In the Bible’s final chapter, we are reminded of the ultimate end of our journey, where all our toils and sacrifices will be met with the eternal reward of Christ's presence in the New Jerusalem. Here, the curse will be broken, and we will experience the fullness of God's love and glory, with no more suffering or pain, but eternal joy and peace. As we labor and wait, we hold onto the promise of His coming, praying for the grace and strength to persevere until we are welcomed into His eternal embrace.

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In his parable of the dishonest steward who leveraged his resources and relationships to build security for himself after he lost his job, Jesus teaches his disciples to act shrewdly with what in light of the coming kingdom. In this present age, which is rapidly passing away, we must cunningly leverage our earthly resources for heavenly impact.

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Series: Tenacious Witness (2 Timothy)

In his final letter to Timothy, Paul delivers a solemn charge to faithfully preach the Gospel, stressing the importance of readiness and endurance in ministry despite challenges. He reflects on his impending death with peace, confident in the reward awaiting him and urging Timothy to remain steadfast in faith. This poignant farewell highlights the enduring call to serve with grace and perseverance, even amidst adversity and personal trials.

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Series: Tenacious Witness (2 Timothy)

Over-realized eschatology, the belief that all future blessings are available now, is a pervasive false teaching that destroys faith by promoting a life free from suffering, contrary to the true Christian call to carry the cross and endure trials. Desperate individuals are misled into making financial sacrifices and blaming their lack of faith for their unfulfilled promises, leading to disappointment and bitterness towards God. True Christian life involves suffering and struggle, not guaranteed health and wealth.

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Series: Tenacious Witness (2 Timothy)

Paul urges Timothy to stay strong in the grace of Christ and to faithfully pass on the apostolic gospel to reliable people who can teach others, creating a self-sustaining chain of witnesses. Using metaphors of a soldier, athlete, and farmer, Paul emphasizes the need for dedication, endurance, and focus in ministry. We are reminded to keep Jesus Christ at the center, enduring all for the sake of the gospel, knowing that our labor is not in vain and will ultimately result in eternal glory with Christ.

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Series: Tenacious Witness (2 Timothy)

Paul, nearing the end of his life, writes a heartfelt letter to his spiritual son Timothy, urging him to remain steadfast in faith and to preserve the gospel message entrusted to him. He emphasizes the importance of continuing the legacy of faith handed down by Timothy's grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, and encourages Timothy to rely on the Holy Spirit's power, love, and self-discipline rather than succumbing to fear. Paul concludes by highlighting the eternal victory of Christ over death and the necessity of guarding and proclaiming this gospel until the end.

—

Artwork referenced in this sermon:

• Rembrandt van Rijn, "St. Paul in Prison”
• Orthodox icon of the Harrowing of Hell

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What is the Gospel, according to St. Paul? In the opening verses to his great (and often misunderstood) letter to the Romans, the apostle defines and describes the gospel of God that has claimed his life.

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When Jesus ascended into heaven, he entered the true heavenly sanctuary as both High Priest and perfect sacrifice, securing our eternal access to God's presence. This pivotal event calls us to reflect on Christ’s ongoing intercession for us and our role as a royal priesthood, joining in the heavenly worship and service to our living God.

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In the fullness of time, God sent His Son to redeemus, so that we might receive adoption as sons. God has also sent the Spirit of His Son into the hearts of believers, enabling them to cry out to God as their Father. And so we are no longer slaves but sons and heirs of God, enjoying the privileges and security of belonging to His family forever.

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

Jude, eager to write about salvation, instead urges believers to contend for the faith due to emerging threats from within the Christian community. He warns against ungodly individuals who distort grace into a license for immorality and encourages believers to build each other up in faith, keep themselves in God's love, and show mercy to those led astray. His closing doxology reminds the faithful of God's power to keep them from stumbling and present them blameless with great joy.

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Though his followers had abandoned him at his crucifixion, the risen Jesus appears to them, offering peace and commissioning them to announce the forgiveness of sins in his name. Even the most skeptical disciple, Thomas, is transformed by his encounter with the risen Lord into a bold witness who would carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

[Caravaggio’s painting The Incredulity of Saint Thomas can be viewed here.]

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The apostle Paul declares the cosmic supremacy of Christ, emphasizing his role as the creator, sustainer, and ultimate purpose of all things. Through his death on the cross, Christ reconciled all things to God, who took the initiative to restore the relationship between sinful humanity and their Creator. We now stand before God without blemish or accusation, having been freed from the powers of sin and death, sharing in Christ's ministry of reconciliation.

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

In his third letter, the apostle John commends Gaius for his faithfulness and hospitality towards traveling missionaries. However, he also condemns Diotrephes for his selfish ambition, gossiping, and refusal to welcome fellow believers. These contrasting examples of moral behaviour prompt us to ask ourselves: are we ambitious for ourselves, or for the glory of the Name?

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

As soon as a fledgling church begins to sprout, Satan sends false teachers to draw it away from Christ. Because he knows that when we abandon or neglect Christ, we’ve lost touch with life itself.

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

The apostle Peter warns that in the last days, scoffers will mock the promise of Christ's return, deliberately forgetting the divine origin and end of all things. However, God is not slow in keeping his promise, but patient, desiring all to come to repentance before the day of the Lord arrives. Therefore, we ought to live holy and godly lives, making every effort to be found spotless and blameless, growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

Paul's letter to Philemon addresses a delicate situation involving Onesimus, a slave who had left his master and then becomes a Christian under Paul's guidance. Paul urges Philemon, Onesimus's master, to welcome him back not just as a slave but as a brother in Christ, encouraging him to forgive and welcome him. The letter highlights the transformative power of the gospel, challenging societal norms and creating new relationships of love within the Christian community.

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

As we struggle with the frustrating human condition, the letter to Titus offers profound insights. Anchored in the promise of eternal life, Paul emphasizes the transformative power of God's grace, urging us to embrace a life of godliness while we await the fullness of our inheritance in the age to come.

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

In the last days, the Spirits warns, deceitful teachers will appear in the church teaching the doctrine of demons: forbidding marriage and forcing people to abstain from certain foods. Paul urges us to resist this distortion of Christian asceticism by practicing gratitude and enjoyment of God's creation as acts of worship. The best defense against the Enemy’s hatred of creation is a childlike simplicity of heart that finds joy in God's gifts. In doing so, believers fulfill their priestly role in unifying the spiritual and material, highlighting the ultimate goal of all creation being offered back to God in Christ.

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

Despite enduring heavy persecution, the believers in Thessalonica are following Christ with joy. Paul encourages them with the hope of Christ’s return, when he will not only publicly vindicate God’s children, but share God’s glory with them.

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Series: Discipleship on the Edge

How do we grieve with hope and live alertly in anticipation of Christ's return? Paul offers the Thessalonians guidance on mourning with the assurance of victory, urging them to live in alert readiness for the Lord's imminent coming. In present grief and toil, we must hold onto the joyful expectation of eternal life, remind ourselves and each other that those in Christ will share in His triumphant return and everlasting kingdom.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

In the closing book of the Old Testament, God promises to send His Messenger before him, whose arrival will mean God Himself has come to His temple. And so this book closes with breath held, leaning forward, waiting for the Saviour whose name has been whispered in every book of the Old Testament.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Amid the strange visions and oracles against the nation in the book of Zechariah are a collection of prophecies about an unusual figure. A future king is coming who will come in triumph, yet lowly and riding on a donkey. Valued at the paltry sum of thirty pieces of silver, the shepherd will be rejected and pierced. Yet somehow his death will open a fountain of cleansing for God's people.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The remnant who have returned to the land have grown discouraged and abandoned the rebuilding of the temple. God sends Haggai to stir them up to the work, because nothing is more important to God than dwelling in the midst of his people.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Zephaniah was called to speak God's word in a time of spiritual crisis and opportunity. Through his prophet God warns of creation itself being reversed in judgment, but holds the door of mercy open until the last repentant sinner squeezes through. For the Lord longs to bring all his lost children home, so he can sing over them in delight.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Habakkuk is a conversation between the prophet and God, in which Habakkuk wrestles with the judgements of God in history. In the end, what gives us the ability to wait for him to act is the whole-hearted allegiance to God which we call faith: the enduring fidelity which Christ himself demonstrated for us in going to the cross

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Welcome to the least-preached book of the Bible. Nahum's message of God's wrath against Nineveh makes for uncomfortable reading. But for those suffering under oppression, God's destruction of evil is good news indeed. Make no mistake: Christ came to bind the strong man and plunder his house.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Micah is a prophecy, alternatively, of warning and promise. Stern judgment on the sin of Israel and Judah is suddenly following by the most stunning visions of future peace and glory. Because God is determined that his grace through the coming Messiah will get the last word.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The Assyrians were the cruel and bloodthirsty empire of the ancient world. Yet God sends the prophet Jonah on a mission to Nineveh, the capital of this terrorist state. Jonah is angry when God responds mercifully to their repentance. But there's a wideness in God's mercy, and he shows inexplicable compassion to his whole creation — ourselves included.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

When Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, the Edomites had gloated over Israel's downfall. Now God warns their own judgement is coming—and reminds the exiled Jews he has seen and will respond to their affliction. "Vengeance is mine," God declares, and it's our trust in him as the only one who can bring justice that allows us to drop the sword from our own hands.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Through Amos, God denounces the social injustice that supports the decadent lifestyles of the upper class in the the northern kingdom of Israel. God wants his people to hate evil and love good, because they're meant to be a scale model of what his reign looks like. It's the kingdom of righteousness and justice Christ came to inaugurate on earth.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The 'day of the Lord' is the climax of wrath and judgment that will end history. And since judgement begins with the household of God, this day calls all of us to search our hearts and repent and return to God. For those who have pure hearts before God realize that God's judgement means salvation.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

God tells the prophet Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman, as a visible enactment of God's tempestuous relationship with faithless Israel. And when Gomer runs off to live with another man, God sends Hosea to find her, pay off her debts, forgive her betrayal, and renew his vows to her. The prophet's marriage (and all of our own marriages) point to the lengths Christ is willing to go to redeem and purify his bride, the church.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The seer Daniel pulls back the curtain on the cosmic battlefield to show us the supernatural forces of darkness and light battling over the fate of humanity. Empire succeeds empire, all different manifestations of the beast — but in the end every human kingdom will fall and Christ alone will reign in love and justice.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

No prophet acted more strangely or received more psychedelic visions of God than Ezekiel. In the aftermath of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, Ezekiel is shown the glorious future Israel's God has planned for her — a new temple, and from underneath the temple, a river that flows toward the dead places and turns everything lush with life.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Lamentations is a collection of five poems in which the poet (traditionally, Jeremiah) grieves over the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 BC. Not all suffering is deserved, but this affliction is: God is punishing Judah for her wickedness. Will God relent and show mercy? Lamentations ends with uncertainty, but thank God the coming of Christ will give us sinners boldness in the face of judgment.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

More than any of the OT prophets, Jeremiah gives us a sense of the agony of the prophetic call. He was called to experience the suffering love of God for his sinful people—but also to fully share the suffering of Israel under judgement. Jeremiah is thus a powerful Old Testament witness to the Incarnation of Christ.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The prophet Isaiah penned a soaring vision of God's transcendent majesty and the restoration of Israel — and through her, the redemption of the nations and the renewal of all creation. But at the heart of his prophecy is the announcement of the Suffering Servant who will bear the sins of his people and open the floodgates of divine salvation.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

At the most obvious level, this poem is a celebration of erotic love between a man and a woman. Their desire is physical and sensual; it is not merely sexual but involves the burning desire of one person for complete union with another. It's a celebration of God's gift of embodied, marital sexuality. And married love at its best points us toward "the flame of the Lord"—the divine Eros that is the love of Christ for his Bride.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Someone observed that if you’re depressed you should read Ecclesiastes. You’ll still be depressed, but now you’ll be depressed biblically. The author of Ecclesiastes tears away the pretensions and illusions that shield us from facing the absurdity of life. His one great certainty is that we’re all going to die — this little vapour of life, this wisp of air, is going to dissipate. We Christians are not exempted from experience of futility, frustration, and death — but we are children of the Resurrection.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

In the Book of Proverbs we hear the voice of a good father advising his son on how to live life well. All of us are invited to embrace wisdom and learn how to operate skilfully in God's reality. Christ, who is the wisdom of God and the living blueprint of the cosmic order, came into this world to be the listening son who heeded his father's voice and grew in wisdom and stature. And he offers his own wisdom to all who acknowledge him as Lord.

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In the days before his arrest, Jesus takes his disciples aside to teach them and give them the encouragement they will soon sorely need. He emphasizes that when he returns to the Father, he will not leave them as orphans: he will send his promised Holy Spirit. For the church ever since then, the Holy Spirit's presence has infused us with new life and great confidence in all the riches we have in Christ Jesus.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

For thousands of years, the Psalms have shaped the worship of the people of God. These ancient prayers give us the words to lament the brokenness of the world, to cry out to God from the terrible pit, and to praise him for his mighty acts of deliverance. But our reading of this book is transformed when we remember these 150 psalms are the prayer journal of Jesus himself.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Job was a good man: the most righteous in the East. But God allows Satan to strip him of everything. Job cries out to God out of is pain and wonders how a good God could inflict such cruelty on his servant. Job’s friends argue that Job must have some secret sin, but Job knows his own integrity. In the end, there’s only one thing Job is after: an encounter with the living God, who shows up in the whirlwind to speak to Job.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

A young Jewish woman, Esther, rises through the harem to become Queen of Persia. Five years later, her fellow Jews are in deadly peril of being wiped out by the vengeful Prime Minister. When Esther hesitates to risk her own position, her cousin Mordecai reminds her that God may well have raised her up for such a time as this.

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If Jesus really has been raised from the dead, that would change everything. It would mean victory over death and a future filled with hope. But why should we trust the witness of the women and the disciples? What if they’re liars, or deluded?

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Jesus has been welcomed to Jerusalem by the cheering crowds. But when a group of God-fearing Greeks ask to see Jesus, he announces his time has come: his time to fall into the ground like a seed and die for the world.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

December, 446 BC, in the Persian capital city Susa. Nehemiah, King Artaxerxes’s cupbearer, is devastated to hear of the broken-down condition of his native Jerusalem. With the king’s blessing, he heads to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall: a project that is delayed by malevolent neighbours and community corruption. It’s a story in miniature of God’s renovation of this fallen world, and our own broken-down lives.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

In 538 BC, the Persian King Cyrus the Great gave the exiled Jews permission to return to their homeland. Zerubbabel led a first wave of 42,360 returnees back to rebuild the temple. Then, sixty years later, sent Ezra the priest-scribe to Jerusalem to instruct the people in the law of God. But there’s only so much even a gifted and godly teacher can do, because the people are still sinful. For God’s people (and the whole world) to return from their more ancient exile from Eden, we need more than a great teacher: we need a second Adam to lead us past the flaming sword and into God’s presence.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The highest point of King Solomon’s reign finds him in the centre of a great throng of worshippers, spreading out his hands in prayer to God. It’s as though the most kingly act is to be on your knees interceding for the people God has entrusted to you. Do we realise how much we owe to King Jesus who is continually interceding for us before the Father? At this very moment he is at the centre of the heavenly worship, seated at the right hand of God, making our needs and requests known with power.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

David is feeling guilty about living in a place of cedar while the ark of God lives in a tent. He wants to build a temple for God, but God turns him down. Instead, God says, “I am going to build you a house—a great dynasty, with a king who will sit on your throne forever.” God’s relationship with human beings will always be asymmetrical. We can never outgive God, and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the gift of His Son.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

A prophet-in-training loses his axe-head in the river, and the prophet Elisha tosses in a stick and the iron object bobs up to the surface. A charming story: but does it have something to say to the Jewish people buried in the middle of the Babylonian empire? And might this story point us to the Son of God who leapt into the river to rescue his lost people?

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The prophet Elijah, discouraged by Israel’s shallow repentance and fleeing for his life, makes his way to Mount Sinai. There God tells him to wait for him to pass by. Elijah experiences a tempest, an earthquake, and a fire, but God is not in any of these fearsome phenomena. Finally, the prophet hears a still, small voice — and recognising that God is present at least, he emerges from his cave.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

After Saul’s death, David comes to the throne of Israel. God makes a series of stunning promises to David, culminating in an oath that someday a greater Son of David will sit on the throne and establish God’s reign on earth. But David grows complacent and commits adultery and murder, unleashing ripples of destruction in his life, his family, and his kingdom. When his son Absalom rebels, David and his faithful few flee Jerusalem. The weeping king crosses the Mount of Olives, silently bearing the jeers and curses of Shimei — a haunting picture of the true Son of David, who bears the curse and sin of his people. 

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The people of Israel are demanding a king, so they can be like the other nations, even though they’re protected and provided for by God as their king. But God tells Samuel to anoint Saul, a man who stands head and shoulders above everyone else. Saul is the kind of king the people want — the epitome of human strength — but his personal failings bring Israel to disaster. But God has already prepared a new king, David, a man after his own heart.

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The archangel Gabriel appears to a teenage girl in a forgotten village with a startling announcement: you will bear the long-promised Messiah of Israel. And in her virgin womb the highly-favoured Mary, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, knit together the humanity of our Lord. Mary was a human being like us, subject to sin and death and in need of a Saviour. But she was set apart as the holy space for the one beyond all space. She is the Burning Bush, the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant. And every generation will call her blessed, because she gave the world our Saviour.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The charming book of Ruth could almost be described as a romantic comedy. As Naomi and her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth move back to Bethlehem, and Ruth encounter the godly landowner Boaz, the story moves from famine to fullness, from death to life, and from despair to joy. The book is thus the gospel in miniature, for Christ himself is our kinsman redeemer, bound to us by blood and covenant, who in his kindness rescues us from slavery, ruin, and hopelessness.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The book of Judges is set in some of the darkest times in Israel, a time of devastation and anarchy. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes, and the judges God sent to deliver Israel from their enemies weren’t much better than the people they were sent to save. The last and most disappointing of the judges was Samson, a man of incredible promise and gifting who wasted his gifts on his selfish impulses. The whole book looks forward in longing to a good, strong king who would save the whole nation.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Home. We all want to put deep roots down somewhere, and feel like we fit into the landscape. To be “implaced” is to enjoy one of the highest creaturely blessings God can give us. That was the gift God gave Israel when he gave them the Promised Land. In Joshua the twelve tribes conquer and distribute the land—but are also warned that holding on to it depends on remaining faithful to God. No one should make the easy assumption that God is always on our side. The real question is, are we on his?

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

This is Moses’ last sermon to Israel before he dies and they cross over into the Promised Land. He exhorts them to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and strength, and to demonstrate their commitment with a life of extensive obedience. There will be dangers: they might forget God because of affluence, or abandon God because of idolatry, or doubt God because of hardship. God’s people are prone to wander … but that God always remains faithful.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Trapped in the wilderness for 40 years, the nation of Israel can’t stop complaining. When they attack Moses because they don’t have water, he finally loses it. But he not only ignored God’s instructions, he failed to represent the grace and patient of Israel’s LORD. Because his people’s determination to rebel is outmatched only by God’s determination to bless. And the rock that Moses strikes pours forth water to quench the people’s thirst.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

Nocturnal emissions and menstrual cycles. Hair loss and skin discoloration. Mold in your walls and mildew in your clothing. Lists of clean and unclean foods. It’s hard to see the relevance of the regulations and rituals described in Leviticus. But this third book of Moses is really describing God’s deep desire to dwell with a people made holy by the sacrificial work of his appointed priest. And that’s what the Day of Atonement, at the very heart of the very centre of the Pentateuch, is all about.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

From first to last, Exodus is the story of the mighty acts of God, who delivers his people “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm”. Unlike all the other gods, this God sees the misery of the oppressed and he hears their groans. He rides to their rescue, he sweeps away the most powerful army on earth, clearing a path for the twelve tribes who can only watch in awe as God moves on their behalf. This God is not a much bigger Pharaoh, who is going to feed on the Israelite nation to keep himself alive. Because God does not need anything, the giving only goes one way: from God down to his creation. Exodus provides the paradigm for salvation and redemption for Israel, and when Jesus shows up, he comes to lead Israel in a new and greater Exodus — not from Egypt this time, but from the far greater enemies of Satan, sin and death.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

The story of the binding of Isaac is one of the most evocative stories in the Bible. Abraham and Sarah had received Isaac in their old age. He was the child of promise: the one through whom the whole world would be blessed. And now God had commanded Abraham to take his son, his only son, the son he loved, and sacrifice him on the mountain God would show him. Amazingly, Abraham set out in faith to obliterate his own future, confident that somehow God would provide.

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Series: Christ in the Old Testament

These first chapters of Genesis, ‘the Old Testament of the Old Testament’, contain the primeval history of the world. God created the universe by the word of his power and declared all things good. He fashioned humanity from the soil into his own image, and placed Adam and Eve in a garden. The test of their free will took place in the most optimal conditions imaginable, but tempted by the serpent, they unleashed every evil into creation. These early chapters record how the human race goes from bad to worse. Yet, incredibly, at their lowest moment, God shows up with the promise that one day, the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent.

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When we are trapped in sin, we need to remember that our God delights in mercy. God lifts off the crushing burden of our sin and its terrible consequences, no longer looks at us us dirty and stained and unloveable, but chooses to remember our evil no more. The bad things we’ve done, which seemed so irreversible, will never again come up as a factor in our relationship with God. And then we stand up straight, overwhelmed and amazed, and join in Micah’s great chant of exultation in our incomparable God. There is no God like this God!

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Christ’s transfiguration on the mountain was a theophany: a revelation of his divine glory to Peter, James, and John. Incredibly, the glory of God is shining out of a human face. Jesus’ humanity is not an obstacle to his divine glory: on the contrary, it’s the vehicle for it. Like the burning bush that Moses saw, human nature burns with the divine fire but is not consumed. And therefore, this story in Luke tells us that our own humanity is not an obstacle to bearing the divine glory: on the contrary, it’s the vehicle for it. The transfiguration is the story of what we ourselves are becoming by grace, as God conforms us to the image of his Son.

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“A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”

Wise words build relationships; foolish words destroy them. That’s what communication is all about, this marvellous gift of speech that God has given us and that separates us from the animals. Words form societies and build communities: but they can also destroy them. It doesn’t even require deliberate malice: just a general thoughtlessness self-absorption can be just as effective in hurting people around us. What we need is to acquire prudence: the virtue of knowing what the good is in a given situation, and the right way of achieving it. 

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“The one who guards a fig tree will eat its fruit,

   and whoever protects their master will be honored.”

It’s a basic principle of economic justice that those who work hard and faithfully and well are rewarded and honoured for it. In this sinful world, hard workers are often treated ungratefully, forgotten by the executives and shareholders, and even exploited. But there’s one place we can be certain that our work will not be in vain, and that’s in God’s Kingdom. The eye of the Master sees and records and will reward even the smallest act done out of love for him.

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“Better a small serving of vegetables with love

than a fattened calf with hatred.”

Wise people prioritize relationships over wealth, status, and consumerist lifestyle experiences. Most of us would assent to the truth of the proverb, but does the way we spend our time, our energy, and our time demonstrate that we care about close relationships more than anything?

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The deepest hunger of every human being is to participate in a communion of perfect love. This is what our Triune God has created all of us to experience. The Father pours out all that he is and has to the Son, so that the Spirit in turn make share the infinite riches of God himself with all believers. 

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The wilderness. The Empty Quarter. The only thing standing between the children of Israel and the Jordan River that marks the boundary of the Promised Land. It should be easy, but unfortunately the people can't stop complaining and accusing God and longing for the old land of slavery. In the midst of judgment, God pours out his Spirit on the elders gathered around the temple — and even on two men within the camp, prompting Moses's heartfelt cry, "If only all of God's people were prophets!"

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Before ascending to heaven, Jesus promises the disciples that he will pour out the promised Holy Spirit from his place of exaltation. The church now is empowered and authorized for mission. Our task is not to stand gaping into the empt sky, but to descend from the mountaintop and serve God’s purposes in our world.

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The King of Aram is furious that Elisha is revealing top-secret conversations with his military planning team. He sends a special forces operation to capture the prophet. When Elisha's servant sees the desperate situation, he panics. But Elisha prays that God would open his servant's eyes to see the heavenly horses and chariots of fire that are surrounding them. We, too, need these eyes of faith, to see that we are far safer than we realize.

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The date: July 31, 593 B.C. The place: beside Kebar Canal in the middle of Babylon. Ezekiel, the exile prophet, receives a stunning vision of God's glory. It turns out God is not tied down the temple in Jerusalem. He is sovereign everywhere. What matters to more to us: present circumstances (however distressing) or the divine glory?

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Early on Easter Sunday, Mary of Magdalene and the other Mary go to the tomb and discover it's empty! An angel sitting cheerily on the stone tells them that Jesus is risen, and they must run and tell the disciples. The eleven go to Galilee to meet Jesus on the mountain — not the high mountain from which the devil tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world, but the mountain of his triumph. It's here, clothed with all authority in heaven and on earth, that Jesus commission the disciples to be his witnesses to the world, strengthened by his promise to be with them — and with us — always, even to the end of the world.

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On Palm Sunday, Jesus requisitions a couple of donkeys — and a handful of Old Testament prophecies — to reveal himself as Israel's true king. But he's not the violent man of blood the people want. He's the King of Peace, who comes to suffer with and for his people. And days later, he will be leaving the city, crowned with thorns, to be enthroned on the cross.

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

An artist doesn't impose their will on their material. They listen to it, entering into a conversation with it, figuring out what it wants to do. That's what gentleness is. We're called to that same responsiveness and openness towards others, respecting their integrity as those who share in God's image, being sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives. After all, we're all broken people who require careful handling.

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

When we see others abandon Christ, it should fill us with a holy fear. The sin I am indulging could be the beginning of the road to apostasy. Our Master calls us to lifelong personal allegiance. We can't summon up perseverance from within ourselves, though. Our faithfulness must be grounded the One who promises, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

Goodness is no bland, shapeless quality. A good man or woman is a person with a core of iron, who stands for what is right and true in the midst of evil. Why? Because they live under God's holy eye and are longing to be in his holy presence. This is the kind of person God wants to live with on his holy mountain.

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

Kindness is being sensitive to the needs of others and meeting those needs. It’s the very opposite of our old life before meeting Jesus. Now we learn to be others-focussed. That means telling the truth, working hard to help others, speaking words that build people up, and forgiving others when they sin against us. We express kindness because we’ve experienced God’s unlimited kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

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In Psalm 58 David gives us words to express our outrage at unjust, violent strongmen to our God who is righteous and true. As we pray we renounce violence and leave it to the Lord to take vengeance, remembering that the cross is the supreme demonstration of divine justice—the only justice that brings healing, forgiveness, and restoration.

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

Waiting is one of the hardest things to do—but what if it's where God does most of his work in his life? That's why we need to develop patience, the capacity to endure a long period of difficulty without losing heart. We must learn to trust that God is good and wise, and that he himself is marvellously patient with us.

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

Peace: wholeness, flourishing, life in harmony with God, ourselves, and the world around us. What does it mean to live in peace in the midst of a violent world? James points to bitter envy and selfish ambition as the root problem, all because "you do not ask God". When we are secure in God's care, we no longer need to fight with others for scarce resources. We're freed to say, "I was wrong," and "I forgive you."

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

We shout for joy before the Lord because of his great goodness — not because of our emotional state, personality type, or immediate circumstances. As we call to mind God's mighty acts of salvation, his unchanging faithfulness, and coming kingdom, we summon all humanity and even the non-human creation to a jubilant song of praise to our Redeemer. 

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

The fruit of the Spirit is love. The primary and most basic evidence that we are abiding in Christ is that we love each fervently, from the heart. But we lack the inner resources to do this. John reminds us that we love because love comes from God — God is love. He demonstrated his love for us supremely at the cross. When we replenish our own hearts with God's love, we find ourselves able to love each other with God's own trinitarian love.

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Series: The Fruit of the Spirit

We begin a new series on the Fruit of the Spirit with the encouragement that God is committed to changing us — so much so that he has given the double gift of Son and Spirit. Your transformation isn’t your response to the gospel: it is part of the good news of what God has committed to do for you. Of course, we aren’t passive: we’re called to walk in sympathy with the Spirit’s footsteps.

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One day a caravan of mysterious strangers emerge from the desert and begin asking around in Jerusalem for the one who was born king of the Jews, “for we have seen his star when it rose.” These Persian or Babylonian astrologers are the first Gentiles who come to worship Jesus, and their courage and determination to seek Jesus should provoke our own quest to bow down before the Light of the world.

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Series: The Nicene Creed

Almost eight centuries before Christ, the prophet Isaiah prophecies a victory banquet for all nations, celebrating God’s victory over death. There the guests exclaim, “This is our God! We trusted in him, and he saved us.” With the clearer light of Christ, we now confess with the Nicene Creed, "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” And we yearn for the best and highest gift of that everlasting life: seeing the face of God.

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Series: The Nicene Creed

“We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” the Nicene Creed reads. Forgiveness meets us, as God’s free gift, at the very beginning of the Christian life. As we struggle against sin and wrestle with the powers of darkness, we can look back at our baptism as God’s sign and seal of his unwavering promise towards us in Christ.

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Series: The Nicene Creed

There’s nothing harder in the creed to confess than, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” Humanly speaking, nothing seems more feeble, compromised, distracted, divided, sinful, corrupt, or even abusive than the church. But our faith is in the Triune God, who creates, redeems, sustains, and perfects his church. It is he who makes the Church one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

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Series: The Nicene Creed

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” Truth itself is inert and lifeless until the Holy Spirit moves upon us. He is the Gift and Giver, sent by the Father through the Son to help us understand and enjoy all that is ours by grace. Our greatest need is for his presence and power.

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Series: The Nicene Creed

We live in a world that cries out for justice. Moral seriousness requires retribution for evil. Christ is the judge whom God has appointed to set right what has gone wrong — to name and destroy evil, and to usher in a kingdom of justice, peace, and joy. 

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Series: The Nicene Creed

Jesus is not only risen from the dead. He has been glorified and exalted to the place of supreme power and authority. In the words of the Nicene Creed, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” Christ is the king, armed with authority to save us to the uttermost. He exercises supreme, total, and cosmic jurisdiction. When we struggle here below, it is a profound comfort to lift our eyes and see the one who died for us in command of all things.

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Series: The Nicene Creed

When God fights and conquers evil, the lowly sing songs of joy. When we confess, with the Nicene Creed, that “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father,” we are chanting the saga of the Son of God who went forth to slay the three-headed monster of Sin, Satan and Death. 

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Series: The Nicene Creed

This is, along with the accounts in Matthew, Mark and Luke, one of the darkest and most disturbing chapters of the Bible. The murder of God’s only Son reveals the evil of humanity in its full horror. Yet the cross is also the greatest revelation of the love of God, because through Christ’s atonement God liberates humanity from sin, Satan and death. So we confess, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.”

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Series: The Nicene Creed

After Jesus rose from the dead, trembling hands reached out and confirmed: this is indeed the Master ... not an apparition, a ghost, a hologram: this is our Friend, in flesh and blood, sitting beside us eating a piece of fish. The Son of God is truly a human being like us. So we confess with the Nicene Creed:

“For us human beings and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary

and became truly human.”

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Series: The Nicene Creed

When Jesus calms the storm, the disciples ask themselves in fear and amazement, “Who is this person?” The second article of the Nicene Creed is the considered answer of the church almost three hundred years later: 

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father;

through him all things were made.”

---

Tbilisi International Christian Fellowship is a Christ-centred family of believers in Tbilisi, Georgia.

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Series: The Nicene Creed

God didn’t created the universe out of necessity, but out of the sheer joyful abundance of the divine life. Why else would he have made 1.5 million species of beetles? Our existence is completely gratuitous: the gift of being comes from the generous hand of our creator. God’s heart toward the world has been gracious from the beginning.

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At the heart of the Gospel are Christ’s finished sacrifice on the cross for our sins and his ongoing, eternal priesthood at God’s right hand. Since both these glorious things are true, the author to the Hebrews exhorts us, we should draw near to God, hold firmly to our hope, and stir each other up to love and good deeds.

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Psalm 8 celebrates the significance of humanity in a vast universe. Since all human beings are created in the image of God, we have been graced with dignity, meaning and purpose. But now we are a race of fallen kings, alienated from our Maker and thus from ourselves. But Christ has come as the True Human, to fulfill humanity’s destiny and share it with us all.

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“What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?”, laments the Teacher in Ecclesiastes laments. Death is coming, and it will wipe away any impact our work has. Work after the Fall, East of Eden, is afflicted with pain, sweat, and frustration. But Christ has come, the last Adam, to remove the curse, conquer death, and fill our work with hope. If we offer up our toil to him — however mundane — he will include it in the kingdom that lasts forever.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

A very brief meditation on enjoying “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.”

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True imitation of God arises out of the assurance that we are his dearly loved children. Because we possess the new status, new nature, and new Spirit of adoption, we can walk in the new way of life. Since God is light and God is love, we his children begin to bear that family resemblance.

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We already possess all we need for a life that pleases God. Every treasure of the gospel, including the power for a transformed life, is stored up in Christ. When we first put our faith in Christ, we possess him entirely, because we are united to him as one person. 

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Trying to living the Christian life without the assurance of God's love is a pretty grim business. That's why Satan relentlessly tries to undermine our confidence in God's love for us. "Keep yourselves in the love of God," the Book of Jude instructs us. Imagine if we made sure to begin every day by consciously resting in our Father’s love!

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul concludes his letter by pronouncing a Trinitarian blessing on the church in Corinth. The first word of blessing is “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” — because the free favour of God in Christ is what meets us at the very beginning of the Christian life.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Restoration, encouragement, unity, and peace are all God's gifts. But we can't receive those without effort, without striving, without faith-filled, Spirit-empowered determination to build each other up in Christ.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul had been granted a mystical journey to heaven, but he wasn’t even allowed to talk about. The real revelation the Corinthians needed to hear about was Christ’s response to Paul’s prayer for the thorn in the flesh to be removed: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” We assume our inadequacies repel God, but they actually create space for him to inhabit our lives.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

A disturbingly high percentage of pastors are clinical narcissists. But why do churches enable leaders who abuse us? Perhaps its because we too are worshipping the god of worldly power instead of following Jesus in the way of the cross.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

The ‘super-apostles’ showed up in Corinth and offered a different Jesus, a different Spirit, and a different gospel—all design to serve cultural idols. Paul appeals to the Corinthians—and to us—to stay close to Christ, and not be lured from his side to be destroyed.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

A head of the Church, Jesus is the source, model and standard of authority. True authority encourages obedience to Christ and participation in the mission of his Gospel. And ultimately, all authority aims at his approval.

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After his resurrection, Jesus commanded his disciples to go into all the world making disciples, “baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Thus we meet the Trinity at the very commencement of the Christian life, where we are plunged into the Triune Name—more precisely, immersed into the Son’s own relationship with the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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The church Luke describes in Antioch was an international church in a multicultural city made up of diplomats, business people, migrant workers, and slaves from all over the Roman empire. This new community was the fruit of Pentecost—only the Holy Spirit could have formed this family of God out of such diversity. As an international church in Tbilisi, what special opportunity has God given us to be a witness for the kingdom and the presence of the Spirit?

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Every Ascension Day, we rejoice that our crucified and risen Saviour ascended to the right hand of God, to take his rightful place as King of King and Lord of Lords. In Daniel’s vision, he saw Jesus entering the throne room of heaven to receive universal, eternal, unconquerable authority. Jesus exercises this for our benefit! The Son of Man is on the throne, and all is well.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

People who've received God's lavish grace can't help it overflowing in practical generosity. Christ's self-giving love for us is the prototype of Christian giving! We are all receivers of grace, and as we receive he transforms us into sharers of that grace as well. It’s all part of our common participation in God’s economy of grace.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul shares his joy at hearing Titus's report that the Corinthians had responded in true repentance to Paul's tearful letter. But this chapter is really about friendship. Paul show us what it means to be a true friend who shares hard truths with an eye to restoration and with confidence in God's work. The Corinthian church models humble reception of a faithful rebuke and thorough repentance. We learn that true friends help us press on to God.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul appeals to the Corinthians to separate themselves from ‘unbelievers’ in their midst: the false apostles. God has called us to be a temple of his presence! Our holiness is the believing response to that promise.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul urges the Corinthians to respond to God's grace and be reconciled to their apostle, who has fought for their spiritual lives. The gift of God’s Son summons us to respond (now!) in faith, obedience, and expansive love for the new family God has created.

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The first person the resurrected Christ chooses to appear to is Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom he cast out seven demons. The moment he speaks her name (“Mariam.”) the joy of recognition fills her heart. She had mistaken him for the gardener, but perhaps she spoke better than she knew, for Jesus came to restore us to the tranquility, abundance, and flourishing Eden we had lost in our sin.

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Of all Jesus’ parables, the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector may be the most disturbing and outrageous. There must have been a shocked silence when Jesus finished. As far as the crowd pressing around Jesus was concerned, the Rabbi had made a terrible mistake—he had sent the wrong man home with God’s approval.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

God has reconciled us to himself in Christ, through the marvellous interchange between the sinless redeemer and our sinful selves. Now that we are in Christ, we participate in the new creation, and controlled by his love, we share the good news with the world.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul knew pain, frustration, and the touch of death. What gave him hope was God's promise to raise him bodily from the dead. His eyes were fixed on the resurrection, but his feet were firmly planted on earth. His aim: to please Christ here and now, so he could stand before him on the day of judgment and hear the words: "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master."

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Ministry is hard, as Paul knew very well. Why didn't he lose heart and drop out? Paul realized he bore the gospel in human frailty so that it's very clear that the power could only come from God. Our weakness is God's opportunity to display the glory of Christ's death and resurrection.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

God created human beings in his image, and our original purpose was to behold, participate in and reflect his glory. Now we're a race of fallen kings. But Christ has come to transform us into his own image, and to make us as God-like as it is possible for creatures to be.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul's weakness are the victory of God at work in his ministry, and the proof of that is the Spirit's transformation of the believers in Corinth. Instead of being discouraged by weakness and suffering, look for God to display his power there. Seek the transformation of the Spirit so that your life will glorify Jesus and be used to bringing people to him.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Christians have a sleepless enemy, tirelessly scheming for ways to divide and destroy us. The stakes around Christian unity could not be higher. That's why even though Paul had been deeply hurt by someone in Corinth, he urges the church to forgive him now that he's repented. After all, we all know the joy of God forgiving our terrible debt through Christ. That frees us to forgive and embrace those who've sinned against us.

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul's opponents were accusing him of making promises he had no intention of keep. As he defends his own integrity, Paul turns to God's faithfulness to his promises through Christ. God speaks an unreserved Yes! over his children. We echo that back with a joyful "Amen!".

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Series: Power in Weakness (2 Corinthians)

Paul begins his letter with a subject we'd all prefer to avoid: suffering. But he's not embarrassed, because Christian life and ministry is about walking the path of the cross with Christ. And as we do so, God gives profound comfort to our hearts—overflowing comfort that's meant to be shared with those who are suffering.

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Moses is dead, and now it's Joshua job to lead the discontented horde of Israelites across the Jordan to take possession of the Promised Land. "Be strong and courageous," God exhorts him, supplying the new leader with three strong motives for boldness. We need to hear God's own encouragement to us as we begin 2021, to take a firmer grip on his promises, to more diligently obey his Word, and to more earnestly seek his presence.

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As we head into the uncertain future of another year, the author to the Hebrews reminds us of the one truth that will steady our hearts: "Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever." The Christ who worship today is the same Christ of the Gospels and of Revelation. He endures the same in his grace, his love, his sympathy, his purpose, and his power. We have no idea what 2021 holds. But when all things are shaken, what a profound comfort to lift our eyes and see our Lord Jesus, the Rock of Ages, serene and unmoved above the storm.

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Cynical Israelites were complaining serving God was pointless and joyless. It's a temptation we all feel. But those who feared God talked with each other — and God had it recorded in his minutes. Then he promised that the Day of Judgment would also be a glorious sunrise for those who waited for him — a day when they would skip like calves released from long confinement.

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Perhaps the reason our praise is half-hearted is because we believe God is half-hearted in his generosity ... irritated and resentful at our neediness, a God who needs to be nagged and guilted into giving. But what if he is the God of open-handed, ungrudging, unsparing, prolific and extravagant gift-giving, all through Christ?

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Israel received the Promised Land as a gift from God, and they were to steward it as tenants under God's ultimate ownership. The fallow laws in Leviticus 25 suggest several principles of 'ecological righteousness' for today: curbing consumption, sharing with the community, tending to the needs of animals, and making sustainable choices. We can't be righteous if we abuse God's earth. As disciples of Jesus, the second Adam, we take up our original mandate to cultivate and protect God's garden. 

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Saul falls on his own sword to escape capture and humiliation. It's a tragic end to a man determined to master his own fate instead of trusting God. He was the king the people wanted, and his rebellion has brought disaster onto the nation. Have we foolishly harnessed our faith to human leaders? The fate of God's kingdom is in the hands of the one man who will never disappoint us: Jesus Christ.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

David and his men return home to find their town burned to the ground and their families missing. His men are about to beat David to death with rocks, but he strengthens himself in the Lord and sets out in pursuit. Two hundred exhausted men are left out of the battle. Do they deserve a share in the spoil? Does God's anointed king only reward the strong and productive?

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Abandoned by God and desperate to know his fate in tomorrow's battle against a massive Philistine army, Saul has Samuel summoned up from the dead by a medium, a "ghostwife". It's Saul lowest point in his long fall away from God. What greater horror could there be than resisting God for a lifetime, to find yourself abandoned by Him in the face of death?

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

David crosses the frontier to escape Saul and embarks on a clever scheme to deceive the Philistines. The one thing he forgot to do: seek God’s will. Then disaster strikes: he and his men are sent to the front lines to attack Israel. There’s nothing David can do to control the situation … he can only hope salvation arises from an unexpected source.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

David and Abishai slip among the sleeping soldiers and hover over Saul. But intead of killing him, they take his spear and water jug. David may not yet be the king, but he’s determined to demonstrate faithfulness and righteousness toward God. We too live in the wilderness, but we’re called right now to live out the kingdom values Jesus taught and modelled.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Nabal may be rich, but he's also stupid enough to insult David and his private army. But his wise wife Abigail restrains David from slaughtering their household, reminding him to trust God’s destiny for him. Our own greatest danger is self-sabotage, and we'd do well to listen to those God sends to dissuade us from impulsive and destructive choices.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Saul stops to relieve himself in a cave, not realizing the fugitive David and his men are hiding in there. But David doesn't seize the chance to murder Saul‚ because he's appealing to God for justice. The story warns us of the danger in trying to do God's will, but not in God's way or in God's time.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

If he'd only been concerned for his own safety, the fugitive David would have stayed holed up in the Cave of Adullum. But a cry for help from the besieged town of Keilah moves him to lead his men to the rescue. David is a picture of King Jesus, who will always respond to his people's distress, even though they prove ungrateful. And those who follow Jesus, just like David's men, must also leave the cave on their chieftains missions of compassion.

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When the risen Christ confronted Paul on the road to Damascus, it shattered everything he had built his life upon. It took him three years in Arabia to recuperate from his conversion and experience radical deconstruction of his old religious life. Paul invites us with him into a new kind of life of total identification with Christ in his death and resurrection.

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Series: Calling Down Blessing (Praying With Paul)

There's plenty of reasons to convince ourselves God doesn't love us—our own sin, troubles of life, doubts and accusations from the evil one. Imagine how your walk with God might change if you lived every day with a deep sense of the love of God for you in Christ. That's what Paul prays for the Ephesians, and what God invites us to pray for one another.

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Series: Calling Down Blessing (Praying With Paul)

Christians celebrate the finished work of Christ on the cross. But there is also a project he is still working on, and that is our personal transformation into his image. He is changing us by his Spirit in order to present us blameless before his Father. Are we fervently praying for ourselves, and for one another, that we would grow in love and holiness?

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Series: Calling Down Blessing (Praying With Paul)

Following Jesus means joining an ensemble of actors performing for God's enjoyment. We submit ourselves to the director's will: but he hasn't given us the detailed script we might want. God's more interested in us being absorbed into our character than delivering rote lines, so he's assigned the Spirit as our acting coach to learn how to creatively live out the life of Jesus in our unique situations.

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Series: Calling Down Blessing (Praying With Paul)

Paul prayed prayers worthy of the kingdom: God-saturated, Christ-exalting, Spirit-infused prayers. His intercession for others began with thanksgiving, because for Paul no Christian was ordinary. What if we recognized others as participants in a cosmic drama of redemption, and rejoiced in God's present and future work in their lives?

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We have the memory of goldfish when it comes to God's goodness in our lives, and this amnesia kills thankfulness, faith and hope. That's why “the Hebrew was called to walk backward into the future,” as Dennis Kinlaw puts it. In Psalm 103 we're given five wonderful reasons to exhort our souls to bless the Lord.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

David is on the run, and in his panic he makes a questionable decision that brings disaster on a small town. Despite his mistakes, God makes sure David is fed and protected. We're also on a journey of faith. Sometimes it feels like we're all over the map, wandering the land, wrestling with our own fears, making bad judgments and accidentally hurting other people. But in the process God is also shaping us into men and women after his own hearts.

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Why doesn't God hear our prayers? Why isn't longed-for revival happening? Perhaps because of our indifference to injustice all around us. God is passionate about justice, and those who claim to know him ought to pursue righteousness and justice not just in their personal lives but in their society around them. He reminds his people, "No justice, no worship."

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When Jesus ascended into heaven, he didn't go into cryogenic deep freeze until he returns to earth. He is seated at the right hand of God, wielding supreme executive power over the universe. His first act is to pour his Spirit out on the 120 waiting disciples, and Peter speaks for them all when he preaches Christ to the bewildered crowds.

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Forty days after his resurrection, Jesus led his disciples to a mountain outside Jerusalem and rose up into heaven before them. His final act on earth was to raise his hands in blessing over them, assuring them and us that his atoning work was accepted by God and that we can now live under the favour of God.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

When Jonathan realizes his father Saul really does intend to kill David, he must make a painful choice. True loyalty to God's anointed requires us to put Jesus above all other relationships.

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Jesus contrasts the foolishness of greed and anxiety with the freedom of seeking the kingdom and trusting the Father to take care of you. After all, true abundance is being loved by God.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

David repeatedly escapes from Saul’s obsessed attempts to murder him. Each escape shows him to be a man under God's special protection. Christ, too, had enemies who sought to destroy him. Be instead of escaping like David, Jesus gave himself up to those who came to arrest him—out of love for both his faithless followers and his wicked enemies.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

David's victory over Goliath causes people to choose sides. Jonathan and the people respond in love and loyalty, while the paranoid King Saul plots to kill his new son-in-law. We face a similar choice with the resurrected Jesus: do we gladly surrender to God's anointed ... or jealously oppose him?

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After rising from the dead, Jesus explains to two discouraged disciples that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer before glory; then he reveals himself in the breaking of the bread. This revelation is a gift given to all disciples by our risen Master.. Only in personal and collective communion with Christ himself will our hearts burn within us.

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Jesus arrives in Nain just as a shattered widow leads a funeral procession to the cemetery. With a touch and a word, he restores her son back to life. Like her, we're powerless against death. Our only hope is the Saviour who stands in its path to make it stop.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

In one of the most famous stories in the Bible, David brings down the Philistine champion Goliath in single combat. Christ is our champion, the ‘man between’ who triumphs over the Enemy through the weakness of the cross. We are the fearful Israelites who rise with a shout to finish off the fleeing foe when we realize Christ has conquered.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

God chooses, anoints and grants the Spirit to the shepherd-boy David, whom Saul invites to court to soothe his tormented mind. David, of course, is the prototype of Christ: God’s chosen Messiah, who has received the Spirit without measure, drives out evil spirits, and blesses his enemies. His future is ours.

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The Apostle Paul went further in mission, deeper in theology, and higher in spiritual experience than any other follower of Christ ever has. Yet what he gloried in was that the Son of God loved him and gave himself for him. This is the secret of everyone who has grown strong in God: joyful faith in the self-giving love of Jesus.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

King Saul was concerned about ritual correctness but lacked a true heart of devotion to God. But his son Jonathan was a worshipper whose vision of the greatness of God inspired him to risk his life to save Israel from the Philistines.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Saul forfeits his dynasty because he is more concerned about immediate military necessity than obeying God’s command to wait for Samuel. Outward religious obedience is not enough: God cares about inner hearts submitted and waiting on him.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Old Samuel exhorts the Israelites to remain faithful to their covenant God as they transition to the kingship. Down the centuries, each generation must choose to be faithful to God or to wander away. But only Christ can empower faithless people to truly live for God.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Saul may have been privately anointed by Samuel, but to be crowned he must save Jabesh Gilead from Nahash, the snake-king of the Ammonites. Jesus, too, will earn his crown by saving his people from the Serpent. He exercises his triumph in magnanimous mercy as his people celebrate and feast before the LORD.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Israel demands Samuel appoint them a king, because deep down they don't trust God to keep them safe. But sometimes sinful projects actually advance God’s purposes—in this case, God's long-term plan to give his people a servant king who will give them true security.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

Samuel leads Israel to repent and turn fully to God, who thunders from heaven and defeats the Philistines. God calls us to repent: to put away our idols, fix our hearts on the LORD, and serve him only—led by Christ, the greater Samuel, who brings us back home to God.

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Christ became human in order to deal with sin, death and the devil as our Pioneer. We were trapped in fear and guilt—salvation has come only because God has sent his Son from the outside to seize hold of us and draw us out of sin and death into glory.

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Isaiah cries out, on behalf of Israel, for God to have pity on his sin-enslaved people and come in power. God will answer in a way no one expected—sending his Son in weakness. Jesus comes in total solidarity with us: he takes our uncleanness on himself. He is the priest who rouses himself to lay hold of God on our behalf. By his Holy Spirit he changes us from the inside: we begin to truly desire God. And we look for his mighty coming at the end of history to put us right forever.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

God turns out to be just as dangerous to the Israelites as he is the Philistines. His holiness is too dangerous to be mishandled—to approach lightly is death. “Who is able to stand before this holy God?” Only Christ—and those safely clothed in him. He turns the terrified urge to push God away into joyful confidence to enter boldly into the holy place.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

God turns his defeat and capture into a victory tour over the Philistines and their gods. God does not need his worshippers to prop him up: he will make every false god bow to him. So why are we anxiously trying to build his kingdom? God is capable of fighting his own battles—nowhere more than in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

God would rather let Israel defeated and the ark to be captured to than be coerced by his people. God is sovereign and free, and cannot be controlled by spiritual/religious manipulation. You can’t manipulate God—and you don’t need to.

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

God takes the first step in national renewal by calling Samuel to speak his word to Eli and to Israel. The word of God speaks in the darkness: are you listening?

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Series: Waiting for the Kingdom (1 Samuel)

God has provided his faithful priest to intercede for us: don't treat his sacrifice with contempt.

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

Peter exhorts his readers to stand firm in faith against Satan, knowing that their future is safe in the hands of God. We are called to trust God in humbling ourselves, casting our anxieties upon God; to be alert and resist the devil’s attacks, and to look beyond suffer to the eternal glory we have in Christ.

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

Peter exhorts elders to shepherd the flock like and for Jesus, the people to submit, and everyone to be humble towards each other. The under-shepherds honour Christ by caring for his flock; the sheep honour Christ by recognizing his voice in their shepherds.

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

We suffer persecution because it is a privilege to bear Christ's name, to suffer with him, and to rejoice in the coming revelation of his glory.

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

Christ's determination to suffer for us steels us to suffer for the will of God. He is judge and saviour of the living and the dead. We love, forgive, welcome, and serve one another as Christ has done all those things for us.

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

Peter urges his readers to love each other and bless even their enemies who cause them to suffer. This arises out of revering Christ as Lord, who died for our sins and triumphed over all the powers of evil.

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

Christians are free in Christ, free not to indulge themselves but to submit to authority so God is glorified by a watching world. If this submission brings suffering, it is the footsteps of Christ we are following.

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

Those who believe in Jesus are people called to the highest honour, whatever our neighbours think of Jesus and of us. Instead of being discouraged by the shaming of others, we should rejoice in our high calling to enjoy God’s presence and proclaim his greatness.

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

Christ has ransomed us from the old futile way of living, and our entire hope rests on the grace he will bring at his coming. 

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Series: Stand Firm in Grace (1 Peter)

In the grievous trials Christians experience in a hostile world, we rejoice in what can never be taken from us: glorious final salvation.

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Israel’s leaders respond to David’s challenge to give freely to the temple project.. Supreme sovereignty still belongs to God, and he is still worthy of extravagant giving and whole-hearted devotion.

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The truly wise and happy life can only be lived in relation to your Creator. Seek wisdom, trust in the LORD’s guidance, honour the LORD’s provision, and submit the LORD’s discipline. Remember that Christ both models and empowers the the truly wise and God-centred life.

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John sees the New Jerusalem in a renewed creation, a place where God promises to dwell with his people and where the curse is ended. This great hope sustains us in the sufferings and conflicts of this evil world, and gives us strength to conquer and inherit.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

The unbelief and failure of the disciples does not get the final word: the risen Christ does. He has risen! and we are overwhelmed by fear, grace and hope.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

In love, Jesus bore our sin and shame through the extreme degradation and suffering of the cross. He saved others by not saving himself.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Christ allows himself to be condemned in the place of the guilty Barabbas. This is the marvellous exchange at the heart of the good news.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Jesus submits himself to the Father’s will and allows himself to be seized, drinking the cup of judgment for his over-confident disciples who desert him and flee.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Jesus prepares and hosts the Passover for his disciples (including one he predicts will betray him). He transforms the feast into one that celebrates his own self-giving and atoning sacrifice—a New Exodus that will reach its completion in his heavenly kingdom.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Don’t be deceived by world chaos and false messiahs. Endure persecution as a faithful witness to the gospel. Keep constant watch and be ready for the Master’s return at any time.

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Jesus wisely answers the questions of the Jewish leaders. But there’s an even more important question than those about politics, eschatology and ethics: is Jesus the divine Messiah?

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

In the Parable of the Tenants, Jesus tells us he is God’s last word of mercy. He came to bring reconciliation, not judgment. He was sent by God in the full knowledge it would mean his own death, which was part of God’s plan to make exalt him as the central figure over God’s New Israel.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Jesus enters Jerusalem as her true king of peace, but the adoring crowds want to use him for their own project of "salvation".

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Jesus heals the blind beggar who identifies him as the Son of David, appeals to his mercy, and follows him along the road. Bartimaeus is a model of true discipleship.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

The kingdom can only be received as a gift by people who know themselves to be as helpless as a little child. Human wealth and achievement only get in the way. But those who surrender it will receive more and eternal riches.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Jesus points the Pharisees back to God’s original intent for marriage—the sacred union of a man and a woman for life. Christian marriage is an act of discipleship; breaking this covenant is disobedience to our Master.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Christ, on his way to die for the disciples, teaches them to care more about serving the least than seeking greatness. Instead of turning on allies, he calls us to fight our own sin.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Jesus’ commitment to suffer and die is vindicated by God, who reveals Christ’s true glory. Then the beloved Son comes down the mountain to die in shame for the world.

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Series: Jesus in Action (The Gospel of Mark)

Jesus calls disciples to lay everything down before him—even our very selves. For theological confession to mean anything, we must follow Jesus along the way and confess him before those who would shame and kill us.