us
with emotional intelligence and intellectual intelligence. There are times
to draw close to people, and times to stand back from people as we assess
problems and difficulties. |
| To Corinth with love: How to worship |
13/7/08 |
True worship is an
engagement with God, Who searches us, challenges us, comforts us and guides
us. In worship we respond to His love, and in true worship, His presence is
felt. |
| For everything there is a season: A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together |
13/7/08 Morning Talk |
Are we living
stones to be built into the living House of God? With the stones that are
thrown away and gathered together, what are we building with our lives, and
is the foundation and cornerstone Jesus Christ? |
| To Corinth with Love – True Love |
6/7/08 |
Love is the
standard by which all life is judged. We are judged by the quality of our
love. Paul elevates love far beyond sentimental feeling to an ethic of
Christian life. Without it, we are nothing. |
| A time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance |
6/7/08 Morning Talk |
In the rich breadth of life we face many things, and
we need to be ready, with our emotions, as well as with our thoughts, to be
strong and relaxed when we face all that life brings to us. The wisdom of
Ecclesiastes holds true – there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a
time to mourn and a time to dance. When the times come, go with your
feelings. |
| To Corinth with Love – Body Life | 29th June 2008 |
If we are to lead healthy, useful, fulfilling
lives, we need healthy bodies and healthy minds. If the Church is to be a
healthy, useful fulfilling gathering of people – it too needs to be healthy
and active, clear in its compassionate love, and clear in its faithful
response. |
| A time to kill, a time to heal, a time to break down, a time to build up |
29th June 2008 Morning Talk |
There are times to
kill, to heal, to break down and to build up – but do we have the wisdom to
understand when these things are appropriate, and what God means by
challenging us to do these things? |
| To Corinth with love: Mission – the Church’s work | 22/06/08 | If mission is the church’s work, then part of that mission, if we are to be ambassadors for Christ, will be to reach out with reconciliation in our minds, our hearts, and our faces. Is part of our mission-shaped church, with its mission-shaped Christians, to model reconciliation to the world? |
For everything there is a
season: a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant
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22/06/08 Morning Talk |
The gift of life is a wonderful thing. With so many different opportunities and things to do with it. The gift of life is something that we should treasure, because it comes from God. And death is not to be hidden away and kept secret, it is to be faced with courage and faith and hope. We believe that Jesus rose from the dead on that first Easter to give us hope. |
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08/06/08 |
Christian people
should know that everything depends on faith – but do we have the faith to
move when God calls, like Abraham and Sarah? Or do we conform to the world,
collude with cynicism, and live lives of practical atheism? |
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08/06/08 Evening Servicee |
When we sing that the love of
Jesus “demands my soul, my life, my all”, have we really taken into
consideration the demands of the gospel on how we live our lives today, and
how our faith impacts upon what we are like as much as what we do? |
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Real security protects us in time of need, but it is also a dynamic force that propels us, through our faith in the living God, back out into the world to make a difference in His Name because of what we believe. |
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01/06/08 |
In this great hymn of the Church, peace and rest and quiet are greatly stressed. In our frantic modern culture, what do these words mean to us and how should we apply them to our faith and our lives? |
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God Provides
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25/05/08 |
If we put as much energy seeking God as we do the material things of
life, we would be a lot happier, more contented, better blessed, and more
peaceful. We need to learn again the simple truth – God provides – and
believe it. |
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25/05/08 |
Love, Light, Joy and the Cross all feature prominently in the
classic George Matheson hymn, ‘O love that wilt not let me go’. How do they
play a part in our lives today, and what is our response, sometimes in the
difficult places of life, to the message of this much-loved hymn? |
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18/05/08 |
How are we to think of the majesty of God in the world today? What part do we play in God’s world and what are the responsibilities that fall to us if we are “made a little less than God”? |
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11/05/08 |
When the
Holy Spirit comes to the Church today, what questions are asked, and what
promptings come to us through the language of heaven? To move, to change, to
challenge, to transform. |
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27/04/08 |
It is ironic that
the more secular our world appears to be, the more people seem to fill it
with a galaxy of gods to meet every conceivable need or desire. There is only
One God to know, the One Who sent us Jesus Christ. |
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13/04/08 |
Leaders are responsibility people who use the roles of commander, encourager, adapter, catalyst, strategist and above all others servant to provide direction to the worlds of politics and religion. Whether great or small, all Christians have a role as leaders in their homes, communities and world. |
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06/04/08 |
Promises shape the world in which we live – by
their being kept or broken. The Bible is full of promises – God’s promises to
the children of faith. And each one is kept. |
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Evening Service 06/04/08 |
Chaplaincy is a rich and varied ministry – an
opportunity to take the things of God and faith into worlds where the church does
not always have easy access. |
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Evening Service 30/03/08 |
After the momentous event of the resurrection, the gospels leave some loose ends that give us pause for thought? They remind us that, as in all matters, God remains firmly in control. |
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23/03/08 Easter reflection |
We hear the stories, we sing the songs, but on
this Easter Day we need to examine what we believe and what difference our
belief in Jesus it makes to our lives. |
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23/03/08 Evening Service |
In this
lovely Easter evening story, we see how Jesus walks beside His troubled
friends, gives them encouragement and hope, and is known to them in the
breaking of bread. |
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16/03/08 Good Friday sermon |
There is bitterness in life, and hard lessons
need to be faced and learned from. But through the bowl full of vinegar at
the cross, Jesus was enabled to complete the saving work His Father had given
Him. And the bitterness of Good Friday gave way to the sweetness of Easter
Sunday. |
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16/03/08 |
When the storm gathers over us, when the
clouds loom large, how do we cope and how do we respond? Jesus shows us
courage, integrity and directness. |
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09/03/08 Evening Service |
The relationship between Jesus and Judas is
complex. There is so much we don’t know, and what we do know appals us. Yet
despite the anger and the betrayal, Jesus remains steadfast and shows a love
that embraces all who betray, deny or abandon Him. |
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The Life of Jesus – the Peaceable Kingdom |
09/03/08 |
Where is the peaceable kingdom in the midst of
our stress and distress, when we feel surrounded by armies of despair and hurt?
It lies with God and will come from God. “…look up and raise your heads,
because your redemption is drawing near.” |
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09/03/08 Evening Service |
How we behave in our relationships, the choices we make, the things we say and do, all have an impact and consequence far beyond what we could ever imagine. Ruth’s kindness to Naomi led to marriage with Boaz, and the birth of a child, and in long line, led to the birth of Jesus Himself. |
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02/03/08 |
How does Jesus deal with sin? He confronts it. He tells us to sin no more. And through His sacrifice on the cross He sets us free and shows us He means business. How do we respond? |
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02/03/08 Evening Service |
There are three characters in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The prodigal, the older brother, and the father. In the complexity of their relationship, in wilfulness, stubbornness, and all-embracing love, we see parts of our own relationships. And we also see that in the Father, there is always one who will go out to us, whoever we are, and welcome us home. |
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The Life of Jesus – Teach us to Pray
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17/02/08 |
Prayer was central to the life of Jesus, and
it should be central to the lives of all His followers. But how and what and
when and why should we pray? |
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17/02/08 |
In all relationships of power, the ultimate
control and purpose of God must always be borne in mind. The relationship
between Elijah and Jezebel raises surprising contemporary questions about
multiculturalism and faith in our world today, and also reminds us that
whatever our actions, good or ill, there are always consequences. |
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10/02/08 |
What does it mean to
be holy? What does it mean to be perfect? Jesus gives some challenging
pointers to His followers, and reminds us of the image of God within us, and
the potential we all have to be, through faith, far better than we could ever
imagine. |
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10/02/08 |
In the relationship of power between Herod and
John the Baptist – who held the real power? How do we handle the truth-sayers
of our day? |
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3/2/08 |
Though there may be
times when God’s absence feels real, His presence is never diminished nor far
away. Which means that for us, the Kingdom of God is always near, and is
found in the ordinary and everyday actions of people of faith. The real
presence of a real God. |
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27/01/08 Evening Sermon |
Throughout His
ministry Jesus was befriended, supported and encouraged by |
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20/01/08 |
The healing work of
God in Jesus goes on in our world today through us – and that healing touches
all dis-eased situations in life – physical, mental, moral, political,
spiritual. |
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20/01/08 Evening Sermon |
The relationship between Abraham, Sarah and
God is a complex one, based on faith and doubt, tears and laughter. God, in
His wisdom, blesses the Patriarch and Matriarch of Israel, and keeps His word
to give them a promised land and a promised son. |
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13/1/08 |
Sometimes, when we
are stirred, inspired, called to do something, the way ahead is not always
clear to us. We see the task, the scale of whatever it is that needs to be
done, or the scale of the change that we might need to make in the way we
live and we wonder how on earth we will cope. |
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13/1/08 Evening Sermon |
The point of the
story is getting things in proportion and in priority. There is a time to go
and do; there is a time to listen and reflect. What matters here is that his
two believing sisters were privileged to see a foretaste of what the power of
God in Christ can do – overcome death, and bring the promise of life to the
children of faith. |
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6/1/08 |
What are we
searching for? What are the hopes and fears stretching out before us now?
What are the dreams and nightmares? People search for happiness, or love or
faith. The whole point about searching is not about endless looking and
questioning, it is, in faith, ultimately about finding. |
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6/1/08 Evening Sermon |
In the family of
faith people of all ages have a place, and it is sometimes the memory of the
older ones that surprises most of all. Here, with Simeon and Anna, old eyes
recognise the newborn Jesus as the fulfilment of the hope they had been
harbouring for generations. |
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24/12/07 Watchnight Service |
Families are tricky at the best of times. And the three characters who form the Holy Family, Joseph, Mary and Jesus, are no different from what we often assume are the unusual circumstances of our own family situations. |
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23/12/07 Evening sermon |
Jesus is God’s answer to the human fear of
being utterly alone. He gives us
peace. Peace helps us gain perspective, and gives us the breathing space to regroup our thoughts and prepare our actions. This is why peace is at the heart of the Christian message. |
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16/12/07 Evening Sermon |
It frustrates and infuriates the atheists and the disciples of Dawkins. That still, despite the faults and failings that have sometimes marred the Christian story and its church, when we return to the heart of what we believe, we find this wonderful, joyful story of God’s great love for us, incarnate, made flesh, in the baby of Bethlehem. |
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9/12/07 |
The Kingdom is the ideal for which we strive and for which we reach every day of our lives. And in the reaching, so we connect our hands with God, and with those around us, until the promise is realised, and the light shines at last. |
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2/12/07 |
In our lives, do we
use the wonderful gifts and talents He has given us? Getting ready – that’s
what it will take. For that one day, that one great and glorious and
incredible day, when Jesus will come back. |
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2/12/07 Evening sermon |
The journey of faith
calls for us to keep on learning, and that sets us free, it does not weigh us
down. For Job the relationship with God that he had feared lost is clearly
re-established, and he is better able to hear and see what and where God is
in his world. |
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18/11/07 |
In our country there
has been a focus on the work of William Wilberforce and others who, two
hundred years ago, successfully called for the outlawing of the slave trade
in Britain. The Guild looked around, and to everyone’s surprise, found that
though one form of slavery had been abolished, another one still flourished
in our country. Human sexual trafficking is today’s slavery. |
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The Word of God is
not fetteredPreached at the Presbytery service at
Davidson’s Mains Parish Church. |
18/11/07 6.30pm |
Obedient to the unfettered Word of God, Abraham and Moses and David, Elijah, Isaiah and Jeremiah struck out into new ways as God unfolded before their feet His expanding Kingdom, and their expanding understanding of it. It is the role of the preacher on occasion to point to the open doors in God’s unfettered Word, and lead the way down the sometimes unchartered pathways God calls His people to follow. |
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11/11/07 |
Greater even than
the war memorials are the living peace memorials that should be the lives we
lead. God has not created us for war but for peace. God did not send His Son
to live and die and rise again for us so that we might fight. |
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4/11/07 |
Saints are people who are made well, or healed, or made whole. Their whole lives have been turned around by Jesus reaching out, calling to them, and going to be with them. |
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4/11/07 Evening Service |
In the light of Job I look at the faith I have and see where it is resilient, and where it is weak. That’s what studying the Bible does. It allows you to look sometimes at yourself, your life, your faith, and see how it is with you. And for that, for Job, we give thanks. |
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28/10/07 |
Our faith is our reference, our guide, our
model, as well as our inspiration. It’s the kind of faith Abraham had. A
faith in a God Who brings dead things to life; a God Who looks at emptiness
but sees the ultimate fullness. A God Who sees the chaos and enables
creation. |
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21/10/07 |
Thy Kingdom
come, Thy will be done. In so far as we allow that Kingdom and its mighty
values of justice, peace and love to play a part in our lives, then we will
fulfill our part in reaching out to all nations, to show them Who and what
Jesus is, and how His real love can make a real difference to the world
today. |
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21/10/07 Evening Service |
I ‘know’ that my Redeemer lives. It is, I
believe, one of the most wonderful statements in the Bible. There is a
certainty here that transcends the trouble and the hurt and the pain, that
through the darkest of clouds God is still there, and will always be there. |
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14/10/07 |
We may be resident
aliens in this secular and unbelieving world, but in us, through us, even
despite us, God is working out His purpose and each second, His Kingdom edges
closer as our faith and our work continues to challenge the world and remind
them of a greater good, and a greater God. |
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14/10/07 |
When in the darkness
of depression or the numbness of bereavement; when in the red-hot heat of
anger or the unfairness of life; when in the icy chill of fear or panic, hold
on. Endure. Persevere. God is still there, in the terrible midst of it all.
And as you hold on, so does He. |
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7/10/07 |
There are times when
people need to hear the things they don’t want to hear and there are times
when we need to say the things that nobody wants to say. We don’t do people
favours by hiding from them the truth of the situation. For us, in all
things, grace, patience, love. |
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30/9/07 |
Faith is a form of
listening – what is God saying to the Church, and to us as individuals,
today? Are we prepared, as Peter was, to listen to a message we don’t quite
understand and might find quite hard to accept. The Church, God’s family of
faith, was to be open to all. |
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30/9/07 Evening service |
Job is finding little pity from his
friends; he still hopes and pleads for pity from God, Who once was his
greatest friend. But still, in the midst of this defiance, the element of
despair is still so very strong. |
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23/9/07 Evening Service |
As a lesson to us in
times of trouble this is on the face of it robust and gritty. But it’s real.
God for the good and God for the bad times. Not some soft-soap saviour but a
real God Who can cope with real problems in a real world. That’s the kind of
God we need, that’s the kind of God He is. |
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16/9/07 |
We are in the
business of finding out what God’s will is for us as a Church, as well as for
us as individuals. We do what we do in response to God’s love and in response
to Christ’s call. We do what we do not in our strength but in His, and we
must never, ever forget this. |
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16/9/07 Evening sermon |
Four sharp clauses, each of which stabs
like a knife, finish the chapter. I can’t relax, I can’t settle, I can’t
rest, trouble comes. No ease, no quiet, no rest, trouble comes. It doesn’t
take away from the awfulness of the lesson, but the light still comes, it
never stops, and that, eventually, is a sign of hope. |
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9/09/07 |
Virtually everything
we do in Church and for the Church has a financial implication. Barnabas, the
encourager, recognised this, saw the need, and did what he could to help.
Barnabas, the son of encouragement, saw money not as a master, but as a tool,
not as something to cling to but as a gift to be used for the greater glory
of God. |
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9/09/07 Evening Service |
As Christians we are
called to engage with the world, its good and bad points. And as we struggle
on, sometimes with wisdom and strength, and sometimes crawling on our knees
because it is so difficult, it is our faith, the quality and resilience of
our faith, that will keep us going. As it did for Job. |
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2/9/07 |
It was only a few
short moments since something mighty had stirred in the city and a great
wind, and tongues of fire, and foreign languages telling of the good news of
this Jesus had unsettled and shaken the city. And now this – a fisherman from
Galilee, speaking with authority and confidence, cutting them to the heart
with his simple words about life and death and the wonders of God. |
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2/9/07 Evening Sermon |
Faith in God’s
goodness is the heart of love and hope and joy, whereas cynicism is studied
disbelief. Is God so good that He can be loved for Himself, not just for His
gifts Can Job hold on to God when there are no benefits attached? |
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29/7/07 |
The true test of
whether or not we belong to God’s peoples lies on where we stand with Jesus
Christ. Is our life alive with His life? Are our words and our actions
resonating with His words and His actions? Christians take their life, their
vibrancy, their relevance from Jesus. |
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22/7/07 9.30am Talk |
When all but John
from the disciples had fled, Mary and two other women come to the cross, and
wait for Jesus to die. What must have been going through her mind at that
time? |
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A
faith that saves
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22/7/07 |
From the people of
Israel, through the time of Jesus and the New Testament, we have inherited a
faith in a God Who saves. |
Stained Glass Saints - Bernard
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15/7/07 9.30am Talk |
One of the stories
told about Bernard is that every morning when he woke up he would ask himself
“Why have I come here?” |
Believing in Jesus – Christian Maturity
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8/7/07 |
Mature Christians
are people who grow because in their lives there is light, nourishment,
protection, and warmth. |
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1/7/07 9.30am Talk |
In Benedictine
prayer, our hearts are the vessel empty of thoughts and intellectual
striving. All that remains is the trust in God's providence to fill us. |
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1/7/07 |
I love poetry.
Half-glimpsed worlds, large ideas breaking on far horizons, complex realities
sketched in broad strokes, intimate observations noted in minute detail. The
Bible is full of poetry too. |
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24/6/07 9.30am Talk |
One of the best gifts the saint bequeathed Scotland was the saltire, the national flag with the white cross on the blue background. |
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24/6/07 |
Faith is undoubtedly personal, but it leads us beyond a living relationship with God into an active relationship with the world around us. Faith affects our private lives and our public work. |
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27/05/07 Evening service |
Jesus takes the
power and majesty and amazement of God’s presence and transforms the ordinary
everyday experiences of humanity. |
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20/05/07 |
How will you live up
to your calling to be a witness to Jesus Christ in the weeks and months that
lie ahead? |
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20/05/07 Evening Service |
Jesus did not lay
down His life for us in order that we might be entertained or made to feel
comfortable. He laid down His life in order that we might pick up our crosses
and go out into the hard places of lives and show the tough love that is
required in Christian living. |
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13/05/07 |
Nothing, nothing,
can separate us from the love of God, that we find in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Nothing can separate you from that love. |
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06/05/07 |
The resurrection of
Jesus is fundamental to the gospel, but people from the time of Jesus and the
time of Paul – people have struggled with the reality of resurrection. |
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06/05/07 Evening Service |
“I am the true vine”
– through Jesus, we become like Him; through His love, we are enabled to love
others. |
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22/04/07 |
The season of Easter reminds us not only of the shouts of triumph, but the quiet call of faith out of the dark – the dawn i |