Sermons
Our weekly sermons
What might a grace-filled community look like?
I attended the recent Ministry Summit run by the Mission and Ministry Dept of the Lutheran Church of Australia, Qld District. I loved the presentation by Dr Mark Worthing (Luther Pastor at Port Macquarie). Here are the 10 points he made. Grace is God’s mercy for us,...
What’s the one thing needed? Listening to the needs and still getting your core work done.
Acts 6:1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Greek speaking Jews among them complained against the Hebrew speaking Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. Growth brought challenges for the early...
Mess with God at your peril. Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11.
Two people lie to God and want to appear like super-Christians to those around them, without changing on the inside. God judges quickly and decisively, and it cost them their lives. What might this have to say to us today and where is the good news of the gospel? The...
Gamaliel style – how to work with furious, powerful people who are heading down the wrong path.
Acts 5: 38-39 ‘So I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin it will fail. But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them – in that case you may even be found fighting against God....
When the tectonic plates realign – the impact of the first Pentecost on new believers.
The tectonic plates, shaken up by the Easter earthquake, resettle into a new, Holy Spirit place. Acts 2: 41 Many believed the message and were baptized, and about 3,000 people were added to their group that day. The listeners to Peter’s Pentecost sermon in Acts 2 were...
Easter Paradoxes – Peters hits them hard with his Pentecost sermon
On Holy Thursday, Peter swore that he would never leave Jesus, and a few hours later, the cock was crowing three times to remind him he had utterly failed. Now, seven weeks later, filled with the Holy Spirit, he stands up before a whole crowd in Jerusalem, and really...
Earthquakes and Easter
Whether it’s a book or a movie, If you’re like me, you probably just skip over or ignore the bits that don’t make sense. I’ve always skipped over the 2 earthquakes in Matthew’s telling of the cross and Easter. When Jesus gave his final cry and took his last breath on...
‘Lazarus Laughed’. Reflections on the raising of Lazarus in John 11.
That was the name of a play written in 1925 by Nobel Literature prize winner Eugene O’Neil. It needed 100 actors to do properly, so it was never commercially successful. Here’s how one of the characters who rolled the stone away described what happened: “And then...
Palm Sunday and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Jesus’ entry is really a mockery of the way powerful emperors and kings did things. They would take over a whole city, requisition the best horses and chariot for the spectacle, insist on the best food and the best wine as they were received by the local leaders. All...
