Being born of water and Spirit involves becoming as vulnerable and dependent on God as a newborn baby.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Commitment
We can’t take it for granted that Jesus will be where we want to go, for his ways often go contrary to ours and our business is to follow him.
If we are to call Christ a King and still remain faithful to him, we must begin with the subversion of the very concept of kingship that Jesus points to when he is questioned by Pilate.
When we respond to the call to follow Jesus, he asks us to stop and examine our motives. Is it for the life of the world, or for our own benefit?
Who we think Jesus is has real life implications. If we name him as God’s chosen messiah, we need to be ready to follow and live as he lives.
Jesus offers life in all its fullness, but many would rather settle for the odd snack rather than the full banquet.
Paul’s word play on drunkenness is both a useful contrast and a useful comparison for Christian living.
Jesus’s radical call to align ourselves with his new family trumps even our allegiances to our blood families, and asks us to shape our relationships in the church around a shared commitment to living out the will of God.
Jesus calls us to resist the satanic desire to credit violence and disaster with meaning, and instead to acknowledge meaning and truth only in God’s suffering love and mercy.
Being a follower of Jesus means honouring his authority by following his teachings and his example (something that has become surprisingly rare).
God calls us to live exuberantly, generously reflecting the good things God has done and becoming model citizens in the reign of God.
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.
We have to choose between being squeezed into the world’s mould or re-moulded from within by God.
Jesus has sown the seeds. It is up to us to respond and even though we may get excited and the interest dissipates, or we get distracted and let the other priorities take a hold of us, or we actually feel nothing, the challenge for us is to continue our walk with God.
Faith is not the absence of doubt, but the courage and trust to be faithful to God in your your actions and life, despite doubts and disappointments.
In a moment of transfiguration we glimpse the weightiness of Jesus and his mission, and we are ourselves transfigured, becoming people of greater substance.
Taking up your cross is about a willingness to pay the price of following Jesus and living out your baptism. It is not a generalised stoicism.
When things are desperate, God calls us only to be faithful and committed, because the outcomes are in God’s hands, not ours.
The once and for all sacrifice of Christ and our living sacrifice of ourselves are becoming one sacrifice as we and Christ become one.
We are faced with a choice, a crisis, each time we hear the Word, which slices through our souls, our families, our values, and demands our commitment without reservation.