Redlands Christian Church

Bible Text: Psalm 37 Preacher: Samuel Dekker Have you ever been reading a book or watching a movie only for someone to spoil the ending? It can ruin the whole experience. This Psalm makes every effort to spoil the ending of the biggest story—the story of the world we live in. But instead of ruining the experience, it gives us great hope to press on towards that end.

Bible Text: Psalm 8 Preacher: Phil Popping If you've ever been in the outback at night you've probably enjoyed the old 'bush TV', a crackling fire. Or, you've looked upward to the stars and seen beauty on display that can never truly be seen from the city. In this Psalm we get a glimpse into David, the shepherd's thinking as he looks upwards and sees God and himself in new...

Bible Text: Psalm 13 Preacher: Jono Deenick

Bible Text: John 13 : 31 - 14 : 4 Preacher: Jono Deenick What type of friend might Jesus be? In life we are sometimes hurt by those close to us, sometimes we hurt them. How does Jesus react to us? How might he respond to us if we’ve been a less-then-ideal friend to him?

Note: Due to connection issues, there are sections missing from this recording. Bible Text: Isaiah 52:13-53:12 Preacher: Phil Popping Some people in life are great at journeying with us through times of hardship and despair, others seem to disappear. Could Christmas be news of someone who takes our burdens from us?

Bible Text: Isaiah 11:1-10 Preacher: Jono Deenick This week, as we continue looking at some of the prophecies of Jesus given through the prophet Isaiah we ask the question, who is the better king? Or if you like, who would you rather was in control, Jesus or you? We know the right answer, but is that the day-to-day reality of our lives? Isaiah gives us a picture of king Jesus that is so good, it h...

Bible Text: Isaiah 8 : 19 - 9 : 7 Preacher: Ben Ring By nature people tend to seek peace in two ways: through their own control of personal circumstances and through a good government to reign over the things outside of their control. What we quickly realise is that peace can't be secured in either of those ways - at least not in a way that lasts. Despite the passage being set in the context of fa...

Bible Text: Isaiah 1 Preacher: Phil Popping Grace is not good news unless you were worried about judgement. As we head into Christmas, we start the good news with the bad. In Isaiah, God is angry at his people – they have done everything they can to make a slow to anger God, angry! But, what can we learn from a chapter of such judgement?

Bible Text: Matthew 16 : 13 - 18 and Revelation 2 : 1 - 7 Preacher: Jono Deenick This week is our last week in our series on 'Six Steps to loving your church.' To wrap up, this week we want to consider two things. Firstly, how can have confidence that this grand project called the 'church' is worth investing in? And then, what is at the heart of that investment? That is, what is an essential marke...

Bible Text: Colossians 4:2-6 Preacher: Phil Popping We’ve been talking about ‘Loving the church’ over the past few weeks, but how does our attitude of love and service extend to the outsider? To our friends and family who don’t come to church? This week we talk about inviting our non-Christian friends and family to church, and the issues that this raises—about our own fears and reluctance to issue...

Bible Text: Psalm 1 Preacher: Juhan Klooster As we open the Psalms, we are greeted by Psalm 1, a beautiful piece rich with imagery. We see a lush tree standing by a stream, hollow chaff blown about by the wind, and two distinct paths. The author describes and contrasts the scenes of the righteous and the wicked, the tree and the chaff, and the two ways to live. Though the question is not explicitl...

Bible Text: Ephesians 4 : 29 - 32 Preacher: Jono Deenick As we continue in our series, 'Six Steps to Loving your Church,' we turn today to consider our speech. Gathering as God's people is more than just the church service. We come together as Jesus church before and after that formal part of our gathering. Our work of building the church is not just for in the service it's for these other times a...

Bible Text: Romans 15:1-7 Preacher: Phil Popping Last time in our series 'Six steps to loving your church', we looked at our expectations and motivations as to what church should look like - a working bee. This week we flesh out why this is and go deeper in terms of what practical difference this should make. What might Jesus' life teach us about loving the church?

Bible Text: Psalm 135 Preacher: Jono Deenick As we celebrate 25 years as a church, we are taking a break from our '6 Steps to loving your church' series to consider some of the many reasons we have to praise our God. Psalm 135 was written to encourage the Israelites to look back and see why they could praise God and we will see that we have just as much and more reason to praise out awesome God.

Bible Text: Ephesians 2:19-22 Preacher: Phil Popping This session lays down the biblical foundations for seeing church as a place where we love and edify one another, via a study of 1 Corinthians 13-14 and Hebrews 10. This is the critical change in mindset that this course is built on—moving from a view of church that is centred largely on ourselves (even on our own personal ‘worship experience’)...

Bible Text: Ephesians 5:25-33 Preacher: Jono Deenick This week we embark on a new series called, 'Six steps to loving your church.' The name speaks for itself in many ways, but essentially we will be thinking about how we can love the community of believers which God has made us a part of. Today we start by considering Jesus' incredible love for the church and ask how that should shape our love an...

Bible Text: James 5:13-20 Preacher: Phil Popping Last week we were encouraged to be patient as the Lord is coming – standing at the door! But what do we do while we wait? It might be fine to say that Jesus could come back at any moment, but in the meantime, life can be hard – people are sick and dying! James helps us understand what to do in all life circumstances, but particularly through terribl...

Bible Text: 2 Samuel 7:1-17 Preacher: Juhan Klooster This Sunday we are taking a break from our James series and jumping back into the Old Testament to 2 Samuel 7, the Davidic Covenant. This is one of the most important passages of the Old Testament. Throughout human history God has selected a handful of individuals to be key players in bringing about salvation and restoration to a broken and hurt...

Bible Text: James 5:1-12 This week James turns again to the topic of 'the rich'. In a manner reminiscent of the Old Testament prophets he blasts the rich who have taken advantage of others. But then he encourages the believers, who are likely oppressed to be patient and await Jesus return and renewal. And so he outlines two choices, two ways of life and each has a different destination. We too are...

Bible Text: James 4:13-17 This week in James we turn to a completely new topic, planning. What does it look like for us to make plans for the future as believers. God is sovereign and yet we clearly can plan and carry out plans. So what are we to do? Do we just wait to see what happens? Are we supposed to somehow determine God's plan and do that? Or do we just more ahead with what seems best? Jame...

Bible Text: James 4:1-12 James uses some really strong words in this passage: war, fighting, killing. He calls people double minded sinners, and asks them to mourn and wail - changing their laughter to mourning and joy to gloom. Worst of all, these words seem to be directed to believers in the church! Is James saying them to us? How could these sayings and descriptions be part of the Christian lif...

Bible Text: Ephesians 6:1-4 We live in a world that often doesn't hold fathers in terribly high regard. Of course there are fathers who have not cared well for their families and even abandoned them. However, even the average father, seeking to care for his family can feel unwanted or uncertain about the role he has in the family. God, perhaps not surprisingly given He calls Himself 'Fathe...

James 3:13 - 18 This week James urges us to show our wisdom by our good lives. It is similar to his call to show our faith by our deeds. Wisdom for James (and the Bible) is not just a philosophical mind or even a clever one, but an understanding of who God is and who we are. Understanding this deeply will lead to a particular way of life, but there is also another type of wisdom that leads to a co...

Bible Text: James 2:14-26 Ps Phil Popping One of the key outcomes of The Reformation was 'Sola Fide', latin for: salvation by faith alone. Paul certainly seems to teach that theology. How then can James say that 'a person is considered righteous by what they do and not faith alone'? Are Paul and James battling out opposing theologies? This week James speaks with passion into the ve...

Bible Text: James 3:1-12