Viva Vineyard Church
By Viva Vineyard Church
Details and our story: www.vivachurch.org.au
Viva Vineyard ChurchMay 02, 2022
Introducing Ephesians & the best meal you've ever had
Everything is ready. Just come! "Our Christian life begins with the discovery of what God has provided." Watchman Nee
Exodus is always on offer
Hezekiah was at the point of death under the sentence of death. What was left? More than he could have ever hoped.
Pentecost - The transforming gift
Like Christmas and Easter, Pentecost celebrates a history changing move of God.
Is faith actually denial? Is faith just positive thinking?
Hezekiah faced extraordinary life-threatening situations as he lead Israel. Terror was not far from him. But somehow he kept faith. How was that possible? Here's the punch line: he brought his whole self into the presence of God - the gritty details of the problem, the full bandwidth of pain and fear. There's a lot we can learn from this ancient king...
Hezekiah: God is my strength
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.
Neither son knew their father...
Jesus story of two sons speaks volumes about our hearts, how deeply we misunderstand our Father and how desperately that needs to change.
Doing healing
Part Two. Greg Trainor continues to workshop how to join the Father in His healing work.
God is community
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.
Resurrection Sunday
God is making all things new.
Showdown: The Jesus Revolution v the Establishment
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.
You can't serve two masters
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,
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
How to recover Jesus' heart for community
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.
A little talk about appetite suppressants
Are you still only eating "bread"? Maybe it's time to live.
True prayer = the daily practice of relying on God
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.
In a world of "Come to me's" what makes Jesus invitation so different?
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?
How to see heaven on earth
Follow Jesus. How? Three things to get us started. We know it'll be marked by new relationships, new purpose and new power.
In Hornsby as it is in heaven
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!
Rebuilders: Opposition is inevitable for a reason
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!
How to face the brutal facts with hope
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.
Rebuilders Pt. 2: Are you willing? Not, Are you able?
Nehemiah 1. Nehemiah allows news from afar to pierce his heart, despite his affluence and influence.
Who creates new things out of nothing
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
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.
Power without abuse
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.
What's love got to do with it?
In short, everything.
What time is it?
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!
The Spirit reveals
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)
Body life
God's beautiful metaphor for a church growing and flowing in his gifts.
What is the normal Christian life?
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.
When Jesus cleans house
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.
Pentecost - When God gives His Spirit
'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 Sunday? Why would you celebrate that?
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?
Witness - G.R.O.W.
Jono Ives dropped by to guide us through the final instalment in our G.R.O.W series: Witness. And yes, it's possible.
Obedience - Losing your life, and a comment about puppies
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.
Resurrection lingering: John 20
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.
Reconciliation - The Easter Theme
Paul takes us into the heart of Father God and the incredible lengths he has worked to reconcile this world to himself, us included.
The finance update
Dave Esgate talks us through the spreadsheets and the generous heart of God.
Give - G.R.O.W. Pt. 1
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's story
Helen Gould from Brisbane West Vineyard dropped by and shared her story...
How to see the person in front of you
Jesus always sees the person in front of him. Fully. How did he do that? How do we?
Tired? Why the holiday didn't fix that and what will
Tired? Jesus gets it. And he gets what real rest is. Here's how he says you find it.
Hope
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.
Getting the Bible: Pt. 7 The church
And then there was us...
Pt. 6 - Jesus
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...
Pt. 5 - Exile is not an endgame
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?
Getting the Bible: Pt 4. Saul or David?
As we follow the story of Scripture we come to kingdom and Saul and David two very different kings, with very different hearts.
Getting the Bible: Pt. 3 - I AM has sent you
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.
Getting the Bible: Pt. 2 - Why things are so very broken - Us included
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.
Getting the Bible Pt. 1: The beginning
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.
Gotta to see a man about a house, a basketball, anything
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.
Sent amongst the people, ready or not
Compassion, authority, go!