Beyond Church at St Peter's Morley

Wisdom of God

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Tue, 2 Feb 2010 16:37:44 +0000

Earlier I defined wisdom as Comprehensive knowledge that is put into practice. Salvation or reconciliation of mankind through the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified delivered in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God is what I would call the wisdom of God. put into practice !!! Amen

Not of This World

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:39:46 +0000

You know, when we know something, especially something good, we really do have a responsibility to act on that knowledge.
Whatever we know about Jesus, we have a responsibility to make sure what we know impacts our lives and impacts other people for good too.
As Christians we can take the easy road, or we can take the harder road, the harder one leads to life, to eternal life..... and the easy one......... doesn’t.
And we’ll know which road we’re on when we face tough times in our lives, when life is hard or when we're persecuted for our faith.
It’s in the fires of suffering in any number of ways that our characters as disciples of Jesus are formed.
Those times when as His followers we have to make a stand, when we have to have a different attitude to the world around us, those times really do determine who we really are.

Signs of New Life

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:06:58 +0100

Do you remember doing PE or Games at school?
I wonder whether those memories are good or bad?
Do you remember how some teachers used to line the class up and then get two children to pick teams.
The most popular and athletic children got picked first and then there’d be a few left over at the end. People who nobody wanted.
Then the teacher would say, ‘now come on we can’t start until someone picks Jane or John or whoever.’
Torture from start to finish for those who knew they were going to be the last to get picked.
I mean how must they have felt? You know, the gospel reading we just heard was about a man who hadn’t been picked for 38 years. He hadn’t been picked until Jesus came along - until Jesus came along, asked him a question and changed everything.

Living Water

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:32:06 +0100

Its such a simple request - "Will someone fetch me a drink of water please?"
I suspect most of you would get up and go into the kitchen and bring me a glass of water. It’s no big deal, it’s easy to do, quick, safe for you, and you will probably feel good about it.
Unless I’m in the Sahara desert dying of thirst, neither of us would class it as a life saving or life changing experience.
We can’t say that about our gospel story today.
When we set the scene it appears a simple setting, we have a rabbi, tired in the heat of the midday sun, at a town called Sychar (SIGH-car), a Samaritan women of ill-repute and a simple request for a drink from a well.
I’ve been asking myself the past week, why did Jesus go to that particular well? On his way from Judea to Galilee he could have gone many ways and stopped off at other towns on the way. The usual route for any Jew in those times would be to go up the Jordan Valley to bypass Samaria altogether.

The Heart of the Good News

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Wed, 7 Oct 2009 17:13:42 +0100

There’s a huge difference between knowing about someone and actually knowing them.
There’s a huge difference between knowing something about Jesus and really knowing Him.
Nicodemus was a man who thought he knew a lot about God. He knew all the religious rules and laws. He knew what he had been taught from a young age - but did he really know God?
What about us? Do we know about God? Can we recite Bible stories? Can we reel of whole list of facts?
Or do we really know God? Do we know what his heart is, what he cares about? Do we know what he’s passionate about above all other things?

Getting Us Back On Track

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:45:24 +0100

Put that book down. Sit still. Stop looking at me like that.

Put your hands on your lap and concentrate on what I’m saying.

If I was serious about what I’d just said you’d most likely be thinking what’s up with Nick this morning? What’s eating him?

I think this must be exactly what the disciples thought when Jesus seemed to lose it in the temple courts.

Most of the time Jesus seemed mild mannered and there he was - turning over tables, driving out merchants with a corded whip and generally getting pretty angry.

I’ve been a follower of Jesus for 18 years now and every time I think I’ve got him worked out - he surprises me again. He shows me something new about him, about me, about the way the world is and the way the church should be. We’re just on week 3 of working our way through John’s gospel and over the next few months we’ll see more and more of who Jesus is.

And you know, we’ll find more and more of Him is exactly what we need.

Social Justice

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:31:06 +0100

A little boy was kneeling beside his bed with his mother and grandmother, softly saying his prayers. "Dear God, please bless Mummy and Daddy and all the family and please give me a good night's sleep." Suddenly he looked up and shouted: "And don't forget to get me a bicycle for my birthday!" There's no need to shout like that, says his mother... God isn't deaf. "No, said the little boy, but Grandma is."

Surely prayers is more about a shopping list of our wants and needs. But the question is... what is it all about? Last week Jackie spoke about how prayer connects us with God 1-1, about how it strengthens us. This week we are looking a bit more at how to pray...

Vision for the Future

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 09:46:29 +0100

Vision! What is vision? At the most basic level it’s all to do with seeing things. Vision comes into its own when you can see clearly.

Visionaries are people who see a picture of the future before anyone else does. Visionaries know where we have to go and they know how to get there. They help us see more clearly.

Proverbs 29: 18 says ‘without a vision the people perish’.

All Scripture is God Breathed

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 09:42:12 +0100

This week’s title is All Scripture is God breathed and we’re going to be looking at just what the Bible is, and what the best way of reading it is. I hope we’ll begin to see that it’s a book full of life, full of hope, full of truth, a book which was designed to be read together and discussed together as we work out what God is saying to us all.

But first I’d like to find out what you know about the Bible – so I thought we’d start with a short trivia quiz.

Where is the first tennis match mentioned in the Bible?

Models of Prayer

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 09:03:39 +0100

The reading for this sermon is taken from Luke 11:1-13. It deals with a number of topics, including the following: prayer, kingdom of God, purpose of God, God's will, how to pray.

Healthy Churches 4

vicar@beyondchurch.org.uk — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 08:50:21 +0100

Faces of the cost of change and growth. Bible reading is taken from Matthew 5:17-20. This is part of a sermon series looking at the changes that are necessary in order to grow as a church.