Sermons from open icon baptist church

The hope born at Christmas does not erase, deny, or hide from the horror of a violent world, but meets us in the midst of it.

Confused feelings in the aftermath of the Bondi massacre are a window into the ongoing need for healing and transformation in our own hearts.

Isaiah 35 declares joy and courage and gladness, for those stuck in the wilderness and dry lands. Joy for the weak hands, the feeble knees and the fearful hearts.

Hope is a courageous and active stance towards life which is nourished in those who attend to the voice of God in Scripture.

The coming Christ will do whatever he can to get through our defences.

To name Christ as King is to identify ourselves as dissenters to the claims of any other authority and to critique all power-mongering.

Jesus warns us that disasters are ubiquitous and do not all herald the end of time, and calls us to persevere in the life of love even when we are blamed and persecuted.

As societies collapse under the weight of their own sin, God's promises stand firm and we are called to persevere in faith and righteousness.

The saints of God are engaged in a war between conflicting empires battling for control of the world, but Jesus has radically transformed our understanding of how we fight.

When we respond to others with judgement and contempt instead of empathy and compassion, we fail to understand God and live God’s love for others.

The relationship between God’s work and our work in salvation is not a puzzle to be solved, but a mystery to be lived in prayer and faithful discipleship.

Jesus constantly seeks to upend our prejudices in order to breakdown and overcome our divisive tribalism.

Healthy spirituality requires an honesty about our experience of pain and confusion in the real world, and that means that lamentation is a part of healthy prayer.

Even in the face of a catastrophic collapse of the world as we know it, God calls us to imagine and invest in a beautiful future.

Hope for our troubled world requires turning anger into tears, resentment into prayers, and financial power into generosity.

In order to find our way into the good news of life in all its fullness, we need to first stop denying and distracting ourselves from the bad news we are drowning in.

Despite first appearances, Jesus’s call to “count the cost” of following him is not so much about ensuring we can succeed as it is about ensuring we can faithfully persevere in the face of failure.

In the face of social breakdown and environmental catastrophe, we are called, not to angry protest, but to creative expressions of love, compassion, and hospitality.

Our call to bear witness to the culture of God comes at a time when we face the real prospect of doom and destruction, and so must contend with that.

In today's parable, Jesus teaches us how to approach God as both Waiter and Thief.

A chat about Colossians 3 and Paul's encouragement for us to have the mindset of Jesus.

A sermon on Luke 11:1-13 by the Revd Geoff Leslie...

In difficult times, the simple virtues of love, humility, and non-judgement are the starting point of faithful living.

A sermon by Major Sandra McLean of the Salvation Army...

We all get trapped in demonic and dehumanising social structures, but Jesus unmasks the truth so that we can be set free.