Doubt to Belief 2 - How Could a Good God allow Suffering
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
How Could a Good God Allow Suffering? audio (4MB)
This is a series based on and heavily dependent on Timothy Keller’s Best Seller "The Reason For God" for which I’m deeply grateful. It uses much of his argument though with various additions by myself or the other preachers of the series.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does a 17 year old get hit by a train and die? Why does a 2 year-old child just stop breathing in the middle of the night? Why does a 35 year-old mother develop cancer and die, leaving a husband and 3 children behind?
Why does an earthquake off the coast of Indonesia cause a tsunami that kills a quarter of a million people?
The list is never ending isn’t it? All we can do is cry out in pain when these inexplicable things happen to us; and join with the psalmist in asking “How long O Lord?”.
But we feel the need to do more than that don’t we? We want to know how to answer those who ask how we can continue to believe in and all-powerful, all-loving God when these terrible things keep happening. How can God let them go on?
At first it sounds like there are only three possible conclusions to this dilemma. Either God is not all-powerful, or he’s not all-loving or else he doesn’t exist in the first place.
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Doubt to Belief 1 - Can only one of us be right?
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Can only one of us be right? audio (4MB)
This is a series based on and heavily dependent on Timothy Keller’s Best Seller "The Reason For God" for which I’m deeply grateful. It uses much of his argument though with various additions by myself or the other preachers of the series.
I guess we’re all aware of the Atheists’ conference held in Melbourne in February. You may even have seen Richard Dawkins on the TV in one of his many appearances, putting forward his dogmatic, almost religious, views on the irrelevance of religion. The way he talks you might think this is something new that he’s presenting but of course atheism’s been around for a long time. I guess the 20th century was the age of atheism at it’s strongest. Various atheist regimes came to power: the communists of Russia and China being the most obvious. But by the end of the 20th century it seemed like the cause was lost. Atheism hadn’t provided the solutions to people’s needs. The communist regimes had failed to stop people practising their religion and in fact people were saying that atheism was dead.
But clearly it wasn’t. Richard Dawkins and his friends are back as strong as ever, proclaiming Christianity and other religions as a waste of time and energy. And he’s had no shortage of supporters. The media has given him plenty of coverage. Those who have always opposed Christianity are thrilled to have someone as high profile as him promoting their cause. The sceptics are out in force. And what’s interesting is that we’ve heard very few voices critiquing his message.
Well one of the things we’re going to be doing over the next few months as we move through this new series “From Doubt to Belief” is to examine some of the major objections to Christian faith, many of them raised by Dawkins, in fact. I imagine that some of the questions that we’ll look at will be ones that some of you have asked from time to time - perhaps are even still asking. And even if you haven’t asked them, you can be fairly sure that your friends and colleagues have.
Wedding Maggie Tung & Tom Lin
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
1 Cor 13
We all know what love is, don’t we? Love is what makes us do strange things when a certain person walks in the room. Love is what makes us lose our appetite when we’re waiting for them to return a phone call. Love is what makes us special in another person’s eyes. Love is the reason two people like Maggie and Tom decide to commit the rest of their lives to one another.
But let’s face it, love is far more than the emotional, sentimental feelings that we get on a day like this. If that were all it was they’d be in trouble, because those emotions will fade. The excitement will wear off. The excitement of a wedding is like the noisy gong and clanging cymbals mentioned in our Bible reading today. It lasts for a while but then it fades away.
No, what’s needed if Maggie and Tom are to keep their wedding vows for the next 60 or 70 years is true love: love that is active, love that’s real the way this passage describes it. Do you see how realistic this passage is when it talks about love. Do you notice it doesn’t once mention chocolates or flowers or perfume or fancy restaurants? What does it mention?
Christian Attitudes: Anger vs. Self-control
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- Written by: Garrett Edwards
Anger Vs. Self Control
Matt 5: 20-26 audio (4MB)
Welcome to the first youth service of 2010!
This week we kick off the first in a four part series on Christian Attitudes
Today we’ll be looking at Anger vs. Self-control, and then throughout the year, we’ll look at Humility vs. Pride, Judgment vs. Grace and Holiness vs. Worldliness.
My hope is that you’ll use this time to really search your character and attitudes and to reflect on whether they are matching up to Jesus’. And obviously we can’t look at every attitude individually but if something in these talks challenges you on other areas of life then I encourage you to act on it.
Well, Anger vs. Self Control, lets define these terms so we’re all on the same page. The dictionary has these definitions:
Anger – ‘a strong feeling of displeasure aroused by a wrong; wrath; resentment; displeasure’
Building For Community
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
audio (2MB)
I wonder do you realise what a miracle we experience every time we meet together as a single congregation? Here are people from all over the world, from every sort of background, age, educational level, you name it. And yet we meet together as members of a single family, a family called together by God himself.
That’s the miracle Paul celebrates as he writes this letter to the Ephesians. In their case you might say the miracle is even greater. There the people have overcome an even greater obstacle than those of culture and language. Look at what he says they were like.
1 Once Alienated from the People of God and without hope
