Grace Community

We are not God's chosen King. We are not David. None of our problems are 'Goliaths' - most of our problems, however serious, are not there to kill us but to make us grow. We do not have to find a modern technique that equates to David's sling and his five stones.  So how is the historical event of David vs Goliath relevant to us today? 1. God's people were overwhelmed 2. G...

This talk begins our series 'God's Beloved - the life of David'. In this talk we see that God chooses His King. 1) God rejected the impressive but disobedient Saul 2) God chose the unimpressive but obedient David 3) God gave His Spirit to David 4) God's chosen servant served others And all of this points us to David's Greatest Son - Jesus who was unimpressive but chosen by...

In this Psalm of Ascent, we see how a believer on a journey going through sweat and tears, rejoices in the absolute confidence that God will restore the fortunes of His people. As Christians, we look back to the 'great things the Lord has done' and we know that He will restore all things - because He has already begun in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our dream of restoration is tied...

This is part 2 of these three points: 1. Today, hear His voice 2. Today, don't harden your heart 3. Today, enter God's rest. From what the Holy Spirit says in Hebrews 3:7-10, we go to God's people in the Old Covenant and we see that the way they hardened their hearts was in these three ways: a) Hardships can harden our hearts so that we don't hear God's voice b) Lust for p...

Hebrews has shown us that Jesus is the Superior Word of God. Jesus is God's full and final Word to humanity. It is a living and active Word (4:12) that still speaks today. What God said 'in the past' is what God the Spirit says today because there is no past or future with God. He is Eternal and everything is 'at once' with the Eternal God. For this reason, all that matter...

Consider Jesus the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: when it comes to Apostleship, the Word that God speaks in Jesus Who is the Word, eclipses all other words that came through other prophets. And Jesus is not just a talker, He is a doer, hence He is also the High Priest.  In this passage the two houses that Moses and Jesus built are compared and we see that only the house that Jesus buil...

When God send Jesus to us, God the Father was giving us everything we could possible want or need as regards a relationship with Him. And, as time will show, a relationship with Him is all we could ever want or need. All the treasures of God are in Jesus Christ. He is a Perfect and totally-Sufficient High Priest. This talk explores why Jesus is such a Perfect Priest. 1. He became like us in every...

God has 'brought many sons to glory' by uniting us to Jesus. The way God gets us to glory is that... 1. Jesus sanctifies us through His suffering to bring us TO God (10-14) 2. Jesus delivers us through death FROM slavery to death (15-18) Hebrews 3:1 THEREFORE, holy (point 1) brothers (point 2) who share in the heavenly calling (bringing us to glory), CONSIDER JESUS! Send us Fan Mail

Hebrews 2:5-18 has this logic: God has subjected the disobedient and dying world to the True Man (5-9) AND God has united us to the True Man so that He delivers us from lifelong subjection to disobedience and death. (10-18) This talk only deals with 5-9. As regards the first point, we see that God subjected all things to humanity but we failed miserably. This is why we don't see everything in...

We have heard an extremely reliable message from God about Jesus. If we don't cling to that message we will drift into the just penalty that comes to those who drift from that message of salvation. This talk explores why the message we have heard is so reliable, what drifting looks like, what the just penalty looks like, and how we are encouraged to cling to God's message about His Son....

Only God can bear witness to Himself - logically. Otherwise we'd have more confidence in people who change and are fickle, than the Eternal Unchanging God. Thankfully, the Truth is that God is One Being in Three Persons. There are always Three Persons who bear witness. The Father, in the Spirits Words, testifies to the Son. The Son, who came into our world, bears witness to the Father in the...

In this fith and final talk on the first four verses of Hebrews we continue to see how much God has given us in the Son. We have already seen that the Son is the Final Prophet (1-3a); the Son is the Perfect Priest (3b) and in this talk, we see that the Son is the Absolute Divine Ruler who conquered His enemies in order to rescue His people (3c-4a).  Send us Fan Mail

It has often been said that in order for the human soul to be truly satisfied, we need truth and beauty to collide. In order for an object to make us truly happy, we need it to be both true and at the same time beautiful. In our study of the opening paragraphs of Hebrews we have seen that Jesus Christ is Ultimate Truth. In the past, God spoke truth in bits and pieces to the prophets. But the Son i...

In this third talk exploring the densely packed opening paragraph of Hebrews, we see why it is that the Son is such a perfect, complete and therefore, final, revelation of God. And, its not just that we learn the Truth about God from the Son, we begin to see that the Truth about God in Jesus, is also indescribably beautiful. Jesus is the glory of God's grace and truth. What the Son reveals is...

In this second talk on Hebrews we 'zoom' into the Son and examine what makes Him so special and why God's Word spoken through the Son is the full and final revelation of God.  The chiastic structure of Hebrews 1:1-4 helps us see why the Son is the Centre of the Universe and all history. Send us Fan Mail

This talk introduces the book of Hebrews. We examine the reason for the book of Hebrews and how its so relevant for us today.  Because it is an introduction to the whole book, we focused on only the first two verses. We compared and contrasted God's word to us in the prophets with His word to us in His Son. "In the past God spoke to our fathers in many times and in many ways, but in thes...

People often think that certainty and faith are different things - as if, where certainty ends, faith steps in. But faith that isn't based on certainty is superstition, or simply being gullible. Biblical faith is believing in the certainty that... 1. God is really there      - some things are not here yet      - some things just can't be seen 2. God is really worth seeking      - God is...

This is part 4 of 4 in a series on Psalm 22. In this part, we do post-match analysis as we consider the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the victory of God's love over death and evil. God's love wins. Using the language of Ephesians 3, we explore, 1. the breadth of God's love: Jesus' resurrection was for all His people everwhere 2. the depth of God's love: Jesus resurrectio...

On Good Friday, we focus again on Jesus Christ's crucifixion, by looking at it through the description in Psalm 22:12-21. Amazingly, we see again how Jesus traded places with us. In short, Christ suffered physical and spiritual anguish on behalf of us sinners! It is madness to refuse such an outpouring of love. Send us Fan Mail

God forsaking God?!? Who can get their head around that? How does it work? What's going on? Does it really matter? This is talk 1/4 on Psalm 22. Be careful. This passage may well change the way you see all your suffering. 1. the Son was forsaken by the Father 2. the Holy Father rescues all those who trust in Him THEREFORE - the Son was forsaken by the Father in order to rescue those who trust...

Unbelievers may say, 'I have good works, why do I need God?' Sadly, many Christians will think, 'I have God, why do I need good works?' James shows us that faith and good deeds are inseparable. People who don't have faith in God, put their faith in their good deeds to make them good. Christians don't have faith in our good deeds, and we trust God alone to make us good...

Why did God create anything in the first place? How does Genesis compare to the many creation myths around the world?  In this final talk in this series on Genesis 1:1-4, , we look at the third of these three points... 1. God creates order 2. God is the Good 3. God seeks relationship As usual, we look at the text of Genesis, follow what we learn through the Bible to reach Jesus who throws light on...

All advancing societies have anti-discrimination laws and yet discrimination is everywhere. This is because laws can't change the heart, they can only regulate the body. God's 'perfect law of love' is better than this.  In this section in James we see how it is sinful to discriminate against people. The way to deal with discrimination is to get a new set of values. Because Chri...

Most people will allow that if there is a God, He is powerful, immense, and at least creative. Far fewer will believe that He is good. The brokeness of the world around us calls into question whether He is good... in this talk we think more about this and, as always, when we get to Jesus we see that God is most definitely good - 'gooder' than we can even imagine.  This talk is the second...

Until we are set free from ourselves, we will never truly be able to love the way our Father has loved us. God's law of liberty is His command to love our neighbour. Only free people can do this. Unless we actively obey His law of love, we deceive ourselves into thinking that hearing His word is enough.  James then gives us practical examples of what love looks like. 1. Hearing God's wor...