Hatfield Christian Church

Be happy. Be meek. ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.’ It’s a verse many of us know, and few of us want, because meek sounds an awful lot like weak.

As we continue our ‘Be Happy’ series on the Beatitudes, Pastor Louis looks at the third one. In Jesus’s day, it seemed the mighty Roman Empire owned the world, not the meek, and even today we tend to link the earth with those who hold military or economic power. Yet Jesus is clear that it isn’t the powerful who inherit the earth. It’s the meek, and they’re the closest to God’s Kingdom.

Meekness isn’t weakness. It’s strength under control, and it’s a matter of identity: knowing who you are, whose you are, and where you belong. It means knowing what is right and standing for it in the right way, a life-giving way, with an anger that serves justice rather than sin.

We’re in a battle to restore creation to what God made it to be. So how are we using the power we’ve been given, and what does it look like to live as children of God in the way Jesus describes?

Join us as we discover why Jesus calls the meek blessed.

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Be happy. Be sad. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ Jesus puts the two together on purpose, and He attaches a promise.

Be honest: how much energy do you expend in avoiding sadness? Yet in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says there is a blessing waiting for those who mourn. What kind of sorrow is He talking about? And what kind of comfort does He offer in return?

As Pastor Louis continues our ‘Be Happy’ series on the Beatitudes, we consider the crowd Jesus spoke to – a crowd that knew loss, both personally and together, yet He draws them deeper than grief over what has been lost. He points to mourning over a sinful, broken world, and our own part in it. It’s less about bereavement and more about repentance, what Paul calls ‘godly sorrow’: a sorrow that leads to change and can turn a whole life around.

That is where the blessing is. Those who mourn in this way are met with God’s comfort. Not just a passing good feeling, but the Holy Spirit standing alongside us, encouraging and strengthening us to keep going. We can’t avoid life’s blindsiding moments, but in God’s Kingdom, we need never face them alone.

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‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Happy are the poor? It’s an unlikely place for Jesus to begin, and He begins there on purpose.

As we continue our ‘Be Happy’ series, Pastor Louis looks at the first of the Beatitudes. They are some of the best-known words Jesus ever spoke and, as John Stott observed, probably the least understood and the least obeyed. It’s tempting to treat them as a nice ideal to admire from a distance, but Jesus meant them as the real characteristics of His Kingdom.

Jesus was speaking to people who knew what it was to be poor and powerless under Roman oppression, waiting for a Messiah to restore their place of prominence. His surprising message was that the Kingdom was already in their midst, and that their need brought them closer to it than wealth ever could. Being poor in spirit isn’t about our bank balance. It’s a heart that recognises its total dependence on God, and wealth can quietly tempt us to forget that.

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Be happy. It sounds simple, but what if Jesus’ idea of happiness is far bigger, and far stranger, than ours?

As Pastor Louis begins our ‘Be Happy’ series on the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, we start where Jesus starts: on a mountainside, with a crowd gathered and His disciples close, as He describes what life looks like under the reign of God’s Kingdom.

We’ll look at the word translated ‘blessed’ and what it really means, and ask how Jesus’ picture of happiness compares with our own. Happiness today tends to depend on comfort, success, and favourable circumstances. The Beatitudes describe something deeper: a happiness that grows out of joy, and that belongs to people who don’t always look like they should be happy at all – the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the persecuted.

The Beatitudes aren’t a checklist for earning God’s love. They’re a portrait of God’s upside-down Kingdom, transforming us from the inside out.

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Six times in Matthew 5 during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says the same thing: ‘You have heard that it was said… but I tell you.’ Neil helps us work our way through the second half of this chapter, and it’s one of the most direct, confronting passages in the Gospel accounts.

Speaking into a very specific religious context, Jesus takes the familiar commands – about anger, lust, covenant faithfulness, honesty, retaliation, and love for our enemies – and takes them back to God’s original intent. He challenges the way the law had come to be practised, and shows that God cares about far more than outward behaviour. He cares about the heart.

It’s a strong challenge, but it’s a challenge in love. Jesus closes the Sermon on the Mount with the picture of two builders: one who hears His words and puts them into practice, and one who doesn’t. This message asks what it looks like to be a wise builder, building our lives on the rock.

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What if the words you speak could breathe life into what feels dry, broken, or forgotten? Are your words building or breaking?

This Sunday, Pastor Letichia explores the power and weight of our words—from the first words spoken in creation, to the curse, the blessing, Ezekiel’s dry bones, and even Jesus’ battle of words with Satan in the wilderness.

Let’s discover how God is inviting us to lay down idle words, speak prophetic life, and make room for His breath—the Ruach—to bring strength and renewal.

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As we celebrate new life bursting into bloom all around us, Pastor Louis turns our attention to a joy that doesn’t depend on the seasons or on anything else that changes.

1 Peter 1:8 describes a joy that is ‘inexpressible and glorious’ – a joy so deep it defies description. We’ll explore why: because this joy isn’t rooted in what we’ve seen or experienced, but in the unchanging, ever-blessed God Himself. Scripture calls Him ‘the blessed God’ – infinitely perfect, utterly complete in Himself, with a joy that never rises or falls because it simply is who He is.

We’ll also explore the connection between joy and beauty – how God, as the most beautiful being in existence, draws us toward Himself, and why our human longing for joy is ultimately a longing for Him.

Our happiness may be shaped by our circumstances. But our joy in God never has to be – even in seasons of sorrow, it can grow deeper still.

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Why do you come to church? It’s a simple question, but our honest answer says a lot about what we think church is actually for.

Neil Bester takes us to 1 Corinthians 14, where Paul calls the church in Corinth to move past spiritual immaturity and into a bigger vision for why we gather: not to be served, but to build one another up. Every gift, every word, every act of worship is meant to strengthen faith, stir up hope, and bring comfort – so that the whole church, not just the individual, is edified.

We’ll unpack Paul’s ‘intelligibility principle’ – his insistence that whatever happens in our gatherings should be understandable and build others up – and ask a challenging question for ourselves: are we showing up to church as consumers, looking to get something, or as contributors, looking to build something?

Because ultimately, God is glorified when His church is edified – and that’s a job for all of us, not just those up front.

Join Neil and us as we rediscover why we come to church.

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Men and women – made in God’s image, made for each other, and yet, as Proverbs puts it, still something of a mystery to one another. In this message, Pastor Louis explores what it means that we’re ‘one, yet two’ – one humanity, bearing one image, expressed in two distinct ways.

We take an honest look at a passage many of us find puzzling or uncomfortable: 1 Corinthians 11, and Paul’s teaching on head coverings in worship. Rather than dismissing it as outdated or applying it woodenly, we dig into its context – Paul’s concern for decorum, order, and honour in public worship – to understand what it reveals about how God designed men and women to relate, honour one another, and reflect Him together.

Because ultimately, this isn’t about our differences dividing us. It’s about how men and women, distinct yet united, carry God’s image together – in worship, in mission, and in the everyday spaces we share.

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As we end another Faith Promise pledge season, Pastor Louis looks at a simple but sobering reality: the further something moves from its centre, the harder it usually becomes to maintain its integrity. Most organisations that expand lose quality. Yet for 2 000 years, the Church has done the opposite – pushing consistently outward from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, without losing what it started with.

How? Because the Church doesn’t rely on centralised control – it relies on one Saviour, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. We’re not a head office; we’re a hospital that heals, a training camp that equips, and a sending base that releases people onto their frontlines – carrying the same anointing described in Isaiah 61: good news for the poor, freedom for the captives, healing for the broken-hearted.

We’ll hear a remarkable story of whole-life discipleship – of a life transformed not just spiritually, but practically, financially, relationally – as we see what it looks like when someone healed, restored, and equipped is fully sent.

Join us and Pastor Louis as we discover what it means to be an empowered – and empowering – Church.

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