Urban Vineyard

In this third sermon in our new teaching series, Lloyd opens up various parts of the Bible to show how we can discover our identity as steward's (rather than owners) of God's abundant resources. He makes the case that as we live into our identity as stewards, we discover freedom from being "possessed by our possessions." Lloyd encourages us to consider our role as stewards of time, money and energy, and to see these three resources as being there for us to put to use to bless the poor, the support the church, and to advance the gospel.

In this follow on sermon from last week, Jonathan returns again to Jesus' "difficult" words about our blindness to greed and our need to learn how to live open handedly when it comes to sowing for the kingdom. While it is true that some giving produces a clear and direct feedback loop of receiving, there is another kind of giving which the Bible affirms; one which is shocking and scary – the scattering of gifts – and yet when we look at the life of Jesus we see that this too is a path toward "the life that is truly life" (1 Tim 6:19). He wont lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on us, and yet at the same time he holds out his hand and says follow me into places where we would not ordinarily go.

In this opening sermon in our new series on God's generosity, Jonathan reflects on Jesus' teaching in Luke 12:13-34 and its grounding in the creation narrative. He concludes by challenging us to open our lives up to become participants in God's generous flow of gifts in the world.

In the conclusion of our series on Jesus' upside-down kingdom, we look at Paul's final instructions to be made strong in the Lord and to take up his armour so we can stand against the schemes of the enemy.

In this sermon, Lloyd (following the apostle Paul) reminds us of the core elements of the life of discipleship – prayer, worship, and witness.

Ephesians 4:1-16

Ephesians 3:2-13

As part of our intergenerational service, and as part of the Season of Creation, we spent some time in our worship out of the building cleaning the streets. Here Jonathan offers a very short message explaining why this is a distinctly Christian thing to do.

Ephesians 2:11-22

Carrying on in our series, Pete brings us into the letter to the Ephesians, exploring the opening lines and showing what a rich inheritance we have in Jesus. With this gospel of grace, Pete reminds us the Father has planned it all, the Son has paid for it all, and the Spirit applies it all. Hallelujah.

Jonathan continues our series on the nature of Jesus' upside-down kingdom by looking at the opening and closing remarks in Paul's letter to the Colossians.

Pete begins our new series by exploring the radical way of reconciliation in Paul's letter to Philemon.

For Pentecost Sunday, Lloyd grounds the story of Acts 2 in the bigger story of God's redemptive work and encourages us to desire more of the Spirit's work in our lives.

Pete concludes our ascension series by looking at how Jesus acts as king, and what it means to live the adventure of faith as we follow him and seek his kingdom today.

In his earthly ministry, Jesus functioned in the mode of a prophet. In his ascension, he continues to act as a prophet to us, calling us out of patterns of existence where we try to live self-protected and overly controlling lives. Jonathan offers an example of how Jesus acted as a prophet by looking at Jesus' encounter with the rich young man in Mark 10. In doing so, he draws out lessons for us in terms of how we can learn to let go of our need for control and to enter into the kingdom of God with our hand held safely by Jesus, our loving lord and saviour.

In this sermon, Anne show how Jesus both teaches and demonstrates the God-honoring, life-giving attitude toward servant leadership. She makes the point that while this attitude must undergird any of our leadership endeavors, it does not provide guidance on what it means to lead or what we should be leading toward. For that, it is helpful to understand the human experience as a combination of two axes, our capacity for meaningful action (authority) and our exposure to meaningful risk (vulnerability). The flourishing life that God invites us into is “up and to the right”: the quadrant where high authority is coupled with high risk. However, we tend to find ourselves in other quadrants, requiring strong leadership to guide us into the flourish quadrant. In particular, starting with Adam and Eve, we grasp for control (high authority/low vulnerability), including independence from God. Yet, in doing so, we not only set ourselves on a fast track towards death, we also lose the relationship with God that empowers us to take meaningful, life-giving, lasting action (suffering: low authority/high vulnerability). As High Priest, Jesus leads us out of the suffering of our own making, first by his death that breaks the power of sin that drives us to seek control and then by inviting us to confidently draw near to his throne of grace, knowing that he is intimately familiar with our suffering and is eager to empower us in our weakness (Hebrews 4:16). And we, as his royal priesthood here on earth (1 Peter 2:9) participate as Jesus leads them into the flourishing life by embodying his sympathy that invites people to draw near and receive grace and mercy from us, that they may build confidence to draw near to Jesus on his throne of grace.

Jonathan reads from John 20:19-31 and reflects on the way Jesus disregarded the doors his disciples had hidden themselves behind in an effort to preserve their fragile lives.The disciples were quite rightly afraid of what the Jewish leaders might do to them; they had seen what happened to their master only a few days earlier. Hiding behind big locked doors seemed the only sensible thing to do. But then, in a sudden and inexplicable way, Jesus appeared among them and said "peace be with you."His peace was not a Pollyanna-ish "relax guys, it's not that bad, everything will work out just fine" kind of peace. It was the peace that came from a visible display of death's inability to touch the indestructible life of God. The scars and wounds were evidence of death's impotence. Jesus' scars are the high-tide mark of evil; Life has risen above it.Jesus was not unscathed by death, but he was not defeated by it either. Holding out his scarred hands was his way of saying to the disciples, "Look! There is no person, no system, no illness, no failure, no disaster, no power or dominion, no circumstance or loss that can take away the kind of life that lives in me!" And then he breathed on the disciples and sent them out to bear witness to the indestructible life of God that now lived in them. A week later, in a wonderfully relatable kind of anticlimax, the disciples were back behind a locked door. Did Jesus come to scold them? Perhaps we think he should have. We certainly scold and condemn ourselves for such faithlessness. Did Jesus tell them "I am so disappointed in you"? No, he once again walked right through their fictitious "doors" and spoke peace to their fear, reminding them again – it's all true. How often do we find ourselves locked behind big doors in an attempt to preserve our life? Or to change the metaphor slightly, how often do we find ourselves banging on locked doors trying to get them to open so we can shelter safely inside? Doors to rooms that say "successful career", "perfect marriage", "impeccable reputation", "promotion and pay rise", "the right school", "the right crowd"... How much our life is a struggle to get a foot in the door? A struggle for survival? And as we work and sweat and hustle to sure up the gap between inside and outside, again and again we find Jesus standing there beside us saying, "that peace you are looking for? You won't find it in there. It's here with me.""I am the door. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture." – John 10:9

On Easter morning, Jonathan offers some reflections on our hope of resurrection, encouraging us to see how our little deaths and resurrections find their ultimate fulfilment in Jesus' death and resurrection.

Jonathan concludes our lenten series with a reflection on why we still hold palms on Palm Sunday, how they represent our incomprehension of the sheer magnitude of God's grace, and how, as the palm leaf becomes a cross, we catch a glimpse of our true desire.

Lloyd offers the final reflection on the baptism and testing of Jesus in the wilderness focussing on how we can learn to respond like Jesus to the common temptations that we all face by utilising particular spiritual disciplines/practices.