Talks, Sermons and Reflections

John 15.5-11 Harry Potter discovers a mirror in the room of enchantment! It is not a normal mirror. When he looks into it, he sees himself with his parents. He was orphaned as a baby. He spends hours gazing at the image in the mirror. And it is only when Dumbledore explains that he realises what is going on. The mirror shows you what your deepest desire, your deepest wish is. It is the mirror or Erised, which is desire backwards. Jesus speaks here of desire, when he says (v7), 'Ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you'. He doesn't just say it here. In Matthew 7.7 he says, 'Ask, and it will be given you' (Luke 11.9) In Matthew 21.22 he says, 'Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive' (Mark 11.24) In John 14.13 he says, 'I will do whatever you ask in my name'. In v14 he says, 'If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it'. In 16.24, he says, 'Ask and you will receive, so that y...

​ Philippians 2.1-11 The church is never a place where you will find selfish ambition or vain conceit! That’s a joke! In fact our passage speaks of selfish ambition and vain conceit (v3). Selfish ambition : the desire to have more, to be more: more money or possessions or status or significance. Ambition in itself does not need to be wrong. The problem is what we are ambitious for. The problem is when we end up climbing over others to get what we want. We fix our eyes on the object of desire and nothing and nobody will get in our way. Vain conceit : this is the temptation to think more of ourselves than we should. We have our petty little achievements and successes and as a result we start to think that we are rather important. We become 'puffed up'. I’m bigger than you; I’m stronger than you; I’m cleverer than you; I’m more attractive than you. We look down on others. We think we deserve greater status or honour. We're put out when we feel that we haven...

1 Samuel 24 So, somebody hates you. Perhaps they have grounds for that dislike. Maybe it is a Jacob and Esau situation. Esau had every reason to hate Jacob. Jacob had taken advantage of his weakness, deceived him, and stolen what was his. And maybe somebody hates you because you have hurt them. You've walked out on them in a relationship; you've said things or done things that have deeply hurt them; you've stolen from them; you’ve treated them as dirt And when others have reason to hate us, then we need to do something about it. We need to acknowledge the other person’s reason for being angry with us. We need to say sorry, and - in so far as it is possible - we need to begin to put things right, with saying sorry Of course, we are good at deceiving ourselves. I remember one man, who was a member of one of the churches where I have served. He walked out on his wife for someone else. And rather than face up to the reality of what he had don...

Colossians 1.3-14 Paul begins his letter to the Colossian Christians by thanking God for them, by thanking God for the gospel, and by praying that they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. And that seems to me to be a good model to follow on an occasion like this. 1.       I do thank God for you – for your faith in Jesus and your love for all the saints. It is encouraging to see the faith that so many have. It has been great to see people taking new steps of faith: taking risks and doing things like Café church and Sunday@4; or taking on new jobs or becoming Readers in the Church of England, as Tom and Andrew did. And it has been a particular privilege for me this last year to be beside several of our brothers and sisters as they have faced death with the Lord.  And some of them have been quite inspirational.       And it is encouraging to see the love that people have for all the saints. ...