Partakers Christian Podcasts

Partakers Bible Thought - Walking with Jesus 03

 

Walking with Jesus

3. Majestic

Today we glimpse together at the majesty of Jesus:
Come on in to hear what we say about this WOW about Jesus Christ of Nazareth

For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty.
He received honour and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’
We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. 2 Peter 1:16-18 (NIV)

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What Christians Believe - Nicene Creed

At the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea — an event significantly influenced the Christian faith and continues to unify believers across centuries and traditions. Convened in 325 by Emperor Constantine in what is now modern-day Turkey, the Council of Nicaea resulted in the creation of the Nicene Creed: the first universal summary of Christian belief. We pray together and when Christians pray together, from different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity! Come! Let us pray and profess together!

Nicene Creed

What we believe as Christians...

 

We believe in one God,

the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth,

and of all that is,

seen and unseen.

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We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one being with the Father.

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Through Him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

He came down from heaven:

by the power of the Holy Spirit,

He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,

and was made man.

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For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day He rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures:

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

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We believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son,

He is worshipped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

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We believe in one, holy,

catholic (universal), and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come.

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Amen

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Partakers Bible Thought - Walking with Jesus 02

 

Walking with Jesus

2. Jesus Is Unique

Today we glimpse together at the uniqueness of Jesus... Come on in to see what we say about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ of Nazareth which should cause to go "WOW!"

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Testimony - Why I am a Christian

Why I am a Christian?

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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?

Why I am a Christian?

God had been pursuing me

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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Partakers Bible Thought - Walking with Jesus 01

 

Walking with Jesus

1. Introduction

There are many pictures of Jesus, but which one are you walking through life with?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me." (Matthew 16:24)

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Bible Thought - Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer

“This, then, is how you should pray:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.”

Matthew 6v9-13

 

This is, in all probability, the prayer that is most frequently used, and repeated, by those professing to be Christian Disciples and also by those who are not.  It is often called the “Lord’s Prayer”.  This is not because Jesus, Himself would have prayed it, for as He was sinless, He would have had no need to have said to God, “forgive us our debts” (Matthew 6v12).  It was given by Jesus as a model for His Disciples prayers to be like, hence Jesus saying “how you should pray” (Matthew 6v9).  When it is spoken and prayed, I wonder if some people truly understand what is being prayed?

Come and listen to find out more! When you have listened, answer the following questions for yourself!

 

Q1. In what ways can I as a Christian Disciple adapt my prayers to follow this model given by Jesus?

Q2. How can my prayer life reflect attention on God’s name, will and kingdom?

Q3. How often do I lead myself into temptation and blame others for it?

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Christian Testimony - Steve

Glimpses 57- Stephen

This is the story of Stephen. He lives in Bournemouth and he shares how an encounter with Jesus changed is life from hatred, violence, cruelty and drug addiction... Come and hear!

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The Normal Christian Journey of Faith - Part 01

Chapter 1: Before we begin

 

This series of studies attempts to say some useful things about how the journey of a Christian life is likely to work out. In fact, there are of course so many ways this may happen that to try and say something useful is quite rash – but here goes nonetheless.

Before I start I need to define what I mean by “Christian”. Many people, in many parts of the world, think of themselves as Christian because their passports say so, or would say so if they had one. They have been born into a Christian family, in a Christian community, so they, and other people, think of them as Christian. But being a Christian in this sense is not the same as following Jesus, consciously, and determinedly. When I say Christian I mean those who have positively decided that they will follow Jesus, owe allegiance to him, and are practicing Christians, associating themselves with other Christians of the same way of thinking.

Not every Christian can identify the moment in which they turned round and set out to follow Jesus. For some it happened so gradually they cannot pin down the time any more than to say that day, or that week, or that month. That does not matter – they have set out to follow Jesus, which is all that matters. Then there are some fortunate few who cannot remember the day when they did not love the Lord even as a young child and they grew up following him from before their days of memory. Great for them and a tribute to their parents!

It would more accurate if as I wrote these notes I used the phrase “following Jesus” rather than “Christian” but it would be intolerably clumsy to keep on doing that so I will say “Christian” and mean “following Jesus”.

Even before we became Christian, in any of these believing senses, certain things will have been true of us. All of us, everyone who ever lived, have a tension within us. This is an essential part of being human and quite inescapable. We are, you are, I am, made in the image of God, but we are also sinners.

We are told that we are made in the image of God in Genesis chapter 1 “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Then Adam and Eve sinned in the famous story of the garden of Eden as recorded in Genesis 3 “the Lord God said, The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil” and Paul, in Romans 5 summarizes what all the Scripture acknowledges with the statement “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned”. That is us.

Some people like to think that there is a dividing line between good and evil people (and they, of course, are on the right side of that line!), but it is not so. The dividing line between good and evil runs through each one of us. Some of us are, hopefully, more on the right side of that line than the wrong side, but it is still there, through each one of us. Failure to recognize that has led to many disastrous moments in history. Politicians have often assumed that people are essentially good so you have only got to put them in the right environment and all will be well. Everyone will live in peace and harmony with everyone else.

Sadly that is not true. It never has been true and it seems to have become increasingly obvious that it is not in the 20th century. Nazis and Communists have assumed that they can make the world work as they want. But they failed and have continued to fail. Muslim extremists fall into the same trap. On the other hand much of the modern western world proceeds on the assumption that progress is happening always and inevitably. That is true of our technology and science but not of our social and spiritual skills where we seem to be going backwards. There is much good in human beings but there is also a strong tendency to evil. This is the base from which we all start.


Why then do we, why does anyone, become a Christian? There are at least three main reasons.

1. From a sense of sin. This is the old classical way to start. Many preachers in this society seem to assume that this is the only way so they pick out the Scriptures that mention sin, or can be bent that way, and preach what they call “a Gospel sermon” whether it applies to the people listening to them or not. It is certainly true, very true, that the purpose of the death of Christ on the Cross was to deal with sin, your sin, my sin. Jesus was both human and divine. He was human so he could substitute for us, dying on our behalf. He was divine so his death was sufficient and effective for all of us. So Paul says in Romans 3:25 “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood —to be received by faith.” But people are unable to understand these words and take them to heart unless they have an idea of God as the pure and holy judge before whom they will eventually have to give an account of their life on earth. If they do not realize that, if they have not been taught that, they will not understand what is being talked about.

2. From a sense of lostness. Peter talks about people being redeemed from an empty way of life (1 Peter 1:18) Many people will feel that the way they are living is empty and is not satisfying and will cast around looking for a better way to live. They want to be good people – drink, drugs, partying, sex, material goods do not satisfy them. They want a reason to live differently, to live the way they want to live but they have a strong sense of needing a reason to break out from their currently unsatisfying life styles. If this is the way they think they are ready to hear a sensitively presented account of the Christian life. Follow me – said Jesus. If they hear that call they embark on a life of faith which is a journey through life – hence the title of this series of studies.

3. From a desire to progress. Unfortunately there is a strong tendency in many churches to present the Christian life as the solution to all one’s problems: practical, social and financial. Some preachers say become a Christian and you will meet all the right people, you will make your fortune, the right partner for you will miraculously appear. I call this unfortunate because such teaching runs directly counter to the whole teaching of the Bible. Jesus is, amongst many other things, our example. He only met the “right” people at his trial; he had no where to lay his head so he did not have a fortune; he had to live a celibate life in a society where marriage was expected. If you are looking for progress in a purely human sense it is a good idea not to become a Christian! Be careful not to believe the false promises of some preachers!

Of these three motives for becoming a Christian 1 and 2 are acceptable; 3 is not. In the New Testament Paul emphasizes motive 1, escape from sin; John emphasizes motive 2, desire for purpose in life; Peter is strong on both.

These are, I think, the main things that lead people to seek to follow the Lord Jesus. There are others: to some are given dreams and visions of him seen in the night; some fear the judgment, some desire not to be left behind when he returns, and so on.


There is something else worth noticing about what often happens to people before they become Christians. God has a lovely habit of speaking to us before we become one of his people. This can be, and often is, in small and scarcely noticed ways that yet can have a major effect on us. For me it was when the family friend who was invigilating an exam that I, a young boy at the time, was taking stopped to pray with me before the exam, which was not something to be expected within the world in which I lived and had a lasting effect on me.

So what?

Whether as you listen to, or read, this you are a follower of Jesus, or not, it is important to get our thinking about who we are and where we stand before a pure and holy God straight. We are made in the image of God but we are sinners in His sight. As a consequence of that we need a better direction in life. Those two facts make the essential and only correct starting point for our thinking.
Secondly we have the opportunity to be the messenger for one of those little events that the Lord God can put in someone else’s way as he did for me through my invigilator’s prayer. Only more than 20 years later did I learn that the wife of the man who prayed with me was ministered to as a young girl by my grandmother. That was a wonderful part of the circle of faith.

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Church Begins - 10. Final Journey Completed

10. Church Begins - Final Journey Completed

Acts 27v39 - 28v30

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Acts 27v39 - 28v6 When it was day, they didn't recognize the land, but they noticed a certain bay with a beach, and they decided to try to drive the ship onto it.  Casting off the anchors, they left them in the sea, at the same time untying the rudder ropes. Hoisting up the foresail to the wind, they made for the beach.  But coming to a place where two seas met, they ran the vessel aground. The bow struck and remained immovable, but the stern began to break up by the violence of the waves. The soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners, so that none of them would swim out and escape. But the centurion, desiring to save Paul, stopped them from their purpose, and commanded that those who could swim should throw themselves overboard first to go toward the land; and the rest should follow, some on planks, and some on other things from the ship.

So it happened that they all escaped safely to the land. When we had escaped, then they learned that the island was called Malta. The natives showed us uncommon kindness; for they kindled a fire, and received us all, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand. When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said one to another, "No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped from the sea, yet Justice has not allowed to live." However he shook off the creature into the fire, and wasn't harmed.  But they expected that he would have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but when they watched for a long time and saw nothing bad happen to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.

Along the journey, eventually the ship arrived at Malta.  Everybody was safe and secure, but tired and bedraggled (Acts 27v39-44). The Roman centurion did not want to kill the prisoners he was guarding, because he wanted to keep Paul alive (Acts 27v24, 43). This group of people stayed in Malta for three months and all we know of their stay in Malta, is two quite remarkable events.

1. Malta

The snake on the beach. The local Maltese people were hospitable to them.  Immediately, the Maltese people built a fire on the beach for the weary travellers. Paul had gathered some of the wood for the fire, and when he put the wood on the fire, a snake was driven out by the heat, and fastened itself onto his hand (Acts 28v3). At this point, because of their superstitions, the Maltese thought Paul was a murderer and trying to run from justice. Paul did not suffer however, and the Maltese changed their minds about Paul. He went from being a murderer, to 'a god' (Acts 28v6). God was glorified yet again through this event, and Paul no doubt would have been horrified at being called a 'god', just as he was at Lystra years before (Acts 14v11-18). This shows that God gives grace to the humble, and Paul was indeed a humble man.

The healing of the sick. The other event we hear about is about Publius.  Publius was the Maltese leader.  He entertained the ship's company, and Paul healed Publius' father and the rest of the island came and were cured. Salvation by the grace of God was preached, and Paul was honoured in many ways. We are not told if any Maltese became believers at this point.

2. Approaching Rome

After three months in Malta, they sailed on towards Italy. They landed at Puteoli and Paul stayed there a week with some fellow believers, who had come as far as forty miles to meet him Paul thanked God for them and was encouraged by God through them (Acts 27v24). God's had kept Paul safe, by His power to fulfil his promise to him about standing trial in Rome. Paul had experienced what he had long known to be true, that whatever happens in life, falls within the purpose of God. No storm, no shipwreck, no snake, no Sanhedrin, no riots, no threats could separate him from the love of God or stop God's purpose for him.

Paul arrived in Rome quietly, and settled into ministry, despite his chains, for the next two years. During this time, he seemed to avoid any great dramas with the authorities. The arrival of Paul in Rome, was the fulfilment of the Lord's promise to him in the prison in Jerusalem (Acts 23v11). Paul never forced anything on anyone. Yet he refused to let anyone stop him from proclaiming Jesus as Lord. Paul always told people the gospel with love, honesty, sensitivity and a focus that breathed a personal concern' Just because people accept an invitation, doesn't always mean they will listen. Paul found this out with the Roman Jews. They listened to him, and then rejected the gospel message.

This is the last specific event recorded in Acts. We are left with the picture that preaching the Gospel is hard in a world that is unsympathetic to us. It is also the last instance of a Jewish rejection of Paul's ministry, and from now on he seems to concentrate only on the Gentiles. This is shown in the universal nature of the church today, whereas back in the time of Paul, it was primarily Jewish. It also confirms Jesus' principle that when the message is constantly rejected in one place, to take the message elsewhere (Matthew 10v14). The gospel moves on, seeking the lost wherever they may be found.

3. Mission while under arrest!

For two years Paul was able to preach the gospel in Rome, and all this time he was under house arrest! There are 3 main features of his ministry during this time. a. He welcomed all who came to see him. His door was always open to all enquirers. If he could not go to them, then he would always welcome those who came to him. b. He consistently preached the kingdom of God and taught about Jesus.

Paul's passion was Jesus, and his message of salvation was the saving grace of Jesus. Christ dominated Paul's life. Paul loved the Lord and constantly lifted Him up before people. c. Paul preached boldly and without hindrance. Even though Paul's hands were chained, his mouth remained open for Jesus Christ and his gospel.

This sums up the book of Acts. Jesus cannot be contained. The gospel cannot be silenced. The salvation of sinners cannot be stopped. The work continues. Jesus told his disciples that they would be his witnesses 'in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth' (Acts 1v8), These words continue for us today as we go into our places of work, study, or our families to tell them of the saving love of Jesus, that his name is the only name given under heaven among men, by whom we will be saved. The book of Acts does not end with a final statement, but with a story that continues. It seems that God wanted Luke to end the book of Acts with an open and unfinished story. Why?

The book of Acts, then, is all about the continuing work of God in and through His people, the church. It is about the unfinished work of faithfulness: faithfulness to reach out (Acts 28v17-22), faithfulness to persevere when people will not listen (Acts 28v23-30), and faithfulness to proclaim Jesus (Acts 28v30,31).  Our faith grabs hold of God's power, and this power strengthens our faith, and we are preserved; it places us within those walls, and sets our souls within the guard of the power of God, which is only left exposed by our own selfish pride and acting in our own strength.

Faith is a humble, self-denying grace' making the Christian nothing in himself and everything in God - He and He alone should be our security. We who are believers, are the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in the church of the book of Acts. We are to be indebted to the work of Paul and the other Apostles. It would be their desire, for us to continue on the work they left. It would be their desire, to see us, living the gospel of truth in a world that is dying to know of the grace and love of its Saviour, Jesus Christ. We, as Christians in the 21^st Century, are part of Acts Chapter 29.  Will we be written as part of the story, or simply be placed on the side? That is the challenge for all of us who believe in Jesus.

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Christian Testimony - Christine

Listen to the testimony of Christine King!

Amazing testimony as are all testimonies of God's saving power through Jesus Christ...

 

Romans 10:1-4 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

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