Citygate Church

About this series:

While we regularly encourage people to be engaged in mission and give some ideas about what that could look like, our next series looks at the reasons and motivations for mission.

After the first week - What Is The Good News? - we’re going to spend five Sundays looking at the Why? of the gospel. Why is the gospel such good news? What biblical reasons do we have to engage in mission?

About this talk:

The good news is not only that we can be rescued from sin, death and hell, but that God has made a way for us to enjoy him, the greatest, most beautiful treasure. Salvation is not only a wiping clean of our past, but a future in which we are fully satisfied in God because he is fully satisfying. 

Many years ago I read, ‘God is beautiful - and not many people know that.’ One of the great tragedies of life is that men and women, if they have any conception of God at all, do not know him for the beautiful being he is; and that every attribute he has is beautiful. 

Why should we engage in mission? Because we desire to share with people the most beautiful of all treasures, God. 

Why not explore further: 

- In what ways is God beautiful? 

- What other ideas of God do people tend to have?

About this series:

While we regularly encourage people to be engaged in mission and give some ideas about what that could look like, our next series looks at the reasons and motivations for mission.

After the first week - What Is The Good News? - we’re going to spend five Sundays looking at the Why? of the gospel. Why is the gospel such good news? What biblical reasons do we have to engage in mission?

About this talk:

C. S. Lewis wrote of his conversion, ‘You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.’ He tells how he felt pursued by God until he finally surrendered. 

However, for most people, their experience of becoming a follower of Jesus invariably feels like a personal decision. Which it is. And yet, behind and before our decision is God’s decision to save us - not simply his foreknowledge that we will make that choice, but his initiative in leading us to that choice, as Lewis wrote about. 

Hence Paul writes in Ephesians 1 that God “chose us” (vs 4, 11), “predestined us” (vs 5, 11) and “made known to us the mystery of his will” (v 9), all of which remind us that followers of Jesus have been ‘moved upon’ (though often unaware of that reality) before and as they make their ‘move’ for Christ. 3 

Why should we be engaged in mission? Because God has chosen many for salvation and we are part of his means to help them hear. 

We will look at: 

- All of which also raises the question: what about those who are not chosen / predestined for salvation! 

- How does election provide a motivation for mission? 

- How might the truth about election make us view our friends, etc?

About this series:

While we regularly encourage people to be engaged in mission and give some ideas about what that could look like, our next series looks at the reasons and motivations for mission.

After the first week - What Is The Good News? - we’re going to spend five Sundays looking at the Why? of the gospel. Why is the gospel such good news? What biblical reasons do we have to engage in mission?

About this talk:

The reality of heaven is glorious beyond our imagining; the reality of hell is ghastly beyond our imagining. Heaven is the glorious reward for all whose sin has been atoned for; hell is the ghastly prospect for all who remain condemned in their sin. 

The future that awaits the believer - a new heaven on a new (or renewed) earth - is the great goal of salvation. While we rightly celebrate the present benefits of salvation, they are a foretaste of all that is yet to come, a deposit of the great inheritance awaiting us. 

The future that awaits the unbeliever - whatever the various evangelical views on hell - is a major reason for the gospel. It is a mission to persuade people not to be condemned eternally because of their guilt, shame and sin. 

Why should we be engaged in mission? Because every individual’s eternal destiny is at stake, either in heaven or in hell. 

We will look at:

- How can a God of love ‘send’ people to hell? 

- So how will I enjoy heaven? 

- What practical effect does belief in hell have on our day-to-day lives?

About this talk:

Citygate Youth, Kingdom Generation take over!

The young people of Citygate church help us to focus on Kingdom Kindness and the fact that we're motivated by God's extravagant love he has towards us. Jesus challenged those around Him with the famous story of the good Samaritan, With the young people of Citygate unpacking this passage, they help us to understand what it means to have a mindset of Kingdom Kindness in our present day.

About this series:

While we regularly encourage people to be engaged in mission and give some ideas about what that could look like, our next series looks at the reasons and motivations for mission.

After the first week - What Is The Good News? - we’re going to spend five Sundays looking at the Why? of the gospel. Why is the gospel such good news? What biblical reasons do we have to engage in mission?

About this talk:

The famous question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, ‘What is the chief end of man?’ The answer given is, ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.’ It would be fair to say that everything and everyone exists for God’s glory - to proclaim his greatness, to recognise his worth, to live with him as the great treasure in life. 

And it is therefore true that one reason for mission, one ‘Why?’ of the gospel is the glory of God. God’s glory is seen in creation, in his Word and in the church, but it is in the gospel that his glory is supremely seen. And God is greatly glorified when people come to know him and love through the gospel - ‘Our great goal of glorifying God is to be mainly achieved by the winning of souls’ (C. H. Spurgeon). 

Hence this gospel-passage in Philippians 2 ends, “to the glory of God the Father.” Why should we be engaged in mission? Because God is greatly glorified when people turn from sin and trust him.

We look at:

- What does it mean in practice to glorify God? 

- How does Jesus most perfectly show us the glory of God (see John 1:14 and elsewhere in John)?

About this series:

While we regularly encourage people to be engaged in mission and give some ideas about what that could look like, our next series looks at the reasons and motivations for mission.

After the first week - What Is The Good News? - we’re going to spend five Sundays looking at the Why? of the gospel. Why is the gospel such good news? What biblical reasons do we have to engage in mission?

About this talk:

Paul states, very succinctly, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel”. Essentially, Jesus is the good news, the gospel is the announcement of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

The gospel is not just the starting message of the Christian faith, though; it is the whole message. All the blessings that come to us are the result of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

Tim Keller said: ‘We never “get beyond the gospel” in our Christian life to something more “advanced.” The gospel is not the first “step” in a “stairway” of truths, rather, it is more like the “hub” in a “wheel” of truth. The gospel is not just the A-B-C’s of Christianity, but it is the A to Z of Christianity.’

We look at:

- How can we be people who remain centred on the good news

- The dangers of trusting in other things: effort, duty, performance, etc.

- How can I grow to love the good news, such that I am compelled to help others know about it (see 2 Corinthians 5:14)?

About this series:

The aim of this series is to present some of the Bible’s teaching about The Holy Spirit in order to raise expectations of life in the new covenant. If Jesus said, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7), we want to ask: In what ways do these Scriptures show that The Holy Spirit being with us is “for your good”? Our expectations should certainly be raised!

Hopefully this series will help us grow in both our understanding and our experience of The Holy Spirit - personal, powerful presence of God with his people.

About this talk:

There are various lists of God-given gifts in the New Testament - Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4 (cf. 1 Peter 4:10). Though these lists differ, they contain some common elements: gifts are, by definition, given; gifts are for service; everyone is gifted; different people are gifted differently; gifts are to be faithfully used and stewarded; a multiplicity of gifts is needed for the body to function effectively.

Though some people need to hear Paul’s words - “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought” (Romans 12:3) - most people are prone to thinking so little of themselves that they disqualify their contribution. Given the guidelines stated above, it will do good to encourage people to seek to advance their gifts for the glory of God and the good of others.

We look at:

- How can we identify our gifts?

- How can we grow in our gifts?

- How does serving wherever help is needed work alongside serving in my gifting?

About this series:

The aim of this series is to present some of the Bible’s teaching about The Holy Spirit in order to raise expectations of life in the new covenant. If Jesus said, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7), we want to ask: In what ways do these Scriptures show that The Holy Spirit being with us is “for your good”? Our expectations should certainly be raised!

Hopefully this series will help us grow in both our understanding and our experience of The Holy Spirit - personal, powerful presence of God with his people.

About this talk:

Jesus promised that faithful disciples will be fruitful disciples, which means evidencing a Christ-like lifestyle. Our part is to “remain” in him (John 15:1-17); his life flowing through us will then ensure that we are empowered to be like him. It is the life of the vine itself that is the fruit produced by the branches connected to the vine.

The ethical qualities spoken of in Galatians 5 are certainly not simply good characteristics that we must try hard to exhibit. Rather, they are the result of living by the Spirit; they are spirit-produced qualities. It is to this that we need to continually point people in their desire to be fruitful - to a focus on both Jesus as our model and on the Spirit’s power to make us more like Jesus.

Counterintuitively, this session on fruit therefore needs to be careful not to concentrate too much on the fruit itself, but on remaining in Christ and living by the Spirit.

Application could include:

- What does it mean, in practice, to “remain” in Christ? What practical habits can we try to grow in?

- What does it mean to “live by the Spirit”? What does it not mean?

- The practical battle not to live by the Spirit (fruit listed in vs 22-23), and not by the flesh (fruit listed in v 17)

About this series:

The aim of this series is to present some of the Bible’s teaching about The Holy Spirit in order to raise expectations of life in the new covenant. If Jesus said, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7), we want to ask: In what ways do these Scriptures show that The Holy Spirit being with us is “for your good”? Our expectations should certainly be raised!

Hopefully this series will help us grow in both our understanding and our experience of The Holy Spirit - personal, powerful presence of God with his people.

About this talk:

In the Book of Acts, Luke uses a host of phrases to record instances when people encountered the Holy Spirit: “poured out,” “received,” “came on,” “baptised with,” “filled with.” It is probably helpful that, with such a range of terms, we cannot ‘bottle’ or define too precisely what an encounter with the Spirit looks like. 

The New Testament makes it clear that everyone can expect to produce various outcomes from encountering the Holy Spirit: power, fruit, gifts, love and assurance. Galatians 4:1-7 (cf. Romans 8:14-17) makes it clear that assurance of God being our Father and of us being his children is a significant aspect of the Christian experience. We could add to this: assurance that our sins are forgiven, assurance that we are righteous in Christ and assurance that we have an inheritance (see Ephesians 1:13-14), but they could all be wrapped up in the idea of assurance of adoption. 

The New Testament uses a range of terms to describe what it means to be “in Christ” - we have been forgiven, redeemed, justified, reconciled and regenerated. All of these terms are crucial for understanding who we now are, It could be argued that the pinnacle of Christian identity is adoption. J. I Packer writes, ‘To be right with God the judge is a great thing. But to loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.’ 

And while what Packer sates is a fact to be known, it is also an experience to be felt - at our deepest level the Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are loved, wanted, adopted children and that nothing we do will undo that status. We look at the following:

- How is that God has adopted us? 

- What practical difference does adoption make to everyday life? 

- How can we deal with some of the lies that fight against this true?

About this series:

The aim of this series is to present some of the Bible’s teaching about the Holy Spirit in order to raise expectations of life in the new covenant. If Jesus said, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7), we want to ask: In what ways do these Scriptures show that the Holy Spirit being with us is “for your good”? Our expectations should certainly be raised!

Hopefully this series will help us grow in both our understanding and our experience of the Holy Spirit - personal, powerful presence of God with his people.

About this talk:

God’s people are now those who have power within to live for God and to live as he calls us to. We are those “who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4), “who live in accordance with the Spirit” (Romans 8:5), whose minds are “governed by the Spirit” (Romans 8:6), “who are led by the Spirit of God” (Romans 8:14), who are empowered to “live by, be led by and keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16, 18, 25). 

Acts 1:8 makes explicit what is demonstrated through the rest of the book - God’s people will be empowered by the Spirit to live the new life to which they’d been called, being witnesses to the reality of Jesus’ resurrection life. While the story of the early church is not perfect, the whole of Acts is an account of living by, being led by and keeping in step with the Spirit. 

The power they knew among them led to, for example: speaking tongues, miracles, generosity, salvation, prophecy, guidance, mission, endurance in suffering, physical manifestations of God’s presence (eg. “the place where they were meeting was shaken,” Acts 4:31). So notable are the effects of the coming of the Spirit that at one point, Simon the sorcerer offers Peter and John money so that he could have “this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:14-19). Oh that we may know God’s power among us that it might cause people to be desperate to experience that power for themselves! We look at the following:

- What does power in the Christian life look like? 

- How can we grow in our expectation of being empowered by the Spirit? 

- How does it look like for us to experience the missional impulse of the Spirit?