First Ards Presbyterian Church Sermoncast

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 and 13:8-13 at evening worship on Sunday 3rd August 2025 in First Ards. Are tongues, prophecy and healing still for the church today, or were they for a particular time and purpose? In this message from our Faith FAQs series, we turn to God’s Word to see how the Spirit worked in the early church and how He continues to work now through the ordinary me...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 at evening worship on Sunday 27th July 2025 in First Ards. In this sermon from our Faith FAQs series, we face one of life’s most personal and profound questions: what happens when we die? While the world offers confusion and sentiment, Scripture speaks with clarity, warmth and hope. We see that for those who are in Christ, death is not the end. It’s go...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Obadiah 5-14 at morning worship on Sunday 27th July 2025 in First Ards. We continue through the book of Obadiah and see how the Lord calls out Edom, not just for what they did but for what they failed to do. As we reflect on their silence, indifference and eventual cruelty, we’re reminded that gospel people aren’t called to stand at a distance but to step in. Because Chris...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches John 14:1-7 at evening worship on Sunday 20th July 2025 in First Ards. Is it arrogant to believe Jesus is the only way to God? In this sermon, we listen to Christ’s own words, “I am the way, the truth and the life” and explore why His exclusive claim isn’t narrow minded, but deeply loving and gloriously true.

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Obadiah 1-4 at morning worship on Sunday 20th July 2025 in First Ards. As we begin our Sowing Seeds summer, Obadiah confronts us with the needed warning that pride blinds, isolates and deceives. But God humbles the proud not to crush them, but to prepare them for grace, for growth and for mission. Real gospel work begins on our knees.

Rev. Michael Bostock preaches Revelation 19:11-18 at evening worship on Sunday 13th July 2025 in First Ards. Jesus is our prophet, priest and king. What does it mean that Jesus is our king?

Rev. Michael Bostock preaches Psalm 110 and Hebrews 4:14-5-10 at evening worship on Sunday 6th July 2025 in First Ards. Jesus is our prophet, priest and king. What does it mean that Jesus is our priest?

Rev. Michael Bostock preaches Deuteronomy 18:15-22 and Luke 24:13-27 at evening worship on Sunday 29th June 2025 in First Ards. Jesus is our prophet, priest and king. What does it mean that Jesus is our prophet?

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Romans 8:18-39 at evening worship on Sunday 22nd June 2025 in First Ards. Suffering raises some of life’s hardest questions and the Bible doesn’t avoid them. In this message, we consider what Scripture says about a world marked by pain and a God who meets us in it. Not with easy answers, but with real hope: a Saviour who suffered for us, walks with us and will one day make...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Luke 6:1-5 at morning worship on Sunday 22nd June 2025 in First Ards. As Jesus walks through a grainfield on the Sabbath, a quiet moment becomes a striking revelation of who He is. In this passage from Luke 6, we see that Jesus isn’t just correcting misunderstanding, He’s claiming authority. He is the Lord of the Sabbath and in Him we find the true rest our hearts were mad...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Luke 5:33-39 at morning worship on Sunday 15th June 2025 in First Ards. When questioned about fasting, Jesus responds with three vivid images: a wedding; a patch; and a wineskin. Each of them reveals that He hasn’t come to improve religion but to replace it. In this sermon from Luke 5, we see that Jesus brings joy, new life and a fresh start, not something to sample, but S...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches 2 Timothy 3:16-17 at evening worship on Sunday 8th June 2025 in First Ards. This sermon kicks off our new series, Faith FAQs, where we’re asking and answering some of the big questions of the Christian faith. Is the Bible reliable? Can we really trust what it says? In this sermon, we consider the Bible’s own claims about its authority and truthfulness and we explore the re...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Luke 5:27-32 at morning worship on Sunday 1st June 2025 in First Ards. Jesus’ call to Levi wasn’t about worthiness or reputation, it was a call of pure grace. In this sermon, we see how Jesus not only calls sinners but shares His table with them, welcoming the unlikely and the unwanted. And we’re challenged to respond: will we grumble at grace, or will we open our homes an...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches 2 Samuel 10 at evening worship worship on Sunday 25th May 2025 in First Ards. David extends kindness to the Ammonites, but his peace offering is rejected, his messengers shamed and a war erupts that didn’t need to happen. In this sermon from 2 Samuel 10, we explore what happens when grace is misread as a threat, how pride escalates conflict and how David’s battles point us...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Luke 5:17-26 at morning worship on Sunday 25th May 2025 in First Ards. When a paralysed man is lowered through a roof to Jesus, the crowd expects a miracle of healing, but Jesus sees a deeper need. In this sermon from Luke 5, we explore how Jesus’ authority goes far beyond restoring broken bodies; He forgives sin. This isn’t just a story about a man who walked again, but a...

Rev. Michael Bostock preaches Psalm 74 at evening worship on Sunday 18th May in First Ards. Psalm 74 is a contemplative prayer in the face of spiritual ruin. With the temple destroyed and God’s name dishonoured, Asaph pleads with the Lord not for comfort, but for God’s glory to be restored. This sermon reflects on the relevance of that prayer for today’s church, in a time of confusion, compromise...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Luke 5:12-16 at morning worship on Sunday 18th May 2025 in First Ards. A man covered in leprosy comes to Jesus with a desperate request, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” What unfolds is a powerful moment of grace. Jesus touches the untouchable and speaks cleansing with divine authority. This passage reveals not just the compassion of Christ, but His willingness...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches 2 Samuel 9 at evening worship on Sunday 11th May 2025 in First Ards. In this account from 2 Samuel 9, we see King David reach out in kindness to a forgotten, broken man named Mephibosheth. It’s a picture of grace: covenantal, undeserved and deeply personal. David’s mercy mirrors the greater mercy of God, who seeks out sinners, not for what they offer, but for the sake of H...

Ricky Ferguson (ruling elder in Ballyhenry Presbyterian Church in the presbytery of North Belfast and Ireland Team Leader for Wycliffe Bible Translators) preaches Isaiah 55 and shares about the work and witness of Wycliffe, one of our mission partners, at morning worship on Sunday 11th May 2025 in First Ards. What happens when people hear the Word of God in their own language? Lives are changed. H...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches Luke 5:1-11 at morning worship on Sunday 4th May 2025 in First Ards. Peter thought he knew what he was doing, until Jesus stepped into his boat. This isn’t just a story about fish. It’s about a call that confronts, convicts and transforms. Jesus interrupts Peter’s ordinary day with a command that makes no sense, “let down the nets” and Peter obeys. The result? A miraculous...

Rev. Craig Lynn preaches 1 Peter 1:3-9 at Easter morning worship on 20th April 2025 in First Ards. Peter doesn’t begin with problems, he begins with praise. Jesus is alive and that changes everything. His resurrection gives us new birth into a living hope, an inheritance that can’t perish, spoil, or fade. That hope holds in suffering. Even when faith feels fragile, God keeps us. Our future is secu...

Rev. David Moore preaches Mark 15:25-39 at our fourth and final joint Holy Week service on Good Friday 18th April 2025 in First Ards. On that Friday, Jesus was crucified. Mocked, rejected and alone, He hung on a cross between criminals. But this was no ordinary death, this was the moment sin was judged, wrath was spent and salvation was won. As darkness fell, Jesus bore the weight of the world’s s...

Rev. David Moore preaches Mark 14:17-26 and 32-36 at our third joint Holy Week service on Thursday 17th April 2025 in First Ards. On the night before the cross, Jesus gives His disciples a powerful promise and prays a profound prayer. The promise? His body and blood, broken and poured out, are the guarantee of God’s covenant love, the gift of forgiveness and life. The prayer? “Not my will, but you...

Rev. David Moore preaches Mark 12:1-12 and 14:1-11 at our second joint Holy Week service on Wednesday 16th April in First Ards. As Holy Week continues, Jesus is rejected by the religious leaders and betrayed by Judas; but in the middle of it all, He’s honoured by a woman who pours out costly perfume in love. While others plot, she worships. It’s a challenge to us. Are we rejecting, betraying or tr...

Rev. David Moore preaches Mark 11:12-19 at our first joint Holy Week service on Tuesday 15th April in First Ards. Jesus curses a fruitless fig tree and overturns tables in the temple. Both are signs of judgment, not on outsiders, but on empty religion. It’s a call to repent, to return to our first love and to let Jesus bring the change we need.