Advent 3: John the Baptist Doubts

Isaiah 35:1-10

Luke 1:47-55 

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

I AM: The Alpha and The Omega

Here we are at the end of our series on the I AM statements of Jesus. Hopefully we know a great deal more about who Jesus claimed to be and was in the flesh. But, that is never really the goal of preaching, to increase knowledge ... No, at the end of this series I really hope we have a better idea of who we are in the light of Jesus' I AM statements.

I AM: The True Vine

John 15:1-9

Advent: The Human Experience of Waiting.

This is the next in my series of blogs in which I am reviewing Joan Chittister's The Liturgical Year
[Order it here and read my review of the first part of her book here.]

Joan Chittister's THE LITURGICAL YEAR

Over the next few months I will be blogging on "The Liturgical Year: the spiralling adventure of the spiritual life" by Joan Chittister, which is part of the Ancient Practices Series.

Visioning in the areas of Evangelism & Discipleship

Where there is no vision, the people perish 

(Proverbs 29:18 KJV)

John Wesley: How to Vote in an Election

Thur 6 Oct 1774: I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election and advised them

A Mediterranean Storm

 Acts 27.1-44

Luke's account of Paul's voyage to Rome stands out as one of the most vivid pieces of descriptive writing in the whole Bible. Its details regarding first-century seamanship are exceptionally precise and its portrayal of conditions on the eastern Mediterranean remarkably accurate. 

I AM the Light of the World

John 8:12-30

Psalm 119:105

Eph 5:8-20

We continue our series on the I AM statements of Jesus. As we have seen, John’s Gospel cites the phrase “I am” together with different sets of names to record metaphors for Christ. We began with Jesus saying to the Samaritan women (John 4:26) when she spoke of the Messiah, that “I am he.” Last time we saw Jesus saying “I am the bread of life” (6:35, 48) which led to many of His disciples deserting Him; other I AM statements include “the light of the world” (8:12; 9:5), “the gate” (10:7, 9), “the good shepherd” (10:11, 14), the resurrection and the life (11:25), “the way, and the truth and the life” (14:6), and “the vine” (15:1, 5).  As I said in my introduction to this series, Mohamed Ali, the boxer who died during the preparation of this series, was fond of saying, “I am the greatest”. For a very brief period of time, in the very limited context of professional boxing,

Paul before Felix

Our reading this evening is quite a long one as we pick up from where we left off last time … Acts 23:25 – 24:27. Last time we had Paul in custody and examined by the Sanhedrin. Then on the Sunday which the preacher had to excuse himself from because of a family emergency, we would have looked at a conspiracy to kill Paul which was foiled by Paul’s nephew and which resulted in him being spirited away by the Romans to Caesarea on the coast. Here he appears before his accusers and Felix, the Roman governor. He denies all the charges which the governor eventually realises are baseless, but the governor nonetheless keeps him in prison because he wanted to gain favour with the Jews he governed.

I AM the Bread of Life

John 6:25-51

We continue our series on the I AM statements of Jesus. You can read the Introduction here and I AM the Messiah here.

I have chosen as my text what are for me the saddest words on Jesus' lips in the Gospels John 6:66-67

 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

 ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve.

Sad, sad words. They bring to my mind the picture of a child all excited about her birthday party until one by one her friends phone up and say: "We're not coming after all" until eventually she turns to the few who are still there and says ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ 

Jesus: I AM the Messiah

Sourced here
John 4:1-30

(Please read my introduction to this series here.)

I wonder if there is a more misunderstood and maligned woman in Scripture that the "Woman at the Well"?

What do we know for sure about her? ... Well: 

Intrduction to I AM Series

John’s Gospel cites the phrase “I am” together with seven sets of names to record metaphors for Christ. Jesus says “I am the bread of life” (6:35, 48), “the light of the world” (8:12; 9:5), “the gate” (10:7, 9), “the good shepherd” (10:11, 14), the resurrection and the life (11:25), “the way, and the truth and the life” (14:6), and “the vine” (15:1, 5). These are often called The Seven I Am Statements.  Some however, speak of The Eight I Am statements of Jesus  and include John 8:58 “Before Abraham was, I am.” Others include Jesus’ statement to the Samaritan woman in John 4:26 where, in response to her talking about the Messiah, Jesus says: “I am he.” Still others go beyond John’s Gospel and look to Revelation 1:8 for another I am statement:  “I am the Alpha and the Omega” which is repeated in 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”

Up to £1m a year spent fixing bad Botox

 The NHS is racking up a multi-million- pound bill to correct botched Botox injections that have left patients in pain or disfigured.

The With Us God

Image sourced here

My text is Acts 23:11

The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.’

Wouldn’t it be great if the Lord stood near you and me and said: ‘Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome’; or, as He did on another occasion: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent’; or “Quick!” he said. “Leave Jerusalem immediately, because the people here will not accept your testimony about me”; or ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (see18:9; 22:18; 27:23; 2Co 12:7–10). Wouldn’t it be great if God actually spoke to us as He did to Paul; that we could be so aware of His presence that we could say, as Paul does on other occasions that we sense the Lord standing next to us? What is it for God to be with us and how do we live with the presence of God? There’s a lot

Will You Come and Follow Me ?

 

John 1:35-51

Just after Easter we began our series on The Nature Of God, and since then we’ve looked at 21 aspects of God’s nature:  Love   Holiness  Mercy  Grace  Friendship  Parenthood  Justice  Faithfulness  Forgiveness  Power  Creativity  Authority  Providence  Protection  Hope   Promise Keeper    Good  Comfort  Omniscient   Omnipresent   Compassion   Healer

These characteristics also describe the Christian, particularly the Christian born again of water and Spirit (omniscience and omnipotence are of course the exceptions which prove the rule). In my introduction to the series I reminded us that we humans are created in God’s image and as such we

The God of All Comfort

Comfort is a word which in modern speech has lost all of its New testament meaning. It suggests to us a kind of sedative, a palliative for pain of body or mind. But the comfort of God is no narcotic. The word "comforter" applied to the Holy Spirit really means "strengthener" (John 14:16). It has the same root as "fortify." We comfort a sufferer when we give them courage to bear their pain or face their misfortune.

Paul - Roman, Greek, Jew, Christian.

Acts 22.23-30

We continue our journey through the Acts of the Apostles and find ourselves at Acts 22.23-30. We ended two weeks ago with the crowd in Jerusalem shouting for Paul's blood after he told them that God had sent him to minister to the Gentiles: ‘Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!’..... and the Romans taking him into custody.

The Faithful Keeper of Promises

We continue our series on The Nature of God and this week's title is Hope (Promise Keeper) and there were a number of readings to choose from (1 Kings 8:56, Jeremiah 31:31-34 Micah 5:2,
Matthew 16:13-18, Matthew 26:33-35, Matthew 26:69-75, John 3:16, John 5:14, John 6:35, John 14:1-3, John 21:15-17,Acts 2:1-12, Acts 2:38-39, Hebrews 11:32-12:1, James 1:16-17, James 4:81, 2 Peter 3:8-13) and a perusal of them touches on some of the promises which God has made and kept in the Scriptures and what one lifts from all of these is that because God is a Promise Keeper, we can have Hope ... but more than that, we can be filled with hope now, a hope that

Saul/Paul's Turnaround, Britain's Turnaround, Your Turnaround

Acts 21:37-22:22

What a week it has been in British politics ... talk about a turn around, a change of direction, which, you might remember from previously, is what is at the root of the word repentance. The New Testament word translated as repentance is the Greek word metanoia which is not a confession of sins but a change of mind (here is an excellent article on this subject) implying a change of direction from moving away from God to now moving towards God. As I said: "What a week of mind changing, direction changing, we've had."