Partakers Christian Podcasts

Easter Part 2 - Jesus' Final Prayers

Part 2: Jesus' Final Prayers

“Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said: Father, it's time. Display the bright splendour of your Son So the Son in turn may show your bright splendour. You put him in charge of everything human so he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge. And this is the real and eternal life: That they know you, the one and only true God, And Jesus Christ, whom you sent. I glorified you on earth by completing down to the last detail what you assigned me to do. And now, Father, glorify me with your very own splendour, the very splendour I had in your presence before there was a world. (John 17:1-5)

Yesterday we learnt about Jesus’ final teaching – teaching his disciples about the Kingdom and his going back to the Father via the cross. Now, Jesus quite rightly now turns to prayer. Let’s look together at what Jesus prays, recorded for us in John 17.

This prayer is probably the pinnacle of revelation in John’s gospel. Here we see Jesus’ very words, revealing an unparalleled intimacy with His Father.
1. Jesus prays for Himself (John 17:1-5)
2. Jesus prays for His disciples (John 17:6-19)
3. Jesus prays for all Disciples to come (John 17:20-26)

This scene, as portrayed by John, shows the importance of prayer and how when doing anything for the glory of God, it must be covered in prayer.

If the world sees Christian Disciples loving others sacrificially, then unity is seen and it is an effective witness to the reality of reconciliation with God, and a vibrant living relationship with Him. It is also imperative that prayer covers all the work of the church and the Christian – prayer is the foundation and the backbone, just as prayer was the strengthener for Jesus as He faced the cross. Without praying so earnestly that he sweated drops of blood, do you think He could have maintained the cross and its supreme significance for humanity?

Come! Download and listen to the podcast to find out more regarding Jesus' Final Prayers.

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Easter Part 1 - Jesus' Final Teaching

Part 1: Jesus' Final Teaching

“But now I am going back to the Father who sent me, and none of you asks me where I am going. You are very sad from hearing all of this. But I tell you that I am going to do what is best for you. That is why I am going away. The Holy Spirit cannot come to help you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you.” (John 16:5-7)

In these last few chapters before He is crucified, Jesus is saying goodbye to His disciples and giving them some final teaching before He departs. Several times the Gospel writer records that Jesus has told them He is going away (John 13:33; John 14:3-4, 19, 28). Let’s look together at what Jesus teaches his disciples!

1. Disciples must bear fruit for the kingdom! (John 15:1-16)
2. Disciples will have opposition (John 15:17-27)
3. Disciples will have resources in the Kingdom (John 16)

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The Story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

People meeting Jesus

The story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer...

Today we look at the story of perhaps one of the greatest Saints of the 20th Century church - Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His books and writings have never been more influential than they are today. His fight to stand for the cause of Christ cost him his life. We do well to honour and remember him as an example to us all. Come and listen to his story of faith...

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Saturday Story - Richard

Saturday Story

People meeting Jesus 

A story of Richard

We continue apace into the twentieth century and hear the story of salvation and healing coming to the life of Richard.

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Saturday Story - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Story

of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

Today we hear the story of perhaps one of the greatest Saints of the 20th Century church - Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His books and writings have never been more influential than they are today. His fight to stand for the cause of Christ cost him his life. We do well to honour and remember him as an example to us all. Come and listen to his story of faith...

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God Loves You And Me

 

God Loves You

God loves you. Let me say that again. God loves you. Isn’t that amazing? God loves you. It doesn’t matter what you have done, what you haven’t done – God loves you. God loves you irrespective of your gender, your sexuality, your marital status or none, your age, your culture, your background, who ever you are, what ever you have done. It remains a fact. God loves you. He is beckoning you to love Him in return. He wants you to be in relationship with Him. Nothing you can do will make Him love you more than He already does. Perhaps the most famous sentence in the whole world is this:

“For God so loved the world, that He gave is one and only Son, so that who ever believed in Him would have everlasting life.”  John 3:16.

You can choose to have that life right now and accept God’s love for you. God won’t force you to love Him in return, because if He forced you, that wouldn’t be love. God’s love is compelling but it is not coercion. Once you accept His love and enter into a loving relationship with Him, be prepared to be transformed into a much better person. I look back over the 40 years since I started my relationship with Him, and I am so glad I am transformed from that time and that in the future I will be transformed even more.  I can’t promise in what areas He will want to transform you, but He is reliable and will help you. He will come and live inside you. God loves you. I can’t promise their won’t be hard times for you, but God will be with you through what ever it is you go through – each second of each minute of each hour of each day. God is seeking you out to return His love. Will you not do that now before it is too late?

 

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Merry Christmas - Thought For The Day - The Birth of Jesus

The birth of Jesus – Partakers Christmas Bible Thought

Merry Christmas to you and to your family and friends where ever you are in this world! This is Christ’s Mass. Christmas is about God sending ‘his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.’ ‘The Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.’ (1 John 4:9, 14). Christmas is about incarnation. We will look further at what that word means after some readings from the Bible.

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. (Luke 2:1-7)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-14)

 

That Jesus was a human male is not really disputable with much archaeological and historical evidence about Him. There is more evidence for Jesus than there is for Julius Caesar. The birth of Jesus is extraordinary at every level. Come and listen to find our more!

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Testimony - Why I am a Christian

Why I am a Christian!

The Apostle John, writing in 1 John 5:9-12 - "We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."

Why Is It So?

A testimony is an assertion offering firsthand authentication of a fact. For the Christian Disciple, classically it is generally expressed as how they became a Christian Disciple. But I think it is more than just how, and should expressly include why you are a Christian Disciple. I wonder what is your testimony about how you became a Christian Disciple? When was the last time you thanked our God for your testimony? Have you even thought about your testimony of how you became a Christian Disciple?
I am sure you have all heard kids in the supermarket yelling out "Why?" to their parents. We all have, I am sure, questions we want to know the answer to. Why? The question I am often asked is "You are a Christian. Why is it so?"

Why I am a Christian?

 

Now I could say that at the age of 12, we moved to a town on the coast of Australia, and was invited along to a local youth group and several weeks later, gave my life to Christ and became a Christian. Of course that is partly true. I can't even claim to be a Christian because I was raised in a Christian country. Australia was and is probably the second most secular country on this planet. Sure Australia has its moral base grounded in historic Christianity, but for the latter part of its history, Australia has been thoroughly secular and non-religious. Even if I had been raised in a country such as England, with Christian parents, that would also, only be partly true and I could have rejected Christianity as many people do. The reason that I am a Christian is not because I chased God, but rather He chased me. Unknown to me at the time, God was chasing me and following my every path with the urgency of a lover after the beloved, just as described in the Song of Songs 2:2-14.

God had been pursuing me

This piece of poetic Scripture speaks about the love that God has for his people, and the energy He puts in to calling his people to Himself. He is always reaching out, for all to return to His arms. As for me, it wasn't until I was a 12 year old that I heard that I needed to accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. Before that I didn't know I had to do anything with this Jesus. Jesus was only a curse word for me at the time. That or was just someone or something that the RE teachers bored me with at school.

We are primarily Christians, not because we come to church services or just happened to have been born in a supposedly Christian country. We are primarily Christians, because God first chased and harried us into His arms. We are Christians, if you are one, because God first loved you. And as a tremendous lover, He beckons and calls people all the time to respond to His call, and back to Him. How does He chase us with His love?

God chases each person differently, just as each Christian testimony is different. Take for instance the Apostle Paul in Acts 8 & 9. God chased him through Paul's mind and his religious upbringing and education. Paul had known about God from his childhood. Paul was a righteous Pharisee who saw persecuting these ‘Christians' as his religious duty, so that he may somehow find favour with God. As Paul was gloating over the death of the martyr Stephen, God was pursuing Him, probably raising doubts in Paul's mind as to why Stephen would say at the point of death "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit and forgive them for what they do" (Acts 7:54-60). Surely doubts must have been raised in Paul's mind as he approved of this death (Acts 8v1).

Paul was also wrestling with his conscience. Externally he was a righteous man, a Pharisee of Pharisees. Yet when he internally examined himself and his heart, he found himself failing regarding covetousness, which is the last of the Ten Commandments. Then finally, Jesus himself makes a sudden and dramatic appearance before Paul and confronts him directly, "Why are you kicking against me? Why are you rejecting my advances?" (Acts 9) Paul's conversion to Christianity is often described as being sudden. But the only thing sudden about his conversion was this climatic appearance of Jesus.

Just as that was true of Paul, it is true of me, just as it is true of all those who profess to call themselves a Christian Disciple. I am a Christian Disciple not because of anything I have done, but rather because He first chased me, and because He first loved me. Jesus himself said "I came to seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10).

If you are a Christian today, it is not because of anything you have done. It is because of the events at Christmas and Easter that you are a Christian, when God entered this world as a human baby and took all the necessary steps so that all people could have the choice to be His people or not. In my more smug moments I used to congratulate myself for being a Christian. How proud I was that I, was a Christian and that God was a jolly lucky God that I had decided to follow Him. It was during one of my less self-deluded moments, that I examined myself and I found God pricking my conscience and correcting me, and I read the New Testament "For the Son of Man came, not to be served but to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark10:45).

 

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Thursday Story - Jenny from Taiwan

Thursday Story

People meeting Jesus

The story of Jenny from Taiwan...

We continue apace into the twentieth century and hear the story of a friend of mine. Her name is Jenny and she is from Taiwan. Let's look together at how and why she started her Christian journey and the relevancy of Jesus Christ to her life! Come and listen to her story of faith...

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Sermon - Remember Who You Are

Colossians 3v1-4

“Remember Who You Are!”

3:1 If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.

3:2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.

3:3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

3:4 When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.

 

In the year 1993, I slipped into a coma on a Saturday evening during my sleep.  But that story is a bit of a bore and not really important. After a couple of days in hospital, I woke up and there was a face of a pretty woman peering down at me, smiling and asking "Do you remember who you are?"  My response was "Of course I do!!  But who are you, and what have you done with my wife". And that is a similar story for those of us who are Christians.  If we are listening, we are constantly being reminded by God the Holy Spirit, of our status before God if we are His children.  The Holy Spirit is always there behind us, reminding us, that we are now His children and not His enemy, and therefore to stop living as if we were His enemy.  In these verses, Paul reminds us of our identity. This morning we are going to look at primarily our new identity and five facts about our Christian identity...

1. What are we to do with this Jesus if we claim to be his followers and in relationship with him?

a. We died with Christ (3a).
b. We are raised with Christ (1a).
c. We live with Christ (4a). 
d. We are hidden with Christ (3b). 
e. We will be glorified with Christ (4b).

2. Jesus - fully human

3. Jesus - fully God

 

Recapitulation

• Remember who you are.
• Remember your identity.
• Remember you have died with Christ,
• Remember you have been raised with Christ.
• Remember you have new life in Christ - NOW!!.
• Remember you are hidden with Christ - NOW!!.
• Remember you will be glorified with Christ when He comes again.

Conclusion

Therefore let us conclude.  We are to focus our minds on Him for heavenly reasons.  We are to let heaven fill our thoughts. In another translation, verse 2 reads "habitually set your mind on things above".Jesus was fully-god and fully-man.  It is this Jesus we claim to follow.  Be assured of your identity. Remember who you are.  Stop sinning and remember who you are - a child of the living God.  Cast off all that hinders your Christian growth.  Live for Him and make a difference in a world that is dying without knowledge of Him.  Most of all, as a motivation to aspire to live a perfect life in honour of Him  - remember who you are, and I don t mean just your name!!  Remember....

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