Sermons on Simon The Magician:

The Gospel. Part 4: What Happens If We Reject Jesus?

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Nov 24, 2020

Without Jesus in our lives, sin takes hold; weeds start to grow up in the garden of our lives. But the consequences for eternity are much more serious. However, does scripture really lead us to expect the 'pains of hell for ever'?

Please note. The passage for this talk is Matthew 25:31-46, however the main focus of the talk is v.46. Part 4: What happens if we reject Jesus? Today we have the fourth and last talk in my series on the gospel. We’re thinking about the question, ‘What happens if we reject Jesus?’ Quite a ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46, Matthew 25:46

Denomination: Baptist

Christmas: Reason To Hope

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Nov 28, 2020

Simeon hoped to see the messiah before he died and he did. His story teaches us something about why we hope and how to hope.

We’ve just sung that great song by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, ‘In Christ alone my hope is found.’ That’s quite a declaration! Getty wrote the music and Townend wrote the words. Townend isn’t merely saying that Jesus is A source of HOPE. He’s saying that Jesus is the ONLY source of hope! ...read more

Scripture: Luke 2:22-35

Denomination: Baptist

Jesus, Prince Of Peace

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Dec 5, 2020

Peace is central to Christmas. Jesus came to heal the age-old fracture and bring us peace with God and he's the only one who can.

What does Christmas mean to you? What do you like best about Christmas? Spending time with family and friends? Christmas trees? Turkey roasts? Christmas puddings and brandy butter? Stockings? Santa? Presents? Carols? A season of goodwill when we put past hurts aside? I certainly like all ...read more

Scripture: Luke 2:8-10, Isaiah 9:6-7, John 14:27, Luke 2:29-30, Luke 2:14, Luke 12:50-52, John 16:32-33  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Baptist

Joy To The World

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Dec 12, 2020

The angel proclaimed ‘good news of great joy.’ Sounds great! But what exactly is this good news? What kind of joy should we experience? Do you have that joy?

In the lead-up to Christmas this year we’re focusing on four great themes: hope, peace, joy and love. Many churches have Advent candles and they associate these four themes with the first four Advent candles. The fifth candle is for Jesus. The last two Sundays we looked at hope and peace; today ...read more

Scripture: Luke 2:8-11, Luke 2:23, Luke 1:50, Luke 1:54, Luke 1:72, Luke 1:76-78  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Baptist

God Heals Naaman

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 23, 2020

The story of God healing Naaman is full of lessons, for example, about opportunity, courtesy, humility, and greed. But the key message must be the one Jesus drew from it. That is, that if we wish to see God's miracles, we must accept his word.

NAAMAN’S HEALING We’re continuing in our series ‘Bible Stories for Grown-Ups.’ Today we’re looking at one of the most famous stories in the Book of Kings. It’s the story of the healing of the Syrian general, Naaman. It’s a great story for Sunday School, because one of the key characters is a ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

Daniel's Prayer Of Confession, Part 1

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jul 1, 2020

Daniel is about to say sorry to God on behalf of his people, the Jews. In 'Part 1' I look at WHY he prayed (he understood scripture), HOW he prayed (intensely) and WHO he prayed to (his God, a covenant-keeping God, a great and awesome God). Part 2 will be WHAT he prayed.

Daniel’s prayer of confession Part 1 1. Introduction Today we are continuing our mini-series on prayer, and looking at an amazing prayer which teaches us about saying sorry. It’s a prayer which the prophet Daniel said; we find it in Daniel 9. I’m going to start to look at it this week and ...read more

Scripture: Daniel 9:1-5

Denomination: Baptist

The Lord's Prayer, Part 2

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jul 1, 2020

How to use The Lord's Prayer in our own prayer time.

The Lord’s Prayer (2) We’re continuing our little series on prayer. I planned to do two talks on the Lord’s Prayer and today we have the second. Jesus doesn’t just dive straight into the Lord’s Prayer. He first gave some teaching about how we should not pray, and last week, we looked at what ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 6:9-15

Denomination: Baptist

Daniel's Prayer Of Confession, Part 2

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jul 6, 2020

All of us have to say sorry to God. Daniel's prayer has much to teach about saying sorry. In particular, Daniel accepts that he shares responsibilty for the sin of his people.

Last week I did a first talk on Daniel’s prayer of confession. I’m going to assume that you can roughly remember what I talked about last week. That might be a mistake, but even if you can’t, I don’t think it should be too much of a problem for following my talk today. At the end of last week’s ...read more

Scripture: Daniel 9:4-10

Denomination: Baptist

Praying For Our Church

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jul 12, 2020

Paul's second prayer for the church in Ephesus is a great model of how we can pray for our church and for other churches today, for God to strengthen his people with power.

PRAYING FOR THE CHURCH INTRODUCTION We’ve now come to the sixth and last in our mini-series on prayer. We first looked at Gideon’s prayer for guidance. Then we spent two weeks on the Lord’s Prayer. Then we had two weeks on Daniel’s prayer of confession on behalf of his people. Today we’re ...read more

Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21

Denomination: Baptist

Joshua And The Walls Of Jericho

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Jul 22, 2020

This is a great children's story. But as adults, it prompts some difficult questions. Is it even true? How could God destroy an entire city? It's also a wonderful example of God's people overcoming a seemingly-insurmountable obstacle through faith and obedience.

JOSHUA AND THE WALLS OF JERICHO INTRODUCTION We’re moving from our series on prayer to a new series called ‘Bible Stories for Grown-Ups.’ There are some famous stories in the Old Testament which we may have heard as children, perhaps at home or at Sunday School. In this series the idea is to ...read more

Scripture: Joshua 6:1-21

Denomination: Baptist

God Restores Elijah / Preparation

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 3, 2020

In this first-of-two talks we look at some of the initial things that helped Elijah recover from depression. They are things we can also do. They paved the way for God to address the root cause of the problem: Elijah's sense of failure.

INTRODUCTION We’re now onto the second talk in our series called ‘Bible Stories for Grown-Ups.’ In these talks we’re going back to some of the famous stories in the Old Testament which we may have heard as children, perhaps at home or at Sunday School. The idea is to take a fresh look at them as ...read more

Scripture: 1 Kings 19:1-8

Denomination: Baptist

The King Of Glory Comes In

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Sep 12, 2020

The earth is the Lord's. The Lord will return and enter our world as king of glory and mighty warrior. Ancient doors should lift up their heads in anticipation, and so should we.

Psalm 24 INTRODUCTION This month I’m going to take a look at three psalms: Psalms 24, 69 and 119. Today, we’ll look at Psalm 24. The words of the psalm are really moving: ‘Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in…’ We can ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

Delighting In God's Law

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Sep 20, 2020

God's law is the basis for the psalmist to be blameless, and that is the basis for him to enjoy God's favour. The psalmist respects God's law, relies on it, delights in it, and asks God to teach him it. But can he be blameless? The answer is yes.

[This talk was quite dependent on PowerPoint slides. I’ve indicated where I used slides with ***] INTRODUCTION Today we’re looking at Psalm 119. One of Psalm 119’s claims to fame is the fact that it’s the longest chapter in the Bible. It’s 176 verses long! It’s way in the lead. In second ...read more

Denomination: Baptist

An Attitude Of Gratitude

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Sep 26, 2020

When we look at how God instructed the Israelites to celebrate TWO harvest festivals we find there is a lot we can apply to how we thank God for his goodness to us. There are some surprises!

Today we’re celebrating Harvest Festival. This year, coronavirus restrictions have resulted in a rather muted celebration. We aren’t meeting at church and we don’t have the usual piles of food to give to the food bank, or a beautiful harvest loaf. I’m going to take a look at some passages and ...read more

Scripture: Psalm 65:9-13, Exodus 23:16, Deuteronomy 16:13, Deuteronomy 16:16

Denomination: Baptist

The Gospel. Part 1: The Problem

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Oct 9, 2020

To understand why the gospel is such great news (the very best news, in fact!) we need to understand why the problem that the gospel solves is such bad news.

INTRODUCTION Today we’re starting a series of four talks titled ‘the gospel.’ The word ‘gospel’ means ‘Good News.’ We like good news! People complain about the press and say that the press really prefers bad news to good news. But I think most of us like good news. • Your friends have a ...read more

Denomination: Baptist