Nathan has been a pastor of our Church since 1994.
There are many stories in the Bible that can appear to portray God as involved in terrorist acts, but Jesus invites us to read them in new ways.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons by Nathan Nettleton (Page 19)
The Ten Commandments are not about creating a system of law and punishment. They are a window into the stories and the lifestyle of the culture of God.
God’s grace is so extravagant that it will offend us as long as we are measuring our worth in comparison to others.
Christ is present to us in love, unity and reconciliation, and thus these are essential to our worship.
Faith is a gift created in us as Jesus shows us that the pathway of courageous love and self-sacrifice is not impossible to walk.
God does not judge people’s capacity to respond and focus love and care only on the productive, but gives gifts with wanton freedom and extravagance and calls us to do the same.
Trying to establish our own righteousness burdens us with divisiveness and hostility, but Jesus offers us rest and freedom.
God and religion misunderstood can be the cause of hostility, division and violence, but the God made known to us in Jesus is a God of grace who generously gives us life, freedom and reconciliation.
Understanding God as a relational trinity can guide us into the deep loving relationships with God and one another for which we were created.
The crucified and risen Jesus teaches us to interpret the whole Bible through his eyes.
God gives us the love we thirst for, even while we are still fighting against God, and in doing so, God sets the pattern for us to follow that will bring freedom to the world.
Jesus calls us to entrust ourselves into the care of the Spirit who will carry us into the unknown future of God.
The stories of Moses, Elijah and Jesus on various mountain tops reveals a process of God’s self-revelation as the one who loves us and suffers for us.
Jesus calls us to model ourselves on him to embrace a new pattern of full humanity rather than just constrain the worst excesses of an old failed humanity.
The righteousness give to us in Christ, and which we grow into in our following of him, fulfils and exceeds the trajectory set by the biblical law and prophets.
Jesus honours, commends and models a set of attitudes, or stances toward the world, which can and will change the world, but embracing them is no small challenge.
The “fishing for people” to which we are called is not about being pushy and manipulative marketers, but being open and generous in our sharing of the light that has brought us life and healing.
Jesus is the “Lamb of God”, a sacrifice offered by God to appease and expose the sin of the world – the sacrificial monster of human blame-shifting and scapegoating.
The ‘death of the self’ in baptism, modelled in Jesus, enables us to live openly and generously instead of fearfully and defensively.
The experience of the living Christ keeps pushing us to think even bigger in our attempts to explain him.