Nathan has been a pastor of our Church since 1994.
In Christ we are one with all flesh and blood, and so our struggle is not against any other people, but against the spirits and powers and forces which would divide people and make them enemies.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons by Nathan Nettleton (Page 22)
If God seems unjust, we can and should question God’s integrity, for God welcomes our questions in order that the falsehoods might be stripped away and the truth revealed.
Jesus breaks down the barriers that divide us into pure and impure and removes the cause for the fear that marginalises people.
On our own we are powerless to deal with many of the things that confront us, but when we recognise that and make ourselves available for whatever God wants to do, all kinds of scary things may actually be possible.
Unquestioning allegiances to family and nation keep us bound to satanic systems, but Jesus binds the satan and breaks us free to be the new family of God.
The vision of the Trinity reveals some of the most important characteristics of God: radical mutual love, radically open hospitality, and transformative engagement with the suffering of the world.
The Holy Spirit is poured out on us so that the liberating presence of Christ may be with us all everywhere, freeing us from fear to live and speak boldly of the new life we have tasted.
The Church is one body, sent into the world to live the life Jesus has begun, a life of love, reconciliation and mercy.
Jesus invites us into a new relationship with God and with one another based on love and friendship instead of power and rivalry.
God evaluates us only in terms of our growth to fruitfulness, expressed as Christ-like love, and such fruitfulness comes only from our interrelationship with Christ. God deals with us in whatever way will lead to further growth – sometimes that is gently, sometimes it is harshly, always it is for the same purpose.
The foundation of our faith is in a living Christ who enables us to understand the Bible, rather than in a Bible that enables us to understand a dead Christ.
The resurrection of Jesus is the most confronting and terrifying news imaginable, and all we can do (after trying to run) is surrender ourselves to his grace.
The life and death of Jim Stynes give a contemporary picture of what it means to give your life away.
Judgement is not something God angrily inflicts on us, but simply the fulfilment of our own decisions.
God’s covenant of love and grace is made unconditionally, not depending even on our response, and so the promises are made to our children whether they respond or not.
Becoming Christlike takes discipline and commitment and practice, but the goal of fullness of life in Christ is worth whatever it takes.
In Christ we are set free from all that would oppress us in order that we might be free to live in gracious and life-giving service of God and others.
With Jesus we are baptised into a Spirit-inspired costly life of living the new culture of scandalous reconciliation.
Though we get caught up in violent rivalries like Herod, God breaks through with the promise of a new kingdom where all are honoured.
Faithful witness to the Coming Christ is not expressed by trying to force the world into our concepts of righteousness, but by joyously, prayerfully, and thankfully cooperating with the liberating work of the Spirit, even in the face of violent opposition.