G’day and welcome to Partakers Christian Podcasts! Join us for uplifting Bible teaching, inspiring readings, heartfelt worship, powerful prayers, and fascinating church history. Whether you’re new to faith or growing deeper in your journey, we’re here to encourage and equip you. 🎧 Tune in, interact, and be inspired—wherever you are in the world.
Episodes
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Think Spot 10 January 2016
Have you ever wondered what constitutes a growing church? Do you know that it isn't just a list of names on the church roll or a social club. Neither is it a large number of people who have made "decisions for Christ". So, what constitutes a church which is living and growing in both spiritual quality as well as numbers?
Here are 4 pointers for you as a Christian to go into the week thinking about how you can contribute to the church you attend:
1. Full of 'Kingdom of People' - people who declare Jesus is Lord, reflecting His values in word thought and action.
2. Full of people who are filled with the Holy Spirit, that is people who allow their lives to be totally controlled by the Spirit, and letting the Spirit flow through them.
3. Full of people involved within their local community, utilizing their spiritual gifts for the glory of God.
4. People whose lives are oriented around
Commitment to Jesus Christ - following Jesus' commandments, and learning daily hww to be more like Him.
Commitment to the Body of Christ, the Church; Loving the Body and Bride of Christ just as Jesus loves the Church.
Commitment to working within the local community - utilizing the gifts God has given them (and everybody has them you know!) for the glory of God and exhortation of the other people.
There is no such thing as a full Christian life without those three things in the above set priority - Jesus, church, community. If the priority is shifted in any area then our priorities are wrong. Christians aren't to just to be Christians on a Sunday but 7 days a week. Not just to associate with other Christians, but to affect their local community throughout the week for the glory of Jesus Christ. To do this, this week, think about these questions:
Am I fully committed to Jesus and His teachings?
Am I fully committed to working within my Church?
Do I want the Church to grow in quantity and quality?
Am I fully committed to my local community and seeing Jesus glorified within it?
Go into the week, knowing God can use you to help extend His kingdom in your local community. Thank you.
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Saturday Jan 09, 2016
Saturday Jan 09, 2016
Part 15: John 3:17 – 21
The journey of faith
Emphasis in this chapter has traditionally fallen on the beginning of the Christian life. Being ‘born again’ has concentrated attention on how we start. But the next few verses after the famous 3: 16 turn the emphasis onto the continuing life and the end of it. Here they are: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
Our Christian life is a journey – as indeed is every sort of life.
I like to think of the end of it as that part of a journey that is arriving in a foreign country or returning back home to one’s own country. At the airport there are two major hurdles to overcome. The first is going through passport control; the second is going through the baggage check area to make sure that we have only good and permissible things in our cases.
The first of these is a good analogy to being born again. Jesus said “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again from above”. We want to enter the country that is our destination. We must have a valid passport. Paul says we are “citizens of heaven” (Phil 3: 20). We have dual citizenship! We have two passports. We are citizens of our earthly country and we are citizens of heaven. What a privilege!
But we must have the right luggage too. Our first and most important luggage is believing in Jesus. Three times the word ‘believe’ appears in verse 18. Positively – we must believe. Negatively - if we do not believe we are condemned to perish as verse 16 has said. What exactly perishing consists of we are not told and it is not really possible to work out the details from the rest of the New Testament. Perishing, hell, fire and other uncomfortable things are all mentioned – many of them by Jesus himself. It is certainly not that “being with Christ” that Paul says is “better by far” (Phil 1: 23). It is like being a stateless person, rejected from the country we want to enter and condemned to travel endlessly round the world, not finding anywhere prepared to take us in. Not a nice experience.
Our luggage needs to be light – not light in weight but glowing with light, radiant with light, bursting out through every crack in our case. Our deeds must be good. We must want to come into the light; not afraid that our deeds, which will be exposed at this grand final checkpoint, will be anything to be ashamed of. We must live in the truth – in the light of God and his Christ, so it may be seen plainly who we are and that we have walked in the light of God through the journey of life since we gained our passport for the kingdom of God..
My apologies if you have never travelled that far and flown into the airport of a foreign country; never needed a passport and never had the unwelcome experience of going through baggage control. I hope you still get the vision of how this illustrates our journey as Christians and encourages you to make sure you have your second passport with you and have packed your bags very carefully as you have lived the journey of the Christian life.
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Friday Jan 08, 2016
Friday Jan 08, 2016
Partakers Friday Prayers!
8th January 2016
We pray together and when Christians pray together, from different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity! Come! Let us pray together!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A Prayer of Thomas a'Kempis (1380-1471)
Grant me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know,
To love what I ought to love,
To praise what delights thee most,
To value what is precious in thy sight,
To hate what is offensive to thee.
Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes,
Nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant people;
But to discern with a true judgement between things visible and spiritual,
And above all, always to inquire what is the good pleasure of Your will.
Amen
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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Monday Jan 04, 2016
Monday Jan 04, 2016
4th January 2016
Happy New Year!
Your name is holy,
Your kingdom let it come,
Your heavenly will be done on Earth.
Supply us today with all our needs.
Forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those
who have sinned against us.
Don’t lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
For yours O Father is the kingdom
and the power
and the glory forever.
Amen.
Into 2016 we proceed - one hour, one day at a time... Let's make it a good one for ourselves and others... 2015 is gone. For my wife and I it was a year which started out as being annus horribilis. My wife lost her job unfairly and I had recently had my mother die. Yet 2015 turned out to be annus mirabilis... Slowly but surely, day by day, God took care of us and we knew without doubt, that God was going ahead of us each day. The generosity of people was amazing including the church we attend: Poulner Chapel . Then in September my wife found a new job. Blessing indeed! If I have helped you out via this website and the Podcasts, then you are most welcome, and a pleasure to be of service to you. Praise God we reached a million unique visitors to the site and 50000 downloads in 2015...
Looking into the year ahead... More podcasts, more books at PulpTheology.co.uk and more WOWChurch as well as another fantabulous trip to the USA... Maybe we will see you there! As you go into this New Year of 2016, may you know that God is with you, going ahead of you and leading you. Ask for His help daily and listen to His voice and his leading. You move and make plans, tell God about it all as part of your personal relationship with Him, and God will steer, accelerate or brake. Confess your sins to Him regularly and when you do so, ask to be filled anew with His Spirit! Make 2016 be a WOW Year for yourselves and others you meet... Remember, as each day passes, it is a day closer to when the God we serve together, will return to collect us home...
Love, joy and blessings from Partakers to you... Come back every day to www.partakers.co.uk where something is uploaded to help you as a Christian Disciple in the 21st century! See you later!
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Friday Dec 25, 2015
Friday Dec 25, 2015
Merry Christmas to you – where ever you are in the world - from Partakers! It is our prayer for you, that the God who revealed Himself at the birth of Christ, will reveal Himself to you this Christmas and into the New Year of 2016 and beyond!
Christmas 2015 - Ancient Voices
Christ, Redeemer of AllA 6th Century Christmas Hymn of the church
Jesus, the Father's only Son,
whose death for all redemption won,
before the worlds, of God most high,
begotten all ineffably.
The Father's Light and Splendour
You’re the endless Hope to all that bow:
accept the prayers and praise today
that through the world Your servants pay.
Salvation's author, call to mind
how, taking the form of humankind,
born of a Virgin undefiled,
You in man's flesh became a Child.
Thus testifies the present day
Through every year in long array,
that You, salvation's source alone
proceeded from the Father's Throne.
From the sky, and stars, and sea's abyss,
and earth, and all that within there is,
shall still, with praise and carol meet,
the Author of Your Advent greet.
And we who by Your precious Blood
from sin redeemed, are marked for God,
on this, the day that saw your Birth,
sing the new song of ransomed earth.
All honour, praise, and glory be,
O Jesus, Virgin-born, to You;
whom with the Father we adore,
and Holy Ghost forevermore.
Amen.
**translation: John Mason Neale (with updated English)
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Thursday Dec 24, 2015
Thursday Dec 24, 2015
Christmas 2015 - Ancient Voices
Sermon on the Afternoon of Christmas Day 1530Martin Luther
Part 4 of 4
The same is true in the monasteries: if you want to be saved, remember to keep the rule and regulations of Francis and you will have a gracious God! And at the Diet of Augsburg they decided to stick to this. In the name of all of the devils, let them stick there! It has been said sufficiently that this Saviour lies in the manger.
But if there is any other thing that saves me, then I rightly call it my Saviour. If the sun, moon, and stars save, I can call them Saviours. If St. Bartholomew or St Anthony or a pilgrimage to St. James or good works save, then they surely are my Saviour. If St. Francis, then he is my Saviour. But then what is left of the honor of the child who was born this day, whom the angel calls Lord and Saviour, and who wants to keep his name, which is Saviour and Christ the Lord. If I set up any Saviour except this child, no matter who or what it is or is called, then he is not the Saviour. But the text says that he is the Saviour. And if this is true—and it is the truth—then let everything else go.
One who hears the message of the angel and believes it will be filled with fear, like the shepherds. True, it is too high for me to believe that I should come into this treasure without any merit on my part. And yet, so it must be. In the papacy this message was not preached in the pulpit, and I am afraid that it will disappear again. It was the other message that the devil initiated and has allowed to remain in the papacy. All their hymns are to this effect. Among the Turks the devil has completely wiped it out. Therefore, remember it, sing it, and learn it, while there is still time! I fear that the time will come when we shall not be allowed to hear, believe, and sing this message in public, and the time has already come when it is no longer understood; though Satan does not allow it to be spoken with the mouth, as the papists do.
But when it comes to declaring that he is born for you and to singing:
Now sing with hearts aglow!
Our delight and pleasure
Lies in praesepio
Like sunshine is our treasure
Matris in gremio
Alpha est et O!
—this he is unwilling to allow.
What we have said, then, has been about that second faith, which is not only to believe in Mary’s Son, but rather that he who lies in the virgin’s lap is our Saviour, that you accept this and give thanks to God, who so loved you that he gave you a Saviour who is yours. And for a sign he sent the angel from heaven to proclaim him, in order that nothing else should be preached except that this child is the Saviour and far better than heaven and earth. Him, therefore, we should acknowledge and accept; confess him as our Saviour in every need, call upon him, and never doubt that he will save us from all misfortune. Amen.
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Wednesday Dec 23, 2015
Wednesday Dec 23, 2015
Christmas 2015 - Ancient Voices
Sermon on the Afternoon of Christmas Day 1530Martin Luther
Part 3 of 4
Therefore this is the chief article, which separates us from all the heathen, that you, O man, may not only learn that Christ, born of the virgin, is the Lord and Saviour, but also accept the fact that he is your Lord and Saviour, that you may be able to boast in your heart: I hear the Word that sounds from heaven and says: This child who is born of the virgin is not only his mother’s son. I have more than the mother’s estate; he is more mine than Mary’s, for he was born for me, for the angel said, “To you” is born the Saviour. Then ought you to say, Amen, I thank you, dear Lord.
But then reason says: Who knows? I believe that Christ, born of the virgin, is the Lord and Saviour and he may perhaps help Peter and Paul, but for me, a sinner, he was not born. But even if you believed that much, it would still not be enough, unless there were added to it the faith that he was born for you. For he was not born merely in order that I should honor the mother, that she should be praised because he was born of the virgin mother. This honor belongs to none except her and it is not to be despised, for the angel said, “Blessed are you among women!” [Luke 1:28].
But it must not be too highly esteemed lest one deny what is written here: “To you is born this day the Saviour.” He was not merely concerned to be born of a virgin; it was infinitely more than that. It was this, as she herself sings in the Magnificat: “He has helped his servant Israel” [Luke 1:54]; not that he was born of me and my virginity but born for you and for your benefit, not only for my honor.
Take yourself in hand, examine yourself and see whether you are a Christian! If you can sing: The Son, who is proclaimed to be a Lord and Saviour, is my Saviour; and if you can confirm the message of the angel and say yes to it and believe it in your heart, then your heart will be filled with such assurance and joy and confidence, and you will not worry much about even the costliest and best that this world has to offer.
For when I can speak to the virgin from the bottom of my heart and say: O Mary, noble, tender virgin, you have borne a child; this I want more than robes and guldens, yea, more than my body and life; then you are closer to the treasure than everything else in heaven and earth, as Ps. 73 [:25] says, “There is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee.” You see how a person rejoices when he receives a robe or ten guldens. But how many are there who shout and jump for joy when they hear the message of the angel: “To you is born this day the Saviour?”
Indeed, the majority look upon it as a sermon that must be preached, and when they have heard it, consider it a trifling thing, and go away just as they were before. This shows that we have neither the first nor the second faith. We do not believe that the virgin mother bore a son and that he is the Lord and Saviour unless, added to this, I believe the second thing, namely, that he is my Saviour and Lord.
When I can say: This I accept as my own, because the angel meant it for me, then, if I believe it in my heart, I shall not fail to love the mother Mary, and even more then child, and especially the Father. For, if it is true that the child was born of the virgin and is mine, then I have no angry God and I must know the feel that there is nothing but laughter and joy in the heart of the Father and no sadness in my heart. For, if what the angel says is true, that he is our Lord and Saviour, what can sin do against us? “If God is for us, who is against us?” [Rom. 8:31]. Greater words than these I cannot speak, nor all the angels and even the Holy Spirit, as is sufficiently testified by the beautiful and devout songs that have been made about it. I do not trust myself to express it. I most gladly hear you sing and speak of it, but as long as no joy is there, so long is faith still weak or even nonexistent, and you still do not believe the angel.
Part 4 of this 4 part sermon issued tomorrow.
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Tuesday Dec 22, 2015
Tuesday Dec 22, 2015
Christmas 2015 - Ancient Voices
Sermon on the Afternoon of Christmas Day 1530Martin Luther
Part 2 of 4
This is our theology, which we preach in order that we may understand what the angel wants. Mary bore the child, took it to her breast and nursed it, and the Father in heaven has his Son, lying in the manger and the mother’s lap. Why did God do all this? Why does Mary guard the child as a mother should? And reason answers: in order that we may make an idol of her, that honor may be paid to the mother. Mary becomes all this without her knowledge and consent, and all the songs and glory and honor are addressed to the mother. And yet the text does not sound forth the honor of the mother, for the angel says, “I bring to you good news of great joy; for to you is born this day the Saviour” [Luke 2:10-11].
I am to accept the child and his birth and forget the mother, as far as this is possible, although her part cannot be forgotten, for where there is a birth there must also be a mother. Nevertheless, we dare not put our faith in the mother but only in the fact that the child was born. And the angel desired that we should see nothing but the child which is born, just as the angels themselves, as though they were blind, saw nothing but the child born of the virgin, and desired that all created things should be as nothing compared with this child, that we should see nothing, be it harps, gold, goods, honor, power, and the like which we would prefer before their message.
For if I received even the costliest and the best in the world, it still does not have the name of Saviour. And if the Turk were ten times stronger than he is, he could not for one moment save me from my infirmity, to say nothing of the peril of death, and even less from the smallest sin or from death itself. In my sin, my death, I must take leave of all created things. No, sun, moon, stars, all creatures, physicians, emperors, kings, wise men and potentates cannot help me. When I die, I shall see nothing but black darkness, and yet that light, “To you is born this day the Saviour” [Luke 2:11], remains in my eyes and fills all heaven and earth. The Saviour will help me when all have forsaken me. And when the heavens and the stars and all creatures stare at me with horrible appearance, I see nothing in heaven and earth but this child. So great should that light which declares that he is my Saviour become in my eyes that I can say: Mary, you did not bear this child for yourself alone. The child is not yours; you did not bring him forth for yourself, but for me, even though you are his mother, even though you held him in your arms and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and picked him up and laid him down. But I have a greater honor than your honor as his mother. For your honor pertains to your motherhood of the body of the child, but my honor is this, that you have my treasure, so that I know none, neither men nor angels, who can help me except this child whom you, O Mary, hold in your arms.
If a man could put out of his mind all that he is and has except this child, and if for him everything—money, goods, power, or honor—fades into darkness and he despises everything on earth compared with this child, so that heaven with its stars and earth with all its power and all its treasures becomes nothing to him, that man would have the true gain and fruit of this message of the angel. And for us the time must come when suddenly all will be darkness and we shall know nothing but this message of the angel: “I bring to you good news of great joy; for to you is born this day the Saviour” [Luke 2:10-11].
Part 3 of this 4 part sermon issued tomorrow.
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Monday Dec 21, 2015
Monday Dec 21, 2015
Christmas 2015 - Ancient Voices
Sermon on the Afternoon of Christmas Day 1530By Martin Luther
Part 1 of 4
Nevertheless, God has preserved it even through those who have not believed it. For at all times in the monasteries and universities there have been disputations and lectures which dealt with the fact that Christ the Lord, born of Mary, is true man and God. But it went no further than saying and hearing it. But this belief is held by the devil too and the Turks and all the godless among Christians, and is the kind of belief which everybody believes that it is true but would not die for it, as Eck and many others show today.
If they had as much from Christ and the teaching of the gospel as from the devil, they would also think as much of Christ. The Turk too admits that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, that Mary was an immaculate virgin, and that Christ was more than a man; but the Word of God, as it is given in the gospel, he denies, and yet I fear that the Turk believes more of this article than does the pope.
Therefore it is a high article to believe that this infant, born of Mary, is true God; for nobody’s reason can ever accept the fact that he who created heaven and earth and is adored by angels was born of a virgin. That is the article. Nobody believes it except he who also knows this faith, namely, that this child is the Lord and Saviour. But for whom was he born and whose Lord and Saviour is he? The angels declare that he was born Lord and Saviour. The Turks, the pope, and the scholars say the same thing, but only to the extent that it brings in money and honour.
But that anyone could say, “to you is born,” as the angel says, this is the faith which we must preach about. But we cannot preach about it as we would like to do. Indeed, who could ever grasp [the full meaning of] these words of the evangelist: “a Saviour, who is the Lord,” and, “to you”! I know well enough how to talk about it and what to believe about it, just as others do.
So there are many who have this belief and do it, just as others do. So there are many who have this belief and do not doubt this first belief that Christ is the Lord, the Saviour, and the virgin’s Son. This I too have never doubted. But if these words are planted no higher than my thoughts, then they have no firm roots. We are certain that this was proclaimed by the angel, but the firm faith does not follow. For the reason does not understand both sides of this faith, first that Christ is a man, but also the Saviour and Lord or King. This needs to be revealed from heaven. One who really has the first faith also has the other.
Part 2 of this 4 part sermon issued tomorrow.
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Sunday Dec 20, 2015
Sunday Dec 20, 2015
Christmas 2015 - Ancient Voices
A Christmas Thought (Part 3 of 3)By John “Golden Mouth” Chrysostom (AD 349–407)
Why is this? Because God is now on earth, and man in heaven; on every side all things commingle. He became Flesh. He did not become God. He was God. Wherefore He became flesh, so that He Whom heaven did not contain, a manger would this day receive. He was placed in a manger, so that He, by whom all things arc nourished, may receive an infant’s food from His Virgin Mother. So, the Father of all ages, as an infant at the breast, nestles in the virginal arms, that the Magi may more easily see Him. Since this day the Magi too have come, and made a beginning of withstanding tyranny; and the heavens give glory, as the Lord is revealed by a star.
To Him, then, Who out of confusion has wrought a clear path, to Christ, to the Father, and to the Holy Ghost, we offer all praise, now and for ever. Amen.
Tomorrow - Martin Luther!
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