SMARTALK - hope for today

The Parable of The Orchard. By looking at  Romans Chapter 4:9-12 through the lens of a parable about an orchard we see who is in and who is out of God's kingdom. The view may shock religious people!  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Cre...

Boasting. Romans Chapter 3:27-31. Worship is like a well of water, it should refresh you. But it can be poisoned by boasting. If we think we have contributed even a tiny amount to our salvation we can’t put God on the highest level of gratitude. We “loom too large and God too small.” “We will not worship with the absolute sense of humility, dependence, and thanksgiving that always marks the best w...

What Lies Beneath the surface of the people we think we know? Movies have been made to investigate that idea. In Romans Chapter 3:9-20  paints the darkest colors of humanity which Wester Civilisation for more than a thousand years gave strong credence to.  It paints the picture of our inability to reach God through our efforts and thus sets the scene for humanity's desperate need for divine i...

One of the big changes in people's thinking has been to put God on trial for all the evil things we see in this life. So in  Romans Chapter 3:1-8 we see a very different picture, that it's humanity that has to answer for evil, even if we come from a place of spiritual privilege like the Jews did in the days when the Apostle Paul wrote these words. We see past hang-ups about God being put...

Save Me From Religion. In Romans Chapter 2:17-29 Christianity claims that humanity needs to be saved from religion not by religion even at the same time as Christianity itself is a religion! Does your faith create pride or humility within you? If it's the latter then you are using God's Law as intended, as a means of pointing you to Jesus as the only one who can bring us home to God. Con...

How can people be lost who have never heard about Jesus? The Bible addresses this question in Romans Chapter 2:12-16 by telling us that people will be judged based on what they know about God through creation and their conscience.  They won't be judged for rejecting Christ when they've never heard of him but they still face the judgment of the One who made them. Contact Pastor Smart from...

The Dangers of Criticism. It's very easy when you feel you hold the moral high ground to look down on others. But in Romans Chapter 2:1-11 God puts a stop to that as we see that religion by itself cannot stop our own hearts sinning in similar ways to those we are quick to judge. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4ta...

When God Gives Up? Instinctively everybody knows there is a God. But what do people do with that knowledge? Romans Chapter 1:21-32 tells us that we push that thought away because we are so focused on fulfilling the desires of our heart. The real fall out of that though is if God gives us over to those desires. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smar...

No Excuses For Unbelief.  Is anyone alive who does not possess some knowledge of God? Paul answers that in Romans Chapter 1:18-20. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/license...

The Heart of the Christian.  The news that should travel through our lives is our faith. Romans Chapter 1:8-17 lays out the deepening, spreading, and emboldening nature of our trust in Christ. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Common...

Have you ever wondered why Christianity has had such a massive impact on human history? Well, in Romans Chapter 1:1-7 we see the power that has transformed Western civilization. Here we see how Christ can bring the most unlikely of people together as we begin to understand the significance that Jesus is  God's son. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tamp...

Looking For Wine But Finding Vinegar! Sometimes you can do everything right but things still go wrong! Being left with such unfulfilled expectations is hard but in Isaiah Chapter 5:1-7 it's God who expresses that with his people. But we also see a way back if we know we have let God down. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smarta...

Critical Leadership - Isaiah Chapter 4:2-6 shows us how Christ leads us through life's challenges. We see who he is, what he's like, and what he can do. All this often comes clear to us when we are in survival mode, in the minority, feeling forgotten by God and feeling guilty. Yet he gives us real protection and a path to our true home.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or se...

A Hopeless World? - Isaiah Chapters 2 and 3 unpacks for us hope, even in the face of a realistic perspective on life, an offer of peace, and a call to walk in the light of God. He shows us what spiritual collapse looks like in a culture leaving us to ask what we put our trust in. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa....

Thankless Children - We can all get nervous about the world we live in and where it's heading.  In Isaiah Chapter 1  shows three levels of collapse, national, religious and social.  He illustrates what is behind this by taking us around a small town where we stop at home, a farm, a hospital, a church before finally stopping at the laundrette where our past failures can be washed away. Contact...

Missing Jesus at the Festival. At Christmas it's easy to be caught up with everything that happens and miss its significance just as Mary and Joseph missed Jesus at the festival in Luke 2:1-12, 41-53.  Instead, the greatest discovery of life lies open before us; that the Father of Jesus can become our Father too.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa...

Jesus shows us that it's often those who think they have already got life figured out that are blind to the bigger picture (John 9 verse 41). While if we are humble enough to admit we don't know everything then we are in a better place to begin to see what God wants to do in us and through us. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk  ...

Born to Die!  The most devasting thing you can face in life is probably going to be the death of a loved one.  In Hebrews 2:10-18 we see that one of the main reasons for Jesus coming into this world was to destroy the fear of death that still haunts humanity. Christ claims to have an answer to that fear and that is a claim we all need to listen to.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or...

Homeless at Christmas -  God's love towards outsiders who are far from home is seen in the famous encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https:/...

Opportunities in Difficult Times.  Sometimes you can feel caught up in a great game of chess like Paul in Acts chapter 24 where he is attacked and defended. But then like digging in a coal mine, feeling overwhelmed by the darkness God can let you find some unexpected diamonds in the dust.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@h...

Providence and Protection.  We often talk about chance, fate, and coincidence. But in Acts Chapter 23:12-24 we see the power of God's providence that works behind the scenes of life, including the most dangerous of moments in life.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevi...

The Power That Protects: Christianity makes incredible claims about the influence and protection of Christ over the lives of those who trust him. In Acts 23:1-11 we see how Christ protects us in times of conflict. This in turn frees us to treat those we are in conflict with respectfully. Then we see how God can use our past, and his wisdom, along with a deep awareness of his protecting presence. C...

Sharing your Conviction with the Convinced. It's never easy to get through to folk who are very convinced of their ways and today our society is polarizing between very strongly held opinions. But Paul models for us a way to connect, communicate, and convict people like that, as seen in Acts Chapter 22:1-30. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/s...

Reclaiming Boldness in Our Adoption. Ephesians 1:3-10. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=...

When Plans Backfire: There are times in life when things seem to get worse, not better and you can feel like you are lost in a maze with every step taking you deeper into it rather than finding a way out.  In Acts Chapter 21 Paul faces such a time through the misunderstanding of people, but in that moment he was following the model of Christ himself which is what keeps us on mission.  Contact Past...