Faith Speaks — Reverend Neil Taylor — Sermon Podcast

Read Mark 8.34-38; Matthew 6.2-6, 16-21 Ash Wednesday Lent is a great ancient Christian tradition and a favourite of any Christian who likes to dip into the monastic custom of "going without" for the sake of Christ. But as much as self-denial and abstinent commitment can be a good and worthy endeavour, they can quickly become just another way to puff oneself up; self-denial can be a way to proudly...

Read Matthew 5.38-48 Seventh Sunday After Epiphany (Year A) The rules of this earthly kingdom are well known — it’s a dog-eat-dog world where only the strong survive. Jesus isn’t trying to modify the rules of the world. Jesus is not inviting us to figure out how to make the most of this world or how to live our best life now. And he’s not asking you to find a safe port amid the storms of this worl...

Read Matthew 5.21-37 Sixth Sunday After Epiphany Let me start this morning by asking a question. What do you think of when you think of God? What picture comes to mind when you imagine what God is like? I suspect that most of us carry around a picture of God or, in some sense, a view of what we think God is like. It’s a view that profoundly shapes what we expect from God. It’s a view of how we fee...

Read Matthew 5.1-12 Fifth Sunday After Epiphany The focus and emphasis on Jesus’ words… and what his followers become… are on being rather than doing—this is an essential concept for us to understand. Jesus wants us to be something before he asks us to do something. That Jesus holds a greater weight on our character and identity; in other words, who we are rather than our actions. This is where th...

Read Matthew 5.1-12 Fourth Sunday After Epiphany Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Beatitude goes deep into the core of Christian character and identity. The question that Jesus is asking is, “Who are you?”  Jesus begins his sermon on the mount with the Beatitudes, eight statements that we have to be careful not to make some trite one-liners or something that we just put on the wall or the refrigerator...

Matthew 4.19 ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Third Sunday After Epiphany In our Gospel text, Jesus said, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ (Matthew 4:19), our part is to follow him, and his part is to make us fishers of people. So I challenge you this week to go ahead and put your hook in the water. And don’t be surprised if the fish bite all over the place. Let’s...

Read John 1.25-34 Second Sunday After Epiphany  The ultimate point of John’s testimony is that under God the Father, all things are from Christ, and all things are for Christ, including the Holy Spirit. The main reason we need the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the great outpouring of the Spirit, and the great immersion of every part of our lives in the Spirit is because God’s aim, in every aspect of...

Read Acts 10.36-48 First Sunday After Epiphany Is there any correlation between the way Peter preached and the coming of the Holy Spirit in power? I believe the answer is YES. The correlation is that Peter painted such a picture of Jesus that the Spirit saw a very attractive opportunity to come and glorify the Son of God—which is what he is appointed to do. That is his mission. That's the essence...

Read Matthew 2.1-6 Epiphany, January, 2023 How long would it take to walk 10km? If you’re fit and the terrain is relatively flat... you could walk it in a couple of hours. If you want to walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, it’s only 10km. So you could start in the morning... and be there in the afternoon. In January 2019, Giselle and I went on a 2-week Holy Land pilgrimage, and we realised that the...

Read Luke 2.2-20 Christmas Day, December 25, 2022 Have you ever felt, like me, tiny and insignificant in a world of 8 billion people? In a world where all the news is of big political, economic, and social movements. In a world where all the news is of outstanding people with lots of power, money and prestige? And if you have felt tiny and insignificant, don't let that make you disheartened or unh...

Read Matthew 1.18-25 Christmas Eve, December 24, 2022 Quoting from Isaiah 7:14, Matthew explains that while “Jesus” is his birth name, Immanuel is his factual reality. Whereas in the Old Testament, Immanuel was manifested by God’s spirit in a place, such as in the Holy of Holies or the burning bush, Immanuel is the factual reality of God’s manifest presence. Now God’s presence is manifested in a b...

Read Isaiah 7.14; Matthew 1.22-23 Advent 4, December 18, 2022 Who is that baby born on Christmas day? He is the divine Son of God from heaven who, in his earthly birth, took on a fully human nature. All that God is and all that man is meet in perfect union in Jesus Christ. He is fully God and fully man—the God-man who came to earth to save us from our sins.

Read Matthew 11.1-3 Advent 3, December 11, 2022 A man called Thomas Flynn, a once author, journalist and executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, who has now passed away used to explain to rational, freethinking people why they shouldn’t celebrate Christmas. As a secular humanist, Flynn urges other non-believers to ignore Christmas altogether: “If Jesus is not your Saviour, Christma...

Read Matthew 3.1-12; Isaiah 11.1-10 Advent 2, December 4, 2022 John’s baptism was unique. However, not the same as Christian baptism, but similar. This is where the controversy swirled around John’s baptism. The only people baptized in the Old Testament would have been Gentiles who had decided to become followers of God. This Old Testament baptism symbolized an acknowledgement of being an outsider...

Read Matthew 24.36-51 Advent 1, November 27, 2022 Here’s the biblical balance as we await the return of the Lord; live as though he might come today. I do not claim to know when Christ will return, but I hope and pray that it will be soon. It seems to me that many of the pieces are in place, the table is set, and we are not far from the moment when the curtain will rise on the final act of human h...

Read Luke 19.1-10 Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost, October 30, 2022 There is no more pressing question today: why did Christ come to the earth? It is not enough to know who Jesus is. By and large, the world knows what Christians believe about Jesus. But what the world wants to know is why he came, and what difference does it make?

Read Luke 18.18-27 Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost, October 23, 2022 It is impossible, Jesus said, for those who love their money to enter the kingdom of heaven. And so, we start to ask the same question the disciples asked in v. 26b “Who then can be saved?” The answer comes in v. 27 ‘What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.’ The message is that even rich people can be saved if they gi...

Read: Luke 17.1-10; Habakkuk 1.1-4, 2.1-4; Psalm 37.1-9; 2 Timothy 1.1-14 Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost Kerygma vs Didache Theologians use these imposing and distinct Greek words when explaining the church's ministry. Kerygma (or gospel proclamation) is used to ignite faith. Didache (or biblical and doctrinal teaching) is used to build up an understanding. In preaching, it is essential to kee...

Read Luke 16.19-31 Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost A student once asked Swiss theologian Karl Barth whether the serpent literally spoke in the Garden of Eden. Barth answered, “The important point is not whether he spoke, but what he said.” And so this parable of Jesus is more than a mere explanation about the furniture in heaven and the temperature of hell.

Read Luke 16.1-13 Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost This gospel text is called "The Parable of the Unjust Steward". If you're not sure what to make of the parable from Luke 16:1-13 take some comfort because I've come across at least four interpretations of the parable that ends somewhere in v. 8 The children of the light Christians need to act more shrewdly. Christians should make friends by "Unrig...

Read Luke 15.1-10 Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost The Pharisees and scribes are grumbling about it: "What is he doing eating with the outcasts and the unimportant?" God intends for his house to be full and for his eternal food to be enjoyed. So God sends his Son to give his life as a ransom for many; the ransom (Jesus) is the one who was sacrificed in our place. The one who lived the life we sho...

Read Luke 14.24-33 Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 4, 2022 The early part of Luke 14 emphasises the redemption and freedom that Jesus brings and the inclusive nature of God’s kingdom. However, those inclusive and redemptive themes should not dull our sense that here in today’s Gospel texts are some hard sayings of Jesus. We would all prefer for the preacher to tell us about God’s cove...

Read Luke 14.1-14 Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost Why does it make such an eternal difference whom you invite to church? It’s not so much that Sunday morning is all-determining or even that a church meeting is all-determining. It makes an eternal difference because, along with many other occasions, it reveals where our treasure is. Is Jesus, with his commands and promises, more valuable to us than...

Read Luke 13.10-17 Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost Jesus is on the offensive here. He has something he wants to say. He wants to say something about the Sabbath day and what it means to keep it holy. He wants to say something about the synagogue leaders’ hypocrisy; men who water their oxen on the Sabbath but get twisted and bent out of shape at Jesus’ healing. And he has something he wants to say...

Read Luke 11.1-4 Seventh Sunday After Pentecost The Lord's Prayer is not a set or group of words to be recited. The Lord’s Prayer is a gift of example/pattern/standard. Jesus intended that this pattern would be personalised and retaught by faithful men and women until he returned. When you pray, pray like this. Let us drill down and unpack together and find out what it means to pray like Jesus pra...