Talks from 2023
Zechariah’s Song || Delle Matthews|| Luke 1:67-79
Have you ever thought – what I’ve done is too bad. Unforgivable. Irredeemable? Well simply put. You’d be wrong. With Christmas just around the corner, here’s your reminder that Jesus is our one true hope, and that nothing can separate us from the love …
Mary’s Song || Joel Snibson || Luke 1:46-56
It can be hard to see from our 2000 year of removal from the birth of Jesus, but his coming was the start of a revolution. Like all good revolutions, this one had an anthem in song: Mary’s song, that we find in Luke.
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Hannah’s Song || Tim Johnson || 1 Samuel 2:1-10
Today marks the start of Advent, a season of quiet anticipation for Christmas. Maybe not so quiet these days, as seasonal creep brings Christmas carols earlier and earlier, and pre-Christmas catchups mount. But as a church, we’re trying to make space f…
Miriam’s Song || Joel Snibson || Exodus 15:1-18
As we wait for Christmas, to celebrate the birth of our saviour, carols will be a big part of that. Singing to remind ourselves, and to bring praise to God for who his is and what he’s done. We’re starting a new series today looking at song from the bi…
Part of God’s Story || Tim Johnson || Colossians 3:1-14
What stories do we tell ourselves? Maybe stories of success, accomplishment, achievement. Maybe stories of failure, and an attitude of “I’m not good enough”.
We’re coming to the end of our series on identity, called You Do You, and well today be explor…
Thanksgiving 2023 || Maddy Bialecki || 1 Chronicles 16:8-36
A Wright Brother; Australia’s 3rd Prime Minister; St John’s Diamond Creek. All celebrate 156 years in 2023. This Sunday is our Thanksgiving Service, where we thank God for the year that’s been.
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Made for God || Tim Johnson || Galatians 4:4-11
We’re halfway through our You Do You series- exploring this idea of ‘expressive individualism’, and where we find our identity. Modern western culture says to find your true self, you just need to look inward. But as we’ve seen, looking inwards isn’t t…
Made for Community || Joel Snibson || 1 Peter 2:1-10
There’s a saying, that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. The idea being that we are shaped by those we interact with the most. Today we’re exploring the idea that ‘You Do You’ doesn’t work, as we’re made as people who…
You do You? || Tim Johnson || Genesis 3:1-5 & Matthew 4:1-11
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Christ Calls us to Change || Joel Snibson || Matthew 22:1-14
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Christ the Cornerstone || Delle Matthews || Matthew 21:33-46
Building projects abound in Melbourne – from road works, to level crossing removals, to new housing, they’re everywhere. Too, vineyards and wineries are abundant on our doorstep, into the Yarra Valley.
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Saying YES to God || Maddy Bialecki || Matthew 21:28-32
What’s more important, saying you’ll do something, or actually doing it? Today we’re hearing another story from Jesus, about the kingdom of heaven.
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God’s Unfair Grace || Joel Snibson || Matthew 20:1-16
When we focus on our own work and good deeds, we can fall into the trap of comparison. Instead, let’s focus on God’s scandalous grace, bringing joy and celebration when we see others also receiving that grace!
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Why Tim LOVES this Church || Tim Johnson || 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Ten years is an incredible milestone, and one we celebrate today. Tim’s bringing a look at part of Paul’s letter in the new testament to the church in Corinth – from 1 Corinthians chapter 1, on just why Tim loves this church.
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Standing Firm in Prayer & Work || Tim Johnson || 2 Thessalonians 3
For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been thinking about holding on, and standing firm in our faith. Today, Tim wraps up our series in 2 Thessalonians with the end of Paul’s letter, encouraging the church in Thessaloniki to stand firm in prayer and work…
Standing Firm Against False Teaching || Joel Snibson || 2 Thessalonians 2
What do you hold onto in times of struggle?
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Praying for your friends || Delle Matthews || 2 Thessalonians 1
Throughout this series, we’ll continue to see how the Thessalonians are enduring persecution and threatened by wrong teaching. Paul’s letter encourages them to stand firm in their faith and to keep going with Jesus.
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St John’s Extra: The End of Suffering
The Christian faith, including the Christian understanding of suffering, centres on the good news of Jesus: his life, death and resurrection. Last episode we discussed the amazing truth that God experiences pain and suffering in the person of Jesus. God understands our suffering, not in a merely theoretical way, but experientially. But the Christian faith offers us more than a God who has experienced our pain. That is amazing and comforting but it doesn’t solve the problem of suffering and…
When will suffering end? || Tim Johnson || Job 42
When will it end? When we’re in the midst of suffering, it seems to go on forever. But today, we’ll see the end of Job’s suffering, as we also come to the end of the book of Job, and the end of this series on the problem of suffering.
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St John’s Extra: God’s experience of Suffering
The heart of the Christian faith is the good news about Jesus: his life, death and resurrection. It is this which shapes the Christian understanding of suffering too. Perhaps the key thing that Christians can say about suffering is that God is not remote or removed from human suffering. Christians believe that God himself took on human flesh in the person of Jesus. He lived as one of us, he experienced all the highs and lows of human existence, and…
What would you ask God? || Tim Johnson || Job 38:1-21 & 40:1-14
When you get to heaven, what’s the first question you’ll ask God?
In today’s talk, we’re looking at Job’s questioning of God. Why has God allowed suffering to run rife in Job’s life, and more broadly, why is there suffering in the world at all?
Connec…
St John’s Extra: Suffering within our Story
As we wrestle with the problem of suffering, we need to think about how suffering fits within the story that we are living in. Humans are storytellers and we understand the world we live in through a ‘big story’ (the fancy name is a metanarrative) which provides a framework for understanding and interpreting reality. For Christians, our big story is contained in the bible and the first two ‘episodes’ of this story helps us understand the problem of suffering in…
Are you allowed to shout at God? || Tim Johnson || Job 30
Jesus shouted “MY GOD MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!?” as he hung on the cross. But are we, as God’s created beings, allowed to talk to God in that way? Are we allowed to shout at God, get angry at God, lament with God?
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St John’s Extra: Taking God out of the Equation
In these episodes of St John’s Extra we are wrestling with the problem of suffering. Last week we acknowledged that suffering is a real problem but not everyone would agree with this. For an atheist suffering is not a problem at all because it is just the way things are in a materialistic universe and there is no point trying to grapple with it and explain it. This is the way that the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins puts it: ‘In…
What do you say to someone who is suffering? || Tim Johnson || Job 2:11-13 & 4:1-21
What do you say to someone who is suffering? It’s a privilege, but a hard situation to be in – to care for someone in their time of need. As we continue our series in the book of Job, exploring the problem of suffering, we’re about to meet Job’s friend…