pastors ponderings (Page 2)

I’ve always loved reading about Abraham and Sarah. They are the Patriarchs of the faith and they are rightly honoured for their steadfast loyalty to God. Most of you know the story. God promised that a generational line as numerous as the stars would come through them and that from Abraham’s descendants would come the means for God to bless the whole world. And even though it was physically impossible for Abraham or Sarah to have children, they believed God…

I loved hearing the truth of Romans 3:21-26: The righteousness of God is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this…

The ponderings this week comes via Mrs Jesus Follower: The Happy Game’s not Working ☹ I’ve always been a ‘Pollyanna’. You may not know that story but, to put it simply, I think my role in life is to make everything and everyone happy. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to change things; to make everyone happy; to make things look good. Life’s not like that. I’m not sure how often you’ve read Ecclesiastes but I usually find…

Recently, Daniel continued our series on Romans by preaching a message from Romans 2. In it Daniel pointed out how carefully we need to read the book as Paul uses many literary devices in his letter. Particularly he draws his audience in regularly by saying things he knows they will agree to so that he can swing his argument around to them.  Initially they are led to believe that Paul is saying how bad ‘the other’ people are living the way they…

When we started our study of Romans, I said that Paul wrote this letter in a deliberate attempt to persuade us to change our behaviour. So, what is Romans Chapter 1 pointing to and challenging us to change? Romans Chapter 1 is a brilliantly crafted argument. Paul has us, his readers, agreeing with him for most of the chapter. He catches us with the bait; “Look at what that person is doing, it’s awful.” “Look at her, can you believe…

Have you seen the memes for autocorrect, where people send totally inappropriate messages simply because the autocorrect changes the spelling?  Most of them are rude, although I found one clean one: It is ok for us to send written communication, it’s an easy fix.  It wasn’t the case when Paul was sending letters in the first century. Letter writing was an art and very expensive. So, Paul would have had a secretary (an amanuensis) who would write on the papyrus…

The main theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans has been described as ‘the gospel’:- chapters 1-4 are the gospel and the righteousness of God; chapters 5-8 are the gospel and the power of salvation; chapters 9-11 are the gospel and Israel; and finally chapters 12-16 are the gospel and the transformation of life.   The trouble is when we think of the word ‘gospel’ (or ‘good news’ which is what the word gospel means) we tend to put out…

Recently, Daniel gave an introduction to the book we are going to study over the next season – Paul’s letter to the Romans.  He mentioned that although it is known for setting out much of Paul’s theology and some confronting sections on living as Christians, the central purpose is to talk about how to live in unity with one another especially where there is diversity.  Paul uses the term ‘weak and strong’ to draw out how he expects Christians of…

After preaching on Sunday, Simon left us with some questions to get us thinking how we can participate with the Holy Spirit in what He is doing. If you missed Simon’s message, it’s easy for you to catch up on what was said through the CBBC website (http://christiesbaptist.org.au); simply press the Sermons box on the opening page. Here are Simon’s questions: What part is God asking you to play in being the church, for us and for others? Who can…

Last week Daniel spoke on Pentecost.  He explained the significance of the event which occurred on a festival already in the Jewish Calendar.  This festival was already in place to thank God for the harvest, to celebrate the provision of the law to Moses which both provided a way for humanity to have a relationship with God and anticipated the future promise of permanent union.  To the eyewitnesses of the event and also Luke’s audience in the book of Acts,…

This week’s Pastor’s Ponderings is a challenging message written by a Jesus Follower. Enjoy! Am I Comfortable or a Comforter? I’m a great believer in the principal that if I don’t care for my own health I’ll be no good to help others. So, I set my ‘self-preservation’ plans in place and sit back to enjoy when, niggle, niggle, niggle a person comes to mind; someone I’d promised to visit or a text comes through…when are you free? Know the…

This year in CBBC, it is like we are going on a journey where the Holy Spirit is the map reader and guide.  This journey started at the beginning of the year with the scripture from Psalm 51 which says, Create in me a clean heart oh God and renew a right Spirit within me.  This scripture we have prayed and preached on and sent us out with the words ringing in our ears after every Sunday service.  There has…