Sermons by Guest Speaker (Page 5)
Guest Speaker
Greg Beaumont: The secret righteousness of the King’s people
Jesus has just given a massive lesson on Kingdom ethics and he finishes with those daunting words “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. In Matthew 6:1-18 Jesus piles even more on top of us – we can’t just strive for perfect actions but we need perfect motives too otherwise we will get no heavenly reward. This all seems too much, except that Jesus tells us that these expectations are played out in relationship with God – our loving heavenly Father – who sent his son to die for us. What a joy it is to seek to please a Father like this!
Greg Beaumont: The Passover
The Exodus story is one of many big “movie moments”. But perhaps there is no moment bigger in the Exodus story than that of the final plague and Passover. There are many things that we can learn about God from this massive moment: His power, his judgment, the freedom he secures for his people from suffering. But there is a bigger lesson to be learned in this passage. As we look at the plague and the Passover meal we discover that Israel has a much larger problem than Pharaoh and that this problem isn’t isolated to them alone – it is the fundamental problem that all humanity faces, including us today. Thankfully the Passover Lamb offers the solution.
Greg Beaumont: No doubt
We live in a world where doubt is the default state. We are told that nothing can be truly be known. John pushes us to see that Christian’s have no reason for doubt by describing true faith in three areas – its origin, its object and its outflows. Finally, he wraps up by describing the witnesses for Christian faith. In all this he shows us that Christians can know for sure that we will inherit eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Greg Beaumont: Motivations to fight sin
The fight against sin in the Christian life is incredibly difficult. In this passage, John points out three objective realities to help motivate his readers to fight hard against sin. But not only this, John uses these objective realities to show that for a Christian, a life of ongoing sin is simply incompatible and that they should not be deceived by anyone who tells them different!