Church in the Peak Podcast

20th May 2012 - Phil Hardy - Compassion

Church in the Peak — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:16:00 +0100

Phil spoke from Matthew 9:35-38 on Jesus’s compassion.

Further notes and questions may follow in due course.

13th May 2012 - Dave Harper - Matthew The Tax Collector

Church in the Peak — Sun, 13 May 2012 18:12:00 +0100

Matthew 9:9-13; 10:2-8

Matthew, a traitor gathering taxes for an occupying army, becomes a follower of Jesus provoking the spiritually proud Pharisees to criticise and judge the actions of Jesus. He sums it up like this: only those who know they are (spiritually) sick need a doctor to heal them. Those who see themselves as well do not need Jesus the physician. They are righteous in their own eyes, self-righteous, therefore condemned. The self-righteous always end up judging others – they do not have mercy in their heart.

Jesus gets to the pith of it with this ‘go and learn what this means – I desire mercy not sacrifice’. They were good at sacrifices and outwardly doing the right thing but no good at mercy. They had to learn about mercy because this is what God is looking for.

Matthew receives mercy, just as Paul received mercy (1 Tim 1:13-16). Mercy is motivated by love and compassion and leads to action. James says mercy triumphs over judgement and results in action (James 2:16).

Compassion and mercy is expressed in many ways and is at the heart of Jesus’ command to ‘GO’

Questions

The Pharisees get bad press in the gospels. The apostle Paul was one of the worst before his conversion. Read 1 Timothy 1:13-16.
. What was Paul like before he met Jesus, why do you think he was like that?
. Why did Jesus show him mercy?
. What does it mean to ‘receive mercy’? What affect did it have on Matthew the tax collector?

. What is the essence of mercy? What does it mean for God to be merciful? What does it mean for you to be merciful? To whom? – do you have prejudice against any sorts of people?

. Hebrews 4:16 speaks of receiving mercy, why can we approach God with such confidence for his mercy?

File Download (41:00 min / 11 MB)

6th May 2012 - Neal Garratt - No One Likes Lukewarm Water

Church in the Peak — Sun, 06 May 2012 15:18:00 +0100

Neal spoke from Revelation 2:1-7 about the letter sent to the church in Ephesus about the need for us to remember our first love.

Before we “GO” we need to know where we have come from and what a great salvation we have – we need to be passionate about our product and belive in it wholeheartedly!

Today we looked at Revelation 2 vs 1-7 and asked the question have we lost our first love? The Church is challenged as they are doing many things right, working hard,pesrevering, resisting sin,examining false doctrine and enduring hardship and yet they this is not enough as they have left their first love.

We looked at Matthew 22 vs 37 where the pharisees were tring to catch Jesus out by asking him what the greatest commandment was to which he replied ” To love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul” – Probablt=y not the answer they were expecting – we looked at what they might have expected him to say and realised that serving with all our might, or praying with all our might (which the Pharisses could do) is not what he wants – He wants us to love him – Based on relationship and not the law, or service or rote.

The challenge for us all is have we lost our first love? If we have there are three clear reminders of what to do:

. Remember where you have come from and what it was like initially
. Repent
. Return to our first love

If we don`t Jesus tell us that our light will be dimmed and in the worse case will go out altogether.

We also looked at Luke 7 vs 36-48 the story of the prostitute who wiped Jesus feel with the expensive perfume – This is love and Jesus says to her at the ewnd – He who has been forgiven much – loves much, How much have we been forgiven?

Questions:

1. What makes us lose our first love? Is this inevitable do you think?

2. The quote I used today was ” When we first get saved we have enthusiam without knowledge, do we now have knowledge without enthusiasm? Both are needed if we are to keep our love for God intense and untarnished. Do you love God with the same fervour as when you were a new Christian?”
Do you agree – and does that help us in getting the balace right?

3. Remember, repent and return – Helpful advice? How difficult is it to be wholehearted for God and what stops us?

File Download (35:00 min / 10 MB)

29th April 2012 - Phil Hardy - Healing

Church in the Peak — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:54:00 +0100

Phil preached from Acts 2:42-3:16 about the place of healing in mission-focused work.

Further notes and questions may follow in due course.

File Download (46:00 min / 13 MB)

22nd April 2012 - Peter Williams - Just Desert?

Church in the Peak — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:34:00 +0100

Peter spoke from Exodus 12 and 14 about hearing from God in the wilderness.

Use the link at the bottom to view the PowerPoint presentation Peter used. File is available as PowerPoint or PDF. [If viewing the PDF version, you may want to right-click the link and choose ‘Open in new tab/window’ otherwise it will replace this page.]

Questions
. If you find yourself in the desert, what type of response do you make? (Blame it on the weatherman, Just Desserts, or Just Desert?)
. How do you deal with your desert experiences?
. How do you draw close to God?

Peter's "Just Desert?" PowerPoint :: View the PowerPoint presentation that Peter refers to in his talk.
Peter's "Just Desert?" PDF :: View a PDF version of the presentation that Peter refers to in his talk. [You may want to right-click the link and choose 'Open in new tab/window', otherwise it will replace this page.]

File Download (35:00 min / 11 MB)

15th April 2012 - Neal Garratt - What Is A Cubit Anyway?

Church in the Peak — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:09:00 +0100

Neal spoke from the familiar story of David and Goliath to remind us that:

1) We must trust in the Lord our God;
2) If we stand up for God, he will stand up for us;
3) We should see things from the spiritual perspective, not the worldly one;
4) We should not expect God’s answer to our problems to be obvious; and
5) Our strength will not win against the Goliath’s in our lives.

[A cubit is approx 18-21 inches long, the length of a person’s forearm from his elbow to his fingertips.]

Neal and Julia, with the help of a monkey, practically demonstrated roughly how tall Goliath would have been. Please use the link below to see for yourself. [You may want to right-click the file and choose the “Open in in new tab/window” option.]

How tall was Goliath? :: Goliath was approx 9ft 9in tall. See roughly how tall that is with the help of Neal, Julia and a Monkey. [You may want to right-click the file and choose the "Open in new tab/window" option.]

File Download (41:00 min / 11 MB)

8th April 2012 - Andy Sewell - New Life (Easter Sunday Service)

Church in the Peak — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:19:00 +0100

Happy Easter

Andy used John 3:16 and his testimony to explain that God gives us new life because he loves us.

File Download (20:00 min / 6 MB)

1st April 2012 - Dave Newman - Keeping The Love Of God

Church in the Peak — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:32:00 +0100

Dave spoke from Jude, looking at things that we need to do to keep the love of God, including walking in reverence and fear of God.

File Download (30:00 min / 8 MB)

25th March 2012 - Phil Hardy - Living Devoted Lives Under Pressure

Church in the Peak — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:30:00 +0100

Phil continues the theme of living devoted lives by looking at how to live devoted lives when we are under pressue. Phil talks about three occasions where Peter gave in to the pressure of the situation.

Phil looked at:

1) the time Peter acknowledges Jesus as the Christ and then, moments later, is used by the Devil to say that Jesus must not die – see Mark 8:27-33.

2) the three times Peter denies Jesus after his arrest and before the cockrel crows – see Matthew 26:69-75.

3) the time when Peter says that he won’t eat with the new Gentile believers – see Galations 2:11-14

File Download (45:00 min / 13 MB)

18th March 2012 - Gill Harper - Celebrating Mothers

Church in the Peak — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:13:00 +0000

Gill spoke about the joys and challenges of mothering and motherhood at our special “Celebrating Mothers” service.

During the talk, Gill played the “The Mom Song”. Use the link below to watch the video on You Tube. Gill also read extracts from “The 60 Minute Mother” by Rob Parsons.

The Mom Song :: Watch "The Mom Song" (written and performed by Anita Renfroe) that Gill played during her talk. You may want to right-click the link and select "Open target in new window".

File Download (30:00 min / 8 MB)