Sunday Sermons - Reality Church London

Our passage today does not say everything that happens is good. It says that God works all things for good for his people, culminating in their glorification — safe with him in his kingdom forever as their truest selves. To know deep down that God is working all things for good provides hope and peace even as we walk through the fiercest storms

Paul never minimises the sufferings Christians experience, but he does say that those sufferings pale in comparison to the coming glory. So, Christians are those who wait with hope. Waiting is hard (waiting rooms are the worst places in the world to be), but having hope in the waiting changes everything. As we wait in hope, we rest in the reality that the Spirit is interceding for us, pleading to the Father on our behalf (v27).

The Spirit helps Christians experience their adoption. The doctrine of adoption means we are members of God’s family, his sons and daughters. What the Spirit does is take that objective reality and help us experience in subjective ways. Knowing by experience that we are God’s children gives us courage to face anything

Today Pastor Girma preaches a special sermon on the topic of gratitude. We focus on the abundant generosity of the God whom we worship and look at our response to this. Particularly we look at how we can instill practices of gratitude in our daily lives.

In our final sermon in the series of Jonah, we take a step back and look at the big picture of the book.

Chapter 4 is the climax of Jonah’s story, as we see Jonah’s heart contrasted with God’s heart. Jonah wants to see Nineveh destroyed. God, by contrast, has compassion for the great city, and longs to pour out mercy. As we wrestle with the Jonah story, we’re meant to turn the mirror on ourselves, to ask: how do we view our city? Jesus, the anti-Jonah, is the incarnation of God’s compassion for the city. As we live in him, we too can be turned around into a people who experience deep compassion for our great city.

Here in Jonah 3 we see three kinds of ‘repentance’. Jonah (even if begrudgingly) fulfils God’s call to preach in Nineveh. The Ninevites repented at Jonah’s preaching. And God ‘relents’ from destroying the city. Here in this chapter, we learn something important about repentance, and how repentance is always first and foremost a fruit of God’s work in a person’s (or a community’s) life (cf 2 Timothy2v25).

‘There is no sin so great that Christ’s grace is not greater still’. ThoughJonah deserved judgment, God gave him mercy. God’s never-endinglove comes to Jonah in the provision of a great fish, which savesJonah’s life and brings him back to the pathway of obedience. Whilstin the fish’s belly, Jonah experiences the reality of faith and prayer ina new way. The final line of his prayer reveals the heart of the gospel:‘Salvation comes from the Lord’ (2v9).

In this RCL conversation Ed sits down with Charlie Cleverly, who ministered for over 40 years, in London, Paris, and Oxford. Charlie has a deep passion for prayer for teaching, encouraging, and equipping others in their daily pursuit for communion with God. In this interview Charlie discusses some practical features we can use to aid us on in our journeys to know and love God more and more each day. He's also an accomplished author with a number of books on this topic. You can also check out the full video recording of this interview here:

Commencing a four-part sermon series reflecting on the book of Jonah, we explore how despite Jonah's own prejudices and failings, God is relentless in pursuing him. Because even as the prophet runs, the Lord sends Jonah severe mercies in the form of a great wind, pagan sailors, and a huge fish, all designed to bring Jonah back to God.