Sunday Talks

The culture around us in Ireland has taken a few steps away from the Christian worldview. There is nothing new about people’s rejection of God’s word or even the issue of teaching what isn't in the Bible. But we do live in times when the Bible is more likely going offend the people around us. In 2 Timothy, Paul was writing to a young Christian leader facing intense pressure from the culture ar...

Here's a turning point - Jesus really is capable of all the things being claimed about him in John's gospel. So will you follow him?

Why join the church? Why take the step of becoming an attending, committed, serving member of a local church like Blackrock?

What should local churches look like and sound like? Here are 2 defining marks and 1 defining attitude...

Those who came to faith on the day of Pentecost did not go home and become private subscribers to the Christian faith. Nor did they begin individually searching for a local church that was right for them. The church is no me thing!

Come and see the church from a different perspective – from the perspective of the Lord Jesus Christ who said “…I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it .” Stopping for a little while to take in this view will be very helpful. For the Lord Jesus, the church was no small thing...

What would Mark have us see at the climax of his account about Jesus Christ? What would he want readers of his book like us, carefully reading these pages, to notice?

Chapter 14 begins a new section that will eventually narrate the death of Jesus. In this section, we’ll see how Mark interweaves the plot against Jesus' life with an invitation to understand the value of his death.

Did you realise that being a Christian demands a constant state of alertness? Speaking to his closest followers, Jesus makes an urgent appeal to them, one that by the end of this chapter has been widened out to all Christian believers: stay awake!

Having introduced God’s Messiah in his gospel, Mark is probing his readers to put all our hope in Jesus, no matter what the loudest voices around us are saying.

Some people are annoyed at a religion that calls for exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ – especially when that sets limits on way they want to run their own lives. In this section of Mark, we’ll see that though he is challenged and even finally rejected, Jesus has the authority from God to command full allegiance.

Jesus speaks about eternal life and the Kingdom of God… he is on a rescue mission. But how do we get that eternal life?

In his gospel account about Jesus, Mark is narrating the arrival of a king – a very different kind of king to those whose corronations we may have watched on TV. The question might be: what difference does he make? Do I need to do more than watch the proceedings?

In the section of Mark we are looking at here – it is like Mark is posing a challenge: How can Jesus talk about surrendering his life while his followers talk about fulfilling theirs?

The closest followers of Jesus experience a defining moment here. Mark is urging his readers too to understand who Jesus is and what it means to follow him while all the time pressing home the urgent need to listen to Jesus.

In this section of Mark’s gospel, we’ll see Jesus’ explanation of what following him demands of would-be followers. There are two requirements.

There’s a picture that Mark has been using throughout his book: blindness and the restoration of sight. As Mark puts together the evidence of who Jesus is and why he came – he’s also been showing us that it will take a miracle for people who are blind to see who Jesus is and why he came.

In the next part of his account, Mark points us directly to our need for rescue. What is your greatest problem?

Could you have failed to see who Jesus really is? And the main thing he came to do? As we look at Chapter 6, there really is a big picture being painted. Mark seems to be showing us something very important about Jesus. Something we need to be clear about. What is it?

We have a lot of choice in our lives, but there is one choice that will make all the difference, and it’s how we respond the Lord Jesus. Will you embrace His authority or will you reject it?

In both the desperate storm and with the desperate man, Mark helps us see that – amazingly - one man was strong enough to subdue nature and to subdue the most profoundly disturbing evil. Mark isn’t just telling us information… he’s putting the challenge to us: Can I trust him? Or will I simply ask him to leave?

As Mark continues his good news project, we know that on the one hand there has been some very loud opposition to Jesus. Others, however, are just quietly skeptical and content to pass under the radar. Are we really listening?

There are three incidents that go together in this section of Mark’s gospel and each one is quite surprising in its own way. Together they are designed to help us, the readers, work out why Jesus has come.