Jesus calls us to follow him in being a contagious force for love and mercy rather than fearfully quarantining ourselves from bad influences.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Discipleship
In the face of the cultural call for an all-tolerating lack of conviction, we are called to be a particular people who follow and champion a distinctive way – the way found in Jesus.
Like the woman at the well, we can encounter Jesus not simply as a historical worker of “signs and wonders” but as a contemporary spirit powering our actions today if only we are willing to take a leap of faith and believe in His Word.
Being born of water and Spirit involves becoming as vulnerable and dependent on God as a newborn baby.
Whether or not you can accept the idea of a personal devil, there are forces of evil in the world that are bigger and more powerful than our own inner flaws, but conscious and united, we are stronger still.
Stunning moments of spiritual clarity can be life-changing, but the real measure of our faithfulness is in how we live for the rest of the time.
Being a disciple of Jesus is not about changing behaviour, it’s about changing life! It’s about being changed at our very core so that our inner motivations and attitudes are transformed.
The Advent break in of God in Christ is underway, bringing disruption of a status quo that our world needs to be free of, and liberation from the imprisonment of sin.
The global social breakdown of which Jesus speaks is caused by the failure of our old oppressive ways of maintaining peace, but God has promised us a better way on the other side.
God invites us into a journey of healing, growth and reconciliation, and values our engagement with that journey far above our individual accomplishments.
God has promised a time of resurrection and renewal, and has given us guidance for living faithfully in the meantime.
Jesus challenges us to bring our lives to where God is active, to share in building the kingdom of God.
The Lord’s Prayer is a manifesto for a whole new way of relating to God and the world.
We live in uncertain times, unsure of the future shape of the church, but Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to us, not to give us certainty, but to guide and sustain us in the uncertainty.
We come to be followers of Jesus, not when we believe certain facts about him, but when we hear his voice and follow what it says (even if we don’t know where the voice comes from).
The resurrection of Jesus opens a path and calls us to follow into a life that is no longer dominated by the crucifying powers that destroy some of us and dehumanise others.
When God is doing new things, our familiar signposts are no longer helpful, and our capacity to follow is dependent on our living relationship with Jesus.
If we can hold on to the visions of glory, while resisting the urge to nail them down, we can step into a world of suffering knowing that there is light.
In God’s vision for humanity, every person and the role they play is valued and cared for. When society fails to live up to this, the Church is called to go against the flow and courageously champion and model it.
The journey of a faithful life is about risk, about uncertainty, about careful, solitary reflection, and about community and conversation.