South East Anglican

Unlike in the previous four cities, the Christians in Sardis have it pretty good! Almost no persecution to speak of by the Romans or Jews, so you would hope their church is thriving. Alas, it's the complete opposite. Listen to the sermon by Dave from Southern Beaches about what it might mean that the church looked alive but was actually dead, and the warnings contained therein for the modern churc...

The church in Thyatira had a different problem to the previous three: despite operating in a pagan culture, they were growing! But Jesus, with eyes like blazing fire, can see a deceptive problem under the surface that many in the church may have been blinded to. Jesus warns them that unless they deal with this problem, they will endure suffering, not from the the Romans, but from his righteous jud...

How do we respond when there is outside pressure to compromise our faith? How can we love Jesus, even in a culture that demands we worship other gods? These are the questions asked by Christians in Pergamum, an extremely pagan city. Without a doubt, we too should know how to answer these questions, even if the risk for us is mild compared to the Christians of first century Pergamum.

Smyrna was a highly pagan city where Rome could do no wrong and Caesar was god. The Jews in Smyrna also were hostile towards Christians and their worship of a man from Nazareth. So the church in Smyrna is not only struggling to worship publicly, but are struggling to live! And it's into this context that Jesus writes to them and lifts their eyes to 'The First and the Last'.

What was going on in Ephesus? Well, a lot! 2000 years ago Ephesus was a bustling metropolis, their culture was dominated by idol worship, the CBD was heaving with visitors, traders, and craftsmen, and somewhere in amongst all of that was a community of Christians. This group were doing some aspects of the Christian life really well, but they had a fatal blind spot. Out of his love and grace, Jesus...

Revelation is a magnificent, complex, and at times terrifying letter from God to Christians, particularly the Christians of 90AD in Roman-occupied Asia Minor (Western Turkey). In a powerful display of his presence and love, Jesus gives John a vision to share with, and to encourage, the Christians who, like him, were suffering for their faith. Revelation 1 is the key foundation of this crazy letter...

Can we pray big prayers? If we can, why? Does God answer them? How do we pray big prayers without sounding self-confident? Dave sheds some light on all this and more from Psalm 139 and Mark 2, as we unpack more about the nature and character of God.

Have you ever heard someone praying and thought, "I wish I could pray like that"? Often the work of becoming a confident, natural pray-er is less about the words we say and more about relationship with God we're praying too. Prayer grows out of relationship. Preaching from Matthew 6, Dave shows us what sort of relationship we can have with God that will fuel our prayers.

Many of us say The Lord's Prayer regularly, but immediately preceding the Lord's Prayer in Scripture (Luke 11:1) is a humble request from a disciple that we may not be familiar with: "Lord, teach us to pray." How we pray will largely be governed by who we understand God to be. In Luke 11 Jesus taught his disciples to pray to their Father, and in Psalm 139 David prays to a God of omnipresence. We,...

After 41 chapters of suffering, judgement, almost-wisdom, and actual wisdom, the story of Job comes to an end. And it would've ended with Job sitting in despair in dust and ashes, but for the grace of God. In a generous outpouring of his grace on Job, God lovingly lifts Job out of the ash heap and blesses his socks off. And that God is the same God who lovingly offers to lift us up and grant us li...

Finally, after 35 chapters of conjecture, almost-wisdom, judgment, justification, attack, and defense, God speaks. And as he speaks the ground literally shakes! Out of a storm, the voice of God thunders, asking Job, 'Where were you...?" God reminds Job that he and he alone is eternal and omniscient. Job need not fear God, but he also must not speak about that which he doesn't understand: a challen...

There are many things that our culture has accepted as true and wise, our own cultural proverbs, that don't pass the wisdom test on closer inspection. These are examples of 'almost-wisdom', and almost wisdom can be dangerous when accepted as true wisdom. Dave preaches from Job 32-37 about how Elihu's speeches fit between almost-wisdom and true, godly wisdom, and what it looks like to receive and l...

On Sunday we took a break from our series in Job to hear from a good friend of the parish, Scott Doran-Sargent from CMS Tasmania. Scott preached from Luke 10 about the mission of 'The Seventy-Two' and what we can learn from them about our own mission locally, as well as around the world.

Stephen preaches on 'Where Is Wisdom Found' from Job 28, and what wisdom looks like as it is lived out.

The only thing worse than suffering alone is suffering alongside people who ridicule and berate you. This was Job's unfortunate experience. The story of Job doesn't give us a lot of help in how to care for someone who is grieving, but it does show us what not to do. Stephen's sermon helps us understand how to be compassionate friends when people we love are suffering and we don't have any answers...

There is much to marvel at in the book of Job, much to capture our imagination and pique our interest. But at the core of this incredible book is the reality of suffering. This story raises all sorts of questions, and in doing, gives us permission to ask questions about God that we may have thought were off-limits. In the opening chapters of Job, Dave shares how we are given permission through Job...

The Parish of South East Tasmania is beautiful, big, and diverse. And our size and diversity can raise some interesting challenges to gospel ministry. Dave shared how this is similar to the context of the ancient cities and churches of Macedonia. We can learn a lot about gospel ministry from the three churches in Macedonia, not only about contextualisation, but also about unity. Praise be to God f...

Slavery and Freedom are threads that can be followed the whole way through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, from Eden to Heaven. Dave shows us from all over the Bible how Satan speaks lies to trap us in sin, but Jesus graciously combats those lies with his freedom-granting truth.

Visiting preacher, Sibin Varghese, shares about the dangers of envy from Psalm 73 and Philippians 4. Envy can often remain hidden in our hearts and minds, pitting us against our friends and neighbours at what they have that we don't. But Jesus came to bring the cure for envy, to rescue us from the sin of envy, and to help us find contentment in the present, whilst waiting patiently for our future...

What's resurrection all about? Was it a 'thing' before Jesus? It's cool and all, but what does it mean for us today? The people who saw the resurrected Jesus gave their lives to sharing that news, not only because it was amazing, but because if Christ is raised, then so too shall we be raised through faith in him. This sermon is by Dave Horne from St. Geoge's in Sorell.

In many ways, the narrative of Palm Sunday is straightforward. But if we put ourselves into the hearts and minds of Jesus and his followers, this is a complex day, leading up to a complex week. Dave shared from Southern Beaches how Palm Sunday might've felt for Jesus, and the role this significant day played in Holy Week and beyond.

To close out our series of thinking through what it means to be God's people, and to be that in the South East of Tasmania, Stephen taught us about being Generous For Jesus. Generous is not just something we can be, it's something God is. As Christians, we want to be generous because God has been generous with us, particularly through our salvation by Jesus.

On Sunday, Dave showed us from John's gospel, Romans, and 1 John that Jesus not only wants his followers to be on a mission, but also to love each other while they are on mission. This command from Jesus pops up time and time again through the rest of the New Testament, and is what informs our third parish value, being 'Relational Through Jesus'. In this sermon Dave helps us understand how the chu...

If we are going to be a people who engage with our community like Jesus, we need to know what that means. So this week Dave unpacked the 'who, how, and why' of engaging like Jesus, predominately looking at Luke 5 and Hebrews 9.