Discipleship 1 - walking with Jesus
- Details
- Written by: Bill Stewart
audio (3MB)
As Chris mentioned last Sunday, today we are officially beginning a series of sermons on the theme of "discipleship". Although discipleship seems to have already been the theme for at least two weeks now. Two weeks ago we saw how Jesus called people to be disciples and then directed them to call other disciples to follow him. Last week we were reminded that the call to follow Jesus is one that each of us must answer for ourselves. Today I would like us to do two things: (1) Firstly, to try and understand some of Jesus' difficult sayings about discipleship; and (2) secondly, to share a couple of introductory reflections on discipleship.
In the Australian War Memorial Collection there is a black and white photograph taken here in Melbourne on 15 December 1939. In the foreground four women and two children are standing on a pier with their backs to the camera. In the background a ship is sailing out to sea. One of the women is standing right on the edge of the pier. Her name we are told was Doreen and she lived in Mildura. The departing ship was a troop transport named the Strathallan carrying an advance party of the 6th Division AIF for overseas service in World War II. Mrs Martin and her family were saying farewell to her husband, a signalman named Bernard. [The photo by Edward Cranstone can be viewed at http://cas.awm.gov.au/photograph/000304/01 (public domain)].
Resignation or Abandonment
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- Written by: Garrett Edwards
Matt. 5:13-16;
Rom. 6:8-14 audio (3MB)
Mark 12:28-13:2
Clip - King Arthur, start: 30:55, finish 32:03.
'Abandonment or Resignation', I came across this topic in my devotions one morning and it hit me pretty hard.
The question God confronted me with was this: am I abandoned to Him and His will for me or am I simply resigned to Him, my life unchanged, knowing he's there?
And that's the question I want to ask us today, its a question that I don't want to ask because I know that you can all look at me and know what my answer was...is... And every time I ask myself this question I'm met with disappointment as my answer really doesn't reflect where I know I should be.
Easter Forecast
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Old Testament Prophecies about Jesus
Each year you find in the business pages an analysis of the performance of various stocks that the analysts had made predictions about the previous year. And each year you discover that they were as wrong as often as they were right. Which makes you wonder why people pay analysts so much money to make their predictions. It seems they're not much better than weather forecasters.
Weather forecasts: traditionally unreliable. Hard to see into the future even with one of the world's largest super computers.
But there are some forecasts that are reliable: namely those we find in God's word; especially those to do with the coming of the Messiah.
But first, let's think about why we're looking at these forecasts today. It could just be an intellectual exercise. For those who haven't seen these connections before there may be a level of novelty to it. To others it could just be a pleasant exercise in literary exploration. But there's a much more important issue at stake.
