2024 Messages

With the enemies of God now destroyed, God is making all things new, He will dwell with His people forever. What do you think heaven will be like?

We started the story of the whole Bible in a garden, but this story ends in a City. We started with two people, but end with a multitude. We started with God dwelling with his people, but we finish with people dwelling with their God. We started with two trees in Eden, but we ate of the tree that brought us death.

That wrong choice meant we needed another tree at Calvary. So now there is only one tree left remaining - the Tree of Life.

God has dealt with the problem of our sin and the curse of death. We’ve now come full circle. We are back to the start again, only this time it’s different. The end of the story is like the beginning, only it has a different outcome: God makes all things new! God’s faithfulness to all his promises to Abraham and David are now fulfilled in Jesus. Death is conquered, rest from our enemies is secured, and now nothing in all creation can separate God’s people from his love in the new Creation.

What role does the Old Testament Law have, in the life of a Christian?

So far, the story of the whole Bible has been a story of great promise in search of fulfillment. A God who makes promises to a people who break them. Right from the beginning, our human problem is sin. Sin brings death and separation (exile) from God. But so far no one has obeyed God! No-one has dealt with our sin problem.
Up until now everyone has shown themselves to be a sinner, not a Saviour.
God’s promise of a King and Saviour who deals with sin is fulfilled in the birth of a baby boy at Bethlehem (the town of David). But in another act of repeated history, God’s people reject Jesus as their King - and crucify him.
Was the death of Jesus the Messiah all in vain?

References:

• Galatians 3:1-18
• Genesis 17:1-8
• Romans 8:1-4
• Romans 8:31-39

References

• 2 Kings 24:1 - 25:30
• Lamentations 1:1 - 3:33
• Romans 5:1-11

Have you ever made plans, only to have God change them completely?
King David had a plan to build a temple for the Lord God, but God had other plans.

In the movement towards fulfilment, God’s promises to David now repeat God’s promises to Abraham - but they also advance them in more detail. God promises King David that his Son would be the Son of God. The Son of David will build the Temple and will reign as God’s King forever over God’s people.

The story of the fall unravels all that is good and very good in God’s World. God’s Word has not only been distorted but now disobeyed. Order has been thrown into chaos. One tree in Eden has been selected over the other. Life was on offer in Eden but humankind chose death. In eating of the forbidden tree, intimate relationships are exchanged for exploding ones. ‘Unashamed and naked’ now turns to exposure, shame and blame. And this new pattern of sin and self-justification and blame is not only repeated down through the story of the whole Bible but repeated daily the whole world over.

Sin is the unlawful exchange of our rightful place in God’s World. Sin takes what is not ours, believing it will elevate us, but only leaves us deflated. Sin promises so much but only delivers guilt and shame.