Sermons on simon: showing 436-450 of 11,140

God Restores Elijah / The Heart Of The Problem

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 15, 2020

To help Elijah out of his depression God needs to reach a point where Elijah is willing to listen to him. He then needs to resolve Elijah's sense of failure and hopelessness. We see how God did that.

1 KINGS 19, GOD RESTORES ELIJAH INTRODUCTION Today we’re returning to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. 1 Kings 18 tells us about Elijah’s confrontation with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. In 1 Kings 19, we find that Elijah has become very depressed. He thinks he’s a failure, but God ...read more

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

God Saves Jonah, Nineveh, And Us.

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Aug 29, 2020

The story of Jonah tells the story of God rescuing Jonah, not FROM a whale, but BY a whale. It tells of God reaching out to one of the cruellest people in history, the Assyrians. And it prefigures the story of God reaching out to us, through Christ.

GOD SAVES JONAH, NINEVEH, AND US We’re in a series ‘Bible Stories for Grown-Ups.’ Today, we’re looking at the story of Jonah. I’m going to assume most of us are fairly familiar with the story of Jonah and not spend time revisiting it. I’m going to look at the story under three headings: the ...read more

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

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

Dos And Don'ts Of Salvation

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Mar 22, 2021

A defibrillator can’t save someone while it’s in its cabinet. It has to be taken down and operated. In the same way, Jesus’ death and resurrection don’t save a person unless a person makes use of them. A person has to respond to them. There are some 'dos' and 'don'ts'.

In recent years something new has appeared on many high streets: defibrillators. Defibrillators can be life-savers if someone suffers a heart attack. They aren’t only on high streets, of course. I like to do ‘Park Run’ (when it’s happening!) and lots of Park Runs have defibrillators. You often ...read more

Scripture: Luke 18:9-30, Psalm 14:3, Psalm 53:3, James 2:17, James 2:26  (view more)  (view less)

Denomination: Baptist

The Defining Moment

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Mar 27, 2021

There will be moments in our lives when our choice will determine the direction of our lives. That was the situation for the people of Jerusalem on the day when Jesus entered the city on a donkey.

INTRODUCTION All of us are making choices all the time. Most of the choices are completely inconsequential. But sometimes the choices are really important. A long time ago I taught some lessons on business ethics. I read various books on business ethics and based my lessons on them. One book ...read more

Scripture: Luke 19:28-44, Zechariah 9:9, Hebrews 3:7-8

Denomination: Baptist

Not Ashamed Of The Gospel

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Oct 15, 2021

Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel. Christians today can also face that temptation. Paul then gives some solid arguments why Timothy shouldn't be ashamed of the gospel, and they help us too!

‘So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord’ Today we’re starting a new four-week series on 2 Timothy. I’m looking forward to this short series! Over the years I’ve studied a number of the New Testament letters but I’ve never really studied 2 Timothy. I’m interested to find out what ...read more

Scripture: 2 Timothy 1:8-14

Denomination: Baptist

Be A Good Soldier

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Oct 16, 2021

'Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus', Paul tells Timothy. We look at the story of three men who did just that: Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer and ask why.

Last week we started a new series on 2 Timothy. We looked at chapter 1 and I suggested that Paul’s central message to Timothy was, ‘Don’t be ashamed of the gospel’. Today we’re moving on to chapter 2. But I’m going to approach the passage by a different route. I’m going to take a look at three ...read more

Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:1-13

Denomination: Baptist

How To Stand Firm

Contributed by Simon Bartlett on Oct 24, 2021

Paul's key charge to Timothy in his letter is to stand firm for the gospel. In chapters 1 and 2 he's focused on why we should stand firm. In chapter 3, he gives attention to the how.

[SLIDE] I’d like to start today’s talk by showing you a picture. There is a crowd, going one way, and there is a man going the opposite way. The crowd aren’t giving him a hard time; it’s all quite peaceful. In the Christian life, we sometimes have to go against the majority. Quite often, in ...read more

Denomination: Baptist