http://www.farnhambaptist.org.uk Farnham Baptist Church Podcasts en Farnham Baptist Church Podcasts Farnham Baptist Church no Farnham Baptist Church Sermons office@farnhambaptist.org ℗ & © 2010 Farnham Baptist Church 720 Most of us can think of someone we admire; someone we'd really like to emulate. It might be a sportsman, businessman, campaigner or someone in our family - father or mother perhaps. Whoever they are, it's unlikely that they'd fit the description given by Paul in verses 1 to 9 of this chapter. The Godless behaviours he describes stand in sharp contrast to Timothy as Paul declares "you, however..." have seen the way Paul behaves, displaying the values of his master, Jesus. We should be very careful who we pick to be our role models. Like Paul, they should display Godly characteristics, and we should hold them in high regard. If you find yourself being influenced by someone whose behaviour falls short, you should give serious consideration to ending that relationship. We should not only consider who is mentoring us, but who sees us as a mentor... starting with our children and those close to us. http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/value-mentors http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/value-mentors.mp3 Sun, 15 Aug 2010 20:47:21 GMT John Ross Living in the last days - 2 Timothy values,behaviours,mentor This sermon was given at the baptism of Emma Pallant... Some people have more confidence than others. Some famous people have declared supreme confidence in their own abilities: Mohammad Ali "I am the greatest", Brian Clough "I am always right", Socrates "I am the wisest man alive", Chesney Hawkes "I am the one and only". Sometimes confidence is a good thing. Sportsmen need strong self confidence if they are to succeed at the highest levels. However, the reverse can be a bad thing: misplaced self-confidence can lead us seriously astray. One example of this aflicts many people, who believe that God is really quite pleased with them, that their goodness puts them in good standing with God. However, God makes it clear in the Bible that nothing we can do, no matter how good, will be good enough to off-set the seriousness of our sinful condition. Nothing we can do will put us right with God. Only faith in Jesus gives us confidence before God. Where is your confidence in your standing before God? If it's in anything other than faith in Jesus, it's a misplaced confidence and you seriously need to reconsider. http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/righteous-confidence http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/righteous-confidence.mp3 Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:18:52 GMT Jonathan Shulver This sermon was given at the baptism of Emma Pallant... Some people have more confidence than others. Some famous people have declared supreme confidence in their own abilities: Mohammad Ali "I am the greatest", Brian Clough "I am ... confidence,faith,jesus Psalm 8 is a wonderful hymn of praise to God, the awesome creator of an awesome creation. David muses on the magnificence of God's work and expresses his amazement that God should choose to place this creation under the governance of Man. David asks "what is Man" that he should be entrusted in this way. We need not to look at ourselves to find the answer to this question, but to make sense of life, of ourselves and our place in the Universe, if we place God first. If we understand how we relate to God and come to know Him for ourselves, then we'll get the answer as David did. The first way to study Man, is to understand who and what is God. http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/crown-of-creation http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/crown-of-creation.mp3 Sun, 08 Aug 2010 21:16:26 GMT Alec McIlhinney Psalm 8 is a wonderful hymn of praise to God, the awesome creator of an awesome creation. David muses on the magnificence of God's work and expresses his amazement that God should choose to place this creation under the governance of Man. David asks ... nature_of_god,nature_of_man We begin a new series this morning, looking at 2 Timothy 3. This first nine verses has quite a negative aspect. Later on we'll look at the contrasts with the "but you". You and I probably have a particular view of the world around us. Some time ago there was a predominant view, which has since changed. Which way is the right way? How do we know what is the right way? The Bible can help give us a proper perspective, giving God's view of the world as it is; not just as it was in 1st Century Asia Minor, but also in 21st Century Farnham. Paul warns Timothy about the dreadful condition of mankind during the current times, between the coming of Jesus and His future return, when we will no longer be able to preach the Gospel. In these times there are false teachers who have an appearence of faith, but whose appearence is only skin deep. Are your prayers filled with God jargon, bubbling over with enthusiasm, but the details of your life fail to display Godliness? Paul is showing how far we get from God when He is not at the centre of our lives; when love of self replaces love of God. Beware of religion that is rich in form and verbal profession, but where the transformed life is absent! How then do we avoid this empty religion? We need to hold onto the truth revealed in the Gospels, and to find and follow Godly examples. More on this next week! http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/terrible-times http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/terrible-times.mp3 Sun, 08 Aug 2010 20:47:05 GMT John Ross Living in the last days - 2 Timothy 2_timothy_3,false_religion The psalms are arranged in 5 books, each one ending in a doxology (a hymn of praise and honour to God). These are seen to reflect the first five books of the Bible, the Jewish Torah. Psalms are laid out as poetry, to be sung. They give us instructions, but they also speak to our emotions. The message of Psalm 1 is that there are only two ways to live. There is no middle way; only the godly way or the ungodly way. We are to be careful not to be influenced by the wicked or ungodly, but by godly people. That is, we are not to delight in the ways of the ungodly; taking care not to let them affect our lives, as the way of the wicked brings emptiness. To the contrary, we are to completely embrace the influence of the Lord. The fight between these two ways is won by DELIGHT. We can (and must) choose between the two ways. Be careful to be influenced by God's word and by godly people, lest you be ensnared by the ways of the wicked... http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/delighting-in-god http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/delighting-in-god.mp3 Sun, 01 Aug 2010 20:50:15 GMT John Ross The psalms are arranged in 5 books, each one ending in a doxology (a hymn of praise and honour to God). These are seen to reflect the first five books of the Bible, the Jewish Torah. Psalms are laid out as poetry, to be sung. They give us ... two_ways_to_live,godly,ungodly,delight Over the last few weeks we've been reminded of the basics of the Gospel; of how God is the good Creator, creating us to live under His rule; how we've all rejected God's rule and how because of that we're living under His right and good Judgement. We thought last week of the message of Grace that the Lord Jesus came as a sinless, perfect man to take the punishment that was rightly ours on Himself and we rejoiced in that. In John 19:30 Jesus declares that "it is finished"; that is, the work of atonement was finished. As we look around us at all the sin, pain, sufferng and death in the world, people often ask whether it is really finished, whether Jesus really did deal with sin all that time ago? Where do we go when we feel that our sin is just too great, that we are too polluted and beyond forgiveness? We go to an empty tomb, to the resurrection of Jesus. This is what we will be considering tonight. http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/the-risen-ruler-and-the-choice-we-all-face http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/the-risen-ruler-and-the-choice-we-all-face.mp3 Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:16:35 GMT Jonathan Shulver Two Ways to Live resurrection,atonement Have you ever experienced a drastic, surprising change in your life? The situation in the Norther Kingdoms in 824 BC would have seemed very familiar to the people of Chad in 1974. Subject to frequent armed raids from neighbouring countries, they often had to flee for their lives. Such was the situation for Terry's friend, who somehow death escaped in a hail of bullets as he fled across a bridge on a motorbike. Back in 824 BC Ben-Hadad, king of Aram wanted to depose the king of Israel, but every trap he laid was revealed through the prophesy of Elisha. Desperate to stop him, Ben-Hadad bizarrely set out to capture Elisha. How did he ever imagine he'd succeed? God granted spiritual sight to Elisha's servant to show him the heavenly warriors arrayed against the raiders, just as He subsequently 'blinded' the minds of the raiding party, enabling Elisha to lead them right into the heart of the fortress city of Samaria, where they are at the mercy of the King of Israel. Here, Elisha prevents their almost inevitable slaughter, instead feeding them and then allowing them to return home to Aram. This act of grace and mercy demonstrated God's character and affirmed that they had been captured by God, not Man. Just as God has power to give and to take away 'sight', so later when Jesus taught using parables, insight and wisdom was granted to some, while the truth was hidden from others. Returning to Chad, some years after the conflict in 1974, Terry's friend met one of the men who had been shooting at him as he escaped. As he remarked on his amazing escape, the other man said he wasn't surprised, given the mass of soldiers surrounding him on the bridge. Terry's friend had seen no-one else with them on the bridge. If God is for us, who can stand against us? http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/blinding-success http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/blinding-success.mp3 Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:25:52 GMT Terry Boyle Elisha: God's Messenger elisha,ben-hadad,spiritual_sight The events related in the book of Elisha are not arranged chronologically, but in order to draw attention to specific messages. Today's passage is positioned for maximum impact on the Jewish readers of the day. In contrast to Gehazi's deceitful behaviour, Naaman has been transformed by God's Grace; his heart has been changed from the arrogant hero of Aram to someone calling himself a servant of Elisha. In Luke 4, Jesus remarks that of the many people with leprosy in Israel at that time, only Naaman was cleansed. The people of Israel might have known their scripture and followed the rules, but it was a hollow sham, exposed by Gehazi's self-seeking greed. God's Grace to Naaman should have been without cost, but Gehazi abscured this fundamental fact, polluting God's Grace in so doing. As reward for his actions, Gehazi receives the leprosy of which Naaman had been cleansed; he loses God's Grace. Q. Are you someone who knows the theory, attends church regularly, but doesn't have faith? Don't let God's Grace pass you by! http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/the-danger-of-rewards http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/the-danger-of-rewards.mp3 Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:28:05 GMT Jonathan Shulver Elisha: God's Messenger grace,faith,naaman,gehazi Last week we ek we saw how the Judgement of a just God is a really good thing! It gives us comfort when facing injustice, BUT, since we are all tainted with sin that leaves us all facing a "guilty" verdict. The problem is that we have a loving God, and not just a loving God, but a loving and JUST God. He cannot ignore our sin, forgive us and leave us unpunished. Somehow, our sin needs to be dealt with, but how? God's outrageous plan needed a perfect solution. A man would take the punishment for the sin of Man; not just any man, but one without sin. What heart, what love; for our loving, just God to provide the solution to sin. Isn't that unfair? God punishing some innocent 3rd party? NO, because He was taking the punishment on Himself, as part of the Trinity. Doesn't that mean I can keep on sinning? Yes - AND NO! God's Grace means that our sin IS continually forgiven, BUT if we see the reality of our sin and rejection of God, then we will no longer feel compelled to sin. Even if we get it wrong, we will be trusting in God and the amazing sacrifice of Jesus and so, in Faith we will be saved. We have a God who has rescued us, requiring nothing more than that we accept this salvation to our hearts. http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/the-man-who-died-for-rebels http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/the-man-who-died-for-rebels.mp3 Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:51:19 GMT Philip Sweeting Two Ways to Live salvation,grace,justice,love Tonight we're looking at the thorny topic of Judgement. Think about justice; about how emotive it is; about how INjustice is felt so keenly. How wonderful to know that God is just! However much we care about justice, we often have misconceptions. 2 Thessalonians helps correct some of these. 1. God's timescale is much bigger than ours. His Grace stays His hand to give us every chance to repent and turn to Him. 2. God's justice fits the crime; we will get what we ask for if we turn our back on God, the giver of life: we will get death. 3. God's justice is permanent - the choice we make will have eternal consequences. 4. God's justice leads His people to praise; His true and just judgements cause His people to praise Him. 5 Will not the Judge of all the World do right? God's answer to our Sin (rejection of Him) is Judgement, leading to our eternal death. Are you ready for it? What do you choose? http://www.sermoncloud.com/farnham-baptist-church/god-gives-us-what-we-ask-for http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1592/god-gives-us-what-we-ask-for.mp3 Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:19:35 GMT Philip Sweeting Two Ways to Live judgement,justice