Paul has heard some encouraging things about the church at Colosae, but he doesn't start this letter by praising and thanking them, rather He gives thanks to God for what the Gospel is doing in their lives: the Good News is being proclaimed, lives are being changed, and love is being expressed in actions.

When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, He found that Jewish worship of God was tainted by compromise and a loss of focus. The Temple has now gone, but the temptation to compromise and lose focus remains.

This well known passage about the wedding in Cana describes the first time that Jesus revealed His glory to His disciples. Be careful though, it is easy to be side-tracked with other issues!

In this passage, John gives us an insight into the process of the gathering of the first disciples; and we should find it instructive and challenging. As people become believers in Jesus, they participate in the process by introducing their friends, family and others to Jesus as well.

Jesus described John the Baptist as the greatest of the prophets, and yet it's not often that we think of him this way. So, why is he great? Possibly because he humbly strived to deflect any attention that was directed at him so that instead, he could make much of Jesus - the anointed One of God.

The start of the Gospel of Jesus according to John does not pull any punches. John makes his intentions very clear. He wants us to know that Jesus is not just some historical figure from the past. Rather, He is the second person of the Trinity, all things were created through Him, and He came into the world to save sinners. So, where do you stand with Jesus?

This is the final sermon in the Permission To Speak series from the Book of Psalms. Passages from the Psalms are some of the most often quoted passages from the Old Testament in the New Testament. That's because the New Testament writers were thoroughly convinced that these passages were about Jesus - Psalsm of the Messiah!

Jesus said that His Kingdom was not of this world, and that helps us interpret the Psalms of the King found in the Book of Psalms. Psalm 97 is a good example of a psalm procaliming the Divine King, Yahweh, and it begs a question of the reader - whose kingdom do you belong to?

The Book of Psalms contains many encouragements to follow and keep God's instructions for how to live our lives. For Christians, the Good News of the Gospel is that our salvation is secure in the person and work of Jesus. How we now live is an indication of our salvation, and the Psalmist encourages us to love God's instructions.

Psalms that request God to bring vengeance to our enemies seem to be at odds with the teaching of Jesus to love our enemies, so how do we resolve this? The answer comes in seeing how the justice of God and the grace of Gospel allow us to trust our hurts to God, who will ultimately put all things right.