Habakkuk is a prophetic response to crisis, and in the first section of his prophecy, he shows us the response of faith: how to wait for God’s judgment, knowing that we will be found righteous on the basis of our trust in Him.
Eight Reasons for Christmas | LIGHT OF THE WORLD | Hebrews 2:5-18 by King's Church London
We all have a light: a source of hope we turn to when all around us is darkness? What’s yours? And is it bright enough?
In a gloomy time with invasion imminent, Isaiah proclaims a message for God’s people of light shining in the midst of darkness. A message of hope. A message of Immanuel – God being with us. Joe Macnamara helps us take a look at that today, knowing that this message is as needed now as it ever was.
The Light Shines in the Darkness | LIGHT OF THE WORLD | Genesis 1:1-5 by King's Church London
People can go in one of two directions when it comes to spiritual warfare: either can get obsessed with demonic powers, or we can ignore him altogether. Paul gives us a better way forward, and as he closes Ephesians, he teaches us how to fight the devil.
When Paul talks about being “filled with the Spirit”, he mentions four ways in which that happens – and the one he spends the most time on is submission. Why? How does yielding to one another in families and workplaces help our spirituality? And so what?
When we become Christians, God expects our lives to be shaped by His standards and not the environment around us. This daily process requires us to renew our minds, putt off our old self and put on our new life in Christ, and live as children of light.
Many people in the world today want unity, rather than division, but aren’t sure how to find it. In this message Andrew looks at how Paul urged his disciples to reach for it, by pursuing humility, centrality, diversity and maturity.
In Ephesians 3 Paul explains his calling to make plain the mystery that the gentiles are included and how the church is a demonstration of Gods manifold wisdom. Once Paul has described this grand vision he prays that Christians will be empowered to know Gods love – we can’t achieve this in our own strength we can’t share love we haven’t first received.
Racial reconciliation begins in the Church, because that is where we find salvation based on grace and not works, and because reconciliation is based on Christ’s blood rather than ours. But there is a lot of work to do.
Grace is probably the single biggest difference between Christianity and every other way of seeing the world. Here, Paul explains what has happened to us in Christ, and why it is based not on our works, but on God who is rich in mercy.
Phil spoke out of the second half of Ephesians 1 when Paul prays for the Ephesians Christians. We see in this passage both the centrality for prayer for Paul, together with the main emphasis of his prayer life: namely that his friends would know God more. The passage is profoundly challenging when it comes to our own prayer life – both in terms of how seriously we take prayer, along with the content of our prayer life.
Vision Sunday – October 2020 | VISION SUNDAY | Acts 19:1,8-10 by King's Church London
No letter in history has such a happy opening as Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In just two sentences, Paul gives us at least five reasons to rejoice – and all of them are true regardless of our circumstances, because we are in Christ.
Guest speaker Tope Koleoso, lead Pastor at Jubilee Church London, has a powerful message for all of us on this crucial subject, which is part of our ongoing response to awareness around race. The message is thoroughly Biblical and full of grace, with a challenge at the end for all of us to be missionaries to the world, demonstrating the love of God.
We all have a need for connection and community – it’s how we were created. And throughout the New Testament there are encouragements to gather together, encourage one another and pray with/for each other. In this Zoom conversation, Phil Varley, our Senior Associate Pastor, together with Cindy, Annie and Charles (current/former Pastors at King’s), discuss these importance subjects, which are the focus of this term’s Ephesians groups. We’d encourage and invite everyone to be part of a group at Ki...
After thirty-five chapters of human answers to the problem of evil, God finally speaks. But instead of providing the expected answers, he gives a series of totally unexpected questions – and there is huge comfort for us in that.
Pain and suffering inevitably come to us all, and why we suffer is a question that has baffled theologians over the years. There are ultimately no easy answers, and rather than spending our lives trying to discover why we are suffering, let’s spend it getting to know the God who knows.
The book of Job takes us behind the scenes to the darker side of suffering where Satan, the adversary, is at work. The good news is that despite his efforts, Satan remains on a leash, God’s wisdom reigns supreme and Christ, as the wisdom of God, walks with us through our suffering and allows us to live victorious lives.
In some ways, human philosophy involves a continuous cycle of order and chaos. In the final chapter of Ecclesiastes, Solomon speaks into this cycle, and points us to the power of speaking and keeping the words of God.
We live in a world where we need time – it helps with our rhythms of life in this world but we also need eternity, because God has placed it in our hearts, and it reflects the fact that we know we are not ultimately destined for this life alone, and nothing points to that more than the God of eternity who stepped into time, at just the right time.
Wisdom is not just about how to make good decisions in our everyday lives. It also involves thinking clearly about the big questions of life, death, time, eternity, order, chaos, suffering and hope. Ecclesiastes hits these issues head on, and it begins by reminding us that everything is “vapour”, and that life under the sun is just shepherding the wind.
As humans made in the image of God, we will always place our trust in something. God’s wisdom in Proverbs 3, however, calls us to trust in the Lord always with all of our heart. Moses looks at what that means in practice and how the Lord Jesus is our ultimate hope in achieving this.
Phil Varley, our Senior Associate Pastor, speaks out of Proverbs 4:23 and the exaltation to "Guard your heart because it is the wellspring of life." He explained that to guard your heart means to value, attend to, surrender it, which leads to a strengthened heart and a heart which knows we are accepted.
As lockdown restrictions ease and we can spend more time together in small groups, wisdom is required for how we connect with one another and develop friendships with each other. Charles Kimbangi, who leads our Beckenham site, explores wise ways to connect with others, build friendships and put our trust in God.
Last Sunday Phil Varley challenged us to give thought to our ways. But what happens when we’ve tried to be wise and we still get overcome by trouble, we still fall? How do we find a way to rise? We take care of one another, we take refuge in God and we take a step of faith. Using Proverbs 24 and the Biblical stories of Ruth and Peter we will find strength and encouragement to walk through troubles.
The world needs people who build wise lives, who are careful about the steps and the choices of their lives. In this message, Phil Varley, our Senior Associate Pastor, shares six aspects of living thoughtful, wise lives: the need to STOP, to LISTEN, to PRAY; the need for OPENNESS; the need to CHOOSE and the need to TRUST.
King’s is committed to building a diverse, ‘Ephesians 2’ church community and in this message Steve Tibbert, our Senior Pastor, addresses the issue of racism, the Gospel and the Church. He encourages us to be quick to listen, to be learners, to speak out in our spheres of influence, and to help us build an ‘Ephesians 2’ church.
None of us wants to be anxious, but it sometimes creeps up on us anyway. What do we do with our anxiety when it comes? Andrew Wilson, our Teaching Pastor, continues our new series, Wisdom for Life – Lessons from Proverbs.
