Talks, Sermons and Reflections

John 17.1-11 Jesus is reigning in glory. We are told that he is in heaven and is praying for us. And John 17 is one of the prayers that Jesus prays for us. It is the final prayer of Jesus before they arrest him and take him to be crucified. He pours out his heart – his deepest desire – to God his Father.  And what he prays for his disciples then – he prays for us now. SO WHAT DOES JESUS PRAY? He prays that we, his people, are protected so that we might be one. V11: ‘Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one’.   V21: ‘I ask .. that they may all be on. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us’ V23: ‘I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one’. We usually pray for protection from enemies, persecution, poverty, stress, shame, loneliness, sickness, sadness and things like that. But Jesus doesn’t pray that we will be protected from those things – at least not h...

Ezekiel 36.24-28 Great to be together at this joint service God has a restoration programme! Not a building – more personal and more cosmic.   He wishes to restore humanity – so that we become the people who he made us to be - and, through us, restore creation so that creation is as it was supposed to be. God is in the business of making a new people. That is what Ezekiel 36.24-28 is all about 1.       He gathers us. God speaks through Ezekiel to his people and says ‘I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land’ (v24) He is speaking to Israel, to his people in the Old Testament. They have been scattered. They had been exiled to the North and East, Babylon, and to the South and West, Egypt. And this verse was fulfilled when the Jews returned from exile to the land of Israel. But that was just a small preview, a taster, of what God is going to do. When he send...

Ephesians 2.11-22 I love airports. Seriously, if I had not gone into full time Christian ministry I would have explored the possibility of working at an airport. There is a romance about them. And one of the things that make them so special is that they are places where people who are separated are reunited. You get in the plane and even though you are far from your home or from those you love, you are brought close to them. Our reading today is about how, ‘in Christ’, we are brought close. We are brought close to one another and we are brought close to God. Last week I tried to explain the idea of being ‘in Christ’ by comparing it to a book. Christ is the book and we are placed, like separate pieces of paper, in the book. Where Christ is, we are. Christ is crucified, and we are crucified with him and in him. Christ is risen, and in him we will be raised. Christ is seated in heaven, and in him we are seated in heaven Christ is on earth, and in him we are ...

A sermon preached at Bury St Edmunds' Churches Together Service to mark the beginning of the week of prayer for Christian Unity, January 2017 2 Corinthians 5.14-20 There is something very special about services like this. Opportunity to gather together as Christians from different churches in this town. Although it does remind me of the committee set up to decide what denomination God would be when he returned. The Catholic said he would definitely be Catholic because they were the true church. The Methodist spoke of how he would be Methodist because of the singing. The Baptist said that clearly he would be Baptist because they were so right on believers baptism. And the Anglican after a long silence said, ‘But I don’t really understand why he needs to change?’ Many different things we disagree on: styles of worship, attitude to tradition, liturgy, how long sermons should be! Different attitudes to our sources of authority – Bible, Church, experience and reas...

EPHESIANS 2.11-22 This is a complicated passage, and I confess that I have really struggled with it. It is about the unity that Christian believers have when we are in Christ, and it can be divided up into three sections. 1. Paul tells us what we were without Christ (2.11-12) We were not part of the people of God He is speaking to people who were not Jews.  4000 years ago God chose the Jewish people to be his people. He said he would be their God and they would be his people. He gave them his law. And he said that through his people all people would be blessed.  But as Gentiles, as non-Jews, Paul is saying to his listeners, you were not part of the people of God.  And we were at war with God.   We chose to live without God, as rebels against God, enemies of God.  I was wilfully blind and deaf when it came to the things of God, because I wanted to live life my way and to satisfy my own desires.  Yes, we might have spent...

A talk given at the Bury St Edmunds Come Together event. listen to ‘The gospel is at the heart of Christian unity’ on audioBoom Philippians 1.27-30 Great to be here, together with other brothers and sisters. For the last 1000 years, Christianity has had a privileged position in this country.  It has been the established religion of our nation Our monarchs have been crowned by our church leaders We have bishops in the Houses of Parliament Many of our laws are rooted in biblical truths But that is all changing rapidly I predicted about 25 years ago that in 100 years’ time Christians would be some of those few strange people who – among other things – believed in life long monogamous partnership between one man and one woman. I stick by that prediction, apart from the 100 year bit. And I would make another prediction. In 50 years’ time Christians will be that strange group of people who make babies the old fashioned way! The new normal will be ...