"Sunday Evening" Tagged Sermons (Page 16)

"Sunday Evening" Tagged Sermons (Page 16)

Sunday Evening

Why did God create marriage?

A bride and groom approach their wedding day full anticipation, excitement, hopes and dreams. It’s a happy day, and they hope for a happy marriage. Whether we’re already married, hoping to be married one day, or considering a lifetime unmarried, we tend to assume God created marriage for the sake of personal happiness. Companionship, sexual intimacy, children and other things marriage brings might make us happy to some extent, but as we read the Bible it seems that God has other priorities for marriage. So we ask: “Why did God create marriage?” and “What should our purpose be within marriage?”

What to look for in a spouse

The journey from ‘becoming friends’ to being married is an extremely important time of finding out about each other and testing the relationship. What you discover along the way (about your friend and about yourself!) can be quite confronting. But this is meant to be a time of personal spiritual growth as well as working out whether you’re ready for marriage. In this talk Pastor Murray deals head on with some of the practicalities of choosing a life partner. Whether you’re married, engaged, dating or looking forward to that prospect, there’s plenty of food for thought here about the type of spouse God wants all of us to be. (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8)

How does desire transform dating?

Desire shapes behaviour. What we want shapes what we do. This is true in all of life, and especially in relationships. Listen as we consider how right desires transform the way we go about relationships and dating.

Liberty from Legalism

The Sabbath controversy in Matthew 12 reminds us that Jesus gives us freedom from the chains of legalism. Instead of thinking we need to keep the law to appease a cranky God, we remember that we have been set free to joyfully obey our loving God.

Responding Rightly to the Revelation of Jesus

Anyone who has heard of Jesus has made some kind of response to him.  In chapter 11 of Matthew’s Gospel we start to see rising opposition to Jesus as some people are looking for the wrong kind of Messiah and some are blatantly unrepentant.  Jesus offers forgiveness and true rest to those who respond rightly to him – in repentance and faith.  We do well to ask ourselves: “How am I responding to Jesus – for salvation, and daily as…

Excuses for not sharing the gospel

Matthew 9:35 – 10:42 Sometimes we can make excuses for not living out our calling as missionary disciples of Jesus. Several of these excuses are challenged by Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 10. We are reminded that each one of us has a part to play in the mission, that we don’t need to be afraid of what people might say about us or do to us and that we cannot lose more than we will gain in a life spent serving Jesus.

Greg Beaumont: Confident evangelism

Evangelism is the kind of topic that often induces fear into the hearts of Christians – even mature Christians. Yet it is something that we are all called to – Acts 1:8 tells us that we are all called to be Jesus’ witnesses to the world. We often fall down in this area because we lack confidence. Some of us are just not outgoing people, we have different levels of biblical knowledge, and others of us have a real fear of rejection and don’t want to feel a sense of failure if the person we share our faith with reject Jesus. So how are we to overcome these reasons for our lack of evangelism? How are we to evangelise with real confidence? The beginning of Acts tells us that we can have confidence, but not in ourselves! Instead we can have confidence in our message, in the power behind the mission, and in the success of the mission.

You are loved

The Israelites find themselves as captives in another land and they are afraid. God reminded them through Isaiah his prophet that they had no need to fear because he is the supreme God, they are his people, he is with them. He is their God, who loves them and will go to extreme lengths to free them. An encouragement to us knowing that through Jesus we are God’s people also, his children in fact (John 1:10-14). And he has gone to the most extreme length to free us also (John 3:16).

A life that could have been so different (Judas)

What do we make of a guy like Judas? He would have to be one of the most demonised characters in the whole Bible… an example of evil personified! Or is he? In this message Pastor Murray helps us see that in so many ways Judas is a person who is just like us. He was a sinner, who gave in to temptation, then failed Jesus in an act of callous betrayal. But who of us has never been guilty in this way? Judas’s real failure was that he never went to Jesus, even while hanging on the cross, to say “sorry” and ask for His forgiveness, which Jesus would have gladly given. That was the tragedy of his sad life! By the way, is this a moment when you need to say “sorry” for betraying Jesus in some way?

Two blind men, and a few more

There were two groups of blind men before Jesus that day. The physically blind could already see who Jesus was, before he even opened their eyes. But the Pharisees, though they could see, refused to Jesus for who he was. Which one are you? Has Jesus opened your eyes so that you see him for who he is?

Out with the old, in with the new

Without question Jesus was an enigma to most people of His day, and especially so to the religious types. He annoyed them, confused them, frustrated them, and angered them. He simply didn’t fit their boxes. And when He and His disciples seemed to have time to party and enjoy themselves, it was time for them to confront Him. In today’s passage Pastor Murray unpacks this encounter, showing that Jesus’ mission was not to revamp or patch up the laws of Moses, but to replace them with something totally new and better – salvation by grace – and all the freedom and joy that this would bring! This would be a whole new way of relating to God, and Jesus Himself is the key. Have you found this life in Jesus?