Our trouble with the flesh (Col 3:1-11) Key Text: Col 3:1-11 The Christian walk is an interesting experience. For bound in it is this idea of dying to self, of putting to death of dealing with the old self etc. Anyone who has been a Christian for long enough and in fact many who have not been a Christian at all, seem to see that we are not perfect. We have this trouble with our flesh. Confession time: Who here among us has had a perfect week, where we have not sinned nor missed out on doing good. Where we have not struggled with our flesh at all? Who here has walked into Church feeling like they are okay to be here because they have lived a perfect week? Strange that no-one put up their han

Receiving spiritual power (Gal 3:1-5) Key Text: Gal 3:1-5 I am interested how today more than ever there seems to be an interest in true power; spiritual power. I guess maybe it comes from a place from scepticism; how for too long we have seen people claim to have true spiritual power yet there is no change in their lives and it seems to fade. We have been to all the hype events and are left hungry. We were chatting in the systematic theology class the other day and were asking why is it that people are far more easily drawn to demonic power as opposed to the power of the Holy Spirit? Especially because the power of the Holy Spirit is so much more powerful. The conclusion we came to is that

Our Post-Miracle Praise We’re concluding our series tonight, a series I’ve entitled Paths of Praise. Over these three weeks we’ve been looking at three stories from the Bible of people who praise God in trying times. We defined praise by saying that praise is drawing attention to something good that someone does, and in relation to God, praise is drawing attention to the good that God has done, has promised to do, or indeed simply is. In the first week we saw how Paul and Silas praised God while they were in jail. They didn’t know what was going to happen, whether life was about to get much, much better or much, much worse; but they committed to praising God for who He had proven Himself to

Prayers for Today from Psalms 4. Praying for Refuge Psalm 31 Life is filled with trials and struggles and difficulties. David knew all about this. As we dive into Psalm 31 we’ll hear the sound of David’s music through the problems of his life. The words of this psalm are raw and they are real. David moves from praising God to focusing on his problems and then ends up praising again as he goes from anguish to assurance. We could call this a psalm of lament but it could also be categorized as an imprecatory psalm because David asks God to unleash judgment on the wicked. Ultimately though, this is a psalm of trust as we see David in a fight for his faith. We know from the heading that Davi

Worship Warfare Tonight we’re continuing in our series I’ve entitled Paths of Praise. Over these three weeks I’m looking at three stories from the Bible of people who praise God in some trying circumstances. So last week we looked at Paul and Silas and how they praised God in the prison, and saw how their praise preceded their deliverance. They didn’t wait to get out of their trouble before they reminded themselves and then expressed God’s character and actions. We’re going to see a little of that in our message tonight. Next week we’re going to be looking at a man who desperately needed deliverance, he desperately needed a miracle. Have you ever been in that sort of situation? We’re going t

Prayers for Today from Psalms 3. Praying to the Lord Who Leads Psalm 23 Almost everyone has heard of Psalm 23. It has been called the sweetest psalm ever written. Since this psalm is so familiar, we’re in danger of missing the depth of its meaning. Because it’s setting is in the world of sheep and shepherds, many of us city slickers can slide right past its richness. Did you know that the Bible refers to us as sheep nearly 200 times? 2 main characters in this psalm – The Shepherd and His Sheep. 3 main ideas: 1. The Shepherd Provides v. 1 - 3 God provides for us personally because of who He is. Look at the first phrase of v. 1: “The Lord.” This is the name “Yahweh” and was the name fir

Tonight we’re going to be starting a series I’ve entitled Paths of Praise. We’re going to be looking over these three weeks at three stories from the Bible that show us people that praise God in some rather trying circumstances. Tonight we’re going to be going to hear that we can and must PRAISE WITHOUT PROMISE. We’re going to look at Acts 16 and see how Paul and Silas were able to praise God while in prison, with no promise or real expectation of deliverance. In fact, they had cause to believe that much more pain and possibly death lay just beyond the dawn. Next week we’re going to be going to 2 Chronicles 20 and we’re going to see that in some matters, we do have the promise of deliverance