Sermon Transcripts

Matthew 1:1-17 The King Is Here In 2013, the digital currency known as Bitcoin was rarely spoken of outside the private conversations of IT and computer experts...

Matthew 4:1-11 The King's Probation Well, in case you live under a rock, you now know that the United States is undergoing a transition of power since Donald Tr...

Matthew 4:12-17 Kingdom Light A little while ago, I think maybe a couple of months now, I took Caitlin through the Clifton Caves. It was the first time I'd been...

Matthew 4:18-22 Followers Of The King Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian known for his active resistance to the Nazi regime during World War I...

Matthew 4:23-25 Kingdom On The Move Well, this morning we land on a penultimate section in a way of speaking before we embark on what is famously known as the S...

Matthew 5:1-7.29 Introduction To The Sermon On the Mount Well, a good question to ask at this point, especially with a break of three weeks, would be this: What...

Matthew 5:1-12 The Upside-Down Kingdom We come now to consider the opening words of the Sermon on the Mount. Allow me to remind you of a few important points fr...

Matthew 5:13-16 People of Salt and Light Well, this morning we take yet another step into Jesus' teaching discourse on the Sermon on the Mount. The King is defi...

Matthew 5:17-18 Jesus Came to Fulfill The Law I remember as a youth learning that if you were to lay out the vast network of blood vessels in the average adult,...

Matthew 5:19-20 The Christian And The Law Here in Matthew 5:19-20, as with subsequent messages for a little while in Matthew's Gospel, plain and simple, Jesus w...

Matthew 5:21-26 The Law Explained Part I Murder Well, as a summary of how we came to this portion of scripture, last week, particularly in Matthew 5:20, Jesus m...

Matthew 1:18-25 The Birth of the King A couple of years ago, a sports reporter asked the coach of the Boston Celtics basketball team, Joe Mazzulla, to comment o...

Matthew 5:27–30 The Law Explained Part II Adultery It would be helpful to be reminded of a little context as we begin. It is important that we read the Sermon o...

Matthew 5:31-32 The Law Explained Part III Divorce Well, Jesus continues to explain how we as Christians are to relate to the law and his commandments, and, at...

Matthew 5:33-37 The Law Explained Part IV Vows There was a wealthy oil tycoon on his deathbed, and his pastor sat by his side and reminded him of God’s healing...

Matthew 5:38-42 The Law Explained Part V Revenge In our studies in the Sermon on the Mount, I have repeatedly emphasised that this sermon is addressed to the be...

Matthew 5:43-48 The Law Explained Part VI Love Your Enemies We now come to the sixth of Jesus’ so-called antithesis statements in the Sermon on the Mount. Over...

Matthew 5:48 Are You Perfect? Next time you are in a mall or a public place, somewhere where you can look around and see people go about their day, I'd encourag...

Matthew 6:1-4, 16-8 What Motivates Your Christian Works? For the most part, virtue is something that our society celebrates. To have virtue is to possess, as a...

Matthew 6:5-15 How The Christian Ought To Pray In this sixth chapter, Jesus’ teaching is especially focused on the Christian’s need to live as those aware they...

Matthew 6:19-24 Undivided Loyalty For God Most of the time, it is really important in our lives that we have the right perspective, isn't it? It is really easy...

Matthew 6:25-34 God's Cure For Anxiety C.S. Lewis once said, "Put first things first, and we get second things thrown in. Put second things first, and we lose b...

Matthew 2:1-12 Worship the King By way of introduction, entertain a few questions with me. To what end or purpose did God create all things? Why is there someth...

Matthew 7:1-6 How And How Not To Judge It has been well said that the words of the Bible, when pressed too far, taken out of context, and mishandled, yield not...

Matthew 7:7-12 Who Can Live The Christian Life If you enjoy hiking, tramping, exploring in the wilderness, or mountaineering, you might understand the concept o...

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter Through The Narrow Gate The Puritan preacher Giles Firmin once said, "It is the duty of all the sons and daughters of Adam who hear the go...

Matthew 7:15-20 Beware of the Wolves We inch nearer again to the conclusion of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which formally concluded in verses seven to twelve. I...

Matthew 7:21-23 True And False Christians We come now to consider the penultimate message in our journey through Jesus' teaching of what is called the Sermon on...

Matthew 7:24-27 Build Your House Upon The Rock Matthew has laboured in his narration of the life and ministry of Jesus to show us that the great expected King h...

Matthew 7:28-29 Amazed By Jesus In stage productions and plays, producers usually use, at some point, focused light to help highlight certain characters on the...

Matthew 8:1-17 He Took Our Infirmities After many weeks working our way through the Sermon on the Mount we now come down off the mountain to follow Christ and c...

For anyone who watches the America's Cup or follows sailing, Peter Burling will be a household name. Burling spent twelve years with Team New Zealand, but has r...

Have you ever witnessed true power? This week, I saw a video of a New Zealand politician commenting on the war in the Middle East. And what caught my attention...

Matthew 2:13-15 A New Exodus Imagine watching the final episode of a TV show where the producers decide to leave the plot on a cliff-hanger right at the end of...

We come in our studies in Matthew to perhaps one of the most well-known recorded miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have in the Gospels. I think most Chr...

This morning we come to a short portion of Matthew's gospel with a peculiar point of difference. That point of difference is that Matthew breaks, and of course...

Well, again, we are in Matthew's gospel, and again we come to another searching question concerning the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples. Las...

The Reverend Jay Wilbur Chapman once published a devotional book called "The Secret of the Happy Day." At one point, he retells the story of a Christian man tra...

We ought to be aware as Christians that we are part of a work of God that spans human history itself. It is a work to show God's glory and his power. It is a wo...

Matthew 10:16-23 Sheep Among Wolves The next portion for us is Matthew 10:16-23. The message that I have entitled "Sheep Among Wolves." Matthew 10:16 says, "Beh...

From our earliest life, it is a very natural impulse for us to imitate others. We imitate others, but ultimately it is man's calling, his creational mandate to...

In our lives, we have to discern in people and in things the point to which we can trust them, don't we? I was flying home from the Hawke's Bay just this past w...

In Matthew 10 this morning we continue on the theme of Kingdom Missions for Christ and his Gospel. Missions is really the one word umbrella term that can be put...

Many Christians in life struggle with what I call the inferior Christian complex. This is a state of mind where people wrongly begin to compare themselves to ot...

Matthew 2:16-18 Weeping in Ramah Perhaps you have heard of the infamous eighteenth-century French philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) of the so-called Enlightenmen...

As we enter a new chapter in the gospel according to Matthew, we enter a new division in the book. Matthew repeats this phrase "when Jesus had finished" five ti...

Have you ever been in situations in your life when upon reflection, you didn't really appreciate the gravity or the weight of the moment? And it's only when you...

Matthew 2:19-23 Jesus the Nazarene Well, we come this morning to our next passage in Matthew's Gospel in this series through Matthew's Gospel, and I want to bri...

Matthew 3:1-4 Prepare the Way of the Lord In 1960, archaeologists were excavating sites in Masada, which was the location of Herod the Great's temple. We've lea...

Matthew 3:5-12 A Warning in the Wilderness We tend to minimize things in our lives which are of tremendous importance, but inconvenient facts at the time. You w...

Matthew 3:13-17 An Unexpected Baptism A little while ago, John, Caleb, and I were seated in a lawyer's office in Invercargill, having one of the final legal doc...