The announcement of Christmas is a promise that meets every human being at the core of their innate desire—their ultimate urge to know joy. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the … [Read more...]
Kingdom Table Etiquette (Luke 14:1–24)
Jesus challenges our culture today as much as he did in the first century. This passage teaches us that God honours the humble, and humbles the proud. Our view of God’s kingdom affects the way we view people. Jesus challenged the Pharisees of his day, and we ought to take this challenge seriously ourselves. One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the … [Read more...]
Prayer and The Great Commission: The Pardon and Power of Prayer (Luke 11:1–13)
In his upcoming book, Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global, Andy Johnson writes, “God intends not only that his mission would go forward, but that it would go forward on his terms. He means to get glory by showing that the mission is his, and that his power sustains it. Any effort on our part to change or broaden the mission, or to substitute our ideas for God’s, runs the … [Read more...]
Prayer and the Great Commission: Praying for Provision (Luke 11:1–4)
The highlight of the annual calendar at Brackenhurst Baptist Church is our annual missions conference, known by our members as the World Outreach Celebration (WOC). The theme for WOC 2017 is “The Greatness of the Great Commission.” A pastor from Zambia, Choolwe Mwetwa, will be delivering five messages on different aspects of the greatness of the Great Commission. It promises to … [Read more...]
Prayer and the Great Commission: The Purpose of Prayer (Luke 11:1–4)
Someone has well said that prayer is to the life of the Christian as oxygen is to the body. In a moment of time, a newborn infant is brought into a brand new and strange environment, with a unique atmosphere, where he drinks in the first of billions breaths that he will take throughout his lifetime. So it is for the newborn child of God. He has gone from the environment of … [Read more...]