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Jepthah sacrificed his only child in a tragic act of dys-grace. But God sacrificed his only child in a redemptive act of grace. Jesus came to heal our dys-grace by extending God’s unconditional grace to us. 

Keeping Faith Alive. This message explores aspects of faith we can easily forget causing us to no longer walk with God, based on the story of Gideon and his rebellious son Abimilek 

Gideon started his journey with God strongly, but he couldn’t end well. The story of his spiritual decline is a window into our own souls which are prone to wander from their anchorage in God. By observing Gideon’s spiritual decline we can better detect and prevent the same pattern from occurring in our lives. 

God reduces Gideon and his army to a position of weakness in order to demonstrate his strength. Weakness is something we rage against but it is so precious to God because he uses it to hack away at our pride and bring us to a place of radical trust in him. 

This message explores Gideon’s calling and confirmation in the context of knowing and doing the will of God. Should we expect God to call and direct us today in the same way he directed Gideon? Should we put out a fleece to seek signs of God’s will? How can we know and follow God’s will?

The story of Deborah is the tale of two courageous women and one weak man. In the story we learn what true courage is – grounded in the story of God’s faithfulness, rising from humility and brokenness, and taking opportunities as they come along.

God delivers Israel through Ehud, a man whose name means ‘where is the splendour?’ God often chooses to reveal his splendour in surprising, unusual, even disturbing ways that confound our expectations. This should teach us to look for the splendour of God in places we haven’t looked before.

The second chapter of Judges tells a woeful tale of unfaithfulness from the new inhabitants of Israel, who so quickly turn away from God and follow other gods. Why were they so quick to lose their faith? We look at preventing the same thing happening today through the effective passing down of our faith to future generations.

Israel’s influence by the nations around it reminds us of how easy it is for our faith to be compromised by the culture around us. God calls us to be people of depth and substance in an age of superficiality, especially in our relationship with him.

Judges is popularly thought of as a book of hero stories about great leaders who trusted God. But that is not its point. Judges is about the gradual decline of Israel’s allegiance to God as it is influenced by the nations around it. And it the story of God’s gracious perseverance with his people in spite of their unfaithfulness. 

The resurrection of Jesus is the redemption of not only humanity but God's entire project of creation.

Through the cross God has identified himself completely with us by entering into the suffering of his Son. And he has reconciled us to himself by making Jesus our representative so that we can participate in his death and resurrection. Because God has suffered for us on the cross, atoning for our sins, he can suffer with us in the present.

The Day of Atonement was the occasion when Israel’s sin were atoned for every year. It points forward to the sacrifice of Jesus who became our high priest, offered himself in our place and carried our sins away.

 In the courtroom of God none of us are in the right. But through the faithfulness of Jesus, God justifies us and finds in our favour. In doing so he shows himself to be faithful to his covenant promises

We have been reunited to God the Father through Christ's death on the cross. Now we have the ministry of reconciliation to gift to others. What does it mean to be part of the family?

On the cross Jesus defeated Satan and disarmed the powers of evil, triumphing over them. We are invited to participate in implementing the victory of the cross through confronting the powers of sin and darkness in our lives and in our world with the love of Christ.

Jesus is our Redeemer. He has freed us from slavery to sin through the ransom of his own life on the cross. Our redemption cost God dearly - the death of His own dear son. But His love for us is great that it compelled Him to become the ransom for our lives, to set us free.

In this message Reuben explores the identity of Shore Community Church as a faith community and asks what God is doing among us and how we can respond to the presence and work of God in our midst.

John 6: 1-15 Jesus turning 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread into food for a huge crowd was one of His most powerful miracles recorded in the Bible. But was there more going on here than just large scale catering? And how should we respond to this?

Jesus raises from death, the only son of a widow. In doing so Jesus, in a gift of pure grace, shows a true heart of compassion, giving back to a woman, who had lost everything, not only her son but a restored life.

Before healing the invalid at the pool of Bethesda Jesus asks him a penetrating question: do you want to get well? That question confronts our tendency to become attached to our own pain and darkness instead of opening ourselves up to Jesus healing. This miracle invites us to receive the healing power of Christ by accepting Jesus invitation to “get up and walk.”

The miracle at Cana is an advanced taste of the kingdom of God coming about in and through the person of Jesus. The transformative power of God's love and Grace is bursting forth into the world, and we are invited to live in light of that.

We usually think of justice as punishment for offenders, but the biblical concept of justice is more focussed on restoration for victims. Jesus came as the bearer of God’s justice for the world, offering the loving, suffering justice of God to all those who are needy and downtrodden.

Jesus came as the Prince of Peace, bringing God’s shalom into the world and establishing the kingdom of peace on earth. As those who have received this peace we are called to be his bearers of shalom in the world, pursuing reconciliation and peace-making in relationships with those around us.