Audio Service 29 March 2020: A claim, a promise, an obligation

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This talk is based on John 8.46-end.
The reading is included in the recording.

Reader: Ian Jennings
Preacher: Christoph Lindner

Sermon: “40 – God’s Number for Life Change”

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Sermon preached by Christoph Lindner on Sunday 1 March, 10.30am service.

This sermon is based on Matthew 3.16-4.11.

Collect

Heavenly Father, your Son battled with the powers of darkness, and grew closer to you in the desert: help us to use these days to grow in wisdom and prayer that we may witness to your saving love in Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Sermon: Healthy Family – “What we need is a miracle!”

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Sermon preached by Christoph Lindner on Sunday 23 February, 10.30am service.

This sermon is based on Acts 4.5-13 and Luke 7. 11-23.

During our service and at the beginning and end of this sermon, we sang and prayed this hymn:

Here are the notes from page 1 of our news sheet:

Healthy Family: What we need is a miracle

“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.” (Acts 2.43)

Jesus and his disciples spread the good news in both proclamation (preaching) and demonstration (healings, miracles).  

For Luke, who wrote a gospel and the Book of Acts, signs and wonders

  • bestow benefits (often physical) on those blessed by them.
  • show that Jesus truly is the Son of God in whom ‘there is salvation’ (Acts 4.12)
  • show that the Kingdom of God truly is among them.
  • form part of the Christian witness and produce faith.

Wherever signs and wonders are done in the name of Jesus today, they have the same potential. God works through the regular rhythms and rules of creation (e.g. modern medicine!), in response to faithful prayer and through specific acts of grace, sometimes miraculous.

Healthy Habits

From Pentecost we will explore and practise healthy habits of Christians. When we grow in Christlikeness, that itself is a gift of God’s grace. The more we practise healthy habits, the more signs and wonders we will see, with the habit of prayer playing a prominent role. And there is no greater miracle than the transformation of the human heart!

When we follow Jesus, the initiative always lies with him! It is important to remember this when it comes to miracles: we cannot produce them ‘to order’ and sadly the realm of God’s supernatural intervention can be misused for human manipulation and deceit. We need to humbly recognise that there will always be an element of mystery as to why we see some signs and not others. Many questions beginning with ‘why’ will remain. But as followers of Jesus we are already part of the greatest miracle of all – Jesus’ resurrection and our firm hope of overflowing and eternal life as we follow him.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28) 

Sermon: Healthy Family – The Aims of Discipleship

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Talk by Christoph Lindner at our 10.30am service on Sunday, 9th February 2020.

This sermon is based on Matthew 3. 1-6, 4.12-17

Here are the notes from the front page of our news sheet:

Healthy Family: The Aims of Discipleship

“If you aim at nothing, you are bound to hit it!”

 “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” (Jesus)

What are the aims of Christian Discipleship?

  • Participating in the Kingdom mission of Jesus. “Your kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven.” “The Kingdom of God … is the reign of God over all the forces of death, the triumph of love over all the forces of hatred, the triumph of peace over all the forces of violence and warfare.” (Professor John Hull)
  • Transformation: personally (conversion and discipleship) and of our society and world (social justice). This larger transformation happens one person at a time as we become more like Jesus. “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” (Mother Teresa). We can only do this through the power of the Holy Spirit and because through all our failures, God forgives us and gives us another chance (and another!).
  • Disciples in the whole of our lives. “Our primary calling is to make a difference where we find ourselves most of the time.” (The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC) – licc.org.uk)
  • A vibrant, full life. Not just ‘whole-life disciples’, but ‘full-life disciples. “I have come that they may have abundant life.” (Jesus in John 10.10). No one is attracted to Jesus by a dull and joyless Christian!
  • Gathering people into community. Community with Jesus and one another, that will model heaven on earth, “resident aliens” (Stanley Hauerwas). The more communities of disciples there are, the more transformation we will see!
  • A heavenly calling. “We may be confident that the crowning wonder of our experience will be in the heavenly realm with endless exploration of that unutterable beauty, majesty, love, holiness, power, joy and grace which is God himself.” (Bruce Milne)

Sermon: Healthy Family – The Adventure Begins

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Talk by Christoph Lindner at our 10.30am service on Sunday, 19th January 2020.

This talk is based on 1 Corinthians 1.1-9.

Here is the prayer used at the end:

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

(Attributed to Sir Francis Drake – 1577)

Here are the notes, which were included in the news sheet:

Healthy Family: The Adventure Begins

Today we are starting a new sermon series on being a healthy church family. This is part of our process of renewing our mission plan for the next years. You can listen to sermons again on our website: www.denhamparish.church/blog

Being disciples of Jesus

  • The initiative is with Jesus (“Follow me!”).
  • We don’t know where the adventure will lead, but we know who we are going with.
  • The biblical word for disciples is mathetes, which means ‘those who learn as they follow’ – it’s training on the job!
  • We are called to follow a person, not a philosophy or a set of rules.
  • The adventure is for everyone – not just for the clever, the important, the physically able!
  • Discipleship happens in community – you cannot be a disciple apart from the family of Jesus.
  • Jesus calls his disciples the Body of Christ – his living active presence in the world today.
  • The same Spirit that empowered Jesus now empowers his followers!
  • A sense of urgency: Jesus will come back and our time on earth as his followers is limited.
  • There will be battles and blessings, but following Jesus will be the most fulfilling life possible.

“The need for active, adventurous disciples of Jesus is as urgent as ever. There is a broken world in need of healing, good news to be shared and Kingdom work to be done, all energised by the Spirit so powerfully present at the baptism of Jesus and the birth of the church at Pentecost.” Andrew Roberts

Questions for Reflection

  • How do you feel when you hear Jesus’ words ‘Follow me’? Find a trusted friend to talk with about your thoughts and feelings.
  • Do you know someone who might find the adventure of following Jesus challenging at this time? How can you support him or her?
  • Imagine Denham Parish Church as a sailing boat. Where is the boat at the moment? In the safety of the harbour? Heading out to sea? Caught in a storm? How strongly is the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing through its sails? How could you catch a fresh wind?

Sermon: Do not be afraid

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Talk given by Christoph Lindner at our Sunday service on  29th December 2019.

Sermon: Don’t be idle in sharing your faith

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This sermon was preached by Christoph Lindner on 17th November 2019 at our 10.30 service.

It is based on 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13.

At the end Christoph recommends five steps to avoid idleness in sharing our faith:

  1.  Re-ignite your spiritual life. Regular encounters with God, daily and weekly are key to that. Church services, lifegroup, personal times of prayer and bible reading are a spiritual gym!
  2. Do good work! No idleness! Whatever context you’re in – as a husband, mother, godparent, grandmother, neighbour, work colleague, pupil, bridge club member, pilates class participant: Do good work! That will earn you the respect of those you are with and open the door to friendship:
  3. Be a friend to people, get to know them, be the best neighbour you can be.  Are you making friends with people who are not like you?
  4. Don’t hide the fact that you are a Christian and that you go to church.  If you are open about the fact that you are a Christian, opportunities will arise. They will eventually ask questions! Simple example: How do you answer the question “what did you do this weekend”?
  5. Pray regularly for family, friends and neighbours. That God would open their spiritual eyes. Because only God can do that. You and I are only signposts.

Sermon: Stoop to Enter

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Sermon preached by Christoph Lindner on Sunday 27 October at 10.30am

This sermon is based on Luke 18.9-14.

 

Sermon: Prayer and Politics

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22 September 2019, 10.30am, Christoph Lindner

 

This sermon is based on 1 Timothy 2.1-7.


The booklet “Speak Up”, published by the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, can be downloaded here.