Service Recordings

Barnabas was known as the Son of Encouragement by the first believers. He was so grounded in the grace and provision of God he lived to serve God and love his church. This was a gift of the Spirit and, as Barnabas shows, God’s gifts usually have a very practical expression. Acts 4 tells us Barnabas sold a field and laid the money at the disciples feet. Others may not be great prayers or preachers but they excel in administration, in helping, in hospitality and giving. These Spiritual gifts are all vital to the encouragement of the church. And if they are good for the church then they are good for God’s mission to the world.

Over the last 15 years our church has been connected with the Saiyarak Group in Northern Thailand. About 2000 years ago Jesus met a woman at a well in Samaria. This morning we are going to reflect on what we have learnt from our friendship with Saiyarak and the call of Jesus for us to meet people on the margins and share faith, life and love together.

x+3=4. What is the value of x? There is an unambiguous answer to this question. Similarly, some choices we must make have equally unambiguous answers, such as, May I betray my spouse? May I put down so-and-so in this conversation to get back at them? However, most decisions, including big-ticket items (such as, Is this the right person to marry? What career should I pursue? How should I spend my time in retirement?), do not come with right/wrong answers. How do we serve Christ well in these circumstances - especially when a lot is at stake? This message will build on Simon’s recent teaching on wisdom.

What we believe will determine how we act. If I believe that a chair will not hold my weight I won’t sit on it! What we really believe about God determines how we will live, how we will pray and what we will do in response to our awareness of God’s presence. As a community of believers in Jesus Christ, there will be some in the church who are given the particular spiritual gift of faith to help us. This faith, which impacts the whole community, is a confidence in Jesus’ real working in our world in ways we simply cannot comprehend. It’s a wonderful gift that can lift all our expectations of God’s grace and amaze the church. And really, who wants to live a life without amazement!

We are confronted by all sort of complex challenges in our lives. Many times we simply don’t know the right course of action to take and our emotional responses can make this even more difficult. Oh, how we need the wisdom of God at times like this. James tells us the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. We don’t have that sort of wisdom in us but God does promise that He gives the church this gift of wisdom through the Holy Spirit. In a world of confusion God brings his wisdom to save us.

We live in a world of many conflicting ideas about what it true and right. It can be very confusing to know what we should actually believe. Do we just work it out ourselves? Do we let TV or social media tell us what is right? While the technology might be different, the early church faced many such issues. Into this situation God called his prophets to speak God’s words of clarity to a people needing to understand. These are the Spiritual Gifts of Godly Speaking that God gives to the church. They are as necessary for the church today as they have ever been.

This Sunday we welcome Ps Mark Kickett from the Uniting Aboriginal & Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) who will share about the ministry of reconciliation from 2 Corinthians.

When the Bible speaks of God’s saving grace it speaks not just of God’s removal of our old sin nature through Jesus, but of a Christ-like power given to every believer. In Christ we not only know God as Father, we know ourselves as empowered children of God by grace. By grace we become partners with God as agents of God’s varied grace. We may face great opposition but by grace God calls and enables us to grow into the life he has given us. It a life for others in the power of grace; God’s marvellous active renewing grace.

In the book of Acts, Peter and John are asked by a beggar for money, but instead they point him to Jesus and he is healed. So often in life we go after the things we think we need - money, possessions, relationships - when all we really need is Jesus.