What Jesus Says to a Complacent Church

We get told to be afraid – of germs, of terrorism, of missing out on something, of climate change. Sometimes this is a genuine warning and sometimes fear is used to manipulate.

Fear can stop us doing things or make us do things. God’s message is “Do not be afraid”.

There were 4 angel visits around the time of Jesus’ birth and each time the message is the same. Angels came to Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, to Mary and to Joseph, Jesus’ parents and to the shepherds.

They weren’t promised that life would be easy. They were promised that God was with them, they were promised that God was doing something wonderful. God doesn’t tell us life will be easy. But the promise that God is with us is the same. “Do not be afraid”.

Listen now as Pastor Peter unpacks his thoughts.

The purpose of Christmas can be summed up as:
“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life!” (John 3:16).
 
And wrapped up in the gift of Jesus are more gifts that God wants us to have.
 
When we receive the gift of Jesus, God adds a new identity, new abilities, a supportive community, and an eternal destiny. He wants every person He creates to have these, but they follow from the first gift - Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.
 
May God bless our “believing in him” this Christmas.

Listen now as Pastor Peter unpacks his thoughts.

As His ministry on earth was about to end, Jesus surprised His disciples by disclosing He was about to leave them, and they would be on their own to carry out His work on earth. But He explained God would send His Holy Spirit to be within them and He would provide them peace of mind and heart: a peace the world cannot give.
 
It would be an authentic peace with God, peace in the midst of all their circumstances, an outward peace with others, and even peace in the face of death. Now it was their job to become peacemakers throughout the world.
 
Through God’s grace, Jesus gives that authentic peace to us so we can share that peace everywhere we are.

Listen now as Pastor Peter unpacks his thoughts.

If some of us were honest about it, we’re not overflowing with hope right now.  And we’re not even looking forward to Christmas 2016.  In fact we’re going to be glad to see 2016 come to an end because this year didn’t turn out like we’d hoped it would.
 
Jesus is the one who knows that loss doesn’t have to be our story.  He meant it when he said “Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”  He meant it.  And he’s the one that can bring hope to us this Christmas.

Listen now as Pastor Peter unpacks his thoughts.

We’re living in a time when it’s tough to tell fact from fiction, the truth from a lie, right from wrong.  There are more ‘shades of grey’ than there have ever been.  We don’t have a standard truth by which we can judge what’s real and what’s not.  What should we believe? 
 
Jesus told us, “I have come to tell you the truth,” and on another occasion he said, “I am the truth.” 
 
We can line our life up next to Jesus and know whether we're in line or out of line, whether or not we’re living near the truth.

Listen now as Pastor Peter unpacks his thoughts 

What do you want Jesus to do for you?  That’s the question He constantly asked people as He walked around in ministry.  He’d look them right in the eye and He’d say to people “What do you want Me to do for you?”

Jesus came first and foremost to change peoples’ lives.  That’s what He came to do. 
He came to give freedom to people who felt trapped. 
He came to give forgiveness to those who feel guilty. 
He came to give a future to those who feel hopeless.
Jesus also came to bring light to dark places. 

What would we love to be able to see God do in our lives?"

Listen now as Pastor Peter unpacks his thoughts.

People are easily disillusioned with church these days. And a lot of that comes from the fact that we expect perfection.

We expect the perfect coffee every time we visit the café. We expect the bacon to be cooked just the way we like it, the eggs to be cooked just so. We expect people to behave rationally and reasonably. We expect … we expect … we expect …

And one of the things that we expect of church is that it should, like Mary Poppins, be practically perfect in every way.

But what if I told you that Jesus never meant for church to be perfect? What if I told you that His deliberate plan for the body of Christ, is that it would be imperfect? And what if I told you that He didn’t want us uprooting those imperfect people and sorting them out?

So this week, we’re going to explore what Jesus has to say about our relationship, the difficult ones, with some rubber–hits–the road Bible teaching.

Listen now as Berni unpacks his thoughts?

Many of us, view God as a spiritual cop … rather than the Saviour He wants to be.  If we’re really honest, we have a view of God like He’s in heaven with a baton, ready to pounce on us.
The problem is, when we view God just as that judge, we tend to distance ourselves from Him. 
 
In the story of ‘the woman caught in adultery’, Jesus could easily have moved into the role of judge.  The surprise is, He avoids that role and we learn by His treatment of this woman that Jesus comes to replace ‘guilt’ with ‘grace’, and replace our ‘sin’ with ‘salvation’.

Listen now as Pastor Peter Unpacks his thoughts.

“Daring to go in faith” is one of the keys in daring faith to seeing miracles. Two of the words that summarize Jesus’ message are: “Come!” and “Go!”
We come to Jesus in faith and receive the Holy Spirit, and we go in faith and build God’s kingdom.
To do this, we:
(1) go to God for help,
(2) go together for support,
(3) go on to maturity, and
(4) go tell the Good News.

Listen now as Pastor Peter unpacks his thoughts.

Many times in life we feel like we are waiting for God – waiting for an answer to prayer, fearful to move forward without hearing from Him. Yet in God’s waiting room we have to remember that there will be delay, there is an unseen battle going on, that God is preparing us for His blessing, God keeps His promises and we are in good company.
While we wait we can write down the lessons we learn, act as though we already have our answer (Romans 4:17), imitate the habits that cause our faith to grow strong, and trust God instead of panicking. Let’s talk over a few of these.
Listen now as Pastor Peter unpacks his thoughts