Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

This sermon was preached on 11/8/2013 Baptism is a common practice in today’s world, even although it is one of the most disputed of practices in the Christian church. Many books have been written and many hours have been lost discussing it. Most people within and without the Christian church, if asked, would have an opinion on it. No doubt many of us have witnessed several baptisms, perhaps even in this building. In the four years I have been here there have been about twenty baptisms. Probably, most of us have been baptised, but perhaps we do not pay much attention to it. Should we pay attention to it if it happened such a long time ago? What is the point of what we are doing here this morning? Before we look at seven aspects of baptism, I would urge you to be in the right spirit as we make our way through the service. In our hearts there should be a spirit of praise to God for this marvellous provision that he has given to us. And we should be in a spirit of praye...

This sermon was preached on 11/8/2013 A question worth asking in this day of superstars is, ‘Do you have a list of heroes?’ Usually superstars are given that status because they are good at something, be it sport or acting or politics. It is important for us to have those we admire, whose lives speak to us. In Hebrews 11, which we are beginning to study now, we have the author’s list of heroes, and they all have something in which they excelled, and that is they were noted for their faith. In verse 1, the author introduces his section on the heroes of the faith by giving a definition of faith. He says that faith involves two features: it anticipates the future and it accepts the reality of the invisible world. In putting this at the beginning of his account, he is saying that he wants his readers to remember these two details about faith as they read of what happened in the lives of his examples of faith whom he will go on to mention. In the chapter, we see that...

This sermon was preached on 4/8/2013 We have all seen athletic races that are so long many of the runners want to give up – perhaps they had not prepared well enough for it. Or we see some people who engage in public actions give up because other people disagree with what they have done and they become disillusioned. Footballers and other sportspersons have to give up their careers because they get too old. There are many reasons why people give up – discouragement, failure and opposition are only three of many possible causes. The author of Hebrews wrote to Christians who were considering giving up their profession of Jesus as the promised Saviour because of persecution and a sense of disillusionment with the Christian faith. So the author used various arguments throughout his letter to prevent them from doing so. And in this passage he mentions some of them.                  ...