Nathan has been a pastor of our Church since 1994.
Being saved can be painful, but its goal, becoming a purified people who can worship rightly without fear, is the ultimate reward.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons by Nathan Nettleton (Page 36)
The God who stopped at nothing to stand in solidarity with us, looks for those who will give everything to work in solidarity with God.
The need for liberation for the poor and oppressed is obvious, but for the comfortable and successful, the enslavements to consumerism, power and hardness of heart are harder to discern and take the intervention of God to break free from.
The Word of God is constantly calling us to fullness of life, and frequently pierces through our facades to illuminate the ties that hold us back. This is nearly always uncomfortable!
The New Testament teachings on the priority of the spirit of the law over the traditional interpretations of it actually give us a biblical basis on which to reevaluate our understandings of sexual purity.
The Gospel made known in Jesus draws us, body, mind and spirit into the full life of God. This totality of involvement scares off many people, but there is no other way to life.
Whole-hearted devotion to God and commitment to God’s mission brings joyous freedom, but also often results in derision, rejection and even violent opposition.
The Holy Spirit, poured out on the church, opens pathways of communication, enabling the Gospel to break through the multiple barriers to our hearing. Barriers are also broken down to enable us to to communicate with one another and with God.
It is in a developing relationship with Jesus Christ that our minds will be opened to understand the scriptures, just as happened for the disciples of Jesus.
Many of the stories of Jesus’ life, such as the entry into Jerusalem, can only be properly understood in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and so the church has a vital role in the revelation of the gospel.
Moments of transfiguration show how much more lies beyond our mundane perceptions – of Jesus, of the world, of ourselves.
With the coming of the Christ, our deepest longings and yearnings will be fulfilled.
God does not wish our suffering and struggle to continue, but is ready to gather us in his arms, and calls us to prepare for his arrival.
Christ’s call to respond to his presence in the needy is a call for the church to embrace a lifestyle of radical communal hospitality (but we have often used it to justify empires built on the labour of guilt-ridden, over-extended, under-prepared Christians!)
Although all in the church may appear equally worthy, it is those who live the life (inward and outward) of the Kingdom now who are prepared for its coming.
Jesus summarised the way by saying “Love God with everything you have and love your neighbour.” We find that easy enough to accept as the answer to a question but much harder to really live by.
All that is required to inherit all the fullness of the Kingdom is to accept the invitation and throw yourself wholeheartedly into the celebration.
There are all sorts of things that can make us look impressively Christian, but the only thing that matters is to deeply know Christ and to enter with him into the experience of his suffering and resurrection.
Sin is a seemingly objective force for evil within us that can only be addressed when it’s out in the open before a merciful God.
It is true that God is love, but God’s love is so tough, demanding and uncomfortably interactional that we will sometimes experience it as harsh, unpredictable and unreasonable.