Audio Service for 20 September: Outrageous Grace (Matthew 20)
Preacher: Nnamdi Maduka
Reader: Diane Liston
Tag Archive for: Matthew
Sunday Worship on 28 June
In our series of talk on the big questions of life we will ask: Who am I? What is my identity? Also: Your Fathers’ Day photos! Find all the links mentioned in the service below this video.
Click on the links below:
Watch our Easter Sunday Family Service!
Our Easter Celebration here at Denham Parish Church, which is brimming with Easter Joy.
Download our children’s activity sheet…
Join us for Virtual Coffee after this service from 11.15am here…
Download our current Denham Parish News…
Spring Harvest starts tomorrow – online and free of charge. Download the programme…
Audio Service 12 April (Easter): “I just want to get on with my life!”
This talk is based on Matthew 28.1-10.
The reading is included in the service.
Preacher: Christoph Lindner
Sermon: “40 – God’s Number for Life Change”
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 – Suffering and Sacrifice
Talk by Ian Jennings at our 10.30am service on Sunday, 16th February 2020.
This sermon is based on Matthew 16.24-26 and Romans 8. 18-25.
Here are the notes from the front page of our news sheet:
Healthy Family: This Will Hurt!
By Ian Jennings
When I was sixteen I had a serious car accident. It was the days before compulsory seat belts and I was in the front the passenger seat. I was projected through the wind screen and so suffered a feather fracture of the skull and many lacerations of the scalp. I was rushed to hospital and the surgeon said, ‘I’m going to stitch your scalp back on but I don’t plan to use any anaesthetic – if you can stand the pain it will aid the healing process. But it will hurt!’ He was right – it did! But he was also right in that my scalp did heal quickly.
The experience of discipleship will hurt at times. Jesus said to his disciples, ‘in this world you will have trouble.’ It is unavoidable if we walk the path of true discipleship there will be times when it will hurt. Jesus went on to say, ‘But cheer up because I have overcome the world.’ There will be healing – ultimate and eternal. But as we live out our calling as disciples of Jesus we will experience and suffering and sacrifice. That is part of the deal.
For some the sacrifice is huge and the suffering intense. Sheila Cassidy was arrested and tortured when serving as a missionary in Chile. She went on to be the Director of a Hospice. She wrote a book called Sharing the Darkness. She writes, ‘Right at the heart of the mystery of suffering is the grace that sustains us all, carers and cared for alike. It comes as freely and as surely as the sunrise, piercing the blackness of grief and despair, restoring once again the hope of things unseen.’
Jesus said, ‘if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ Sacrifice is part of the adventure of discipleship. It may take many forms but it will involve moving out of our comfort zones and embracing new challenges. ‘Lord what would you have me to do today,’ is a good place to begin in our morning prayers. We may well be surprised by the opportunities that open up to us as a result. It may hurt as we step out of our comfort zones but it will also bring healing – to us and to others.
And ultimately, as St Paul says, ‘The suffering of this present time is not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.’
Sermon: Healthy Family – The Aims of Discipleship
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 Call to Discipleship
(Due to technical issues the sound quality of this recording is less clear than usually – our apologies!)
Talk by Ian Jennings at our 10.30am service on Sunday, 26th January 2020.
This sermon is based on Matthew 4.12-23.
Here are the notes from the front page of our news sheet:
THE CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP
Ian Jennings
At St Mary’s we are currently looking at the subject of Building a Healthy Church Family. The early followers of Jesus were quick to respond to his call and to embark upon the adventure of discipleship. The subtitle of Alison Morgan’s latest book is, “the Plural of Disciple is Church.” We are in this together; a community of disciples; sharing in the glorious adventure of following Jesus.
I am very unhappy with the ‘pew fodder’ concept of Church life. Andrew Roberts says we sometimes reduce the adventure of discipleship to ‘turning up, shutting up and paying up.’ That is a dull and deadly vision of church and one that is essentially unhealthy. True discipleship is never dull. As a church we need to be Kingdom-focused, and actively engaged in the service of the King. There is an urgency in this call in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. The word, ‘immediately’ crops up. Jesus said ‘follow me’ and ‘immediately they left their nets and followed him.’
True disciples do not graduate from arm chairs! Only doing does it! And not doing does not do it! We may feel inadequate and hesitant and inclined to say, ‘I haven’t got what it takes!’ The good news is that God has got what it takes and is ready to empower us with his Spirit. It is true to say, ‘what I give he takes and what he takes he cleanses and what he cleanses he fills and what he fills he uses.’
Let us respond wholeheartedly to the urgent call of discipleship as we move forward into 2020.
“I have grown up believing in God and I believe that being an England international and a lawyer has not just happened by accident. I am a person who has a relationship with God, and it’s a very active one. So whether I’m having my breakfast, driving, stood on the pitch or about to take a penalty, I will be praying, or in my mind speaking to God.”
Eniola Aluko, former professional footballer with 102 caps for England’s women’s team
Sermon: Are you ready for the arrival of the king?
This sermon was preached by Ian Jennings at St Mary’s Church on Sunday 8 December.
The talk is based on Matthew 3.1-10.