Johnny Harris preaches from Luke 6:17-19 on The Wonder of Jesus the King.

He's been walking through the Sermon on the Mount — the Beatitudes, salt and light, the narrow gate, the two builders. This week he paused to behold the King Himself.

Luke shows crowds streaming in from Judea, Jerusalem, even Tyre and Sidon, coming to hear Him and be healed. Power flows from Him, and He heals them all — the promised seed, the eternal King, whose popularity flowed from His power over mind, body, and spirit.

Before the greatest sermon ever spoken, Luke shows a Saviour who draws people not for spectacle, but to reveal the heart of God and call them into His Kingdom.

Takeaways

1: Pause and behold the King. Before we hear more of what Jesus taught, we need to see who He is.

2: He is still calling. The same Jesus still reveals the Father's heart and invites us in. Will you come?

Steve Deal speaks on the river of God, following on from last week's word on the fire of God.

Taking us to Ezekiel's vision of the river flowing from the temple threshold, Steve unpacks what it means to actually get into what the Holy Spirit is doing rather than watch from the bank. As Ezekiel wades out, the water climbs from ankle-deep to knee-deep to waist-deep, and finally too deep to stand in at all - deepening the further it travels from its source, with no tributary feeding it, until it reaches the deadest place on the map and makes it live.

Steve walks through what each depth asks of us: the shallow end where God still heals (as He did the lame man at the Beautiful Gate in Acts 3), the knee-deep call to stop standing and start kneeling, the waist-deep pull where the current starts costing us something, and the place beyond wading altogether - where you're no longer walking through the Spirit, but being carried by Him.

He also warns against the quiet dams we build - unforgiveness, unconfessed sin, busyness, unbelief - that slow the river to a trickle over time without us noticing, and reminds us that a river needs banks to give it direction, even when the Spirit floods beyond what we expected.

The invitation: stop measuring the depth from the shore, and wade in.

This past Sunday Steve spoke about the fire of God, and the whole thing hinges on one word most of us read right past: because.

Luke 4 — Jesus in the synagogue, reading Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor." Steve pointed out that because is a conjunction. It connects an action to a reason. The Spirit doesn't land on Jesus so he can have a moment. It lands on him so he can go do something. And that's the pattern for every single fire moment in Scripture — nothing shows up without a because attached.

The burning bush — because God was about to free his people. The pillar of fire in the wilderness — because God was leading them to be his own. Fire falling on Elijah's soaked altar — because God was proving, in front of everybody, that he's the one true God. The burning coal on Isaiah's lips — because he was about to be sent, and he needed his mouth cleansed first. Pentecost — fire splits and rests on every believer, and within minutes Peter's preaching in the street and three thousand people get saved that day. Every time, the because comes before the fire ever falls.

That's what makes lukewarm so dangerous — Revelation 3, the church at Laodicea. It's not that they're cold. They just don't have a because anymore. No reason, no mission, no fire — just comfortable and calling it faithful.

So Steve's question to close: don't ask if you felt the fire. Ask what it was for. Because fire always falls for a reason. Here am I. Send me.

This week's podcast opened with joyful news: Steve and Bek's daughter was born just as worship was beginning. Paul Hannan then brought the message, speaking on the theme that we are foreigners and exiles in this world.

Drawing on the classic Pilgrim's Progress, Paul reminded us that we're just passing through — on a journey, headed somewhere. He posed the question: where are we actually going? We're called to live differently, to be in the world but not of it, without ever thinking we're better than anyone else.

Whatever we do in life, Paul urged us to live not as tourists but as pilgrims — people who carry themselves as though God's Kingdom has already come to earth. Wherever we go, whatever we're doing, we are representatives of that Kingdom.

We know we're not home yet. So we walk with clean hands, abstaining from the sinful desires that war against our souls. Pilgrims shine on the road. Pilgrims long for a better country, walking with their eyes fixed on the horizon.

Johnny Harris shares a message around being safe in the saviour’s love, drawn from Romans 5:1–2.

In these two short verses the Apostle Paul opens up four unbreakable links that secure every believer:

1. Justified by Faith. We have been declared righteous before God — not by our efforts, but freely through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:23–24).

2. Peace with God. The war is over. Through our Lord Jesus Christ we now have peace with God. This is not a feeling we manufacture; it is a settled status secured by His finished work.

3. Standing in Grace. Through Jesus we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. He is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us blameless with great joy (Jude 24).

4. Hope of Glory. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. When Christ who is our life appears, we also will appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:4).

Johnny reminded us that these four links hold firm because of Jesus Himself. He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him. He will never cast out anyone who comes to Him, and He will lose nothing of all that the Father has given Him.

If you have ever wondered whether you are truly safe in God’s love, or if you have been quietly trying to keep yourself in His good books, this passage brings deep rest. 

The work is finished. The standing is secure. The hope is sure.

Candice Hewitt speaks on the patience of God.

Part 4 of what happens when you die - Steve Deal speaks about what actually happens when you close your eyes for the last time? Not a fade into nothing. Not a spirit adrift somewhere between worlds. Scripture calls it sleep — a rest before a waking that's still to come. In this final part of our series, we follow the story all the way from Eden, where heaven and earth once touched without a seam, through the fall that tore them apart, to the promise that ends it all: heaven isn't a place you escape to. It's coming down. Bodies raised imperishable. Creation healed and set free. God himself dwelling with His people, close enough to see, wiping every tear by hand. This is the hope Scripture has been pointing to all along — and an invitation to be part of the story before it ends.

Johnny Harris speaks about the Gospel of the Kingdom from the Sermon on the Mount.

In our day, the gospel is often reduced to "easy believe-ism" — a simple transaction that gives you a ticket to heaven when you die. But Jesus' invitation to the Kingdom is far richer and more comprehensive. It's a call to enter a new reality now: to live under God's gracious rule, with a transformed heart, in relationship with the Father, and with a sure hope of resurrection life in the age to come.

Paul Hannan brings a message on the parable of the Lost Coin. Unlike the Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son — stories of wandering or rebellion — the coin doesn't know it's lost at all. Paul asks the pointed question that raises: if you don't know you're lost, can you ever step into the life God has prepared for you?

Notice who does the finding. The father runs to the prodigal. Jesus goes out after the sheep. But the coin can't come back or be caught — so the Holy Spirit sweeps the house, searching, seeking, shining a light into every corner until it's found. A message for anyone who assumes they're fine, no searching required.

Steve Deal continues a series asking some of the harder questions about faith — what the Bible actually says, and what we've assumed it says. Part 3 digs into a handful of passages people bring up often, looking closely at the language and context behind them. It's a conversation about taking a second look at things we thought we already understood about the afterlife.