Viva Vineyard Church

This is the first of three talks looking at the life of King Hezekiah. He is remarkable in his transforming trust in the Lord in the face of extraordinary generational, cultural and political opposition.

Jesus story of two sons speaks volumes about our hearts, how deeply we misunderstand our Father and how desperately that needs to change.

Part Two. Greg Trainor continues to workshop how to join the Father in His healing work.

At the start of a new series focused on "doing the stuff" we're diving deep into who God actually is. After all, Tozer tells us, what we think about God is the most important thing about us.

God is making all things new.

Herod's temple in Jerusalem occupied about a quarter of the land and could hold around 75,000 people. It was marked by splendour and segregation.

Jesus had other ideas.

Jesus taught most about the kingdom of God, but next topic that he taught on the most was money.  Learning how to handle money is a core part of what it means to be a student of Jesus and it always will be.  

Not because God needs money. He has no need for it. God really cares about how you and I handle money, 

1. Money is connected to our very purpose.  The purpose that God gave mankind was to be stewards, managers of creation.  Not using and abusing resources, but caring for this world.  Not controlled by resources but faithful managers. Needless to say mankind has made a total mess of that, but the restoration of that role is core to our restoration into who God created us to be.
2. Money is the main power setting itself up as an alternative to God - offering you security and meaning and pleasure and control and significance. Your practices about money reveal what you really think about who is in charge of this universe.
3. Handling money is a series of daily choices. There’s no avoiding it. You’re going to face it every day.  So God is going to use these choices to shape you, to form your character.

Q: What is your heart relationship to money like?

When Jesus speaks his dream for community we can barely hear him. We've been been formed a world away from his vision for how his family is to care for each other. In this talk we take a fresh look at Jesus' vision and some of the big blockers to seeing us become the community Jesus has in his heart.

Are you still only eating "bread"? Maybe it's time to live.

Two weeks ago, we started looking at this issue of anxiety in our lives: that the root of our anxiety is our independence from God.  Leads to chaos, overwhelm, fear.  What we truly need is reconnection to God.

What do we mean by Reconnection?

• Not talking about how to reconcile with God - that all happened through the cross. No barrier from God’s side.  He is always available to us. 
• Talking about our experience of connectedness to God
• For us who trust in Jesus, God is always transmitting (his love, wisdom, help, strength, power). The lack of reception is at our end.
• Our hope through this series is that we will all go from 1 or 2 bars of reception, or no bars, through to 4 bars.

Into our hurt, anxiety and chaos Jesus says, Come to me and I will give rest for your souls. But so does every other marketing campaign. What makes his invitation so different? Why listen? Why do it?

Follow Jesus. How? Three things to get us started. We know it'll be marked by new relationships, new purpose and new power.

We put destinations into Google Maps all the time. Destinations matter. Forget your dream destination for a moment. Let's take a moment to continue where this world is headed. Let's talk about that, and let's use hoops!

God is about rebuilding places and people long devastated. Often others have been benefiting from that devastation. The work of rebuilding is therefore always opposed. Let's not lose heart!

It's hard to face how broken down the walls of our lives are. Really hard. But it's possible with this hope that Tim Keller immortalised: we are worse sinners than we can imagine, and more loved than we could ever hope.

Nehemiah 1. Nehemiah allows news from afar to pierce his heart, despite his affluence and influence. 

We're starting a new series: Rebuilders. We'll be looking at the book of Nehemiah. But in this first week we set the scene by drinking deeply of some incredible words from Isaiah.

Healing. Some are sceptical. Some are trying to profit. Some take steps of incredible faith for the sake of another...We explore the questions and the conflict through the ancient story of Naaman.

Is it possible for people to move in the power of God without being abusive? Paul says yes. As tempting as it is to through out the gifts of the Spirit to avoid possible abuse, Paul encourages the Corinthians to pursue love and the gifts. Both are essential wings of the beautiful ministry that Jesus modelled to us and called us to follow him in.

In short, everything.

The Doomsday Clock says we're 90 seconds from midnight. But what does God say? God's Spirit among us is the presence of the future God has for us. Wrap your head around that!

However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
    what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
    the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)

God's beautiful metaphor for a church growing and flowing in his gifts.

This is the first talk in a new series called, God gives His Spirit without limit. We ask, What is the normal Christian life? We lay some foundations looking at the person of the Spirit and his activity.

Jesus' ministry is marked by healing and setting people free. In Matthew 12 this ministry meets deadly religious pushback. But Jesus doesn't flinch. He knows the work of cleaning house is a big part of how the Kingdom comes, so he sticks at it for the sake of this lost trapped world that he dearly loves.

Jesus' work of cleaning house is a big part of how the Kingdom comes. The wonderful news is that He continues to free people from the oppression of evil today. Claire Esgate explains how. 

'John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”' Mark 1:6-8

Ascension Day was one of the earliest festivals of the new church. Today, we rarely note it. Why? And what critical piece in our understanding of Jesus might

we have missed in the process?

Jono Ives dropped by to guide us through the final instalment in our G.R.O.W series: Witness. And yes, it's possible.

In this third installment of G.R.O.W. we're talking Obedience. It's not a popular word but look it up in the dictionary of Jesus and we discover it's anything but stuffy religion.

Easter was a week ago but we don't rush on. We stay in the Easter story reading John's account and discovering the incredible resources to be found in the news of the Risen Jesus.

Paul takes us into the heart of Father God and the incredible lengths he has worked to reconcile this world to himself, us included.

Dave Esgate talks us through the spreadsheets and the generous heart of God.

Jesus tells the people a story about a man who thinks like this: Invest. Flip the property. Go again. Buy more. Flip them. Go again…and you’ll be set. Retirement will be early and a time of infinite happiness as you take things easy, drink and be merry. On a cruise, in the south of France, at a billabong in the north of Australia somewhere, whatever…

What’s the trouble with that plan?

The only trouble with this man’s plan for prosperity and the good life was that the plan didn’t include God.

He’d ignored God and he’d ignored his neighbour, the poor. He forgot that he was a mortal creature, whose every breath is a gift.

Jesus invites us into a completely different way of life grounded in ultimate reality - the never ending flow of God's love. 

Helen Gould from Brisbane West Vineyard dropped by and shared her story...

Jesus always sees the person in front of him. Fully. How did he do that? How do we?

Tired? Jesus gets it. And he gets what real rest is. Here's how he says you find it. 

The Christmas story is a story of hope. But it's hope in very unlikely places. What might these stories teach us about where to find hope when despair is the air we breathe in some many places today? Eve is our speaker. 

And then there was us...

Well this could have been a 1.5 hr sermon... and Jesus is so worthy of it, but here we are, beginning the silly season, harried, tired, in need, not of information but encounter... So this week we did something a little different...

As we walk through the biblical story we’ll discover that exile is a recurring feature. The first exile was Adam and Eve banished from the garden, then there’s Abraham called from his homeland and shifted around by famines and violence. And of course there’s the massive exile of the Israelite nation which is the focus of this talk today.

It shouldn’t surprise us that it’s a thread through the biblical story because exile seems to be a thread through most of our lives. I don’t think exile has to be simply migration from a country. It can be growing older and feeling unheard and irrelevant to the culture in which you live. It could be the experience of someone walking out on you. It could be your child estranging you. It could be being fired from your job or simply retrenched. It could be retiring and feeling exiled from the purpose and status of work. It could be declining health that forces you to feel like you’ve been sidelined. It could be feeling rejected by a group of girls at school.

They’re all mini or major exiles.

How do they fit in the loving work of a good God? 

As we follow the story of Scripture we come to kingdom and Saul and David two very different kings, with very different hearts. 

God saving plan gains momentum. At the centre of this chapter of that story is God's decision to reveal himself as I AM. God present and Lord. Then, now, forever.

So the story got off to a great start and then... That's what this talk is about. Something is very wrong, isn't it? We all seem to agree on that but until we understand what that is any sort of solution we propose is going to be bandaid at best. 

This series is all about helping you get into the Bible. It's a big story. But there are key themes that we can use as guide rails as we explore the landscape of this incredible story. Here we explore two and dive into the start looking at the Who? and Why? of humanity's origin story. 

Paul described it as treasure in jars of clay. It's so easy to overlook the Gospel invitation, particularly, given the state of the messengers but it's still an unbelievable treasure. The King's banquet will be extraordinary.

Compassion, authority, go!

Matthew 9:1-13

Here we see Jesus getting to the heart of his mission, talking about his purpose in coming and demonstrating that purpose in his interactions with the people.

Matthew 8:18-34

In this series of stories we see there is risk, cost, adventure and even danger as we follow Jesus among the people.

Jesus comes down the mountain and does an incredible thing: he practices what he just preached! In the mess and demand of damaged lives he lives out the Sermon on the Mount. It's all done among the people... and he's calling us to love like that too....

Gifts are a means by which God expresses Himself. Get that and Monday and Tuesday and... and... begin to look quite different.