Sunday talks from Grace Church in Chichester and Havant in the south of England, UK.
Reading the feed…
When life empties us out, it can feel as though God himself is against us. Naomi came home to Bethlehem certain of it. But God was working in the silence through the circumstances in Naomi’s life to bring her (and us) future hope and redemption.
The beginning of the book of Ruth reminds us not to rely on our own perceptions and lose sight of the goodness of God. We need to trust God’s promises and remind ourselves that God is always at work even when we can’t see it.
God is a redemptive God. He is able to redeem us back, no matter how far we may seem to have gone. God brought Naomi and Ruth back at the perfect time to redeem into His will, and ultimately align into the genealogy of His son, Jesus Christ.
When God shows grace to the Ninevites, Jonah is furious. But God uses a plant and a worm to teach Jonah that he is the God who loves to be gracious – to everyone.
Jonah stubbornly holds on to his judgmental attitude towards the Ninevites even though God has shown them compassion. Is there a lesson in this for me?
Jonah was given a second chance to deliver God’s message, just as we are given many chances to change. God freely gives us the Holy Spirit who helps us. God requires us to be obedient and not take his mercy for granted. His mercies are new every day!
In Jonah, many things are described as big or great. Great emotions, great cities, great wickedness, great fish, great storms. We find that despite these ‘great’ things, our God is far greater than them all and abounding in love, mercy and compassion.
Jonah experiences the mercy of God from inside a fish but has he learnt anything or is there a good reason why he struggles? Discovering how mercy triumphs over judgement can change our story.
We all have moments when we feel far from God and Jonah discovered that running from God’s call on his life didn’t work. Facing death in a storm sent by God, God reminds him that grace is always there when we reach the bottom.
What kind of God do we meet in the opening chapter of Jonah? Discover a God whose mercy refuses to stay inside the borders we draw—a mercy that reaches His enemies, pursues the runaway, and ultimately reaches us through Jesus.
Paul encourages us to offer up our bodies as living sacrifices, our lives are to be an act of worship as servants of Christ. The passage amplifies what this means, explaining how God has given us all gifts that are to be used to serve God and one another.
Ever feel like God’s commands are just one more burden to carry? We look at what it means when John says Jesus commands aren’t burdensome, and how faith enables obedience to bring us joy.
As we finish our series on The Lord’s Prayer, we come to the verses “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one”. Can God really tempt us? And, how does the evil one affect our lives?
As we finish our series on The Lord’s Prayer, we come to the verses “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one”. Can God really tempt us? And, how does the evil one affect our lives?
Jesus teaches us to pray, “Forgive us our debts.” We explore what our debt is and how a just God can forgive guilty sinners through the cross, and discover the cost of unforgiveness as well as the freedom that forgiving others brings.
The ‘grievance culture’ we live in tells us that there is always someone to blame when problems arise. But what if forgiveness was the radical solution this world needs? And how does accepting Jesus’ forgiveness change us and those around us?
So much of our fear and anxiety is about the future, worrying whether we’ll have all we need to get through life. Jesus teaches that the Father provides both ‘bread’ and grace for each day, not only for our physical needs but also our deepest need of all.
The first part of the Lord’s Prayer is important for shaping our request for daily bread It is a great comfort that God invites us to come and ask Him for what we need, but also that He hears us as we pray.
Jesus was showing God’s heart when he prayed that God’s kingdom would come to earth. It is not like the kingdoms of this world, but instead calls on us to surrender our will to God so that He might reign in our hearts.
God’s will is both sovereign and certain. Through every trial, God can be trusted, and whatever comes our way, He will work for our good. As we look at Jesus in the garden, we see the best example of surrendering our will to the Father’s.
We explore three different aspects to God’s will: secret, discerned and revealed. We unpack questions we might have relating to God’s will and actions we need to take as Christians in the light of God’s will.
In our Lord’s Prayer series, we look at the line “your kingdom come.” We trace the kingdom of God through the Bible, see how we enter through Jesus, and live between the kingdom’s “now and not yet,” looking ahead to Christ’s return, when it comes in full.
Firstly, this prayer is a petition for the nations to honour and glorify a mighty, majestic and holy God, and secondly for us to be in awe of God.
The many names of God portray his immensity and holiness and allow us to understand just who it is that we meet with in our times of prayer. As we pray “Hallowed be Your Name” we recognise and revere the holiness of our loving and just Father.
Before we ask God for anything, Jesus teaches us who we are talking to. Discover why this changes everything, how we come to truly know him, and how incredible this relationship can become when we grasp who God is and how much he loves us.
