Life is a rollercoaster. There are ups and downs and often we aren't in control of where we are headed. Chapters 39-40 of Genesis show the massive swings of in the life of Joseph, but they also show us that God is present through it all.

In a story full of adult themes, we once again get front row seats to the mess of sin in the family of Jacob. But at the end, there is one small glimmer of hope. Dave shows that, beyond Genesis 38, we see an ending that will shock everyone!

We begin part three of our journey through Genesis from chapter 37, which is also the beginning of the story of Joseph. In this chapter, we learn about Joseph's place within his own family, and the tensions that were present. Stephen preaches about the wisdom that young Joseph could've shown, but even when this don't go as expected, God remained with him.

Just as Paul gets to the point in his first letter to the Corinthians of moving on from theology and into application, so our sermon series waited until the last week to get down into the 'how'. Thankfully, Paul is both helpfully specific and and helpfully broad in how he believes the Corinthians need to adjust their practices in order to glorify God, and we get to read their mail and learn for our church as well!

It was Pentecost Sunday, it was Baptism and Confirmation Sunday, and it was in the midst of a really challenging season for many people in our parish. So Dave opened Scripture to show how the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost fills God's people with power to endure in, and through, every season, even the difficult ones.

Stephen opens God's Word to look at the various places where the gifts are described in Scripture, and what our church could look like if we discovered, understood, and used the gifts we've been given for the glory of God.

To understand what we are to do with a gift, it often helps to understand who it was that gave us the gift. By calling them 'the gifts of the Spirit', we are not left in the dark about who gave them or why they were given to us. Dave shared that our gifts are given in alignment with the character and mission of the Holy Spirit, which helps us de-mystify how we are to receive and use these spiritual gifts.

In our context, to begin a series on the gifts of the Spirit with the gifts of the Spirit would be to assume too much. So Dave brought us right the way back to address a common blindspot in the Western Church: the spiritual world. When we ignore the spiritual world, we miss out on so much of the context of Scripture in both testaments, and we miss a key aspect of the gospel.

In John's third and final letter, he encourages the faithful Gaius to cultivate truth within a church that is being starved of it. It's a short letter, but builds on from what was said in the previous two letters. Dave shares about how we must be cultivating truth in our own lives if we are to see it established in our church, which is something we can all contribute towards.

One of the ways we know that truth matters is because deception is a thing. Untruths masquerading as truth for the intention of leading people astray. In the letter of 2 John, John is warning the early church to be discerning. He wants them to recognise false teaching, refuse false teachers, and to remain walking in the truth of Jesus.